Silk shrub/tree/plant seeds?

[Frosty_Mentos]

Some alternative exotic shrub that would produce and weave it's own silk that we could find seeds somewhere in ruins or hidden in caves. It being decent way to farm silk without fighting spiders and maybe for veterans provide newbies with another farm plant that could help in some level of survival.

[Marmalade]

Ooo I love this!
I could probably mod in a silkshrub plant/farm weed with seeds obtainable by mining Spilagmites, and the seeds can be obtained by carefully clipping them off of mature silkweeds with a razor... I dunno, I just like the thought of obtaining silk without having to go anywhere with spiders, really.

[SOS-Ouroboros-K]

But silk is not linen... If we needed a plant-based fabric, maybe we could just use grass or reeds?
Might it be possible to harvest spider silk from some Webbed trees? Or introduce it directly into the sericulture? After all, we can have a lot of butterfly wings.

[Frosty_Mentos]

2 hours ago, SOS-Ouroboros-K said:

But silk is not linen... If we needed a plant-based fabric, maybe we could just use grass or reeds?
Might it be possible to harvest spider silk from some Webbed trees? Or introduce it directly into the sericulture? After all, we can have a lot of butterfly wings.

I mean, we don't need any kind of other fabric imo. Maybe refining silk into better ways to get better garments but idk. A clothing rework would be in order, but I just think silk plantation could be just a nice and maybe pretty alternative to silk gathering. Though wouldn't mind us getting maybe cotton plants or something.

[BalkanCockroach]

Not that useful since killing spiders gives gives monster meat and glands, both are useful. People would kill spiders and get the silk as a byproduct anyways.

[ZeRoboButler]

We kinda have this already in the form of the blue mush forest, the trees naturally get silk'd up over time by the dangling depth dens so all you need is a trap or two and some careful decision making on which trees to chop and just like that you have more silk than you know what to do with. I have very easily gotten a stack of silk chopping those silk laiden mushtrees before, and the danger was minimal because I trapped the little monsters before hand, smoke em' out and loot the trees I say. 

I do like the idea of ancient seeds in the caves to produce some sort of unique plant or tree, I think it all depends on if they are similar to the ones we already have growth wise that would be a selling point. 

What would we gain out of a ancient plant that is of value? How much value does that item have and how long are meant to wait between harvest and full growth time of the plant? 

[Lovens]

I'd rather have a refined craft from silk, made from two or three silk, called cloth for example. It could then go into crafts like masts, trawlers, tents, clothes, beekeeper helms, bird traps etc. 

[SOS-Ouroboros-K]

8 hours ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I mean, we don't need any kind of other fabric imo. Maybe refining silk into better ways to get better garments but idk. A clothing rework would be in order, but I just think silk plantation could be just a nice and maybe pretty alternative to silk gathering. Though wouldn't mind us getting maybe cotton plants or something.

As far as I know, silk has existed as an animal product for a long time in history, and direct extraction of silk from plants is almost unheard of. (Both in real life and in games).
Although there should be modern technology to produce artificial silk from plants, we should already be able to produce nylon under the same conditions.
It might be more appropriate to use a building like the Bee Box for specific creatures to breed and harvest, after all, in reality, silk cloth is actually harvested through silkworm (the larva of a kind of moth) farming.

8 hours ago, BalkanCockroach said:

Not that useful since killing spiders gives gives monster meat and glands, both are useful. People would kill spiders and get the silk as a byproduct anyways.

Well, actually I have a few excess glands...

[-Nick-]

3 hours ago, SOS-Ouroboros-K said:

As far as I know, silk has existed as an animal product for a long time in history, and direct extraction of silk from plants is almost unheard of. (Both in real life and in games).
Although there should be modern technology to produce artificial silk from plants, we should already be able to produce nylon under the same conditions.
It might be more appropriate to use a building like the Bee Box for specific creatures to breed and harvest, after all, in reality, silk cloth is actually harvested through silkworm (the larva of a kind of moth) farming.

This is the constant, a tree producing spider silk isnt too out there. There's already a tree that grows gems.

[Bumber64]

Corn silk?

Fits DST logic. Use for an underwhelming crop. Just craft a bunch of corn together.

Maybe convert eggplant into eggs while we're at it. Both should be T1 magic (prestihatitator).

[ZeRoboButler]

28 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Corn silk?

Fits DST logic. Use for an underwhelming crop. Just craft a bunch of corn together.

Maybe convert eggplant into eggs while we're at it. Both should be T1 magic (prestihatitator).

That is a very creative way to make corn more useful, wouldn't mind if warly was able to make syrup with it in future, or heck more use cases period for some of the crops.

Poor pomegranate and peppers, their general use cases are not great. yeah pepper have their own recipe, but it's just a worse version of pierogi and pomegranate has literally no recipes of note... same for carrots actually.  

