Thank you Red for this amazing game, you're doing a fantastic job! I was wondering if there is a thread or post that outlines what direction you're heading with the game? Or what the most requested things are by the community and what you're definitely looking to implement long-term?
MORE CHALLENGING CRAFTING/UPGRADING FOR SURVIVAL MODE
Loving the realism of the game, however, for me, one thing that takes away from this is how easy it is (in survival mode) to go from making yourself a simple wooden chair/table to being able to craft modern furniture like office chairs. In a creative mode this is fine, but in a survival mode this seems like an oversight. I feel like some sort of "unlocking" path for these things during survival would work better - either similar to Creativerse wherein you can only craft more advanced items once you've crafted a more primitive version or similar to Minecraft where you must find and collect better materials to make more complicated and higher level items. If going the Creativerse path, for chairs, the "evolutionary" chain would look something like:
- Stool (unlocked at start)
- Wooden chair (unlocked after 1. has been crafted)
- Wooden chair with padded seat (unlocked only after 2. has been crafted; needs more materials - cotton, wool or hemp for pad);
Rocking Chair (unlocked only after 2. has been crafted; needs more wood than a normal wooden chair) - Fancy wooden chair (unlocked after 3. has been crafted. Probably carved/lacquered wood + padding covered in leather, so needs wax or something to craft as well as materials from 3.);
Sturdy Wooden chair (unlocked after 3. has been crafted. Metal legs/frame, wooden seat/back.) - Modern chair (unlocked after 4. has been crafted. I have something like an Eames chair in mind when thinking of this. Needs wood, metal and something for lacquer. Or more like the Ikea PREBEN Chair where you'd need metal, wood and cotton/wool/hemp);
Office chair (unlocked after 4. has been crafted. Needs wood, metal, cotton/wool/hemp)
The Minecraft route would mean a tad more grind; e.g. having other little things you always need on hand to craft. For example, nails/pins/springs - starting with wooden pegs to craft tier 1 items and graduating up to metal springs for more complicated items - this will increase grind-time, but only a little if implemented properly (e.g. one block of lumber = 100 pegs or something).
At the moment, Survival mode feels like I'm playing Creative, because resources for crafting EVERYTHING are so easy to collect.
FARMING
I believe you're doing a food update, but here's my thoughts anyway. Within a day I have a fully fledged farm with more food than I can possibly eat. A possibility to make this more challenging is to add irrigation requirements to plowed land. Being able to water your plants with the bucket or a craftable watering-can would be good, but I'd be even more excited by the option of crafting yourself a water tank/tower which fills in two ways: slogging buckets of water to it and with rain water. Then you can craft some sweet copper pipes to drip-irrigate your land. And I'm getting mad carried away here, but crafting a composter to make fertiliser to get bigger harvests too (1 strawberry per plant is killing me). Then we'd have something useful to do with all the grass we end up with
I'd like to see wild animals chow down on crops as well, so there's a bit of competition and you're forced to fence off your farms from thieves!
A tweak for less passive wild animals would make finding meat (and wool) harder and encourage future animal husbandry...which I hope is in the pipeline!
DYES?
It would be nice to be able to make dyes from flowers and cobalt and coal... and then use said dyes to colour the existing mattress. Also potential future items like rugs, flags/banners and clothes!
ITEMS
Double mattress
Other instruments (a simple drum, lute and flute?)
Rugs (made from hemp fibres and others made out of other animals skins - feels like a waste to use my tiger skins for leather...)
Flags/banners
Decorative items to use my silver and gold on (diningware, jewellery)
More weapons - i.e. upgrades for weapons (and tools) using alloys we craft, as well as a bow and arrows
Clothing/armor
Beehives for honey (food) and wax (crafting)
Cooked potatoes! (just pop them on the grill like the meat)
ITEM DEGRADATION
The degradation of weapons/tools and armor/clothes as you use them would be a nice touch!
Keep up the hard work (but also take care of yourself!!), I'm such a fan!