A general early alpha 4 is shaping up as I crack the big projects and refine the loose ends.
In this version of the game you'll be able to play the early game pretty much in its entirety, the way I've been envisioning it. There's a lot of feedback between different systems and a lot of fun to be had overall.
It might make sense to do this first rather than start on the Civilization v2 megaproject next.
This update requires several other projects:
Finishing Combat.
The PGCS, particularly with its simplification. Will need to scour all the miscellaneous notes/checklists areas and make sure the set of usable materials isn't changing majorly again (I know dungeons are changing but that's probably acceptable). Could go ahead and placeholder the various materials updates since they're happening in EA4 anyway. Whenever this happens, can go ahead and make/aggregate a loose end for the furniture/junk/shop update -- will need to be done prior to civilization. But basically furniture is reflective of the shop type you're in, a higher proportion is junk, plus general-purpose stuff (like clothing), based more closely on civ lore, could theoretically hit trading targets items at this step as well. Also knocks the junk update out of the way. And also pads the loot lists of fishing containers and ECS. Should look into making additional shop types as well, with the accompanying furniture changes. I like the idea of randomly combining together types as well for truly melange shops (Curios? With a curio guild?) Civilization politics are then based on the new list of shop types. Additionally though the proportion of different furniture loot (and the overall amount of it) should be settable by various factors -- possibly random based on the house or province, possibly tied more closely to the economy. Overall a decent-sized update that needs to be on its own. Also need to round out what every raw material is doing -- collection shouldn't be annoying/boring, some kind of Scouting should be feasible, the item should have multiple ways of obtaining it, and should also have multiple uses. Voidshards and elemental sinkcores are good examples of items that fail at all of the above. A Void Sea update would help with the latter however.
Mass Labbing, to cram various features into various labs behind the PGCS, unless they're way too annoying (like the potions package should unlock ping extractions and potionmaking instead of having those both behind separate unlocks in addition to the lab, which might have catalyst stuff therein).
Blast Furnace -- Lets you forge together two metal items of the same type and opposing elements, averaging their properties.
Note for later: The items put into a blast furnace should be opposing elements, with the resultant item becoming whichever element is attacking (the Main Item in the new terminology). Also, IIRC, properties targeted by the anvil were supposed to be based on the element of the property rather than the element of the item and then you can only use elements that match your item. This is still a good idea, as the anvil needs to be nerfed. This forces you to use the blast furnace (or something else) to alter elements in order to make a weapon or w/e superpowered.
Idk what to do with it, but there should be additional uses of elemental metal outside of the industry mechanics and prism stuff. Maybe each metal element has something very specific (and useful) assigned to it, though idk what.
Industry fixtures should all cost Fuel to use in some capacity. The anvil and blast furnace probably require tier-2 fuel.
Cyborgs
Have a custom way of filtering in industry, maybe a "filter" property.
Have separate unlocks for scout cyborgs and mount cyborgs -- the filters look for the pet with that particular type and also the cyborg thing. This should also supplant the metal prop requirement.
Get scout cyborg industry working.
Get mount cyborg industry working.
Make it so the smithy doesn't actually have "Cyborgs" as an option -- just hardcode it.
Cyborgs also shouldn't be able to be worked on at an anvil -- that overlaps with the Aether Lens.
Honestly with the caves update and some pitched ideas for the anvil (procgen limited upgrading), the aether lens could be scrapped outright. If the anvil requires quartz (however that's obtained) this would lock it behind the existing set of requirements.
Lockpicks
Uncomment the Tools Industry entry for Lockpicks.
The way these properties are stored needs to change to them being ints rather than +X so the anvil and blast furnace work better.
Figure out how to get separate abilities to combine together at a blast furnace despite them also being upgradeable at an Anvil. May require its own checklist.
Misc
Loop back through all items in the inventory and make it so you can upgrade strings on an anvil or catalyze/average them on a blast furnace. Also other data types probably.
Torches and Lockpicks need loot variety like weapons/quivers have. There also needs to be a general "torches_loot" and "lockpicks_loot", and then this also needs to be the appropriate cat for shops and equipment itemgens. I guess make sure shops are pulling loot for weapons and quivers as well right now.
