Poll: The name of that mod should be different from Ships&Boats and Ph
We have agreed with Eagle_Orion, creator of PhysicsCraft, and Shereis, to join forces to make a mod featuring physics from PhysicsCraft and also the rendering and block interaction facilities of Ships&Boats.
I might even go so far as to say that this mod is closer to providing SMP ships than Ships and Boats is, because it's already SMP, and has been updated as far as 1.4.5.
(A completely uninformed opinion!)
And the authors site: http://www.maocat.net/?page_id=4423 (doesn't appear to be a current download? Perhaps someone can translate the Japanese better than Google does so we know what's happening?)
No its a panel that is attached to one of the blocks being slid by a slider block, and the panel conects to a far away(or with any amount of airblocks in between)panel on the blocks in the air(like the swords. So the swords are just moving along with a block that is conected from a distance away.
No its a panel that is attached to one of the blocks being slid by a slider block, and the panel conects to a far away(or with any amount of airblocks in between)panel on the blocks in the air(like the swords. So the swords are just moving along with a block that is conected from a distance away.
Are you talking about the floating island moving through the air at 0:13, or the swords? Or both?
Even if that island is connected to a slider block, this mod still has the ability to group blocks together as a single clump, and move or rotate it in any combination, which are the core necessities of a ship mod. The only changes required (I admit I say this with no knowledge of the MC source) are the triggers that cause it to move, and what it moves in relation to. From a coding point of view that doesn't sound like a huge job (if this is the case I may even consider making the modifications myself).
An update from 1.4.5 to 1.4.7 is required (which I have no clue about), and changing to Forge is desirable, but this is already SMP, which is a huge plus in its favour.
I know this isn't STRICTLY on topic for this thread, but here seems to be the go-to place for anyone interested in customisable boats in MC.
I've had a play around with UgoCraft (I had to use 1.3.2 because I couldn't find ModLoaderMP 1.4.5) and:
it creates entities of any combination of blocks, with apparently completely correct collision detection no matter what orientation, or how complex the shape is (multi-story entities work just fine)
it can move or rotate these entities on any axis
chests/furnaces attached to the entities keep their contents
loose items dropped on the entity move with it
entities can move through air and water
most wonderful of all, it is multiplayer, and works in SMP
This means boats, submarines and airships are all possible.
Some negatives/current limitations:
currently when the ship is rotated/moving, it becomes an entity and apart from standing on it, it can't be interacted with - so you can't open chests, furnaces don't cook, torches don't give light
I haven't checked but I assume, as per the point above, ladders won't work while moving either (a bit annoying when it comes to boats)
Slabs are treated as full blocks in the entity
I guess there are are probably fixes or workarounds for most problems though (for example perhaps the entities could be made to glow to some degree to ensure you never got left in complete darkness when moving because light sources stopped working).
I have about 3 weeks left before I become too busy to do anything, but before that happens I would like to create an SMP customisable boat mod for 1.4.7, using the knowledge available in UgoCraft's source code (I will of course write 100% of the code in the mod, to avoid stepping on any toes, or upsetting anyone).
My vision, in approximate order of most important to least:
Drivable, customisable ships
SMP
1.4.7
Keyboard control from anywhere on board
Forge compatible
Slabs act as slabs, not full blocks, in the entity (and stairs as stairs)
Density calculation by materials used and an appropriate draft (submerged portion of the boat)
Ladders work while moving
Chests, workbenches and furnaces that work during movement
Submarines and airships (perhaps)
An automatic canal digger that you can fire and forget, like the railway mod's tunnel digger. Used to connect ocean biomes. (Probably won't happen, but would be nice)
Craftable engine blocks that require a fuel of some sort, and a Sail block type, to provide propulsion (Probably won't happen, but would be nice)
A world gen better suited to a life on water: islands or continents surrounded by water (like earth), perhaps sometimes connected by land bridges. (99% sure I won't get to the point of doing that.)
