Minecraft Forums

I think one simple change might make this suggestion slightly more feasible: Flint tools.

Craft wood, find gravel, sift through it for flint. Make a flint pickaxe and bob's your uncle, you've gotten to stone and beyond.

I remember a long time ago someone suggested basically exactly this, except they also wanted to remove punching trees for wood and have the player break leaf blocks for sticks. Leaf blocks actually do drop sticks now, dropping the wood tools entirely for a flint tier could make things make some more sense and make starting out a bit more engaging. The flint axe would have to be more of a hatchet and fit in the 2x2 grid, though.

Gold does come in three different denominations, but may be too farmable.

If you want to get really crazy, you could use books signed by a certain person to prevent counterfeiting. For convenience, both its name and first page could denote the value of it (again, to prevent counterfeiting via anvil).

If I'm not mistaken, currently a fire resistance potion when "corrupted" with a fermented spider eye creates a potion of weakness. The problem is, that's also what you get when you corrupt a potion of strength.

What I'm saying is, you could propose this as the corrupted version of fire resistance, by using a fermented spider eye instead of the blaze powder you currently suggest.

There is still a problem with a potion that can do this, which is water. Will it cancel the effect? Will the effect even show up in your inventory as a potion effect in the first place?

Edit: I was mistaken, it makes a potion of slowness. But my point still stands, as that's still the corrupted version of a different potion (swiftness).

Quote from reter360

spells are a ranged attack that helps when you need a special attack for the situation.

You mean kind of like bow enchants? We already have the flare enchant, which is like your fireball spell. So we could just add new bow enchants for more "spells."

This would make spawning in a taiga or desert on a large biome map in hardcore mode essentially a death sentence.

Quote from ChadGarion25

I'm aware of the existence of TNT cannons via timed detonations and water physics. The key distinction I draw here is the amount of materials, time, and obfuscation (it would be hard to hide this device, reposition it, or clean up after your done), is much greater than plopping down a dispenser, a lever, loading it, firing, and cleaning up.

If the first point you brought up about the trajectory isn't resolved by making it shoot TNT like an arrow, it would be relatively simple to use this to set up a TNT cannon that could be fired multiple times before reloading. It would be as easy as using the dispensers to drop TNT at the right time like a normal cannon.

Quote from Surfer_72

I dont think that wither heads are that sharp. just saying...

Neither are cubic meter blocks of cobblestone until you work them into a blade.

Yes, because I love fighting a monster with twice as much health as the enderdragon, that drops only 50 experience, every five minutes. [/sarcasm]

You could at least keep with the generally accepted feel of minecraft by calling it an icebox. That's what refrigerators were before they were refrigerators, essentially just a box you would put a block of ice in every now and then to keep food cold.

And get rid of the time passing for food while the door is open, this idea is complicated enough as is.

Other than that, I'm with geartooth.

By the way, as far as fuel goes, you seem to have forgotten about snowballs and snow blocks.

[*** WHAT IS BETTER THAN WOLVES? ***]

Better Than Wolves is a "total conversion". This differs from most mods that you are probably used to in that it changes many of the rules of play to provide a richer experience, rather than just adding in new stuff. What makes it special however, is that it always attempts to do so in a way that retains the original spirit of the game, perhaps even more so than the newer official releases.

It focuses both on challenging survival play, and player creativity in terms of never providing "magic block" solutions to in game problems. Instead, it provides basic tools and leaves it to the player to figure out how to use them to get the job done.

In short, Better Than Wolves is a vision of what Mincraft could have been, designed by a very serious player, for other like minded individuals.

[**** End Of Dev ****]

Please note that after a full decade, all development has ceased on Better Than Wolves. The final version (4.B0000003) can be downloaded here:

Download Link

And the source code can be downloaded here:

Source Download Link

Better Than Wolves and its source code are made freely available under the creative commons attribution license:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

You are free to modify and redistribute portions of BTW and its code as you wish, but I (FlowerChild) would appreciate acknowledgment if you do so. Keep in mind however that parts of BTW may be based on modified versions of Mojang's code and assets, and it is left to anyone redistributing portions of BTW to make sure they are appropriately considering Mojang's intellectual property and licensing as well.