Aggregating all dungeons loose ends here. It'll need a reorg however.
Aggregating my various checklists here, since this project is apparently underway until completion.
Dungeon Issues
IMPORTANT: Reformat this post and the other one as of the Simpgrade.
Have a "Boulder Attachment: ON / OFF" button? on the boulder menu. If attached, act like normal. If not, let you push boulders around without being able to pull or rotate around them.
Get various shape properties in there optionally -- I like the standard ones a lot too, so maybe 50/50 chance. -- Most of these aren't working a normal way; fixing them is just as hard. Rebuilding that particular file with the new polar{} object honestly makes the most sense.
Dungeon Salts aren't returning the right thing in all cases, need to test and diagnose. Might want to change the terrain pattern of the multiple-hallway one -- there's more fixtures around now.
Drop D Salt functionality, replace with something else -- I have some ideas, like one that lets you go into the BG the appropriate amount but teleports you perpendicularly some amount as well.
Salts that you've picked up shouldn't prevent ruin power travel. This is going to require some finagling with entypes.
There should be a minimum runestone spread size for smaller dungeons
Exiting a dungeon should re-index runestone locations so you can warp around freely again. There might be other stipulations of this as well.
If there are no movement buttons, don't show the warp table at all - testing this requires creating a single runestone.
Runestone menus should stay open when you warp, allowing you to warp more -- this will require some index lookups though to reopen the menu correctly -- might want to put the coord in the title to get a good idea of this.
Remove the property that tells dungeon rooms to not overlap -- sometimes they're way below the minimum size. Or alternately max out the number of fixtures that can spawn in a room relative to its size or expand the room size into hallways/etc.
Portals should work in dungeons.
You should be able to access the dungeon crafting menu from your base via a special fixture that requires dungeon materials to make.
Fixture limits should be reflected by the room size.
Facing the runestone from a different direction gives off a different seed.
Door opens and tetradshard/core/etc pickups should turn into the room or margin color -- basically whatever was under it first.
Essential Issues Fixes
Some shapes can't have doors work with them right (like some pinwheels).
There should be a property for rendering hallways *after* rooms -- this will make inactive dungeons look normal again.
Runecore directions ain't right
Entering a dungeon lets you move with runestones, then when you exit you still can with the runestones there. Make it consistent.
Lowering the cost of the artifact upgrades requires sink keys, not sinkcore keys.
You should be able to move around rune doors in a similar way to runestones
You shouldn't be able to interact with another boulder while still attached to one.
Acid tiles should delete themselves if they don't exist in the world, and they definitely shouldn't spread.
Ruin power upgrade cost lowering needs to transfer to other parts of the nonad. Same deal with whether you have the artifact or not.
Overworld runestones need to be destroyed permanently via ('eternal') -- Tricky. Need to rewrite the whole build framework or rethink this, since there's no way of untagging the old tag -- which means it gets erased despite being tagged another way. Set the tag indexes by region & kee.
Inactive runestone lines are screwy.
Search recipes should be e1cores and e2cores, no other elemental cores.
Dungeons should spawn out into the hallways or voids even when they lack rooms needed for the amount of fixtures they have.
However, you shouldn't be able to go over the room size when adding fixtures via mana keys.
The amount of mana keys needed to add stuff should be lower -- 1-3 maybe?
Removing all the items or manacores out of furniture should erase it -- furniture in dungeons that is.
Acid shouldn't happen in third-tier rooms (wind doors for example). Probably irrelevant if it ends up being enemies that cause acid to spawn.
Having issues with boulders once you push a boulder out into the void -- needs to no longer be the active boulder so you don't warp back there when you interact with a new boulder.
Reversible crafting menus -- both dungeon keys and dungeon scraps recipes need to be reversible. -- Should work as of the Crafting Update
Can't destroy a boulder until you first move it.
Tetrad Keys
Craft 3 tetradshards of the same type into a Tetrad Key.
Feed overworld runestones a tetrad key to produce more runestones -- lets you get new seeds.
