Ages of Mystcraft - An ADDON for the Mystcraft mod.
This is the Symbols sub-mod of Ages of Mystcraft. Most of these symbols are disabled by default, any symbol can be enabled or disabled via the config file.
Most of the added symbols are Material modifiers, though there are new Directional modifiers, new Length modifiers, and symbols that do nothing beyond add stability/instability. More symbols are planned, including new Terrains and Features, and dynamic variants of the stability symbols that cause the stability of the age to change over time. Outside of the Symbols sub-mod, a great many things are planned, more news as progress is made.
For more information on the added symbols, see the Mystcraft Wiki.
Spruce Leaf Tendrils over a Stone Brick Skylands:
KNOWN ISSUES:
Instabilities and rarities may still need tweaking, please leave opinions on the two.
PERMISSIONS:
PERMISSIONS:
You may decompile this mod for personal and educational use, as well as to provide compatibility with other mods. You may not distribute whole or part decompiled sources, modified or not, and you may not distribute this zip or any modifications without permission.
You may copy ideas freely, as long as the implementation is blind to my own and does not include content or art assets I distribute.
I am not liable for any damage this software may cause, including damages to your computer, employment status, relationships, or personal hygene.
TEXTURE PACKS:
Feel free to distribute altered or replacement texture files for this mod, any textures will be located inside the zip under the assets directory.
PRIVATE MOD PACKS:
Private mod packs, packs with no public links, are permitted as long as the mod zip I provide remains unchanged from its original state. This is for players that want to distribute server packs and the like. No need to ask or inform me.
PUBLIC MOD PACKS:
Public mod packs must ask for permission. Options are:
-In the Ages of Mystcraft thread on either the Minecraft or Mystcraft forums.
-In a private message on the Minecraft or Mystcraft forums.
-In the #mystcraft channel on irc.esper.net by asking an opped Veovis_Muaddib or Veovis_Nexus. If a user has either nick but is not opped, please ask them to identify with NickServ.
Additionally, public mod packs must have permissions for all other mods they distribute, and the mod zip I provide must remain unchanged from its original state.
I'm pretty lenient on public mod packs and will say yes in most cases.
I keep a list of allowed modpacks in the mod's zip file, for reference and to point users toward new packs. If given a URL I will include that next to the pack's name.
CHANGELOG:
Symbols release pre5:
* Updated for compatibility with 0.10.5.00 Mystcraft API.
* Changed suffix on material modifiers from "Material" to "Block", to match changes in Mystcraft's naming. Intended consequence: players can now find symbols called Block of <Ore> Block. Due to humor, will not fix.
* (In)stability symbols are now named <Level> Added (In)stability, to better clarify their purpose in adding rather than restricting. (Low Instability could be thought to force the age to not have much instability, while Low Added Instability is more unambiguous.)
* Improved material modifiers valid type handling in order to work better with inconsistencies in grammar api.
* Cleaned up some code to make it easier to maintain.
* Added more messy code that I'll have to clean up later, as well as exposing existing messy code that didn't seem messy before newly added functionality.
+ Now calculates block modifier instability based on number of blocks per chunk. This change should result in the same values for Tendrils as previous releases.
+ Added symbols to Mystcraft's new Context Free Grammar, meaning that they can be autoselected now.
- Removed experimental symbols that snuck into a previous release. These symbols were functionally equivalent to their Mystcraft counterparts, and were not meant for distribution.
- Removed block modifiers that were added to Mystcraft itself. These should transfer seamlessly, please let me know if you encounter issues with this.
! Instability values for material modifiers have not changed, but Mystcraft's may have. Please comment on any inconsistencies found.
! If you have missing feature symbols after the update, please ignore them. They were experimental symbols that offered no functionality beyond their Mystcraft counterparts. Apologies for the inconvenience.
! If you have missing material modifier symbols after the update, please let me know. Several materials were added to Mystcraft and therefore removed from this addon.
! Symbols from this addon can now be autoselected! Still pinning down rarities, please let me know if any seem too common.
Symbols release pre4:
+ Added Quartz and Redstone Block modifiers.
* Various refactoring and cleanup.
* Uses new symbol registration method, config options are no longer added to the Mystcraft config file.
! Enabled symbols no longer add lines to the Mystcraft config file.
