Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-29620769-20171222103550

Hello again! Yesterday I did suggestion about creatures of the sea, and I found it so well-taken suggestion that I was really thrilled to see more and more comments on it. In fact, I still refresh the page on my browser maybe every 5 minutes when possible, to see if there is more reactions to it. I have decided to send another thought here, though being much smaller feature. For a while I did consider waiting for few weeks, so I don't send all my ideas at once, but I decided to send another one after all, but maybe not more anytime soon. Anyways, let's get to the point.

As you know, it is vanilla minecraft feature that charcoal can be produced by placing log of wood in furnace. Mod's forges turn this to charred wood instead, but furnace still produces charcoal. I think this should be disabled, or at least made to produce charred wood as well and there should be added new, historically more correct way to produce charcoal, and that is...

The idea of this There would be a new block, let's call it firewood. Block of firewood can be crafted out of 2 logs of any kinds of wood, apart from rotten wood, since its... Well, rotten. Firewood would be flammable, but instead of only having the sides of the block burning, it would also have fire inside the block, like beacons of Gondor. The texture could be similar to beacons of Gondor as well, but with size of full block. Now, we have block of firewood. If we burn it, it simply disappears like nearly all other flammable blocks. If we light it up, then cover it with some solid block, such as dirt, clay or mud, it still keeps burning, but over time it turns into charcoal block that when broken, drops several charcoals. Blocks such as leaves, slabs (except if on top or bottom), stairs and bars should still "let oxygen through" burning the firewood to ashes, so don't keep these near firewood. The firewood should burn about 4 in-game days. Since mod extends day from 10 minutes to 20 minutes, this process would take about 80 minutes. (Or did I remember wrong, was both day and nighttime 20 minutes, making whole day last 40 minutes?) To simplify this feature, so it doesn't become too complicated for new players, (And mod developers) even one block next to burning firewood burns it to ashes (nothing) instead of coal, even though it would be logical if there could be one block of oxygen in pile of 10 firewoods and it still produces coal.

Source In reality, charcoal was made by covering large pile of wood with dirt and clay, making the fire inside unable to get oxygen. This heating process where wood couldn't react with oxygen produced charcoal. This took about 100 hours, over 4 days! Document of this can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0HW4qk8dv4

Now you may be wondering, how can we see if the wood burns, if it is covered by blocks. I think they could emit thick smoke particles that would pass through one block above them. If you happen to have 2 blocks on it... Too bad, you should have used only one.

"Failures" Firewood should be able to stop burning on its own, as if the fire was lit poorly. This would stop the particles as well, but when player breaks the dirt above it to gather their new charcoal, they find out that the wood is still there. Then it simply has to be lit again and the process starts over. The fire should be able to occasionally burn off some dirt, giving the fire oxygen which can result in complete loss of firewood when untreated. This is to represent the reasons why charcoal makers in the past had to keep watching the burning pile without a bit of sleep. The higher number of firewood, the more likely that some blocks of dirt burn off somewhere. If the dirt has no empty space next to it, it couldn't burn. This would be why 2 blocks thick layers of dirt or clay on the firewood could still be good.

While this method does cost literally no materials apart from one use from your flint&steel or one sulfur match, this takes a lot of time, and time is valuable as well. Time is worth a lot in game.

Thank you for your time, if you liked the idea, let me know! If there is something to improve, you're the most welcome to comment!

See you again, ~ Shinare of Umbar 