Hello, I decided to revive an old mod I have not touched in a long time, but first I was hoping to get some ideas to point me in the right direction. The mod will be called Dust to Dust, but was originally called MaiAlchemy.
This will be a primer on what it was, with comments on what it could be. I would very much appreciate input to the ideas, or new ideas all together.
[Introduction]
MaiAlchemy was a horribly named mod I made near the beginning of my college year. I still love the idea, and wanted to work on it more back then, but I didn't have the time. The main premise of the mod is simplicity, the ability to break down any item into base elements, then put them back together into other items. No god-tier equipment or magic, no fancy power systems or new ores. The mod was also planned to be very moddable, allowing addons to add new recipes.
[Original Ideas]
[The Name]
The original name was a horrible idea. A very corny idea. Dust to Dust is a name I came up with for two reasons. One, the mod has you constantly destroying items and reducing them to dust. Two, you can literally make dust out of dust in the mod.
[The Table]
The Alchemy Table was the main tool in the mod, allowing you to break down items or put elements together to make new ones. The interface had a button in the middle, which was used to start the process. I still like the way the interface looks and works, but I think I will change the button to also work as a slot, and make the arrow go through (or around) the button. This will allow the "charging" of some items, mentioned later.
The mod had 5 elements. These were Life, Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Each block in the vanilla game was given ratios of elements, and could be broken down to obtain the dusts. You would either get elemental dusts, or alchemical dust, which could be randomized into an element by mixing 4. These dusts were then combined to make elements to use, or could be used in other crafting recipes. Although I like the elements, I think they need more interesting names. I have come up with Vita, Pyra, Aqua, Aera and Gaia. There could also be a sixth element if a technology mod is detected, Meka, which would be used to make alchemy machines.
[The Pure Elements]
A new idea for Dust to Dust, is to make it possible to mix 4 elements together to make a "Pure" element. These would be used in higher tier recipes in place of normal elements, as well as for fuel for the Stones of Legend.
[The Stone Blocks]
The mod came with alchemical stones, which were mostly decorative, although they could also be used in recipes I suppose. There were also columns, which although looked nice, were pretty much useless. They will probably be dropped from the new version. The blocks though will be kept, and used both to make newer tools, and for 3D crafting of larger, more complex devices.
[Stones of Legend]
A new term for an old idea, the Stones of Legend were 5 elemental stones that gave powerful effects. The Philosopher's Stone, for instance, the Life stone, would regenerate health. The Siren's Stone would allow breathing under water for extended periods of time. I wasn't sure about the effects of these stones, but they idea was that they were the only real content in the base mod, the rest of the mod would focus around doing things vanilla Minecraft already could, but differently. I still plan to add these, but change how they work. They would all probably be passive abilities that can be toggled. While active, they would consume pure elements in exchange for their effects.
[Alchemical Orbs]
A new idea for saving inventory space, this would basically be a "battery" for storing alchemical elements. It could then later be used to power devices requiring elements(next section) or have a recipe to extract the elements from the Orb, possibly using the alchemical stone to "draw out" the elements. The item would have a tooltip which told how much of each was in it. When charging, a dust is worth 1, an element 4 and a pure element 16.
[Alchemical Devices]
Aside from the table, there could be many ways to use the elements to further yourself. By building ("3D Crafting") a box out of Pyra Stone Blocks, possibly with plain Alchemical Stone Blocks for corners, you could make a Pyra Forge, which could take either elemental energy from an orb or any raw matter as a fuel to smelt items. Being so large, it could have multiple input and output slots to use. A similar device out of Gaia and Vita blocks could produce bonemeal-like fertilizers for your crops. Maybe infinite water or lava springs could be made as well. Another interesting one I thought of was 8 Alchemical blocks around a table, in order to create a large 3x3 table, which could have 8 element slots instead of 4. This could allow for high end late game recipes which require all 8 slots.
[Addons]
I still plan to add an API for addons, and make some myself for added mod support or extra toys to play with. One change though is that I will probably make much of it scripted, instead of requiring code. This will make it much easier to create content for the mod, just entering the recipes into text files. These could then be put into "/mods/DustToDust" or included in a mod and passed using an API.
[Planned Content]
Here is the sprites so far. Missing the stones of legend and the elemental devices, those will probably come in a later update anyways.
