This mod, still way WAY in alpha, will add a wider, faster and more impressive transport system to the game.
So... yeah, I don't like wasting time on intros. On to the features!
Features
Here is a photo from the "test field" of the first set of track: two small half-curves and a small straight track.
In the center, you can see the model of the Fairlie locomotive seen above. This model currently copies mine-cart logic, but will eventually be mounted on two sets of driving wheels, which will follow along the tracks.
This photo gives a better sense of scale for the project. All track will be, in total, 4 blocks wide. This may seem extreme, but considering that "Steve" is a full meter wide, this makes the train cars still too narrow. But 4 fits in nicely with the chunk system, so it's staying.
Here is a close up of an S-curve. The curves that make the small 90 degree turns can also be used here. Geometry will be extremely important in this mod in order to maximize the use of all rail pieces.
*** HELP WANTED ***
While I feel I could get a passable version of the mod out by myself in, say, another YEAR, I'd rather get some people to help me. I'm really counting on the existence of other rail fans to make this possible.
So I'd like to recruit:
A Codifier (experience with entities or vectorschunks a plus!)
Modelatrons (if you have a wild train idea, send me an e-mail as well! The bar is set at "Space-Jam Mobile Dunk Arena")
Texturizers (Please note the lack of dirt spatters, mild rust and general "class" in the Fairlie locomotive)
Idea-mahoozits(The railways will have very little use in a vanilla game, so suggestions for an accompanying industry-pack are welcome!)
*** SUPPORT APPRECIATED ***
If you get impatient: SEND ME A MESSAGE. I actually love knowing I'm making something for somebody else, so feel free to send me hordes of "is it done yet?" messages. There is no sarcasm in this. Not even in that last sentence. Or that one.
Oh, and if anybody can tell me how to make a banner / donate buttons and whatnot, that would be great.
OH.... MY.... GOD..... I COULD help with modelling, if you want... Also, I am very enthusiastic with ideas (as you can see here... http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1336893-avatar-the-last-blockbender/page__st__20 ) he he he. Please enjoy my company as I force you to accept me...Can I be a tester too?Looks a bit like FlintTD's one...
I was part of FlintTD's train team for awhile, but he hasn't tried to do anything with it for a long while, so I'm trying to start without him
UPDATE: Bogies can now go around curves, so 2 of the axes are accounted for. Track placement has run into a serious issue, however: Entities will only extend over chunk edges by 2.smidgeon blocks, so the large curve sections may need to be reworked. This would mean rebuilding new entities to make up each part of a curve (currently there's two halves, it may go up to 6 segments, since the max size is about 5x5 blocks).
However, this solution may be shared with the "multiple BoundingBoxes" goal: We can't make a passenger car if the only walls on it are 6 solid surfaces. And if we can make multiple bounding boxes, maybe the curves won't need to be "extended" over chunk edges.
If anyone has any information to share, that would be greeeaaat.
That's it. It turns out in order to create trains for this, we need rotating Bounding Boxes.
To make rotating bounding boxes, we need Oriented Bounding Boxes
To write Oriented Bounding Boxes into the code, we need an expert.
I am not an expert. Frankly, I'm astounded I've made it this far.
In short, I need a coder. Just like every other schmuck with an idea for a mod and no clue how to make it happen. Pretty much the only thing I can guarantee for them is that they won't have to do all the work.
So, yeah, this project is officially set on "stalled indefinitely".
Hooray! With the irreplaceable help of fr0stbyte124 (creator of the upcoming "FutureCraft" mod, which is OFF DA HOOK), I've learned that blakmajik, creator of the well known, eternally-in-development,-but-not-in-a-bad-way Zeppelin mod, has OBB code that I could hopefully borrow, maybe. Since he has no contact info, I hope he sees this. If he doesn't, this post should be considered my pre-credit to him if and hopefully when he lets me use the code.
That last sentence was poorly written MOVING ON. It looks like making tilting trains is not coming for a long time, and when it does it will be an extremely slow grade. The coolest, most vertical thing you could build, however, would be a huge spiraling track, maybe set in the center of mountains... yeah...
Anyway, I figure the first download will come about in september, and it will include the following:
1 (one) Fairlie-style locomotive, capable of moving forwards and backwards. It might even need fuel to run.
2 (two) half curves, pointing right and left, used for making 90 degree turns, or S-curves.
1 (one) small piece of straight track, used for making ridiculously awesome panoramas, like viaducts, or mountainside railways.
1 (one) metric ****ton of bugs and glitches.
And still to come!
