Pipes would be a useful addition to the game now that we are getting working fluids. You build pipes, and fluids can flow through them to the other end.
Building pipes:
= nothing
[iron] =iron/other material
[iron] [iron] [iron]
[iron] [iron] [iron]
Gives you a number of straight sections of pipe. Will automatically align with adjacent pipes. If placed singly, it will be in an arbitrary direction until another pipe is place near it, at with point it will adjust to fit. If multiple valid pipes are present, then it will connect to a random/arbitrary one.
[iron] [iron] [iron]
[iron]
[iron] [iron]
Give you turn pipes. When placed, it will align itself with existing pipes. If only one available pipe is placed, it will align itself with it, and connect to the first valid pipe placed next to it.
[iron] [iron]
[iron] [iron]
connector pipe. Allows you to split/connect pipes.
This one will connect all adjacent pipes, regardless of number.
I am trying to achieve a balance between flexibility and ease. This would allow pipes to be build in a quick and easily understood manner, and allows parallel pipes without them re-combining accidentally. It also limits the number of pipe shapes you need. making a pipe for every 3d combination of input/output directions would be completely unwieldy.
You would probably want other special blocks, like a valve to open/close a pipe, a controlled T that allows you to switch flow between two alternate pipes(which would allow a single pipe to deliver lava and water through the same opening, or redirect where the flow goes.), a flow indicator to show that fluid is flowing, and a pipe with a glass section so you can see what is inside it, but these would be optional.
Placing Pipes
As indicated above, when you place a pipe in the world it will automatically adjust itself to match adjacent pipes. If pipes are removed, any remaining pipes will reconnect if it is a valid connection, or remain as they are. This is to maintain ease of building with them.
Functioning pipes
Pipes can carry any fluid. By default, a fluid will only enter a pipe that is adjacent to it horizontally or below it, i.e. it won't suck fluids up (unless the fluid naturally rises, like steam, in which case just reverse the direction on all of this). The fluid will flow to any point in the pipe system it can reach without going above its original height. The only thing that will change this is a pump. A pump on a functioning pipe system will be able to suck water up into the pipe, and allow it to enter any part of the pipe system, regardless of height.
If two different liquids meet in the middle of a pipe, they will probably interact as they would normally. Since all we have is lava and water, I will use that as an example.
Player sets up a pipe connecting a pool of water and a pool of lava. The water and lava meet mid-pipe. Their normal interaction is to form stone. So stone forms at the intersection. Since a pipe obviously does not function while clogged with stone, it breaks, turning the tile into a broken pipe tile. The pipe must be removed and replaced, hopefully after the conflict is resolved.
Uses of pipes
Pipes have many practical uses. Some examples:
Irrigating your crops.
creating a faucet to deliver water to your castle(aka indoor plumbing)
Filling your moat with water
Filling your moat with lava
Delivering steam to hypothetical steam-punk devices.
Drilling for oil
Creating chamber water traps
Creating lava chamber traps
Draining your mine
Decoration
Waterfalls
Creating smoke signals from steam/smoke
Airlocks
Other thoughts
If we get copper, it would make a great pipe material.
It might be possible to damage pipes to create leaky pipes that will spill some of the fluid going through them.
Edit:
Considering redstone, minecart tracks, fences, etc. have been added since I posted this, and all of them automatically connect to each other, I think it would best if pipes followed suit. The various connector pieces are unneccecary
Very nice, you've got just about everything covered. One thing comes to mind, though. If we do away with connector pipes, and have all pipes be linear, we no longer need elbow pipes... the game can connect to the first two adjacent pipes it finds (or random ones if it's placed on three at once)
If connector pipes were still required, perhaps they could work as a six-way pipe joint, with caps on the ends that don't connect to anything, and they'd just connect to every available pipe facing towards them.
I considered not having any connector pipes at all, but it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to create parallel pipes next to each other. Two unconnected pipe outputting next to each other would connect to each other and form a loop, which seemed like a rather annoying and artificial limitation.
Example of what I mean:
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
#######
becomes
_____
| __ |
| | | |
| | | |
########
because you place the second end, and it has two pipes next to it with only 1 input, and they merge.
The proposed system has fewer impossible configurations, and the ones it does have are less likely to come up, and can generally be avoided.
I purposely left the details of a pump vague. It depends on how machinery gets implemented. If it is steam powered it would be fine, but the details of it are outside the scope of this suggestion.
Obviously the details of how it absorbs water and such will be dependent of how water works after he gets it ironed out. It is intended to be able to drain the source, but with the current system that may not make sense.
What would be fun would be the ability to have the pipe have a valve so that you could fill buckets. That way you could have a water pipeline from the ocean in case you want or need water.
I think that oceans should have unlimited water supplies in infdev if this is implemented.
I hate the way it looks when there's just a few blocks missing.
They are supposed to re spawn the missing blocks, but that seems to be unreliable currently.
The problem seems that surface blocks in deep areas are focusing on spilling downward, but this has no effect as there's already water below them. So, only taking a bucket of water from shallow areas seems to work the way it's intended.