2 Tetrad Keys will also give you the artifact.
Tetradshards, artifacts and other miscellaneous recipes should go in a different crafting menu since the other two will be reversible all the way through. -- No longer relevant because of ignore_symmetric.
Tetrad keys should also do useful stuff with conjuncts and/or the quantum and entropic planes.
Quick dungeon improvement
Runestones in dungeons should spawn surrounded by a random color, which is also paired to the runestone datapoints. This can't erase a door or salt, but anything else is fair game.
This means that the "Move" function is no longer required.
This also means that different parts of the dungeon are more distinguishable.
The "warp" colors should also match the runestone colors.
Core doors should also do this, except have it match the floor color -- they currently lack a move option.
Dungeons Simpgrade
Drop the artifact.
Put sinkcores/elemental sinkcores in randomly rather than salts.
There should however be optional bigger chunks or extractables randomly in the bg -- getting those requires strategic boulder placement.
They don't require the artifact in order to get them.
Kill all salt abilities, add notes to cyborg pets to replicate them.
Take out salt / salt keys from pgcs and all other instances.
There should be edge nodes around the outside of the dungeon. Like zones kinda
Going into the BG should open a menu that lets you go to the closest zone.
Or around to other zones in either cc or cw directions.
Both of these should cost elemental sinkcores or whatever's in the hallway.
You should then be able to "pop" to the dungeon again in some direction, or the edge nodes should only exist on built tiles or something.
Sinkcores and elemental sinkcores tie into searching rather than scraps.
Each dungeon nonad should have its own special melange cabinet-- that'll potentially make tetrad keys and dungeons more exploitable.
You should be able to push boulders in a ZZT-like way too, maybe by default.
Acid rooms should be more predictable -- tell you beforehand, or get spread by dungeon monsters. Additionally, they should be useful in some way -- maybe they block or attract dungeon monsters?
Misc
There should be other types of rooms so dungeons are less boring. Idk what to put in them yet.
You should be able to create new passageways via a Lever fixture, which costs sinkcores. This will probably be more relevant with the combat update, so like the above it's probably a loose end.
Dungeons should always be colored -- the gray ones are really boring. Various levels of saturation though, with desatted ones more common.
Since I'm removing ruins powers, the bg spin thing should be automatic, and a spin of 1. This makes traversal of passageways *way* easier.
Camping requires pitching tents from the surface menu -- they're homogeneous "supplies" made from cloth and twine.
You should be able to camp outside the surface as well -- go through everything and make sure this works everyplane.
Pull off the potionmaking function of camping -- they exclusively let you sleep/rest.
Once placed you can use that tent repeatedly.
Portable Fixtures
I'm not quite sure how this works, but you'll be able to pack up base fixtures and make them portable, and can interact with them anywhere you've placed a tent.
The base storage functionality of this would obsolete that mount/scout animal function, which is probably for the best.
Portable fixtures require batteries to use -- made from the battery station. The portable fixtures module will also unlock the battery station if you haven't already.
*Anything that works with Base Fuel (like the battery station itself or the Boiler) can't be made portable.
I guess fixtures need to go ahead and be an actual item (and lootable) so this works. That'll require changing the base menu a bit and having a way of crafting them, which is a shame because of how intuitive it is -- maybe placing it stages it and then you need the fixture or the materials to actually use it.
I like the new camping system I'd like to detail it more.
Crafted from branches and a whole lot of fiber or (somehow) less wool. Maybe a separate recipe, and maybe this tent is better. Maybe use bones instead of branches - that fits. They again go into the new "supplies" category.
Tents are placeable entities, via the Use Item menu.
Once placed, you can interact with them. In their basic form you can sleep and rest.
Wool tents are reusable, though there's a chance that they'll break (like 50% or so). Fixable via magic. Fiber tents are stuck there.
Sleeping is faster in Wool tents.
Tents could potentially have bonuses on both time and battery usage based on the materials used to craft them -- if so, they'd also need metal equivalents so they could go into Industry.
You should be able to Rest in certain terrain patterns -- a rock alcove maybe or on top of a single solid. Can't sleep or use fixtures but it's better than nothing. No tents needed.
If you have portable fixtures in your inventory then you can interact with them from a tent. No placing of them necessary.
