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  1. #1

    Panning/sluicing chunk limits

    I rarely consider changing configs as I usually like to play things how they were meant to be played, but there's something I'm not sure on myself:

    Do we want to keep limits on panning or sluicing per chunk in the new servers?

    The limits don't necessarily make it more challenging or believable, but it seems a bit inconvenient that people can't pan at the town's river (or whatever random water may be near spawn) because someone else panned there. Sand will still be consumed and pans will still break.

    I also don't want to make it too easy because earning progression is rewarding!

    Thoughts?

  2. #2
    Wouldn't mind it myself, sand and gravel are finite chunk wise.
    Maybe tweak the ore chance to make it a little harder since you don't have to move possible?
    Would take in consideration the possibility for automating sluices and possible loads they pose.
    Generally i only do this to start off to get a few tools going before mining, and with copper pretty easy to find, would believe not to many would be doing it after a bit.
    Could be good for a town that gets a lot of new people on a regular basis.

  3. #3
    I don't like the idea of infinite panning considering many other resources in the game are finite and when they're mined they're gone. But I do think the limit can be increased to accommodate larger towns with newer people joining in. How about 10 times more per plot meaning that instead of 30 iterations of panning, you get 300. That should prevent people from all doing the same spot forever, but still give plenty of area available for panning in a relatively close area since a larger town would take up more area anyway. Panning isn't a good solution long term and it will still be finite so it should prevent people from abusing it. Thoughts?

  4. #4
    I'm not saying no to the idea. Just sharing my thoughts.

    Which servers are you thinking about?

    From what I've read panning is the worst way to gather metals. It's slow and takes a relatively large effort compared to finding a vein and mining it. Do we want to change this balance?

    As far as I know it works on a per chunk basis so if one chunk is exhausted you can move 16 blocks and try again. Given that there is more water than land I don't think there will be a shortage of places to pan.

    Because of this it makes no sense to me to bump the limit for the premium servers since they have huge worlds. Maybe if the freebie server gets overcrowded it would make sense. But with 20.000 x 20.000 that's not likely to happen soon. I think we'll have moved on to TFC 3 (three!) before that map is empty.

    If you need help imagining how big the freebie world is going to be, just check Dynmap. On my screen(2560x1600), zooming out as much as possible, I can just fit 20.000 blocks horizontally. It's a large world and even on the current map only a tiny portion of 20.000 x 20.000 around spawn has been actually used. Just because people claimed land doesn't mean they've exhausted everything near there. Most towns barely scratch the surface. Even though people seem to think that towns exhaust all resources within thousands of blocks for some strange reason.

    If a town has exhausted a river, shouldn't they move out to another? People can teleport on the freebie and regular servers if it's too much trouble to walk.

  5. #5
    So long as the chunks have a limit, I seriously doubt it would cause a change to the balance of panning versus mining. There is way too little ore coming from chunks to compare to a single vein, even a poor vein. People have made default 30 pans per chunk work on all the HappyDigger servers so far so if we don't change it it's not a big deal. I'm viewing this as more of a quality of life that isn't game changing, but if people want it grueling I don't mind either way. Default or increased, the important part is that it isn't limitless.

  6. #6
    Lazy Idle Couch Potato Heptagon_ru's Avatar
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    I don't understand the main reason to allow this. To help newcomers to start copper age by letting to goldpan near Spawn any time?
    Even if this will be allowed, there will be shortage of rocks, clay and sand/gravel very soon. And when you go to find them, you find new chunks for goldpanning.

    Any other case seems to avoid the problem.
    For a town there is no need to allow goldpanning in the same chunk for each member - only the first member needs to enter copper age by goldpanning, all others can process the ore he got from mining using his "goldpanned" pickaxe.

    Or the reason is to allow "automated" ore generation by sluices? I have never used them and do not understand what they are for. As I remember, they have a limit, give poor output. The only usage can be for scanning for deep veins presence, but again, it will be hard to find that vein later, it's easier to run with a propick.
    Last edited by Heptagon_ru; 12th January 2016 at 12:32.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Heptagon_ru View Post
    Or the reason is to allow "automated" ore generation by sluices? I have never used them and do not understand what they are for. As I remember, they have a limit, give poor output. The only usage can be for scanning for deep veins presence, but again, it will be hard to find that vein later, it's easier to run with a propick.
    The exhaustion counter is much higher with a sluice, so you can run more gravel through it.

  8. #8
    Lazy Idle Couch Potato Heptagon_ru's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Benanov View Post
    The exhaustion counter is much higher with a sluice, so you can run more gravel through it.
    Yes, but afaik it returns only ore nuggets (10 units), and atm each chunk gives 2.5 ore pieces in average (wiki). It takes a lot of gravel and time as I understand. And in the middle/end game players prefer rich ores, especially for iron, because it's boring to make blooms/pig iron using poor ore. Any copper mine will give much more ore then a sluice, and much quicker even with propick search.
    I don't know this well, maybe the situatiom is drastically better.

    So imho sluices and goldpanning things are useless even with increased counters.
    It will be interesting to read about some real experience with them.

  9. #9
    I think that's something we need to know. Who would use gold panning or sluices for an extended period of material gathering on the new servers?

    If I were to play some TFC again, I certainly wouldn't. I like digging way too much

  10. #10
    I do not see a need for increasing the limit or removing it. In my latest playthroughs, (my twitch followers will know this well) I was very unsuccessfull in finding my first few pieces of copper, but that was easily solved by panning about 10 chunks on a beach. After that first ingot, all ores can be mined with the very first pickaxe that can then be shared with other players who dont have to go through the tedious process of leaving the stone age. The way that I reduce my need for copper is to make bronze tools which make my ores go further. With all that in mind, if there became a situation where an entire continent was mined out (this is highly unlikely), then I would remove/raise the limit or make a trader at spawn that trades renewable items for metals.

    I believe that scarcity promotes community and creativity. Fellow min/maxers will attest to this.

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