Disclaimer:
When I searched the sticky thread, I found that Woomobile had posted a topic about blocks maintaining health a long time ago. However, he did not expand much upon the idea, and his thread had few posts in response, and has pretty much been declared dead by the people posting in it. Still, as he posted this first, this is an expansion upon his concept of block health. Further, some ideas I may post about additional tools or functionality may be similar to content suggested by other users. However, the way these ideas interact with the block health idea I believe makes them different from the other ideas. I do not intend to make a topic on something that has already been posted, and have looked through the sticky topic on already posted suggestions. Still, I am human and may have missed something, so if I missed something, please just let me know, and I can include it in a resources used or suggestions referenced section.
Resources referenced:
Woomobile's "Block Health" topic.
<Anyone else who posted something similar that I missed>
And now, onto the ideas:
Block Health:
Right now, blocks are destroyed by holding down the left mouse button and pointing at them until they are destroyed. You could mine obsidian for 90% of the time it takes to destroy it, sneeze, your mouse moves, and suddenly all that progress you made at extracting the obsidian is reversed, as though a sneeze immediately replaced all the obsidian removed by your pick over the last few seconds.
The suggestion I had regarding this is to alter the way block health is handled. Normally, blocks do not have health, however, once damaged, the damage done is recorded and saved. I also think that a majority of natural blocks should slowly regain health, especially living blocks. For example, if you start to punch a tree, get bored, and leave, the log will repair itself. Likewise, a halfway broken dirt block will eventually have it's cracks filled in by eroded soil. Even stone blocks, under pressure, will be fused together. Why: This makes more sense. Your house made of wood doesn't just ignore weather damage, and if you start to punch a hole in your wall, then choose to stop, the fist marks don't just disappear. The health restoration on natural blocks is for two purposes; a) it makes some sense in some cases, and :cool.gif: that way your computer isn't totally bogged down by too much damage information; once a block fully heals, the computer no longer needs to store a health bar for it. So just because an exploding creeper damaged a ton of blocks that doesn't take up a ton of memory forever.
Summary: All blocks store the damage done to them, and some blocks are healed very slowly over time.
New Extraction:
With the addition of block health, I think there also should be a change to how resources are obtained. After blocks take enough damage, they have a chance of dropping a resource, depending on what type of damage is done. If simply damaged, the block would sometimes drop "scraps". If extracted from correctly, the block would always drop "scraps".
You begin to hit a tree with your fist. Fist damage is destructive, so it removes the block's health. Every time 1/16th of the block's health is removed, the block has a chance of creating a scrap. If the damage that was dealt to the wood block was Destructive, the wood has a 60%(or whatever number) chance of dropping a Woodchip, the scrap item for wood. If the damage was dealt with an axe(aka Extraction damage), the wood ALWAYS drops a woodchip. If the block was undamaged at the start, and you use a saw, a wood block drops after the block is destroyed.
Destructive Damage:
Destructive damage is any damage dealt to a block by anything non-explosive or non-extractive. It has a certain standard chance of getting scrap to drop from a block, which will rarely be high. Extractive Damage:
Extractive damage is any damage dealt to a block by the "right" tool. For example, a pickaxe on stone, or an axe on trees, or a spade on dirt. This type of damage is dealt much more quickly than destructive damage, and if a block would reach a point where normally there would be a chance for scrap to drop, scrap would always drop.
E.g. If normally punching a stone block took a long time and had a 20% chance per "drop point" to yield a scrap, a pickaxe would damage a stone block much more quickly and have a 100% chance per "drop point" to yield a scrap.
Explosive Damage:
It is what it says it is; damage dealt by explosions. Same as destructive damage, except with halved drop chances.
Summary: Blocks don't always drop just blocks now, sometimes they drop scrap. Scrap from some blocks may be combined to create new blocks.