However, they use volts. The volts are stored in the portable fixtures and can be recharged with batteries. There might be a limit to volt storage but maybe not.
You can't make a Fuel Refinery or Boiler portable. No cheating.
Inns should allow you to also use portable fixtures.
Dungeon rooms should occasionally spawn tents or something similar- maybe whatever the above fixture is.
It doesn't seem like I need to do this right now -- something to keep in mind for the future however.
Crafting is no longer something you can do in the world by default -- this will simplify the menus a whole hell of a lot.
Instead, you get specific fixtures that let you access various crafting menus. There should also be a way of aggregating them in a categorization way (maybe via Desks or Workbenches or something -- the way automation works makes sense, like a Workbench could let you stick a certain amount of crafting fixtures in there and it would aggregate them all).
The Camping Update will be done -- Tent items and no terrain requirements essentially. Assumedly Tents will be a Consumable item like Food/Drink, Backpacks, etc.
Instead of being placed at a Campsite, Portable Fixtures are accessible from the Tent menu (provided you have the correct item). You can also recharge them with Batteries here.
It should be easier to unlock Portable Fixtures and the Battery Station. Will still require some prep steps however. This would let you Craft while exploring and also open up other things you can usefully do (like brew potions) away from home.
Tents might be heterogeneous items that have lower battery usage, restrict the fixtures you can use, or have specific terrain requirements. This would depend on the materials used to craft them. Maybe not though, idk how much I want to complicate that mechanic. Especially considering Ropes are being simplified.
Crafting takes time (depending on how complex the recipe is) but can be sped up by feeding it extra Base Fuel. Feed it enough and it's instant.
Key Items become context-based -- You start with the Atomizer menu and it directs you how to extract stuff and repair it with Scales/Hide and also introduces you to that lore. You start with the Building module, and it'll direct you how to add additional modules as well, presumably which will be more organized. Similarly, the Fishing Rod, Bow, etc get referenced in their own contexts and you're able to repair them from there. This keeps you from having to actually Craft key items and also gives you a more permanent reminder of them.
You start with some kind of weapon. It isn't great, and it's probably a spear or something without too much complexity, but it's enough to kill animals with. Kill enough and you can unlock base building, which will allow you to Craft additional weapons. This change should make Combat/health/death more of an early-game thing and not require any specific restrictions (other than your spawn area being devoid of enemies so you're not immediately overwhelmed). This also fits into the story more -- why would they give you all these useful machines and no way of defending yourself? Maybe the sword has useful enchantments they thought would be great but they're broken and have to be fixed somehow.
Pull industry.add(weapons) out of the init -- it'll instead be unlocked when weapons crafting is unlocked.
Move over backpacks and anything else that makes sense (metallic keys?).
Add a recipe for coffee -- takes 2x beans.
Add one for tea -- 2x leaves.
Add one for juice -- 2x fruit.
Look at any other category classified as food with high-water content and turn it into a drink.
coffee, tea and juice should have the water stat like food. They should have the cat drink.
Alcoholic drinks should have alcohol: true.
Drink Menu
Pull in anything from the drinks category.
Work identically to the food menu.
They can (33%) give 1-10 food.
Reroute poisonous definitions.
Satiety
Add a "Drink Satiety" and "Food Satiety" stats that prevent the hunger/thirst bars from going down. Idk what the framework for buffs is -- hopefully there's an exit hook I can use to restart the regen.
Add a "Satiety" stat to alcoholic drinks and "satiety_type" = "drink" Equal chance of 1-10 or 10-100.
Eating something with satiety triggers satiety on the satiety_type.
Temporarily change satiety_type to food so I can test this feature as well.
Milk
Occasionally render an animal corpse as mammal: true (33% I guess). Add a TODO about changing animal names to reflect mammal status.
On the animal corpse extract, if they have that mammal trait, give an extract for milk. Milk should count as a drink.
Milk can be poisonous (similar to other food), and restores a certain amount of thirst like other drinks.
I like the idea of being able to (very rarely) extract milk from some seeds/nuts/beans. Maybe do this at a special station.
