Better Than Wolves Forum

Version 4.89666 of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!

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This release contains the following changes:

-Added Hardcore Packing as a new mechanic. The way this works is that if a piston (or a solid block pushed by a piston) pushes certain items into an enclosed space (an empty block surrounded on all sides by solid blocks. It doesn't work on partial blocks with solid surfaces at present, although I may add that in the future), the items will be automatically compressed into block form if they're present in sufficient number to complete the regular recipe (e.g. 4 clay balls for a clay block, 9 Dung for a Dung block). This applies to clay balls, snowballs, flint, bricks, Nether Bricks, Soap, Dung, and the various piles (dirt, sand, gravel, & soul sand). In other words, it basically works to form any simple storage block for items that wouldn't require additional work or tools in their crafting (like Padding or Iron blocks). This is of course very useful in automation builds.

-Added Hardcore Baking. This changes the crafting of cookies, cake, and pie (the recipes for which remain unchanged other than that I made them shapeless) so that they produce uncooked varieties. These uncooked items may then either be cooked in a furnace, or in a Kiln (they may be placed as blocks manually or with a Block Dispenser) to produce the finished version. This was done for the sake of consistency since it felt distinctly off that these items didn't need to be cooked.

-Added the ability to place clay balls and Nether Sludge as blocks either manually or with the Block Dispenser. Both of these items will cook into bricks of the appropriate type if placed in a Kiln, and this opens up the possibility of automating brick production.

-Changed the piston recipe to consist of 2 Wood Siding with an iron ingot in the middle on the top row, 2 cobble with a Soul Urn in the middle row, and 2 cobble with a Redstone Latch in the bottom row. This is to adjust it for the changes in the last release that created a separation in the progression between obtaining a Crucible (and Soul Urns), and only obtaining Soulforged Steel once the player reaches the end dimension, while retaining the piston's overall dependance on BTW's tech tree. It also allows for some basic automation involving pistons to be performed in the period in between.

-Changed the in-game name of the Chocolate Milk Bucket to just be "Chocolate Milk" to coincide with the milk bucket just being called "Milk".

-Changed the sounds on Clay and Unfired Pottery to be squishier. I like squishy.

-Fixed vanilla problem with piston heads sometimes moving right through items without pushing them. This was the issue that inspired people to use sticky pistons with blocks attached instead of regular pistons due to regular ones being unreliable.

-Fixed vanilla problem with other players in SMP either being invisible or appearing in the wrong location after going through a nether portal. Thanks to Youtuber Panda4994 for posting his solution to this issue!

-Removed the ability of the Block Dispenser to assemble clay and snow balls into blocks, as this is now covered by Hardcore Packing and was serving to muddy the functionality of the BD too much.

Enjoy! :)

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If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:

Automated Bricks... THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

I just jizzed everywhere

I need to install BTW again.

yes! the piston fix...FC the updates just get better and better. love it! Thank you.

I can't get rid of the feeling that the 666 in the version number means something else came in with this release! Will have to go online and see if there is something... unexpected.

Aside from that: Thank you for another cool update!

42? 666? What's next, V4.89APOLLOHASLANDED?

Any which way, great update and yay packing.

Also "Aaaah!" I believe.

AHHHHH!!!

Now, I'm not a designer by any means, but moving the packing ability from block dispensers to pistons confuses me.

Isn't one of the longstanding aspects of BTW to have many uses stem from one aspect? Taking this out of the block dispenser doesn't [appear to] line up with the core of the game. I've always been amazed at how versatile your concepts were. I can see that it's related to automated cooking of clay balls into bricks, but I can't tell if it was the cause or effect ( or if they're both effects of something else). I also fail to see why either of them are needed.


I guess what I'm saying is; I'm a noob, why hardcore packing?

If you search back through the forums, you'll discover I was never happy with the BD acting as a block assembler, pretty much from the moment I first added that functionality. It was always on my todo list to migrate it out of there.

I'm not going to get into the reasons as to why that was never the right way to go about it here, but if you think about the whole clay interaction it provides a good example as to why, where I had backed myself into a corner where what you'd expect it to do with clay conflicted with the secondary behavior of assembling blocks.

