Difference between revisions of "Stone-Age Guide"

Revision as of 01:31, 16 December 2019

Welcome to TFC+!

Terrafirmacraft+ is an re-imagination of what Minecraft can be, with a emphasis on making the game more believable. It is suited for experienced players of vanilla Minecraft, whom feel that an amount of complexity and detail has been lacking in the vanilla game, and want a level of realism that vanilla Minecraft does not provide.

This guide will help new players through the early game, with a focus on the differences between TFC+ and vanilla Minecraft. Players who already have experience with the original TerraFirmaCraft might want to look at Differences from TFC instead.

This guide assumes you have installed Terrafirmacraft+; if you have not, visit the Installation page for help.

Getting started

HUD and Statistics

When you start a new world, you might notice that your HUD is quite different from what you are used to in vanilla Minecraft. This section will guide you through the various bars and menus of the Terrafirmacraft+ HUD.

Health

The first bar that is quite different from vanilla Minecraft is the health bar. Instead of hearts, in TFC+, HP is shown as a red bar. You start with 1000 max HP, and this will vary depending on various factors, such as nutrition and XP level. HP will regenerate very slowly over time, as long as your hunger is above 25%.

Hunger

Instead of shanks of food, hunger is represented with a green bar.

Unlike vanilla Minecraft, which uses arbitrary "filling values", the hunger system in TerraFirmaCraft+ is based off of food weight. TerraFirmaCraft+ uses the imperial measurement of ounces. However, this measurement does not relate to any other measurement in the game, so if the concept of ounces confuses you, you are welcome to instead think of them as generic "food units" or "bites." Each stack of food in TerraFirmaCraft+ can weigh up to 160 ounces.

Players will slowly get hungrier over the course of a few days, even if they do not move. When a player is very hungry, they will begin to suffer negative effects, such as Mining Fatigue and Weakness, until they have eaten again.

Thirst

Freshwater pond

Terrafirmacraft+ introduces the idea of Thirst. Players will slowly get more thirsty, and will suffer heat strokes if they are completely dehydrated. Thirst is represented with a blue bar. Like Hunger, Thirst will go down slowly, even if players are not moving. Players can only drink fresh water from pools scattered throughout the world, distinguished from the coastal seawater by cattails and lily pads. Thus, finding fresh, drinkable, water is very important for survival.

To drink water, players must Right Click on the block under Fresh Water. You can hold Right Click to continue drinking until you are no longer thirsty.

One of the main goals of the early game is to make a Ceramic Jug so that transporting fresh water - enabling exploration of large distances - is possible.

Experience

The experience system represents life experience, and so each level increases a player's maximum health, thirst, and alcohol tolerance, allowing them to take more hits, survive longer without drinking fresh water, and drink more alcohol before getting negative side effects.

Unlike vanilla, there is no enchanting or tool repairs to consume experience levels, so the only way to decrease your experience level is death.

Body Temperature

Body Temperature is shown by a thermometer on the bottom right side of the screen. The green area of the thermometer shows the player's comfort range. The player's body temperature is affected by the season, their local climate, and certain blocks. If the player is too hot, or too cold, they will suffer negative effects such as Slowness and Mining Fatigue. They will also not be able to sleep in Straw Beds. Being too hot, or too cold, will also cause the player to lose hunger and thirst faster, as their bodies will "sweat" to keep cool, or burn calories to warm themselves up.

Body Temperature can be managed using Clothing.

Inventory

The Inventory in Terrafirmacraft+ contains four tabs: the inventory tab, which is like the vanilla Inventory, allowing you to interact with your items and craft, the Skills tab, displaying a player's proficiency in various skills, the Time tab, displaying the time of year, season, and day of week, and the Nutrition tab, which displays the five categories of food a player must eat in other to maintain their maximum health.

Unlike Vanilla, all crafting is done directly in the inventory tab. Players start out with a 2x2 Inventory Table, which can later be expanded with a crafting table to unlock the 3x3 grid.

