Hi everyone! My latest mod project is a mod to add power systems to Minecraft 1.8 (kinda like BuildCraft). So far, I have a functional proof-of-concept mod with 2 machine blocks and 1 cable block. You can put redstone in the generator, connect it to a powered furnace, and then smelt items in the furnace by transferring power from the generator. For debugging purposes, punching a block makes it tell you how much energy it has in a chat message. The GUI needs a lot of work still. As of version 0.0.4, there's now some new blocks for handling fluids.
Update:
New version 0.0.4. I've added a new crafting system (shaped furnace recipes), complete with NEI display, but I have not actually used this feature for anything yet. I've also made PowerAdvantage require the Base Metals mod, because those metals will be needed to craft stuff in Poqwe Advantage (when I get around to adding recipes).
The Exciting new feature is fluid handling. I've added copper pipes for transferring fluids, a drain block for collecting fluids, and discharge block for dumping fluids. The series of images below show me moving a pool of lava using these blocks: Before:
It is also my goal to make it as simple as possible to create add-on mods for this mod (hence the API designation). However, there's a lot of work to do to achieve these goals. So I'd like to get your opinion on a few things:
1. What are the most important/useful machines to have in Minecraft?
2. What kinds of power sources do you want in Minecraft? (e.g. electricity, steam-power, redstone, etc.)
3. What kine of visual theme do you think it should have? (e.g. steam-punk, heavy industry, improvised, post-apocalyptic, futuristic, etc.)
4. If you are a mod maker, what features would it be most important for you to be able to control? (e.g. energy type, update interval, NBT format, etc.)
Update:
No longer WIP!!! Get Power Advantage and Steam Advantage to fulfill your coal-fired dreams. There will (soon) be an official forum post in the mods section for this mod.
My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
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Didn't expect a power-mod for 1.8 to pop up so soon, Cudos Dr.Cyano
also Here my oppinion
Machines, hmm if you were to go by what most tech-mods do it would probably be ore doubling but that’s way too overdone
Interacting with the world is something that machines to little of now adays, all kinds of automation and high-tech as can be ...... its just too much for me
I'd rather anything Steam powered, elevators/blast doors/drawbridges or anything that interacts with blocks really
And yes I know what Flaxbeards steam power is, its not a bad mos it just doesn't have enough things that interacts with the world
and obviously i have a thing for steam-punk junk :L also theres no mod in existance with steam boats ..... it really should be a thing
but hey thats my oppinion you should take your mod where you want to go, instead of asking for others for their oppnions on where you should go
Thanks for your input. I have more ideas than I have time to implement, so I'd like to do the ones that other people will enjoy as well (I'm basically doing market research for my mods). My dream is to have my mods become part of the standard FTB modpack for Minecraft 1.8.
A rock-crusher machine for doubling ore extraction also solves the problem of how to do metal alloys (by crafting the powders together into alloy blends). I'd like to have some farming-related machines, but I don't know how to go about it. Minefactory Reloaded and Forestry both had separate planter and harvester machines, but there was no visual clue as to what the range limit was (as you said, needs more environment interaction).
In real-life, there is no such machine that sits in one place and farms the near-by area. Instead we have hydroponic systems (which grow the plants inside the harvesting machine) and farming vehicles. We are now starting to have farming robots (GPS-guided remote-controlled combine harvesters), so how about a machine block that hosts a roomba-like farmer robot?
Also, how would you imagine a mining machine should work? I don't want to make something as arbitrary as the Digital Miner (I forget which mod it's from) or as involved as the quarry from BuildCraft.
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
The redstone power stuff is there as an example mod. After I get the API finished, I'll create a more interesting premise (e.g. steam power).
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I'm working on ore processing now, and these textures are just quick-n-dirty mock-ups.
I'll need to think about what to do to make it stand out. Right now, it stands out just by being available on Minecraft 1.8
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I made a detour to turn some features that were planned fo rthis mod into a separate mod (Base Metals), but I'm back to working on Power Advantage. Base Metals will be a requirement for this mod, as recipes will need brass and other metal alloys.
My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I'm working on fluid pipes at the moment. I think I'll have another update to share in a week.
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I've been messing around with the generators and I've found that a stack of redstone goes a long way but i need a lot of generators to get anything to smelt
Are you planning to add more types of generators later?
