FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Flying Carpet
Quickly explore the vast terrain with the magical flying carpet. Fly safely and preserve your energy to make the most of it.

The carpet flies fast horizontally, but very slowly is it able to move vertically. It constantly reduces your mana resources, you can't use it forever (note: only if Mana mod is installed). Also, long flights, scratching and crashes will cause long-term damage to the flying carpet.



How to use
(note: very detailed instructions are also in the readme file)
To obtain it in Minetest Game (and similar subgames), use this crafting recipe:

Red Wool, Yellow Wool, Red Wool
Mese Crystal, Gold Ingot, Mese Crystal

To obtain it by cheating, use “/giveme flying_carpet:carpet”.

Look to the desired initial flight direction and place the carpet on any flat surface, make sure it has enough space. Then rightclick it to depart.
Flying the carpet is a bit tricky, because it flies fast, you can't fully brake and the turning speed is rather low. Be careful not to crash into the landscape!

If the carpet is under a certain critcal speed, it loses its magic and just drops on the ground. This also happens if you crash into the landscape! Crashing might hurt you, so be careful. But falling with the carpet causes less damage than falling normally. Still, you better don't want to crash too often. ;-)
Your carpet will also stop working if your mana resources are depleted (only if Mana mod is installed and active).
When your carpet stopped working, you have to collect the carpet (punch it) and place it again.

If you fly directly down onto solid ground, your flying carpet will come to a halt quickly.

Your carpet can not fly into liquids from above, but it can fly into them from the side or even below. But be careful, being submerged in a liquid may slow you down a lot!

Your carpet will also wear out over time when flying (very minor wear), sliding (pretty minor wear) on the ground and especially collisions at high speed (major wear). At high wear levels, the carpet will emit black star particles, at critical wear levels it will emit an annoying sound. At this point you have roughly up to (!) 5 minutes worth of flight left before it disintegrates under your feet, so you should land as soon as possible. If you fly perfectly, you can use a single flying carpet for about 12 hours.

If you leave a carpet alone and it rests for 1 minute, it will disappear and is gone for good.

Controls:

• Up: Accelerate
• Down: Brake
• Left: Turn left
• Right: Turn right
• Jump: Rise up
• Sneak: Fall
• Right click carpet: Get on or get off the carpet
• Punch carpet: Stop flying, or get off the carpet and take it if not flying

Note: You can't get on the carpet or take it if it is going fast.

Known bugs (green = has been fixed recently):

• The flight sound ought to be dynamically assigned to the carpet, yet it seems to have always the same volume, regardless of how far away you are. What is funny, I already managed to do that correctly once, but I don't have that code anymore. :-(
• If you were attached to the flying carpet, then leave the server, then join again, you will spawn detached from the carpet
• You permanently lose mana regeneration if you leave the server while being attached to a carpet.
• Sliding does not take nodeboxes into account (e.g. snow from Minetest Game)
• Random collisions may occour in mid-flight (I have no idea what causes this, maybe unloaded chuncks? Or a mod bug?)

TODO list (green = done):

• Hurt player when dropping with carpet (probably needs engine change)
• Add a few particle effects
• Network optimization (well, at least as much as possible)
• Crafting recipe
• Automatically remove used-up but not collected carpets after a while
• Maybe: Slowing down down by sliding on the floor
• Maybe: Make low-res textures

Dependencies

• No mandatory dependencies.
• Optional: default and wool from Minetest Game (used for the player model, animations and crafting recipe). This mod is also compatible with the Player Model mod
• Optional: Mana (1.1.0 or later, but before 2.0.0)
• Optional: doc_items and doc_identifier from Documentation System
• Optional: intllib

License of everything: WTFPL, except one sound by p0ss (CC-BY-SA 3.0).
Download: http://repo.or.cz/minetest_flying_carpe ... bb8b98.zip
Project page (Git): http://repo.or.cz/w/minetest_flying_carpet.git
Version: 0.5.0

really cool, but i think, the texture need not to be in a so high quality

Thank you for your work Wuzzy, it's an interresting work ! :)

Can't elevate or lower the carpet with shift and space. Running MT from git.

The texture looks indeed a bit to high res, but i would advice to leave in the pack even if you make a new low res version, so people with highres TPs can still use it if they want.

What's the difference to this flying carpet? viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11257

LOL, Hybrid Dog, I have to admit, I was not aware of the [flyingcarpet] mod from the Flight mod pack.
Luckily the shortname of the other mod is “flyingcarpet”, so there is no naming collision.

