Minecraft Forums

this is a great and very practical idea and seems very minecrafty someone should show this to notch

Big turtle looks mean. Definately not one you'd hand feed.

Jokes aside, yea, this is a good suggestion. I approve.

Edit: Oh yeah, and those models look great.

Nice knees on the big turtle :biggrin.gif:

Players are going to go around sticking random structures on big turtles. Certainly there would need to be advanced block physics for this. Presumably you can actually jump on these. How many blocks tall are you imagining them?

Top Notch idea =P
I like it
+1

Their shells would basically have the same functionality of any other block in the game? so that you can attach other blocks to them right?
And I think the shell drop should be used with reed to make a whistle. The reed would act as a reed does in a clarinet or some other musical instrument. and the shell would act act as the casing. This would allow you to call your friendly tortoise.
Question though, how would the whistle determine which tortoise is yours, or would it just call all tortoises?

@ electronic - There would be a block limit to how much you could put on him and it would fit into a bounding box. I don't think he would be able to jump. He's about three meters tall. I would imagine him using something along the lines of whatever Notch is planning for his giants. He wouldn't jump, but he could step up and walk over single blocks.

If regular tortoise can climb over single blocks, he should at least be able to handle going over 2.

Yeah, you're probably right. The only difference is that generally the larger you are, the less nimble. But I wouldn't be opposed to him being able to step up onto two blocks. It's something that we would have to play test a bit in game to be sure about.

One word:
EPIC
I think it would be awesome, but you might want to tone down the giant tortoise. It would be cool though, a mini-fort! A giant tortoise walking around with you in a mini wood castle on it, firing arrows, with a chest and table next to you for safety, and a zombie appears only to not be able to do anything but stare in anger as he sees the tortoise hide in its shell and you shooting at it from your fort! if you add these items:
Tortoise whistle: Call tortoises.
Craft:
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Giant tortoise whistle: Likewise, works on both kinds.
Craft:
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Quote from Firehazurd »

@ electronic - There would be a block limit to how much you could put on him and it would fit into a bounding box. I don't think he would be able to jump. He's about three meters tall. I would imagine him using something along the lines of whatever Notch is planning for his giants. He wouldn't jump, but he could step up and walk over single blocks.

Oh, in a boost to your confidence.... it should be possible. :biggrin.gif:
Why do I say this? Well, look at the Boat. It is a polygon structure in the world. You can move it, and walk on it. It adheres to (basic) boundaries too.
So, in theory, we could use this mechanism, to have placeable blocks on the tortoise. The draw back being, AFAIK the placed blocks would be totally separate from the rest of the worlds engine. This could take up resources to implement. Perhaps you could only use 1 type of block (wood for example) to build on the tortoise. This way Notch does not need to reprogram a second set of every block (1 for the world 1 to go on the tortoise as it's probably going to use separate code).

[edit]
Oh, and I don't see any problem with limiting him to 1 block climbing. The carts currently can only travel up 1 block at a time on a track. The boat cannot travel up anything except water. So having a limit on the Tortoise is a good balance to him. You would have to dig out the path for him. But once setup, you would have giant roads everywhere. :smile.gif:

Quote from TechyBen »

Quote from Firehazurd »

@ electronic - There would be a block limit to how much you could put on him and it would fit into a bounding box. I don't think he would be able to jump. He's about three meters tall. I would imagine him using something along the lines of whatever Notch is planning for his giants. He wouldn't jump, but he could step up and walk over single blocks.

Oh, in a boost to your confidence.... it should be possible. :biggrin.gif:
Why do I say this? Well, look at the Boat. It is a polygon structure in the world. You can move it, and walk on it. It adheres to (basic) boundaries too.

Yes, but the polygon structure is a rectangle for all mobs, even giants, and it doesn't change. I was imagining someone building an enormous 1x1 tower on top of one of these turtles, with a platform at the top. Or a giant squiggly mess of blocks extending off into the horizon. The bounding box more or less solves this.

The other problem is what should happen if I stacks two blocks on him, and destroy the lower block. Should the higher block fall down? Should it hover there? Should it be destroyed?

Yes, that is a good point. It's one of the reasons that I have my Modular Ship Building set up to work only on a single level of boat blocks and then anything that can be added to the boat blocks is treated as a single distinct unit, so that you never need to get into figuring out how things work when they're stacked 2 or 3 blocks high.

I wouldn't mind floating blocks, they might break some sort of aesthetic appeal, but I don't think it'd be a game breaker. An alternative would be to have a few different rigs that you could craft and place on the tortoise. Like a shelter rig, a storage rig, a crafting rig and so on. That way you can place it, have it exist within the bounding box and possibly even change it on the fly. I think I'm still more partial to just placing blocks, as it has all the possibilities of the rigs while retaining player control.

This is epic on so many levels...

Aside from the fact that it definitely fits with Minecraft, I'm all for animals that are biome specific and definitely all for animals that have more uses than just harvesting.

So both together; instant win.

And your graphics are very very cool too.

You win diamonds;

Quote from MagicM »

It would be totally awesome if there was a 6x6x6 (blocks) tutrle that you could find if you are lucky. Basically you could transport a small house with that.

But i have to warn you about the building on moving things. I'm pretty sure that moving lightsources cant bbe implented into minecraft as it is now. So placing torches on turtles would cause some bugs.

Moving lightsources can be implemented, they just look terrible due to needing to update tiles with lighting on the fly. However since the turtle has limited speed, it just might be slow enough to use the current "mobile lighting" technique and not have it look too bad.

@MagicM - I am actually considering a third tier tortoise that would be huge. They would be extremely rare and would get created by the terrain generator beneath a hill. There it sleeps until you accidentally tink into it with your pick/shovel. It wakes up and shakes off the hill (just kill all the blocks), stretches and then starts to wander off slowly. You could catch up and put build a base on there. I feel like this would be better suited when there are gliders/zeppelins or whatever as if you die, you'll have to find your guy again. I'm still mulling around the idea.

By the time we could add this, that issue would hopefully have been overcome. If not, then it matters not. Monster need not spawn on a turtles back.

Just wondering... would there be a specific height limit while building on turtles?

I would think there should be for ease of coding. Probably 4 blocks high.

4 from the base, or 4 from the top? if it was 4 from the base of his shell, it would give you just barely enough room to put a full enclosure for you to walk into and still have a ceiling. If you used a double chest, furnace, and workbench AS your ceiling, you would still have room for a jukebox on the inside and room to move around. I'm still not to okeen on building onto a mobile base, but that isn't too bad.

It would be four from the top of the shell, five if you count that you could place blocks on the sides of the shell.

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lol imagine if you stuck a hell portal on him. What would happen then? A moving ripple in the very heart of Minecraftia? Ghasts would fight Creepers, pigs would turn into zombies, obsidian would mine itself, Notch would implement creeper-cows to fight the resistance...
no. Just no.