Topic: finally finished my minecraft mod. it's taken 3 years.
squeegee started this discussion 8 years ago #67,538
the hardest part was overhauling the logic for AI, i pretty much had to scrap what was existing. you wouldn't believe how many short cuts they took with that. basically everything had the same behavior with slight tweaks to their pathing logic. now each enemy has much improved pathing and use bespoke tactics. zombies now swarm you and will effectively flank you if you're not paying attention. skeletons will retreat when you try to close distance on them, and creepers can now jump over pits. creeper logic was fucking stupid, they were really basic, but now they'll find you and hide and wait for you to come close so they can rush you from a hidden spot. they don't just immediately follow you to their death anymore. if you see a creeper, you'd better kill it before you lose track of it and it stalks you and jumps you.i actually had to reduce their spawn rate because they are ninjas now and will fuck you up entirely.
speaking of spawn rates, darkness doesn't spawn enemies any more but they do seek it out as a safe place. instead of just random spawning the mod logically spawns enemies based on the locations of structures. i needed this for the inclusion of the RPG elements of the mod. the game now spawns several unique locations.
you always spawn in a town for the first time, or a village. sometimes a city but always withing the zone of a Kingdom. each Kingdom is unique, has unique architecture for cities, towns and villages, and each kingdom has an economy based on available local resources. you can travel between kingdoms, which may be a very long trip taking in game weeks/months of travel, and you can trade goods for much profits. to facilitate this i added a new animal type, the draft animal, and each different type can carry goods in crafted caravan bags. camels, horses, oxen, elephants and donkeys are all classified as draft animals and some carry more goods than others. but, be careful, enemies abound and your caravan can be attacked and your animals can be killed, so be sure to hire some AI bodyguards to follow you and keep your business secure.
speaking of bodyguards, you can now hire or befriend NPCs who can be recruited to follow you as part of your party. this is an excellent idea, because not all kingdoms are safe, there are also enemy kingdoms.
enemy kingdoms are the bad guys. black magic users. evil apothecaries. necromancers. undead warriors. evil minions (evil testificates basically). the enemy kingdoms work just like the good kingdoms, but they are evil. This zone is where you'll find most of the enemies, the whole zone is covered with zombie and skeleton spawning cemeteries and expansive underground catacombs. evil towns, villages and cities all exist full of evil testificates and monsters working together to taint the land with evil and spread to other kingdoms and destroy them.
so zones do change sizes, and kingdoms do wage wars against one another. if you decide to roleplay as a simple village farmer and never try to help fix the problem, then maybe the town you spawned in will be taken over by evil and all the good people turned evil and cruel. so you'd notice more monster attacks, and eventually the town will be over run, dominated, changed, and then become part of the evil kingdom.
of course you could go to the good king and become a knighted warrior and fight for the kingdom to drive out evil and fight the enemy in their own zone. if you clear out villages and towns and destroy the evil sigels and signs around town then you can claim it for your kingdom and stop monsters from spawning since monster spawning is tied to proximity to the evil zone. the closer you are, the more likely you are to encounter a legit monster. further away you may have to worry about wild animals attacking, but not zombies as much.
there's also evil kings. they're basically bosses, and have boss fight type mechanics built into their ai type. there are several kinds of bosses and lieutenants, but you'll really only ever see them in the evil fortress castles and sometimes you'll see minibosses in the cities outside the evil fortresses. towns and villages have low level bosses to fight, my favorite one called Abominations which are kinda like evil giant golems that protect the town.
there are also dragons in the overworld, not just in the end. this was the actual hardest part. the dragon ai was shit, and there's a reason the end works the way it does, the ai can't perform obstacle avoidance and it certainly couldn't handle any kind of newly placed bricks. so, everything just explodes so the dragon doesn't glitch. now the dragons have obstacle avoidance and can fly around without getting stuck and glitching badly. the only thing it can't handle well is navigation around trees, so dragons do destroy trees as they are running across the ground, but they also set lots of shit on fire so that kinda takes care of most of them.
dragons are basically their own faction. they are true neutrals and will attack anyone or anything they want. it's best to not fuck with them, they're kinda like bees. but, you can totally kill them, and if your skill is high enough you can domesticate one and eventually fly around on it.
speaking of skills, there are rpg skills. standard stuff atm for simplicity, the only real deviation is that you have 2 sets of skill trees. one is an evil tree and the other is a good tree. where you apply points also ends up determining your affiliation with good/evil. that totally means you can create an evil character and join the evil kingdoms and fight with them to take over the world. so like you can learn necromancy and control the zombies. you can have a mob of like 40 or more zombies and take them to some town and unleash them, all the while attacking any fleeing citizens with black magic. you can attack a good city and attack the good castle to kill the good king and have to fight all the good lieutenants and good minibosses around.