I will make the mod completely open source, so that others can use the code however they like for their own mods, or make their own forks of my mod, so hopefully it will never die, even if I stopped maintaining it one day.
However, at least initially, I need some help. The actual coding itself is not an issue, I can do that with my eyes closed. But I am completely unfamiliar with minecraft's source code, and with the processes of creating/updating/installing mods (from a devs point of view, not a player's). Tapping into other people's existing knowledge of these will be many, many times faster than learning it all myself from scratch.
I've come across some apparently well written tutorials for creating mods, although for all I know they are complete rubbish, or out of date.
So, some initial questions:
How do i decompile the UgoCraft source into a useful and easily human-readable form?
Grumdot, you talked about a sail block, I have the answer. As I said before, can you try Zipline mod? To brief, it contains ropes, that you can walk on, and carpets, that can be used as carpet or in walls and have some sort of physics, so you can make a bridge or a sail. Tough it may have the same issue with the rope, like the ladder full block entity.
Please try it and tell me what can you do with it. thanks.
I'll try to answer as best I can and hope to help you, in my opinion is the best Forge API because it can make mods universal.
To encode on Forge, you can take a look at the official Wiki: http://www.minecraft...egory:Tutorials
If you only want to study the source code of Ugocraft, you can use: http://java.decompil...ree.fr/?q=jdgui
Hoping you have help, I'm sorry for my bad english, I'm french.
I hope you will succeed.
Thanks Kayato, I'll check out that wiki.
I'm guessing that decompiler might not give me the original variable/class names, which I was hoping for...
Grumdot, you talked about a sail block, I have the answer. As I said before, can you try Zipline mod? To brief, it contains ropes, that you can walk on, and carpets, that can be used as carpet or in walls and have some sort of physics, so you can make a bridge or a sail. Tough it may have the same issue with the rope, like the ladder full block entity.
Please try it and tell me what can you do with it. thanks.
I was thinking along the lines of comparing the number of sail block to the total mass of the ship to determine the speed it could travel at, but like I said, I probably won't get around to doing that.
There's nothing to stop people using Zipline with a ship mod (AFAIK) and putting ropes and sails on their ships though (purely decorative).
I always waiting for this mod to be finish updating. Look at my next submarine I have made.
Since many subs are always to be very small and in between destroyer and cruiser size. This pre-built sub comes with 6 torpedo tubes (4 front and 2 rear). I can improvised to attach machine gun, support battery gun on top of submarine or adding seaplane strip-way for other purpose.
My sub has 3 floors (below will be arming and firing torpedoes, middle will be driving and communication and top deck will be other things to add.). Still, my sub can carries a lot of loads than other simple subs like my in the back of the this pages. It also have enough room to fit much of equipments just like my old sub (not all).
The drawbacks for my sub are not very thin. It could be a hit-box of destroyer. Another drawbacks from its sizes. Only operate on large pool of ocean.
So what? 2 people now are working/planning to work on S&B? this sounds stupendous!!
There is more pre and post developers who aid to made this mod. Due to this mod has became so famous of custom ship building mod right after zeppelin mod.
This mod imo is the best mod out for minecraft and I have a lot of plans for a server with this. If you could make an alternative, Grumdot, it would be crazy amazing.
was thinking along the lines of comparing the number of sail block to the total mass of the ship to determine the speed it could travel at, but like I said, I probably won't get around to doing that.
There's nothing to stop people using Zipline with a ship mod (AFAIK) and putting ropes and sails on their ships though (purely decorative).
Actually there is a problem, when you trow the bottle to make a boat, submarine, etc. using Zipline, it crashes. I was hoping if you can fix that bug, that I suposse is a entity bug,I dont think it wil be so problematic to fix, but anyway, if you do it or not is your choice. Let me know if you wiil or not take my suggestion.
Because I am seeing the minecraft source code for the first time progress is slow, but I have actually started.
