This is just my opinion, since it really depends on what your aim is as the creator of the mod, but I would prefer a system in which a user simply cannot have everything. Adding new upgrade slots for armor would allow a player to armor his vehicle with absolutely no drawbacks. On the other hand, requiring players to make the most efficient use of their limited upgrade slots would introduce more strategy into the (mini)game. Whether to equip your vehicle with armor or simply make it a glass cannon is the issue you would need to address per situation.
Now that's just my point of view. In your original post you indicated that you wanted to make a mod that imitated games like Scorched, and from that perspective, the armor system you seem much more excited about makes more sense. Every vehicle gets upgrade slots, armor slots, and later maybe other slot types (?) which can be mixed and matched in different ways to create your own, unique vehicle.
If you do decide to implement armor as just another upgrade, you could have players make armor as "composites" so that players can still vary their armor type to their liking as you mentioned. Just as an example, say iron plates resist blunt damage, stone plates resist pierce damage, and obsidian plates resist fire damage. If you want your catapult to only be armored against blunt damage, you would simply craft an iron composite armor by stacking three iron plates in a crafting table; if you want your catapult to be moderately resistant to all three damage types, you could stack an iron plate on a stone plate on an obsidian plate to create another composite armor. Just as a side-note, using shapeless recipes there would only be 9 possible composites to make for three damage types.
I hope I was clear in expressing my thoughts and hope that you find them helpful in some way! Thanks.
Thanks for your input !
Pretty much all of your points are spot on for what I was trying to get at. I want people to be able to setup their vehicle to suit their style a bit, as well has having some setups have a different impact on the (battle)field. I don't want everyone to be a 'tank' as it were.
What may not have been said previously, is that I just put in (dev version) 5 new upgrades (for a total of 9 + 1 armor so far)-- so those upgrade slots are getting crowded already. Just implemented are: movement speed upgrade, accuracy upgrade, reload speed upgrade, a fire-range upgrade, as well as the napalm-upgrade for storage of napalm ammo(catapult only currently). (
The composites and teir2 armor was something I had given a little bit of thought to, and probably the route i will go if I implement it as 'just another upgrade'. Still giving it thought though---its a pretty major balancing decision.
Bump for latest release: 0.9.5-beta and probably the last for Minecraft 1.2.5.
New Features:
Land Mines
Fire Bolts and Bolt Bundles
Napalm ammo
New ammo recipes
New Upgrades:
--speed
--fire-range
--accuracy
--reload time
Fire-shot now spreads its fire further.
A few needed tune-ups:
--Accuracy balancing
--vehicle speed balancing
And a few bugs squashed:
--Inventory synching on SMP
--remote-interaction code on SMP --caused the synch issue
I just got word that forge dev version is out for 1.3.1, so work will commence shortly on porting, updating, etc.
hey i think u should make it so difrent grade armourr way more and go slower so what im getting at is make it so serten upgrades make the viechle go slower or faster depending if u want light armour but speed or armour with no speed and make it so certin shots go far and some go shorter depending on the type/damage by the way i lost everything on the baterying ram and sige tower computer got hacked so i got new one
Would you consider Porting the final version of this mod for 1.2.5 over to forge bukkit servers? This mod would be perfect on my medieval server.
I personally have zero experience with bukkit--and am currently in the middle of the 1.3.1 + port. After I get updated and such I would like to look in to doing a 1.3.1 bukkit port-- and at that point might consider going back to the old code and making a bukkit port for 1.2.5. But it will likely be a while.
hey i think u should make it so difrent grade armourr way more and go slower so what im getting at is make it so serten upgrades make the viechle go slower or faster depending if u want light armour but speed or armour with no speed and make it so certin shots go far and some go shorter depending on the type/damage by the way i lost everything on the baterying ram and sige tower computer got hacked so i got new one
That was definitely one approach I was considering for armor. I think it should definitely slow the vehicle down a bit--I'm still debating on armor slots or not. With a weight factor taken in, armor materials might make a huge difference. Like putting an extra layer of wood armor on, or iron, or <steel?>, all would have different effects for damage absorbtion, and weight. Someone else had mentioned using obsidian and stone for armor materials as well, and I think I can find a way to work most of it together.
No worries about the other vehicles for now, I've got my hands full on porting/updating to 1.3. Pretty much a rewrite on most of the structure of the mod because of the change in client/server stuff.