Fermenting Vat
Add the fermenting vat base fixture.
Add it I guess as a normal unlock. Idk where to put any of the extracurricular base features yet, so will leave that for later. Add a TODO to remind myself later.
Add fermenting_vat{}.
Add "Progress", "Make Dairy" and "Make Alcohol" subtabs.
These should be a pmlike via that framework (check fuel_refinery{} for the most modern version). The amt here should be the number of turns (real time) it takes, 10% chance of 1-10 or 90% chance of 10-100.
Anything put in should store into a data{} datapoint along with data similar to how farming works.
At the top of the Proggress menu list out all fermentables, their amt, how much time they have left and what they're actually going to turn into. This should be reflected in the data.
The actual fermentable product (beer, cider, wine, etc) (yogurt, cheese, kefir, etc) should be an itemgen thing that reflects the name of the thing being fermented (like Sourwood Apples turn into Sourwood Cider).
Import other stuff from the farming system (or separate that system out) so the turn system works and has an event at the end of a turn cycle when observed.
This event should remove the fermentable from the datapoint and add the item to a fermented{} datapoint.
Fermented products should be buttons that are just listed out.
Clicking the button should take the fermented item.
Intoxication
Drinking alcohol before the satiety point should add an Intoxication: 30 debuff. After? Idk check the notes, I forgot what this meant.
Add a TODO to this code to maybe refine it a bit at the end of the game -- intoxication levels (based on a propgen), being intoxicated even with satiety, etc.
The intoxication debuff should make it harder to see in some way (probably one of the quantum/void effects) and also make there be a 25% chance that when you move you move the wrong way.
Kitchen Fixture
Add kitchen{}
Add a Kitchen base fixture. Again, separate unlock for now. Add a TODO and move on with your life.
List out all foods and drinks in a pmlike.
Clicking one should populate current_recipe{}.
List out the ingredients below and let you reclaim them.
Have an input for a name of a food (optional to save).
List out a composite food that averages all their properties -- hunger/thirst/satiety/poison. May need to make more of those in the propgen.
Have a "Save Recipe" next to the input. If clicked, store in recipes{} in a data structure that makes sense, provided there's a name, otherwise give an error.
Have a "Craft Recipe xN" button, where N is the number of items in the recipe.
Give N number of items of that composite food.
Saved Recipes
Have a "Recipes" button up at the top.
Goes to a separate menu where you see the recipe name in an input box, the ingredients (with how many of them can be crafted), a properties area, a "Craft" and "Craft All" button if it's craftable, A "remove" checkbox", and a big "Save" button down at the bottom. Idk how to fit this all in. Maybe a MODE up at the top that replaces craft/craft all with "[x] remove" and the name with an input box for it.
Craft/Craft all should do so, pulling items out as possible. Refresh the menu.
"Save" should save recipe names, removing anything marked with "Remove". Refresh the menu.
Spices
Add a spices section to a new recipe.
This is a pmlike of potion ingredients.
Adding a potion ingredient to a recipe gives it a slight buff from one of its effects -- about 25% as effective (or 33% if that makes no sense). It does however apply it to every single product item.
The gen of the potion ingredient's spice form is based on the potion ingredient.
You can add as many as you want, however effect magnitudes/durations don't stack.
Make sure this is reflected in the product's properties.
Make sure the terrain configuration matches when you assign a specialty, or throw an error and tell you to prospect. Tricky Fix.
Different farming outputs should have different input costs -- this is probably the best way to balance the existing system. Insects are fixed.
Stick anything here that's relevant into the Late-Game genetics post: "A genetics system makes an increasing amount of sense for organic farming - could also influence the properties that come from extracts or even what you can extract, including really crazy things like rock extracts. Besides, this is something I wanted in the system from the beginning. Will need to think this through more, and also maybe have wayyy more information stored in the itemgen or propgen -- things like fuel_value or compost_value aren't rendered that way right now. Will probably be a pretty big project."
Right now, can't mine both surface rocks and cave rocks due to different itemgens and no distinction between them - needs to be fixed before this feature goes live. Surface rocks also aren't extractable rocks yet, so this is locked down to mining exclusively. Making them separate extracts would make the most sense, especially since the types are different between them anyway.
