Some issues with Minetest 5.4.0

[kneekoo]

Some are inherited from 5.3.0 and maybe earlier. Sorry if there are duplicates, and if each item should've been an issue, but assuming owners/moderators can do it in this post, these can be checked if/when they're fixed. Also, I noticed this project is supposed to be in maintenance mode, so maybe one issue is better.

Recipes

• [x] The reset button only works after you've searched, not to also clear the initial input/typing
• [x] book with text = book + book with text (?!)
• [x] white wool = white dye + white wool (?!)
• [ ] the important recipe for blocks is actually the last; the first shows you can get it from slabs (but you can only make slabs from blocks), then that you can make blocks from stairs, and 3rd is the recipe that's supposed to be the first. Planks and glass are similar.

Farming

• [x] Crops can't grow with torch light (underground base - left has holes to the surface, right only has torches)
• [ ] You can place seeds on (growing or fully developed) crops; it won't replace them, but you can see how the seeds get planted and then the crops are almost instantly placed back
• [ ] Water source blocks only hydrate 3 blocks around them - intentional? (Minecraft does 4)
• [ ] Crops only grow if you're in proximity, afk becoming mandatory if you actually need crops

Water

• Small water bodies (single blocks and tiny ponds) act like they're part of oceans/seas, looking really weird for single water sources meant to hydrate farming land, and weird enough for artificially made undergorund ponds of 2x2 or even 4x4.
• Placing solid blocks above water allows you to see underwater
• Flowing water has "holes" in certain instances

Furnace

• [ ] Smelting/cooking/baking and/or fuel burning time are not based on full ticks: 1 coal burns enough for 13 ingots a few extra ticks - there shouldn't be wasted coal
• [ ] Baking bread is strangely expensive: 1 coal = 2 breads + about 55-60% bread worth of burning, while 2 coal = 5 breads + about 20-25% of a bread; the least you could do is make sure there's no wasted coal, so either use 1 coal for 1.5 or 2 breads.
• The item counters need a shadow so you can see it on white background (flour is white, the counter text is white)
• [x] The furnace sound doesn't stop once the fire stops, but continues for a few seconds

Others

• [ ] Grass spreads extremely slow, at least underground, although having natural light
• [x] You can't run - it makes no sense to be unable to run without the "fast" privilege; running should be available by default
• The client seemed to lose its sound after a longer idle time (I was waiting for crops to grow); "Exit to menu" didn't help - only quitting and re-starting the game made it work again (this didn't happen with 5.3.0)
• [ ] The hoe can't be used to harvest crops, or get/break items (torches, firefly bottles, etc)

[sfan5]

I've added strikethrough to issues that belong to the engine (all water related ones are already known too).

For a few others:

You can't run - it makes no sense to be unable to run without the "fast" privilege; running should be available by default

I agree, but this feature will not be added now.

Crops can't grow with torch light (underground base - left has holes to the surface, right only has torches)

The mese post light is intended for this.

book with text = book + book with text

This clones the content of an existing book.

white wool = white dye + white wool

This is probably supposed to say "white wool = white dye + any wool" which allows you to turn wool back to white after you dyed it differently once.

The reset button only works after you've searched, not to also clear the initial input/typing

The creative inventory also works like this, and AFAIK making this work is not possible right now.

[An0n3m0us]

the important recipe for blocks is actually the last; the first shows you can get it from slabs (but you can only make slabs from blocks), then that you can make blocks from stairs, and 3rd is the recipe that's supposed to be the first. Planks and glass are similar.

It seems recipes in MTG are added to the array in opposite (newest first, oldest last), so that is why this occurs.

You can place seeds on (growing or fully developed) crops; it won't replace them, but you can see how the seeds get planted and then the crops are almost instantly placed back

Happens when placing on any block that isn't soil. Another example is when placing a bed but there is only a 1x1 space.