The redstone-powered stuff is just an example for debugging. The plan is to make a steam-powered add-on, then an electric add-on, then a magic-powered add-on, and finally a quantum powered add-on. I made some progress on working with fluids today, and as soon as I can pipe water around, I can start on the steam powered stuff.
Also, I still might change how I do power transmission. The current algorithm (a diffusion model) requires very little processing power (less lag), but it transfers power rather slowly through the pipes. If anyone has creative ideas for how to transfer energy, I'm all ears.
My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Look at steves carts for an example of a mod that does a lot of world interaction.
Why not take your mod in the direction of machine building. Where you provide the parts and we provide the thought. I don't remember which mod had the machine frames where you could do that. It would be nice if that concept were resurrected.
That way the players could easily design any number of harvesters from gardens to tree farms, any number of miners/diggers for ore and what not.
Personally, I like ore doubling. But also, I agree it has been overdone. That said, more people like to double ore than not, so having that will help your popularity.
I thought on ore processing: Have ore refinement. Example:
you have your base ore, like you'd get with a pickaxe
you could smelt it for normal ingot return or
you crush to reveal a semi-refined ore, of which you'll need two, but it doesn't double.
smelt the semi-refined ore into a semi-refined ingot, anything made with it will have 50% more durability
instead of smelting it you could wash it to make purified ore, but now there is less of it, you'll need 4 base ore blocks to get one ingot of purified ore.
smelt 4 of the purified ore to get one purified ingot and anything made with it will have 100% more durability
So that's an idea to make ore processing interesting without going the doubling route.
if you implemented that, it might be a good idea to make a cousin to the silverfish called the rust monster whose only purpose is to eat your metals. no player damage. that would give an incentive to not make and use base metal items, but instead to refine and purify them so they can last longer while you battle the occasional rust monster swarm.
As to mining machines, maybe you could add that giant shovel machine, bull dozers and dump trucks. heck add all of the giant machines we use now these days. Woo hoo!
oh, btw, found a bug with base metals against another mod, posted about that in the base metals thread.
This version adds fluid handling. Specifically, I added a drain block to suck-up fluids from above it, a pipe block to transfer fluids, and a discharge block to dump fluids (basically the opposite of a drain).
Also, please be patient with my slow progress. It'll be a while before I can start implementing the good stuff because I first have to get all of the ground-work (the boring stuff) done. If you're interested, here's my basic plan:
My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I presume you mean "How do the drain and discharge blocks work?", so here's how that works:
When a liquid (e.g. lava or water) flows over the top of the drain, the drain follows the flow upstream until it finds a source block. It then removes that source block and fills its internal fluid tank. If a pipe is connected to the drain, then the liquid is pushed into the pipe. The discharge block also has an internal tank, which can be filled by connected pipes. Once full, the discharge block will place a source block beneath it (searching around for an available space nearby) and empty its internal tank.
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I'm tossing out the diffusion model and I'm ging to do a major rewrite of the power transmission system. Diffusion is just too slow and leaves too mouch of the energy in the pipe. I've come up with a new idea where there would be a global power network registry to keep track of interconnected blocks without storing any data in the conduits themselves. I don't know how long the change will take, especially since I've had much less free time than before.
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Oh yeah, this new model is working out so much better than the diffusion model. I'll have a snapshot posted soon.
In short, power transmission is now instant and the performance for following the path from the generators to the machines is extremely fast. The only downside is that you cannot make cables have any sort of power limit because the search algorithm only determines which machines are reachable from the generator and does not record the actual path taken to get there.
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I'm really pleased with the new power transmission system. It's fast, it's relatively simple, and the implementation details are neatly sequestered into two classes that do not ever need to be touched by people using the API. I also started adding items that I plan to use in recipes, such as plastic.
If you've been waiting to try your hand at using this mod, you can get started now. There won't be any major changes to the API and I'll be releasing version 1.0 fairly soon.
Has anybody beat me to the bunch and already made a power systems mod for Minecraft 1.8 or am I still the first?
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
A robotic harvester would be a good addition. Instead of using tracks, maybe use redstone dust tracks or redstone torches as a means of guiding the harvester. You could have a type of GPS module that can be installed to set the boundaries of the area to be farmed (3X3, 5X5, etc.) That way it becomes a bit different than other mods.
Neotech looks like a competitor. I'll have to step up my game.
Robots are on the to-do list. They'll basically act like the farmer villager who goes around harvesting and planting crops, except there will be robots for non-farming tasks too.
