End is Nigh book as a light source

[shadowDigga]

Wickerbottom's End is Nigh! book is usually used to charge WX-78, but I recently found a great use for it when paired with lightning rod or mast upgraded with lightning conductor (I'll call both rod from now on for simplicity). Rod can accumulate charges which means the more lightnings have struck one the longer it will stay charged. Each lightning adds 3 days of light to amount of charges.

While charged, rod emits light within 1.5 wall units.

Now to the book - each End is Nigh! book can be used 5 times. Each time it's used, it creates 16 lightnings, all of which will target rod if there's only one in proximity. This means the rod will be charged for 16 * 3 = 48 days with just one use of the book and 240 days for a whole book! No other item in the game can provide light for that long.

While all of this might not sound good due to small light radius, on a boat you can't really do much during night without moggles and need light source mostly to avoid attacks from charlie. Further more, fuel supplies are limited and barely renewable during boat trips, so light source that lasts this long is a good option. Just ask your friendly neighbor (or participant of the tour) Wickerbottom or Maxwell (who can read her books too) to read a pretty red book to forget about light for almost 50 days. Or even more if the book is used several times, as the charges seem to stack indefinitely.

This turned out to be wrong as @Maxil20 said. Charge is capped at 3 days. Sorry for misinforming.

Also, unlike lightning rods, masts occupy almost 0 space and can be placed very close to existing structures. I've attached an example of "Night Chef" setup - charged mast provides enough light to cook crock pot dishes during the night (ice box is also accessible).

[maciu67]

1. Small radius, boat can't swim.

2. No heat

3. No cooking

4. Need wickerbottom and shadow manipulator

5. Book is more expensive than two logs

6. Not good if is more players on boat than one

7. All players must be fully sane or Wawey Jones will appear and deal with her will be difficult.

[shadowDigga]

12 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

1. Small radius, boat can't swim.

Riding a boat during the night is risky anyway due to the risk of colliding with something before you can notice it and stop the boat. Make stops for the night.

12 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

2. No heat

You don't need heat unless it's cold (which it only is for about 20 days out 70 in a year).

12 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

3. No cooking

You don't need to cook during the night specifically.

12 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

4. Need wickerbottom and shadow manipulator

Yes, that is even mentioned in the post. This method is not universal, but it can be done once and other characters will benefit from it for a long time.

12 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

5. Book is more expensive than two logs

I don't think 2 logs will last for 240 nights.

12 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

6. Not good if is more players on boat than one

Light area is large enough for 6-7 players. I don't think a boat would have more than that.

12 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

7. All players must be fully sane instead Wawey Jones will appear and deal with her will be difficult.

Wavey Jones would appear even if light source is active and will have to be dealt with anyway.

 

Overall, I'm sorry for not providing universal solution for light, heat and cooking on a boat for you. I should've specifically mentioned it targeted cheap light source problem.

[sinisterrkid]

14 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

4. Need wickerbottom and shadow manipulator

Yes, this is intended for those with access to Wickerbottom and shadow manipulator, thank you for reminding us.

As for the other points, I love that for 8 papyrus and 1 red gem I can get a year of a small light radius. Within that year, on the nights that I need to cook over a fire or get heat, I can still light a firepit as usual.

 

[maciu67]

12 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

Riding a boat during the night is risky anyway due to the risk of colliding with something before you can stop the boat. Stop the boat for the night.

Less risky when you see where you swim. I prefer do not waste time especially every second drain hunger.

 

12 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

You don't need heat unless it's cold (which it only is for about 20 days out 70 in a year).

So this method is useless during winter and ealy spring.

 

12 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

You don't need to cook during the night specifically.

But I need to cook during the day, I won't do this on conductor.

 

12 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

Yes, that is even mentioned in the post. This method is not universal, but it can be done once and other characters will benefit from it for a long time.

Normal firepit also give benefits to other player.

 

12 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

I don't think 2 logs will last for 240 nights.

When was the last time you swam 240 days in row.

 

12 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

Light area is large enough for 6-7 players. I don't think a boat would have more than that.

If you like stay all night in one place.

 

12 minutes ago, shadowDigga said:

Wavey Jones would appear even if light source is active and will have to be dealt with anyway.

But when she starts destroying boat patches you can even don't notice it.

Don't be mad but this method is like shooting to mosquito from cannon.