A new thread for development, with a classier layout than bullet points
6 different locomotives (small freight, large freight, small pass., large pass., mountain and a small electric for underground work) in different sets (American for frontier towns, European for castle-style cities, Colonial for jungle, deserts and arctic settings, as well as Steampunk, Art Deco, and Classic Fifties for theme servers)
Monorails, Funiculars and other train-like elements
Train cars and coupling
Switches, slopes and wider turns
And most of all
A complementary Economic mod that justifies rail transport by making the base game much more difficult (how many cubic meters of rock can you fit in your pockets?)
It's been awhile. All...2? 3 maybe? of you deserve an explanation. After finally deciding to open up the mod again GASP all my code was gone. It had obviously been destroyed by nefarious peoples. Maybe North Korea. I kind of fell into a funk for a few months.
Then I realized that Windows has a search option.
So I used it.
And I found the files.
SO... sorry for the delay: The mod is... Oh man, I promised myself I'd never say this... BACK ON TRACK.
Love this idea. I want to see big trains traveling across the plains of minecraftia. Transporting goods and people from one place to another. Minecarts are great for a mine and all, but for real transportation you need standard gauge.
I see you have talked to frostbyte and blakmajik. Very wise. These two have been working an game changing mechanics for a long while. You may also consider looking into PhysicsCraft by Eagle_Orion. He was working on some amazing physics engine and entity moving stuff. He has to leave the modding scene for now, but I think he is on the fence about releasing what he has as open source. It could be really useful.
Finally, have you talked to CovertJaguar of Railcraft and Vswe of Steve's carts? They know a ton about the rail system and chunk system in game.
I wish I could give more help. Like with code and stuff. But right now I'm just an avid mod player, not a modder. Good luck, and looking forward to your work.
I haven't understood,you speak about a release in september,we are in december and there is not any download link,I hope you don't speak about 2013 september
The OP was made in July of this year, it would seem he hasnt done much with this (Or he has and isnt posting it.)
Wow! This is incredible! I would love to suggest some types of trains to you, although these are most likely way to complex and insane to design. It would be really cool if you could actually walk into the train and right click on a seat to ride. Some trains such as the Eurostar and the ICE would be under my recomendations for trains if you intended to design the mod as I suggested. Also, could you PLEASE add a three block wide gauge as well? On my minecraft server, I have this huge transit system already laid out, and all the tunnels are 5 blocks wide and the elevated bridges 3 blocks wide. This has took literally FOREVER, so PLEASE add a 3 block wide gauge. Also, I would suggest (although this is probably also extremely-EXTREMELY-crazy,) that you make the trains drivable AS WELL as programable, so that you could program them to run along the tracks and stop at stations. Also, instead of programming the TRAINS, you could program the mod so that at the stations, the indicator lights could be programmable. That would dictate the actions of the trains.
Sorry, I know I'm totally bringing the bar way to high, but these would be my wishes for the mod in about... two years. Good Luck!
Also, it would be easier to place the rails with a 3 block gauge, because then all you would have to do is right click where you want the middle of the track to be. Also, it would be more realistic, because you could make the tracks 4 blocks wide, sticking out 1/2 a block on either side of the track. There would also be a little gap inbetween the train and the platform. Also, how many blocks high does the platform need to be from the tracks?
Wow! This is incredible! I would love to suggest some types of trains to you, although these are most likely way to complex and insane to design. It would be really cool if you could actually walk into the train and right click on a seat to ride. Some trains such as the Eurostar and the ICE would be under my recomendations for trains if you intended to design the mod as I suggested. Also, could you PLEASE add a three block wide gauge as well? On my minecraft server, I have this huge transit system already laid out, and all the tunnels are 5 blocks wide and the elevated bridges 3 blocks wide. This has took literally FOREVER, so PLEASE add a 3 block wide gauge. Also, I would suggest (although this is probably also extremely-EXTREMELY-crazy,) that you make the trains drivable AS WELL as programable, so that you could program them to run along the tracks and stop at stations. Also, instead of programming the TRAINS, you could program the mod so that at the stations, the indicator lights could be programmable. That would dictate the actions of the trains.
Sorry, I know I'm totally bringing the bar way to high, but these would be my wishes for the mod in about... two years. Good Luck!
Okay, sorry guys. I left this thread because I thought it was dead.
So, in case you're reading, here's the lowdown:
Naiten has the most complete "Big Railway" mod out there, but his team is really small and he needs help.
That said, we've seperated: I'm an intolerably lazy worker, and Naiten's obsessed with keeping gauge "correct". Since he's done the heavy lifting, coding-wise, he has every right to do what he wants, but I believe Steve is too wide to fit in train cars, if Minecraft Blocks are taken literally as "1 meter wide" (for my gauge, each pixel is 4 cm, or 1.6 in).
