New Innawood mod

[Light-Wave]

Summary

Mods "Adds an innawood mod for wilderness survival."

Purpose of change

The goal of this mod is to create an 'innawood' experience, where the player can experience exploring an untouched land, and have to craft rather than loot everything they want to use.

• Removal of manmade items: The goal is to remove the spawning of all man made items and structures. Especially if they could give the survivor an edge.
• Make the game more 'innawood' friendly: Several recipes have been added or tweaked. The goal is to make it possible to get to at least around late medieval technology on your own.
• A shift towards a longer, less eventful, more stationary lifestyle. It might take a third of a season to get enough metal to even craft an anvil. Hopefully this will encourage players to plant crops and make plans for surviving the winter.

Describe the solution

• Cities, roads, cabins, and other man made structures have been almost completely removed.
• Caves and monster locations that spawned cool loot now mostly spawn natural items instead.
• Sand spawns somewhat commonly in plains.
• Get a lot of withered plants from smashing young trees.
• Bog iron can be extracted and refined to allow metalworking.
• The old ammonia recipe is back.
• Ammonia, glass from sand, cattail jelly, quicklime, cement, and mortar are auto learned.
• Mortar can be made without a cement mixer, but now requires water.
• Man made junk found on the ground or though foraging is removed.
• You can make nails without first needing a nail.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Alternatives to ammonia creation, such as creating a larger machine for it, or fermenting bodily fluids. The current version might not be completely realistic and could use an overhaul. But it is my opinion that ammonia should be craftable somehow since it can not be looted in the mod. Old discussion at #40523 and here
More withered plants from chopping trunks into logs would be nice. The result of this chopping is currently hardcoded in C++.
More complex ore refining mechanics could be included. As could different grades of iron and steel, such as wrought iron. As discussed in #32450
Autolearn recipes could be researchable instead somehow. Discussed in #12657
Scenario point cost could use an overhaul.
Would be nice to have a fabric cutting 1 tool that does not require a metalworking setup.
City centers still spawn a single intersection. Would be nice to get rid of it. Its creation is hardcoded in C++.
New overmap specials will have to either be added to the mods blacklist, or be flagged with a flag like "MAN_MADE". Either solution will cause overhead.
Once it has been confirmed that we want to have this mod in the main repo, I should probably go ahead and add the MAN_MADE tag to all man made map extras and use a blacklist instead of the current solution.
Maybe NPCs and zombies should not drop modern items?

Testing

Tried some different scenarios, played around until around midsummer. Haven't tested the ore refining yet.
For maintainers: If manmade structures start showing up on the map, check data/json/overmap for recent changes, and add any new buildings to innawood/overmap/specials_removed.json
If the special has a "connections": [ "terrain": "road" ], then it probably doesn't need to be blacklisted.
Alternatively flag new buildings with MAN_MADE

Additional context

Untouched land as far as the debug tool can see. Well, except the city centers, that is.

Pictured here is a city in all its glory.

[github-actions]

This is an automated message. Please kindly disregard if you think this is inaccurate.

Automatic spell checking encountered unrecognized words in the following text:

• A chunk of iron rich earth. Could be refined with a bloomery.
• A wet pit full of raw bog iron, suitable for bloomery refining if it was extracted properly.
• An untouched land that mankind has yet to reach. Disables most traces of civilization for that 'innawood' experience.
• bloomery
• bloomerys

[Night-Pryanik]

To fully get rid of cities and roads, you may recommend players so set "Size of cities" world option to 0.

[github-actions]

This is an automated message. Please kindly disregard if you think this is inaccurate.

Automatic spell checking encountered unrecognized words in the following text:

• A chunk of iron-rich earth. Could be refined with a bloomery.
• A wet pit full of raw bog iron, suitable for bloomery refining if it was extracted properly.
• An untouched land that mankind has yet to reach. Disables most traces of civilization for that 'innawood' experience.
• bloomery
• bloomerys

[Light-Wave]

To fully get rid of cities and roads, you may recommend players so set "Size of cities" world option to 0.

