99 items

[Sergey]

Why do 99 items make full stack? Why so odd number was chosen for full stack? Why not hundred for good measure?

[Krock]

With the old font settings they covered more of the inventory images. Two digits already allow quite big stacks and they don't cover the image too much, so it's easier to see what the item is.

[Sergey]

With the old font settings they covered more of the inventory images. Two digits already allow quite big stacks and they don't cover the image too much, so it's easier to see what the item is.

1) Font size can be made little bit smaller
2) Caption with number can be made semitransparent so item and number are visible/distinguishable

[firefox]

game logic :P

almost all games have their max level or whatever at 99, 999 or 9999.

[Sergey]

game logic :P

almost all games have their max level or whatever at 99, 999 or 9999.

Just like price tags in shopping malls :-)

[GreenXenith]

Stack max is something around 65535. Doing /giveme can get you that amount. Doing 65536 gives you empty item error. Anything higher resets back to counting from one (65537=1,65528=2,etc...).

[MykieDoesStuff]

Stack max is something around 65535. Doing /giveme can get you that amount. Doing 65536 gives you empty item error. Anything higher resets back to counting from one (65537=1,65528=2,etc...).

Very good to know 1+

[Sergey]

Stack max is something around 65535. Doing /giveme can get you that amount. Doing 65536 gives you empty item error. Anything higher resets back to counting from one (65537=1,65528=2,etc...).

How 2³²–1 related with 99 ?

[GreenXenith]

I was proving that the stack max is not 99 and can be higher and btw the font doesnt block the item much.

[Mwamba]

Why do 99 items make full stack? Why so odd number was chosen for full stack? Why not hundred for good measure?

Please, refer to this topic: Items stackable by 100 ?

[Sergey]

btw the font doesnt block the item much.

I agree.
I don't understand why such an odd number was chosen. Maybe again it is weirdness from the past.

[Sergey]

Why do 99 items make full stack? Why so odd number was chosen for full stack? Why not hundred for good measure?

Please, refer to this topic: Items stackable by 100 ?

Thanks. I voted for 100.

[rubenwardy]

I was proving that the stack max is not 99 and can be higher and btw the font doesnt block the item much.

Just because you can get higher numbers by cheating, doesn't make the stack max not 99. The stack max doesn't mean the engine can't support higher

[GreenXenith]

I was proving that the stack max is not 99 and can be higher and btw the font doesnt block the item much.

Just because you can get higher numbers by cheating, doesn't make the stack max not 99. The stack max doesn't mean the engine can't support higher

Well I am sure you understood what I meant.

[sorcerykid]

Why so odd number was chosen for full stack?

I think 99 is just a legacy holdover, as "100" in some older clients (in particular tablet apps which have a scaled GUI) would not fit into a single inventory slot. I'm not sure whether the text would get clipped. But if so, then the count would appear as "00".

[the_raven_262]

I think the stack should be 128 or 64.
But not 99, its just ... stupid? No, irritating? Well it does make lots of crafts rather irritating.
Lets take, for example crafting of the stone bricks.
If i want to craft stone bricks from stone i need 4 stone for a combination.
So if i make as many combinations as possible with one full stack i get 3 stone left and 96 stone bricks.
And that is irritating, isn't it?
But if i crafted it with a 128 stack i would get 128 clean stone bricks (from 32 crafts).
Or i would go for 64 to make it more realistic (like player can hold 128m^³ of stone, really? I mean not that anyone can hold 64 either, but player would be overpowered here).
And, well if someone wanted to make triangular crafting grid i would rather go to 81 or so (don't do it, it would be ...hard to navigate (or some weird expression i don't know of (to make things more complicated (like these brackets)))).
Make it circular, who cares about the weird and simplistic human coordinate system?
At the second thought, don't.

[Sergey]

I think the stack should be 128 or 64.
But not 99, its just ... stupid? No, irritating? Well it does make lots of crafts rather irritating.
Lets take, for example crafting of the stone bricks.
If i want to craft stone bricks from stone i need 4 stone for a combination.
So if i make as many combinations as possible with one full stack i get 3 stone left and 96 stone bricks.
And that is irritating, isn't it?

But someone could say "Hey, 99 items is good because if I want to craft something from 9 items…"

People will never reach consensus so everybody is happy.

Make stack capacity of 100 items not because it is good to craft this or that, but just because it is round number convenient for calculating and measuring. Everyone knows that 1 dollar is 100 cents (same for other currencies), 1 meter is 100 centimeters, whole thing is 100 percent of it, 1 century is 100 years, and so on.

Actually, in International System of Units every measurement unit is power of 10.

Distance:
1 meter = 10 decimeters = 100 centimeters = 1000 millimeters
1 kilometer = 1000 meters.
Weight:
1 kilogram = 1000 grams
1 ton = 1000 kilograms
Time:
1 second = 1000 milliseconds = 1.000.000 microseconds = 1.000.000.000 nanoseconds = … = 10²⁴ yoctoseconds.

