This idea is to given lily pads the ability to spread out over bodies of water in a natural seeming manner.
First, we add a new block, the baby lily, which can only exist on top of a water source block and drops nothing when broken.
Next, whenever a lily pad is placed
it looks at all eight blocks around it, any which are air above still water are replaced with baby lilies.
When a lily pad gets a random block tick, it will either remain as-is or change to a baby lily according to the rules of Conway's Game of Life, counting lilies but not baby lilies as "alive"
When a baby lily gets a random block tick, it will either grow into a lily, or it will remain a baby lily according to the same rules, except that if a baby lily has zero lily pads around it, it replaces itself with air.
Possibly, in swamp biomes, land plants are also counted as "alive".
Also during terrain generation, and also during a world conversion.
I had a similar idea - why not give lily pads the vines they have in real life,growing inside the water? They would look like bamboo and grow in a similar way to seaweed or kelp except that once they approach the water surface, the top block is a lilypad. Then you can collect and plant the stems, and just farm the pads as needed.
This idea is to given lily pads the ability to spread out over bodies of water in a natural seeming manner.
First, we add a new block, the baby lily, which can only exist on top of a water source block and drops nothing when broken.
Next, whenever a lily pad is placed
it looks at all eight blocks around it, any which are air above still water are replaced with baby lilies.
When a lily pad gets a random block tick, it will either remain as-is or change to a baby lily according to the rules of Conway's Game of Life, counting lilies but not baby lilies as "alive"
When a baby lily gets a random block tick, it will either grow into a lily, or it will remain a baby lily according to the same rules, except that if a baby lily has zero lily pads around it, it replaces itself with air.
Possibly, in swamp biomes, land plants are also counted as "alive".
Also during terrain generation, and also during a world conversion.
So, two things:
1. There would have to be a hard limit on number of times it can grow. The last thing I want is my entire custom lake covered in lillypads.
2, That the lillypads wouldn't break just by being bumped by a boat.
I had a similar idea - why not give lily pads the vines they have in real life,growing inside the water? They would look like bamboo and grow in a similar way to seaweed or kelp except that once they approach the water surface, the top block is a lilypad. Then you can collect and plant the stems, and just farm the pads as needed.