This thread is discontinued.

For Mincraft 1.1 and later, go to this thread.

I have given Infiniti324 permission to post a topic for the 1.1 version of this mod on Planet Minecraft.

If you want to check out my new mod, go here.

Small enough to hold in your hand, strong enough to rule the land!


Clay Soldier Mod V4 by KodaichiZero
Special thanks to VikomMedia for helping me a lot with preparing for the release of 3.5 and 3.6, mDiyo and SmallDeadGuy for helping me test V4

Quick Links:
- Version 1 Stuff
- Version 2 Stuff
- Version 3 Stuff
- Version 3.5 Stuff
- Version 3.6 Stuff
- Version 4 Stuff
- Other Info
- Downloads


An awesome trailer by cherchell58!

A very lengthy showcase/demonstration video by ShaftHandlers!

An installation video for CSM and TMI, by Dannybtwproductions.

An installation video for MAC OSX by kristo123321.

Hall of fame:


~ Version 1 Features ~

So you're probably wondering to yourself "A mod involving clay? No Way! I need all the grey goop I can get for my brick castle!" Well put those tried, burnt hands to rest for a second and think about this: What if you could create your own miniature army out of clay and stage the most epic battles imaginable in a space small enough to be your backyard? Now before you accuse me of being a madman, take a look at this mod. Read ahead through the pages, and you'll see just what kind of violent mayhem you can cause with just a few simple materials plucked right from the ground.




Here's how it works: A clay soldier is an item you can hold in your hand. It is crafted using a clay block (for substance) and soulsand (for sustaining intelligent life). Specifically, one block of clay and one block of soulsand can be used to create four soldiers. Once you have a nice little pile in your hands (up to 16), right-click to place them all at once. They will quickly spread out and begin to roam the landscape. They walk slow and don't jump very high, but they have enough arm strength to climb up a single block. Unfortunately, since they lack a decent skeletal support structure (or even skin, for that matter), their delicate figures can be horribly mutilated by even the weakest of blows. A player can cripple a clay soldier in just a single punch. So naturally, they aren't hostile towards anything bigger than themselves. So, what in the world are they qualified to fight against? ...Other clay soldiers, of course!



Clay soldiers have a team-based mentality. They respect similar colors of their race, and treat their identical equals as brothers. But when colors other than grey come into play, things start to get a little bit more exciting! You can use red dye, blue dye, green dye, yellow dye, orange dye or purple dye to change the color of your soldiers, and then set them loose to start a fight! Grey soldiers are peaceful unless attacked, but all other colors will rush in for the kill without mercy! Their natural hatred towards members of a different spectrum allows for a lot of exciting events to take place in your Minecraft world. Build giant battlefields, arm your fortresses to the teeth, and let your soldiers transform the earth into a sea of crumbled clay!

...But then again, it's just a bunch of identical clay men, right? And there's nothing interesting about that, is there? If only there were some way to make things more interesting... OH WAIT, there is!



Of course it's not just clay! there's MUCH more you can do with your miniature armies! Choose from a variety of equipment, arm your men to the teeth, and have a showdown to see which type of assistance is more beneficial to survival! All you need to do is press q to drop an item on the ground for them. You can even drop a large pile, and the clay men will split it amongst themselves.


Since clay soldiers are so small, most conventional weapons such as swords and bows become unwieldy. So the most obvious thing to do is to start from the basics. A simple stick can easily be held by a clay soldier, and is their fundamental source of offensive power. It will randomly increase their attack by half a heart, or a full heart for 15 uses before it breaks.


Another thing to worry about is protection. Because they're so small, how could any kind of armor fit onto them? Well, it turns out that just one piece of leather can be easily folded into a handy chestplate, reducing every blow from a fellow soldier by 50% for 15 hits in total. Simple and classy.


As for the issue of health recovery, clay soldiers have the intrinsic ability to digest and break apart the atoms within carbon-based food products to produce raw element compunds that can repair their weakened molecular bonds. In short, they can eat food to gain health. Since one piece of food is too much for them, they will divide it into four meals and eat them correspondingly when their health gets low. Combining all four meals, any food item is enough to recover their entire health bar. This will work for any item of food (and for mushroom stew, they'll even eat the bowl). The only exception is cake - it's way too large for a clay soldier to carry all at once, so they won't accept it.