The First Day: Tools, Light, and Clothing

The goal for the first day is to prepare for the night and for the player's long-term survival. It is important to look around you, and to see what resources are available to you. If you see yourself in a plain, with grass and boulders stretching to the horizon, you might be able to find metal nuggets and animals to hunt quite easily. If you see yourself on a coast of an ocean, seaweed and fresh water is easy to find. If you find yourself in the deep rain forest, clay, fresh water, and wood are plentiful.

What You Can't Do

You might notice that you can't punch trees to get wood. This is because the tech-tree in Terrafirmacraft+ is completely different from that of vanilla Minecraft. This means that your first tools will be made from stone. There is no such thing as wooden tools in Terrafirmacraft+, and wasting your time to punch down a tree will yield you absolutely nothing. You cannot make planks, and thus a crafting table in Terrafirmacraft+ - you will need a saw, which can only be made from metals.

There is no such thing as a Wooden or Stone pickaxe in Terrafirmacraft. In the early game, you do not mine stone for ore. Instead, there are other ways to acquire metal ore and tools, without needing a pickaxe. This will be how you will make a pickaxe to mine more ore.

Punching dirt is not recommended, as even if you manage to break a block, it, in addition to sand, gravel, stone and cobblestone, are affected by gravity in TerraFirmaCraft+. Unlike in Vanilla Minecraft, gravity-affected blocks are able to fall sideways, in addition to falling straight down. You will not be able to create a house out of these blocks.

Players used to vanilla Minecraft might wonder how one stores items in Terrafirmacraft+. Because planks as they are in vanilla are locked behind metal, early-game alternatives to the chest such as the Straw Basket, Large Vessel, Ceramic Vessel, and Raw Hide Bag are available.

Sticks and Stones

Some rocks laying on the ground.

In Terrafirmacraft+, the first thing you should do, instead of punching trees, is to gather the rocks laying scattered all across the ground. 64 rocks will last you through the first few days of gameplay.

Occasionally, you might find some ore nuggets. Be sure to take note of the location, as these are important later.

You will also want to find some sticks. These can be found occasionally on the ground under trees, by breaking leaves, on shores as driftwood, or by breaking leaf litter beneath trees.

Knapping

Knapping is the process of using two rocks to create heads for stone tools. Right Click while holding a stack of two or more rocks to open the knapping interface.

The knapping interface is a 5x5 grid. Clicking on a square of the grid will break off that piece of stone. Be careful where you click - if you make a mistake, you cannot undo it and you will have to start again. If you successfully create a specific shape, a tool head will appear to the right which can then be attached to a stick or a bone in the crafting grid to create a stone tool.

Tip: Some of the tools can be knapped out differently than the below forms, feel free to experiment.

Knives are a weak melee weapon, and a useful tool. With a knife, you can gather seaweed, turn furs and animal hides into leather or clothing, process grain into cereal, and remove decay from food.

Axes are useful for felling trees, and also serve as a good Slashing damage weapon.

Shovels can be used gather dirt, clay, gravel, and sand.

Tip: Completed stone tools do not stack, but tool heads will stack up to 32. At night when you are hiding from monsters, you can knap a handful of each tool head to keep in your inventory. Then during the day when your tool breaks, you can quickly combine another head with a stick or bone for a new tool.

If you successfully create a specific shape, a tool head will appear to the right which can then be attached to a stick or a bone in the crafting grid to create a stone tool.

Wood

Wood is gathered by chopping down trees with an axe. If you break the bottom log of the tree with an axe, it will break the entire tree into logs and sticks. If your axe does not have enough durability to chop down the entire tree, only the top of the tree will be chopped, and the axe will break.

Trees come in two sizes: the normal tree that populates forests and grasslands, which drop regular-sized logs, and the rarer large trees which drop large logs. Large logs can be hewed into regular-sized logs; however, it is not recommended you do this, as large logs are comparatively rare, and can be used for several applications regular-sized logs cannot.

Logs can be stored in a log pile by ⇧ Shift + Right Click onto the ground. Only regular-sized logs can be used to start a log pile, however, once the log pile is created, it can be used to store large logs, as well.