but, watch out for AI heroes who'll try to stop you. AI heroes are ai that have all the same player skills available to them, and they are free to pursue whatever agenda they like. they kinda just run around adventuring. you might enter a catacomb and halfway down find some other ai adventurer there first. and they will try to stop you if you're evil. and if you settle a new evil town and declare yourself king and order your npcs to build an evil city and an evil castle and recruit evil lieutenants and all that, eventually some ai hero npc adventurer will show up and try to fuck your shit up. so don't forget to build lots of booby traps.
you're also bound to run into evil ai anti-heroes adventuring around and doing evil deeds and they'll try to stop any good guys in the evil zone, and will raid towns, villages and cities if they come across them.
i know i've skipped a bunch of stuff. crafting was overhauled you need to learn recipes before you can make them. there's a dialog system that lets you use speech to interact with shops and npcs. there's a reputation system. NPCs can build things, they run around performing work like tending crops and chopping/planting trees, mining and even building minecart tracks. cities can grow with new buildings as population increases. there are roads spawned between cities, sometimes railroads and railroads can be built or ordered to be built (if you're a master builder for the king or the king). there are traveling traders and caravans, and robbers.
i should mention the neutrally aligned npcs too, they aren't aligned evil but they are maybe bad guys like robbers, but they can also be crooked shop keepers who rip you off. so you can pick points in both the good and evil trees and stay relatively neutral. no one will ever really trust you though. you'd be fine in any kinda evil village, or kinda good town, but you wouldn't be allowed near either capital. put all your points in good and the king will knight you. or put all your points in evil and the dead king will make you his assassin or evil court mage.
but, there's nothing stopping you from being aligned neutral, starting your own kingdom and recruiting all the petty thieves, crooked shop keepers, and mercenaries and build yourself a kingdom of whatever the fuck you please.
the story is pretty great if you can call it that. the kings all know about the nether and the end, and the end is leaking baby dragons. the good kings want to find and destroy the hidden end portal of myth, and the evil kings want to find it and crack it open to bring the end to the overworld and become the most powerful evil king by controlling the dragons. there is a secret to discover though, mines in the over world and some caves are being overrun by zombie pigmen. investigating the mystery of the pigmen reveals a war being waged in the nether. the evil kings are looking for a shortcut to the end portal, which does exist on all maps, but is deep in the nether in the middle of an ancient citadel protected by some of the strongest monsters in the game, like the lava breathing molten fire dragon.
there's also a pigman king and if you align with them against the evil kings then you can ultimately form an alliance with the dragons. technically you can do this if you're evil too, since the good kings are murdering all the pigmen refugees and are killing them in the nether as well. poor pigmen are just stuck in the middle. so you can align with them against the good kings and that'll lead to aligning with the dragons. really it's more like you insist they align with you so you'll stop murdering them. you can also just slaughter them. they don't really matter... but if you don't align with them then you do have to fight the dragon mother. with high enough speech you can avoid the fight altogether, but, that's true of all fights really.
anyway if you start the game and wait long enough one or the other will eventually happen even if you're just a farmer, because there are ai heroes running around looking for it. pretty slowly though. but, eventually the world either ends with evil, or is saved with goodness. the only question will you be the dragon king, or will some random ai be the dragon king while you sit around building little houses and spelunking?
edit: forgot to mention, not only are there evil kingdoms as adversaries but two good kingdoms can be adversarial and at war with each other. same with evil kingdoms, they can be at war too.
(Edited 3 minutes later.)
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 4 minutes later[^] [v] #826,044
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 1 minute later, 5 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #826,045
> expect catherine
> get a wall of text
> get a wall of text
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 12 minutes later, 18 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #826,051
Hahaha! You crazy cunt!
Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 8 minutes later, 26 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #826,053
omg. tl;dr
brie !iFDoautiSM joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 1 minute later, 27 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #826,054
Sounds cool, will you do a stream of it?
FuckAlms !vX8K53rFBI joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 51 seconds later, 28 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #826,055
squeegee (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 1 hour later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #826,070
@826,054 (brie !iFDoautiSM)
i got banned from twitch for botting my stream and youtube banned me for repeated violations of their tos. but i didn't do anything, they're a bunch of money grubbing liars.
i got banned from twitch for botting my stream and youtube banned me for repeated violations of their tos. but i didn't do anything, they're a bunch of money grubbing liars.