Symbols release pre3:
* Fixed issues causing trouble finding the config with the FTB launcher.
* Config path has moved from Mystcraft/Ages_of_Mystcraft/Symbols.cfg to mystcraft/ages_of_mystcraft/Symbols.cfg to better fit with other mod config folders being lowercase.
! Config path has changed if your OS is case sensitive.
Symbols release pre2:
+ Added "Real" length by request, should produce a day as long as Earth. Untested for obvious reasons, please provide feedback if you use it. Defaults to false.
* Moved Instability and Stability symbols to General section of configs.
* Moved all symbol rarity configuration to a single location, fixing a bug resulting from duplicated methods. Fixes Instability and Stability symbols not registering properly regardless of config status.
* Ensured that Instability symbols would have consistent values across playsessions.
* TNT Material now provides instability rather than stability as it provides free resources.
* Removed instability from Wool Materials, they now provide no stability or instability.
! TNT Material now provides enough instability to trigger Charged effects.
! Instability symbol identifiers may have changed, though it is unlikely any players had them working in game.
Wow even though this mod isnt really popular, I really like it. All the different terrains and features, i like it! Keep up the great work and I suggest that you add like new items to each terrain. Might be alot of work, but it might be worth it. =)
Wow even though this mod isnt really popular, I really like it. All the different terrains and features, i like it! Keep up the great work and I suggest that you add like new items to each terrain. Might be alot of work, but it might be worth it. =)
Glad you like it!
I'm planning on adding new structures like Mystcraft's Tendrils, that's coming up in a future build.
New items and such are planned for the full release of Ages of Mystcraft.
Since one of them blowing up sets them all off and likely crashes your jvm (The reason it's disabled by default) I felt stability was a fair trade. Instability and rarities are up for debate though, none of them are finalized. I made sure it was very easy for me to change them on the fly. In fact code-wise it'd be easy to set up configs for rarity, instability, and which materials are valid for structures, but it would lead to a massive config file.
Unfortunately symbols need to be registered client side as well. Though I could talk to XCompWiz about sending the page names and the symbol's words on connect, and that should be all a client needs. That requires Mystcraft changes however, there's nothing I can do myself to make this addon not require the client side.
Thanks for posting about this in the Mystcraft forums. Otherwise I most likely wouldn't have heard of this mod. Haven't messed around with it, but I absolutely am absolutely going to love messing with the added length modifiers.
Thanks for posting about this in the Mystcraft forums. Otherwise I most likely wouldn't have heard of this mod. Haven't messed around with it, but I absolutely am absolutely going to love messing with the added length modifiers.
Not a problem, I nearly didn't make this thread actually, I would have just made one on the Mystcraft forums and left it at that, but I figured some people might find it easier here.
The length modifiers are fun, I could have added more but I figured adding in the primes up to 7 gives a lot more control, and the ones between zero and one help shorten books and help to get exact numbers, but aren't REALLY required. They're convenient though, and that's why I threw them in.
This mod is now a part of my daily watch, and my mystcraft minecraft. Thanks V. BTW, what are your standards for mod packs. Just checking.
EDIT: Opinion on the large config file, make a second config file for rarities. That way, novices don't have to open it.
Also, why do you have all the wool and chiseled bricks and such disabled? More importantly, why is one of the silver fish enabled as default! lol, I hate silver fish!
EDIT 2: Just read the new page on the wiki. Why do you have wool cause instability? Am I wrong in saying that lots of wool can only benefit in an aesthetic way? I may be the only one that feels this way, but if it is a material that is only useful for aesthetic reasons, it should not cause instability. Note that this is only opinion. People are welcome, invited in fact, to disagree with me. I would love to hear other views on this.
This mod is now a part of my daily watch, and my mystcraft minecraft. Thanks V. BTW, what are your standards for mod packs. Just checking.
EDIT: Opinion on the large config file, make a second config file for rarities. That way, novices don't have to open it.
Also, why do you have all the wool and chiseled bricks and such disabled? More importantly, why is one of the silver fish enabled as default! lol, I hate silver fish!
EDIT 2: Just read the new page on the wiki. Why do you have wool cause instability? Am I wrong in saying that lots of wool can only benefit in an aesthetic way? I may be the only one that feels this way, but if it is a material that is only useful for aesthetic reasons, it should not cause instability. Note that this is only opinion. People are welcome, invited in fact, to disagree with me. I would love to hear other views on this.