Make sure you checkout the rewrite branch, as that is where everything is being done.
If anyone is interested in the 1.2.5 code, I can see about getting that setup in gitHub as well (the project structure makes it hard to maintain in a repo--but I'll try).
Any advice/etc from experienced modders and coders would be much appreciated.
May I suggest a few new siege engine ideas? How about adding Cannons, Trebuchets, and Da Vinci Machine Guns to the mix?
Hmm...Yes? I love suggestions.
I was already secretly planning on doing a cannon. It was going to be an expensive, tough to kill, and immobile defensive turret. Perhaps even with some sort of auto-aim/fire upgrade (very expensive again).
Trebuchets are something that I might also consider, but I'll have to find a good way to make them seperate from catapults. Perhaps having them be cheap but immobile attacking units? Things to consider anyway.
DaVinci type weaponry perhaps as well, in the future. Much of that would require some interesting implementation to keep stuff unique and not overpowered.
Others are on the way though. I'll start back into developing new features as soon as I'm done with the 1.3 updating. Its getting there...another few days...perhaps week or so..few more weird points to sort out with movement with the new server stuff.
Trebuchets are something that I might also consider, but I'll have to find a good way to make them seperate from catapults. Perhaps having them be cheap but immobile attacking units? Things to consider anyway.
Trebuchets can be longer range but have slower moving and firing speed, and take a longer time to reload. It can also have a bigger bundle shot that has like 8 or so big rocks.
If you can do the port for 1.2.5 on a bukkit server Ill do the testing. Heck ill even run a vanilla 1.2.5 to test the base port. If i had more experience with coding or porting i would be happy to do the port to bukkit, alas i feel i dont have the ability to make the port.
If you can do the port for 1.2.5 on a bukkit server Ill do the testing. Heck ill even run a vanilla 1.2.5 to test the base port. If i had more experience with coding or porting i would be happy to do the port to bukkit, alas i feel i dont have the ability to make the port.
There is a vanilla 1.2.5 build/download (both client/SP and server versions are available in the OP--look for the spoiler tags) if you wanted to test out what I had done pre-1.3. It works as far as I know, but I haven't been able to do extensive SMP testing on it. Feel free to play around if you'de like.
Made some pretty good progress on the 1.3 port in the last couple of days, so I may be able to start looking into bukkit stuff for both 1.2.5 and 1.3 in the next week or so. (I might even start on the 1.2.5-bukkit because there is a ton of documentation already out there for it)
Wonderful news! Ill toss up a creative vanilla server and test out the 1.2.5 on SMP. Cant wait for the bukkit 1.2.5 port~ hope there arent many problems with other mods installed in the server.jar file.
Attempted to install this mod (client side) on a clean 1.2.5 minecraft.jar with Forge 3.4.9.171 installed. Received this error log after login. No other mods installed on client.
1 mod loaded
Minecraft Forge 3.4.9.171
FML v2.2.106.176
Forge Mod Loader version 2.2.106.176 for Minecraft 1.2.5
mod_MinecraftForge : Loaded (minecraft.jar)
Minecraft has crashed!
----------------------
Minecraft has stopped running because it encountered a problem.
--- BEGIN ERROR REPORT ad2e1cec --------
Generated 8/24/12 9:12 AM
Minecraft: Minecraft 1.2.5
OS: Mac OS X (i386) version 10.6.8
Java: 1.6.0_33, Apple Inc.
VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (mixed mode), Apple Inc.
LWJGL: 2.4.2
OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT OpenGL Engine version 2.1 NVIDIA-1.6.36, NVIDIA Corporation
java.lang.NullPointerException
at cpw.mods.fml.common.modloader.ModLoaderModContainer.init(ModLoaderModContainer.java:356)
at cpw.mods.fml.common.Loader.modInit(Loader.java:273)
at cpw.mods.fml.common.Loader.initializeMods(Loader.java:628)
at cpw.mods.fml.client.FMLClientHandler.onLoadComplete(FMLClientHandler.java:223)
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.a(Minecraft.java:429)
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.run(Minecraft.java:738)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:680)
--- END ERROR REPORT d6931cb5 ----------
Attempted to install this mod (client side) on a clean 1.2.5 minecraft.jar with Forge 3.4.9.171 installed. Received this error log after login. No other mods installed on client.