Ideas for Scrap:
Stone and Cobblestone Blocks: Stone
Wood Blocks, Wooden planks, Other created objects made of wood: Wood Chips
Dirt Blocks: Dirt Clumps
Sand and Gravel Blocks: Handful of Sand/Gravel
New Extraction for Ores and Leaves:
Ores are generally rare minerals embedded in solid rock. It doesn't seem to make sense to always get a diamond and only a diamond from a diamond ore block, or only get coal from a coal ore block. Instead, when damaging an ore rock, each drop point has a chance of returning either an ore or a stone. The chance for getting an ore should be set such that approximately the same amount of ore is returned per rock. Example below:
You find a diamond ore (yay!). You have several options to mine it:
A Wooden Pick
A Diamond Pick
A Fist
TNT
A Hammer and Chisel
Using the diamond pick, let us say that the chance of getting a diamond is 10% per drop point, and the chance of getting stone is 90%. If you were to use your fist, your chances would drop to 1/4, making a 2.5% chance of getting a diamond and a 22.5% chance of getting a stone. If you were to TNT the block, the above numbers would be again halved. If you were to use the wooden pick, the chance of an ore dropping would decrease because you were using a tool that isn't strong enough. Now your diamond chance is 2.5%, stone chance is 90%, and nothing chance is 7.5%. A Hammer and Chisel is a new tool that would take twice as long but double your chance of getting an ore, giving you a 20% chance of getting a diamond and an 80% chance of getting a stone.
Leaves, when damaged with destructive damage, would have an additional 1/8th chance to drop a normal stick, because otherwise you couldn't make tools, being only able to punch trees.
Summary: Ores have a chance to drop either a stone or an ore as damage is dealt. Leaves may now drop sticks.
Scrap Uses:
Scrap would be used for many things. In some circumstances, scrap would replace the block that would be required to make certain items. It would make more sense to me to use 3 stones and 2 sticks to make a pickaxe than to use 3 cubic meters of cobblestone and 2 sticks to make a pickaxe. The scrap could also be combined to create new blocks; E.g. 9 stone makes a cobblestone block. Further, scrap would be used to repair damaged blocks(See below).
Block Removal:
Sometimes you might want to remove whole blocks without obtaining the scrap; E.g. Wood blocks, Stone blocks. For this purpose, some tools would be given a Right click option to remove certain blocks. Removal would basically work the same as it does now; you channel your removing item until the block is removed. Removal would only work on undamaged blocks.
Some tools would deal Extraction damage with the left click, and be removal tools with the right click(Axes, Hammer and Chisel)
Removal Tool list:
Leaves, Sheep: Shears
Any Stone: Hammer and Chisel
Any Wood: Axe or Saw
Dirt, Sand, Gravel, Clay: Spade
Summary: Some tools can be used to completely remove blocks.
Block Repairs:
If the block health suggestion is made, there also needs to be a way to fix things. You don't want to accidentally left click your wall and then have to wait until the cracks fix themselves. To help things along, I suggest that there be a method of repairing damaged blocks. In order to do this, I suggest that if a player right clicks on a damaged block with a hammer, and has the necessary scrap in their inventory, the block is healed a certain amount of its health, and the scrap is removed. For example, your stone wall is damaged in a creeper explosion. You replace the destroyed blocks with your supply of stone blocks, and take some of the stone scrap collected from the explosion. You then use the hammer and the scrap to restore the integrity of your walls, while removing the scrap from your inventory.
Summary: You can use a hammer to repair blocks.
New Tools:
If some of the other mechanics I have suggested are added to the game, I believe the game could use some more new tools, at least 3 of which immediately come to mind:
Hammer:
[Stone][empty]
[empty][stick]
A Hammer may be used to repair damaged blocks, and may be combined with a chisel for rock extraction.
Chisel:
[iron ingot][empty]
[empty][stick]
A Chisel may be used to increase the chance of getting certain rare ores, and combined with a hammer for rock extraction.
A Saw would be used to harvest Wood-based blocks faster than an axe.
Tool Combinations:
Some tools could be combined to create a combination tool. These tools would be used to perform additional functions. They would be created simply by placing both tools in the inventory and getting the result. They would also be able to be "uncombined" by placing the combined tool in the crafting box. One tool would be in the result, the other would be in the box after the uncombination was completed.
