FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Posted: **Sat Apr 06, 2013 05:50**

Civilization mod aims for highly collaborative gameplay

Depends
default

Changelog

Download
see code https://github.com/bas080/civilization

License
WTFPL

Posted: **Sat Apr 06, 2013 11:53**

Maybe use diamonds on there.

Posted: **Sat Apr 06, 2013 13:41**

"disabling craft grid and adding a craft node(factory) that is crafted with rare elements"

hold on. how do one craft factory if crafting grid is disabled???

Posted: **Sat Apr 06, 2013 13:44**

RealBadAngel wrote:"disabling craft grid and adding a craft node(factory) that is crafted with rare elements"

hold on. how do one craft factory if crafting grid is disabled???

Bas080 wrote:The first factory node has to be obtained using /giveme. The admin is responsible for setting up a factory and some wood to craft the first tools.

Posted: **Sat Apr 06, 2013 16:52**

Thank you jojoa1997 and NakedFury for helping me test civilization mod. I will be adding a few changes.

* Digging sand, gravel and clay can only be done using a shovel. Only dirt can be dug with hand.
* Add some instructions/definitions to the factory node formspec for a less steap learning curve
* Give the player one tree on player join. Admin no longer needs to supply wood, only factory node

EDIT:
I will be running the civilization test server from now on. You can join the server on
IP: 31.151.189.3
Port: 30000

Posted: **Sun Apr 07, 2013 18:40**

The idea sounds intresting - at least for more complex crafts (furniture, machines etc.), and especially combined with a selling machine and some way of specialization.
Simple objects that are used more frequently ought to be available in the conventional way of crafting them. Torches are needed frequently and are easy enough to produce on-the-fly. Most tools do not last long enough to warrant production in one of the machines. A massively extended lifespan (factor 10 and up) has to go along with it.
An inventory of 9 slots for the player is insuficcient for good buildings. Minetest lives on there beeing many nodes and shapes - where even the default inventory is not large enough sometimes. So instead of civilization, this seems more like extreme survival to me.
Yet the idea to not be able to craft everything with your hands wherever you are is good. Maybe you could do specialized machines for special crafts? E.g. one that can create all basic wooden tools (could be part of the inventory), one that does stone tools and so on. For work on steel, you might have a portable forge (-> if not portable, extend the lifespan of tools significantly). Especially furniture and machines ought to be created using your machines. After all, that is part of civilization...you do not have a replicator for all things, but tools to create tools to create tools and so on...
After having tried it out, I think it is not very useful in its current state. It is easy to loose the initial wood by not turning it into the required materials or not having enough for the receipe left. That you have to conventionally "craft" the desired output by putting the materials once in the crafting grid and in the input slot makes everything rather complicated.
Tools do not stack. So they use one of the rare inventory slots each.

Posted: **Mon Apr 08, 2013 00:18**

Sokomine, First of all thank you for your extended and well constructed feedback. It is much appreciated. You are mentioning several proposals for changes. I will give my thoughts on each of them.

Simple objects that are used more frequently ought to be available in the conventional way of crafting them. Torches are needed frequently and are easy enough to produce on-the-fly.

I agree with you. I propose a craft grid of 1x2(in height) Just big enough to make planks/sticks and torches. However tools cannot be crafted. The two slots also symbolize the two hands a minetester has.

Most tools do not last long enough to warrant production in one of the machines. A massively extended lifespan (factor 10 and up) has to go along with it.

The lifespan of a tool is decided by the material from which it is made. I will not edit the lifespan of the default tools. I will add carbon steel which allow you to make carbon steel tools which do have a factor 10 lifespan increase.

An inventory of 9 slots for the player is insuficcient for good buildings. Minetest lives on there beeing many nodes and shapes - where even the default inventory is not large enough sometimes. So instead of civilization,

I was actually thinking of having a limit of 3 slots. As this is not to do in lua i choose for a nice 3x3 grid of 9 slots. The reason for this is to create a need to return to "civilization" to sell and acquire the tools/nodes one really needs and not having an excess of nodes in the inventory. I agree with you that this is not satisfactory when building a creative design. I am thinking of adding a bags/backpack mod to compensate for the creative builders.

