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Make farming:dry_soil_wet drop either of default:dry_dirt or default:dirt
According to quantum mechanics, Wet Dry Soil aka. Schrödinger's Dirt (or Schrödinger's Soil) is in a superposition of dry dirt and wet (normal) dirt. When the player measures the quantum state by digging, the wave function collapses and either wet or dry dirt is dropped. This PR simulates these quantum mechanic effects.
Despite the humorous description I don't think this is a bad change at all. If you take dry dirt and keep it watered long enough, it should logically turn into "regular" dirt.
:-1: Please can you explain why? 'Dry dirt' and 'dirt' are completely different materials from different biomes, one should never drop the other. One is not a 'drier' version of the other. One is reddish sandy savanna dirt, the other is brown rich soil type dirt. The names are not to be taken literally. This is like stone having a chance to drop desert stone.
Another problem is that as a player farms in savanna, 'dry dirt' would gradually convert to 'dirt' which is a node foreign to savanna. 'Dirt' in savanna looks bad and is out of place. I also cannot see any benefit in converting 'dry dirt' to 'dirt'.
If only there were special node names such as :biome_node_under that would choose the right node depending on the node position...
This idea aside, I think it makes sense to use a 50% chance for now. This strange dry/wet node should become either dry or normal dirt. tbh I don't know how well it fits into the biomes - I should explore more MTG worlds.
There are plants that only grow on grassland soil (eg. wheat). If wet dry soil can drop dirt, players living in the savanna can farm such crops without needing to bring external soil into the area. The players can turn dry land into an oasis with only their time and labour, which is nice imo. Players will even create oases automatically around their home. They get more and more dirt by farming and get pushed to use this dirt to build somewhere.
Maybe there should also be a recipe to cook dirt to dry dirt. This would make the nodes more related to each other and might remove weirdness.
Btw. normal dirt probably fits well into the savanna. It will get vegetated by dry grass and will eventually look like the old savanna that used normal dirt.
One is not a 'drier' version of the other. One is reddish sandy savanna dirt, the other is brown rich soil type dirt. The names are not to be taken literally
The names suggest this though. And the fact that soil is then called "wet" plus the base name makes this whole arrangement even more strange. There isn't necessarily a good reason to allow dry dirt to somehow turn into dirt (though there are usecases as DS said), but I don't think it hurts to add a way either.
Maybe there should also be a recipe to cook dirt to dry dirt.
Now that really doesn't make sense. I haven't tried to cook dirt, but I don't think that yields anything useful.
Desour, thanks for explaining the intended benefit. The problems i see are:
- It makes no sense due to these being different dirt types, as in different composition.
- As a player farms, digs and places in savanna, they will non-optionally convert one dirt type to another and so deface the biome with perpetually bare default:dirt which dry grass will not spread onto (emphasis on 'non-optionally'). Digging farming:dry_soil_wet creates an ugly hole in the landscape, players will want to fill this hole with whatever is dropped, so they will want default:dry_dirt, having default:dirt forced on them will be irritating.
- I cannot see any need or benefit.
There are plants that only grow on grassland soil (eg. wheat) [...] players living in the savanna can farm such crops
Not true, farming:dry_soil_wet has group soil = 3, so all crops grow on it, farming in savanna would not be very useful otherwise =)
without needing to bring external soil into the area.
... so they do not need to.
Maybe there should also be a recipe to cook dirt to dry dirt. This would make the nodes more related to each other and might remove weirdness.
They are different dirt types so that makes no sense. They do not need to be more related to each other, they are intentionally unrelated. So there is no weirdness that needs to be removed.
I think the 'oasis' argument is weak. On the rare occasion a player wants to do this i think it is better they bring nodes from the many surrounding biomes that have dirt, probably faster and less effort, they will have to bring green grass and plants anyway. ///////////////////
SmallJoker,
I think it makes sense to use a 50% chance for now. This strange dry/wet node should become either dry or normal dirt.
Why?