There should be input and output limits (I had this set to 50 in my notes originally). Will need a separate update for this, along with however fixtures are upgraded.
The speed on farming fixtures is still ticking up even after the fixture is stopped -- Tricky fix most likely.
The farming output should be the base item, not the embryo.
Like feeds, compost should go automatically into your inventory.
More Loose Ends
Cave resources and surface resources aren't knowable at the same time -- this will impact the procgen crafting system, and maybe other stuff as well. Whenever I fix this, I should also update the farmables{} functions for it and I guess anything else too.
Farming fixtures need to be crafted via the procgen crafting system -- already have a TODO in farming_fixtures{} as well.
animal tercos should be way simpler since animal spawns are a lot rarer -- maybe repurpose quantum configurations since they might be scrapped from there. Needs to be more easily predictable though -- maybe based on nonad information and water color? Or could add some more period terrain patterns to inform this and other tercos systems.
Hook the Base Coloring dyeing systems into actual dye items.
Could expand the dye system a whole hell of a lot by adding all wikipedia colors -- the item would explicitly be that color. The dye system would list out only those dyes you own. This would then make insects more useful
Maaaaaybe make dyes a consumable thing where all paint effects use up "paint" items -- dyes can turn into paint directly or dye one another into new paints, both at a Paint Station. The formulas would be saved so you can reconstruct favorite paints easily. Paint use should be on action, not on block (similar to the way aether is used). This would make insects *way* more useful, as well as paintings, other decorative stuff, etc. The downside is you lose the "get color from world" mechanic which is neat -- maybe instead have that as a high-level unlock that also requires other paint as a base.
Addendum: Paintings are no longer on the extract system since they're a special type of "junk" -- need to fix this in this update. It also might make more sense to have a specialized fixture for this kind of thing that would also tie into other types of junk.
Pets Dyeing
You should be able to change scout/mount animal color/symcolor/xcolor via the dyeing system. With mount animals, this would change the color you appear as as well.
I like the idea of having item colors be grayish colors by default (still colored but less so), with the dyeing system allowing you to have snazzier ones or even gradients to make those items stand out more.
Icons would also help considerably, but that's a bigger project. Maybe something to do late-game. If so, then the item colors update would also be done late-game so items are more high-visibility for now.
Dyeing Base Fixtures
All this code happens in dyeing{}.
There should be some other uses for the dye system as well, though idk what.
Add a "Dye Fixtures" button to the base menu.
Click it and then click a fixture on screen to open a menu.
This menu should show the symcolor and xcolor (probably just white) in a really big display.
You can pick either the "Font Color" (xcolor) or "Background color" (symcolor).
A dye table will render below. Generalize the one in base_recoloring{}.
The preview will affect the xcolor and symcolor of the giant object.
Saving the changes will subtract the appropriate amount of dye, leave the menu, alter the actual fixture and then re-render the map.
I hate to do it, but the storage and inventory weights system is entirely too complicated. Neither system works well for the inventory-simplifying ideas I want this game to have, in fact they overcomplicate it.
The new version should look like this:
Inventory
Items should have a certain sensible amount of weight based on the category with variance. Weight cannot be upgraded at an Anvil.
There should be a Backpack item that can be equipped. Backpacks have a carry stat and maybe some category-specific bonuses -- these make those categories go down a certain percentage of their actual weight.
Backpacks can turn into metal equivalents at the smithy, so their properties can be upgraded at an anvil or they can be combined together at a blast furnace. If you have the materials for it you can theoretically have infinite inventory space.
Base Storage
Anything stored in the base inventory can still be accessed by all base fixtures, including portable ones. This is very important and part of all storage ideas.
You can store items in your base wherever you are in it, however there's a limit to it based on the total amt of items, not the types of items.
You can upgrade this with Base Storage fixtures -- these maybe have tiers and trade physical base space for more storage capability. Base Storage fixtures will also let you pull out whatever items you want, sorted by category the way mount animal storage is, which the portable version of this covers the last remaining hole.