Inspired mainly by some mod author I saw (I thought it was SirEntropy in SaB, but I must have been dreaming...) change a recipe to require an ender star, I am (currently) thinking ships should be quite expensive (with large ones being very expensive) so they can be put into an SMP game without completely dominating it. Ship entities will be created by placing a ship block, and recipes for ship blocks will be based *purely* on how difficult/rare the resulting ships should be.
I'm interested in feedback, or alternatives to the following (Constructive criticism is good. "That sucks" is useless, and will be ignored by me. If my idea is no good - very possible - give your own detailed replacement plan):
- small ships, 8x8x8, possible fairly early, after a couple of hours play. Just a little taste of boating life. Common.
- medium ships, 16^3, require 2x small ships in recipe, and some rarer items, more precious materials. Not uncommon.
- large, 32^3, req. 2x medium + more stuff/rarer stuff. Uncommon.
- huge, 64^3 (perhaps 128^3 ?), req. 2x large, + more/rarer stuff. Rare.
- airship, 40^3, req. 2x huge, plus ender star. Extremely rare.
Submarines I'm not sure about yet - they require a little extra work repairing water when they dive. About as rare as Huge ships I guess....
Using multiple smaller ship blocks in the larger blocks stops ships reaching plague proportions, and is an easy way to make a recipe expensive.
These ingredients seemed like good candidates to make recipes:
Early game:
slimeBall
emerald
netherWart (how rare is this?)
enderPearl
poisonousPotato
saddle
tnt
Diamond block
Middle game and beyond:
appleGold, enchanted (i.e. 8 gold blocks)
wither skull
netherStar
mycelium
enderChest
Emerald block
was thinking along the lines of comparing the number of sail block to the total mass of the ship to determine the speed it could travel at, but like I said, I probably won't get around to doing that.
There's nothing to stop people using Zipline with a ship mod (AFAIK) and putting ropes and sails on their ships though (purely decorative).
Actually there is a problem, when you trow the bottle to make a boat, submarine, etc. using Zipline, it crashes. I was hoping if you can fix that bug, that I suposse is a entity bug,I dont think it wil be so problematic to fix, but anyway, if you do it or not is your choice. Let me know if you wiil or not take my suggestion.
There will be no bottles, and as the code is completely new it's unlikely to have exactly the same bug ;-)
When the mod actually gets to the point of creating the entities, test it with Zipline and then report back. I do think it would be good if people could use Zipline to add actual ropes and sails.
Well, could offer an idea. The engine. Special block that allows a certain amount (for example, 50) of blocks to move. With rather expensive recipe, it can become a good way to keep amount of big ships on server low. Say, 4 Enderpearls and some rare ores for each. And an extremely expensive levitation block which is made from Engine block and, say, Nether Star (or, maybe, smth cheaper?). Limit of blocks per engine can be better than limit of size of craft cause it is rather hard to imagine a square - or cubic- craft.
Because I am seeing the minecraft source code for the first time progress is slow, but I have actually started.
Inspired mainly by some mod author I saw (I thought it was SirEntropy in SaB, but I must have been dreaming...) change a recipe to require an ender star, I am (currently) thinking ships should be quite expensive (with large ones being very expensive) so they can be put into an SMP game without completely dominating it. Ship entities will be created by placing a ship block, and recipes for ship blocks will be based *purely* on how difficult/rare the resulting ships should be.
I'm interested in feedback, or alternatives to the following (Constructive criticism is good. "That sucks" is useless, and will be ignored by me. If my idea is no good - very possible - give your own detailed replacement plan):
There will be no bottles, and as the code is completely new it's unlikely to have exactly the same bug ;-)
When the mod actually gets to the point of creating the entities, test it with Zipline and then report back. I do think it would be good if people could use Zipline to add actual ropes and sails.
1. Zipline mod is not up to date so that part doesn't even matter, and
2. What is this. What your describing is simply nonsensical, and is nothing like ships and boats.
You actually mean singular entities that are like larger versions of vanilla boats, which would work completely differently. That type of entity will never have the features like cannons that can be fired separately, or even a proper gravity well like this mod.