Good call. Added that to the description.

[github-actions]

This is an automated message. Please kindly disregard if you think this is inaccurate.

Automatic spell checking encountered unrecognized words in the following text:

• A chunk of iron-rich earth. Could be refined with a bloomery.
• A wet pit full of raw bog iron, suitable for bloomery refining if it was extracted properly.
• An untouched land that mankind has yet to reach. Disables most traces of civilization for that 'innawood' experience. Recommend Size of cities be set to 0
• bloomery
• bloomerys

[Light-Wave]

Nice! I'd say #53564 is also potentially of interest and as a fan of rural mapgen + city size = 0, I'd really see some of the changes, at least bog iron, mainlined.

Those are indeed useful changes. I was missing a grass blanket when I tested my mod. As for the bog iron, kevingranade mentioned in #32450 that he would prefer for bog iron to be in a dedicated innawoods mod rather than mainline. But maybe he has changed his mind since?

Note: the plural of bloomery is bloomeries, and I think you can disregard the rest of the spellcheck message.

I can't find where I wrote bloomerys. ctrl+f in the changelog shows nothing, as does git grep.

BTW did I say I love the idea behind this mod?

Thank you. I'm very glad to hear. :)

[NetSysFire]

I think this might classify as man-made and not something the Cataclysm has caused

[Light-Wave]

The idea is that it is sufficiently ambiguous whether these were made by men or by aliens.

[NetSysFire]

As for the bog iron, kevingranade mentioned in #32450 that he would prefer for bog iron to be in a dedicated innawoods mod rather than mainline. But maybe he has changed his mind since?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_iron#Colonial_North_America, this explicitely says that bog iron was relevant in New England. I get the point though that refining it is hard.

[anothersimulacrum]

It's not that refining is the barrier (though reaiing more, it is), it's that it's already been exploited.

A quick look at wikipedia indicates that the readily available supplies of big iron in New England are exhausted.

#32450 (comment)

[kevingranade]

I did some more looking since then, and it seems that bog iron accumulates on a timeline such that the lack of exploitation of it since the colonial era has been long enough for it to usefully recover, but it's still the case that the cost/benefit for the things is ludicrously bad, so I'd prefer to keep it in a mod for the time being.

[Proxima-b]

because it is so hard to get woodsaw in innawood mod, wooden plank became a late game meterial and it shouldn't

[Light-Wave]

because it is so hard to get woodsaw in innawood mod, wooden plank became a late game meterial and it shouldn't

This is mostly intentional. Almost all recipes that require planks either accept sticks instead, or also require nails. As such, having access to planks before you have nails does not seem all that useful.
That being said, some exceptions to that rule exist, and they should perhaps be craftable without planks? The only examples I can come up with is the washboard and the arm guards, though.

[Proxima-b]

That being said, some exceptions to that rule exist, and they should perhaps be craftable without planks? The only examples I can come up with is the washboard and the arm guards, though.

also some weapons that are clearly pre-medieval age, like the wooden sword

[juliavetter]

Thanks for making this mod! I started at the beginning of summer -- I don't think it's possible to start during early spring or late fall, let alone winter, due to the cold temperatures, though I did chose the Hitchhiker profession to start with almost no gear. To give people an idea for the sense of time scale, I have been playing for almost 60 days now in game, and at this point I have an anvil and a full set of metalworking tools. It looks like to start making glass will be at least another 2 or 3 weeks in game.

[NetSysFire]

In earlier versions of the game I was able to thrive in spring. The main problem right now is sleep deprivation, see #53443. There should be ample amounts of wood to get a fire going until you made yourself warmer gear. Unfortunately due to the aforementioned issue this is not possible anymore.