Moving onto more interesting things, clay soldiers seem to have the ability to recognize a monarch among their ranks. Gold is a symbol of power, so using their incredible metalsmithing skills they will craft a gold ingot into a crown and wear it. Each team will only have one king, unless the kings are so far away from each other that they can be considered as rulers of different regions. When one clay man becomes a king, the rest of the nearby team members will follow it diligently and stay very close. Some may wander due to the fact they technically have no eyes and cannot see their leader, but for the most part, they become a very tightly-knit society.


Everyone knows that anything can be made at least 5 times cooler if it glows in the dark. With lightstone dust, you can turn your soldiers into living glowsticks, and any night time battlefield into a raving disco dance floor! Keep track of your troops by using lightstone dust at night. Best of all, it lasts forever, just like our current torches :smile.gif:


As if a gigantic clay war wasn't awesome enough, now you can add explosions into the mix! A clay man will instinctively incorporate sulfur into their basic body composition to make themselves appear "creepier" to their opponents. But those black specks aren't just for show! When a besulfured clay soldier meets his demise, a small explosion will bring his enemies along for the ride. It will also destroy three or four adjacent dirt blocks, but it's nothing to worry about.


For what they lack in cake-consuming ability, they make up for in their ability to eat sugar. Just one lump of it will send any soldier into a frenzied craze for a whole minute, making them more agile and greatly increasing their walking speed. They tend to be responsible though, and they won't eat another lump of sugar before the effect wears off.


In times of great despair, teammates fall and great armies die, leaving the tired souls of each individual fighter with nothing to do but rest for eternity. That's only the case for humans, though! Clay soldiers only become incapacitated when their bodies are too mangled to even bend a single joint. With a simple lump of clay, any soldier can patch up a fallen comrade's wounds and send him right back to the battlefield, effectively causing a full revival. One clay lump is enough to revive four fallen soldiers. Just don't expect any ressurecting to take place in the middle of a fierce battle.

Well, that information was all fine and dandy. But something just doesn't seem right... don't some soldiers ride mounts onto the battlefield so that they can really get the drop onto opponents? I mean, no army can truly be threatening unless it has the ability to harness the raw power and energy of one of nature's finest beasts. And well... oh, never mind. This mod does have mounts after all.


Indeed it is true, any clay soldier can be given the ultimate gift in times of war: something to sit on. Using dirt and soulsand, you can craft a few horses for your personal armies to use and enjoy. Horses have no team alleigance, so any soldier can use any horse. While a soldier rides a horse, he will experience greatly increased speed. Also, 50% of all incoming attacks directed at the soldier will instead affect the horse. The horse has 50% more health than the soldier, so in most cases, the horse will be taken as a prize for winning the fight.



When a clay soldier dies, his body will always be dropped on the ground in the form of a doll, so you can ressurect him again immediately if you just pick him up. You'll never lose a single soldier (unless you've given him gunpowder and he explodes), so you can keep the battles going for as long as you want! Make videos, post pictures, tell your friends, and heck, go outside and make some real clay soldiers or something. Just don't forget to download the mod, because you'll be missing out on one of the best things that ever got dug out of the sand!

~ Version 2 Additions and Changes ~


For those looking to make even tougher soldiers, look no further than your nearest arts and crafts store. With simple materials like flint and cloth, your soldiers can enhance the equipment they already have! If a soldier has a stick and there is a piece of flint nearby, he'll use the flint to sharpen his stick for additional attack power! And if there is a block of wool nearby, an armored soldier can grab a handful and make some padding to lessen damage even further. The flint and cloth won't be consumed in the process, so they can be used infinitely! Remember, a cozier soldier with a sharper stick is a happier soldier.


As if sharper sticks wasn't enough, now there's an even better way to fight dirty! Redstone dust is good for mainly two things - nerding out your Minecraft world, and making people's eyes sting worse than a snail in a salt factory. If you give your soldiers a handful of redstone dust, they'll throw it in their opponents eyes to temporarily blind them. And while blind, a soldier is completely defenseless and unable to attack! It works for up to 2 uses, but if I were you, I'd bring a pair of goggles just in case any dust gets thrown astray.