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My mods: Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Power Advantage
Hi everyone! My latest mod project is a mod to add power systems to Minecraft 1.8 (kinda like BuildCraft). So far, I have a functional proof-of-concept mod with 2 machine blocks and 1 cable block. You can put redstone in the generator, connect it to a powered furnace, and then smelt items in the furnace by transferring power from the generator. For debugging purposes, punching a block makes it tell you how much energy it has in a chat message. The GUI needs a lot of work still. As of version 0.0.4, there's now some new blocks for handling fluids.
Update:
New version 0.0.4. I've added a new crafting system (shaped furnace recipes), complete with NEI display, but I have not actually used this feature for anything yet. I've also made PowerAdvantage require the Base Metals mod, because those metals will be needed to craft stuff in Poqwe Advantage (when I get around to adding recipes).
The Exciting new feature is fluid handling. I've added copper pipes for transferring fluids, a drain block for collecting fluids, and discharge block for dumping fluids. The series of images below show me moving a pool of lava using these blocks:
Before:
During:
After:
More screenshots:
Download it and see for yourself: github.com/cyanobacterium/PowerAdvantageAPI/releases/tag/v0.0.4
Source code: PowerAdvantageAPI
It is also my goal to make it as simple as possible to create add-on mods for this mod (hence the API designation). However, there's a lot of work to do to achieve these goals. So I'd like to get your opinion on a few things:
1. What are the most important/useful machines to have in Minecraft?
2. What kinds of power sources do you want in Minecraft? (e.g. electricity, steam-power, redstone, etc.)
3. What kine of visual theme do you think it should have? (e.g. steam-punk, heavy industry, improvised, post-apocalyptic, futuristic, etc.)
4. If you are a mod maker, what features would it be most important for you to be able to control? (e.g. energy type, update interval, NBT format, etc.)
Update:
No longer WIP!!! Get Power Advantage and Steam Advantage to fulfill your coal-fired dreams. There will (soon) be an official forum post in the mods section for this mod.
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
also Here my oppinion
Machines, hmm if you were to go by what most tech-mods do it would probably be ore doubling but that’s way too overdone
Interacting with the world is something that machines to little of now adays, all kinds of automation and high-tech as can be ...... its just too much for me
I'd rather anything Steam powered, elevators/blast doors/drawbridges or anything that interacts with blocks really
And yes I know what Flaxbeards steam power is, its not a bad mos it just doesn't have enough things that interacts with the world
and obviously i have a thing for steam-punk junk :L also theres no mod in existance with steam boats ..... it really should be a thing
but hey thats my oppinion you should take your mod where you want to go, instead of asking for others for their oppnions on where you should go
A rock-crusher machine for doubling ore extraction also solves the problem of how to do metal alloys (by crafting the powders together into alloy blends). I'd like to have some farming-related machines, but I don't know how to go about it. Minefactory Reloaded and Forestry both had separate planter and harvester machines, but there was no visual clue as to what the range limit was (as you said, needs more environment interaction).
In real-life, there is no such machine that sits in one place and farms the near-by area. Instead we have hydroponic systems (which grow the plants inside the harvesting machine) and farming vehicles. We are now starting to have farming robots (GPS-guided remote-controlled combine harvesters), so how about a machine block that hosts a roomba-like farmer robot?
Also, how would you imagine a mining machine should work? I don't want to make something as arbitrary as the Digital Miner (I forget which mod it's from) or as involved as the quarry from BuildCraft.
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
The redstone power stuff is there as an example mod. After I get the API finished, I'll create a more interesting premise (e.g. steam power).
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I'm working on ore processing now, and these textures are just quick-n-dirty mock-ups.
I'll need to think about what to do to make it stand out. Right now, it stands out just by being available on Minecraft 1.8
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/zoomturd
Mod: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/wip-mods/2551790-mythical-minecraft-monsters-weapons-and-other-lore
Map: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/maps/2578483-gladiator-arena-map
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Are you planning to add more types of generators later?
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/zoomturd
Mod: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/wip-mods/2551790-mythical-minecraft-monsters-weapons-and-other-lore
Map: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/maps/2578483-gladiator-arena-map
Also, I still might change how I do power transmission. The current algorithm (a diffusion model) requires very little processing power (less lag), but it transfers power rather slowly through the pipes. If anyone has creative ideas for how to transfer energy, I'm all ears.