If you want constructive criticism, don't waste more time on that project. Find others who can help you or teach the necessary code types, and update this mod in it's entirety. I don't know much, but I am certain others who do would be willing to offer some support.
3.You said you didn't want ships in smp to be cheap for fear that they would completely dominate it.
...
...
...
What? Even if the current ships and boats version were updated and otherwise unchanged, it wouldn't really be too problematic. The only balance issue is with the Aether engine, which needs to be Slightly more expensive, but nothing so drastic as a nether star. Seriously that's like the third rarest thing in the game, only passed by the dragon egg and end stone. Way too expensive.
Well, could offer an idea. The engine. Special block that allows a certain amount (for example, 50) of blocks to move. With rather expensive recipe, it can become a good way to keep amount of big ships on server low. Say, 4 Enderpearls and some rare ores for each. And an extremely expensive levitation block which is made from Engine block and, say, Nether Star (or, maybe, smth cheaper?). Limit of blocks per engine can be better than limit of size of craft cause it is rather hard to imagine a square - or cubic- craft.
P.S. Sorry for my bad English.
Yes, I was considering this too - as well as having dimension limits, also having a block count limit.
1. Zipline mod is not up to date so that part doesn't even matter, and
2. What is this. What your describing is simply nonsensical, and is nothing like ships and boats.
You actually mean singular entities that are like larger versions of vanilla boats, which would work completely differently. That type of entity will never have the features like cannons that can be fired separately, or even a proper gravity well like this mod.
If you want constructive criticism, don't waste more time on that project. Find others who can help you or teach the necessary code types, and update this mod in it's entirety. I don't know much, but I am certain others who do would be willing to offer some support.
3.You said you didn't want ships in smp to be cheap for fear that they would completely dominate it.
...
...
...
What? Even if the current ships and boats version were updated and otherwise unchanged, it wouldn't really be too problematic. The only balance issue is with the Aether engine, which needs to be Slightly more expensive, but nothing so drastic as a nether star. Seriously that's like the third rarest thing in the game, only passed by the dragon egg and end stone. Way too expensive.
I think you need to slow down a little and read what I've written NZC.
1. I've essentially said I won't be spending any time on Zipline stuff, but I do see why it's desirable. If it gets to the point where people can try it with my mod, and my mod won't accept it, then I would be happy to spend some effort fixing that. But that's a big if, and I am only 50% responsible for it.
2. Either I am very bad at explaining (although I think "SMP customisable boats, like SaB" is fairly clear) or you haven't read carefully. I am NOT describing what you're telling me I'm describing (Don't tell someone what they're describing - ask them!). I don't know if my ships will be a single entity, but that wouldn't make it "like larger vanilla boats" anyway (and I don't even know what you mean by "like" there). What is a gravity well? My ships, and everything on them will be subject to gravity. Ships will have an appropriate draft. Fitting cannons to the ships will absolutely be possible (cannons from someone else's mod) - being able to fire them would likely require a small addition to my mod.
My project is mine, and my time is mine to spend - obviously whatever I spend it on is something I don't feel is a waste. I am not interested in updating S&B, so I won't be doing it - it isn't SMP, and it has a lot of little extras (nice to have: rocking, working redstone, etc) that aren't essential, and that I don't want to spend time on (I don't have much available).
3. I know how rare a nether star is. It's only required for airships, not everything. It's also nothing more than an proposal at the moment (it may end up that a wither skull is more appropriate, for example).
You've offered no alternatives to anything I've suggested at all. If you have a better idea let's hear it, in detail - give a list of ship sizes, and recipes for their blocks.
There seem to be some issues, as neither of us seems to be understanding what the other is saying.