For those stubborn opponents who seem to walk around everywhere when all you want them to do is stand still, there's slime. If you give your soldiers a slime ball, they'll make like Dr. Scholls and apply that green goo directly to the feet of their opponents. One slime ball is enough for two counts of adhesive. While a soldier's feet are stuck, they cannot move an inch. They can't be pushed or knocked back, and will only get free after about five seconds - or if the block underneath them is destroyed. Until then, they're just sitting ducks, so you might as well get out the bread crumbs.


You'll discover as you experiment with the clay soldiers that it's unfortunately very easy to get carried away. If you spawn too many of the soldiers, they have a propensity to find their way out of their battle arenas and into just about every nook and cranny in your world. When worse turns to worst, there's the Clay Disruptor. A handy little device made of 2/3 clay, 1/6 redstone and 1/6 stick, it's incredibly powerful when in the right hands. Pressing the shiny red button on the front causes the device to emit incredibly powerful radioactive waves that are capable of instantly killing nearby clay soldiers and causing cancer in small butterflies. Every time you use it, all soldiers in a 16 block radius are as good as toast. It lasts for 16 uses before it implodes upon itself and ceases to exist in our universe. And for some mysterious reason, it seems to work on dirt horses too. So if you're looking to cause some clay genocide, this is the right tool for the job.


~ Version 3 Additions and Changes ~


So you've got a military force armed to the teeth with everything you can possibly give them. One problem: they are still made of clay, so when you talk about their guts... well, they don't really have a whole lot to talk about. That's where iron ingots come in handy. When you give a soldier an iron ingot, they will use it to craft themself a skeletal core, making them stronger and heavier. And as a result of this, the knockback of their strikes will be greatly increased! In turn, they will also fly back a much shorter distance when struck by someone else. Two ironed-up soldiers will cancel out each other, however. The downside to this powerup is that the poor old dirt horses can only handle so much weight, so a soldier with an iron core will not be able to ride one.


ARRGGH! WHY NOT BOWS! I WANTED BOOOOWWWSSSS!!!!

Woah, settle down there Mister Piggy. Let me explain. Clay soldiers can use a gravel block to create a supply of throwable rocks. One gravel block is enough for 15 shots. The clay soldiers will hold these rocks in their left hands, and throw the rocks when their enemies are within range. They will back off and try to play defensively, but if an enemy gets too close then they will resort to physical attacks. Also, do you remember those attack-enhancing powerups, like the slime and the redstone dust? Well those powers still apply to the rocks. With the right combination of powers, even just a few rock-throwing soldiers can be an unstoppable force.


Here's a little something I cooked up special for all of you. I'd like to thank a special fellow named "Popular Demand" for making this possible. Here's the thing: a ton of you seem to think this mod is about building a clay civilization with lots of pretty houses rather than fighting. You're incorrect of course, but I decided to do something for you anyway. And this is what you get: A clay soldier is now able to pick up STACKS OF AT LEAST 5 LOGS. Hear that? Not one log, and not two logs. A stack of at least five logs or greater and up to a maximum of 20 logs. What do they do with said logs? They build houses, of course! There are three different random kinds of houses they can build. 5 logs builds a small abode, 10 logs creates a lavish livingspace, and a full 20 logs will fabricate a fabulous fortress (with a bonus chest of sticks inside!). To build these houses however, they will need a good deal of space and no other clay dudes around. Unfortunately, a clay soldier who is holding logs will basically forfeit their ability to fight, climb walls and even ride horses. But if they are attacked, they will drop their logs and defend themselves.


Another largely demanded feature was a better way to manage clay soldier equipment. Well, here it is. A clay soldier near a chest may look inside of it and see if there is any equipment they need. It may take a little while for them to notice a chest, but they will see it eventually. They'll take what they need instantly and leave the rest for everyone else. And if a soldier has clay, they can even bring teammates to life if their bodies are stored within a chest.