The top left is the Alchemy Table, used for most things in the mod. The rainbow of diamond filled blocks are the altars, to convert elements to pure elements. The last device below the table is the Transmuter, which can directly fuse items into other items, using a small amount of alchemic energy(in the form of items or an orb). Below that, and above the items, is the blocks.
Next is the items. Dusts, Stones, Elements, Pure Elements, and Fused Elements. On the right is the Alchemic Orb, Tome of Alchemy, Chart of Knowledge and Amulet of the Magi. More on all this stuff below.
I decided having an opposite to life was a good idea, and I'm sure people want an "evil" element anyways. I also added a neutral element, it probably will only be used for mod recipes and as an energy source for devices, not to make any items like the elements.
All together they are:
Aura (Neutral)
Pyra (Fire)
Aqua (Water)
Aera (Air)
Gaia (Earth)
Vita (Life)
Mora (Death)
In order to add some late game items, and to help balance out making rare items, Fused Elements were thought up. They are made in the Transmuter by fusing two opposing elements. The only exception made by fusing 2 other fused elements. They will be used in recipes for diamonds, ender pearls, etc; as well as mod specific recipes. I am considering using them to give mod specific enchantments.
The Fused Elements are:
Element of Conflict (Pyra + Aqua)
Element of Peace (Aera + Gaia)
Element of Existence (Vita + Mora)
Element of Harmony (Conflict + Peace)
In addition to the previously planned Alchemic Orb, I came up with 3 other items.
The Alchemic Orb will still be the same idea, charged in an Alchemy Table with elements, then used to power the more advanced devices, such as the Transmuter. It will be made by fusing 4 Alchemic Dust with a Diamond in the Alchemy Table.
The Tome of Alchemy will be a book containing instructions to get the player started into more advanced alchemy, such as purifying elements and transmuting. It will be made by fusing 4 Alchemic Dust with a Book in the Alchemy Table.
The Chart of Knowledge will open a simple interface with a single item slot. Putting an item into the slot will give detailed information such as what elements that item contains, and how much. This information is vital to correctly using the Transmuter. It will be made by fusing 4 Pure Aura with a Blank Map in the Alchemy Table.
Lastly, the Amulet of the Magi works as a portable Alchemy Table, allowing alchemy on the go. It does not have an internal storage, so the player must stand still and wait to use it, or else the items will just fall out. There will most likely be a special effect around the player while using it. It will be made with 4 Gold around a Redstone Block, with 4 Pure Aura in the corners, on the crafting table.
The Alchemy Table is the main device in the mod, used to break down matter into dust as well as fuse dust and elements with other items. It has a gold ring floating above it, which spins faster as it works. It is made with 3 Gold on top, 2 Redstone around a Stone Slab, and 3 Stone Brick at the bottom, on the crafting table.
The Altars are a single purpose device. By placing standard elements into the same element Altar, that element can be purified to make a Pure Element. These are used in most mid to late game recipes. The purifying process takes a long time, but can be sped up by building a pyramid of same element Blocks under the altar. The altars will be made with 2 Redstone around a Stone Slab on top, with a Diamond Block in the middle and 5 elemental blocks in the rest of the slots, on the crafting table.
The Transmuter will be the most advanced tool in the mod, that can increase the efficiency of changing items into other items when fully understood. It has 6 input slots, 3 on each side, a slot for alchemic energy (orb or any dust/elements) and an output slot. The two sides must be kept balanced (within a few units of energy of each other) for the machine to work, and it must have energy through the whole process or all items will be lost. Once started, the device cannot be stopped, and input items cannot be removed. The Transmuter will be made with 2 Alchemy Tables around a Diamond Block, with 3 Alchemic Stone Blocks below them, on the crafting table.
[Other Ideas]
Here is where I'll put other peoples ideas, and my thoughts on them.
I may add a new neutral element, named "Aura", made from alchemical dust. This will change the randomizing recipe for the dust to using 5 dust, with one in the middle.
Also, "Light" and "Dark" elements were suggested, as much as they could work in the mod, I don't think they fit in the base mod, and would most likely become an addon. The reason is I am trying to keep the base mod as simple as possible, using the base elements of alchemy to make things. I may add a "Death" element though, as an opposite to Vita("Life")
A usage for the elemental stone blocks, altars could be made that are used for end game content. My best thought on how to use this is to have them be the tool used to create pure elements. They would be rather expensive, possibly using a diamond block, as well as the elemental stones for the element desired. They could then be placed on a pyramid of the same stone blocks, similar to the Beacon, the size of which will control the speed of conversion.