2.Your response was very surprising, as It appears you are in fact planning on still using blocks, whereas the prior post would suggest differently. A gravity well is what is used by mods such as this and ugocraft to move entities in relation to itself, it's what makes it so that when the ship moves you move with it and don't just slide off, and is difficult to add. Obviously to update a mod past 1.3 forces you to make it SMP. Some these "extras" may also be completely vital to the ship even making sense for some, and it would be nice to have them. It is a shame you have so little time to work on this as it only makes me more frustrated with the fact that I have seemingly endless free time and no ability to productively use it on things like this.
3.Updating this mod (which again would make it SMP in the process) WAS a suggestion. I can't provide the suggestions you're looking for because I don't follow your ideas of balance; I would make every ship cost the blocks that are used to build it, like a real ship.
Sail-able sailboats, with built in chests. SMP, 1.4.7. The boats are not customisable though.
Are you talking about the floating island moving through the air at 0:13, or the swords? Or both?
Even if that island is connected to a slider block, this mod still has the ability to group blocks together as a single clump, and move or rotate it in any combination, which are the core necessities of a ship mod. The only changes required (I admit I say this with no knowledge of the MC source) are the triggers that cause it to move, and what it moves in relation to. From a coding point of view that doesn't sound like a huge job (if this is the case I may even consider making the modifications myself).
An update from 1.4.5 to 1.4.7 is required (which I have no clue about), and changing to Forge is desirable, but this is already SMP, which is a huge plus in its favour.
I've had a play around with UgoCraft (I had to use 1.3.2 because I couldn't find ModLoaderMP 1.4.5) and:
- it creates entities of any combination of blocks, with apparently completely correct collision detection no matter what orientation, or how complex the shape is (multi-story entities work just fine)
- it can move or rotate these entities on any axis
- chests/furnaces attached to the entities keep their contents
- loose items dropped on the entity move with it
- entities can move through air and water
- most wonderful of all, it is multiplayer, and works in SMP
This means boats, submarines and airships are all possible.Some negatives/current limitations:
- currently when the ship is rotated/moving, it becomes an entity and apart from standing on it, it can't be interacted with - so you can't open chests, furnaces don't cook, torches don't give light
- I haven't checked but I assume, as per the point above, ladders won't work while moving either (a bit annoying when it comes to boats)
- Slabs are treated as full blocks in the entity
I guess there are are probably fixes or workarounds for most problems though (for example perhaps the entities could be made to glow to some degree to ensure you never got left in complete darkness when moving because light sources stopped working).I have about 3 weeks left before I become too busy to do anything, but before that happens I would like to create an SMP customisable boat mod for 1.4.7, using the knowledge available in UgoCraft's source code (I will of course write 100% of the code in the mod, to avoid stepping on any toes, or upsetting anyone).
My vision, in approximate order of most important to least:
- Drivable, customisable ships
- SMP
- 1.4.7
- Keyboard control from anywhere on board
- Forge compatible
- Slabs act as slabs, not full blocks, in the entity (and stairs as stairs)
- Density calculation by materials used and an appropriate draft (submerged portion of the boat)
- Ladders work while moving
- Chests, workbenches and furnaces that work during movement
- Submarines and airships (perhaps)
- An automatic canal digger that you can fire and forget, like the railway mod's tunnel digger. Used to connect ocean biomes. (Probably won't happen, but would be nice)
- Craftable engine blocks that require a fuel of some sort, and a Sail block type, to provide propulsion (Probably won't happen, but would be nice)
- A world gen better suited to a life on water: islands or continents surrounded by water (like earth), perhaps sometimes connected by land bridges. (99% sure I won't get to the point of doing that.)
I will make the mod completely open source, so that others can use the code however they like for their own mods, or make their own forks of my mod, so hopefully it will never die, even if I stopped maintaining it one day.However, at least initially, I need some help. The actual coding itself is not an issue, I can do that with my eyes closed. But I am completely unfamiliar with minecraft's source code, and with the processes of creating/updating/installing mods (from a devs point of view, not a player's). Tapping into other people's existing knowledge of these will be many, many times faster than learning it all myself from scratch.
