Difference between revisions of "Stone-Age Guide"

Revision as of 06:30, 14 April 2015

Welcome to TerraFirmaCraft!

The following guide will help you get started playing this survival-overhaul Minecraft mod. This guide has been written with the expectations that the reader has a basic understanding of vanilla Minecraft mechanics. It will focus on aspects of the game that are different with TerraFirmaCraft, as well as a few tips and tricks for easier starting gameplay. Throughout the guide, the text will contain links to individual wiki pages for learning more information about that particular topic.

Important Differences

There are a few key differences when playing TerraFirmaCraft from vanilla Minecraft that are important to understand from the very beginning.

Health

Instead of hearts, health is represented with a red bar. When you first spawn, you will have a maximum health value of 1,000 HP. This value will increase and decrease depending on your nutrition and experience levels. Health regenerates very slowly over time, as long as your hunger bar is at least 25% filled. Mob health is also increased, although not proportionally; creepers for instance have much less health relative to the player than in vanilla.

Hunger

Instead of haunches of food, hunger is represented with a green bar. Rather than arbitrary filling values, the hunger system in TerraFirmaCraft is based off of food weight. TerraFirmaCraft uses the imperial measurement of ounces. However, this measurement does not relate to any other measurement in the game, so if the concept of ounces confuses you, you are welcome to instead think of them as generic "food units" or "bites." Each stack of food in TerraFirmaCraft can weigh up to 160 ounces.

Players have a stomach capacity of 24 oz. When eating almost any food, the player can consume a maximum of 5 oz at a time. The exception to this is sandwiches, which can be eaten in a single bite. It is impossible to over-eat in TerraFirmaCraft, meaning that you will only consume enough ounces to fill your stomach to the 24 oz capacity. The only way for you to gain saturation and therefore eat less often is to create soups and sandwiches.

Unlike vanilla, the hunger bar does slowly deplete over time even while you are standing still, or even sleeping. In addition to the slow continuous drain, hunger is primarily depleted by performing actions such as breaking blocks or attacking. If you sleep through the night, your hunger bar will deplete half as much as if you had been awake the entire time.

It is important to note that it is not possible to starve to death in TerraFirmaCraft. When your hunger bar reaches below 25%, you will get Mining Fatigue II and Weakness II potion effects. When your hunger bar is completely empty, your nutrition levels will drain at three times the normal rate, therefore quickly decreasing your max health. However, once all of your nutrition categories are completely empty, you will still have a maximum HP of 50. Note that 50 HP is a small enough value that taking damage from any outside source such as hostile mobs or fall damage will very likely kill you.

Thirst

Thirst is represented with a blue bar. The thirst bar, like the hunger bar, slowly depletes over time even while you do not move. The thirst bar is replenished by drinking fresh water, which is easily distinguished from saltwater by the presence of cattails and pondweed. Starting out, you will drink the water directly from the pool by right-clicking with an empty hand on the face of a block that is exposed to the water. A slurping sound will play, and your thirst bar will increase slightly. You can simply hold-right click to continue drinking until you are no longer thirsty. Once you have created a ceramic jug or glass bottle you will be able to fill it with fresh water to drink. Ceramic jugs replenish much more of the thirst bar than drinking directly from the pond, and offer a way for you to be able to drink even when no fresh water is nearby. It is important to note that ceramic jugs are not indestructible, and there is a random chance that it will break each time you take a drink.

Thirst is primarily depleted by sprinting and jumping. If you sleep through the night, the thirst bar will deplete half as much as if you had been awake the entire time. When the thirst bar is half empty, you will no longer be able to sprint. When there is only 25% of the bar left, you will get an invisible Slowness II potion effect until the thirst bar is replenished. If the thirst bar is completely empty, the current in-game temperature is above 35, and you are directly exposed to the sky, you will take damage simulating a heat stroke.