Examples: Hammer and Chisel
A few notes:
I don't know too much about computers, but I'm guessing this would be terrible on memory costs. Aka, this is probably not a feasible idea. Still, I thought it would be interesting to suggest it.
If you don't want to read it all, here's a compilation of the summaries:
Summary:
All blocks store the damage done to them, and some blocks are healed very slowly over time.
Blocks don't always drop just blocks now, sometimes they drop scrap. Scrap from some blocks may be combined to create new blocks.
Ores have a chance to drop either a stone or an ore as damage is dealt. Leaves may now drop sticks.
You can use a hammer to repair blocks.
Scrap would have uses.
New tools.
Tool combinations.
Alright, this is the "Why we would ever care to add this little change" part of the topic. And the answer is quite simple:
Zombie Siege
The idea behind this is simple; if blocks can take damage from you, why can't they take damage from enemies?
All I would change would be two things; First, Zombies can damage blocks, at about the rate of punching, perhaps slightly higher. Zombies will damage blocks if they can't jump up blocks. They are able to damage both the blocks adjacent to them, e.g. the two blocks on top of each other that they are trying to get through. Arrows that strike blocks will do a small amount of damage to the block. Spiders will be unable to damage blocks, but will be able to place webs and poison you. And gonna creep :smile.gif:.
Then Zombie Siege would be much easier to make. Set a day goal for survival, and then make the spawn rate change each night. Also, every night, the range at which all hostile mobs are attracted to you would increase. Eventually, Zombies will be able to pursue you through walls, etc. As Zombies approach you, the old areas spawn new zombies, etc. Random portals could spawn later in the game, perhaps, and add Ghasts that pursue you. Zombies themselves could also get buffed as days move on.
I would definitely enjoy playing this Zombie Siege mode. You have to balance gathering resources with building your structure and caring for yourself. It's no longer sufficient to just make an uber-fortress that's completely impenetrable, because enough Zombies would break it down. This would work even better if finite water was also added, so you can't just have a wall of water or lava around your entire base.
When I searched the sticky thread, I found that Woomobile had posted a topic about blocks maintaining health a long time ago. However, he did not expand much upon the idea, and his thread had few posts in response, and has pretty much been declared dead by the people posting in it. Still, as he posted this first, this is an expansion upon his concept of block health. Further, some ideas I may post about additional tools or functionality may be similar to content suggested by other users. However, the way these ideas interact with the block health idea I believe makes them different from the other ideas. I do not intend to make a topic on something that has already been posted, and have looked through the sticky topic on already posted suggestions. Still, I am human and may have missed something, so if I missed something, please just let me know, and I can include it in a resources used or suggestions referenced section.
Resources referenced:
Woomobile's "Block Health" topic.
<Anyone else who posted something similar that I missed>
And now, onto the ideas:
Block Health:
Right now, blocks are destroyed by holding down the left mouse button and pointing at them until they are destroyed. You could mine obsidian for 90% of the time it takes to destroy it, sneeze, your mouse moves, and suddenly all that progress you made at extracting the obsidian is reversed, as though a sneeze immediately replaced all the obsidian removed by your pick over the last few seconds.
The suggestion I had regarding this is to alter the way block health is handled. Normally, blocks do not have health, however, once damaged, the damage done is recorded and saved. I also think that a majority of natural blocks should slowly regain health, especially living blocks. For example, if you start to punch a tree, get bored, and leave, the log will repair itself. Likewise, a halfway broken dirt block will eventually have it's cracks filled in by eroded soil. Even stone blocks, under pressure, will be fused together. Why: This makes more sense. Your house made of wood doesn't just ignore weather damage, and if you start to punch a hole in your wall, then choose to stop, the fist marks don't just disappear. The health restoration on natural blocks is for two purposes; a) it makes some sense in some cases, and :cool.gif: that way your computer isn't totally bogged down by too much damage information; once a block fully heals, the computer no longer needs to store a health bar for it. So just because an exploding creeper damaged a ton of blocks that doesn't take up a ton of memory forever.
Summary: All blocks store the damage done to them, and some blocks are healed very slowly over time.