Also, I've been hooked on Nuclear reactors, so I've been building a mod around those. I model from time to time, but not nearly fast enough.
So, Mods, you can lock the thread. I'll make a new Topic for the nuclear mod and (unlikely) return of the Standard Gauge Mod.
vectorschunks a plus!)I was part of FlintTD's train team for awhile, but he hasn't tried to do anything with it for a long while, so I'm trying to start without him
UPDATE: Bogies can now go around curves, so 2 of the axes are accounted for. Track placement has run into a serious issue, however: Entities will only extend over chunk edges by 2.smidgeon blocks, so the large curve sections may need to be reworked. This would mean rebuilding new entities to make up each part of a curve (currently there's two halves, it may go up to 6 segments, since the max size is about 5x5 blocks).
However, this solution may be shared with the "multiple BoundingBoxes" goal: We can't make a passenger car if the only walls on it are 6 solid surfaces. And if we can make multiple bounding boxes, maybe the curves won't need to be "extended" over chunk edges.
If anyone has any information to share, that would be greeeaaat.
WHELP.
That's it. It turns out in order to create trains for this, we need rotating Bounding Boxes.
To make rotating bounding boxes, we need Oriented Bounding Boxes
To write Oriented Bounding Boxes into the code, we need an expert.
I am not an expert. Frankly, I'm astounded I've made it this far.
In short, I need a coder. Just like every other schmuck with an idea for a mod and no clue how to make it happen. Pretty much the only thing I can guarantee for them is that they won't have to do all the work.
So, yeah, this project is officially set on "stalled indefinitely".
Hooray! With the irreplaceable help of fr0stbyte124 (creator of the upcoming "FutureCraft" mod, which is OFF DA HOOK), I've learned that blakmajik, creator of the well known, eternally-in-development,-but-not-in-a-bad-way Zeppelin mod, has OBB code that I could hopefully borrow, maybe. Since he has no contact info, I hope he sees this. If he doesn't, this post should be considered my pre-credit to him if and hopefully when he lets me use the code.
That last sentence was poorly written MOVING ON. It looks like making tilting trains is not coming for a long time, and when it does it will be an extremely slow grade. The coolest, most vertical thing you could build, however, would be a huge spiraling track, maybe set in the center of mountains... yeah...
Anyway, I figure the first download will come about in september, and it will include the following:
And most of all
It's been awhile. All...2? 3 maybe? of you deserve an explanation. After finally deciding to open up the mod again GASP all my code was gone. It had obviously been destroyed by nefarious peoples. Maybe North Korea. I kind of fell into a funk for a few months.
Then I realized that Windows has a search option.
So I used it.
And I found the files.
SO... sorry for the delay: The mod is... Oh man, I promised myself I'd never say this... BACK ON TRACK.
I am so sorry.
Not sure if i could help you in something, but you can be sure to have at least one fan)
I see you have talked to frostbyte and blakmajik. Very wise. These two have been working an game changing mechanics for a long while. You may also consider looking into PhysicsCraft by Eagle_Orion. He was working on some amazing physics engine and entity moving stuff. He has to leave the modding scene for now, but I think he is on the fence about releasing what he has as open source. It could be really useful.
Finally, have you talked to CovertJaguar of Railcraft and Vswe of Steve's carts? They know a ton about the rail system and chunk system in game.
I wish I could give more help. Like with code and stuff. But right now I'm just an avid mod player, not a modder. Good luck, and looking forward to your work.
You haven't tried hard enough.
The OP was made in July of this year, it would seem he hasnt done much with this (Or he has and isnt posting it.)
Sorry, I know I'm totally bringing the bar way to high, but these would be my wishes for the mod in about... two years. Good Luck!
talk to CovertJaguar for sure.
You necrod a dead thread. Shame on you. http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1780028-162forgerails-of-war-%E2%80%94-embranchment-update/
That's the live port of this.
Can a moderator lock this, lack of update in over 12 months.
So, in case you're reading, here's the lowdown:
Naiten has the most complete "Big Railway" mod out there, but his team is really small and he needs help.
That said, we've seperated: I'm an intolerably lazy worker, and Naiten's obsessed with keeping gauge "correct". Since he's done the heavy lifting, coding-wise, he has every right to do what he wants, but I believe Steve is too wide to fit in train cars, if Minecraft Blocks are taken literally as "1 meter wide" (for my gauge, each pixel is 4 cm, or 1.6 in).
Also, I've been hooked on Nuclear reactors, so I've been building a mod around those. I model from time to time, but not nearly fast enough.
So, Mods, you can lock the thread. I'll make a new Topic for the nuclear mod and (unlikely) return of the Standard Gauge Mod.