If you haven't read Part 1 or Part 2, I really recommend you do. In a nutshell, Part 1 makes oceans larger and adds a sailboat, and Part 2 adds a lot of ocean animals and plants. Anyway, let's dive straight into this suggestion.
Ships
Structures
Nope, we're not done yet! The sea needs to be interesting, so why not some special structures?
Pirate Cove
This would actually be a biome. It would usually be the location of buried treasure. Pirate Ships would often be near this biome. The terrain would be similar to oak forest mountains from Minecraft Beta, but with a lot more sand. The biome would be mostly broken up by the water. Sometimes there would be shipwrecks on in this biome, which would contain loot similar to the shipwrecks being implemented in the 1.14 update.
Additionally, Pirate Coves would have a 25% chance of being filled with pirates. In this variation, there would be tents scattered everywhere in the cove, with greedy pirates ready to attack the player.
Beach Villages
Villages could now generate on beaches, where they would have docks. Merchant Ships would sometimes dock at these villages.
Technical Stuff
Probably the most used and most convincing argument against moving ships in Minecraft is how it would be implemented on the technical side of things. Though there are mods like Da Vinci's Vessels, they do prove many flaws in the idea of how moving ships would work.
One of the major things is lag, and another (though not commonly mentioned) thing is how the ship creating would seem like it's in the game world. You could argue that ship-creating mods introduce gameplay that breaks immersion due to how you convert a structure into an entity. So, how can this problem be fixed?
Individual Entities
This sounds kind of crazy, but here me out. Instead of having one large, complex entity that would crash the game, we could have individual entities that a ship is made out of. Now, if every block in a ship was its own entity, there would be some issues. Though there wouldn't be a massive entity causing lag, there would be tons of small entities that would cause lag. So, I propose the ship be divided into "slices"– each of which would be part of the ship. Each slice would be 3 blocks thick, and would have a width and height determined by the ship dimensions. The game would know how to cut the "slices" by which dimension of the ship is longest.
Disabling Redstone
Since redstone on ships would be extremely laggy, all redstone dust, redstone torches, redstone repeaters, redstone comparators, and hoppers would not work and would instead emit a water splash particle effect.
Block Limit
As mentioned above, each ship would have a limit of 5,000 blocks total. If the ship is any bigger, placing or right-clicking the helm would give the message, "You may not sail now, your ship is docked or is too big." If your ship is attached to your house or dock by accident, this would of course also happen.
Sinking
If there is an open space in the ship next to water, the water would instantly fill up all air blocks of that layer (not "slice," layer) in the ship. I say instantly because running the normal water algorithm would be extremely laggy, and I am trying to avoid as many lag issues as possible. Since water would have a high "weight" it would cause the ship to sink.
Fixing the Immersion Problem
Most ship-creating mods make it pretty clear that the ship (when sailing) is a separate thing from when it is "docked," or sitting still. I don't think this would be the ideal way to implement ships in vanilla Minecraft, though; it would feel too immersion-breaking. To avoid this, three things should happen:
1. The ship turns into an entity when the ship helm is there, not when you want it to move.
This would mean your ship would feel the same from the moment you create it and onward, regardless if it is moving or not.
2. You can build/mine on the ship, even when it is an entity.
Similar to how armor stands can detect what part of it you're right-clicking, each "slice" of the ship can detect what block you're looking at. Thus, you would be able to place/mine blocks and use things such as doors.
3. Ships take damage from explosions.
Like mentioned above, each ship "slice" would be able to detect the hitbox of its individual blocks, just like an armor stand does with its parts. When a "slice" is in the range of an explosion, it would determine which of its blocks were in range of the explosion specifically, and then delete them from the data list if they don't have a sufficient blast resistance.
Cannonballs
Though similar to TNT, cannonballs actually only have the explosion power of a ghast fireball (which is 1) as opposed to the power of a TNT explosion (which is 4). Of course, unlike ghast fireballs, cannonballs do not start fires.
Pirate Ships
Pirates on pirate ships fire cannons when they detect a player, villager, or ship directly in front of the cannon. The cannonballs would be fired at the minimum range necessary to hit the target. When pirates are firing the cannons on their ships, they take 3 seconds to load and fire just like players do. If the difficulty is Easy or Normal, an extra second or half second would be added to this. The pirates would also have an unlimited supply of shots similar to how skeletons have an unlimited supply of arrows.
Conclusion
Many features have been added to Minecraft over the years. Some small, some large; some game-changing, some useless. While features of all shapes and sizes can improve the game, I think features that give the player more options and more things to play around with can improve Minecraft in ways smaller features just can't. At the end of the day, which would make the game better: a new dungeon, or a new tool to play around with?
It is because of this and other reasons that I believe player-built ships would be a wonderful addition to Minecraft. I hope that I have proposed a balanced and reasonable method of implementing this, and I hope that you enjoyed reading.
Changes
Cannons are now much more balanced. (Suggested by MinecraftPROFESSIONAL123.)
Pirates can now go on other ships.
Merchant Ships now have a few cannons for self-defense. (Suggested by steam66.)
Pirate Coves now have a chance of being tent-filled. (Suggested by steam66.)
1
I love it! Thank you for sharing! I'm going to play with this more today.
1
Hey Kit01, you're very welcome! I look forward to any further images or files you share.
Ahh, so you have modified the textures are created a resource pack right? How did you make the couches and the angled pillows on the couch?
Yes, I think you'll really enjoy playing around with the DecoCraft and Little Tiles Mod.
When you work with Minecraft and modify files or try mods out, do you use the "MultiMC" launcher. If not, you should highly consider using it. It's so easy to use, you can keep various versions of Minecraft for your modding pleasure (e.g. Play the newest vanilla Minecraft in one instance, make another instance with an older version of Minecraft and your favorite mods, and have a few variations of Minecraft you have modified resource packs on. Each instance, doesn't interfere with the others, they are easy to load up separately and take care of. My family and I have enjoyed using MultiMC for the past 5 years or more.
Here are a few links for you:
MultiMC (Best launcher for Minecraft!)
Website: https://multimc.org/
Forum: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/minecraft-tools/1262993-multimc-5-windows-linux-mac
Also here are a few links for the DecoCraft and Little Tiles mods. You can read about them and download the files from both types of link, "Forum" (here on minecraftforum.net and "Curse" on the Curse Forge site. The "Curse" links are easier to download from and get updates on the mods.
DecoCraft (Made by the Amazing RazzleBerryFox, who now makes models working for the main Minecraft Mojang team!)
Curse: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/decocraft2
Forum: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/minecraft-mods/1292016-decocraft-2-4-1-decorations-for-minecraft-updated
YouTube:
Little Tiles Mod
Curse: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/littletiles
Forum: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/minecraft-mods/2408680-littletiles-v1-3-0-buildityourself-finally-updated
YouTube:
Creative Core Mod (Needed by Little Tiles Mod)
Simply download it and drop it in the mods folder next to Little Tiles
https://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/creativecore
I've got a good feeling either or both of these mods will add to the experience you are creating here. They both open lots of decorating potential in a minecraft game! You should be able to use them together with what you are already doing here.
Enjoy!
~Splash~
-Clownfish
1
Cool mod pack and thanks for sharing your adventure so far Jen!
1
Very nice Kit01! I like the detail! How did you add the cereal box and magazines? Have you seen the Deco mod and the Little Tiles mod?
1
Very nice Gillymoth!
1
While you are waiting for an update everyone. Check out this similar mod, called "Little Tiles"
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/minecraft-mods/2408680-littletiles-v1-3-0-buildityourself-finally-updated