Coal/Torch Rebalance

I can't say I'm aware how much coal is really needed after tier 1, but I can't imagine that anyone that bothers to plant trees will have any trouble once the farming persistence gets fixed.

 

This would wreck my game because I don't use plant fiber. I throw it out because I have more then enough coal, if I run out of coal, then my 1,000 + wood will do the trick.

 

I believe you are over exaggerating a bit. I don't think it would "wreck" your game, but would be more of a minor temporary setback. One Jungle planet will give you tons of Plant Fiber, and as soon as you find a tree that drops that instead of wood you have an unlimited supply. I do agree it should remain coal though.

 

My previous save (before today's wipe) wasn't as far along as some folks, but I don't really see the problem. Once I put in the small amount of initial time to make a tree farm, I get more than 100 wood per minute using just a stone axe and replanting, because with a screen-wide tree farm, the trees literally grow faster than you can chop them down with a stone axe. This is more than 10 coal per minute (neglecting time to burn it), which means the coal needed to make, say, the inactive robot, is less than 10 minutes of labor. Getting the iron is dramatically more labor than that.

 

I cannot say I have ever had an issue with finding coal and keeping it around. Early game I never really spent coal as fuel unless I absolutely needed to go to a different planet for something, and even then I wouldn't exceed 50ish fuel for the travel and the coal I can find on the other planet is more than plenty to replace that. Another thing I have done to prevent coal usage is breaking the background for lighting during the day, so torches are not necessary as well as making the Lantern Stick. I'm nearing end-game at this time on my first character and have more coal than I know what to do with since I'm no longer using it to fuel my ship but using the other fuel ores available.

 

Recall that this whole thread probably predates plantable trees and probably burning wood for coal. This was a pain point during the brief patch where the only way to get coal was to mine it, and the spaceship wouldn't take wood anymore, so it was fairly common to be limited by coal of all things in the early game. Now the whole point might be moot. I still think plant fiber torches are a good idea but that should be easily moddable.

 

Hey guys, I'm new to using forums, but I wanted to ask why is it that some unrefined wood aren't smelt-able (if that is a word)? I have a stack of some unrefined wood from another planet that I want to turn into coal, but it won't start the smelting process when I put it into the furnace. I went back to my starting planet and tried using the wood there and it works fine. So I don't know if this is true, but are some wood from trees not smelt-able?

 

Protip 1: don't thread-jack. This subforum is for suggesting features, and this particular thread is for discussing a proposed change to how torches are made. It is not to ask random questions about how to use wood or coal or whatever, start a new thread in some more appropriate subforum.

 

I kinda support this too. I've only just arrived at the Beta Sector stage of Starbound, and right now I need coal for:
- making a LOT of steel
- fueling my ship
- making torches

As the OP too said... I have a lot of ores in my storage, pretty much bulking out compared to the others, but coal is significantly scarce right now.

EDIT: I only just discovered this... why don't you make a Refinery, put all your redunant ores in there, get a lot of Pixels, learn the 'coal' item to your 3d printer and then make coal yourself?