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[GaiaCow]

Hay bales will be a placeable block.  They are breakable quickest using a sword, and are highly flammable.  They have 3 uses:

1) More Efficient Storage

I hope I'm not the only one who seems to run out of space to hold dozens of stacks of wheat.  Just like how minerals can be condensed into solid blocks to save space, so should wheat.

The crafting recipe for wheat would be 9 wheat in a square (figure 1)


Figure 1: crafting of a hay bale



2) Aesthetics

Haybales have a unique look that represents a missing piece in minecraft's block repertoire.  With haybales, things like straw-hatched roofs, hay-floorings for barns, and pre-harvested fields of wheat littered with bundled hay.  In any case, hay bales are much needed blocks for building.

3) Automated breeding

Am I the only one who finds it tedious to have to feed your animals one by one to get them to make babies?  Well, hay bales would effectively automate the entire process (excluding actually placing them).

Each haybale would function as a sort of beacon.  When a hayblock is placed, it automatically generates an invisible sphere with a radius of 9. (figure 2)


Figure 2: Radius of a hayblock's beacon


When a pig, cow, sheep, chicken, or mooshroom enters this zone, it becomes "bound" to the specific hayblock.  Each hayblock can have up to 5 animals "bound" to it at any one time.

When an animal is bound to a hayblock, it will periodically (every 1-3 ingame days) enter love mode as if it was given wheat.  It will stay in love mode indefinitely, or until it is killed or until it breeds.  Thus, the cycle repeats, as its offspring become bound to the same hayblock, or adjacent hayblocks.

In esscence, this means that animals stay close to hayblocks and will automatically breed when near them.

Once 9 love-modes have been activated from a single haybale, the block disappears.  This means that haybales are only really useful if you have a lot of wheat, and thus have a lot of haybales piled in a pen for animals to keep on breeding.  If Notch wants to, he could actually  make hayblock decay like cake (only vertical), where the block decreases in size when it is used.

I hope you like the suggestion, guys.  Any support, comments, ideas, or criticism is appreciated.

[darth_hideous]

Hint: Hay does not come from wheat. Hay generally comes from alfalfa.

[simplyodd24]

That's actually a very well thought out idea. If I could mod, I would definitely help. haha ^.^

[Jellomob]

GaiaCow, on 21 November 2011 - 05:22 AM, said:

Hay bales will be a placeable block.  They are breakable quickest using a sword, and are highly flammable.  They have 3 uses:

1) More Efficient Storage

I hope I'm not the only one who seems to run out of space to hold dozens of stacks of wheat.  Just like how minerals can be condensed into solid blocks to save space, so should wheat.

The crafting recipe for wheat would be 9 wheat in a square (figure 1)


Figure 1: crafting of a hay bale



2) Aesthetics

Haybales have a unique look that represents a missing piece in minecraft's block repertoire.  With haybales, things like straw-hatched roofs, hay-floorings for barns, and pre-harvested fields of wheat littered with bundled hay.  In any case, hay bales are much needed blocks for building.

3) Automated breeding

Am I the only one who finds it tedious to have to feed your animals one by one to get them to make babies?  Well, hay bales would effectively automate the entire process (excluding actually placing them).

Each haybale would function as a sort of beacon.  When a hayblock is placed, it automatically generates an invisible sphere with a radius of 9. (figure 2)


Figure 2: Radius of a hayblock's beacon


When a pig, cow, sheep, chicken, or mooshroom enters this zone, it becomes "bound" to the specific hayblock.  Each hayblock can have up to 5 animals "bound" to it at any one time.

When an animal is bound to a hayblock, it will periodically (every 1-3 ingame days) enter love mode as if it was given wheat.  It will stay in love mode indefinitely, or until it is killed or until it breeds.  Thus, the cycle repeats, as its offspring become bound to the same hayblock, or adjacent hayblocks.

In esscence, this means that animals stay close to hayblocks and will automatically breed when near them.

Once 9 love-modes have been activated from a single haybale, the block disappears.  This means that haybales are only really useful if you have a lot of wheat, and thus have a lot of haybales piled in a pen for animals to keep on breeding.  If Notch wants to, he could actually  make hayblock decay like cake (only vertical), where the block decreases in size when it is used.

I hope you like the suggestion, guys.  Any support, comments, ideas, or criticism is appreciated.

I saw a mod for hay-bales a while ago and it fit in the game perfectly, this adds to that idea even more with the automatic breeding concept

I hope notch adds this! +1 support power!

[miranda_is_cool]

It would be cool if these fell down like sand or gravel, so I could just drop them through a hole into my barn as need, eliminating the chance that my animals escape.

[KasaraEm13]

Definitely like this idea. I'm always left wondering what I should put in my barns and fields. This would make some nice decor and baby animals.

I like waffles though. :3

[simum]

Nice idea, but I've got two more uses for the hayblock:
1. Breaking fall damage(maybe 50% or something)
2. Scarecrows, they are built just like the snow golem, only with a fence, hayblock and a lit pumpkin. I don't really know what the use for it would be though.

[Zoju]

Heh, I said the exact same thing in another hay bale thread.

http://www.minecraft...-thatched-roof/

So yeah, supported.

[Hades3080]

simum, on 21 November 2011 - 10:38 AM, said:

Nice idea, but I've got two more uses for the hayblock:
1. Breaking fall damage(maybe 50% or something)
2. Scarecrows, they are built just like the snow golem, only with a fence, hayblock and a lit pumpkin. I don't really know what the use for it would be though.

