Good thinking, but we made it so statue critters couldn't be caught back in (I believe it was) 1.3.1.
I've been mulling over the Pylon/Jungle Town concern though. It's a good point. Sauteed Frog Legs were added and balanced before we had the Pylon systems implemented. I'll have to discuss with the rest of the team.
The question is, if we make such a change, what would be ideal for the final two recipes? Sauteed = Tier 1 10 minutes? Where does that leave Froggle? Nerfing it all the way to Tier 1 would be such a huge change . . . so I'd say it should end up somewhere in Tier 2. If we were to make such a change, what would you guys expect to see from Froggle?
Considering that most if not all food recipes that are "critter on a Cooking Pot" are 10 minutes tier 1 buff, it'd absolutely be fitting for Sauteed. It
could be a bit higher because encountering and staying near Jungle is not as simple as Surface/Snow, but is ultimately counteracted by 1) Frogs being more plentiful thanks to increased spawnrates, and 2) having other idle drops like Grubbies, Sluggies, Buggies, that also can create a food item (Grub Soup, that grants t2 buff) or used for fishing to get Cooked Fish/Seafood. In fact, these could be used as an argument to decrease duration further, but ultimately it's best at 10 minutes as of right now, being unified with the rest of simple critter food.
As for Froggle, things get complicated indeed... A simple increase in Frogs number may be fine, but the amount of frogs you may obtain from the Jungle Pylon point is absolutely swole. On a decently flat surface, with 3 npcs nearby, you can catch on average 14 frogs per minute (~12 at day, 17 at night). As such, higher cost in the same material might not solve it being a clearly superior version.
I had been looking at the recipe from DST:
Most of the materials in Terraria that could be fitting (Mushrooms, Wood, Hay, fruit items from trees, herbs, Pumpkin, etc.) are either too plentiful or completely overtake the Frog-themed dish style due to rarity.
As of current, I can only propose one variant that I find any decent:
Frogs,
Jungle Spore(s), Hay
(optional)
That way, aside from simple Frog collection, you have to be visiting Underground Jungle, too. More dynamics in crafting recipe as well, and the recipe is conveniently separated from sauteed's basic form.
However, since I do not know how much more complicated a visit to Underground Jungle is considered (especially since I do recognize my own playstyle looting the biome rather early compared to average player), I would refrain from saying the exact stats for the Froggle, only stating that it likely could be considered t2 high duration/t3 average duration that way.
. . . how are you getting that Pew-Matic underperforms Demon Bow/Tendon Bow? Is it an accuracy/range thing? Because no matter how I look at it (with Demon/Tendon Bow using the best possible arrows), they still fall short of Pew-Matic's DPS. They aren't even autofire like Pew-Matic, so they are going to be falling even shorter generally speaking.
Are you including Archery Potions in the considerations here? That's the only thing I can think of which would be leveling the playing field in that regard.
Gonna write down a simplified math and see how it goes:
Pew-matic Horn: 19 Damage, 24 Use Time, 4% Crit Chance
Silver/Tungsten Bullets add 9 damage to that
The item damage pool chances are unknown to me at the moment, but assuming every single one has an equal chance to appear, you deal 25x damage with 24 projectiles, thus 25/24x multiplier
((19+9)*60/24)*1.04 = 72.8
Applying the aforementioned multiplier: 72.8*25/24 =
75.8
Demon Bow: 14 Damage, 25 Use Time, 4% Crit Chance
Arrows are a tough call, mostly because of availability issues (something like Unholy Arrows is strong, but may not be as common of a pick as one might thing).
For the comparison's sake, I'd stick with 10 damage (a rough average between Frostburn, Jester, and Unholy). Frostburn may lead to up to 8 DPS extra, but it is hard to keep 100% uptime and it isn't scaled with general damage increases so I intentionally avoid it for now.
((14+10)*60/25)*1.04 = 59.9
With Archery Potion, the base damage of Demon Bow is increased to 17. Arrows are unchanged. Extra calculation:
((17+10)*60/25)*1.04 =
67.4
Tendon Bow: 19 Damage, 30 Use Time, 4% Crit Chance
Without Archery Potion and with 10 dmg arrow:
((19+10)*60/30)*1.04 = 60.3
With Archery Potion the bow damage is increased to 23:
((23+10)*60/30)*1.04 =
68.6
So, yeah no, strictly speaking, bows are ever so slightly below Pew-matic Horn's DPS on a single target.
There are a few side factors that makes bows more favorable in real play compared to Pew-matic: better arc on a projectile and being able to pick arrow's effect as opposed to plain attack. But in direct comparison Horn would win.
That said, what tier weapons Horn should be compared to? When advertised as a "late preHM boss", which implies at very least post-EoW, it directly loses to the likes of Boomstick (120.8 DPS, assuming 3.5 bullets), Minishark (105 DPS), Sand Gun (108.8 DPS, regular sand), admittedly also being less versatile than either for same reasons (no ammo types, arc).
I could also bring other classes on the table, but with current situation of Ranger weapons being generally overtuned it's unlikely to be any fruitful with balancing restrictions imposed.
So, if we were to balance only the Horn like that, it'd be underwhelming compared to the rest of Ranger.