The most appealing to me is the bell. Since bells in ancient time meant a certain time or drew people to events and such. Maybe they summon villagers? Or can be put on illager beasts like on cows
The most appealing to me is the bell. Since bells in ancient time meant a certain time or drew people to events and such. Maybe they summon villagers? Or can be put on illager beasts like on cows
It is more likely that they will be used during raids to signal for villagers to go inside their homes.
Mulling things over, I think DaryKohi is onto something. On the one hand, it does seem unlikely that Mojang would completely overhaul crafting. Also, Dinnerbone mentioned on Reddit that they want to move only things with "complex" crafting (meaning with NBT data) out of the crafting table and recipe book.
Yet it also seems unlikely that they would make all these new blocks solely for villagers.
What's left is DaryKohi's option (b) - that these blocks are improved but limited versions of the existing crafting table and furnace - unless, like the Loom and the Cartography Table, they involve things with NBT data.
This approach gives Mojang the best of both worlds - they keep the old crafting methods except where they were notoriously confusing; but they give players the option to move on to better, more specialized blocks. Which, I daresay, the vast majority of players will.
This approach gives Mojang the best of both worlds - they keep the old crafting methods except where they were notoriously confusing; but they give players the option to move on to better, more specialized blocks. Which, I daresay, the vast majority of players will.
Exactly. Echo blocks is not consistent with how mojang does things and why waste the opportunity to give players more things to do and restrict the blocks to villagers?
I didn't talk about crafting recipes since it will matter little, IMO. But I can see things using the new cobble stone slabs (for example) as part of the new blocks. It does kinda look like different wood is required for certain blocks. The cartography table looks like dark wood + birch wood, for example.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
2/11/2017
Posts:
662
Member Details
I don't think all these different crafting tools are required. The crafting table works perfectly fine, and with the addition of the recipe book, you no longer need to worry about how to craft stuff. I, therefore, see no reason to add a second furnace and like 5 new crafting tables. This just complicates survival in minecraft, which is already complicated enough if you ask me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Minecraft 2.0
Minecraft 1.VR-Pre1
Snapshot 15w14a
Minecraft 3D
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
This update is called the "Village & Pillage Update", not the "Crafting Diversification Update".
First off, crafting diversification would be a serious change to a basic, very simple gameplay mechanic. The addition of the recipe book has made crafting so simple little kids and people with lousy memory can do it, and that's a good thing from that perspective. They're not going to make crafting more complicated again by splitting it up among 8 or 9 different blocks. Who'd want to carry those around in one's inventory in early game?
I'm with those who think these new blocks are primarily meant for villagers. We were told those would be smarter, that they would have schedules, and that trading would be changed. Most of the new blocks relate in some way to villager professions (only the stonecutter doesn't). So my first guess is that these blocks will become "attractors" for villagers, who'll go to wherever they're located (by the player) during daytime hours to craft their trades (instead of conjuring those up from thin air).
If I were designing this, I'd let the players only interact with those blocks with redstone, to build auto-crafting machines involving villagers doing the crafting, with materials provided by the player. People have asked for auto-crafting for ages, because that is the stumbling block in building truly automated farms for many things (don't think Gnembon here, think normal people ;). This could kill two birds with one stone: make villagers much more useful so people in early/mid game don't just loot the smithy and look for a couple of good enchanted books, and to provide some degree of auto-crafting functionality. Villagers as minions appeal to me; that would be a great incentive to protect them from zombie sieges and pillager raids, which, let's be honest, otherwise only gets done if one roleplays village protector. Villagers could become truly useful, and not just as bait.
The stonecutter has me a bit confused. I do not think it will return to what the block by the same name did in Bedrock; they consolidated it with the crafting table to simplify crafting; and again, I doubt this will change. Maybe we'll get an additional villager profession; a miner or stone mason type. I know they haven't shown anything like that, but maybe it wasn't decided on when they prepared MineCon presentations.
I don't think we can guess a lot from what basic input/output functionality there is for some of the blocks; that looks to me like simple programmatic inheritance from "parent" blocks like chest and furnace, and will probably change. Except I wonder whether the barrel will be for liquids regardless of how it looks on the outside, since it does have the chest as its ancestor; it might become special, villager-accessible storage as part of the trade automation. As in, villagers take materials from this, and only this storage unit in order to craft their trades. Looks matter in some way more to also provide an extra building block instead of (just) indicating functionality -- this barrel will be awesome for that. The loom is a great building block too.