And yet another largely demanded feature was the ability to control soldiers. Well, this is pretty much the best I can do! Use a fishing rod to guide a group of soldiers to a central location. I won't get into it, but adding the ability to control a soldier is both VERY difficult to do and causes LOTS of problems, mainly incompatibility with other mods. So, I had to compromise. As an alternate to this, you can also use a dye that is the same color as their team and they'll swarm around it.


Last but not least, it's everyone's favorite dimension-warping handheld tool again! This time, its power has been increased significantly. Not only can it instantly kill all clay-based lifeforms in the near area, but it can also instantly destroy all clay blocks in a 12-meter radius! This opens up a ton of possibilities for fun clay-based projects. Just make sure not to build a stadium out of clay blocks - you'll most likely regret it.


~ Version 3.5 Additions and Changes ~



As promised, this update brings you four new colors of soldiers! There's nothing too special about pink and brown soldiers. In fact, they fight exactly the same way as all the other colors. But if you really want to go through the trouble of getting cocoa beans just to have an additional color, then you have my sympathy! And of course, I didn't stop there. The other two new colors have some very special properties that could quite possibly change they way you think about clay wars...



That's right! White soldiers are completely peaceful. So if a band of ruffians shows up at their doorstep, they'll have no choice but to sit back and take the hurt! They spawn with slightly lower HP (15) than normal, and they won't pick up offensive items. What use are they then? Well, you could have a race to see which team can kill clay soldiers the fastest! And being peaceful makes them the only team which doesn't attack hostile mobs. Now, as for the other team...



Brawler is really the only suitable word for these furious fighters. Black brawlers are so full of rage and fighting spirit, that they will even fight each other! They will also avoid picking up team-based items, such as golden crowns and revival clay. And since they spawn with higher HP (30), there's no telling which one will be the last one standing! And as if that wasn't enough, the boundaries of war have been expanded even further with new items...



What's lighter than a feather? Not a clay soldier! But even so, troops can take advantage of a feather's marvelous air-resisting properties to parachute down from great heights. Once a clay soldier detects that it is falling from a high location and is at the risk of receiving fall damage, it will automatically deploy its carefully-hidden feather and glide down safely. But be careful! Any soldier which has a mount, a heavy iron core, or is carrying logs will not be able to use their feather.



It's the answer to two problems in one simple item! soldiers can't see far enough? Get goggles! Soldiers aren't cool enough? Get goggles!! This convenient piece of headgear extends a clay soldiers's sight range by 5 blocks and also functions as a stylish set of imitation eyes. And to make things even better, all you need is one glass block to make a set of goggles for your whole army! Just make sure to drop it on the ground with q.



Here's a feature that everyone's been waiting for. Well, most people. At least half the people in my forum inbox. Anyway, it's the new Snow Pegasus Mount! A soldier will treat a pegasus mount just like a regular dirt horse, except this one will hover above the ground as its rider traverses the landscape! The snow pegasus can also survive more hits than a regular dirt horse, but at the same time, is just a little bit slower. This new mount is craftable using snow blocks, soulsand and a feather. For more info on crafting, see the summary section.



Unless there's something terribly wrong with you, you probably don't like seeing horse and pegasus carcasses littering the battlefield during an all-out clay war. For those who do have compassion for our miniature equine friends, a new feature has been added! Clay soldiers now have the ability to revive horses, just the same as they would normally revive their friends. And they still use the same material to do so, which is clay lumps. It's hard to tell why that would actually work, but I'm not asking questions.



We're getting closer and closer to the end of our V3 features, so don't give up yet! This handly little addition enables any clay soldier to access a chest within a minecart! It even works as a unit shipment vehichle - load it up with clay dolls and clay lumps, then send it down the road! One cart could change the tide of any battle - and you decide who gets it!



And now, the secret feature! It is a secret so secret that not even the best secret-keepers know about it! It's so great, it's reason to celebrate! It's the ClayCam!

This incredible new feature allows you to view the action close-up! Just right-click a soldier and see the action from over his shoulders! Pressing shift will disable the ClayCam. The smooth and quick camera movement allows you to see the detail of a war like you've never seen it before - until the unit dies, of course!

