Request for ideas: Blue dye

[Necropolis]

That's interesting, but I'm growing fond of the idea that they'll trap you underwater if you land on them. Makes it more fun.

Until you shear them free of the rocks, that is.

[BinoAl]

My vote is for either woad leaves or blueberries. They could both have unique growing conditions, and applications other than dyes (though woad leaves would be limited to an alchemy system, while blueberries could be food, dye, and an ingredient). The issue is coming up with unique growing conditions. Perhaps blueberries could grow from leaves from trees? That would both give shears a place in the tech tree, and give a non-decorative use to leaves. It would also be unique in that you would need to prevent the leaves from decaying.

[PatrickSJ]

My vote is for either woad leaves or blueberries. They could both have unique growing conditions, and applications other than dyes (though woad leaves would be limited to an alchemy system, while blueberries could be food, dye, and an ingredient). The issue is coming up with unique growing conditions. Perhaps blueberries could grow from leaves from trees? That would both give shears a place in the tech tree, and give a non-decorative use to leaves. It would also be unique in that you would need to prevent the leaves from decaying.

I believe leaves don't decay anymore when placed by the player. The idea of leaves turning in blueberry bush is interesting, but could I prevent leaves from turning in blueberry bushes if I didn't want it?

[BinoAl]

I believe leaves don't decay anymore when placed by the player. The idea of leaves turning in blueberry bush is interesting, but could I prevent leaves from turning in blueberry bushes if I didn't want it?

Woops, guess i wasn't all too clear in my description. You would have to do something to the leaves to make blueberries grow. I'm not even sure what exactly. Thinking about it, it doesnt make too much sense to plant seeds in leaves :p

[Stormweaver]

I believe leaves don't decay anymore when placed by the player. The idea of leaves turning in blueberry bush is interesting, but could I prevent leaves from turning in blueberry bushes if I didn't want it?

Woops, guess i wasn't all too clear in my description. You would have to do something to the leaves to make blueberries grow. I'm not even sure what exactly. Thinking about it, it doesnt make too much sense to plant seeds in leaves :p

use lapis on leaves, wait a while, break leaves to get x blueberries. It works because mooshroom.

[FlowerChild]

K guys, I think I have enough suggestions for now. Will be stepping out of this thread.

[FlowerChild]

Just wanted to apologize for my terse post above and thank you all for the ideas. There were a lot of good ones that came out of the thread.

I became briefly frustrated by the constant return to the whole misguided "let's cram more stuff into a block ID" suggestions, hence my quick withdrawal above when I felt myself on the verge of going into a rant :)

Anyways, just wanted to say that I do appreciate the bulk of the ideas that were put forward here.

[Triskelli]

I know I'm late for the party, but I want to throw my vote for Oysters, Clams and Mussels. Make 'em so they only appear in coastal biomes, and they have a chance of busting out of a clay block like Silverfish, right now. After you've "crafted" the oysters, you get the flesh and two shells. Those shells can then be planted in another clay block, which has a chance of spreading more oysters to surrounding blocks.

Grew up on the coast, and that's fairly similar to how our oysters grow in the salt-marshes. After an oyster roast, they take the shells and throw them back on the oyster beds to encourage more oysters to grow there.

[the_fodder]

I know I'm late for the party, but I want to throw my vote for Oysters, Clams and Mussels. Make 'em so they only appear in coastal biomes, and they have a chance of busting out of a clay block like Silverfish, right now. After you've "crafted" the oysters, you get the flesh and two shells. Those shells can then be planted in another clay block, which has a chance of spreading more oysters to surrounding blocks.

really 'digging' that suggesting maybe include the hoe.

[Colonel Turtle]

EDIT: Were you thinking of adding some form of alchemy or am I remembering wrong? If you are planning, then having more plans could obviously serve new uses with such a system.

Well, it already looks like I've put an alchemy system in place right? ;)

But yeah, that's the kind of thing I'm hoping for: an idea here that either comes naturally out of elements already found in the game/mod, or something entirely new which is open to additional *interesting* uses down the road (and no, I don't mean pie).

One additional (so-so) idea I just had was to cook slime down into dye. There aren't many blue elements in the game, but if you "cook the yellow off" the green slime, I guess that could make some sense.

working with the whole slime idea, why don't you cook slime into some sort of goop that absorbs color so that when you put it through a wool filter, the goop turns into a dye of whatever color the wool is! not only do you now have a source of blue dye, but a source of any dye!

[TheWereWa11y]

I know I'm late for the party, but I want to throw my vote for Oysters, Clams and Mussels. Make 'em so they only appear in coastal biomes, and they have a chance of busting out of a clay block like Silverfish, right now. After you've "crafted" the oysters, you get the flesh and two shells. Those shells can then be planted in another clay block, which has a chance of spreading more oysters to surrounding blocks.

really 'digging' that suggesting maybe include the hoe.

At the moment there arn't nealy enough uses for the hoe. Once you have hoed the ground to plant your wheat or hemp on, as long as you tread carfuly you will never need to how the ground again!
I think using the hoe to scrape the shelfish of the clay or what ever it would give it another use.

Even the late entry (the shears) have got more uses.

[Triskelli]

Just a little pictoral inspiration:


A naturally occurring oyster bed near where I live:




A group of people placing dicarded shells to encourage a new reef to grow:




Granted, this would require adding at least one new block. But it's an interesting spin on farming and could be automated easily.

[Magmarashi]

Just a little pictoral inspiration:


A naturally occurring oyster bed near where I live:




A group of people placing dicarded shells to encourage a new reef to grow:




Granted, this would require adding at least one new block. But it's an interesting spin on farming and could be automated easily.

Oysters could easily be found in gravel or sand near water..but that does make automation hard. Unless you set up a filter to screen for them. Hmm.

Edit: oh boy~

[Deepsniper]

one way that could be interesting is you set the oysters as an entity that doesn't move but can multiply up to a reasonable level. but then those entities can only spawn on top of clay blocks... its already going to be tough enough to hunt for oysters but automation can be possible and i bet battosay would come up with something in minutes...

[DaveYanakov]

Maybe set it up something like the game of life on a slow clock in order to keep the number of entities manageable. This would have the side benefit of allowing for oyster glider guns without any additional coding.