Hopefully you didn't try and put it IN the .jar? As a forge/modloader mod the .zip should just be slapped into the mods folder and NOT placed into the Minecraft.jar.
Repeat: it is NOT a .jar mod, and should be just placed into the /mods folder (for either server or client). (had a few problems with that myself when first learning about mods). The crash-log doesn't really give any information relevant to my mod, other than it failed on-init--so is likely something setup incorrectly (or not setup as I had expected when coding it).
Aside from that, there shouldn't be any problems. I built and tested on forge 3.3.8.152, but it should work on newer versions. I'm at work at the moment, and don't have access to my 1.2.5 code/build currently, but I'll look into and try the newest 1.2.5 forge versions when I get home. (It is untested on 3.4.9, but _should_ work)
Please let me know if that was the issue, else I'll do some investigation when I get home.
Thanks,
Update:
investigating a little into the FML code for 1.2.5 reveals that that error would have been caused by:
@Override
public void init()
{
mod.load();
}
meaning that whichever 'mod' it had loaded was null--meaning it never loaded it(couldn't find it).
This is either A: a setup issue,
or B: forge changed between 3.3.8 and 3.4.9 drastically on something as simple as the mod.load() (not likely)
I'll still do more investigation when I get home--but honestly the 1.2.5 branch of this mod is probably not going to see much/any further development (aside from bug fixes like this, if it is a bug).
Second update:
I just did an install of forge 3.4.9 into a fresh 1.2.5 jar.
Ran minecraft once to get the /mods directory to show up.
dropped CatapultMod-0.9.5-beta--Client.zip into the /mods folder
ran minecraft.
Loads fine with no issues.
Once again--make sure you are not trying to install the MOD into the JAR--as it goes into the forge/modloader /mods folder in your %appdata%/.minecraft directory.
Please let me know if there are still issues, and I'll do further investigation.
My apologies, I got it working. It works great on 1.2.5 client, testing on SMP server next. I was placing it in the mod folder, i had the minecraft.jar named improperly after installing it with forge.
So far it seems compatible with Mo' Creatures, LCTree++ and Balks Weapon Mod. Great mod! Please port to 1.2.5 for bukkit servers! Then i can test functionality with Towny and afew other server side only mods along with having wonderful medieval battles on my medieval server.
I just wrapped up the largest bits of the 1.3.2 port, so should be able to release that here in a few hours--just gotta do a bit more internal testing.
Also got the 1.2.5 branch restructured and uploaded to gitHub, so might be able to start working on that for a port to bukkit here in a few days
If installing, you MUST have forge 4.0.0.230 or newer. http://jenkins.minecraftforge.net:7070/job/Forge/230/
Some entity handling code was changed in 4.0.0.22x that I have incorporated.
There is now only a single download for both client and dedicated server, the same as forge.
All features from the previous versions should work, with the addition of two new GUI screens. The first is accessible from the vehicle control gui--the INFO button next to the DONE button. The second is if you activate a remote flag while sneaking--it will open a gui showing the stats of the vehicle bound to that flag (WIP) as well as a button to clear the current vehicle.
Only rough testing has been done, and nothing on any truly remote servers (only across lan). Please let me know if you run into any issues, or find any bugs.
Are you going to add battering rams and siege towers?
If you do, people could play Total War: Minecraft. Lol.
Thanks:)
Aye, both are still on the list, as well as a type of gate or drawbridge.
I actually just finished (or nearly) on a new vehicle (as well as four new land-mines, not shown):
Preview/spoiler image:
Cannot move aside from turning, going to be a longer-range, less accurate, cheaper to build catapult-like siege engine.
(screenshot from Techne, it is in a default position in the shot, not an actual position from firing, lots of things move when it shoots)
It is currently only about player-sized, but I think I'm going to scale it up a bit
I think battering rams or gates will likely be next, with siege towers coming after (still a few things on the towers I'm trying to figure out how to implement cleanly).
Thanks for your input !
Pretty much all of your points are spot on for what I was trying to get at. I want people to be able to setup their vehicle to suit their style a bit, as well has having some setups have a different impact on the (battle)field. I don't want everyone to be a 'tank' as it were.