Mod packs and permissions and such are on my todo soon list. For right now, until I get something in the OP, ask me with a link to or description of the pack, and have permission for Mystcraft if you distribute that as well, and I'll probably give permission.
I've been thinking about separate config files, but for right now I store the emerald cost rather than the actual rarity. Soon the emerald costs may not be tied to rarity, they may be separate, with separate rarities for different sources as well. So I'd like to hold out on that changing or at least talk to xcw to see what his plans are, before I do something that would then end up changing later. I don't like config value ranges changing...
I'm looking into that though. Also of note, I have six submods planned, five more in addition to Symbols, so this one taking up two config files might be overkill. I might be able to get away with a generic and three more specific configs, but then with an additional rarity config that bumps it up to five total. That's still a lot of configs.
I have a lot of symbols disabled by default as not all players may want them. I also tried to have a good balance of mostly positive blocks with a few negative, like Silverfish. You're free to enable or disable all you want.
One of the two notes in the Known Issues section is that rarities and instability values might need tweaking. So far TNT and Wool have been questioned, so I'll look into them. I'll probably move TNT to adding some slight instability but not enough to cause charged on its own. Wool doesn't add much instability, should be able to offset it with things that add stability like Charged. I figured it's a somewhat valuable resource in mods, and to me it's a sign of wealth to be able to build with it in vanilla. Still, it's open for debate and if players would rather it not add or remove instability I can do that.
Ages of Mystcraft - Symbols pre2 is released, tweaking instability values, fixing several issues with the (in)stability symbols, and adding a requested Real Length modifier, which approximates the Earth's rotation.
Quick hotfix pre 3 is released, fixes issues with the FTB launcher. Also note config directories have changed to all lowercase directories to better fit with other mod added directories.
This is amazing, 81 symbols? I may not be right, but I think that's more than the actual mystcraft mod adds! Good job man, good job.
Thanks!
I designed the system to be very easy to maintain for large amounts of any kind of symbol, and to ensure that I only had to change things in one area to change a single symbol, so that helped with the volume. Also the simple fact that a lot are similar. I do plan more complex symbols (code-wise) in future though.
Though I should point out, my systems wouldn't be anywhere near as easy to write and use internally if it weren't for the very nice API XCompWiz provides. So quite a bit of the credit here still goes to him.
pre2 was supposed to be the last release before Minecraft 1.5, but an issue with FTB forced a hotfix pre3. No further issues have come up, so I'm going to start working on another branch with new content for that release, probably the dynamic (in)stability symbols and some Features. Maybe Terrains if I catch on quickly, but I'm not promising anything there.
Also, yes, I will add Blocks of Redstone when I release for 1.5.
Wow. The real length symbol seems interesting. If I am not mistaken, the length modifiers are only able to modify gradient lengths and time of sun & moon? Are any other uses for it planned (I would assume yes).
Any chances you could tell us about some of the symbols you have planned?
Quick bit of news on the mod, all symbols added to Mystcraft through the API are added to Mystcraft's config file automatically, so I talked to XCompWiz today and he pushed a devbuild that will let me register symbols without doing so. Still not going to release for that unless the API breaks between now and the bugfix release.
Wow. The real length symbol seems interesting. If I am not mistaken, the length modifiers are only able to modify gradient lengths and time of sun & moon? Are any other uses for it planned (I would assume yes).
Any chances you could tell us about some of the symbols you have planned?
Lengths are for anything in the sky so far, suns, moons, stars, and the like.
Short term plans I'll share, well, at least some of the ones related to the Symbols sub-mod. I plan to add a few more things to the sky, including one really weird one that could be a lot of fun. Those could take me a bit longer though as graphics are not my specialty, so right now the next focuses are on:
1.) Dynamic (in)stability symbols. These could end up quite fun to play with, as instability effects would come and go over time. I might allow allow these to take Length modifiers.
2.) Features like deposits of dirt in the Overworld, Oil-like geysers of liquids, smaller tendrils and caves, etc....
3.) More terrain symbols.
The first one, I know exactly what I'm doing and it'll just take some fiddling to get working. I really like the Mystcraft API.
