poll Have you ever used: Dust Moth / Tidy Hidey-Hole?

[Auth 10723]

Hi there. I was just going through some thoughts, and I realized: I've never once used these things. Not in any meaningful way, anyways. I think I did it once, didn't feel like hanging around to watch the animation of it happening, then left.

I was actually thinking of it, of like, "Man, I wish there was a reliable farm for thulecite", and... well... there is! I just don't use it, and don't think I'd ever use it for a few reasons.

For me, the main reason is salt. I don't really enjoy going to the ocean, so salt is sparse to come by and I'd rather spend it on building a salt box or refreshing my powdercake or tossing it at Warly than to craft "Collected Dust" which then needs to be made into "Amberosia". (Why is this two separate things???)

Had to know what other people thought, maybe I'm in some insane minority that entirely forgets these things exist except for the few occasions where I wish for more crunchy bug ingots.

[minespatch 95575]

I like them but not sure. Maybe find a way to transport them out of caves?

[SinancoTheBest 6287]

The biggest problem I have with them is the lowly number of thulecite. I think it'd be more worth it if each tidy-hole made 10-12 thulecite fragments + a chance to give orange, yellow or green gems, kinda like the bath bombs resulting in red and blue gems occasionally.

[ADM 11443]

Good idea for less skilled in fight players but that aren’t spooked of venturing down here (I know a few despite seeming rare), but even from them or whenever I do it myself it seems the scale of this work need better tunings. I first like the idea of the amberosia given it’s a great ressource sink to some items so I'm all for using my overflow of minerals for this (even if I know I have no time to feed a hundred time the moths with the previous stock...). But pretty much anything else than the craft is so underwhelming in the process.

First thing that should be fixed is the amount of dens, I got Archives with 1 only so many times despite I have giant / small Archives, some corridors with dens needs to be guaranteed or idk, add some barracks in the middle with a few ?

The walk in the archive is long all the way (+ fairly chaotic with all the grotto and sentrypeds) so that’s sad to have to go from one end to another just to feed 2 dens and go out with just what you need for a single Thulecite (and they’re supposed to have a chance to drop enough fragments for a whole chunk but the chance will never be high enough for the rate we farm them)

The time it take them might also be a problem without solutions because they need almost a whole day to process it (might be a full day because some of them get stuck or need to walk back hom slooooowly), yet, you don’t have much to do during that time, it's already past the grotto and you came here for blueprint, the utility of the place is limited if not for this so I don’t wish to hang around waiting for them. Maybe the sealed portal will get some cool activity that takes just enough time to farm the moth before going in here ? But yeah meanwhile we'll deal with this.

So yeah, cute, but need buffs and make the place worth coming back, I already swapped the whole turfs to wood and cobble so even for the pretty turf I don’t need to come back  

[SecretPizzaMan 1220]

SOMEONE HELP! DO I ANSWER WITH YEAH OR YES? IM NOT FEELING REALLY YEAH RIGHT NOW BUT YES FEELS TOO SUBDUED.

Spoiler

I ignore dust moths, never bothered with em. While I do think they might need to be revisited I don't think it is a priority right now.

But maybe can we build their dens in the surface? They look super cool.

 

[minespatch 95575]

6 minutes ago, SecretPizzaMan said:

maybe can we build their dens in the surface? They look super cool.

Didn't I suggest that?

[SecretPizzaMan 1220]

Just now, minespatch said:

Didn't I suggest that?

Didn't read your reply, sorry about that. 

[Ohan 4562]

More dens need to spawn. 

I’ve spent an entire summer going from one den to another feeding/mining 24/7 but that was only possible because I had 4 dens in that world which is very rare to get. Ended up with +-2 stacks of thulecite. 36 I think it was. Which definitely is not bad for not needing to clear ruins for it or reset AF. 

I think theyre a fun addition both lore-wise and as an animal husbandry mechanic and I enjoy gathering the ingredients and cooking up amberosia for them.

The amount of dens and the lack of other stuff to do in the area while they decorate their dens like ADM mentioned is what is holding them back the most. The duration it takes is both too long and too short.

Too short because u can’t really leave the archives to do something else if u want to cycle them on cooldown and too long because there’s nothing to do in the archives while u wait for them to finish. If u don’t have enough dens to just run around from one to the other then it becomes really dull to make use of them. 

getting ancient gems from their dens or crafting them above ground seems nonsensical imo. They excrete thul not gems.

Edit: I’d be okay with crafting the dens if they were restricted to the archives/caves but I’d personally still prefer for more dens to just spawn naturally for lore reasons. Crafting a nest for a doydoy or pighouse is one thing but a den for an insanely ancient thul excreting bug seems too far to me. Especially because the crafted dens would then also presumably become infinite spawners of new moths as well 

edit n#2:  if the naturally spawned moths somehow layed eggs that the player could raise like tallbirds and then also craft a den for them when they mature, I think that would be a really fun. I imagine theyd need to be in the caves in order to hatch etc. If u kill the raised baby though the crafted den wouldnt spawn a new one. But that’s a lot more work than just making more dens spawn in the world.

[ArubaroBeefalo 18256]

increase the number of dens since sometimes you only get 1, then it could start being something useful

[Nettalie 1610]

I used them once or twice and I gotta say that I just can't be bothered to wait a day for an average payout of maybe 5 thulecite fragments per moth (not even one full thulecite, unless you get lucky and get the 1% chance).