Yet the idea to not be able to craft everything with your hands wherever you are is good. Maybe you could do specialized machines for special crafts? E.g. one that can create all basic wooden tools (could be part of the inventory), one that does stone tools and so on. For work on steel, you might have a portable forge (-> if not portable, extend the lifespan of tools significantly). Especially furniture and machines ought to be created using your machines. After all, that is part of civilization...you do not have a replicator for all things, but tools to create tools to create tools and so on...

When i read this part of your feedback I realize that I have still allot to do.

After all, that is part of civilization

You cannot be more correct. I will implement the idea of the ages. Wood > Stone > Bronze > Iron > Mese. An age is materialized by upgrading the crafting node. The way that is done is by mining 100 of the nodes belonging to that age and offering them to research. When researched it is allowed to craft the crafts that contain the materials of that new age. (like age of empires :P )

or

In the wood age you can craft a stone age crafting node and with that you can craft a iron node. Thus not having the painstaking mining for research and a nice way of choosing what material you want to specialize in. I think this is better and i think that is also what you mean with

Maybe you could do specialized machines for special crafts

Tools do not stack. So they use one of the rare inventory slots each.

Mining with stacked tools is the same as Bart Simpson writing his punishment with 3 chalks taped to each-other. Cheating!

Again ty for the feedback!

Posted: **Mon Apr 08, 2013 01:14**

bas080 wrote:I agree with you. I propose a craft grid of 1x2(in height) Just big enough to make planks/sticks and torches. However tools cannot be crafted. The two slots also symbolize the two hands a minetester has.

That sounds like an excellent idea!

bas080 wrote:In the wood age you can craft a stone age crafting node and with that you can craft a iron node.

Sounds good and convincing. The tools crafted with those nodes are most likely something everyone will need. For the specialization, I was thinking more about complex nodes from external mods - fridges, ovens and so on from homedecor - table lamp, stairs etc. from 3dforniture - grinder etc. from technic - mesecons - etc. The default game doesn't contain overly complex crafts (well, maybe a bucket?). My circular saw, for example, is a special machine for creating stairlike nodes. You could have other machines for creating objects out of wood (fences, doors etc) or metal.

bas080 wrote:Mining with stacked tools is the same as Bart Simpson writing his punishment with 3 chalks taped to each-other.

Ah :-) So the common minetest gamer has committed the crime of...hm...logging in and wasting CPU time on a game? :-)

The trouble is that running to and fro between building sites and chests or mining site and crafting machines will by most players not be considered as fun. It may be ok a few times, but soon it gets more than boring. Even if you add teleporters, there would still be all that shoving around of inventory between chests. A backpack would not help much here (unless you return inventory size to the normal amount). In Minecraft classic, where there are not that many block types (hardly more than would fit into the normal MT inventory), a very simple inventory of 8 or 9 nodes works. In MT, which its thousands of options, the inventory usually is too small. There are lots of furniture and stairplus-nodes to take into account! Those allow you to build in a smaller scale and better looking houses. And that's one of the reasons why creative mode in Minetest is of limited help - it gets unhandy when your inventory is too small to accomodate all the blocks you need. Less...creative players who believe that a huge box of cheap cobble or wood (usage of more than one material is strictly forbidden) and a 1x2 free space for the door (windows are forbidden as well; if you're very lucky, you get a torch, a chest and a furnace inside because you can't live well without) may encounter no trouble with a limitation in slots. Of course you can build good buildings out of few materials. It is just much more difficult and requires buildings which are a lot larger. A civilization requires enough material. It doesn't work well if there's too few of everything.

Posted: **Mon Apr 08, 2013 01:28**

Sokomine wrote:The trouble is that running to and fro between building sites and chests or mining site and crafting machines will by most players not be considered as fun. It may be ok a few times, but soon it gets more than boring.

The very same could be said of crafting. After doing it for the 1000th time, one just wants to get on with the actual building.

But I do like this idea, being able to craft complex things just about anywhere doesn't make much sense. In alot of games, you have to go back to town to trade, use blacksmiths/wood-working facilities, etc.

Posted: **Mon Apr 08, 2013 02:28**

Sometimes crafting is faster than waiting for creative inventory to come up with the result of the serach.