I think if two blocks of water detect a gap between them, they should try to fill it in.
Thats more of a workaround to simulate a pipe. It doesn't help you move water up, and it is space consuming. Making channels for water to flow though is not the same thing as having pipes.
Most definitely love this suggestion. I was playing Infdev last night and started writing things down, finally got around to making a forum account and saw this. *claps*
Building pipes:
= nothing
[iron] =iron/other material
[iron] [iron] [iron]
[iron] [iron] [iron]
Gives you a number of straight sections of pipe. Will automatically align with adjacent pipes. If placed singly, it will be in an arbitrary direction until another pipe is place near it, at with point it will adjust to fit. If multiple valid pipes are present, then it will connect to a random/arbitrary one.
[iron] [iron] [iron]
[iron]
[iron] [iron]
Give you turn pipes. When placed, it will align itself with existing pipes. If only one available pipe is placed, it will align itself with it, and connect to the first valid pipe placed next to it.
[iron] [iron]
[iron] [iron]
connector pipe. Allows you to split/connect pipes.
This one will connect all adjacent pipes, regardless of number.
I am trying to achieve a balance between flexibility and ease. This would allow pipes to be build in a quick and easily understood manner, and allows parallel pipes without them re-combining accidentally. It also limits the number of pipe shapes you need. making a pipe for every 3d combination of input/output directions would be completely unwieldy.
You would probably want other special blocks, like a valve to open/close a pipe, a controlled T that allows you to switch flow between two alternate pipes(which would allow a single pipe to deliver lava and water through the same opening, or redirect where the flow goes.), a flow indicator to show that fluid is flowing, and a pipe with a glass section so you can see what is inside it, but these would be optional.
Placing Pipes
As indicated above, when you place a pipe in the world it will automatically adjust itself to match adjacent pipes. If pipes are removed, any remaining pipes will reconnect if it is a valid connection, or remain as they are. This is to maintain ease of building with them.
Functioning pipes
Pipes can carry any fluid. By default, a fluid will only enter a pipe that is adjacent to it horizontally or below it, i.e. it won't suck fluids up (unless the fluid naturally rises, like steam, in which case just reverse the direction on all of this). The fluid will flow to any point in the pipe system it can reach without going above its original height. The only thing that will change this is a pump. A pump on a functioning pipe system will be able to suck water up into the pipe, and allow it to enter any part of the pipe system, regardless of height.
If two different liquids meet in the middle of a pipe, they will probably interact as they would normally. Since all we have is lava and water, I will use that as an example.
Player sets up a pipe connecting a pool of water and a pool of lava. The water and lava meet mid-pipe. Their normal interaction is to form stone. So stone forms at the intersection. Since a pipe obviously does not function while clogged with stone, it breaks, turning the tile into a broken pipe tile. The pipe must be removed and replaced, hopefully after the conflict is resolved.
Uses of pipes
Pipes have many practical uses. Some examples:
Irrigating your crops.
creating a faucet to deliver water to your castle(aka indoor plumbing)
Filling your moat with water
Filling your moat with lava
Delivering steam to hypothetical steam-punk devices.
Drilling for oil
Creating chamber water traps
Creating lava chamber traps
Draining your mine
Decoration
Waterfalls
Creating smoke signals from steam/smoke
Airlocks
Other thoughts
If we get copper, it would make a great pipe material.
It might be possible to damage pipes to create leaky pipes that will spill some of the fluid going through them.
Edit:
Considering redstone, minecart tracks, fences, etc. have been added since I posted this, and all of them automatically connect to each other, I think it would best if pipes followed suit. The various connector pieces are unneccecary
If connector pipes were still required, perhaps they could work as a six-way pipe joint, with caps on the ends that don't connect to anything, and they'd just connect to every available pipe facing towards them.
Example of what I mean:
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
#######
becomes
_____
| __ |
| | | |
| | | |
########
because you place the second end, and it has two pipes next to it with only 1 input, and they merge.
The proposed system has fewer impossible configurations, and the ones it does have are less likely to come up, and can generally be avoided.
Also, what about (steam-powered) pumps?
My Pathfinder Campaign for the denizens of MCF: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1939035-where-are-we-sandbox-pathfinder-campaign-ooc/
This.
Bucketing water would take forever. ._.
My Pathfinder Campaign for the denizens of MCF: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1939035-where-are-we-sandbox-pathfinder-campaign-ooc/
I hate the way it looks when there's just a few blocks missing.
They are supposed to re spawn the missing blocks, but that seems to be unreliable currently.
do want.
The problem seems that surface blocks in deep areas are focusing on spilling downward, but this has no effect as there's already water below them. So, only taking a bucket of water from shallow areas seems to work the way it's intended.
I think if two blocks of water detect a gap between them, they should try to fill it in.
I think that you shouldn't be able to go through them, and you could make them in a pattern like this:
IIII
IIII
IIII
###
And make a prison cell! Finally a proper prison!
I thought of that, and classified it under decoration. It would depend on how it looked graphically.