What may not have been said previously, is that I just put in (dev version) 5 new upgrades (for a total of 9 + 1 armor so far)-- so those upgrade slots are getting crowded already. Just implemented are: movement speed upgrade, accuracy upgrade, reload speed upgrade, a fire-range upgrade, as well as the napalm-upgrade for storage of napalm ammo(catapult only currently). (
The composites and teir2 armor was something I had given a little bit of thought to, and probably the route i will go if I implement it as 'just another upgrade'. Still giving it thought though---its a pretty major balancing decision.
New Features:
Land Mines
Fire Bolts and Bolt Bundles
Napalm ammo
New ammo recipes
New Upgrades:
--speed
--fire-range
--accuracy
--reload time
Fire-shot now spreads its fire further.
A few needed tune-ups:
--Accuracy balancing
--vehicle speed balancing
And a few bugs squashed:
--Inventory synching on SMP
--remote-interaction code on SMP --caused the synch issue
I just got word that forge dev version is out for 1.3.1, so work will commence shortly on porting, updating, etc.
I personally have zero experience with bukkit--and am currently in the middle of the 1.3.1 + port. After I get updated and such I would like to look in to doing a 1.3.1 bukkit port-- and at that point might consider going back to the old code and making a bukkit port for 1.2.5. But it will likely be a while.
That was definitely one approach I was considering for armor. I think it should definitely slow the vehicle down a bit--I'm still debating on armor slots or not. With a weight factor taken in, armor materials might make a huge difference. Like putting an extra layer of wood armor on, or iron, or <steel?>, all would have different effects for damage absorbtion, and weight. Someone else had mentioned using obsidian and stone for armor materials as well, and I think I can find a way to work most of it together.
No worries about the other vehicles for now, I've got my hands full on porting/updating to 1.3. Pretty much a rewrite on most of the structure of the mod because of the change in client/server stuff.
https://github.com/shadowmage45/CatapultMod2/tree/rewrite
Make sure you checkout the rewrite branch, as that is where everything is being done.
If anyone is interested in the 1.2.5 code, I can see about getting that setup in gitHub as well (the project structure makes it hard to maintain in a repo--but I'll try).
Any advice/etc from experienced modders and coders would be much appreciated.
Hmm...Yes? I love suggestions.
I was already secretly planning on doing a cannon. It was going to be an expensive, tough to kill, and immobile defensive turret. Perhaps even with some sort of auto-aim/fire upgrade (very expensive again).
Trebuchets are something that I might also consider, but I'll have to find a good way to make them seperate from catapults. Perhaps having them be cheap but immobile attacking units? Things to consider anyway.
DaVinci type weaponry perhaps as well, in the future. Much of that would require some interesting implementation to keep stuff unique and not overpowered.
Others are on the way though. I'll start back into developing new features as soon as I'm done with the 1.3 updating. Its getting there...another few days...perhaps week or so..few more weird points to sort out with movement with the new server stuff.
Trebuchets can be longer range but have slower moving and firing speed, and take a longer time to reload. It can also have a bigger bundle shot that has like 8 or so big rocks.
EDIT: This is post #300!!!!!! WOO!!!
There is a vanilla 1.2.5 build/download (both client/SP and server versions are available in the OP--look for the spoiler tags) if you wanted to test out what I had done pre-1.3. It works as far as I know, but I haven't been able to do extensive SMP testing on it. Feel free to play around if you'de like.
Made some pretty good progress on the 1.3 port in the last couple of days, so I may be able to start looking into bukkit stuff for both 1.2.5 and 1.3 in the next week or so. (I might even start on the 1.2.5-bukkit because there is a ton of documentation already out there for it)
I'll keep you updated
1 mod loaded
Minecraft Forge 3.4.9.171
FML v2.2.106.176
Forge Mod Loader version 2.2.106.176 for Minecraft 1.2.5
mod_MinecraftForge : Loaded (minecraft.jar)
Minecraft has crashed!
----------------------
Minecraft has stopped running because it encountered a problem.
--- BEGIN ERROR REPORT ad2e1cec --------
Generated 8/24/12 9:12 AM
Minecraft: Minecraft 1.2.5
OS: Mac OS X (i386) version 10.6.8
Java: 1.6.0_33, Apple Inc.
VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (mixed mode), Apple Inc.