Experience

The experience system represents life experience, and so each level increases a player's maximum health, thirst, and alcohol tolerance, allowing them to take more hits, survive longer without drinking fresh water, and drink more alcohol before getting negative side effects.

Unlike vanilla, there is no enchanting or tool repairs to consume experience levels, so the only way to decrease your experience level is death.

Progression

The tech-tree in TerraFirmaCraft is a complete overhaul of the vanilla progression system. There are no such thing as wooden tools in TerraFirmaCraft, with your first tools being made of stone. This means that you should not waste your time punching trees, as doing so will take a very long time to break the block, and will give you absolutely nothing in return.

Gravity

In addition to sand and gravel, dirt, grass and cobblestone are also affected by gravity in TerraFirmaCraft. Unlike in vanilla, gravity-affected blocks are able to fall sideways in addition to straight down. This means that without a proper support system, you will not be able to create walls or ceilings out of these blocks.

Mob Spawning

TerraFirmaCraft implements a hostile mob spawn protection system that prevents mobs from spawning in areas that you have spent a fair amount of time in. Areas with this hostile mob spawn protection will not spawn hostile mobs regardless of the current light level. With the removal of the light-level dependency for mob spawning, TerraFirmaCraft has also implemented the ability for torches to burn out.

Livestock in TerraFirmaCraft, including cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, and horses only spawn on initial chunk generation. These animals do not despawn and will not respawn after they have been killed.

Wild animals such as bears, pheasants, deer, squid, fish and untamed wolves can despawn and have the possibility to respawn using the vanilla friendly mob respawn mechanic.

Combat

At the very beginning of the game, your best chance at surviving combat is if you avoid combat entirely, hiding and running away from any and all hostile mobs you come across. If you find yourself caught in a combat situation that you cannot escape, it is important to know that TerraFirmaCraft has implemented different damage types. Different weapons will do different types of damage, and certain mobs can be stronger or weaker against a specific damage type. For every mob except for skeletons, your best stone-age weapons are the axe and the javelin. For both standard and javelin skeletons, your most effective stone-age weapon is a hammer. Skeletons are completely immune to piercing damage, meaning that all ranged weapons are useless against them.

Crafting

Just like in vanilla, you will start out with a 2x2 crafting grid in your inventory. However, as you can see there are additional greyed out slots showing that it is possible to expand this grid to the full 3x3. The crafting grid is expanded by making a crafting table with four plank blocks, just like in vanilla. Doing so will consume the table, and your inventory crafting grid will be permanently expanded until you die. Note that this is the only way to expand your crafting grid, and that making additional crafting tables is useless, as they cannot be used to access the interface when placed, and they cannot be consumed for expanding the grid after creation.

The plank blocks required for making a crafting table are made with metal tools, so you will not be able to expand your crafting grid while you are in the stone age.

Gathering Materials

Now that you understand some of the key differences between vanilla Minecraft and TerraFirmaCraft, let's move on to actual gameplay. The first thing you'll want to do is explore your world and gather materials.

Rocks and Ore

Laying scattered on the ground you will find pieces of rocks and ore. All you need to worry about starting out is gathering the rocks by either breaking the block, or right-clicking on it. The small pieces of ore indicate that there is a vein of that ore nearby underground, so it is important to take note of its location for when you later have a pickaxe and are ready to mine. Once a piece of ore or rock has been picked up from the ground, it cannot be placed back down, so only gather what you need to save on inventory space. A single stack of up to 64 rocks will be more than sufficient for your first few in-game days.

Sticks and Saplings

Similar to rocks and ores, sticks can be found laying on the ground underneath trees, or in beach and river biomes. You can also punch leaf blocks which will have a chance to drop sticks and saplings when broken. It does not matter if you use your fist or a stone tool to break the leaf blocks, the drop rate will be the same. It is important to note that when a tree is chopped down, all leaves instantly despawn with it and they will not drop any sticks or saplings.

