Topic

[Suggestions] How to make Blockmaking more interesting/rewarding?

Suggest anything you would like to be able to create with a Blockmaker, which is currently not available

i've just finished learning the blockmaking skill, and once found a blockmaker i 'discovered' it has only one product craftable, urth blocks
so since i was expecting more to be creable from it i tryed to look on the wiki and on the encyclopedia to see how are unlocked the other products, but found nothing

old threads:
What to do with blockmaking?
Make Blockmaking useful
Blockmaking Questions

some questions:
-are the blocks of urth the only possible product of a blockmaking machine?
-if there are more possible products, how are they unlocked? have them any concrete use?

for some reason when i firstly heard the word blockmaking i had in mind toy cubes, or legos :P
something toy related anyway, not just blocks of compressed dirt :|

they may have their use surely(urth blocks), but (like already said in one of the old threads) having an entire skill, which required time to get learned, required time to learn the previous required skills, required resources/time/currants to buy/assemble the machine parts (i just used the public ones, but as a general matter), +fuel, the final result this skill gives is far too little to balance the costs it had to be acquired and fully used (assuming one wants to be autonomous and making themselfes the fuel one uses)

it's not really enouth, but it would be nice to be able to craft cubimals with a blockmaker
suggest more, if you have any ideas

more personal rant:
i once thought that fuelmaking was one of the most useless and less rewarding skills ever, now blockmaking has won that spot (will probably unlearn it as soon as possible, 5% time penality is wasted :/ )
it's some time i'm not too fond of the machine crafting mechanic, but guess that's something that adds to my view on this skill

Posted 43 days ago by Zean Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • you need urth to complete construction projects so...it's hardly useless.

    and you need fuel to keep the machines running, so that's hardly useless either.
    Posted 43 days ago by jerk nugget Subscriber! | Permalink
  • then, something more useful?

    i know it's not useless, or it wouldn't be there, but it's hardly satisfying as result, or maybe it's just me with too high expectations :/

    it's like there was a whole cooking skill only to make sammiches, only sammiches, a whole skill
    that's how i'm seeing fuel and blocks at now :/
    Posted 43 days ago by Zean Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We used to be able to make several kinds of urth blocks, which required different ingredients. These were used in the old street projects we used to have. It's been quite a long time since they shifted to only one kind of block, so I don't remember why this changed. It's definitely much easier now that only one kind is required for building our houses and towers; perhaps it would be a bigger challenge if different types of blocks were required again.
    Posted 43 days ago by Voluptua Sneezelips Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can't edit posts from my phone, so here's more info for you on the history of the old blocks. They were removed from the game in March 2012. We could also make Bricks, Grade AA Earth Blocks and Grade AAA Earth blocks. To learn more about them, you can check the wiki at www.glitch-strategy.com.

    Also, you might feel that fuel is useless right now...but if you ever want to use a woodworker machine, you will discover that it eats fuel cells like potato chips. I think it's much cheaper to make your own than to buy them. :)
    Posted 43 days ago by Voluptua Sneezelips Subscriber! | Permalink
  • ....fine, i've changed the thread title, people seems to focus too much on the word useless(or maybe only read the title), totally missing what i'm upset about....

    i've woodworking and metalworking, and made myself some furniture already, sometimes i've bought some fuel, other times i've leeched
    still, spending 3 skills, to make 1 fuel pill(one kind of item), looks like an huge waste (1 fuelmaking + 1jelly + 1bogspecializ) at least in the current state i'm in where spending 3 skills would determine an huge slowing down to learn anything else
    same issue is applyed to blockmaking, a whole skill + machine to make only urth blocks looks like a waste of a skill, almost on the same level with eyeballery which could easily be just an upgrade card

    i'm not asking for more dirt blocks

    had learned blockmaking exactly to make urth blocks to add a floor to my house, but what i'm upset about is that after i've done the blocks i'll never use that skill and machine ever again, unless i decide to build a tower, which i'm not interested into currently

    i would have been far less upset, if not upset at all, if blockmaking and blockmaker had some other use than making costruction materials, like for example making cubimals (just a random idea)

    on an other side note, it's very strange how many other resources got merged and 'simplified' (see fruits, gas, spices) while we have 4 machines, 2 of which only create 1 item each, and the other 2 only 3 each...
    couldn't TS make only 1 machine for all construction materials?
    or to put it in a different way, there are 8 construction materials and 4 machines to make them, couldn't there be only 1 machine to make those 8 construction materials? i say, my frying pan is more versatile
    (that wouldn't make blockmaking look far better, but would at least hide better the extremely limitated use it has)

    to quit it with fuelmaking, since i wanted to focus on blockmaking in this thread, it could have been used hooch or a further distillation of it to fuel the machines, with no need to add useless complexity with one more machine and skill for something that could have been handled by other skills from the alchemical skill-tree
    Posted 42 days ago by Zean Subscriber! | Permalink
  •  Having unique machines allows them to add to them in the future, should they choose.  I fully expect fuel cells with more fuel since the total tank size increased. 

    I think what you're not seeing is how machines changed over time.  Blockmaking and fuelmaking predate metal and wood machines by about a year, if not more.  Once upon a time, players could only run one machine at a time, could not leave the zone while the machine was running, and could not do any other crafting if a machine was running.  Only now, in the last few months, would it make any sense to have them all run through one machine, and at this point, that would require work to remove skills and/or machines and add a new one, work that seems trivial since the current system is more flexible, at least when it comes to expansion, then a single machine would be.

    ETA: Those old threads you linked to are from prior to the new housing system, when there was generally no use for blocks, since street projects were rare. 
    Posted 42 days ago by Red Sauce Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i use the skills to help friends build towers and add onto their houses, and also to contribute to towers i especially like - plus contributing to a project will get you some rewards. this gives me something to do on those days where i have no new quests and nothing really going on. if i was only going to use it to add a floor to my house i can see how all that work for so little would be frustrating, for sure.
    Posted 42 days ago by jerk nugget Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Zean for some reason when i firstly heard the word blockmaking i had in mind toy cubes, or legos :P
    something toy related anyway, not just blocks of compressed dirt :|

    You may be looking for this post:
    www.glitch.com/forum/ideas/...
    (:
    Posted 41 days ago by Lemo Subscriber! | Permalink