Weapons & Equip Varnish - Making player placed tiles indestructible!

Should "Varnish be introduced"

  • Yes, definately!

    Votes: 6 66.7%
  • Yes, but the mechanics need tweaking first

    Votes: 3 33.3%
  • Meh, don't care

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, because I have no use for it

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No, this would ruin the game

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    9

DodgyDutchman

Skeletron Prime
Greetings fellow Terrarians,

I do not know about most of you, but I frequently had the following problem:

The Scenario:
Spending hours on end to build a lovely home on a map which I opened up to multi-player.
Then I invite a friend who thinks that it is a spectacular idea to use his pickaxe/miningtool as a weapon to kill zombies, enchanted armours, flying eyeballs and other spawn that harrass my townies during the night (or slimes during the day).
Or... "Oh wow, this wall is in the way. Know what? I'll blow it up instead of using a switch to open the door."
Or... (even worse) "Look! I got me a new rocketlauncher!" *nuclear kaboom*

The Result:
Me being quite annoyed over randomly destroyed tiles or in the case of having been demonstrated the new rocketlauncher, hardly having any town left at all. Now don't get me wrong, it's part of the game, but it's heartbreaking if you spent so much time and efford on it only to have your work of art being destroyed by an unattentive bonehead / troll / accident.

The Solution:
Varnish! It would be awesome if you could just "freeze" some or all of the player placed tiles (natural environment doesn't count...although it wouldn't be a biggy if it was included) could be protected from damage. This would be mining damage, explosive damage and lava damage*.

How it works:

Method 1:
- A new tool called "Varnish sprayer" would be introduced, with the same mechanics as the Clentaminator.
- When selecting this item, all "varnished" tiles would be high-lighted yellow so you can see what is and what isn't protected.
- Two types of ammo would exist for the "Varnish sprayer", namely "Varnish" and "Acetone"
- The "Varnish" ammo would protect types when applied to it.
- The "Acetone" ammo would remove the protection from tiles when applied to it.

How to aquire it:
- The "Varnish sprayer" would be sold by the Painter NPC, costing 50 gold.
- The ammo would cost 25 silver per unit.

Method 2:
- More or less the same principle as Method 1, only instead of a Clentaminator type of mechanic, a paintbrush kind of mechanic would be used.
- A regular type of sprayer/paintbrush can be used.
- When having "Varnish" or "Acetone" selected as your paint-type, tiles protected by "Varnish" will be highlighted yellow.
- Also aquired from the Painter NPC, only the ammo would cost 1 silver per unit.


What would be protected by Varnish:
- Any type of player craftable brick or wall that can be removed by a pickaxe or hammer.
- Any type of placable furniture that can be removed by a pickaxe or hammer.


So how about it?
Personally I would consider this as a great quality of life improvement for the builders amongst us.
The diggers and fighters would probably consider this redundant, but I would encourage feedback from everyone.

When giving feedback I am mainly looking for the following.
- Support to get this idea on the radar with the development team.
- Constructive criticism, how can the idea be improved.
- Is this mechanic liable to be exploited and if yes, how?

As for this mechanic being used as a method of trolling/griefing, a condition could be implemented where only the "owner" of a world can use it. For multiplayer this would mean that only the host use "Varnish" or "Acetone" on items and if the "Varnish sprayer" were used by a guest in a multiplayer session it would have no effect. Additionally (but I can imagine this requiring an extra bit of programming) an option in the menu can be added stating weither guests are allowed to (un-)varnish can be set.

Also, consider the potential of this mechanic for multiplayer Adventure and/or PvP maps.
- Puzzles could be frozen in place where people actually have to solve them instead of blowing them up.
- Set arena's can be made and traps can be set for PvP maps.
- Explosive traps can be used to blow up players and monsters (or annoying NPCs) without actually destroying the terrain.


In short (TL/DR version):
- New mechanic that works like the clentaminator
- Ammo (spray) that on impact with tiles either protects or unprotects it from mining/explosive damage
- Protect your terrain from explosive accidents and/or griefers
- Create more immersive Adventure and/or PvP maps




*Lava damage? Yes, for I would not put it beyond some players to build a huge reservoir of lava somewhere up in the sky and then blowing up the borders of the reservoir, which would unleash armagheddon of biblical proportions on your town as you watch your carefully placed furniture being eaten away.
 