3 minutes ago, sinisterrkid said:

I can still light a firepit as usual.

Then what is the reason to waste a book?

[KeshS]

This is pretty useful econ option for when I sail at night (near a steering wheel). Logs are a rich commodity at sea, and sailing is the only safe option to do at night.

Edit: It's not risky to sail at night in fairly slow speed and looking at the map is better than at screen, unless aerial view mod.

[Nettalie]

honestly i might just use this to light my base IF the radius wouldnt be that small.
now i know you could just put masts everywhere but honestly waiting for winters feast is probably easier for me.

unless i misremember that the christmas lights last infinite within a glowcap or mushlight

regardless, this is pretty interesting to know

 

[Mike23Ua]

I wouldn’t use this on a boat.. but since you can actually place boat masts on dry land I might would use this as an alternative method of making street lamps and keeping them charged.

[Primalflower]

this is really cool! I can imagine a sort of street light type deal with these lining a path, all connected-looking by the rolled up mast.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

44 minutes ago, maciu67 said:

1. Small radius, boat can't swim.

2. No heat

3. No cooking

4. Need wickerbottom and shadow manipulator

5. Book is more expensive than two logs

6. Not good if is more players on boat than one

7. All players must be fully sane or Wawey Jones will appear and deal with her will be difficult.

1. Enough light to do stuff like crafting or just being afk

2. Torch fishes or make other stuff for heat, this is about "free light"

3. Bring your food on bundle wraps

4. Portal exists and if the calcs are right it provides +200 days of light. You can swap to her everytime you want it

5. 2 logs doesnt provide light for 200 days

6. why?

7. you are asuming that this will be the only light source when every player will have his lanter/miner hat/whatever

 

i still prefer a bundle wrap with lightbulbs plus toads lamp but this its a cool trick to have guarantee light for days

[NSAiswatchingus]

31 minutes ago, Lbphero said:

this is really cool! I can imagine a sort of street light type deal with these lining a path, all connected-looking by the rolled up mast.

This was my first thought. An alternative to the usual glowcap set up sounds cool. Can someone do this and post pics? I also wonder how well it works with so many close together and how the lightning strikes distribute amongst the rods on screen. 

[ShadowDuelist]

I've done this a few times with plenty of lightning rods , for example, covering the sides of a road in rods. Reading the book will charge all the rods in the area, basically creating a path or an area where the glow radius of all the rods stack.

As a reliable light source it's mildly useless, but the decoration value is priceless. You can achieve great effects with this and it lasts a long time.

[SinancoTheBest]

Oh thanks for the idea, this is a great use for what is perhaps considered the least useful of the Wickerbottom books for other than WX players. Will on my boat asap.

[Maxil20]

3 hours ago, shadowDigga said:

Rod can accumulate charges which means the more lightnings have struck one the longer it will stay charged... Each lightning adds 3 days of light to amount of charges.

 

Unfortunately, this is false. The lightning rod will get 3 days of charge, but will also cap at this as well. Here is the code showcasing this:

Spoiler

local function setcharged(inst, charges) if not inst.charged then inst.AnimState:SetBloomEffectHandle("shaders/anim.ksh") inst.Light:Enable(true) inst:WatchWorldState("cycles", ondaycomplete) inst.charged = true end inst.chargeleft = math.max(inst.chargeleft or 0, charges) dozap(inst) end local function onlightning(inst) onhit(inst) setcharged(inst, 3) end

 

Ingame also reveals a similar trait as well. In both local and cave shard worlds. The end is nigh was read once, and got the same result for both.

This was the command + result used for local worlds:

Spoiler

print(c_select().chargeleft))

This was the command + result used for cave shard worlds:

Spoiler

c_announce(c_select().chargeleft)

Passing the time also didn't extend the life of the rod any longer. It would always go out on the start of the 4th day. So while it would be a neat niche tactic, it doesn't get any higher then 3 days sadly.

Final note, the tests only used the lightning rods, but masts use the exact same code to handle strikes, so you can't stack them either.

(Special thanks to @Hornete for helping with finding the codes and commands used for this, while also testing it on local!)