Crops only grow if you're in proximity, afk becoming mandatory if you actually need crops

Hmm, maybe should be linked with the world timer.

[kneekoo]

Crops can't grow with torch light (underground base - left has holes to the surface, right only has torches)

The mese post light is intended for this.

But crops are important especially in the beginning of the game. Being forced to go between Y -512 and -1024 for a simple underground farm is overkill. I hope this will be taken into account. :)

book with text = book + book with text

This clones the content of an existing book.

What I mean is you can see the input as "book + book with text", while the output is a single "book with text". Intuitively, you'd assume that the regular book is simply gone for some reason. You'd rather think it adds more pages to the book with text than thinking about cloning, because that would mean you have to get two identical books as output, instead of one.

white wool = white dye + white wool

This is probably supposed to say "white wool = white dye + any wool" which allows you to turn wool back to white after you dyed it differently once.

Ok, that's actually useful. I hope that label will be updated.

The reset button only works after you've searched, not to also clear the initial input/typing

The creative inventory also works like this, and AFAIK making this work is not possible right now.

I'm sure you know better, but this kind of feature feels like it's more like tweaking some conditionals or copying/pasting the functionality to the right block of code.

You can place seeds on (growing or fully developed) crops; it won't replace them, but you can see how the seeds get planted and then the crops are almost instantly placed back

Happens when placing on any block that isn't soil. Another example is when placing a bed but there is only a 1x1 space.

Sure, but the the code should check if the targeted block is valid, so the animation doesn't go through unless it's tilled soil. Currently it looks like a glitch and if you don't know about this "feature" you kind of panic when you're planting cotton, which has a very low chance to dropping seeds and in some cases you can even end up without seeds. :P

[kneekoo]

Here's a rare and time-consuming to find resource that can (at best) - grow 4 crops with a post lamp.

On the left, placed so you can also walk around to gather your crops, nothing grows. Front-center, it will help a crop grow, but only the adjacent one - diagonals don't matter. On the right, I placed the post lamp inside a square of 8 farming spots, but only the 4 adjacent ones matured. In the background, center, there's a mese lamp that I hope would have some effect, but it doesn't. Maybe it works if it's adjacent to a farming spot, like the post lamps, but there was not much of a point in trying, as both methods that worked are extremely inefficient, "expensive" and impractical (solid blocks that take 1 farming spot and that gets in your way when you want to harvest your crops).

I know this is more of a tech demo, but farming should be made in a way that makes sense (for a game).

[Wuzzy2]

the important recipe for blocks is actually the last; the first shows you can get it from slabs (but you can only make slabs from blocks), then that you can make blocks from stairs, and 3rd is the recipe that's supposed to be the first. Planks and glass are similar.

Feature request. Reject this.

You can place seeds on (growing or fully developed) crops; it won't replace them, but you can see how the seeds get planted and then the crops are almost instantly placed back

This is related to client place prediction, I guess. It sounds valid. But it might require work on the engine first. There are many situations in which the client prediction fails, and this is expected. The player, of course, doesn't care, because the end result is still having occasional "fake nodes" appear for a split second (like with a bed in invalid place). So it is not limited to wheat seed, actually. I think the real fix would be an engine-related one, as client prediction needs to be improved somehow. How? That needs to be discussion. Anyway, this is not something that MTG can fix on its own, it's an engine issue, mostly. Unless MTG sets the node place prediction to the empty string for such nodes, but then you have "laggy" placement on the client-side, which is not much better. xD

Water source blocks only hydrate 3 blocks around them - intentional? (Minecraft does 4)

There is no reason to change that number now. It would be a gameplay chance, therefore this is a feature request. Recommendation: Reject this.

Crops only grow if you're in proximity, afk becoming mandatory if you actually need crops

IMO way too complicated to address for MTG. Seems like it requires a major redesign of the farming mod. Recommendation: Reject this.