Hunting and Foraging

Finding a source of food and water is important for your long term survival.

Seaweed

A good source of early-game food - if you are near the shore - is seaweed. Seaweed can be harvested using Right Click on the block below the seaweed while holding a knife. Once you have a few pieces of seaweed, you can stack them together by hovering over one piece of seaweed and pressing S to stack the seaweed together. Alternatively, the seaweed can be crafted together in the Inventory grid to stack them.

Meat

If you cannot locate a shore, the next best source of food is meat. Animals can be found clustered in groups around the world. Do not attack them right away! In Terrafirmacraft+, animals are neutral mobs, and will attack the player if the player attacks them. As animals are also much harder to kill than in Vanilla, you should prepare yourself before you attack an animal.

Note: Do not underestimate animals! They have large amounts of knockback and damage. They are not harmless, like in Vanilla!

Wooden Spears are weaker than Javelins, but are cheap.

Stone Javelins, when thrown, can kill a horse in three hits.

Wooden Spears and Javelins will automatically refill from your inventory after one is thrown.

Stand away some distance from the animal, and hold Right Click to prepare your spear or javelin. Do not attack the animal directly with the javelin! Hitting an animal with a javelin deals far less damage than throwing it. Release in order to throw it. Be careful, as the animal will now try to attack you. Throw multiple spears in rapid succession, until the animal dies. In Terrafirmacraft+, animals drop as much meat as their body weight. This means that large animals will drop quite a lot of meat. You do not have to worry about picking up all the meat, as a few stacks will suffice for a few days. Be sure to pick up the Raw Hide, too, as it is very useful later.

Foraging

A wild patch of rye.

Crops spawn randomly in the wild between the seasons of spring and late summer, and have a chance to regenerate during those seasons every year. Breaking a wild crop will give only seeds if it isn't fully mature, so you should wait until it has reached the last stage of growth before harvesting if you want food. If you can find mature crops, they will serve as a good source of food.

Fruit trees and Berry Bushes can also be found in the wild. To harvest the fruit from a fruit tree or berry bush, Right Click on their leaves. Berry bushes can be picked up by breaking them, and placed elsewhere later on.

Note: Do not break the leaves of the fruit trees! They take a long time to regrow.

Seeds can later be planted for a long-term food source.

If you have many stacks of food, you can stack them together. This can be done either by crafting the stacks of items together, or by hovering over one stack of food and pressing S (for "stack"). Food will eventually decay, and will have to be preserved for them to last longer. Preservation methods will be discussed later on in this article.

Firepit

Main article: Firepit

At the end of the first day, you will probably want to create a firepit to make some torches, and cook any meat you've collected so you can eat it. You'll need at least five sticks, some logs to use as fuel, and optionally a piece of straw.

First, you'll need to put two sticks in the grafting grid in a diagonal pattern to make a firestarter.

Once you have a firestarter, throw (Default: Q) three sticks on the ground or other non-flammable block. Make sure they are all stacked on the same block, preferably in the middle. It's possible that your first few tries to light the firepit will not work. You can optionally toss an extra piece of straw in order to make the process faster. Once the firepit appears, drop some logs on to it to quickly add fuel. You can Right Click on the firepit as long as you aren't holding a firestarter or flint & steel to open its interface.

If the firepit goes out, you'll need to add some fuel and then Right Click on it with a firestarter to relight it. Relighting is instant.

Once you have a firepit, it is recommended that you make some torches. Put a stick in the firepit, and wait until it is lit.

Right Click on a lit torch or lit firepit, or place and Right Click with a firestarter or flint and steel to light the torch.

Tip: Once one torch is made, it can be used to light more torches. Place a torch on the ground, and Right Click on the torch while holding sticks to light more torches from it. Torches can be used to light your surrounding area, and prevent mobs from spawning.

Straw

Breaking tall grass with a knife yields straw. Straw is highly useful in the early game, as it can be made into shelter, storage, clothing, and bedding.

Straw Blocks are crafted from four pieces of straw, and are useful for building huts to hide from mobs at night.