This suggestion also reminded me of an old altar idea from the original, to have an altar for the legendary stones. The altar would give a passive effect to those in range of the altar, although it would probably still require pure elements to power it. I'm not sure about this idea, I much prefer the first one, but an idea is an idea.
THIS.IS.EPIC.
But I do have some suggestions for elements - Dark ( Darkus ) and Magic/Aura ( Magi )
and a suggestion for the stones, maybe with these stones you could construct different altars which fuel late game of that element?
Anyway, this better get made
-Haf26
Why thank you
I've been trying to keep with ending of the elements with a's, for god knows what reason, but I'm OCD like that. I may make a "neutral" element, Aura seems a good name for it too. Dark I don't know, maybe in an addon I can add Light and Dark, but I can't really see much of a benefit to it in the base mod. The original idea was to focus on the base elements.
And that is an interesting idea. Possibly use these "altars" to create the pure elements, instead of the original table. They could be put on top of a pyramid like the beacon, to increase speed of conversion. An altar was planned in the old one, but I couldn't come up with good uses for them. One of the old ideas for altars is to put the legendary stones on them for an area of effect.
I cleaned up the thread, and added more information on my current ideas. As well, I added my sprite sheet so far to show what has been done. Unfortunately I am quite busy this week so I won't be able to get much coding done, but I would still love to hear more opinions and ideas on how you guys think this mod should work. I also marked the thread with the edit line, so that anyone can tell when I last updated the information.
Some things I'm looking for opinions on is what each elemental device should do, what each stone of legend should do, and any ideas for uses of the Fused Elements.
pLZ I SEE THIS MOD HAS GREAT POTENTIAL BUT COULD U ADD THE ENERGY CONDENSER sorry for caps i just derped there without seeing and im not gonna erase because im lazy
I may add something similar, but it will still require the proper elements to be added, not any element. I do plan to make it possible to convert elements to others though, using the altars, so it would be possible to use cobble to make diamonds if wanted, it would just be slow, complex and expensive
As an update, practising with forge right now with another smaller mod, "Surviving Peace", which the first version should be out today or tomorrow. Once that's out, I'll be starting on Dust to Dust. Hopefully I can get the first version of Dust to Dust out within the week.
This mod is actually AMAZING! Looks great but... where's the download? Definitely, worth ad.fly and so on...
There is no download right now, I'm currently very busy trying to get work, and helping with a server, but when I have everything settled I'll be getting back to coding this, most of the design/sprite work is already done. I'll leave some of the changes I made to the idea a secret for now
I've been quite busy, and currently don't have the best computer to work with. I have been working getting back into coding though, and have made a few smaller forge mods for 1.6.4 already for personal use. The next few days are a bit busy for me, but I'll do my best to get working on this.
Aura (Neutral)
The Fused Elements are:
[Other Ideas]
Here is where I'll put other peoples ideas, and my thoughts on them.
Why thank you
I've been trying to keep with ending of the elements with a's, for god knows what reason, but I'm OCD like that. I may make a "neutral" element, Aura seems a good name for it too. Dark I don't know, maybe in an addon I can add Light and Dark, but I can't really see much of a benefit to it in the base mod. The original idea was to focus on the base elements.
And that is an interesting idea. Possibly use these "altars" to create the pure elements, instead of the original table. They could be put on top of a pyramid like the beacon, to increase speed of conversion. An altar was planned in the old one, but I couldn't come up with good uses for them. One of the old ideas for altars is to put the legendary stones on them for an area of effect.
Some things I'm looking for opinions on is what each elemental device should do, what each stone of legend should do, and any ideas for uses of the Fused Elements.
As an update, practising with forge right now with another smaller mod, "Surviving Peace", which the first version should be out today or tomorrow. Once that's out, I'll be starting on Dust to Dust. Hopefully I can get the first version of Dust to Dust out within the week.
There is no download right now, I'm currently very busy trying to get work, and helping with a server, but when I have everything settled I'll be getting back to coding this, most of the design/sprite work is already done. I'll leave some of the changes I made to the idea a secret for now
I've been quite busy, and currently don't have the best computer to work with. I have been working getting back into coding though, and have made a few smaller forge mods for 1.6.4 already for personal use. The next few days are a bit busy for me, but I'll do my best to get working on this.