Compass rework.

[Wonz]

Reposting from other thread, not to toot my own horn but it's too good to not mention it again, especially when wicker needs living logs. They're so RNG to find and many of us are completely fed up with treeguard RNG so it introduces less RNG way that doesn't consume your entire day's free time.  

↓Read why it should be in game↓

The idea is to make it easier to find desired biome earlier. Some of us like multiplayer and join pubs for single session before world reset, have only like 4 hours a day to play and often it takes like 2 to find lunar grotto if we wish to do living log stuff for wicker for example. With this we'd have much more time to actually have fun. I'm trying to sleep 8, work 8 and i have to travel 2 hours a day, I gotta cook, eat, bathe, wash and study for work which takes another at least 2 hours, I'm left with less than 4 hours, since I work I rarely play don't starve because the preparation for fun stuff takes too long compared to the cool part. If i could every single time find the biomes I need early without randomly discovering through the fog of war I'd have much more time and most likely play don't starve more often.

The rework idea

 

Be honest, none of us 99% time wants to know where north is and 99.9% of us don't craft compass for anything else than the cartography desk.  

Know wheeler's navigadget? For example, you put a red gem in it and it shows the closest red gem item.

For my idea, it would be like this but you put an item into it and it shows you in which direction you'll find a biome mostly related to the item.

It should be very early accessible items, if you need cactus to find a desert then what's the point of getting cactus to find a desert if you need to find a desert first to get a cactus. 

Suggestions of Items and the Most related Biomes to them:

• Deciduous forest: Birchnuts
• Meteor shower areas: Rocks/Flint
• Bee queen biome: Petals
• Savanna that can have beefalos: Grass
• Altar Forest: Moonrock
• Dragonfly Desert: Ash/Charcoal
• Oasis desert: ... any trinkets, fishing rod maybe? Not many simple things relate to this dessert I guess.
• Marsh(swamp): Fish/Rot/Reeds(Chance to find them mini swamp patch or in tumbleweeds, what if wurt started with some?)
• Salt formations: Monster meat(IF ON BOAT)
• Spider infested forest: Monster meat(IF ON LAND), glands, silk.
• Moon quay: Cave Banana(you have to find banana I think it's fair amount of effort)

Caves

• Wilds: Lightbulb
• Rocky Plains: Rocks
• Mushtree forest: Color-matched mushroom cap.

 

Lunar Island: IMO shouldn't be possible to be located this way but finding glass in the lunar grotto could be easier than sailing and sometimes still not too easy.

Pig king is easy to find thanks to cobblestone road so it wouldn't be a problem to tell where he is even if a second deciduous biome spawned.

Players who don't like it still have a choice to just not use it.

You could find lunar grotto for living logs by finding first blue cap somewhere, then finding bulb to find wilds then putting cap into compass to easily locate blue mushtree forest which is connected to grotto.

[oregu]

I'm kind of torn between something like this being added. On the contrary, with how random biome generation is would help other's speed a lot and feel like they have more grasp about world generation and give game progression more depth and thoroughness. Though I'd rather have something lead to an entity rather than a biome to simplify things and have more creative methods. It could be fun even as a mod.

These ideas are OK, but would probably structure it better to make sense and have a priority of things with the 'strongest sources'.

Spoiler

Wet goop: Catcoon den or Marble: Glommer (unmined, then marble statues) or Suspicious marble pieces if all are mined. or Log: Catcoon den/Pig torch

Honey: Bee queen hive (if bq is dead, go to nearest beehive/killer beehive).

Lunar is maybe a lil odd to get off the bat (when you use moonrocks) only work when you're on that type of island (Pearl's).

Charcoal: nearest burnt tree (So burned spiky tree by df if none were burned yet).

Manure: Beefalo (water beefalo if on boat)

Cactus: Unpicked oasis cactus, then unpicked desert cactus,

or y'know, the strawroll/straw hat.

Glowberry: Depth worm (only in ruins/setpiece), Gems: Ruins statues w/that gem

 

[QuartzBeam]

1 hour ago, Wonz said:

none of us 99% time wants to know where north is

Players equipped with a compass can see each other on the map, which I think is a perfectly fine functionality for how little it costs.

[oregu]

Just now, QuartzBeam said:

that

Its useful primarily in early game where everything is undiscovered. But more often than not you just give directions because "Oh I don't have any gold yet" or "That would waste gold". I personally only use it for base building so it orientates well with my lureplant farm. A bit nitpicky but I also don't get why it still has a durability...

[Datanon]

i feel like it could be used as a way to craft some other item, since its such a characteristic item

23 hours ago, Wonz said:

Be honest, none of us 99% time wants to know where north is and 99.9% of us don't craft compass for anything else than the cartography desk.

i dont even use the cartography desk. whenever i play on multiplayer i just use mods to see my friends. i tried the map+compass system a few times to try to play with 0 mods but it just feels off and outdated

[Cheggf]

If people aren't crafting the compass to instantly find other players they won't craft the compass then open the wiki to see this weird list of items then find that item to be able to Speedrun to a biome 5 minutes sooner a single time.