The second is working with Minecraft stuff, so I'm not sure how long it will take me to learn. Hopefully not too long, as I do have plenty of references to examine.
The third is something I expect to have a bit of a learning curve with, but it's absolutely required before I can start at all on another part of the mod, so I'd like to figure it out as quickly as possible. Once I get the hang of it though, I might push out several of them, or only just a few, depending on how versatile I can make the generation. Shooting for fewer actually, just enough to fill my needs and provide users with cool new terrains. And enough of talking in riddles for now....
Commonly suggested for Mystcraft itself and now I've had it suggested for this mod twice. Probably not, here's why: (These are the same reasons XCompWiz doesn't do it either.)
Dense Ores: Let normal ore generation occur, then generate another batch. Trivially easy. Call an existing method again. It's more nuanced that that of course, but that's the most basic implementation I can think of.
Sparse Ores:
1.) Hook into ore generation and tell the generation to generate fewer pockets, or lower the pocket size. (And make sure to catch negatives as that could get weird if Mojang set it up wierd.) This requires fiddling with existing classes or replacing the ore generation system for ages. Both are rather hostile to other mods.
2.) Let normal ore generation occur, then go back and replace any ores with stone again. Somewhat expensive, (slow) especially if a Dense Ores symbol triggers first. Also doesn't play nicely with ores generating in netherrack or endstone, not to mention marble in RP2. Also can't check for mod ores without becoming dependent on them in order to run class checks on each and every supported mod ore, or using the mod's API if it gives access to its own materials.
No clear winner here I think. The situation may change when Mojang finishes their work on the planned API, as from what I gather from their plans things like this should be easy to apply to the entire game, and therefore possible (But possibly annoying) to just tie to a symbol.
Floating platforms- takes material modifier, makes 1 - 3 block uniformly thick floating platforms
Hmmm.... We'll see. I'm not sure I'd want to do this without a bit of jaggedness around the edges. Also I'd probably want to make them close enough to jump from one to the next, and in order to not simply litter the level with them I'll probably end up giving them winding paths through the sky. These could be cool for when Sillybits updates Additional Mystcraft Terrains.
Lava pockets- add stability, adds more underground lava areas.
Mystcraft has the Lava Lakes symbol, it does literally this without the stability boost. Put more than one in if you want more. Also in future it will allow for material modifiers, as well as the Lakes symbol. The difference between the two is that lakes show up everywhere at about the same frequency, while "Lava" Lakes show up more underground.
scatter blocks. (if you've ever made an unstable end island (or skyland) age with the red creep over taking the world, you'll see several small patches of red floating around the world and my thought is using the same scatter generation to add material modified blocks.
scatter blocks. (if you've ever made an unstable end island (or skyland) age with the red creep over taking the world, you'll see several small patches of red floating around the world and my thought is using the same scatter generation to add material modified blocks.
No ore would be 1.) with no patches or no pocket size, or a more aggressive 2.). Either way, still unfeasible.
Scattered blocks should be easy, I can't imagine many players wanting it, but then that's why I have symbols default to false. Might have decay sized, and then iron ore pocket sized. Also have been planning an "asteroids" symbol that would essentially be a larger version.
This is the Symbols sub-mod of Ages of Mystcraft. Most of these symbols are disabled by default, any symbol can be enabled or disabled via the config file.
Most of the added symbols are Material modifiers, though there are new Directional modifiers, new Length modifiers, and symbols that do nothing beyond add stability/instability. More symbols are planned, including new Terrains and Features, and dynamic variants of the stability symbols that cause the stability of the age to change over time. Outside of the Symbols sub-mod, a great many things are planned, more news as progress is made.
For more information on the added symbols, see the Mystcraft Wiki.
Spruce Leaf Tendrils over a Stone Brick Skylands: KNOWN ISSUES:
You may decompile this mod for personal and educational use, as well as to provide compatibility with other mods. You may not distribute whole or part decompiled sources, modified or not, and you may not distribute this zip or any modifications without permission.
You may copy ideas freely, as long as the implementation is blind to my own and does not include content or art assets I distribute.
I am not liable for any damage this software may cause, including damages to your computer, employment status, relationships, or personal hygene.
TEXTURE PACKS:
Feel free to distribute altered or replacement texture files for this mod, any textures will be located inside the zip under the assets directory.