LWJGL: 2.4.2
OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT OpenGL Engine version 2.1 NVIDIA-1.6.36, NVIDIA Corporation
java.lang.NullPointerException
at cpw.mods.fml.common.modloader.ModLoaderModContainer.init(ModLoaderModContainer.java:356)
at cpw.mods.fml.common.Loader.modInit(Loader.java:273)
at cpw.mods.fml.common.Loader.initializeMods(Loader.java:628)
at cpw.mods.fml.client.FMLClientHandler.onLoadComplete(FMLClientHandler.java:223)
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.a(Minecraft.java:429)
at net.minecraft.client.Minecraft.run(Minecraft.java:738)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:680)
--- END ERROR REPORT d6931cb5 ----------
Hopefully you didn't try and put it IN the .jar? As a forge/modloader mod the .zip should just be slapped into the mods folder and NOT placed into the Minecraft.jar.
Repeat: it is NOT a .jar mod, and should be just placed into the /mods folder (for either server or client). (had a few problems with that myself when first learning about mods). The crash-log doesn't really give any information relevant to my mod, other than it failed on-init--so is likely something setup incorrectly (or not setup as I had expected when coding it).
Aside from that, there shouldn't be any problems. I built and tested on forge 3.3.8.152, but it should work on newer versions. I'm at work at the moment, and don't have access to my 1.2.5 code/build currently, but I'll look into and try the newest 1.2.5 forge versions when I get home. (It is untested on 3.4.9, but _should_ work)
Please let me know if that was the issue, else I'll do some investigation when I get home.
Thanks,
Update:
investigating a little into the FML code for 1.2.5 reveals that that error would have been caused by:
@Override
public void init()
{
mod.load();
}
meaning that whichever 'mod' it had loaded was null--meaning it never loaded it(couldn't find it).
This is either A: a setup issue,
or B: forge changed between 3.3.8 and 3.4.9 drastically on something as simple as the mod.load() (not likely)
I'll still do more investigation when I get home--but honestly the 1.2.5 branch of this mod is probably not going to see much/any further development (aside from bug fixes like this, if it is a bug).
Second update:
I just did an install of forge 3.4.9 into a fresh 1.2.5 jar.
Ran minecraft once to get the /mods directory to show up.
dropped CatapultMod-0.9.5-beta--Client.zip into the /mods folder
ran minecraft.
Loads fine with no issues.
Once again--make sure you are not trying to install the MOD into the JAR--as it goes into the forge/modloader /mods folder in your %appdata%/.minecraft directory.
Please let me know if there are still issues, and I'll do further investigation.
Thanks
So far it seems compatible with Mo' Creatures, LCTree++ and Balks Weapon Mod. Great mod! Please port to 1.2.5 for bukkit servers! Then i can test functionality with Towny and afew other server side only mods along with having wonderful medieval battles on my medieval server.
I just wrapped up the largest bits of the 1.3.2 port, so should be able to release that here in a few hours--just gotta do a bit more internal testing.
Also got the 1.2.5 branch restructured and uploaded to gitHub, so might be able to start working on that for a port to bukkit here in a few days
If installing, you MUST have forge 4.0.0.230 or newer.
http://jenkins.minecraftforge.net:7070/job/Forge/230/
Some entity handling code was changed in 4.0.0.22x that I have incorporated.
There is now only a single download for both client and dedicated server, the same as forge.
All features from the previous versions should work, with the addition of two new GUI screens. The first is accessible from the vehicle control gui--the INFO button next to the DONE button. The second is if you activate a remote flag while sneaking--it will open a gui showing the stats of the vehicle bound to that flag (WIP) as well as a button to clear the current vehicle.
Only rough testing has been done, and nothing on any truly remote servers (only across lan). Please let me know if you run into any issues, or find any bugs.
Thanks
Thanks:)
Aye, both are still on the list, as well as a type of gate or drawbridge.
I actually just finished (or nearly) on a new vehicle (as well as four new land-mines, not shown):
Preview/spoiler image:
Cannot move aside from turning, going to be a longer-range, less accurate, cheaper to build catapult-like siege engine.
(screenshot from Techne, it is in a default position in the shot, not an actual position from firing, lots of things move when it shoots)
It is currently only about player-sized, but I think I'm going to scale it up a bit
I think battering rams or gates will likely be next, with siege towers coming after (still a few things on the towers I'm trying to figure out how to implement cleanly).
Going to be lots of fun