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Why not take your mod in the direction of machine building. Where you provide the parts and we provide the thought. I don't remember which mod had the machine frames where you could do that. It would be nice if that concept were resurrected.
That way the players could easily design any number of harvesters from gardens to tree farms, any number of miners/diggers for ore and what not.
Personally, I like ore doubling. But also, I agree it has been overdone. That said, more people like to double ore than not, so having that will help your popularity.
I thought on ore processing: Have ore refinement. Example:
if you implemented that, it might be a good idea to make a cousin to the silverfish called the rust monster whose only purpose is to eat your metals. no player damage. that would give an incentive to not make and use base metal items, but instead to refine and purify them so they can last longer while you battle the occasional rust monster swarm.
As to mining machines, maybe you could add that giant shovel machine, bull dozers and dump trucks. heck add all of the giant machines we use now these days. Woo hoo!
oh, btw, found a bug with base metals against another mod, posted about that in the base metals thread.
This version adds fluid handling. Specifically, I added a drain block to suck-up fluids from above it, a pipe block to transfer fluids, and a discharge block to dump fluids (basically the opposite of a drain).
Also, please be patient with my slow progress. It'll be a while before I can start implementing the good stuff because I first have to get all of the ground-work (the boring stuff) done. If you're interested, here's my basic plan:
1. Add fluid blocks: pipes, drain, discharge, portable tank, multi-block tank
2. Add fluid gauge and power gauge blocks to you can monitor fluid/power in machines and pipes without clicking on them
3. Add item conveyor block (like a hopper, but goes any direction) and item filter blocks
4. Final API clean-up
5. Create a SteamPower mod using the Power Advantage API
6. Create an ElectricPower mod using the Power Advantage API
7. Create a MagicPower mod using the Power Advantage API
8. Create a QuantumPower mod using the Power Advantage API
NOTE: PowerAdvantage now requires Base Metals
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I presume you mean "How do the drain and discharge blocks work?", so here's how that works:
When a liquid (e.g. lava or water) flows over the top of the drain, the drain follows the flow upstream until it finds a source block. It then removes that source block and fills its internal fluid tank. If a pipe is connected to the drain, then the liquid is pushed into the pipe. The discharge block also has an internal tank, which can be filled by connected pipes. Once full, the discharge block will place a source block beneath it (searching around for an available space nearby) and empty its internal tank.
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
I'm tossing out the diffusion model and I'm ging to do a major rewrite of the power transmission system. Diffusion is just too slow and leaves too mouch of the energy in the pipe. I've come up with a new idea where there would be a global power network registry to keep track of interconnected blocks without storing any data in the conduits themselves. I don't know how long the change will take, especially since I've had much less free time than before.
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Oh yeah, this new model is working out so much better than the diffusion model. I'll have a snapshot posted soon.
In short, power transmission is now instant and the performance for following the path from the generators to the machines is extremely fast. The only downside is that you cannot make cables have any sort of power limit because the search algorithm only determines which machines are reachable from the generator and does not record the actual path taken to get there.
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
Here it is, the new snapshot: PowerAdvantageAPI v0.0.6
I'm really pleased with the new power transmission system. It's fast, it's relatively simple, and the implementation details are neatly sequestered into two classes that do not ever need to be touched by people using the API. I also started adding items that I plan to use in recipes, such as plastic.
If you've been waiting to try your hand at using this mod, you can get started now. There won't be any major changes to the API and I'll be releasing version 1.0 fairly soon.
Has anybody beat me to the bunch and already made a power systems mod for Minecraft 1.8 or am I still the first?
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes
A robotic harvester would be a good addition. Instead of using tracks, maybe use redstone dust tracks or redstone torches as a means of guiding the harvester. You could have a type of GPS module that can be installed to set the boundaries of the area to be farmed (3X3, 5X5, etc.) That way it becomes a bit different than other mods.
Not sure if these are "power systems", but Progressive Automation and Neotech are available.
I like your mods. I use several in my 1.8 world.
"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
Neotech looks like a competitor. I'll have to step up my game.
Robots are on the to-do list. They'll basically act like the farmer villager who goes around harvesting and planting crops, except there will be robots for non-farming tasks too.
My mods:
Base Metals, Power Advantage, Steam Advantage, Electric Advantage, Minecraft Mineralogy, Dr. Cyano's Lootable Bodies, Dr. Cyano's Wonderful Wands & Wizarding Robes