PRIVATE MOD PACKS:
Private mod packs, packs with no public links, are permitted as long as the mod zip I provide remains unchanged from its original state. This is for players that want to distribute server packs and the like. No need to ask or inform me.
PUBLIC MOD PACKS:
Public mod packs must ask for permission. Options are:
-In the Ages of Mystcraft thread on either the Minecraft or Mystcraft forums.
-In a private message on the Minecraft or Mystcraft forums.
-In the #mystcraft channel on irc.esper.net by asking an opped Veovis_Muaddib or Veovis_Nexus. If a user has either nick but is not opped, please ask them to identify with NickServ.
Additionally, public mod packs must have permissions for all other mods they distribute, and the mod zip I provide must remain unchanged from its original state.
I'm pretty lenient on public mod packs and will say yes in most cases.
I keep a list of allowed modpacks in the mod's zip file, for reference and to point users toward new packs. If given a URL I will include that next to the pack's name.
Symbols release pre5:
* Updated for compatibility with 0.10.5.00 Mystcraft API.
* Changed suffix on material modifiers from "Material" to "Block", to match changes in Mystcraft's naming. Intended consequence: players can now find symbols called Block of <Ore> Block. Due to humor, will not fix.
* (In)stability symbols are now named <Level> Added (In)stability, to better clarify their purpose in adding rather than restricting. (Low Instability could be thought to force the age to not have much instability, while Low Added Instability is more unambiguous.)
* Improved material modifiers valid type handling in order to work better with inconsistencies in grammar api.
* Cleaned up some code to make it easier to maintain.
* Added more messy code that I'll have to clean up later, as well as exposing existing messy code that didn't seem messy before newly added functionality.
+ Now calculates block modifier instability based on number of blocks per chunk. This change should result in the same values for Tendrils as previous releases.
+ Added symbols to Mystcraft's new Context Free Grammar, meaning that they can be autoselected now.
- Removed experimental symbols that snuck into a previous release. These symbols were functionally equivalent to their Mystcraft counterparts, and were not meant for distribution.
- Removed block modifiers that were added to Mystcraft itself. These should transfer seamlessly, please let me know if you encounter issues with this.
! Instability values for material modifiers have not changed, but Mystcraft's may have. Please comment on any inconsistencies found.
! If you have missing feature symbols after the update, please ignore them. They were experimental symbols that offered no functionality beyond their Mystcraft counterparts. Apologies for the inconvenience.
! If you have missing material modifier symbols after the update, please let me know. Several materials were added to Mystcraft and therefore removed from this addon.
! Symbols from this addon can now be autoselected! Still pinning down rarities, please let me know if any seem too common.
Symbols release pre4:
+ Added Quartz and Redstone Block modifiers.
* Various refactoring and cleanup.
* Uses new symbol registration method, config options are no longer added to the Mystcraft config file.
! Enabled symbols no longer add lines to the Mystcraft config file.
Symbols release pre3:
* Fixed issues causing trouble finding the config with the FTB launcher.
* Config path has moved from Mystcraft/Ages_of_Mystcraft/Symbols.cfg to mystcraft/ages_of_mystcraft/Symbols.cfg to better fit with other mod config folders being lowercase.
! Config path has changed if your OS is case sensitive.
Symbols release pre2:
+ Added "Real" length by request, should produce a day as long as Earth. Untested for obvious reasons, please provide feedback if you use it. Defaults to false.
* Moved Instability and Stability symbols to General section of configs.
* Moved all symbol rarity configuration to a single location, fixing a bug resulting from duplicated methods. Fixes Instability and Stability symbols not registering properly regardless of config status.
* Ensured that Instability symbols would have consistent values across playsessions.
* TNT Material now provides instability rather than stability as it provides free resources.
* Removed instability from Wool Materials, they now provide no stability or instability.
! TNT Material now provides enough instability to trigger Charged effects.
! Instability symbol identifiers may have changed, though it is unlikely any players had them working in game.
Ages of Mystcraft - Symbols 0.0.1.00 for Mystcraft 0.10.6.00
Ages of Mystcraft - Symbols pre5 for Mystcraft 0.10.5.00
Ages of Mystcraft - Symbols pre4 for Mystcraft 0.10.2.00
Ages of Mystcraft - Symbols pre3 for Mystcraft 0.10.0.00
Ages of Mystcraft - Symbols pre2 for Mystcraft 0.10.0.00
Ages of Mystcraft - Symbols pre1 for Mystcraft 0.10.0.00
I do stuff.