Last edited:
I think this is a fair proposal, being a builder myself. If I am to be completely honest here, the Varnish Sprayer and "ammo" are a bit expensive; Halve the prices, and I think this could be reasonable (5 Platinum for the Sprayer, 50 Silver per "ammo"). As a builder, I don't want to stop what I'm doing just to farm mobs and get monies to continue, I'd rather have a supply ready for when I need it.

The editting tool TEdit has another functionality similar to this. They call it Masking, and it disguises blocks as another block entirely. Imagine, placing Titanium, but have it sound and act like Dirt Blocks with Grass on them. It is fairly buggy, but it's worth it for maps like the ones you have said you make.
 
I can see the value in protecting blocks from explosions, I actually had a little "oopsie" with those just recently myself, but as far as stopping people from griefing you on purpose, I don't think there's any completely in-game way to make that happen. If the vanish can be removed, griefers will remove it. If it can't be removed, they will find whole new ways to annoy you by building indestructible walls where you don't want them.
 
Like others have said, the price may be a little excessive, if blocks need to be protected specifically then huge prices could result, as even wire is expensive n large quantities.
The varnish could be applied using already existing tools such as the Paint Brush to improve the utility of the item (say, by right clicking varnish could be applied to blocks), but it's up to you whether that would be a good idea. However, the suggestion has plenty of use and the solutions to many of the problems that could occur are excellent (the multiplayer action is very useful as it solved a lot of previous questions for me). I can see the reasoning behind this as it could prevent the need for servers like Fireblossom to ban explosives to prevent griefing, but the potential for blocking people in forever is still a definite. If the person you're playing with is that evil, however, I'd reccomend you play with someone else.(The same was also possible in part with lizahrd bricks.)
 
The price may be indeed be a bit exuberant.
Made the following changes:
Varnish sprayer 10 platinum -> 50 gold
Varnish/Acetone (spray) 1 gold -> 25 silver

After reading the comments then the idea of it also being a gold sink should perhaps be forgone as builders may indeed not want to farm for cash just to preserve their works.
 
Will this allow other players to open my chest? Basically put a varnish on a storage container and when a player attempts to open it, it will say "This [Name of storage container] belongs to [Name of the Player who owns that [Storage Container]]!

Like: "This Ice Chest belongs to FrozenToothpaste!"
 
but it's heartbreaking if you spent so much time and efford on it only to have your work of art being destroyed by an unattentive bonehead / troll / accident.
That's why you don't invite people to your world if they are destructive. Overall though, I can see it having some uses. Support.
 
That's why you don't invite people to your world if they are destructive. Overall though, I can see it having some uses. Support.

Well, to be perfectly honest, it's not just to protect my world from the "bad people".
I may have had one or two dynamite accidents myself...
Or having the wrong (terrain destroying) type of ammo equiped for my rocketlauncher...

Come to think of it, I just might by my own world's worst enemie. :D
[doublepost=1468246427,1468246363][/doublepost]
Will this allow other players to open my chest? Basically put a varnish on a storage container and when a player attempts to open it, it will say "This [Name of storage container] belongs to [Name of the Player who owns that [Storage Container]]!

Like: "This Ice Chest belongs to FrozenToothpaste!"

Ehm, nope. Completely missing the point there.
Also a completely different mechanic I'd imagine.
But thanks for the input!
 
Yes I would like to trap my enimies in hell stone support

That is actually a very valid point, however, the idea was to prevent 'accidental' environment damage.
It's not a fool proof protection or griefer repellant. However, it should protect our carefully crafted works of art from the occasional 'miss-click' when holding dynamite.

Granted, it would also allow us to use explosive traps in our arenas without destroying them, but I don't think that would give players too much of an avantage as the explosives have to be re-rigged after being used (just have to exclude explosive traps from being able to have applied varnish to it in order to prevent cheating).
 
That is actually a very valid point, however, the idea was to prevent 'accidental' environment damage.
It's not a fool proof protection or griefer repellant. However, it should protect our carefully crafted works of art from the occasional 'miss-click' when holding dynamite.

Granted, it would also allow us to use explosive traps in our arenas without destroying them, but I don't think that would give players too much of an avantage as the explosives have to be re-rigged after being used (just have to exclude explosive traps from being able to have applied varnish to it in order to prevent cheating).
But people would probably end up using some sort of cheat to put varnish on explosive traps.
 
Back
Top Bottom