[wigfrids hat]

this is really clever~ while it isn't perfect it certainly is economical ^^

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

1. Small radius, boat can't swim.

Even during the day unless you're cheating the map shows you more than you can see with your eyes. The only detriment darkness has is that you might miss a bottle.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

2. No heat

I don't think he's saying this is an OP light source that makes the rest redundant, he's just bringing up the idea that you can do it... And no heat isn't even strictly a downside since that means it won't overheat you in the summer and it's not a fire so flingos won't kill it.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

3. No cooking

Almost every food is better put into the crock pot than cooked so this isn't much of a loss.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

4. Need wickerbottom and shadow manipulator

Duh.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

5. Book is more expensive than two logs

But it's not 2 logs. It would be 1,280 logs if his numbers were correct but it doesn't stack that way so it's instead only 80 logs. But a red gem to save 80 logs and a bunch of effort to get an automatic light source that isn't killed by flingos is pretty nice.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

6. Not good if is more players on boat than one

Why?

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

7. All players must be fully sane or Wawey Jones will appear and deal with her will be difficult.

That's not unique to this light source.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

So this method is useless during winter and ealy spring.

You don't need to be near a warmth source 24/7. You can also eat warming foods, especially for early spring. You can also just have a thermal fish in your inventory if it's been summer before.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

But I need to cook during the day, I won't do this on conductor.

Why do you need to cook so much? Use the crock pot.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

Normal firepit also give benefits to other player.

What benefits? It's just a fire.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

When was the last time you swam 240 days in row.

Who's making a boat to not sail for a long time? That's the whole appeal of the boat, really. 

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

If you like stay all night in one place.

Look at the map. There is no difference between the entire screen being illuminated and the glow of a thermal stone in your pocket.

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

But when she starts destroying boat patches you can even don't notice it.

Why not?

3 hours ago, maciu67 said:

Then what is the reason to waste a book?

And what are you going to use the book for if you don't have a WX? It's not even like red gems are particularly hard to get, I always end up with dozens of them rather quickly.

24 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

Unfortunately, this is false. The lightning rod will get 3 days of charge, but will also cap at this as well. Here is the code showcasing this:

I was wondering if it actually stacked like he said it did, because it sounded wrong to me. Thanks for confirming.

[shadowDigga]

1 hour ago, Maxil20 said:

Passing the time also didn't extend the life of the rod any longer. It would always go out on the start of the 4th day. So while it would be a neat niche tactic, it doesn't get any higher then 3 days sadly.

Thanks for finding out. Apparently I misread the code while inspecting it. I used c_skip(days) to test if it worked as I expected but looks like charge didn't update properly while skipping days.

[KeshS]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Why do you need to cook so much? Use the crock pot.

Delaying spoilage can be crucial when you are on a long journey and brought 2 stacks of monster meat, giving an extra 7.5 days before it rots. Coupled with a bird cage which adds another 10 days making a fresh egg. 

[Cheggf]

10 minutes ago, KeshS said:

Delaying spoilage can be crucial when you are on a long journey and brought 2 stacks of monster meat, giving an extra 7.5 days before it rots. Coupled with a bird cage which adds another 10 days making a fresh egg. 

Both monster meat and fish are extremely plentiful in the ocean. Cooking isn't useless, but I wouldn't say it's crucial or a reason that non-fire light sources are terrible. And besides, it'll last you 12-24 days depending on how you store it, which is about 2 or 3 hours, so you could just hop off to make a campfire and cook it up when you need to or cook it beforehand and have it last 30 days (4 hours). Every time I've gone sailing I've gotten so much monster meat that by the time a stack turns to rot there's another at full freshness, it's not really rare.

[KeshS]

18 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Both monster meat and fish are extremely plentiful in the ocean. Cooking isn't useless, but I wouldn't say it's crucial or a reason that non-fire light sources are terrible. And besides, it'll last you 12-24 days depending on how you store it, which is about 2 or 3 hours, so you could just hop off to make a campfire and cook it up when you need to or cook it beforehand and have it last 30 days (4 hours). Every time I've gone sailing I've gotten so much monster meat that by the time a stack turns to rot there's another at full freshness, it's not really rare.

I think this is a difference in playstyles. Ocean food source is not something I depend on since catching one fish can take as much time as catching a rabbit with a carrot lure, there are also pesky rockjaws. The wood eating critters can also take a whole day circling around the sea salt formations and damaging the ship by bumping into the pillars. I shave barnacles only if it is night and I am relatively close to them. Mostly trying to accumulate as much sea treasure as possible (because it is fun); speed and time is important.