New Extraction:
With the addition of block health, I think there also should be a change to how resources are obtained. After blocks take enough damage, they have a chance of dropping a resource, depending on what type of damage is done. If simply damaged, the block would sometimes drop "scraps". If extracted from correctly, the block would always drop "scraps".
You begin to hit a tree with your fist. Fist damage is destructive, so it removes the block's health. Every time 1/16th of the block's health is removed, the block has a chance of creating a scrap. If the damage that was dealt to the wood block was Destructive, the wood has a 60%(or whatever number) chance of dropping a Woodchip, the scrap item for wood. If the damage was dealt with an axe(aka Extraction damage), the wood ALWAYS drops a woodchip. If the block was undamaged at the start, and you use a saw, a wood block drops after the block is destroyed.
Destructive Damage:
Destructive damage is any damage dealt to a block by anything non-explosive or non-extractive. It has a certain standard chance of getting scrap to drop from a block, which will rarely be high.
Extractive Damage:
Extractive damage is any damage dealt to a block by the "right" tool. For example, a pickaxe on stone, or an axe on trees, or a spade on dirt. This type of damage is dealt much more quickly than destructive damage, and if a block would reach a point where normally there would be a chance for scrap to drop, scrap would always drop.
E.g. If normally punching a stone block took a long time and had a 20% chance per "drop point" to yield a scrap, a pickaxe would damage a stone block much more quickly and have a 100% chance per "drop point" to yield a scrap.
Explosive Damage:
It is what it says it is; damage dealt by explosions. Same as destructive damage, except with halved drop chances.
Summary: Blocks don't always drop just blocks now, sometimes they drop scrap. Scrap from some blocks may be combined to create new blocks.
Ideas for Scrap:
Stone and Cobblestone Blocks: Stone
Wood Blocks, Wooden planks, Other created objects made of wood: Wood Chips
Dirt Blocks: Dirt Clumps
Sand and Gravel Blocks: Handful of Sand/Gravel
New Extraction for Ores and Leaves:
Ores are generally rare minerals embedded in solid rock. It doesn't seem to make sense to always get a diamond and only a diamond from a diamond ore block, or only get coal from a coal ore block. Instead, when damaging an ore rock, each drop point has a chance of returning either an ore or a stone. The chance for getting an ore should be set such that approximately the same amount of ore is returned per rock. Example below:
You find a diamond ore (yay!). You have several options to mine it:
A Wooden Pick
A Diamond Pick
A Fist
TNT
A Hammer and Chisel
Using the diamond pick, let us say that the chance of getting a diamond is 10% per drop point, and the chance of getting stone is 90%. If you were to use your fist, your chances would drop to 1/4, making a 2.5% chance of getting a diamond and a 22.5% chance of getting a stone. If you were to TNT the block, the above numbers would be again halved. If you were to use the wooden pick, the chance of an ore dropping would decrease because you were using a tool that isn't strong enough. Now your diamond chance is 2.5%, stone chance is 90%, and nothing chance is 7.5%. A Hammer and Chisel is a new tool that would take twice as long but double your chance of getting an ore, giving you a 20% chance of getting a diamond and an 80% chance of getting a stone.
Leaves, when damaged with destructive damage, would have an additional 1/8th chance to drop a normal stick, because otherwise you couldn't make tools, being only able to punch trees.
Summary: Ores have a chance to drop either a stone or an ore as damage is dealt. Leaves may now drop sticks.
Scrap Uses:
Scrap would be used for many things. In some circumstances, scrap would replace the block that would be required to make certain items. It would make more sense to me to use 3 stones and 2 sticks to make a pickaxe than to use 3 cubic meters of cobblestone and 2 sticks to make a pickaxe. The scrap could also be combined to create new blocks; E.g. 9 stone makes a cobblestone block. Further, scrap would be used to repair damaged blocks(See below).
Block Removal:
Sometimes you might want to remove whole blocks without obtaining the scrap; E.g. Wood blocks, Stone blocks. For this purpose, some tools would be given a Right click option to remove certain blocks. Removal would basically work the same as it does now; you channel your removing item until the block is removed. Removal would only work on undamaged blocks.