Anonymous H joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #826,072
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squeegee (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 10 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,083
@826,054 (brie !iFDoautiSM)
if i could stream i'd show you "god mode" which lets the camera fly around the map and watch the ai interacting and doing stuff. last night before i went to bed i stopped the camera on this small kingdom with only a few villages and a city and the enemy taint was very close to the borders of this one town, and the big evil fortress city was up on top of a mountain nearby. the evil kingdom was way bigger and already had lava flows which meant they were making abomination forges and cranking out Abominations. sure enough there was a pretty steady stream of them coming down the mountain road and heading for the evil villages. the villages had several Abominations walking around even though they have a lifespan and die in just a few days. they're made from dark iron which is made from smelting dark iron veins in the nether, one of the new blocks i added, and the tortured souls of either slain pigmen or testificate which are captured by neromancers.
this morning i got up and checked on it and i was surprised to see the small kingdom still alive. it was smaller, and had lost a village, but the king had apparently ordered a border wall. i may need to nerf that, actually, i thought the sheer size of one would make them difficult to build but i guess if your entire kingdom is being destroyed and most NPCs can't perform their jobs because the economy is shut down then they'll drop down to "general labor" and a damn army will construct it. the wall completely stalled the advancing evil onslaught.
not sure how to nerf that though. each gate has basically a small garrison attached to it making it a meat grinder for any enemies that try to invade. but if i remove it or make it easy to over run then the whole thing is useless.
if i could stream i'd show you "god mode" which lets the camera fly around the map and watch the ai interacting and doing stuff. last night before i went to bed i stopped the camera on this small kingdom with only a few villages and a city and the enemy taint was very close to the borders of this one town, and the big evil fortress city was up on top of a mountain nearby. the evil kingdom was way bigger and already had lava flows which meant they were making abomination forges and cranking out Abominations. sure enough there was a pretty steady stream of them coming down the mountain road and heading for the evil villages. the villages had several Abominations walking around even though they have a lifespan and die in just a few days. they're made from dark iron which is made from smelting dark iron veins in the nether, one of the new blocks i added, and the tortured souls of either slain pigmen or testificate which are captured by neromancers.
this morning i got up and checked on it and i was surprised to see the small kingdom still alive. it was smaller, and had lost a village, but the king had apparently ordered a border wall. i may need to nerf that, actually, i thought the sheer size of one would make them difficult to build but i guess if your entire kingdom is being destroyed and most NPCs can't perform their jobs because the economy is shut down then they'll drop down to "general labor" and a damn army will construct it. the wall completely stalled the advancing evil onslaught.
not sure how to nerf that though. each gate has basically a small garrison attached to it making it a meat grinder for any enemies that try to invade. but if i remove it or make it easy to over run then the whole thing is useless.
brie !iFDoautiSM replied with this 8 years ago, 12 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,088
squeegee (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 9 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,090
@previous (brie !iFDoautiSM)i tried at one point to have the ai build tnt cannons to siege walled cities but it crashed the server too frequently.
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squeegee (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 14 hours later, 22 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,236
@826,094 (FuckAlms !vX8K53rFBI)ah, i nerfed the creepers explosion, they can't destroy anything harder than cobble. in fact they explode twice now, the first explosion destroys half the creeper and they shrink to half size and double their speed. then they explode again with the same force and die. so they can still kill you, but they have to explode on you twice to do that. the total damage from both is equal to 1.5 creeper explosions, but each explosion is only 75% as powerful, just enough to not destroy brick structures. doors though.
i changed the health on some of the blocks too, obsidian is now one of the most brittle blocks and can be shattered easily. iron blocks on the other hand are basically indestructible. to destroy iron you need at least 3 TnT all stacked in a very small space and they need to all go off at about the same time. i had to alter how blocks preserve damage over time (the really didn't). i should probably mention that i also changed a few other things. building stuff is pretty hard now.
so... you need a hammer to place blocks down. and there's a casting time. so you select your block, and hold the m1 button to hammer it in place. also trying to collect blocks takes a lot longer and in some cases can't even be done. i'll explain.
since the ai now build things and can tear shit down and rebuild their cities, i decided that it should take a while for them to build structures since it's an automatic thing. like, you can build your own buildings and it IS faster than letting ai build them, and all you do is define the space with a sign and the mod recognizes is as "shop," or "barracks," or "home." but once you get to the point where you're the city architect (master builder) then you can have work crews build from the list of default structures in whichever architectural style you have materials for. but i didn't want the ai to just instantly build a huge tier 2 blacksmith foundry super fast. so now dismantling blocks required tools suitable for the job and some blocks, like iron, would require special demolition. and the building of structures should take a fair amount of time, so i made placing blocks non instantaneous.
