How to enhance the power of your Ice Flingomatic

[ClumsyPenny]

Usually an Ice Flingomatic only barely covers an area of 6x6 turf, but with the power of Lureplants you can get up to 14x14! 

(Wendy for scale)

So how does this work? During summer, if it's hot enough, if it's day and it's not raining, structures and items around the player have a chance to smolder, but Lureplants will always smolder first because they have priority (as far as I know they are the only items in the game like that). The Ice Flingomatic will extinguish the Lureplants, keeping them safe. The area with the marble turf is where the player can be while still being in smoldering range of any Lureplant. As soon as a player isn't in that area, anything else could smolder, even structures inside the previously protected area. If you wish to get out of your base without risking to lose it, I'd suggest to build this around a Worm Hole.

How to build:

All you need is 4 Lureplant Bulbs, 1 Ice Flingomatic and 196 Eyeplant proof turfs (Cave Rock, Scaled, Desert, Carpet, Marble, Wood, Rocky or Cobblestone).

Place the Ice Flingomatic exactly in the center of 4 turfs, like this (I suggest to use a mod like Geometric Placement and a Pitchfork):

Place the Lureplants 3 turfs away diagonally from the Ice Flingomatic, but this time in the center of the turf (It doesn't look centered, but it is):

Don't forget the walls in the corners because if a player stands where the walls are supposed to be, the base wouldn't be safe since they are not in range of any Lureplant.

  (Grid for reference)

Green = Lureplant

Red = Ice Flingomatic

Grey = Walls

How to make it even bigger:

If 14x14 turf isn't enough for you, just repeat this pattern in a 2x2 square, like this:

And you will get a 26x26 area!

 

If you have any doubts feel free to ask, I will gladly answer.

[. . .]

Wow, this's neat, thanks ! Hope this doesn't get patched or something..

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

I think you're forgetting something, which is the splash range of each hit. This might just make the cover look like mickey mouse head with 2 extra ears. For it to cover entire thing, you would probably need more lureplants, because the splash of a flingo snowball is not that large. I would say 8 or perhaps even 16 lureplants, which in all honesty isn't really worth it and might take a long time to set up since the lureplants don't spawn every 2 minutes in Spring. The fact that lureplants take priority seems a bit a exploitative, but also interesting.

[Maslak]

Thanks a lot! I was always wondering what 'screen' dimensions are, measured in turfs. Could you do some lighting rod science now? I think that exact distance is still not known.

13 minutes ago, SuperDavid said:

Hope this doesn't get patched or something..

That's a feature, so it won't

[ClumsyPenny]

4 minutes ago, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

I think you're forgetting something, which is the splash range of each hit. This might just make the cover look like mickey mouse head with 2 extra ears. For it to cover entire thing, you would probably need more lureplants, because the splash of a flingo snowball is not that large. I would say 8 or perhaps even 16 lureplants, which in all honesty isn't really worth it and might take a long time to set up since the lureplants don't spawn every 2 minutes in Spring. The fact that lureplants take priority seems a bit a exploitative, but also interesting.

What about the splash range of each hit? The flingos are supposed to extinguish the lureplants ONLY, because that's the only thing which is going to smolder (if you are in the marble area). The area is completely covered, it's actually more than 14x14, but I wanted it to be a square, so I'm not actually using the whole possible "safe" area (which would be like mickey mouse, as you said). The priority isn't an exploit, it's an intended feature, even if I don't know why.

[ClumsyPenny]

8 minutes ago, Maslak said:

Thanks a lot! I was always wondering what 'screen' dimensions are, measured in turfs. Could you do some lighting rod science now? I think that exact distance is still not known.

This is the command I use, it should work even if you're not admin: print(math.sqrt(ThePlayer:GetDistanceSqToInst(TheInput:GetWorldEntityUnderMouse())))

It will show you in the console the distance in game units (1 turf side = 4 game units) between you and the structure under your mouse cursor. Smolder range is 25 units around the player, Lighting Rod should be 40 around the rod itself (not 100% sure though).

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

5 hours ago, Hobgoblino said:

What about the splash range of each hit? The flingos are supposed to extinguish the lureplants ONLY, because that's the only thing which is going to smolder (if you are in the marble area). The area is completely covered, it's actually more than 14x14, but I wanted it to be a square, so I'm not actually using the whole possible "safe" area (which would be like mickey mouse, as you said). The priority isn't an exploit, it's an intended feature, even if I don't know why.

Oooh, right, my calculus was a bit wrong. I was trying to take into consideration plants, which wither, where as you were thinking differently with things that can just light on fire and not wither.

Now that I think about it, lureplants having priority over smoldering instead of it being more random is a bit exploitative, even though it might be intended (not sure why). I mean, aside from possible fire hounds, you could just have a bunch of lureplants in your base surrounded by the flingos and the rest (aside from plants) could be placed anywhere within the range of the marble area. Some might have other opinions, but based on what I've described so far, this does seem a bit exploitative and should really be patched out, because then, on friends-only servers, where your friends are generally pros, this could be a very useful exploit so long as you don't kill lavae or fire hounds in your base.

[Maslak]

It has been around for a really long time. Heck, I think that it was a thing when RoG came out or shortly after. It doesn't need 'patching' in my opinion. It really takes some time to setup - more than one spring (one, regular duration spring spawns up to 3 lureplants) for complete design, a couple days of pitchwork (pitchfork + work, hehe) and lots of suitable turf, which means loads of wood or even more pitchwork (heh).