Breaking fall damage is a stupid, frequently suggested idea. I mean, what are you going to use it for? You gonna use an ugly hay block in your house just so you don't have to climb down the ladder?

Also, scarecrows without uses... Yeah, no. Gimmie uses. Even I could think up like three already.

On topic, this is a very good idea, best hay suggestion I've seen in awhile.

[simum]

Hades3080, on 21 November 2011 - 11:59 AM, said:

Breaking fall damage is a stupid, frequently suggested idea. I mean, what are you going to use it for? You gonna use an ugly hay block in your house just so you don't have to climb down the ladder?

What's wrong with having the option?

Hades3080, on 21 November 2011 - 11:59 AM, said:

Also, scarecrows without uses... Yeah, no. Gimmie uses. Even I could think up like three already.

They SHOULD have a use, I just said that I didn't have any good idea for what it should be at the moment. They could be used for atracting enemies, making them walk straight into your traps, or for scaring animals away from your wheat field.

[Hades3080]

simum, on 21 November 2011 - 12:18 PM, said:

What's wrong with having the option?

Not to mention it being OP.

Quote

They SHOULD have a use, I just said that I didn't have any good idea for what it should be at the moment.

I'll come up with a few:

Mobs won't come within 6 blocks of it, to keep your crops safe

Decoration

It could be an entity like the snow golem. Wherever it walks becomes farmland, when it dies blocks around it turn into farmland with seeds. Hostile mobs wont attack it and flee from it but passive mobs will attack it (Eating the hay). It will throw clumps of hay at passive mobs, healing them half a heart when it hits (Possibly too OP, but it wouldn't attack the player).

It could be crafted

PUMKIN
HAYBLOCK
STICK

I just made a small suggestion. Why did I do that.

[Silverbane7]

Well, you could use the scarecrow for its basic function of scaring the birds.
Many times, it is the duck/chicken that wanders through my crops and messes them up.

At night, it could be used to keep the creepers away from your crops, or with a variation of using a watermellon instead, it could become a target FOR the creepers.
(rather than making them blow up, you could place the watermellon scarecrow in an area you dont use much, to make them all jump around it then leave later when they normaly disperce. so its not realy OP, because its a distraction rather than a trap as such)

as for the hay bales...I would realy like them. Not just for decoration, for building thatched roofs (you could use some form of dying to treat the bales for darker thatched roofing that would make them not edible to animals. dont want your roof being eaten by some hapless cow that got up on it somehow)
for making rural settings for my villages. for allowing me to just place a pair of cows in a fenced off area and then let them multiply (mostly in survival, if i can herd em into the pen, thats most of the work done with a hay bale)

and also for storing wheat for later in survival.

[Trent]

RL hungry cows (like the one on the left) and sheep will follow you if you have hay.  Having them follow you in game if you have hay currently selected could be a handy way of bringing a herd within your fence.

Also, chickens (RL again) love to lay eggs in hay.

[GaiaCow]

I love all of these ideas going back and forth.

For one, I've always been advocating for a craftable scarecrow.  I doubt Notch will add it after the addition of the snow golem, but it seems to fit in better than the golem.

The scarecrow would ward off mobs, instead of provoking them to come closer.  It would be a double-size block (like the bed) which places itself 2 blocks tall when placed.  It wouldn't actually be a mob, but it would make a small particle effect; maybe sparkles or smoke.  It would be crafted like this:

  
  
  
(where the orange block is a jack-o-lantern)

It could also have the negative side effect of also scaring off chickens (scarechicken, I guess?)


I agree that chickens should have increased egg-laying while in the zone of effect of a haybale,

In response to the fact that hay is made from barley or something like that...
Hay may be made from barley, but straw is made from wheat.  Since the term "straw-bale" isn't really a legitimate word, I use the word "hay-bale" instead.  Plus, since when has wheat been realistic in minecraft? you craft bread by mashing together a few bundles of freshly harvested wheat!  Hay bales IN MINECRAFT would be made of wheat.


Edit: sorry, I meant alfalfa.  Above point still stands.

[Trent]

About hay:  Hay is just greens (usually grasses) cut then tied into a tight bundle
You can have a hay bale of fescue, timothy, alfalfa, rye or even wheat - though it would be expensive.
  
Straw is what you have left once you harvest the seed/grain from a grass. It has more value as bedding or kindling than food.

carry on  

[GaiaCow]

Trent, on 21 November 2011 - 11:13 PM, said:

About hay:  Hay is just greens (usually grasses) cut then tied into a tight bundle
You can have a hay bale of fescue, timothy, alfalfa, rye or even wheat - though it would be expensive.
  
Straw is what you have left once you harvest the seed/grain from a grass. It has more value as bedding or kindling than food.

carry on  

Right.  But I'm pretty sure that most gamers won't tell the difference.  Call it a straw-bale, a hay-bale, a wheat bundle, I don't care.  It's still the same block.

Thanks for the clarification though.  You learn something new every day, I guess

[dizziekittie]

darth_hideous, on 21 November 2011 - 05:24 AM, said:

Hint: Hay does not come from wheat. Hay generally comes from alfalfa.

People do not generally may weapons and armor from diamond either.

[Xrazr28shootrX]

Love the idea! I really hope Notch makes this

[simum]

So much potential for this block, there's no real reason why it shouldn't be added.

[LittleBreadLoaf]

I think this fits perfectly in with Minecraft. Even the scarecrow, because it is basically the opposite of a snow golem, so he could still add it. I think it would be a fencepost at the bottom, a haybale/wheatbale middle and pumpkin on top, as someone suggested. Very cool idea.