(Please do not confuse this (if you are) with the unrelated issue of the odd name of farming:dry_soil_wet 'Wet Dry Soil'. There is nothing actually 'strange' about this node, only the name and description look weird. The name is that way due to logic and consistency with the rest of farming:
- farming:dry_soil is called that because it is a prepared form of default:dry_dirt, it is not actually 'dry', the word 'dry' comes from the parent node.
- Consistent with the rest of the farming mod, when this node is irrigated, the word 'wet' is added to make farming:dry_soil_wet.
- The node descriptions copy the node names so also look weird, these could possibly be changed to be less confusing.)
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There seems to be confusion about default:dry_dirt, so i will explain. I was the core dev who first proposed and worked on the new dirt type for savanna and the related farming changes, many others including core devs seem to misunderstand.
default:dry_dirt is not dry default:dirt, they are as different as default:desert_stone and default:stone. You can think if it as meaning 'a dry dirt', it does not necessarily refer to default:dirt.
I made the proposal because default:dirt just looks wrong in savanna. Firstly it is too dark and 'wet' looking. Also, an image websearch for savanna shows images of dirt with a reddish colouration, sometimes quite a rich red, obviously a different composition as you would expect.
The nodename default:dry_dirt was chosen for consistency with default:grass and default:dry_grass pair. default:dry_grass is a different grass species you find in the different climate of a savanna biome, it is not dry default:grass.
As with farming:dry_soil_wet please do not get hung up on the nodename and take it literally. The name is that way due to logic and consistency with the rest of MTGame.
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I think we should change the node descriptions to help reduce misunderstanding:
Dry Dirt -> Savanna Dirt Dry Grass -> Savanna Grass Dry Soil -> Savanna Soil Wet Dry Soil -> Wet Savanna Soil
I will make a PR, i should have done this long ago but i must have forgotten.
There isn't necessarily a good reason to allow dry dirt to somehow turn into dirt [...] but I don't think it hurts to add a way either.
Lack of harm is not enough justification for a adding a feature, there has to be a positive reason.
I still regret not pressing to name this Savanna Dirt, and Savanna Soil when used for farming. This would have eliminated any need for dry_soil, and wet_dry_soil
Tiny changes and small subtle features produce huge walls of text.
- Testing shows that you seem to be right with the spread of dry grass, it doesn't seem spread at all. :thinking: Hence the player will always leave bare dirt behind (with dirt I mean any kind of dirt (normal and dry)) if they dig dirt with grass. Dark dirt will just look darker, the player will have to bring a grass plant with them if they want any sort of dirt with grass. Why doesn't dry grass spread to normal dirt btw.? That's not very sustainable.
- You claimed that wheat can grow on savanna dirt. I see now that this is true. I didn't know that dry wet soil also has the grassland group and hence wheat seeds can grow there. (I wasn't aware of desert sand soil.) Anyway, the soil group value is not decisive here, the grassland group is, see farming api and plant registration.
Anyway, the only real thing that speaks against this change is that it is not perfectly realistic, however:
- Players do not care much about realism. They want to play a game. And being able to turn some thing into another thing (eg. by weird magic) is simply a game mechanic and grants the player more powers and possibilities, more things to play around with (feature). Breaking the laws of reality is fun.
- As far as I as layman understand dirt, what makes dirt up is the minerals, organic material, water and the organisms that eat the material and produce nutrients or whatever. I don't think that it's that weird if dirt from the savanna looks after some time of farming, with dead plant parts that decay and mix the dirt, and watering pretty similar to some of the many sorts of dirt that you can find in areas where green grass grows (description of "normal", classic minetest biome). You can even find normal dirt directly next to dry dirt, so a clear distinction of both sorts is a little nonesensy. After all, the reason for why there's now a different colored dirt in savanna is that the color was decided to be changed.
Like mentioned before, these are supposed to be different kinds of materials. When I first encountered "Wet dry dirt" I had a good chuckle as well because of the inconsistency. However, I wouldn't take the "dry" part literally as it isn't just a dry variant of the regular dirt.
A better way to resolve this inconsistency would be to change the display name of "Dry Dirt" to e.g. "Savanna Dirt" and "Wet Dry Dirt" to "Wet Savanna Dirt" respectively.
Oh, this is still open. Closing, as it's controversial. If someone wants this, please do it as a mod.