I've come across some apparently well written tutorials for creating mods, although for all I know they are complete rubbish, or out of date.
So, some initial questions:
- How do i decompile the UgoCraft source into a useful and easily human-readable form?
- Can I make SMP mods with Forge? How?
- How good are these tutorials?: http://www.minecraft...i/Basic_Modding
- How good are these tutorials?: http://www.minecraft...orials-9022013/
- What is currently the best way to work on a mod - is it Eclipse with Forge, which includes MCP, as per the link in #3?
- Slightly OT: is the process of updating a mod simply decompiling it and then fixing errors until it will recompile with the latest minecraft source?
- EDIT: found the Tutorials forum, and this link. Looks fantastic, any opinions on it? http://www.minecraft...ish-and-polish/
Any useful info/tips/strategies, or links to good material would also be very, very welcome!Please try it and tell me what can you do with it. thanks.
Thanks Kayato, I'll check out that wiki.
I'm guessing that decompiler might not give me the original variable/class names, which I was hoping for...
I was thinking along the lines of comparing the number of sail block to the total mass of the ship to determine the speed it could travel at, but like I said, I probably won't get around to doing that.
There's nothing to stop people using Zipline with a ship mod (AFAIK) and putting ropes and sails on their ships though (purely decorative).
Since many subs are always to be very small and in between destroyer and cruiser size. This pre-built sub comes with 6 torpedo tubes (4 front and 2 rear). I can improvised to attach machine gun, support battery gun on top of submarine or adding seaplane strip-way for other purpose.
My sub has 3 floors (below will be arming and firing torpedoes, middle will be driving and communication and top deck will be other things to add.). Still, my sub can carries a lot of loads than other simple subs like my in the back of the this pages. It also have enough room to fit much of equipments just like my old sub (not all).
The drawbacks for my sub are not very thin. It could be a hit-box of destroyer. Another drawbacks from its sizes. Only operate on large pool of ocean.
There is more pre and post developers who aid to made this mod. Due to this mod has became so famous of custom ship building mod right after zeppelin mod.
Well technically I'm not really - I'm working on an alternative.
And atm it doesn't seem like Trgr is active on SaB...
There's nothing to stop people using Zipline with a ship mod (AFAIK) and putting ropes and sails on their ships though (purely decorative).
Actually there is a problem, when you trow the bottle to make a boat, submarine, etc. using Zipline, it crashes. I was hoping if you can fix that bug, that I suposse is a entity bug,I dont think it wil be so problematic to fix, but anyway, if you do it or not is your choice. Let me know if you wiil or not take my suggestion.
Inspired mainly by some mod author I saw (I thought it was SirEntropy in SaB, but I must have been dreaming...) change a recipe to require an ender star, I am (currently) thinking ships should be quite expensive (with large ones being very expensive) so they can be put into an SMP game without completely dominating it. Ship entities will be created by placing a ship block, and recipes for ship blocks will be based *purely* on how difficult/rare the resulting ships should be.
I'm interested in feedback, or alternatives to the following (Constructive criticism is good. "That sucks" is useless, and will be ignored by me. If my idea is no good - very possible - give your own detailed replacement plan):
- small ships, 8x8x8, possible fairly early, after a couple of hours play. Just a little taste of boating life. Common.
- medium ships, 16^3, require 2x small ships in recipe, and some rarer items, more precious materials. Not uncommon.
- large, 32^3, req. 2x medium + more stuff/rarer stuff. Uncommon.
- huge, 64^3 (perhaps 128^3 ?), req. 2x large, + more/rarer stuff. Rare.
- airship, 40^3, req. 2x huge, plus ender star. Extremely rare.
Submarines I'm not sure about yet - they require a little extra work repairing water when they dive. About as rare as Huge ships I guess....
Using multiple smaller ship blocks in the larger blocks stops ships reaching plague proportions, and is an easy way to make a recipe expensive.