In any case, we'll soon find out. I can't wait -- I am really excited, hoping for some major changes to make villagers more interesting and useful.
I have concerns too about splitting up the crafting aspect into multiple blocks, I like the idea of the loom block but I worry adding all these others will be too much "Clutter". I shall wait and see of course but yeah - concerned.
Like Minecraft forums or interested in my world? Try My message board, it's better moderated because I run it directly and have run Internet message boards for 21+ years! Better software and I have much more control to keep the content more up to date. Free to join, 13 years+.
The new (soon-to-be) functional blocks look really cool, and seem to be an effort by mojang to draw out the crafting process of certain things. I believe that the different crafting stations give minecraft a more primitive feel, but at the same time maybe there will even be some rudimentary automation in the future!
What are your thoughts on the new crafting stations? Any theories as to what some of them do and what they can make?
Sounds to me like they're just splitting the crafting recipes into different machines. That's a pro for organization but a con for simplicity. Also, more realistic I guess, if anyone cares about that.
Barrels are perhaps the most interesting block out of the bunch. It's not a storage barrel, I'm sure, because it has a spigot spot on the top. So it's used for liquids.
The only think I can consider it being used for is as a cask for fermenting things. And what's something that is fermented in real life in barrels? Berries. Berries that we are getting in bushes because of the taiga overhaul.
I predict we will use barrels to make berry wine or juice.
The barrels have storage slots, and can store items via a hopper.
The barrels have storage slots, and can store items via a hopper.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in what they do now, since It’s obvious they just copied the code from chests. I doubt they’re going to act exactly same way in the end, especially given that Mojang made the interface inaccessible ( The spectator mode thing it’s probably an oversight)
Would be nice if we could salvage the enchants somehow, like maybe having a chance to confer it onto a book (like the enchanting table, but both more targeted and much less reliable). Perhaps this could be tied into having a mending book on-hand or perhaps just any already-enchanted book. The target enchant would either get lost into the aether forever or would successfully be tacked onto the enchanted book (pending normal enchantment compatability rules, I guess).
Failing this sort of recovery, I would hope that the unenchanting aspect is much more controllable. I would not want an all-or-nothing affair, because then you still can't really fix your slightly-messed up tool. I also would not want a "reverse enchanting table" where you're guaranteed to remove at least 1 enchant but have a chance to also remove additional enchants. That would be too risky for your good tools, too, as you might end up removing more than you intended.
I wonder if the Lectern is for more than just reading books? It might be for copying them as well. That's the sort of recipe Mojang seems to be moving out of the crafting table.
This is much more speculative, but perhaps you could even copy enchanted books, at the cost of experience.
I wouldn't be surprised if banner copying gets moved to the Loom.
The Stonecutter is still bugging me. I can't imagine what it's for. There are no stone recipes I can think of that fit the profile for things Mojang is moving out of the crafting table... Polished stone?
Well just watched a video about by Xisumavoid (There are other videos about this)..
... It does look like the new crafting blocks are for specific trades/items (certain blocks are found in certain [plains] buildings [@10:00] ) and are used by the Player (The grindstone now has a GUI [@3:10] )..In the case of the grindstone - it looks likes it's the only way to repair items so it does look like the standard crafting bench is going to lose some functionality.. although new crafting recipes will replace those to allow us to craft the new blocks [@4:57]
Also in the video I noticed what looks like a new villager [@ 8:58] called 'unemployed'... are we going to be able to assigned this to a particular trade somehow ?? or is it just a wandering villger with no trades like the nitwit ??
Based on the video, we can now take better educated guesses (just as some poster above have already guessed at) as to what each block will be assigned to :-
Armourer = Blast Furnace.. Smelting metals
Butcher = Smoker... Cook meats only
Cartographer = Cartographer Table.... Map making
Fisherman = Barrels.... Ways to contain fish.. would this mean fish in chests will disappear, or will fish now be able to 'rot' ?
That is a really interesting video! So there's a mason's house with a Stonecutter... But not yet a mason profession.
I find it hard to believe that barrels will only be used for holding fish, though that may be all that villagers use them for. Perhaps they're used for holding a single type of item?
Okay, I've developed a Grand Unified Theory for the new blocks. The basic principle is, the crafting table and furnace lose recipes which are difficult, impossible, or annoying to represent in the recipe book.