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

43 minutes ago, Maslak said:

It has been around for a really long time. Heck, I think that it was a thing when RoG came out or shortly after. It doesn't need 'patching' in my opinion. It really takes some time to setup - more than one spring (one, regular duration spring spawns up to 3 lureplants) for complete design, a couple days of pitchwork (pitchfork + work, hehe) and lots of suitable turf, which means loads of wood or even more pitchwork (heh).

Still a tad bit exploitative in the long run. And it's just... weird in general. But not a priority type of a thing, I don't think. Plenty other exploits, bugs, some errors and game design changed that need work on that have higher priority, I think.

[Electroely]

I see a lot of people wondering why Lureplants have priority smoldering. Well, it's Kind of simple...

Spoiler

In spring, they start spawning, right? Well, they smolder first in summer so that the world gets rid of them to continue it's highly suffocated cycle of nature. I don't see this working too well considering that only things near the player smolder, but I guess it's just Klei doing it's best with the whole cycle of life thing. 

Disclaimer: I'm not sure this is the right answer. I'm just using logic.

[Mr.Tarunio]

32 minutes ago, Electroely said:

I see a lot of people wondering why Lureplants have priority smoldering. Well, it's Kind of simple...

  Reveal hidden contents

In spring, they start spawning, right? Well, they smolder first in summer so that the world gets rid of them to continue it's highly suffocated cycle of nature. I don't see this working too well considering that only thing near the player smolder, but I guess it's just Klei doing it's best with the whole cycle of life thing. 

Disclaimer: I'm not sure this is the right answer. I'm just using logic.

legit 4 me i guess. maybe it intakes the summer heat and combusts, dont starve rules.

[RobertoRezende]

Another great idea of yours, Hob! This might become the gold standard in using the flingos, since it provides a huge protected area with a relatively easier maintenace.

[JohnWatson]

On 11/27/2016 at 9:40 AM, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

Oooh, right, my calculus was a bit wrong.

What.

Quote

Now that I think about it, lureplants having priority over smoldering instead of it being more random is a bit exploitative, even though it might be intended (not sure why). I mean, aside from possible fire hounds, you could just have a bunch of lureplants in your base surrounded by the flingos and the rest (aside from plants) could be placed anywhere within the range of the marble area. Some might have other opinions, but based on what I've described so far, this does seem a bit exploitative and should really be patched out, because then, on friends-only servers, where your friends are generally pros, this could be a very useful exploit so long as you don't kill lavae or fire hounds in your base.

In my opinion, it is more desirable to have mechanics such as these be left alone. I have asked Whackzay why Don't Starve (Together) was no longer an interest of his, and he explained that it was because mechanics that benefit players such as him were being patched out. Not surprisingly, deep mechanics will keep players interested for longer because they allow the game to have a higher skill ceiling.

Let's take another game as an example, how about Team Fortress 2. There are numerous mechanics in TF2 that seem vague and exploitative, like air strafing. However, instead of being patched out, air strafing was kept in the game. And now it would be ridiculous to remove that mechanic because every skilled competitive player has mastered air strafing and tries to utilize it to its fullest potential. There are even more mechanics that you would consider "exploits" in that game, such as crouch jumping, explosive jumping, ramp sliding, damage surfing, and shield turning. These mechanics are not considered as exploits by the players and the developers, and their acceptance of these mechanics is what maintains the game's extremely high skill ceiling.

[ClumsyPenny]

5 minutes ago, JohnWatson said:

In my opinion, it is more desirable to have mechanics such as these be left alone. I have asked someone why Don't Starve (Together) was no longer an interest of his, and he explained that it was because mechanics that benefit players such as him were being patched out. Not surprisingly, deep mechanics will keep players interested for longer because they allow the game to have a higher skill ceiling.

Let's take another game as an example, how about Team Fortress 2. There are numerous mechanics in TF2 that seem vague and exploitative, like air strafing. However, instead of being patched out, air strafing was kept in the game. And now it would be ridiculous to remove that mechanic because every skilled competitive player has mastered air strafing and tries to utilize it to its fullest potential. There are even more mechanics that you would consider "exploits" in that game, such as crouch jumping, explosive jumping, ramp sliding, damage surfing, and shield turning. These mechanics are not considered as exploits by the players and the developers, and their acceptance of these mechanics is what maintains the game's extremely high skill ceiling.

I completely agree with you, many of the old Don't Starve veterans just stopped playing the game because even with the Shipwrecked DLC singleplayer felt like it was abandoned to work on more multiplayer content, but many bugs which were used a lot by those players were fixed (pinecone glitching, fire farms, anything with relogging, etc.). But I'm fine with those bug fixes because even if it made the game less grindy, it also made the game easier and when you have many players working together it's more satisfying to do things the legit way.

The devs also gave us legit ways to do similar things to the singleplayer bugs like mushroom lamps compared to lantern glitching or more than one Goose every spring compared to Goose egg duplicating.

I would really hate it if the devs started "fixing" something like this, it's an intended game mechanic and it's not like it's super easy to do. It's not something you can do your first summer and it has its drawbacks (plants will still wither if not inside the Ice Flingomatic range, you can't leave the base without risking to burn something, you have a limited choice of turf). Mechanics like this make the game more interesting and reward players for surviving long enough because after a certain point it just becomes boring having to refuel so many Ice Flingomatics or do nothing inside caves for 15 days every summer.

[b1b3r0n]

This is great i'll try in my next camp, but l hate you I'll have to change my base setup!