And no, the goal of designing a game element is not to cram as much functionality as possible into it. Many ramifications to its usage beyond the immediately apparent that fall out of the design maybe, but that's not the same thing. And really, when you look at it in a global sense, no functionality was lost here (in fact some was gained). It's just shifted around somewhat to create a unique automation mechanism that wasn't present before, resulting in more diverse gameplay.

I need to hurry through my tech tree so I can experience these great updates. Great job once again, Flowerchild.

Now squishier yes! HC packing... Does not even feel planned or intended, the notes always give me smile :D

You never cease to amaze me with the things you come up with to make Minecraft so much better. It gets to a point where I think there's no way that there could be anything major left to add or change that you haven't already added or changed, and then you hit us with something like this. Bravo, sir, and thank you for another truly amazing update. I can't wait to try out the new additions; everything in this update is pure genius. Hardcore packing especially looks like it will be a ton of fun. Anyway, thanks again, and good luck as you finish everything up.

Well, I wouldn't consider this stuff major, just final bits of polish so that I'll feel satisfied calling BTW complete, taking care of lingering things that never felt quite right when I always had higher priority items to work on in the past.

I've got a stack of note paper about an inch thick with items I could continue working on if I were to keep going, but aside from a couple of more things, that stuff can wait for RTH ;)

Even these minor polishing details have major impact though in making the game far more finalized, even though they may not change much. As always, nice job and keep up the good work!

FlowerChild wrote: -Changed the piston recipe to consist of 2 Wood Siding with an iron ingot in the middle on the top row, 2 cobble with a Soul Urn in the middle row, and 2 cobble with a Redstone Latch in the bottom row. This is to adjust it for the changes in the last release that created a separation in the progression between obtaining a Crucible (and Soul Urns), and only obtaining Soulforged Steel once the player reaches the end dimension, while retaining the piston's overall dependance on BTW's tech tree. It also allows for some basic automation involving pistons to be performed in the period in between.

Awesome!

FlowerChild wrote:Version 4.89666 of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!
-Fixed vanilla problem with piston heads sometimes moving right through items without pushing them. This was the issue that inspired people to use sticky pistons with blocks attached instead of regular pistons due to regular ones being unreliable.

\o/ Wooh!, you don't know how many times I wanted this :D Also hardcore packing sound delicious!

BTW, why do you consider that iron blocks are made with tools? Personally, I always thought that they were a pile of ingots like bricks and the brick block. It's not a big deal, I'm just curious on how you picture them...

Sage wrote:BTW, why do you consider that iron blocks are made with tools? Personally, I always thought that they were a pile of ingots like bricks and the brick block. It's not a big deal, I'm just curious on how you picture them...

I dunno man, I debated that one myself, and after wavering back and forth a few times on whether to include packing of ingots, decided it just didn't feel right.

They really give me the impression of a slid block rather than a brick thing, and don't even ask me wtf is going on with diamond blocks :)

I love Hardcore Baking, a big plus in immersion!
Thank you for this, now I will bake because it looks realy cool making cookies in a kiln :D
Question: will bread come too?

And the hardcore Packing is nice too, I can now build my Brickcompressing machine :)

Love the changes

Thank You a lot!

i dunno FC... imo that vanilla bug fix on pistons heads classifies as 'major stuff'. at a minimum, i'm sure you've cost pharmaceutical companies many thousands of dollars profit on headache pills as we find easier ways to redstone wire up our contraptions :)

Sounds awesome! Love hardcore baking....always kinda bugged me how much raw cake Steve was eating :P

Quick question...does hardcore packing include dirt to packed earth?

Thanks FC!

I absolutely love hardcore baking.

It's stuff like hardcore packing you can just put out there and consider it minor that make me excited to see what you do with an entire game handled yourself. I bought GTAV two days ago and first I had to test out your new features, I think we all realize how major that makes it :).

Well damn now I really do need to make a sweets factory. I already have visions of factory lines of pistons pushing cakes into ovens... I also tried out the new packing feature on some clay and I have to say the squishier things are the better :)

AAAHHHHHHHH! :D

Thanks for that change with the ability to produce nether brick without waiting a long time for the furnaces to finish. The creation of supplies for the great edolian mage tower may recommence!! \^_^/

Man, you have no idea how happy I am for the piston fix pushing items correctly. Thanks for fixing vanilla issues that mojang deny exist!