Loom: Banners. These were highly difficult to represent in the recipe book because the output depends on the input banner and its patterns. In exchange for a new block, we get to use less dye and can reuse special patterns.
Grindstone: Item repair. Virtually impossible to represent in the recipe book, because you're combining two damaged items to get a possibly damaged item. In exchange, we get disenchantment of single items.
Now for speculation:
Cartography Table: Making maps. These are impossible to represent in the recipe book. In exchange, I'll bet we get an improved ability to add markers, and perhaps the ability to zoom maps in.
Blast Furnace: Smelting down of tools, weapons and armor. This is really annoying to represent in the recipe book, since there are lots of ways to get (say) an iron nugget. In exchange, we get the much-requested feature of getting more metal out of it. (At a guess, one nugget for each ingot that went into making the item.)
Fletching Table: This will primarily be used to make the potion arrows, which are annoying to have in the recipe book because there's an ever-increasing number of recipes that are basically the same. In exchange, perhaps we'll be able to make regular arrows in greater numbers?
Stonecutter: Similarly, stairs, slabs, and walls are a bunch of recipes that are exactly alike, and have to be duplicated each time a new block type is added. In exchange, perhaps we'll get more stairs per craft? 4 for 6 stone has never really made sense.
Lectern: For copying books. Hard to represent in the recipe book. In exchange, perhaps we'll be able to copy enchanted books as well, for an experience cost.
Smoker: Perhaps this is for shapeless food recipes? Suspicious Stew, for example, has one recipe for each flower in the game. In exchange, perhaps we will be able to cook food more efficiently than in a furnace. (If I'm right, though, I'd think it'd make more sense to use the Cauldron.)
Smithing Table: This one is quite speculative, but perhaps it's for recycling diamond and leather armor and tools much the same way one can smelt iron, gold, and chain? I'm not happy with this, though, because if you can use a Grindstone to disenchant a book or a bow, surely you can use a Blast Furnace to smelt diamond?
Barrel: Not sure, it doesn't really fit into my theory.
Bell: This is outside of my theory, I think it's for warning villagers and perhaps for calling them for trade.
Removing the item repair ability from the 2x2 grid will be quite annoying early game (carrying and combining copies of stone tools being common) but will have little to no effect once the player has progressed to mednig gear.
As the currently depicted grindstone recipe calls for a stone (NOT cobblestone) slab, this will require at least a furnace [or silk touch, but I'm thinking of the early game] and possibly a stonecutter (assuming the speculations about slab/stair crafting being moved to this block are correct).
I suspect this will have the effect of essentially removing item repair by combining like items from the game as it is generally only during the 'stone age' that this feature sees much use. [I discount the 'wood age' as my experience has been that it is too brief to much matter.]
If item repair via combining is further fragmented by the smithing table (as current speculation seems to predict), this will only exacerbate the already unfavorable situation.
I would prefer that the 2x2 grid retain item repair ability (this being one of the comparitively few things for which it is useful).
RE barrels:
Hopefully this will not be limited to fish. Item specific storage 'solutions' seem a bad can of worms to open; a gateway onto the the slippery slope of a road to a hell where every item has a special container.
Were barrels to be implemented as a kind of single item at a time chest, I would be much happier.
Barrels of fish, barrles of apples, etc make a good deal of sense, while mixing items types in a barrel (while common historically in dry cooperage) less so to modern sensibilities. [Dry cooperage is containers not intended to ship liquids.]
Under this hoped for system an empty barrel could accept any item, but would then reject any further items that where not the same.
[This approach would also offer some interesting possibilities for advanced sorting systems allowing MS/Mj to give something to that fraction of the player base that enjoys complex builds… ]
RE Furnace/Blast Furnace/Smoker:
Too little information currently exists for much useful speculation, but I would hope the latter two are implemented as items that offer enhanced performance of a limited suite of recipes (probably at higher construction and/or operating costs) rather than stripping functionalities from the furnace…
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
I wonder if the Lectern is for more than just reading books? It might be for copying them as well. That's the sort of recipe Mojang seems to be moving out of the crafting table.
This is much more speculative, but perhaps you could even copy enchanted books, at the cost of experience.
I wouldn't be surprised if banner copying gets moved to the Loom.