These ingredients seemed like good candidates to make recipes:
Early game:
slimeBall
emerald
netherWart (how rare is this?)
enderPearl
poisonousPotato
saddle
tnt
Diamond block
Middle game and beyond:
appleGold, enchanted (i.e. 8 gold blocks)
wither skull
netherStar
mycelium
enderChest
Emerald block
There will be no bottles, and as the code is completely new it's unlikely to have exactly the same bug ;-)
When the mod actually gets to the point of creating the entities, test it with Zipline and then report back. I do think it would be good if people could use Zipline to add actual ropes and sails.
P.S. Sorry for my bad English.
1. Zipline mod is not up to date so that part doesn't even matter, and
2. What is this. What your describing is simply nonsensical, and is nothing like ships and boats.
You actually mean singular entities that are like larger versions of vanilla boats, which would work completely differently. That type of entity will never have the features like cannons that can be fired separately, or even a proper gravity well like this mod.
If you want constructive criticism, don't waste more time on that project. Find others who can help you or teach the necessary code types, and update this mod in it's entirety. I don't know much, but I am certain others who do would be willing to offer some support.
3.You said you didn't want ships in smp to be cheap for fear that they would completely dominate it.
...
...
...
What? Even if the current ships and boats version were updated and otherwise unchanged, it wouldn't really be too problematic. The only balance issue is with the Aether engine, which needs to be Slightly more expensive, but nothing so drastic as a nether star. Seriously that's like the third rarest thing in the game, only passed by the dragon egg and end stone. Way too expensive.
Soaring in Hoenn
Yes, I was considering this too - as well as having dimension limits, also having a block count limit.
I think you need to slow down a little and read what I've written NZC.
1. I've essentially said I won't be spending any time on Zipline stuff, but I do see why it's desirable. If it gets to the point where people can try it with my mod, and my mod won't accept it, then I would be happy to spend some effort fixing that. But that's a big if, and I am only 50% responsible for it.
2. Either I am very bad at explaining (although I think "SMP customisable boats, like SaB" is fairly clear) or you haven't read carefully. I am NOT describing what you're telling me I'm describing (Don't tell someone what they're describing - ask them!). I don't know if my ships will be a single entity, but that wouldn't make it "like larger vanilla boats" anyway (and I don't even know what you mean by "like" there). What is a gravity well? My ships, and everything on them will be subject to gravity. Ships will have an appropriate draft. Fitting cannons to the ships will absolutely be possible (cannons from someone else's mod) - being able to fire them would likely require a small addition to my mod.
My project is mine, and my time is mine to spend - obviously whatever I spend it on is something I don't feel is a waste. I am not interested in updating S&B, so I won't be doing it - it isn't SMP, and it has a lot of little extras (nice to have: rocking, working redstone, etc) that aren't essential, and that I don't want to spend time on (I don't have much available).
3. I know how rare a nether star is. It's only required for airships, not everything. It's also nothing more than an proposal at the moment (it may end up that a wither skull is more appropriate, for example).
You've offered no alternatives to anything I've suggested at all. If you have a better idea let's hear it, in detail - give a list of ship sizes, and recipes for their blocks.
2.Your response was very surprising, as It appears you are in fact planning on still using blocks, whereas the prior post would suggest differently. A gravity well is what is used by mods such as this and ugocraft to move entities in relation to itself, it's what makes it so that when the ship moves you move with it and don't just slide off, and is difficult to add. Obviously to update a mod past 1.3 forces you to make it SMP. Some these "extras" may also be completely vital to the ship even making sense for some, and it would be nice to have them. It is a shame you have so little time to work on this as it only makes me more frustrated with the fact that I have seemingly endless free time and no ability to productively use it on things like this.
3.Updating this mod (which again would make it SMP in the process) WAS a suggestion. I can't provide the suggestions you're looking for because I don't follow your ideas of balance; I would make every ship cost the blocks that are used to build it, like a real ship.
Soaring in Hoenn