of course, there is the appropriate shortcut for demolition, and that's TnT. in fact, TnT is super useful in this mod and it can be crafted from sulfer, charcoal and saltpeter which are mostly found underground, but there are surface deposits. saltpeter and sulfer come from mining diorite and andesite. and using a pick to do mining takes a long time. everything takes longer than it used to take to mine obsidian. so trying to mine by hand with a pick is super frustrating and boring. but, mining with tnt is a lot more fun. it's also the primary way the ai miners make tunnels. it's kinda methodical, but it works really well. the miners use a pick to dig a hole in a wall of a mine 4 blocks deep. then they place the a block of tnt and wire it up. then they move 8 blocks over, dig another 4 block deep hole in the wall and wire in another charge. they continue this the length of the mineshaft. after all the charges are placed the mine is evacuated and the explosives are triggered. the miners then reenter the mine, collect all the material from the newly made tunnels, and then build out the floor to keep everything nice and level. once that's done the miners dig another 4 block deep hole and continue the process of cutting tunnels perpendicular to the mineshaft. it's slow going, and very dangerous work. more npcs die doing mining than any other activity. which is pretty fun to watch. they have funerals and everything. i didn't even intend mining to be so deadly, but the ai are not good at working around lava. the obstacle avoidance algorithm does have trouble dealing with flowing lava and water. they'll totally stand where the lava is flowing cause they're dumb. and sometimes they'll fall into holes if they're digging over a cave because they don't always build out the floors perfectly. not sure how to do optimization algorithms and sorting so sometimes they leave a hole and someone dies.
probably going to leave those though, cause i think it's fitting.
Anonymous M joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 14 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,239
@826,083 (squeegee)
Typical liberal. ‘Border walls work well at keeping out interminable evil and Mexicans time to nerf lol.’
Typical liberal. ‘Border walls work well at keeping out interminable evil and Mexicans time to nerf lol.’
brie !iFDoautiSM replied with this 8 years ago, 1 minute later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,240
Catherine !TGirlYJKXM joined in and replied with this 8 years ago, 1 minute later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,241
Download link?
squeegee (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 12 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,245
@826,239 (M)
it's called game balance, retard. if the only thing that can get past the border wall are the flying attack monkeys then it's not going to be a very fun fight. i think i'm going to have to fix tnt cannons :/
i let it run over night and the small kingdom has only made the wall longer, it covers the entire eastern side and half of the north and south. the kingdom to the west is unfriendly, but they're not at war so the west side is still wide open. but the evil kingdom is still stalled out at the border gate. the army is basically nonexistent now, the towns are still thriving with evil citizens but the army is just doing a single file line into a meat grinder pretty much. they aren't massing up a large force because they have so many abominations i think. they're just going in small groups with a few abominations and just melt to the archers.
an ai hero finally came through with a party of 4 and a dog. first one to come through in 36 hours. they were all clubbed to death by abominations. they weren't very well geared though. noobs.
it's called game balance, retard. if the only thing that can get past the border wall are the flying attack monkeys then it's not going to be a very fun fight. i think i'm going to have to fix tnt cannons :/
i let it run over night and the small kingdom has only made the wall longer, it covers the entire eastern side and half of the north and south. the kingdom to the west is unfriendly, but they're not at war so the west side is still wide open. but the evil kingdom is still stalled out at the border gate. the army is basically nonexistent now, the towns are still thriving with evil citizens but the army is just doing a single file line into a meat grinder pretty much. they aren't massing up a large force because they have so many abominations i think. they're just going in small groups with a few abominations and just melt to the archers.
an ai hero finally came through with a party of 4 and a dog. first one to come through in 36 hours. they were all clubbed to death by abominations. they weren't very well geared though. noobs.
(Edited 1 minute later.)
squeegee (OP) double-posted this 8 years ago, 3 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,246
Anonymous C replied with this 8 years ago, 7 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,247
brie !iFDoautiSM replied with this 8 years ago, 1 minute later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,248
squeegee (OP) replied with this 8 years ago, 10 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #826,260
@previous (brie !iFDoautiSM)
i'll look at that streamcast thing when i get back from dinner
the western kingdom are a bunch of assholes. i just checked them out and they're sitting on like a huge gold mine. they're wealthy as fuck and are importing everything. all their new buildings are built with exotic materials and they've built a lot. and on the other side of them is a huge ocean, and there's no "evil" threat there so they're perfectly safe. not sure they realize what kind of problem is brewing with their neighbors to the east. if the eastern wall is breached then the taint will be on their border next. actually i am quite sure of it, they aren't in an alliance so there is no sharing of intel.
too bad they seem to be so arrogant. the small kingdom will have definitely reached out with a messenger by now. i'm assuming talks haven't gone well.
i'll look at that streamcast thing when i get back from dinner
the western kingdom are a bunch of assholes. i just checked them out and they're sitting on like a huge gold mine. they're wealthy as fuck and are importing everything. all their new buildings are built with exotic materials and they've built a lot. and on the other side of them is a huge ocean, and there's no "evil" threat there so they're perfectly safe. not sure they realize what kind of problem is brewing with their neighbors to the east. if the eastern wall is breached then the taint will be on their border next. actually i am quite sure of it, they aren't in an alliance so there is no sharing of intel.
too bad they seem to be so arrogant. the small kingdom will have definitely reached out with a messenger by now. i'm assuming talks haven't gone well.
(Edited 16 seconds later.)