The Stonecutter is still bugging me. I can't imagine what it's for. There are no stone recipes I can think of that fit the profile for things Mojang is moving out of the crafting table... Polished stone?
I have a new (but improbable) theory about the stonecutter. Perhaps it will behave like the Chisel mod, allowing you to turn stone bricks into the cracked or chiseled versions, one at a time. This would streamline the crafting process, and allow for creating a very specific amount of them rather than in multiples of 4 or whatever it is.
The most appealing to me is the bell. Since bells in ancient time meant a certain time or drew people to events and such. Maybe they summon villagers? Or can be put on illager beasts like on cows
It is more likely that they will be used during raids to signal for villagers to go inside their homes.
The quickest way to my heart is with a smile.
Oh, and a white-oak stake.
Mulling things over, I think DaryKohi is onto something. On the one hand, it does seem unlikely that Mojang would completely overhaul crafting. Also, Dinnerbone mentioned on Reddit that they want to move only things with "complex" crafting (meaning with NBT data) out of the crafting table and recipe book.
Yet it also seems unlikely that they would make all these new blocks solely for villagers.
What's left is DaryKohi's option (b) - that these blocks are improved but limited versions of the existing crafting table and furnace - unless, like the Loom and the Cartography Table, they involve things with NBT data.
This approach gives Mojang the best of both worlds - they keep the old crafting methods except where they were notoriously confusing; but they give players the option to move on to better, more specialized blocks. Which, I daresay, the vast majority of players will.
Exactly. Echo blocks is not consistent with how mojang does things and why waste the opportunity to give players more things to do and restrict the blocks to villagers?
I didn't talk about crafting recipes since it will matter little, IMO. But I can see things using the new cobble stone slabs (for example) as part of the new blocks. It does kinda look like different wood is required for certain blocks. The cartography table looks like dark wood + birch wood, for example.
I don't think all these different crafting tools are required. The crafting table works perfectly fine, and with the addition of the recipe book, you no longer need to worry about how to craft stuff. I, therefore, see no reason to add a second furnace and like 5 new crafting tables. This just complicates survival in minecraft, which is already complicated enough if you ask me.
Remember those versions that minecraft pranked us with? Specifically:
Those are still downloadable! Watch this video for 2.0:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQdu9LKAdIU
To download the other ones you need to make a folder in the versions folder for minecraft and put the client and JSON file for the versions in there. They all need to be named the same aside from file extensions. Once you do that, you will be able to choose that version when making a new profile with the minecraft launcher.
15w14a is on this link:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/15w14a
1.RV-Pre1 is here:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/1.RV-Pre1
Minecraft 3D is here:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Java_Edition_3D_Shareware_v1.34
I think we should wait to see what their functionality is before we judge.
This update is called the "Village & Pillage Update", not the "Crafting Diversification Update".
First off, crafting diversification would be a serious change to a basic, very simple gameplay mechanic. The addition of the recipe book has made crafting so simple little kids and people with lousy memory can do it, and that's a good thing from that perspective. They're not going to make crafting more complicated again by splitting it up among 8 or 9 different blocks. Who'd want to carry those around in one's inventory in early game?
I'm with those who think these new blocks are primarily meant for villagers. We were told those would be smarter, that they would have schedules, and that trading would be changed. Most of the new blocks relate in some way to villager professions (only the stonecutter doesn't). So my first guess is that these blocks will become "attractors" for villagers, who'll go to wherever they're located (by the player) during daytime hours to craft their trades (instead of conjuring those up from thin air).
If I were designing this, I'd let the players only interact with those blocks with redstone, to build auto-crafting machines involving villagers doing the crafting, with materials provided by the player. People have asked for auto-crafting for ages, because that is the stumbling block in building truly automated farms for many things (don't think Gnembon here, think normal people ;). This could kill two birds with one stone: make villagers much more useful so people in early/mid game don't just loot the smithy and look for a couple of good enchanted books, and to provide some degree of auto-crafting functionality. Villagers as minions appeal to me; that would be a great incentive to protect them from zombie sieges and pillager raids, which, let's be honest, otherwise only gets done if one roleplays village protector. Villagers could become truly useful, and not just as bait.
The stonecutter has me a bit confused. I do not think it will return to what the block by the same name did in Bedrock; they consolidated it with the crafting table to simplify crafting; and again, I doubt this will change. Maybe we'll get an additional villager profession; a miner or stone mason type. I know they haven't shown anything like that, but maybe it wasn't decided on when they prepared MineCon presentations.
