Why Brick Forgery exists

Some of its features like archaeology were originally meant to be in a mod called Beta Extras, the spiritual predecessor of this mod. It did however have absolutely no progression and was a disorganized mess of random content. Brick Forgery was born as a successor with the intention of combining all sorts of crazy ideas into a more coherent progression. Several iterations have been done to ensure its progression has a fun pace between exploration and building. An overhaul has been started to standardize its progression to have fewer awkward jumps. The ultimate goal is to have an unhinged but really fun automation mod mostly made from intrusive thoughts and intentionally insane plans.

Mod progression concepts

Ages of technology

There are several ages of technology to go through with increasingly capable machines for brick making. Later ages also contain exploration and adventure features. Crop farming is important throughout all ages.

Brick-making machines

Bricks are often crafted through several steps, getting increasingly complex with each age. A fundamental component for all bricks is the brick frame made in a special brick frame crafter. Other important parts are made in a slicer and metalworking station. Each new age comes with a higher tier of these machines, allowing for more part recipes (WIP, only applies to some ages).

Nocturnal farming

Many special crops grow at night to encourage players to not sleep and instead develop their base further to be more secure from monsters at night. All crops originate from exotic shrubs which grow in grassland biomes (plains, shrubland, savanna, swampland, and tundra). These exotic shrubs need to be exposed to the sky (transparent blocks can be put on top though).

How Better Than Wolves plays into the progression

The earliest night crops (night cane and exotic shrubs) can be obtained without needing anything from Better Than Wolves. Anything involving machines does however require mechanical power from a proper source like a windmill or water wheel. Brick Forgery makes full use of BTW progression features all the way up to soulforged steel. The last age (as of now) lets players produce materials which go beyond the progression of BTW.

End goal

The current goal is to produce a large brick. It only serves as a trophy right now but will be the starting point of future ages.

Exploration

Early game

The first interaction with Brick Forgery starts with a usually short segment of exploring grasslands to find exotic shrubs. The first three ages (sugar cane, cactus, and flint) do not rely on any additional exploration and are all about building new machines and farming more crops.

Basic archaeology

The primitive age introduces an archaeology system. Keys need to be crafted in order to open vaults in the forest (marked with an oddly shaped tree). Smashing the pots drops a unique powder. The goal is to make more tools to extract other important items. The primitve grabber allows players to grab important machine parts from the pots which can only be crafted later.

Advanced archaeology

The following exploration stage introduces desert and tundra vaults which are opened the same way as forest vaults. They do however have fewer pots which can be easily accessed. A chisel is needed to open sealed pots for parts and a brush is needed to expose pots from the rubble. The desert and frozen pots provide unique powders when smashed but provide the same important parts when extracted. Golden screws can be found in both types of pots and fully unlock the ability to build primitive machines.

Brick age archaeology (very unfinished)

The brick age requires players to find factory ruins which generate deep underground. It is important to know that these ruins only generate outside a 1024x1024 square around Spawn. These currently do not provide any unique challenges and just need to have the rubble brushed away.

Future plans

Automation

It currently is impossible to automate the production of most parts which makes the mod far less satisfying to play than it could be. The current plan is to have a different mod called New Frontier Craft handle the more generic automation tasks while Brick Forgery provides interfaces to have its machines integrate into NFC's automation. If this path is chosen, Brick Forgery will also get new recipes to use NFC's new materials. Better Than Wolves itself will also get more automation capabilities.

More in-game documentation

While features relevant to the sugar cane age are decently documented, there is next to no documentation for any features beyond it. Archaeology loot mechanics will be displayed using Always More Items. Night time crops will get a tooltip to let players know about the fact they only grow at night.

Overhauling other ages

The cactus and flint ages currently are empty while the primitive and brick ages are unfinished. There are also unused features like Jungle pots and the brick launcher awkwardly dangling around without a purpose. These will get integrated into other ages.

More rewards for progressing through Brick Forgery

There currently is a lack of useful rewards aside from some decorative blocks. Each age should provide something generally useful to make progress more exciting.