I've been recently thinking of mods that could add more depth to a Modpack I'm working on, and I came up with two things: An idea and a problem. I found that while configuring ores to spawn in huge but rare amounts create a larger gap between tiers, the flint tier feels like it appears too quickly.
My idea is to create an early stone tier mod. It would block the breaking of all blocks by hand except grass, long grass, sand, dirt, clay not gravel, et cetera. However, configs are set up to allow for the changing of block hardness (after that of Iguana's Tweaks of course if installed). Your first goal will be to acquire stones to craft with. There are two types of stones: Smooth and hard.
Smooth Stones drop primarily, but still rarely from Sand while dropping from dirt at an even lower rate. I'd say on average it'd take about 5 or 6 sand blocks until you get a Smooth Stone and about 11 or 12 for dirt. Rough Rocks however are found primarily, but yet again rarely from dirt, with it dropping from grass at a lower rate, and sand quite far behind that. The rate I think would require about 4 of 5 dirt blocks to be broken, 8 or 9 grass blocks or 13 or 14 sand blocks. Sand, dirt and grass blocks are nerfed to only drop 3 piles of it's respective substance when broken by hand, taking a 2x2 recipe of said piles to make said blocks. Grass and long grass however drops 2 and 1 grass piles, respectively. These piles can be eaten for about 5 seconds of saturation. While it may not seem like a lot, the reason is that it's not supposed to be an active thing. Instead, it will tide you over during night. As zombies now can 2 hit KO you and Skeletons now can kill you in 4 arrows. Plus, creepers will explode at places that can create an opening for mobs to get to you. (all mob changes are configurable, off by default)
Speaking of mob changes, Wild Chickens now run from you with cat AI. To get a Tamed Chicken, you must get it from an egg. Also, Cows, Pigs and Sheep have the AI of Wolves, and all four of them will become hostile if you get too close to them. The only way to tame them now is to wait for a baby to be born, (two are born about every 4 days from wild packs) separate the baby from the pack, and take him in as your own. However, you must not attack a baby's pack while it's with them if you wish to tame them. So I suggest making a pitfall trap. (Crafted with grass piles in a 2x1 area, crafts one pitfall) Animals treat Pitfall traps as full blocks, however when stepped on they break and drop nothing. After separating the baby from the pack, feel free to kill said pack. These changes are also configurable.
Animals will now drop carcasses, which can be refined later on. But right now they can be eaten for:
- Cows: 6 hunger Points (3 icons) and 1 minute of saturation.
- Sheep: 5 Hunger Points (2 and a half icons) and 45 seconds of saturation.
- Wolves: 4 Hunger Points (2 icons) and 1 minute and 30 seconds of saturation
- Pigs: 3 Hunger Points (1 and a half icons) and 30 seconds of saturation
- Chickens: 2 Hunger Points (1 icon) and 10 seconds of saturation.
Additionally, Cows and wolves have 1 baby each birth, Sheep have 2, and Pigs and Chickens 3. These changes, like those before, are configurable too.
These rocks have special values in their tooltips that range from a value of 1 to 5 for hardness and strength, these are used both when "crafting" them and for their outputs. Values of 1 are worse than and are much more common than the better and rarer stones of value 5. I'd say a value of 2 would appear on average by the time you have 7 stones with a value of 1, tier 3 appearing by 7 tier 2 stones, tier 4 appearing by 6 tier 3 stones and tier 5 appearing by 5 tier 3 stones, this is more scaled to a server environment as to encourage stone trading in the early game.
By placing two stones next to each other on the hot bar and right clicking with one in your hand, you will attempt to knap the stone. Knapping is an ancient technique used for crafting stone tools, and thus is used for crafting stone flakes and cores here. The process is as follows:
The smooth stone's hardness is checked against the rough stone's strength, and the strength of the smooth stone against the hardness of the rough stone. The higher the smooth stone's hardness is and the lower the rough stone's strength is, the higher the chance of success is. The Rough stone is always consumed in the process, however the smooth stone isn't always consumed.