I don't think we can guess a lot from what basic input/output functionality there is for some of the blocks; that looks to me like simple programmatic inheritance from "parent" blocks like chest and furnace, and will probably change. Except I wonder whether the barrel will be for liquids regardless of how it looks on the outside, since it does have the chest as its ancestor; it might become special, villager-accessible storage as part of the trade automation. As in, villagers take materials from this, and only this storage unit in order to craft their trades. Looks matter in some way more to also provide an extra building block instead of (just) indicating functionality -- this barrel will be awesome for that. The loom is a great building block too.
In any case, we'll soon find out. I can't wait -- I am really excited, hoping for some major changes to make villagers more interesting and useful.
I have concerns too about splitting up the crafting aspect into multiple blocks, I like the idea of the loom block but I worry adding all these others will be too much "Clutter". I shall wait and see of course but yeah - concerned.
Closed old thread
Like Minecraft forums or interested in my world? Try My message board, it's better moderated because I run it directly and have run Internet message boards for 21+ years! Better software and I have much more control to keep the content more up to date. Free to join, 13 years+.
16yrs+ only
Sounds to me like they're just splitting the crafting recipes into different machines. That's a pro for organization but a con for simplicity. Also, more realistic I guess, if anyone cares about that.
The barrels have storage slots, and can store items via a hopper.
e
I wouldn’t put too much stock in what they do now, since It’s obvious they just copied the code from chests. I doubt they’re going to act exactly same way in the end, especially given that Mojang made the interface inaccessible ( The spectator mode thing it’s probably an oversight)
Capture bats and other mobs in a small cage!
Bedrock edition: Using nether quartz to measure light levels
Looks like I was partly right about the Grindstone - it is indeed used to repair items. It's also used to remove enchantments.
Of course this is a little silly when it comes to armor, much less leather armor! Or bows. Oh well.
Would be nice if we could salvage the enchants somehow, like maybe having a chance to confer it onto a book (like the enchanting table, but both more targeted and much less reliable). Perhaps this could be tied into having a mending book on-hand or perhaps just any already-enchanted book. The target enchant would either get lost into the aether forever or would successfully be tacked onto the enchanted book (pending normal enchantment compatability rules, I guess).
Failing this sort of recovery, I would hope that the unenchanting aspect is much more controllable. I would not want an all-or-nothing affair, because then you still can't really fix your slightly-messed up tool. I also would not want a "reverse enchanting table" where you're guaranteed to remove at least 1 enchant but have a chance to also remove additional enchants. That would be too risky for your good tools, too, as you might end up removing more than you intended.
It removes all enchantments at once (except for curses). I think it will largely be used to get experience off of mob loot before smelting it down.
Controllable disenchanting seems a lot to ask of something with such a simple recipe.
I wonder if the Lectern is for more than just reading books? It might be for copying them as well. That's the sort of recipe Mojang seems to be moving out of the crafting table.
This is much more speculative, but perhaps you could even copy enchanted books, at the cost of experience.
I wouldn't be surprised if banner copying gets moved to the Loom.
The Stonecutter is still bugging me. I can't imagine what it's for. There are no stone recipes I can think of that fit the profile for things Mojang is moving out of the crafting table... Polished stone?
Well just watched a video about by Xisumavoid (There are other videos about this)..
... It does look like the new crafting blocks are for specific trades/items (certain blocks are found in certain [plains] buildings [@10:00] ) and are used by the Player (The grindstone now has a GUI [@3:10] )..In the case of the grindstone - it looks likes it's the only way to repair items so it does look like the standard crafting bench is going to lose some functionality.. although new crafting recipes will replace those to allow us to craft the new blocks [@4:57]
Also in the video I noticed what looks like a new villager [@ 8:58] called 'unemployed'... are we going to be able to assigned this to a particular trade somehow ?? or is it just a wandering villger with no trades like the nitwit ??
Based on the video, we can now take better educated guesses (just as some poster above have already guessed at) as to what each block will be assigned to :-
That is a really interesting video! So there's a mason's house with a Stonecutter... But not yet a mason profession.
I find it hard to believe that barrels will only be used for holding fish, though that may be all that villagers use them for. Perhaps they're used for holding a single type of item?
