wood no longer a fuel source?

There, you want to fight things and get a lot of pixels? Fuel your ship using dirt. You're going to get dirt no matter what, and a lot of it. So you might as well condense it and use it for space fuel. Instantly a fuel tank of fuel, and all you need is a lot of pixels and a lot of dirt (plus a particle condenser). Added to my mod. Anyone still complaining about not having enough options to get fuel definitely needs to look at my mod at least.

 

We should also point out one key point.

To jump to other planets you need coal. To find coal you are encouraged to go underground. To explore underground you need torches, to make torches you need coal, which is the fuel source you want underground for....

 

I appear to be the only person here who does enjoy the mining part and going underground, along with the challenges that includes. Considering how deep the worlds are and how far down you can go, I think its a shame that people here seem to dismiss a part of the world that makes up about 99% of the world they play in. I don't mind having to go to find fuel, and it would be sad if it was too easy, that you could just go from planet to planet only to run around them, loot the one dungeon and TP out to move on with no effort involved whatsoever. Its supposed to be a survival type game, and in survival games you have to make an effort to survive. Its a core mechanic. As you move from early easy stages to harder planets, better fuels become more available. Alpha sector har coal, beta has coal and uranium (its not even rare), and I haven't even tested gamma yet but I assume there will be more. And in the latest patch there are so much more ore than there used to be, so if you even try to go below the surface you will find coal pretty quickly, and more than enough to get in between planets. I spend 5 mins per planet mining coal on the surface and I get around with a surplus. Upgrade your picks, people, there's a reason why you can.

And to the people complaining about having to use coal for torches; how many torches do you even put down in one run? Do you paint the walls with the things or what?

That being said I like the charcoal idea that someone posted earlier, where you could smelt wood into coal.

 

I'm finding less than half the coal I did before the new patch. I have more diamond than coal. It may just be my planet that I'm on, but it's stopping me from moving to other planets right now.

And I went deep into my planet. Hardly any coal.

I made a bunch of torches at the start, but then I ran out of coal and I can't explore underground any further because I am out of torches and I can't move from this planet because I'm out of coal.

 

There should still be ample uranium (the green stuff) on the higher level planets, and thats a fuel source too. But don't smelt it into bars if you want to burn it.

 

I'm fine with the idea of a ship running on all sorts of things. Wood and coal burn. In a far-advanced society that has faster-than-light travel, they probably made adjustments to the engines of their ships to run on almost anything. It would be reasonable in the future, just like it would be reasonable in the game, if you find a planet without advanced elements or an abundance of coal, to have an engine that runs of simple things like wood. It would be kind of a fallback option, just like it would be in the game if they re-implemented it.

We may not have engines that run on coal now, but our engines aren't very advanced in the respect that they can't run on a variety of things. The ship engines in the game can run on a wide range of things. Our engines currently in reality run on either bio-fuels or fossil fuels, and nothing else, save for a few super-advanced engines that can run on higher level elements.

It's reasonable, and they should put it back in. It made everything a lot easier.
And as a side note, I like having to find fuel in order to travel because it adds an element of gameplay that many games forsake. It's an interesting challenge, and I think it adds to the game as a whole.

 

1. Whilst I did like the whole aspect of being able to cut down a few trees and be able to fill my fuel instantly as it gave me a feeling of much more freedom to explore anywhere in the galaxy, I've come to realise now that as coal is my only resource for fuel at the moment, I have begun to appreciate the individual planet much more than I would have done if I had warped to a planet just to pick up some wood and dash off somewhere else.

2. There could perhaps be some method to refine 'unrefined wood'? There have been various mods suggested in the earlier comments for those who really find the new patch so upsetting.

3. There is the whole concept of ore being a lot more common now even on the upper levels of the planet, whilst some may find the search/mining a bore I actually quite enjoy the experience, since when mining into the lower sections of the planet there is some form of skill required to avoid higher level monsters, evaluating how deep some holes go.