This is where the second portion of the check comes in, the strength of the smooth stone is then compared to the strength of the rough stone, and if the smooth stone's value is higher, it has a chance to survive the crafting. More so the higher above the opposing value it is.
The result will then be one of the following:
- Failure: Two piles of gravel
- Okay: A pile of gravel and 5 stone fragments, can be used as arrowheads in arrow crafting
- Good: A Stone Flake and 2 stone fragments
- Great: Two Stone Flakes
- Perfect: 1 Stone Flake and a Stone Core
Stone flakes take on a valuing dependent on how successful the crafting was. Good Results yield a stone with a randomized hardness and strength that adds up to 2, 3 or 4. The original rough stone's values also affect this. Great Results yield values that add up to 5 or 6, again affected by the original rough stone's value, and Perfect Results yield the values of 7 or 8. Stone Cores will take on the attributes of the rough stone used to craft it. The Stone Core can then be crafted with a smooth stone in order to try to craft a stone flake of a value of 9.
The results will then be one of the following:
- Failure: Nothing
- Okay: One Stone Flake of a value of 7 or 8
- Good: One Stone Flake of a value of 7 or 8 and a stone core
- Great: One Stone Flake of a value of 9
- Perfect: One Stone Flake of a value of 9 and a Worked Stone Core
Process follows the rules of the first.
A Worked Stone Core can finally be worked in hopes of a value 10 stone flake (again combined)
So why work so hard to get such flakes you ask? Well, that is because the higher the hardness and strength values are, the higher the mining speed/damage and durability are for the crafted items, respectably. So what do we craft? These:
The Handaxe is your first scraping tool and is crafted from a single stone core. So what is a scraping tool you may ask? Well, scraping tools are precision devices used to tear the outer layer from certain materials. For example, by scraping a nearby tree via right click, one can remove it's bark for use in the crafting of weak armors if it's oak or spruce, keeping fires alight if it's birch, or making a new type of string if it's basswood (a new type of wood added by the mod) It is also used later on once we acquire wood. It also acts as a weapon, dealing 2 extra points of damage at the expense of 1 heart of damage per successful attack. This is due to the rough and jagged surface of the Handaxe cutting into your hand. Believe me, I've made these before and even hitting couches while holding these hurts.
Basswood Fibers are the new string we talked about, and they are made by crafting a basswood bark two times, once to separate the inner bark from the outer bark, and again to cut it into 5 of said Fibers. These act as an alternative to string, but cannot be used for bows due to their low recoil and are instead the only types of 'string' that is viable for making a mesh, which we will get to soon. Another type of string are young roots, which are rarely found from dirt blocks (takes on average about either 2 or 3 or 5 or 6 blocks to be broken). Young roots also can be eaten for 2 hunger points (1 hunger icon)
Another tool made from flakes is the Hako Knife, this is basically a tiny hatchet the size of a knife. While it is less effective at attacking than a Handaxe, dealing 1 extra damage instead of 2, it does not hurt you on use. It Also allows you to now break leaves and Pam's Harvestcraft wild crops, along with letting you break long grass faster. Yes, grass actually takes a while to break here, because now seeds can be eaten for 1 point of hunger (half a hunger icon). The Hako Knife is built with a stick or bone in either the bottom left or right corner of the crafting grid, a Stone Shard at a position diagonal from it, and any type of 'string' (except string ironically) in the two remaining spaces.
Using basswood bark when crafting a Hako Knife increases it's mining speed while using young roots increases it's durability by 2 points each. The Hako Knife has a base durability of 11. Attacking uses up 2 durability while breaking leaf blocks reduces it's durability by 4 everything else reduces as normal. Sticks are found quite rarely from grass blocks, (about 1 for every 11 or 12 grass blocks on average) while 1 bone is dropped whenever you eat an animal carcass. Sticks increase it's mining speed while bones increase it's durability by 2.
So, how else do you get sticks? Saplings of course! Each sapling can now be crafted into sticks at a 1 to 1 ratio. Once you get enough sticks, you will be ready to make a mesh.
[Unfinished]
More to be added later