Food

While it is not possible to directly starve to death in TerraFirmaCraft, gathering food is still an important aspect to increase your chances of staying alive. Food does decay in TerraFirmaCraft, so it is important to periodically trim the decay off of the food so it doesn't rot as quickly. This can be done by either crafting the food with a knife, or having a knife in your inventory, and while looking at your crafting grid pressing the D key. Pressing the hotkey will attempt to trim the decay off of all food in your inventory, consuming knife durability for each piece of food.

Rather than the traditional stack system, food in TerraFirmaCraft is grouped together by weight. A single inventory slot can hold a stack of up to 160 ounces of food. Hovering over a single food item in your crafting inventory and pressing S will combine all of that specific food item into stacks of larger weight. Multiple key presses may be required for larger quantities of individual stacks. Alternatively, multiple pieces of food that are underneath the maximum weight can be crafted together to create a single piece of food of the combined weight. If a piece of food that has no decay is crafted with a knife, it will be cut in half. This is useful for sharing food with multiple players, splitting food into smaller pieces to store in vessels, and splitting food into exact sizes for use in barrel processing. Holding ⇧ Shift while cutting food in half will result in multiple pieces of food, with each one half the weight of the one before it.

Agriculture

Crops spawn randomly in the wild between the seasons of spring and late summer, and have a chance to regenerate during those seasons every year. Breaking a wild crop will only give seeds if it isn't fully mature, so you should wait until it has reached the last stage of growth before harvesting if you want food. Crop growth in TerraFirmaCraft is based off of how much time has passed since the crop was planted as well as some other factors, with many crops taking a few in-game months to reach maturity. It is possible for crops to freeze to death during the colder seasons. You will always start a new world in the beginning of summer, so some of the seeds you gather during the first year likely will not reach maturity before freezing to death if they are planted before spring of the next year.

Animal Husbandry

The amount of meat that you get from killing animals is based on your butchery skill, so the first animals that you kill will drop very little meat. With each kill your butchery skill will increase, dropping more meat than the last.

When killing animals for food, it is important to leave at least a breeding pair of one male and one female of any animals you come across that can be domesticated, as they will not respawn if you kill them. TerraFirmaCraft implements a familiarity system for interacting with animals, and most animals have a very long gestation period before giving birth, so it is unlikely to breed any babies before your first year or two in-game.

You are welcome to freely kill any wild animals which cannot be domesticated that you come across, as they will eventually respawn. Note however that the vanilla respawn mechanic of friendly mobs does not spawn new animals very often, and that any meat you do get from killing animals will start to decay, so it is better to keep the animal alive until you actually need the meat.

Fruit Trees and Berry Bushes

Fruit trees and berry bushes can be found scattered across the world in areas of warmer climate. Each type of tree and bush will only be ripe during specific seasons, and will not provide food for the rest of the year. Fruit trees are a renewable resource, providing saplings when their branches are broken with an axe or saw. Berry bushes are not renewable, and the bushes that you find while out exploring are the only ones that you can get. Berry bushes can be broken and replanted elsewhere.

Seaweed

Seaweed can be found growing in salt water. Seaweed blocks can very quickly be broken by left-clicking with a knife, giving 2 to 7 ounces of edible seaweed. Harvested seaweed will not grow back.

Fish and Squid

You are unable to craft a fishing rod while in the stone age, but it is still possible to get food from TerraFirmaCraft's water animals. Fish can be found swimming in lake biomes, and squid can be found swimming in saltwater. Both animals can be directly attacked using melee weapons or a javelin, and will drop food. The amount of food you get is once again dependent on your butchery skill, so you will not get much food at all from these small animals. Even with a high butchery skill, the amount of food dropped from these animals is fairly small. However, since both fish and squid respawn, killing them is a quick and easy way to increase your butchery skill, so you will get more meat from killing larger animals.

Clay

Straw

Logs

Your First Tools

Knapping

Firepit

Pottery

Shelter

Logs and Log Piles

Thatch

Leaving the Stone Age

Prospecting