Okay, I've developed a Grand Unified Theory for the new blocks. The basic principle is, the crafting table and furnace lose recipes which are difficult, impossible, or annoying to represent in the recipe book.
Loom: Banners. These were highly difficult to represent in the recipe book because the output depends on the input banner and its patterns. In exchange for a new block, we get to use less dye and can reuse special patterns.
Grindstone: Item repair. Virtually impossible to represent in the recipe book, because you're combining two damaged items to get a possibly damaged item. In exchange, we get disenchantment of single items.
Now for speculation:
Cartography Table: Making maps. These are impossible to represent in the recipe book. In exchange, I'll bet we get an improved ability to add markers, and perhaps the ability to zoom maps in.
Blast Furnace: Smelting down of tools, weapons and armor. This is really annoying to represent in the recipe book, since there are lots of ways to get (say) an iron nugget. In exchange, we get the much-requested feature of getting more metal out of it. (At a guess, one nugget for each ingot that went into making the item.)
Fletching Table: This will primarily be used to make the potion arrows, which are annoying to have in the recipe book because there's an ever-increasing number of recipes that are basically the same. In exchange, perhaps we'll be able to make regular arrows in greater numbers?
Stonecutter: Similarly, stairs, slabs, and walls are a bunch of recipes that are exactly alike, and have to be duplicated each time a new block type is added. In exchange, perhaps we'll get more stairs per craft? 4 for 6 stone has never really made sense.
Lectern: For copying books. Hard to represent in the recipe book. In exchange, perhaps we'll be able to copy enchanted books as well, for an experience cost.
Smoker: Perhaps this is for shapeless food recipes? Suspicious Stew, for example, has one recipe for each flower in the game. In exchange, perhaps we will be able to cook food more efficiently than in a furnace. (If I'm right, though, I'd think it'd make more sense to use the Cauldron.)
Smithing Table: This one is quite speculative, but perhaps it's for recycling diamond and leather armor and tools much the same way one can smelt iron, gold, and chain? I'm not happy with this, though, because if you can use a Grindstone to disenchant a book or a bow, surely you can use a Blast Furnace to smelt diamond?
Barrel: Not sure, it doesn't really fit into my theory.
Bell: This is outside of my theory, I think it's for warning villagers and perhaps for calling them for trade.
RE the grindstone:
Removing the item repair ability from the 2x2 grid will be quite annoying early game (carrying and combining copies of stone tools being common) but will have little to no effect once the player has progressed to mednig gear.
As the currently depicted grindstone recipe calls for a stone (NOT cobblestone) slab, this will require at least a furnace [or silk touch, but I'm thinking of the early game] and possibly a stonecutter (assuming the speculations about slab/stair crafting being moved to this block are correct).
I suspect this will have the effect of essentially removing item repair by combining like items from the game as it is generally only during the 'stone age' that this feature sees much use. [I discount the 'wood age' as my experience has been that it is too brief to much matter.]
If item repair via combining is further fragmented by the smithing table (as current speculation seems to predict), this will only exacerbate the already unfavorable situation.
I would prefer that the 2x2 grid retain item repair ability (this being one of the comparitively few things for which it is useful).
RE barrels:
Hopefully this will not be limited to fish. Item specific storage 'solutions' seem a bad can of worms to open; a gateway onto the the slippery slope of a road to a hell where every item has a special container.
Were barrels to be implemented as a kind of single item at a time chest, I would be much happier.
Barrels of fish, barrles of apples, etc make a good deal of sense, while mixing items types in a barrel (while common historically in dry cooperage) less so to modern sensibilities. [Dry cooperage is containers not intended to ship liquids.]
Under this hoped for system an empty barrel could accept any item, but would then reject any further items that where not the same.
[This approach would also offer some interesting possibilities for advanced sorting systems allowing MS/Mj to give something to that fraction of the player base that enjoys complex builds… ]
RE Furnace/Blast Furnace/Smoker:
Too little information currently exists for much useful speculation, but I would hope the latter two are implemented as items that offer enhanced performance of a limited suite of recipes (probably at higher construction and/or operating costs) rather than stripping functionalities from the furnace…
I have a new (but improbable) theory about the stonecutter. Perhaps it will behave like the Chisel mod, allowing you to turn stone bricks into the cracked or chiseled versions, one at a time. This would streamline the crafting process, and allow for creating a very specific amount of them rather than in multiples of 4 or whatever it is.