Some tools would deal Extraction damage with the left click, and be removal tools with the right click(Axes, Hammer and Chisel)
Removal Tool list:
Leaves, Sheep: Shears
Any Stone: Hammer and Chisel
Any Wood: Axe or Saw
Dirt, Sand, Gravel, Clay: Spade
Summary: Some tools can be used to completely remove blocks.
Block Repairs:
If the block health suggestion is made, there also needs to be a way to fix things. You don't want to accidentally left click your wall and then have to wait until the cracks fix themselves. To help things along, I suggest that there be a method of repairing damaged blocks. In order to do this, I suggest that if a player right clicks on a damaged block with a hammer, and has the necessary scrap in their inventory, the block is healed a certain amount of its health, and the scrap is removed. For example, your stone wall is damaged in a creeper explosion. You replace the destroyed blocks with your supply of stone blocks, and take some of the stone scrap collected from the explosion. You then use the hammer and the scrap to restore the integrity of your walls, while removing the scrap from your inventory.
Summary: You can use a hammer to repair blocks.
New Tools:
If some of the other mechanics I have suggested are added to the game, I believe the game could use some more new tools, at least 3 of which immediately come to mind:
Hammer:
[Stone][empty]
[empty][stick]
A Hammer may be used to repair damaged blocks, and may be combined with a chisel for rock extraction.
Chisel:
[iron ingot][empty]
[empty][stick]
A Chisel may be used to increase the chance of getting certain rare ores, and combined with a hammer for rock extraction.
Saw:
[empty][empty][empty]
[iron ingot][iron ingot][wooden planks]
[empty][empty][empty]
A Saw would be used to harvest Wood-based blocks faster than an axe.
Tool Combinations:
Some tools could be combined to create a combination tool. These tools would be used to perform additional functions. They would be created simply by placing both tools in the inventory and getting the result. They would also be able to be "uncombined" by placing the combined tool in the crafting box. One tool would be in the result, the other would be in the box after the uncombination was completed.
Examples: Hammer and Chisel
A few notes:
I don't know too much about computers, but I'm guessing this would be terrible on memory costs. Aka, this is probably not a feasible idea. Still, I thought it would be interesting to suggest it.
If you don't want to read it all, here's a compilation of the summaries:
Summary:
All blocks store the damage done to them, and some blocks are healed very slowly over time.
Blocks don't always drop just blocks now, sometimes they drop scrap. Scrap from some blocks may be combined to create new blocks.
Ores have a chance to drop either a stone or an ore as damage is dealt. Leaves may now drop sticks.
You can use a hammer to repair blocks.
Scrap would have uses.
New tools.
Tool combinations.
BBCode Render failed due to reaching MaxNestingDepth(80) for Tag: spoiler
Zombie Siege
The idea behind this is simple; if blocks can take damage from you, why can't they take damage from enemies?
All I would change would be two things; First, Zombies can damage blocks, at about the rate of punching, perhaps slightly higher. Zombies will damage blocks if they can't jump up blocks. They are able to damage both the blocks adjacent to them, e.g. the two blocks on top of each other that they are trying to get through. Arrows that strike blocks will do a small amount of damage to the block. Spiders will be unable to damage blocks, but will be able to place webs and poison you. And
Then Zombie Siege would be much easier to make. Set a day goal for survival, and then make the spawn rate change each night. Also, every night, the range at which all hostile mobs are attracted to you would increase. Eventually, Zombies will be able to pursue you through walls, etc. As Zombies approach you, the old areas spawn new zombies, etc. Random portals could spawn later in the game, perhaps, and add Ghasts that pursue you. Zombies themselves could also get buffed as days move on.
I would definitely enjoy playing this Zombie Siege mode. You have to balance gathering resources with building your structure and caring for yourself. It's no longer sufficient to just make an uber-fortress that's completely impenetrable, because enough Zombies would break it down. This would work even better if finite water was also added, so you can't just have a wall of water or lava around your entire base.