And whole world supports it. Well, except USA, it likes to show off.

[the_raven_262]

I agree with the post above.

[Krock]

Let me explain why 99 and 100 are both not an ideal choice:

99: Positive

• 9 crafting slots by default. Crafting blocks (9x item) without leftovers
• Maximal number for limited space (Smartphone screens)
• It's a standard of Minetest since there are stack sizes
• Realism is shit, this is a game (see "99: Negative")

99: Negative

• Impossible to make two stacks with the same count without leftovers
• Holding that many 1m³ of material in your hands is not realistic (100 isn't better there either)
• A click with the middle mouse button takes 10 items at once. There will always be an "incomplete" stack of 9 items

100: Positive

• Fancy number, very metric (reference to the very good image above)
• Can be divided into two stacks with the same count
• Works well with the middle mouse button

100: Negative

• May need a smaller font for small screens
• There's always one left-over when crafting blocks @ 9 items

But then: What's better? I would like to throw in the numbers 120, 90 and 60. Because reasons.

[Linuxdirk]

Instead of discussing this into oblivion knowing that it won’t change any time soon I just created and use this mod.

Code: Select all

-- Set this value to the stack size you want. If lowering the value already
-- existing larger stacks won’t be affected – you just can’t fill them to their
-- original size.
--
-- Set to 100 to achive what’s discussed here:
-- https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16817
--
-- Please note: The value of 99 for stacks (instead of using stack_max) is
-- hardcoded at various places in Minetest and can’t be altered by a mod. Using
-- this mod makes stacks the size you want in your everyday gameplay.
local desired_stack_size = 100


-- The mods you want to support. (opt-)depend this mod on them and add the
-- mod’s prefixes to this table in order to alter them.
local supported_mods = {
    'default'
}


function alter(object_name)
    for v,value in pairs(supported_mods) do
        if value == object_name:gsub(':.*','') then return true end
    end
    return false
end

local all_objects = {}
for w,what in pairs({'items', 'nodes', 'craftitems', 'tools'}) do
    for k,v in pairs(minetest['registered_'..what]) do all_objects[k] = v end
end

for name,def in pairs(all_objects) do
    if def.stack_max == 99 and alter(name) then
        minetest.override_item(name, {
            stack_max = desired_stack_size
        })
    end
end

WTFPL for your convenience :)

[Sergey]

100: Negative

These disadvantages are not significant.

• May need a smaller font for small screens

It's not a problem at all. Now image of item is big enough not to be overlaped with number label.
I took image from similar topic "Items stackable by 100 ?" for example.



Are you unable to distinguish leaves items?
With 99 items you clearly see "yes, these are leaves".
With 100 items you think about what it can be "is that leaves or what?".
Am I right?

Small screens? Let font sizes in MT not be hardcoded. Let MT define font size depending on screen resolution. And everything will be OK. Maybe it's worth to use bitmap font (instead of TTF) where every digit is displayed very clearly without antialiasing. TTF font of small size is blurry.

• There's always one left-over when crafting blocks @ 9 items

As I said before, you can not make things so everybody is happy. What about crafting from 4 items? People could say "99 is a crap. Three in left-over. Damn!".

[Byakuren]

What about 90 items:

Positives:

• Fits 9 crafting slots
• Close to optimal usage of 2 digits
• Can be divided into two stacks evenly
• Divisible by 10 so works with middle click

Negatives:

• Still unrealistic
• Not standard yet
• Not as round of a number as 100

90 items has an advantage in all the important attributes mentioned earlier.

[Linuxdirk]

Why are you guys always so fascinated over the 9 crafting slots? How many recipes are there that use all of them? It’s more like 4-8 objects per recipe on average.

The number should be even, it should be dividable by 10 without any leftovers and it should be large enough to hold a lot of objects without being to unbalanced.

100 is pretty much perfect for this. Only one object more per stack maintains balance, it is dividable by 10 (and all multiples of it) and stack size is even so it's easy to calculate something.

[yawin]

I think the best amount to allocate to stack size is a power of 2. For example:

If we take 64 (2^6) for the amount, you can divide the stack like this:
1*64, 2*32, 4*16, 32 + 2*16, 8*8, 64*1,etc...

If we use a little divisible size, we will find constant problems in the distribution.

[the_raven_262]

I think the best amount to allocate to stack size is a power of 2. For example:

If we take 64 (2^6) for the amount, you can divide the stack like this:
1*64, 2*32, 4*16, 32 + 2*16, 8*8, 64*1,etc...

If we use a little divisible size, we will find constant problems in the distribution.

I was following this logic too, though they seem to need it be divisible by 9 for rare crafting recipes :P