[SOS-Ouroboros-K]

3 minutes ago, ZeRoboButler said:

That is a very creative way to make corn more useful, wouldn't mind if warly was able to make syrup with it in future, or heck more use cases period for some of the crops.

Poor pomegranate and peppers, their general use cases are not great. yeah pepper have their own recipe, but it's just a worse version of pierogi and pomegranate has literally no recipes of note... same for carrots actually.  

Durian:i am a joke.

43 minutes ago, -Nick- said:

This is the constant, a tree producing spider silk isnt too out there. There's already a tree that grows gems.

So why Honey, Stinger, Butter, Tentacle Spots, Hound's Tooth, Beefalo Wool, Beard Hair, Snurtle Shell Armor, Mosquito Sack, Pig Skin, Bunny Puff, Slurper Pelt, Thulecite, Steel Wool, Royal Jelly can't be obtained by growing crops?

Terraria introduced Gemcorns in 1.4.0.1, but they chose not to introduce a spider silk tree to obtain Cobweb in 1.4.4.

That's never the most appropriate choice. I mean, why introduce a confusing acquisition method when we already have less ridiculous alternatives (like Bee Box and Webbed Blue Mushtree)? It's like saying if we want to get fish, let's not introduce Ocean Trawler and try to design a fruit tree that will produce sea fish.

In addition, the character's inspection lines also indicate that silk is a protein fiber produced by spiders - not cellulose produced by plants.

[ZeRoboButler]

11 hours ago, SOS-Ouroboros-K said:

Durian:i am a joke.

So why Honey, Stinger, Butter, Tentacle Spots, Hound's Tooth, Beefalo Wool, Beard Hair, Snurtle Shell Armor, Mosquito Sack, Pig Skin, Bunny Puff, Slurper Pelt, Thulecite, Steel Wool, Royal Jelly can't be obtained by growing crops?

Terraria introduced Gemcorns in 1.4.0.1, but they chose not to introduce a spider silk tree to obtain Cobweb in 1.4.4.

That's never the most appropriate choice. I mean, why introduce a confusing acquisition method when we already have less ridiculous alternatives (like Bee Box and Webbed Blue Mushtree)? It's like saying if we want to get fish, let's not introduce Ocean Trawler and try to design a fruit tree that will produce sea fish.

In addition, the character's inspection lines also indicate that silk is a protein fiber produced by spiders - not cellulose produced by plants.

I think Durian is literally a joke fruit, similar to how woodie was largely a canadian joke the devs ran with. 

Klei has a habit of adding things for a mix of reasons, like humor, puns, odd combinations of creatures with amusing names, and strictly gameplay. Is a tree or bush covered in spider silk unlikely? Perhaps, considering its acquisition is an element of balance to the game and how fast we progress with certain things, especially early on. 

Where this really falls apart is probably the need for silk and it's availability, a world goes past a certain point and there are too many spiders everywhere. There isn't really a shortage nor is there a major gameplay reason to add additional sources (similar to how hamlet had the spider monkeys).   

[SOS-Ouroboros-K]

13 hours ago, ZeRoboButler said:

I think Durian is literally a joke fruit, similar to how woodie was largely a canadian joke the devs ran with. 

Klei has a habit of adding things for a mix of reasons, like humor, puns, odd combinations of creatures with amusing names, and strictly gameplay. Is a tree or bush covered in spider silk unlikely? Perhaps, considering its acquisition is an element of balance to the game and how fast we progress with certain things, especially early on. 

Where this really falls apart is probably the need for silk and it's availability, a world goes past a certain point and there are too many spiders everywhere. There isn't really a shortage nor is there a major gameplay reason to add additional sources (similar to how hamlet had the spider monkeys).   

I look forward to the day when durian becomes a Joker. (This is a lie.)

Want a tree or bush covered in spider silk?  Ok, so this is Webbed Blue Mushtree.  Maybe all we need in this direction is an additional way to safely and sustainably obtain silk using Razor and Spiderhat.

But, speaking of puns, I do have a wacky idea: a spider safe, like a Bee Box. Just like a room for the silkworm in real production, a safe for the spider so that the spider inside is safe for you and you can safely harvest their silk.

13 hours ago, ZeRoboButler said:

Where this really falls apart is probably the need for silk and it's availability, a world goes past a certain point and there are too many spiders everywhere. There isn't really a shortage nor is there a major gameplay reason to add additional sources (similar to how hamlet had the spider monkeys).   

It's absolutely true. One of the top three reservations I see every spring in the game is Beefalos vs. Spider Queen.
Then I had to think about what to do with Spider Glands all over the place.

[Frosty_Mentos]

I'd just like exotic plant that would be nice and spooky looking for some gothic decor that includes cobwebs.