The most basic idea is making things float in water.
So first I thought it'd be cool to be able to build larger boats out of blocks like wood or something. But that idea lead me to the idea of simply adding buoyancy values to each block. The values can be relative so that wood will float in water but not in air, etc... Also it's really simple physics, so once you've come up with appropriate buoyancy values you could just implement the correct equations (in reality you'd be assigning density values to each of the blocks and coming up with the correct equations based on real world physics so that the game is as realistic as possible).
This could immediately lead to building things like large floating barges in water, floating islands, and so on. Eventually you could use the same idea to make modifications like rising hot air (which might even lead to something like a hot air balloon, or air ships of some sort).
It might be implemented like such: a wood block on fire causes the x number of blocks above it to be less dense because of the heat, those blocks rise up into the sky and eventually cool off and new air blocks are generated in their place which are then made less dense by the on fire wooden block. This process continues until the wooden block is eventually put out. Maybe if you build a cloth enclosure around enough heated air then the overall density of the cloth enclosure would be small enough to make it rise up into the sky, thus creating a hot air balloon.
Even more down the road would be the creation of air currents due to density imbalances in the sky. This combined with floating objects would give the possibility of sailing ships or airships. I know it'd be tough, especially when you start to expand the idea to air densities.
Still it would be pretty cool to have a simple implementation of blocks that could float/sink in water. Even then though there's still complications with where to put the displaced blocks and how to account for the buoyancy of multiple blocks together (how does the game know that certain blocks should be considered connected, how to calculate the total buoyancy of a large complex object,...). But; I think if people like the idea than there are definitely talented enough programmers playing this game that could make it happen.
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So first I thought it'd be cool to be able to build larger boats out of blocks like wood or something. But that idea lead me to the idea of simply adding buoyancy values to each block. The values can be relative so that wood will float in water but not in air, etc... Also it's really simple physics, so once you've come up with appropriate buoyancy values you could just implement the correct equations (in reality you'd be assigning density values to each of the blocks and coming up with the correct equations based on real world physics so that the game is as realistic as possible).
This could immediately lead to building things like large floating barges in water, floating islands, and so on. Eventually you could use the same idea to make modifications like rising hot air (which might even lead to something like a hot air balloon, or air ships of some sort).
It might be implemented like such: a wood block on fire causes the x number of blocks above it to be less dense because of the heat, those blocks rise up into the sky and eventually cool off and new air blocks are generated in their place which are then made less dense by the on fire wooden block. This process continues until the wooden block is eventually put out. Maybe if you build a cloth enclosure around enough heated air then the overall density of the cloth enclosure would be small enough to make it rise up into the sky, thus creating a hot air balloon.
Even more down the road would be the creation of air currents due to density imbalances in the sky. This combined with floating objects would give the possibility of sailing ships or airships. I know it'd be tough, especially when you start to expand the idea to air densities.
Still it would be pretty cool to have a simple implementation of blocks that could float/sink in water. Even then though there's still complications with where to put the displaced blocks and how to account for the buoyancy of multiple blocks together (how does the game know that certain blocks should be considered connected, how to calculate the total buoyancy of a large complex object,...). But; I think if people like the idea than there are definitely talented enough programmers playing this game that could make it happen.
Comments, suggestions, ideas?