~ Version 3.6 Additions and Changes ~



Despite the amount of clothes that clay soldiers are able to procure, there has never been a simple material for them to make a cape with. Well, now there finally is. Using a diamond, a clay soldier will not only craft himself a very flashy blue cape, but his abilities as a fighter will increase massively as a result! His health will be multiplies by twenty (20), his weapons and armor will last much longer, he will be able to use food and weapon add-ons for longer, and he will even have a permanent speed-boost effect! Just one super soldier can take down an entire army of foes! But exactly how long will one super soldier last? It's your job to find out!



And just when you thought the mod couldn't get any more intense... There's ZOMBIES! ...or VAMPIRES! ...or ALIENS! In fact, I don't really know what they are, but they're corrupted and evil! When a clay soldier grabs ahold of an enderman pearl, it gets infected with corruption. And suddenly, nothing else matters except spreading it. When a corrupted soldier attacks and kills another innocent soldier, it doesn't die... It gets all of its health back, becomes evil, and joins the corrupted horde! It doesn't matter what team he's on. A non-corrupted soldier is an enemy. And by the time you realize their piercing cries of agony, they'll already be gone. And they'll start coming... for YOU!!!

...And no matter what happens, don't let a super soldier get corrupted... or else you will have quite a problem on your hands.

Other Things that were Fixed:

- the claycam now works with everything and is compatible with ALL mods.
- soldiers now respond quicker to chests in the nearby area.

~ Version 4 Bugfixes ~

- the old stairs bug is now fixed.
- behaviour regarding picking up items during battle is slightly improved.
- the glowing is now working again.
- mod will be going open source shortly.

~ Summary of all Crafting Recipes ~

Pink, Brown, Black and White colors are created the same way.







~ Planned Features for Future Updates ~
* Will be going open source soon.

Issues:

This mod will work with any other mod (even The Aether, I know because I'm a developer). You do however need ModLoader to run this mod.

Instructions:

You must first install Risugami's Mod Loader before this mod will work. Please do not attempt to install old versions of the mod loader into the 1.0.0 client.
If you are using a Mac computer, search for a special Mac installation tutorial if you have problems installing the mod. "Minecrafter" or something like that might work.
Once you've successfully install the three requirements above, simply drag all the files included in the zip into the jar. Remember to leave the image files in the clayman folder, and drag the folder itself into the jar.

Support The Mod:
Here's a custom signature banner that you can use if you don't already have one.

[url=http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/495553-173/][img]http://i.imgur.com/2TzWy.png[/img][/url]

Downloads:

Risugami's ModLoader - Required to run the mod.

- Adf.ly Links -
CSM V4 - for 1.0.0
Optional Pack - Don't install this unless you are using Risugami's Spawner GUI.

- Adcraft.co Links -
CSM V4 - for 1.0.0
Optional Pack - Don't install this unless you are using Risugami's Spawner GUI.

- Old Versions -
CSM V3.6 - for beta 1.8.1

Donate: ...only if you want to! Added by request.


Also, This mod seems to have been featured on some site I'm not familiar with. I saw a cool Kenshiro mod on there. They asked me to post this image here, so here you go:


Despite the overwhelming amount of demand for the ability to control clay soldiers, I will not be adding this feature. The requirements for such a thing to be possible involve massive amounts of edits to the original game files, a lot of custom code from scratch and more time than I have available. It would take a miracle for the mod to actually be compatible with anything else as a result. Therefore I shall not be making this feature and instead will focus my efforts on SMP and other creative additions.

If you wore a banner as a cape, it would actually look quite different, plus most capes are just giveaways for participating in minecon. It's not my fault minecon didn't come to Arizona. Plus, the ones that were given out for something truely special can't be re-created with banners, so I don't see how that would decrease it's worth, the only Minecon cape that seems re-creatable is the red Creeper one, even then it looks totally different, I would love to support this, and if the above mentioned problem is a true problem, make it available with the same /replaceitem method, but have it on your shoulders.

Oh BTW, here's how it would look as a cape:

EDIT: After two years, this thread is no longer an entirely accurate reflection of the current state of Minecraft. The basic problem I describe here, however, still very much persists. For more current and relevant discussion of this issue, you can skip directly to page 18.

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The basic ideas of this thread are as follows:

• Leather armor is not easy enough to acquire to balance out it's inferior statistics. Leather itself should be a commonplace early-game resource.

