Board Thread:Suggestions/@comment-24108228-20140703235414

Yes, I call gunpowder "boom powder". Get over it, its a habit I got into a while back. =Bigger Explosives=

Why this should be implemented
As we all know, explosives have very little effect in Survival 303. Currently, it takes over 4 bombs simultaneously going off in order to knock over a medieval wall. That's over 48 ores, gone. And that's if your lucky, most of the the time that wont even happen, and you'll have to spend even more time crafting boom powder and fuses. The amount of time it takes to set up the explosives is longer than it would take to place and climb over a ladder.

Ok, sure, a medieval wall is sturdy, so let's go down a grade. How about a wooden shack? Surely that would be turned into toothpicks at the mere sight of a single boom powder? Of course not. Having done tests, I can tell you that even if you use three simultaneous boom powder, the wooden hut wont even fully fall apart, let alone be blasted in any particular direction. It's hardly worth the effort. In medieval warfare (which is the time everyone except scar sees as the final era), huge amounts of explosives were used. In the end game warfare of survival 303 (basically where two wikians get bored and agree to a friendly war), very few explosives are used, and in most cases it's more of a hard to use weapon against people, than any form of destructive village destroyer.

Not only that, but to top it all off, blowing a building to smithereens does nothing except temporarily allow people to walk through the area where the walls of the building once stood. The building can be retooled, the explosive wont even light the building it explodes (unless you light the explosive with a flaming item, in which case the flaming item will probably also light the building at the same time). I've blown my way into castles of evil raiders, and they simply retool and put back the gate I smashed in the time it takes me to walk back to it (I like to keep my distance from explosives I light). It's stupid. A bomb costs more ores than any other item (excluding a bluesteel sword/armour), and cant even do permanent damage to a pavilion. In real life, the pavilion would be a pile of matchsticks before you can say "TAKE COVAR!". In Survival 303, we have explosives that cant even knock over a shack.

The Suggestion
So my suggestion would be different to most people's. Most people here have said "MAKE DA BOOM BIGGAR" (which I agree with, although doesn't help in the long run). I suggest two things. The first of which being, make objects that are close to the explosion turn "Scorched" and become black, and more importantly, unretoolable. They're also made flammable, so you can finally remove entirely that darn Person that someone placed in your base.

Secondly, a new bomb would be added. "Big Bertha", would be a larger version of the bomb, causing more destruction at a higher cost (although lighting lots of bombs for the same cost would do less than a single Big Bertha, it'll make sense when I go into detail).

Big Bertha
I'll do this one first, since it's mentioned in the scorch mechanics part, and not vice versa.

The Big Bertha is a very large explosive, measuring at 6x8x6 (x,y,z), and having the same colouring and shape as a regular bomb. It is crafted as follows: Plank + Plank + Plank + Plank + Bomb + Bomb + Fuse = Big Bertha Chemistry 4, Engineering 3, Carpentry 5, Crafting 4 It requires four planks because lots of coating is needed to cover such a large area. Two bombs fits in with the old recipe, and adds much needed difficulty at the same time, and the fuse is there because the bomb is so large it will need an additional extension of the fuse to avoid the fuse not being long enough.

Chemistry four because it takes some skill in the art of chemicals to make such a monstrosity without blowing your face off (and anyone else's face who happens to be in a radius the size of mainland). Engineering three for similar reasons to the old bomb, although with a higher level because this bomb is bigger and more boomy. Carpentry to create a really sturdy and airtight container for maximised bang, and crafting because it was used in the old recipe for some reason and I felt it should be carried on.

The bomb itself functions much like a regular bomb, you click on it to start the timer, you run away while the fuse starts (it would be twice as long as a regular bomb, to give the lighter plenty of time to escape the larger explosion), and when the fuse runs out, ka-boom! The explosion would be a full four times as powerful, since it costs so much, is so big, and its one purpose is to blow something up properly.

Scorch Mechanics
This is the main suggestion here. This is a way of making sure that when you blow up a building, the owner wont just retool and carry on.

When an explosion occurs, an area around the explosive is "Scorched". This means it is turned black, is made flammable (so you can "burn" down stone buildings with enough dedication), and if part of a building, will make that building impossible to retool.

A boom powder would scorch all items within 3 studs of its explosion. A bomb would scorch all items within 5 studs of the explosion. Big Bertha would scorch all items within a massive 15 studs of the explosion.

This would basically mean that a gunpowder will destroy the building it is used in, a bomb can destroy two-three depending on placement and how dense the area is, or completely obliterate a single smallish building, and Big Bertha can decimate a good chunk of a tribe (which serves them right for messing with someone who had so much time on their hands that they trained their engineering, chemistry and carpentry, mined about a bluesteel sword's worth of ores, and spent it all on blowing up about half of that tribe's buildings).

No, it's not OP.
Now, the vast majority of you have looked at: "Big Bertha can decimate a good chunk of a tribe" And instantly decided: "Gosh, that's quite OP. I say, I should write an educated and polite response to this suggestion." Well, I'll write my educated and polite response to your educated and polite response before any of you waste your educated and polite finger power typing your educated and polite response.

To start off with, Big Bertha weighs in at a whopping 26 ores per bang. Compare that to a bomb, or a crossbow. A bomb costs 12 ores to create, and could easily knock out several buildings. Using 26 ores, I could make a crossbow with enough bolts to kill an Unobtainium Warrior and still have plenty spare. If I was to use boom powder instead of Big Bertha, I could probably "Destroy" more buildings, it just wouldn't have the same devastating effect. It would probably take more time to get and craft all the materials for this than a bluesteel sword, yet a bluesteel sword can be used twice, and in many more situations. A bluesteel sword would probably be the better tool in raiding a village that hates you to death (you wont spend 26 ores on a village your not at war with). The Big Bertha is basically the raider's way of saying "I won. Give up.", in the way that fire, killing, and temporary building deconstruction doesn't.

To counter another argument, theorised mining is very different from real mining. In the event that theorised mining profits come true, the case is normally that the player is either making things while they wait for a hacker to leave, or is mining to beat a personal/wiki best. In an actual situation where you will want to nuke a village, Big Bertha will probably be the last thing you would use, if you look at the majority of people who blow stuff up while raiding, they use small amounts of gunpowder to avoid cost issues. With scorch mechanics, three gunpowder would be the most you would ever need. One for the forge, one for the lighthouse, one for the medieval house the builder is hiding in. Big Bertha is for people who just don't shut up. For those who really deserve it. And as a final nail in the coffin for all wars being a race to make a Big Bertha, you would need two or three to fully blow up a village that would be capable of the construction of Big Bertha. Nobody would spend 77 ore on blowing up a village. Nobody.

If the community wants, we could most likely increase the cost to something crazy like 38 ores by adding an extra bomb. Personally I don't feel the need, however, some people are more paranoid than I am.

Conclusion
Do you like the ideas? Post in the poll below! Post ideas and suggestions as a reply! Don't overuse the warning template I am starting to regret making! As always, I hope you like my suggestion, as it took a while to type. And please don't sue me for eye damage. Boom? All da boom! Only da Bigga Boom! Only da Scorching Boom! No boom. I dislike boom. For those of you uneducated, Big Bertha is not just the name for the bomb used in WW2. It's a commonly used name for big cannons, explosives, and other destructive thingys. I'm not trying to bring WW2 into survival 303. 