The ability to survive in Minecraft changes once the player has built even the smallest farm. Within the first two in game days, accumulating food is the only course for the player. This task is usually completed by killing cattle for their meat. A sustainable resource is then created over the next seven in game days at which food never becomes a problem for the player ever again as they can stockpile enough food in one night from a large farm to feed them for the rest of the game. This nullifies the food mechanic completely as the player can keep a stack of bread at all times in their inventory.

Decaying/Decomposing food:

If food degraded over time just like tools(tools have a number of uses but the idea is the same) do in Minecraft then they become a resource that must be managed just like going down into the mine and making sure you have sticks for more tools is. The degrading of food opens up many other opportunities for expansion as well. Ice chests created with a dispenser, Redstone, and an ice block could keep food refrigerated increasing its time before rotting. Salting meat for preservation can work the same way and let’s not forget about creating jams out of apples from trees or other fruits that could be introduced. Rotten food can be placed inside a storage container and turned into compost which would exile the need for one bone meal per crop as compost could be placed as a block over tiled dirt and increase crop production.

Why it’s better:

This mechanic means that the rate at which a player creates and consumes food must be monitored more closely which brings back that exciting anxiety that players had in their first few nights until they really get on top of it all. Minecraft is used as a teaching mechanism in many schools around the world now. With this addition to the game, teachers can start to talk about sustainable farming methods as well as the production of the world’s food supply. An example of this would be overfishing or supermarkets producing more food than is needed and subsequently produce large amounts of waste as a by-product.

Abstract

All food items in the game overtime decay and rot in order to give a more true to life feel to Minecraft as well as discourage the over harvesting/hording of large amounts of food and shows the introduction to sustainable farming methods thus changing food into more of a valuable resource.

2.1 Crop/Raw Meat Changes

All crops and raw meat will have three states which will be displayed in game as:

Fresh

Stale (Non-Meat Items)/ Spoilt (Meat Items Only)

(Non-Meat Items)/ (Meat Items Only) Moldy(Non-Meat Items)/Rotten(Meat Item Only)

Crops or Meat of the same state are stackable however a ‘Fresh’ item will not stack with a ‘Stale’ item. In order to stop abuse of stacking a fully fresh item on top of a ‘Fresh’ item stack that is about to turn stale, adding a ‘Fresh’ item to a stack will only increase the stacks freshness by 0.15 of the time left on the newly added ‘Fresh’ item. Eg. A single ‘Fresh’ Wheat is added to a stack of ‘Fresh’ Wheat that is about to go stale. Game takes 0.15 of the time remaining before the newly added item turns stale and adds it back to the stack. This multiplier falls off the longer the stack has been alive in the game. For every one game day, 0.02 falls off. This affect is NOT persistent through states. No food item can be moved up to an older state.

2.2 Crafted Food Changes

All crafted food will have three states which will be displayed in game as:

Fresh

Stale (Non-Meat Items)/ Spoilt (Meat Items Only)

(Non-Meat Items)/ (Meat Items Only) Moldy(Non-Meat Items)/Rotten(Meat Item Only)

Once crafted, no food item can move up to an old state. IE, Spoilt meat when cooked, will not become fresh meat. It will stay spoilt. All Crafted food items when eaten past ‘Fresh’ give reduced hunger regeneration. This will go by 0.50 for ‘Stale/Spoilt’ and 0.75 for ‘Moldy/Rotten.

3.1 Food and Chests Vs Food and Player Inventory

If food is kept in a chest rather than in the players inventory then it will be treated as if it is in a ‘Cool, dry place’. This will add to time it will take for the item to decay. If the item is in the player’s inventory then it will not gain this effect and subsequently will decay at the regular rate of time. Food storage will be centred on three new craftable items. Standard chests still give this buff but at 0.25 efficiency bonus

Standard Chest Standard chests hold food for 1.1 times longer than in a player’s inventory.

Compost Heap Rots crops and crafted food faster while converting it into the item ‘Compost’ which can be used on crops to increase their freshness timers at harvest.

Ice Box Storage for all food items and slows down the decay timer by 2.5. Fridge must be given the fuel of an ice block every three in game days.

Salt Box Storage for only meat items and slows down decay timer by 1.5. Doesn’t need fuel.



4.1 Crafting Storage Recipes

4.1.1 Compost Heap

A Compost heap is used to produce the item Compost. Compost acts like a cheaper bone meal but only works on crops, not trees. Compost also doesn’t instantly create a crop. It will only move a crop up one ‘Grown’ state. Innitally, 50% chance to move a crop up a state.

4.1.2 Ice Box

An Ice box is a craftable chest which acts like a fridge. It keeps all types of food from decaying by 2.5. The fridge must be given the fuel of Ice Blocks every at a rate of 1 Block every 3 in game days. This is to do with the difficulty of getting a block of ice. A silk touch pick will be needed in order to get the ice. If an item is added to this chest, all timers for that item are multiplied by 2.5. Once the item has been taken out of this chest then the timer is divided by 2.5.

4.1.2 Salt Box

To create a Salt Box, the player will need to encapsulate a basic chest in Salt. The Salt Box will keep meat items only from decaying at a rate of 1.5. A Salt Box doesn’t need to be refueled but nothing other than meat items can be stored inside of it. If an item is added to this chest, it will only gain the time while inside of it as bonus time. Once the bonus time has run out, the item will begin to use it’s own time value. Food can only gain this value once and loses it’s value when taken out for one in game day.

4.1.3 Brewing Salt

In order to create Salt for a Salt Box, the player will have to create a Brewing Stand and boil three bottles of water to receive one salt.

5.1 Tuning Sheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fC-F38lyqqATG2DGRAaJHxzApg5ExLO-6ijvM68DzwM/edit?usp=sharing

This spreadsheet is a dirty way to tune the amount of Minecraft days that all the food items will last and at what stage they should switch states. This sheet takes into account items that are inside all storage containers as well as in the players inventory. It it controlled by the base number of days which is then split up into three different stages according to each states tolerance. The state tolerance is on an item by item basis and can be tweaked at any time. Then the number of days is converted into the number of Ticks (in game time) that will be used and then that is broken down into Ticks per State. The Ticks per State are then converted back to the number of Minecraft days and then graphed in order to see the distribution of time per state. A second graph does a comparative of this but with items that have spent their whole lives inside containers.

Assets Required

New Salt texture.

New Compost texture.

New UI element for Ice Box and Salt Box.

New UI element for Compost Heap.

New particle effect for Compost being placed onto crops.

New world model for Ice Box, Salt Box and Compost Heap.

New world model for Salt and Compost that mimics texture.

New Rotten/Spoilt meat texture for all meats.

New Stale/Moldy texture for all crops, Cake and Bread.

Task Breakdown

Complete are on all new assets before development beings. Every edible item needs to include three save states associated to its type and a state machine will be associated to the builder class for edible items. Add a variable for time_Until_Change_State and time_Until_Decay in order to keep track of how much time it will take to change to the next state, and how much time left until the item has fully decayed. Add a variable for time_Last_Checked which stores the game tick of last time the item was accessed in memory. This is to address single/multiplayer lag by which the server won’t have to continually check to see if an item needs to switch states. This way it will do it once looked at in either the players inventory, chest or freshly harvested. This can also be instanced so that the server will check X number of chests per Y number of time and update from there. Add recipes for Ice Box, Salt Box, Compost Heap and the brewing stand recipe for Salt. Smoke/Sanity testing. Bug Fixing. Smoke/Sanity testing. Stability testing. Repeat six through eight if needed. Ship