• Cows are unbalanced, in that they make pigs redundant and irrelevant by producing the same amount of identical food that pigs do in addition to other items that they don't.

• Both of these problems can be solved by a simple tweak to the cow's item drop rates.

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I don't know about all of you, but I've never used leather armor. I always found it to be easier to go right to iron armor; taking the time to pen in cows and breed them for leather would set me back quite a bit in game progression, and you rarely find nearby the 12-24 cows necessary to craft a full set of leather armor early enough in the game for it to be relevant for you to do so. I could better spend that time setting up a mining operation.

In relatively short order you can have enough iron for not only armor, but other essential items as well. Going directly for iron armor serves multiple goals simultaneously, whereas obtaining enough leather for armor is a task you have to go out of your way to accomplish and serves only that single goal to the exclusion of all others. Therefore, skipping over leather and going immediately for iron instead is the more efficient path to take, and the one most players will be most likely to follow. I have seen this first-hand in at least 90% of cases on all servers I've played on. This clearly doesn't make sense, as it puts the lowest tier armor in an unfortunate crossroads of being simultaneously less effective and more time-consuming to acquire.

Clearly, leather armor needs to be easier to obtain in order to balance it out and make it worthwhile for the player to spend time in the early game on it. So here is what I propose: make cows drop more leather, and less steak. When you think about it, cows and pigs are currently equal in terms of food value, but cows have an additional leather drop and are capable of producing milk. This makes them the clear choice for breeding, and makes pigs redundant and irrelevant. Why breed pigs when you can breed cows for the same resource cost and get much more payback for your efforts?

If, however, cows dropped primarily leather and only dropped a small amount of steak, it would give each animal clearly-defined roles and make both important to breed. And it would make the acquisition of leather for armor easier and give leather armor back it's rightful place as the cheap and commonplace first armor set players make.

Current Drop Rate:
0-2 leather and 1-3 steak
Even with the most improbable good fortune, under these rates you will need to kill a minimum of 12 cows to obtain a full set of leather armor, and potentially as many as 24 if you get only the minimum amount of leather from each cow you kill. But cows are capable of dropping no leather at all, which means that you might even need to kill more than 24 cows to obtain the leather needed for a full set of armor, with no theoretical maximum. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Conservative Suggested Rate:
2-4 leather and 0-1 steak
Under this rate, you would need to kill a minimum of 6 cows to craft a full set of leather armor, and as many as 12 maximum. These numbers are improved, but not quite as much as I would hope.

My Ideal Suggested Rate:
3-5 leather and either remove steak, or alter it or porkchops
With this rate the number of cows killed is now as low as 5 and as high as 8. This seems much more reasonable to me, as leather armor is primarily only relevant for a fairly small window of time in the early game, so you should obtain it as soon as possible. Either the steaks or the porkchops would be altered in terms of hunger value or saturation to make them no longer redundant and give each it's own place and use.

Pig item drop rates would remain unchanged in all scenarios.

An idea from a thread contributor that I very much support:

Quote from PatDay

4) Give leather new benefits - Make leather mechanically desirable Certainly not as much as diamond, but something people would consider using. I think the best option might be to include special non-combat enchantments only leather can get such as a Speed boost or Sneaking option (players are invisible to mobs past a certain distance while crouching). It would give people a reason to make a "work" outfit out of leather. This would seem to be only a benefit in my opinion and can't think of any drawbacks.

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Copy and paste this code into your signature to support this rebalancing effort:

[url=http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1448912-cows-pigs-and-the-problem-with-leather-armor/][img]http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t116/Ric_Adbur/LeatherArmorBanner2-1.png[/img][/url]

Skeleton - R.I.P
Spider - 10
Cave Spider - 10
Enderman - 18
Wither Skeleton - 11

Sollux: Ride computer like a mechanical bull.


Sollux cannot perform this operation, as he is currently a dead pirate in a dream bubble, and is under Andrew Hussies's control (not mine) anyway. However, I can and did ride my hive computer like a mechanical bull, and enjoyed immensely. You just don't get to see it.

Quote from ka_doink1234o0

This gets you an internet.