Posted: **Mon Apr 08, 2013 03:30**

:-S i dont know how many nodes you play with but at 1.1K all my searches are pretty instantaneous

Posted: **Mon Apr 08, 2013 04:29**

Sokomine, a backpack would help as it has a larger inventory size then 9 nodes and is easy to pickup (unlike chest that has to be empty) and take with you to place elsewhere. 9 times 8*6. The restriction on inventory size is to change the gameplay, as you do not have enough slots to be a miner/lumberjack/shoveler/builder at the same time. That way you have to choose what it is that you want to be.

Sokomine, I think you are a very creative builder and play minetest for creating original buildings. I really like the building you made on my 30001 server. I put a dualport near it. Hope to see more.

However, creativity in civilization mod is defined by how one can acquire the items you want in a descent amount of time. How you do this is up to you. It will take longer to build the thing you want, but the process of acquiring the resources is supposed to be fun and challenging. If you need the ability to craft on site, you have to stay close to the city(so you can buy/sell), mine nodes that are near you, or invest in crafting facilities near your building site.

I like your idea that you can choose to specialize in a mod. It can go hand in hand with the idea of ages. For example the mesecons mod requires the mese age. Once that age is achieved the user can craft a mesecons crafting node. I would like to keep it generic so in the case of your mod it would add a crafting node to make your circular saw it cannot make anything else.

btw, will add your mod to the simple pack

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 04:28**

So the age crafting nodes are working. At game join a player gets a wood age crafter and 2 tree. With that he can make first wood tools.

The thing we did not account for is how to upgrade to next age(acquire next age crafter). The wood crafter cannot craft with cobble. I suggest adding an origin node. This node is located at the initial spawn location. When this node is supplied with the necessary amount of nodes required for the next age it will gave the player the node by placing it in it's inventory.

Screenie of the age crafter nodes in ascending age order. Wood > Stone > Bronze > Iron > Mese. Thinking about adding gold before mese.

Meanwhile i will be working on the mod crafting nodes and on how to acquire them. Any ideas anyone?

EDIT: Server is updated

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:56**

how about it counts how many crafts it has made so when you say craft 1000 times then you upggraade. Also what about having linked chests for transport. Also you should be able to make miner nodes that has a miners formspec and a woodcutter's node that is optimized for wood.
mine-can hold infinite cobble and 500 ores. frre stone pick and you can only craft better picks in it. also it gives an upgrade to the pick when you craft it.
woodcutter-same but you can craft wood into any item.

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:59**

Your server is down. Just wanna highlight that.

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 12:30**

Jordach wrote:Your server is down. Just wanna highlight that.

I made a mistake in the server backing-up script. Fixed now.

jojoa1997 wrote:Also you should be able to make miner nodes that has a miners formspec and a woodcutter's node that is optimized for wood.

Player specialization nodes... i like the idea. I'll make sure to make something in this direction.

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 12:32**

Also maybe allow players within a distance of the node get faster movement

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 12:44**

Server shutting down again..

Edit; It's up again.

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 20:37**

jojoa1997 wrote:Also maybe allow players within a distance of the node get faster movement

That should wait until the movement and physics adjusting system is in stable.

Posted: **Tue Apr 09, 2013 22:45**

i don't really understand how craft system works. can you explain more detailed please?

Posted: **Wed Apr 10, 2013 05:27**

Mito551 wrote:i don't really understand how craft system works. can you explain more detailed please?

ATM it does not work, it is WIP.

Crash-course of idea
inventory-crafting is 1x2(height) grid. (so you cannot make tools and many other crafts)

Then you have age-nodes.
wood age you can craft wood tools and wood only containing items (you get at the start)
stone age you can craft stone tools and stone only containing items
bronze...
iron...
maybe put gold in it too (golden age)... :-)
mese...

After mese age you can craft mod nodes. These allow for crafting all nodes that a mod contains. f.e. stair crafter allows the crafting of all types of stairs but only stairs related items/nodes. mesecon crafter will only allow the crafting of mesecons nodes/items.
+
Specialization benches which allow certain crafts and handicaps (still have to think this one threw) for example, someone that specializes in mesecons can craft mesecons wire with less mese.

Basicly
Requires you to earn crafts by unlocking ages and mods
Gives ability to specialize in certain crafts/occupation.

FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

[Mod] Civilization [0.2] [civilization]

[Mod] Civilization [0.2] [civilization]