Smelting/cooking/baking and/or fuel burning time are not based on full ticks: 1 coal burns enough for 13 ingots a few extra ticks - there shouldn't be wasted coal Baking bread is strangely expensive: 1 coal = 2 breads + about 55-60% bread worth of burning, while 2 coal = 5 breads + about 20-25% of a bread; the least you could do is make sure there's no wasted coal, so either use 1 coal for 1.5 or 2 breads.

Two feature requests. Reject this. We can waste endless hours discussing which values are "perfectly balanced" but we won't.

The furnace sound doesn't stop once the fire stops, but continues for a few seconds

A minor bug, but a valid bug IMHO.

Grass spreads extremely slow, at least underground, although having natural light

Feature request by implication. It implies that grass SHOULD spread faster. Reject this.

The hoe can't be used to harvest crops, or get/break items (torches, firefly bottles, etc)

This is a feature request by implication. The implication is that the hoe SHOULD harvest crops or get/break items. Reject this.

---

So the only valid remaining issue in this list IMHO is:

• Furnace fire sound does not stop immediately

The remaining open things in the list seem dubious at best and are outright feature requests at worst and should therefore be rejected.

[Wuzzy2]

PR for the furnace fire sound bug: #2955

[kneekoo]

the important recipe for blocks is actually the last; the first shows you can get it from slabs (but you can only make slabs from blocks), then that you can make blocks from stairs, and 3rd is the recipe that's supposed to be the first. Planks and glass are similar.

Feature request. Reject this.

The order appears to be coming from the way the recipes are added to an array. Inverting it to get the proper recipe first makes a lot of sense because it's a usability issue.

You can place seeds on (growing or fully developed) crops; it won't replace them, but you can see how the seeds get planted and then the crops are almost instantly placed back

This is related to client place prediction, I guess. It sounds valid. But it might require work on the engine first. There are many situations in which the client prediction fails, and this is expected.

But is this expected in a singleplayer game too? That's how I played the game. It feels like the game first places stuff and only checks the validity of the placement later - this should be checked first.

Smelting/cooking/baking and/or fuel burning time are not based on full ticks: 1 coal burns enough for 13 ingots a few extra ticks - there shouldn't be wasted coal Baking bread is strangely expensive: 1 coal = 2 breads + about 55-60% bread worth of burning, while 2 coal = 5 breads + about 20-25% of a bread; the least you could do is make sure there's no wasted coal, so either use 1 coal for 1.5 or 2 breads.

Two feature requests. Reject this. We can waste endless hours discussing which values are "perfectly balanced" but we won't.

This is probably why Minecraft decided to make it easy by having 1 coal (and charcoal) smelt/cook exactly 8 items, so they don't have to care about any balancing and waste.

The hoe can't be used to harvest crops, or get/break items (torches, firefly bottles, etc)

This is a feature request by implication. The implication is that the hoe SHOULD harvest crops or get/break items. Reject this.

Does this actually require more than 5 minutes to address? I noticed MTG is in bug-fix mode only, but simple things improving quality of life might be worth doing.

So the only valid remaining issue in this list IMHO is:

• Furnace fire sound does not stop immediately

The remaining open things in the list seem dubious at best and are outright feature requests at worst and should therefore be rejected.

About the crops only growing with mese lap posts, is that a thing about light level? Can it be simply decreased one level lower, so crops can grow at torch light? That would be great for underground bases.

[Wuzzy2]

The furnace sound doesn't stop once the fire stops, but continues for a few seconds

This is now fixed in #2955.

[Wuzzy2]

Given that all of the remaining things on the list are either feature requests or borderline feature requests, I suggest a close (see my opinion above).

[kneekoo]

One important thing remains, though. Farms are an early game thing, so expecting the player to have mese at this stage makes no sense. Yes, this is a feature request, but I suspect it's as simple as lowering the light level to grow crops.

[appgurueu]

I'd say minor gameplay tweaks may be considered "maintenance" rather than features. Implementing this is indeed easily done.