Note: Players and mobs are able to move through straw blocks. You cannot use straw blocks to pillar up to safety, as you will simply fall through the block when you try to jump on it. Hostile mobs will not be able to spot you if you are already hiding in a straw block enclosure, but they are able to follow you through straw blocks if they have been aggro'd while you were outside of the straw block.

Straw can also be woven using the same knapping interface as rocks. To begin weaving straw, Right Click while holding at least five pieces of straw.

The Basket has 9 slots of inventory space. It will drop its items when it is broken.	The Straw Cloak provides a moderate amount of cold protection. It is useful if you have spawned in a cold environment.	The Straw Hat provides a slight amount of heat protection.
The Grass Shirt provides a slight amount of heat protection.	The Grass Skirt provides a slight amount of heat protection.	The Grass Sandals give a small speed bonus when on sand.

Creating a Straw & Hide Bed.

If you have a piece of Large Raw Hide, you can craft a Straw and Hide bed by placing two Straw Blocks adjacent to each other. Then, Right Click with the piece of Large Raw Hide in your hand while facing the straw blocks straight-on in order to create a Straw and Hide Bed. This can be used to skip the night. Be aware, through, that you might need to craft clothing in order to sleep in a Straw and Hide Bed, as it will be too uncomfortable to sleep in if you are too hot or too cold.

If you made it this far, congratulations. You have survived your first day in Terrafirmacraft+, and have the means to survive at night. Do take note that in TFC+, mob spawns are heavily increased, and it is not a good idea to be wondering around at night. It is recommended to stay near a firepit, and perhaps continue with Pottery, if you have a clay source nearby. You may now explore more long-term possibilities for survival, and progress towards the Copper Age.

Beyond The First Day

The days beyond the first day are focused on securing more tools for survival. You will also work your way towards leaving the Stone Age and entering the Copper Age, which will unlock more possibilities for long term survival.

Environment and Seasons

Instead of vanilla biomes, in Terrafirmacraft+ there is a climate system. Rainfall, elevation, distance from the equator, and time of year determine what types of animals, plants, and terrain will generate in an area. Players will always spawn in the northern half of the map, during the season of early summer.

Terrafirmacraft+ adds the four seasons to Minecraft. The seasons affect the ambient temperature, the behavior of animals, and the timing of sunrise and sunset. In winter, unharvested crops will turn back into seeds, trees will lose their leaves, and new saplings that are not evergreen will not grow. In spring, long grass, flowers, rocks, and saplings will regenerate. In summer, crops will respawn randomly over the world, and can be harvested for seeds. In autumn, trees will turn brown, and the ambient temperature will begin to fall. The player must prepare for the four seasons adequately, and the unique challenges that each provide, such as the heat of summer, especially if the player is in a tropical region, and preparing the cold of winter, by building shelter and sewing clothes.

Areas around the equator tend to be wetter and hotter, and eventually becomes tropical, then temperate, then boreal, and finally polar at 27000 blocks North or South.

Rivers generate along biome borders, and are much larger than Vanilla. Their riverbeds will contain clay deposits that will be useful if one spawns in a climate too dry to spawn clay.

Terrafirmacraft+ also introduces the idea of Regions. Instead of biomes, Regions are what determines what trees, plants, and animals spawns in an area. For example, Black-Eyed Peas can only be found in Africa. Along the edges of regions, huge mountain ranges will generate.

Pottery

Clay deposit on a hillside with goldenrod flowers.

Clay generates near ponds and in riverbeds across the world. It can be distinguished from dirt from a distance by the existence of yellow Goldenrod flowers which only grow on clay. It can be dug with a shovel to obtain clay balls, which can then be shaped into clay items, and fired to make Pottery. Pottery is an important step of progression in Terrafirmacraft+, as it allows fresh water to be transported, #Mud to be made, and to create vessels and gold pans, which is important for progressing to the Copper Age.

Clay, like Straw and Rocks, has a knapping interface for forming clay items. Hold five clay balls in your hand, and Right Click to access it.