Do the base/inventory cross-pull system in the first checklist point in the pylons update -- should be reasonably easy to pull off as part of this update.
Conclusion
This update will drastically simplify the backpacks and crystechs systems so inventory management is way less of a hassle -- this puts it on par with chest-based storage systems and then actually improves those formulas, rather than replacing a bloated disorganized system with a new bloated disorganized system.
I guess I need to completely rewrite the way junk works -- they need to fit in roughly with extracted resource categories, maybe some more specialized materials here and there. Then migrate all hooks and rewrite furniture where appropriate.
Composite items make a lot of sense, like a "Bone headdress" might give both bone and feather. Idk, I need to rethink this whole thing really, so I'll table this update until later.
Junker Menu
Add a button to the top of the scrapper that lets you scrap junk.
Alter junk.cats{} to have different outputs -- these should be raw extracted materials or occasionally things useful inside scrapper{}.
On the junker menu, have a table that lists all junk (with inventory coloring) and what you get out of it and a button to scrap it.
The scrapping function here removes the item, gives you the appropriate stats and refreshes the menu.
Up at the top list out all stats that this system targets that has more than 0 in it. Make it as compact as possible. Getting these props to splay out right will probably require an .init().
-- replace synthesizer with a cloner -- clone items/ores/anything useful basically for their cost.
-- add late-game notes about also cloning crafted items/etc.
Synthesizer
This update will make the junk scrapper more useful.
Create synthesizer{}
Make a fixture for it that resembles the scrapper.
It should always exist.
List out all junker stats (via the init thing), how many you have, and what you make from them -- will always be "Synthetic X" where X is the name of the raw extractable.
Add a note to the PGCS about using synthetic resources.
Basically with this you can create synthetic ingredients from junk which can be useful in basic crafting recipes, the PGCS or as an extra set of properties for the other crafting system. Junk will still have two uses however since it can go into things useful on actual scrapping functions.
I really need to look at every single feature that these things do and mass simplify them to whatever the barebones acceptability is, while also making sure it isn't too complicated.
Anything else will belong to the Pets lab (which is probably wise to rename Domestication to). Here are some research targets I came up with in my first passthrough:
Galloping
Storage (or possibly storage that lets you unsummon them and keep the items in their inventory).
upgrade targets via Aether Lenses
the Cyborg Station
Anything related to Scouts (that feature isn't done yet but will need to revisit it).
Move fishing rods back to the old crafting system, with specific types (crate, cave, etc), with different recipes. Upgrade the UX accordingly, particularly since things like fast fishing rods are mutually exclusive as well. All these various optional types and whatever else I want to do should be moved to a Fishing Lab, which should be able to be researched.
Remove the absorb/solid/water/floor thing. Too annoying.
Limits
Get base building messages working somewhere.
You should only be able to highlight up to a certain amount at a time (upgradeable infinitely somehow) -- add a note in the other bases pre-org about it. Same deal with shape sizes and maybe anything else that makes sense -- some kind of base fixture for building upgrades probably works the best.
Aether
All actions cost aether according to some object. The amount of tiles selected doesn't matter (since it will have its own set of limits), just the number of actions. Highlighting/unhighlighting is free. Show the amount of aether next to each action, though in a unique class in case I want to toggle its visibility or something.
Pylons should affect aether use.
Base Labbing
Create a "Base Building" lab.
Assign base building features to it, including all functionality that shouldn't be defaulted (like prebuild and tile) and probably whatever it is that's upgrading base building stats.
Assign the pylon system here as well.
Migrate anything else over that makes sense (probably nothing but you never know).
Materials Clusters -- I like the idea of some rarer materials occasionally spawning in the world -- they can be crafted products or exotics or w/e, will want to look at it. Possibly on a terco system. Improves exploration a bit.
Instead of quivers having their own arrows, arrows should be a homogeneous item and the quiver just dictates its properties (similar to the way torches work in the new system).
These types of items should go in their own category -- ropes, grappling ropes, torches, bombs, arrows, bait, snares, etc.
This makes the Fletcher useless, which is acceptable.
Arrows can instead be a crafted item in whatever the menu/fixture ropes, bombs, etc are also in.