There is a thread in the forums about exactly that, wilderness survival: https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/living-off-the-land-rural-only/26691

[NetSysFire]

@Light-Wave I did some quick playtesting and there are couple of things that could be improved:

• Craters. Why would the aliens bomb stuff when mankind has never touched this land? I mean both the map extras (mx_crater) and the terrain itself
• There are some recipes that might be good to autolearn, mostly food:
  • Baked dahlia
  • Burdock/dandelion tea
  • Fried burdock/dandelion
  • Chicory brew
  • etc
• Beehives still contain scarred zombies. Might conflict with the lore of your mod.
• I checked dozens of caves yet I never found any of those minerals (sulphur etc). I might just misunderstand the JSON though. I did get drops of sulphur when I mined some rocks underground. Caves are relatively rare, so they should have a bigger chance to contain a few minerals.
• Also lakes appear to not contain any small islands.

[Light-Wave]

also some weapons that are clearly pre-medieval age, like the wooden sword

Good point. I'll add the sword to my list of items to make available.

Thanks for making this mod! I started at the beginning of summer -- I don't think it's possible to start during early spring or late fall, let alone winter, due to the cold temperatures, though I did chose the Hitchhiker profession to start with almost no gear. To give people an idea for the sense of time scale, I have been playing for almost 60 days now in game, and at this point I have an anvil and a full set of metalworking tools. It looks like to start making glass will be at least another 2 or 3 weeks in game.

In earlier versions of the game I was able to thrive in spring. The main problem right now is sleep deprivation, see #53443. There should be ample amounts of wood to get a fire going until you made yourself warmer gear. Unfortunately due to the aforementioned issue this is not possible anymore.

There is a thread in the forums about exactly that, wilderness survival: https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/living-off-the-land-rural-only/26691

While testing this mod I was playing default survivor at default starting date. I made a makeshift shelter adjacent to a lit firepit, but it's still 50/50 that you can sleep during the first night. I found the sunlit hours are warmer, so if you fail to sleep during the night, you should be able to get some sleep during the day instead. It is survivable, but rough.

@Light-Wave I did some quick playtesting and there are couple of things that could be improved:

• Craters. Why would the aliens bomb stuff when mankind has never touched this land? I mean both the map extras (mx_crater) and the terrain itself

The way I see it, they could just as well be the result of meteorite impacts. Or maybe the aliens bombed opposing alien faction bases, such as fungal spires? I'm not sure about the lore of craters in the main game, to be honest. Either way, perhaps they should be reduced in frequency.

• There are some recipes that might be good to autolearn, mostly food:

  • Baked dahlia
  • Burdock/dandelion tea
  • Fried burdock/dandelion
  • Chicory brew
  • etc

Good point. I mostly don't deal with complex food while playing. But I also found I'm missing recipes for alcohol. I'll add your suggestions to the list of items I'll have auto-learned. I'd welcome more suggestions as well.

• Beehives still contain scarred zombies. Might conflict with the lore of your mod.

It does. Their spawning is hardcoded, which makes it difficult (but not impossible) to get rid of them.

• I checked dozens of caves yet I never found any of those minerals (sulphur etc). I might just misunderstand the JSON though. I did get drops of sulphur when I mined some rocks underground. Caves are relatively rare, so they should have a bigger chance to contain a few minerals.

I found sulphur as a drop in a cave, but I was probably lucky. You're right, I should add random mineral spawns to more caves.

• Also lakes appear to not contain any small islands.

That's strange. Not sure what to think of that.

[NetSysFire]

I'm not sure about the lore of craters in the main game, to be honest. Either way, perhaps they should be reduced in frequency.

Craters are radioactive and the bigger, non mapextra ones who usually spawn in clusters even spawn with an active alien bomb on top of them. Just long range teleport onto one you have not been near yet and you will see the bomb go off.

That's strange. Not sure what to think of that.

I have no idea either. This is some mapgen magic I do not understand, but every lake I found did not have any islands. This excludes "naturally" generated ones, but those are not tagged as islands and tend to be bigger.
Some of the professions can spawn on a desert island, which is simply not spawned for whatever reasons.

[Light-Wave]

Decided that removing the radioactivity from craters was a good step, as it means it is more ambiguous what caused them.
Made a pull request with several of the suggested changes at #54149

Still not sure what's up with island spawns, but I can confirm that it is an issue.