Sure it's a safe option compared to ruins resets, but we all should remember that we can only use this option reliably after having done the moon stone event in order to get an iridescent gem, so it's not really that great of an option for newer players and those that are not as good at fighting (at least in my eyes anyway) and when it comes to being safe, that also only sort of applies if you remove an iridescent gem from one of the sockets and get past the shadow war whenever you come back to visit..

Right now this only really serves to be a small thing for flavour/lore which I think is a shame because the entire archives are pretty much just the lore biome, while previous biomes have managed to be both useful as well as interesting for lore.

I'm personally fine with the cost of collected dust (though i do think its unnecessary having to cook it into amberosia personally, I can deal with it), I just think either the speed or the amount of thulecite you get out of it could be adjusted so that they can shine as a decent option should you decide to go for it.
Other than that, as some have said the amount of dens that generate could be increased to further help the process along.

Is this the most vital and/or important thing that could be changed? Not really, but it would certainly be neat and I think the archives do need a bit more love currently so this would be a good start.

[ArubaroBeefalo 18256]

4 minutes ago, Nettalie said:

Sure it's a safe option compared to ruins resets, but we all should remember that we can only use this option reliably after having done the moon stone event in order to get an iridescent gem,

i think the moths work even when the archives arent activated or im missing something?

[Nettalie 1610]

11 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i think the moths work even when the archives arent activated or im missing something?

They do work, but you'll only be able to use them for as many times as you have ancient kilns in your archives. After that you need to get collected dust yourself, which in turn you can only really get the recipe for if you activate the archives.
And that needs an iridescent gem.

[Frashaw27 1732]

7 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i think the moths work even when the archives arent activated or im missing something?

It's that the dust needed to make the ambrosia available to you is locked behind one of the portapottys of knowledge. Thus you need to activate the archives in order to get the dust to use them. I would also argue that it isn't that hard to do the moonstone event in comparison to a fuelweaver kill. The moon stone event is very easily cheeseable and the resources to make the star caller staff only needs a station and yellow gems, the rest of the materials can be gotten outside of the ruins.

[Nettalie 1610]

3 minutes ago, Frashaw27 said:

The moon stone event is very easily cheeseable

Well yeah but not only do you need to know how the cheese works to begin with, but I personally also think cheese is something that shouldn't factor into how a game is designed, unless the cheese is way too easy to pull of and thus makes the intended way entirely pointless, in which case it should absolutely be looked into.

[ArubaroBeefalo 18256]

2 minutes ago, Nettalie said:

They do work, but you'll only be able to use them for as many times as you have ancient kilns in your archives. After that you need to get collected dust yourself, which in turn you can only really get the recipe for if you activate the archives.
And that needs an iridescent gem.

 

2 minutes ago, Frashaw27 said:

It's that the dust needed to make the ambrosia available to you is locked behind one of the portapottys of knowledge. Thus you need to activate the archives in order to get the dust to use them. I would also argue that it isn't that hard to do the moonstone event in comparison to a fuelweaver kill. The moon stone event is very easily cheeseable and the resources to make the star caller staff only needs a station and yellow gems, the rest of the materials can be gotten outside of the ruins.

damn im dumb xD

[lakhnish 5458]

This poll has too many options, I can't even read it properly.

The dens should definitely be buffed to produce a reasonable amount of Thulecite. They take too long and are a lot of effort, even if I didn't clear the ruins. I'm surprised the ancients were able to make their civilization based on how slow the dens are

Instead, every time I go the archives and see a dust-moth, I kill them cause they are too high pitched :>

[Falkenpelz 3165]

Does this poll have too many options?

1) Heck yes!!

2) Yes.

3) A slightly less enthusiastic yes.

4) Hesitant yes.

5.0) Maybe?

5) a) Maybe.

5) b) Maybe with a tendency towards no.

6) I say no, but I wouldn't wanna bet my starve-bucks on being right.

7) Neutral no.

8) No! No, god Nooo!

666) How dare you oppose this poll I know where you live!1!!11

[Nettalie 1610]

1 hour ago, Falkenpelz said:

666) How dare you oppose this poll I know where you live!1!!11

Spoiler

103.57.368.19

 

[meow meow meow 852]

im not against a buff but i do absolutely use dust moths, it is a nice way to spend a summer down in the caves and just talk with friends while the moths do their thing

[ALCRD 2617]

On side note i am curious how they made or who "voice acted" the Dust Moth sounds.

Those purrs and squeaks are super adorable.

[maradyne 6110]

Mm...I love the concept, and the mobs, and the biome...but in its current form, it just feels far too slow.

More Thulecite created per cycle, more Moth dens.
Happiness.

 

Also, touching up the Moonstone event to be more approachable without wonky collision abuse (solo particularly) would be very welcome and could give the Archive a potential earlyish-game niche.

[Baark0 1778]

boy do i relate with this

[DaZoul 4326]

2 hours ago, Nettalie said:

103.57.368.19

naah fam, IP numbers can't go over 255. 

[Theukon-dos 4021]

Six minutes for an average of three theulicite shards. and a mere 1% chance to get a single large thulecite. Keep in mind that, while the dust moths are renewable, they spawn in a biome where you can very easily get several stacks of Thulecite with very little effort and risk, between all the lunar ancient statues and thulecite walls. Also Ambrosia seems like an unnecessary middle man to me. You need to make the dust with salt and niter. But then you need to cook it in a crock pot? But the recipe for Ambrosia can be literally anything. Meaning you can make it with 1 dust and 3 twigs, with the latter honestly being the cheapest part of the recipe. 

I dunno, it just seems weird to me.

[GenomeSquirrel 1367]

The only thulecite item I care about is the meglum, and I can usually scavenge enough to make one, so I’m not motivated to use moths.