4. my only complaint would be that since coal is the only real source of energy earlier on, it is also used for many other things like torches and higher tiers of armour - meaning that coal must be used much more wisely and for those that can't actually find much coal this may become a problem. However since ore is much more common/easier to find, I don't see this as too much of a problem.

 

You use coal for steel, which is true and can put a strain on your fuel supply, but as mentioned earlier, the superior fuel source of uranium is readily available on pretty much all beta sector plantes where you should be if you have access to steel. The level of surface coal there is also pretty high in my experience, so this has never stopped me. Digging a bit deeper nets you uranium and frees up pretty much all your coal for steel/torch/campfire needs.

 

While I agree with wood no longer being a viable fuel, I'm still having trouble finding anything other than coal, which is painful due to wishing to reserve coal for torches and steel. I'm in Beta sector and I've dug down to the mantle on two planets and I haven't seen a single piece of uranium ore anywhere yet. :\

Edit: Just dug down to mantle on third and fourth Beta-sector planets, one was very small and got to the mantle within a few minutes, but the other planet was VERY large and took over 2 hours (I had to do a lot of manual digging to get around the monsters, as it was cold so I had to wear the snow infantry gear, which means Beta-sector monsters oneshot me), and still no uranium. So that's one large, one very large, and two very small planets with no underground uranium, which makes me want to cry.

Unrelatedly, diamond is INSANELY common, hell I was getting it back in alpha sector. So why the hell can't I find uranium?! This is exceptionally annoying because most of these planets don't have a whole lot of coal, either, and MOST of that coal goes into making torches to look for more fuel that I can't find. >:C

Edit: Did another planetary dig to the mantle in Beta sector, this time a different star system, STILL no Uranium. Got pissed off and farmed up the mats to go to Gamma sector, dug down to a Gamma sector planet's mantle, STILL NO URANIUM. Am I doing something wrong? Is uranium unique to certain planet types or something, like moons? This is infuriating!

 

Thats odd. I've always found plenty of uranium when digging in the near-magmarock layer in beta sector. I mean, not as plentyful as iron or silver, but still quite a bit. I've done this on two planets with no trouble, but it might vary between planets for all I know. Underground mini-biomes might be a reason there is no uranium as they sometimes have special ores or just one kind.

 

You can use a stone furnace to turn 10 wood into 1 coal ore. Looks like _somebody_ has been paying attention to the whinging. Thanks Chucklefish, this makes me happy.

 

Have you found anything interesting underground to make it worthwhile? So far it hasn't felt rewarding to me, especially compared to Tiy's previous project, Terraria. I just don't have a huge incentive to go down there.

I would love to know if anyone has found anything of interest underground, because I loved that in Terraria.

As far as torches go, I drop one each time I get to the edge of the lit up area. I stretch it out as far as my matter manipulator will place it, so I use quite a few torches.

On the plus side, we can now convert wood into coal.

 

Thanks for adding wood to coal Chucklefish

 

Seems like a reasonable compromise. Makes it so you still have to collect A LOT of wood, but wood is plentiful.

 

Well, this last patch added it at a 10/1 ratio...

 

I never played Terraria so I don't know what kinds of things you refer to there, sadly.

I find the challenge of caving itself interesting. Especially with the deep darkness that you need to light up in order to get around safely. There are plenty of different mini-biomes underground that are unique and can't be found on the surface (that I know of), so there is that. There are a few underground mini-structures that I've found as well. There are quite a few treasure chests with various loot, just like above ground. There are TONS of pixels all over the place. Enemies are meaner further down, making combat more challenging. The enclosed space also adds a new tactical dimension. If you just dig straight down through stone then yes, I guess it would get boring, but I like to use the caves to get around and hunt for ores and treasure, and to me that is rewarding, but in fun, challenge and materials.

But then again, to each his own I suppose. Some also need the sunlight I guess.

 

It'd be cool to turn wood to charcoal, kinda like how Minecraft does it.

 

This was an old thread and this is how wood currently works.