Glad you like it!
I'm planning on adding new structures like Mystcraft's Tendrils, that's coming up in a future build.
New items and such are planned for the full release of Ages of Mystcraft.
I do stuff.
I do stuff.
Have fun!
I do stuff.
Enjoy!
Sounds good!
Not a problem, I nearly didn't make this thread actually, I would have just made one on the Mystcraft forums and left it at that, but I figured some people might find it easier here.
The length modifiers are fun, I could have added more but I figured adding in the primes up to 7 gives a lot more control, and the ones between zero and one help shorten books and help to get exact numbers, but aren't REALLY required. They're convenient though, and that's why I threw them in.
I do stuff.
EDIT: Opinion on the large config file, make a second config file for rarities. That way, novices don't have to open it.
Also, why do you have all the wool and chiseled bricks and such disabled? More importantly, why is one of the silver fish enabled as default! lol, I hate silver fish!
EDIT 2: Just read the new page on the wiki. Why do you have wool cause instability? Am I wrong in saying that lots of wool can only benefit in an aesthetic way? I may be the only one that feels this way, but if it is a material that is only useful for aesthetic reasons, it should not cause instability. Note that this is only opinion. People are welcome, invited in fact, to disagree with me. I would love to hear other views on this.
Mod packs and permissions and such are on my todo soon list. For right now, until I get something in the OP, ask me with a link to or description of the pack, and have permission for Mystcraft if you distribute that as well, and I'll probably give permission.
I've been thinking about separate config files, but for right now I store the emerald cost rather than the actual rarity. Soon the emerald costs may not be tied to rarity, they may be separate, with separate rarities for different sources as well. So I'd like to hold out on that changing or at least talk to xcw to see what his plans are, before I do something that would then end up changing later. I don't like config value ranges changing...
I'm looking into that though. Also of note, I have six submods planned, five more in addition to Symbols, so this one taking up two config files might be overkill. I might be able to get away with a generic and three more specific configs, but then with an additional rarity config that bumps it up to five total. That's still a lot of configs.
I have a lot of symbols disabled by default as not all players may want them. I also tried to have a good balance of mostly positive blocks with a few negative, like Silverfish. You're free to enable or disable all you want.
One of the two notes in the Known Issues section is that rarities and instability values might need tweaking. So far TNT and Wool have been questioned, so I'll look into them. I'll probably move TNT to adding some slight instability but not enough to cause charged on its own. Wool doesn't add much instability, should be able to offset it with things that add stability like Charged. I figured it's a somewhat valuable resource in mods, and to me it's a sign of wealth to be able to build with it in vanilla. Still, it's open for debate and if players would rather it not add or remove instability I can do that.
I do stuff.
Quick hotfix pre 3 is released, fixes issues with the FTB launcher. Also note config directories have changed to all lowercase directories to better fit with other mod added directories.
I do stuff.
I like how having TNT material will effectively blow up your world automatically now. Would make someone rather happy...
Yep, I'm a bit worried about that one, but then that's why I leave it disabled by default.
Glad you like it! This is just the start of one section of this mod....
Thanks!
I designed the system to be very easy to maintain for large amounts of any kind of symbol, and to ensure that I only had to change things in one area to change a single symbol, so that helped with the volume. Also the simple fact that a lot are similar. I do plan more complex symbols (code-wise) in future though.
Though I should point out, my systems wouldn't be anywhere near as easy to write and use internally if it weren't for the very nice API XCompWiz provides. So quite a bit of the credit here still goes to him.
pre2 was supposed to be the last release before Minecraft 1.5, but an issue with FTB forced a hotfix pre3. No further issues have come up, so I'm going to start working on another branch with new content for that release, probably the dynamic (in)stability symbols and some Features. Maybe Terrains if I catch on quickly, but I'm not promising anything there.
Also, yes, I will add Blocks of Redstone when I release for 1.5.
I do stuff.
Any chances you could tell us about some of the symbols you have planned?
Lengths are for anything in the sky so far, suns, moons, stars, and the like.
Short term plans I'll share, well, at least some of the ones related to the Symbols sub-mod. I plan to add a few more things to the sky, including one really weird one that could be a lot of fun. Those could take me a bit longer though as graphics are not my specialty, so right now the next focuses are on:
1.) Dynamic (in)stability symbols. These could end up quite fun to play with, as instability effects would come and go over time. I might allow allow these to take Length modifiers.
2.) Features like deposits of dirt in the Overworld, Oil-like geysers of liquids, smaller tendrils and caves, etc....
3.) More terrain symbols.
The first one, I know exactly what I'm doing and it'll just take some fiddling to get working. I really like the Mystcraft API.
The second is working with Minecraft stuff, so I'm not sure how long it will take me to learn. Hopefully not too long, as I do have plenty of references to examine.
The third is something I expect to have a bit of a learning curve with, but it's absolutely required before I can start at all on another part of the mod, so I'd like to figure it out as quickly as possible. Once I get the hang of it though, I might push out several of them, or only just a few, depending on how versatile I can make the generation. Shooting for fewer actually, just enough to fill my needs and provide users with cool new terrains. And enough of talking in riddles for now....
I do stuff.
Sparse Ores- add stability- lowers ore occurence drastically (alternatively No Ores)
Floating platforms- takes material modifier, makes 1 - 3 block uniformly thick floating platforms
Arches- takes material modifier
Lava pockets- add stability, adds more underground lava areas.
chaotic terrain- height ranging from 50-100 per individual tile
Go for it! I love suggestions, though don't take disagreement as an attack. This is a debate.
Commonly suggested for Mystcraft itself and now I've had it suggested for this mod twice. Probably not, here's why: (These are the same reasons XCompWiz doesn't do it either.)
Dense Ores: Let normal ore generation occur, then generate another batch. Trivially easy. Call an existing method again. It's more nuanced that that of course, but that's the most basic implementation I can think of.
Sparse Ores:
1.) Hook into ore generation and tell the generation to generate fewer pockets, or lower the pocket size. (And make sure to catch negatives as that could get weird if Mojang set it up wierd.) This requires fiddling with existing classes or replacing the ore generation system for ages. Both are rather hostile to other mods.
2.) Let normal ore generation occur, then go back and replace any ores with stone again. Somewhat expensive, (slow) especially if a Dense Ores symbol triggers first. Also doesn't play nicely with ores generating in netherrack or endstone, not to mention marble in RP2. Also can't check for mod ores without becoming dependent on them in order to run class checks on each and every supported mod ore, or using the mod's API if it gives access to its own materials.
No clear winner here I think. The situation may change when Mojang finishes their work on the planned API, as from what I gather from their plans things like this should be easy to apply to the entire game, and therefore possible (But possibly annoying) to just tie to a symbol.
Hmmm.... We'll see. I'm not sure I'd want to do this without a bit of jaggedness around the edges. Also I'd probably want to make them close enough to jump from one to the next, and in order to not simply litter the level with them I'll probably end up giving them winding paths through the sky. These could be cool for when Sillybits updates Additional Mystcraft Terrains.
Interesting.... I have a few ideas on how I might accomplish this, adding to my issue tracker to look at, but that's not a promise.
Mystcraft has the Lava Lakes symbol, it does literally this without the stability boost. Put more than one in if you want more. Also in future it will allow for material modifiers, as well as the Lakes symbol. The difference between the two is that lakes show up everywhere at about the same frequency, while "Lava" Lakes show up more underground.
I'm looking into terrains so I'll add this to my issue tracker, but not sure I could come up with something I'm happy about.
I do stuff.
also another few thoughts.
scatter blocks. (if you've ever made an unstable end island (or skyland) age with the red creep over taking the world, you'll see several small patches of red floating around the world and my thought is using the same scatter generation to add material modified blocks.
EDIT-
hollow domes- glass- ice- whatever
tiny trees.- one wood block, one leaf block
No ore would be 1.) with no patches or no pocket size, or a more aggressive 2.). Either way, still unfeasible.
Scattered blocks should be easy, I can't imagine many players wanting it, but then that's why I have symbols default to false. Might have decay sized, and then iron ore pocket sized. Also have been planning an "asteroids" symbol that would essentially be a larger version.
I do stuff.