I have just now tried out this mod, but I was disappointed. [flyingcarpet] is a very simplistic mod and clearly not what I would have liked to see from a flying carpet. In brief, [flying_carpet] (this mod) has more like “airplane” physics, while [flyingcarpet] (the other mod) has (mini-)helicopter phyiscs, and [flying_carpet] is more complex and challenging to control than [flyingcarpet], which is simple and easy to control (too easy IMO).

Here are the differences:

• The texture. :D
• flying_carpet has sounds, flyingcarpet has none
• flyingcarpet is based on flyingmachine, while flying_carpet is loosely based on the boats mod.
• flying_carpet can not fly backwards
• flying_carpet can also not float freely in the air (except in the initial starting phase), while flyingcarpet can
• flying_carpet will fall down and needs to be “restarted” when it crashes into the landscape, flyingcarpet doesn't
• flying_carpet is faster than flyingcarpet
• flying_carpet has much lower turning speed than flyingcarpet
• flying_carpet has much lower rise and fall speed than flyingcarpet
• flying_carpet is bigger (carpet size) than flyingcarpet
• flying_carpet has a larger file size (264 KiB vs 128 KiB)
• There may (!) be a difference in performance, but I haven't checked it yet.
• flying_carpet uses the Mana mod, flyingcarpet doesn't
• flyingcarpet has a hard dependency on default, flying_carpet doesn't
• Rising works in flyingcarpet *shame*. I really should fix it in my mod! xD

So flying_carpet and flyingcarpet are quite different, actually.

About the texture complaint: I have tried to scale down the texture down further, but so far, all my attempts look like shit. But this texture is not very high-res: 168×115. But if you really want to, I could try again with the texture, but I don't think it is very important for now.

Mr. Wuzzy, I think you have found your calling. Writing infomercials. :D

ExeterDad, now I feel ashamed. xD

Why can't l rise with the carpet?
When l try it, it seems to be teleporting back to its previous height but it doesn't lose its increased velocity.

Hybrid Dog, yes, I know, it is a known bug. It annoyed me, too. I am not sure what caused it, but my guess it that the carpet somehow collided with the player when it tries to rise. My workaround for now is that carpets now don't collide with objects anymore and presto! The carpet can now freely rise and sink.
The obvious downside of this is that, well, carpets now don't collide with objects anymore.

Version 0.2.0 released! (See 1st post for download.)

Changelog:

• Rising is now finally possible
• You can now slide on solid blocks, fly near the surface and you hear a scratch sound and become slowed down. Its a fun way to land but requires some skill
• You can not fly down into water and other liquids anymore, if you try, you won't get deep and will quickly rise to the surface again.
• If you somehow manage to get submerged into a liquid (for example, flying into a waterfall), your carpet will greatly slow down, based on the viscosity of the liquid
• Carpet placement optimized: You now need at least a open space of 3×2×3 (x×y×z) nodes to place a carpet.
• Also, the placed carpet can not be placed near other carpets
• Also, a carpet can not be placed on or in a liquid
• The flight sound now also stops playing when you run out of mana (it continued previously)
• Flying carpets don't collide with objects anymore
• You can only rise and sink as soon as you have reached a minimal speed

Notes: The sliding and water checking routines may not be fully optimized yet, and probably (!) eat away CPU or network bandwidth, I am not sure. Please report it whether this mod appears to be slow or non-responsive or just say how fast the carpet reacts in general. But also report if everything works fine for you. Also please say if you have tested in singleplayer, or in multiplayer.

Maybe it's possible to change the physical object property of a player. l know that it's possible to change its textures property.

Could you host the mod on github.com (closed source service) or gitlab.com (FOSS service) so we can update easily via git? The abo feature in phpBB is not that well implemented, and getting fixes automatically is really comfortable!

@Hybrid Dog: My quick attempts using set_properties on a player have failed. It seems that this function does not change anything; it may a no-op for players and thus incorrectly documented in lua_api.txt. Maybe it is a bug in Minetest and needs to be reported, I am not sure yet.
Anyways, I don't think it is very important for now that carpets don't collide with other objects, but it should be done somehow.
@lightonflux: I will create a repository online as soon as I feel like it, but certainly on the 1.0.0 release, if not earlier. But it will be on repo.or.cz.

Wuzzy wrote:@Hybrid Dog: My quick attempts using set_properties on a player have failed. It seems that this function does not change anything; it may a no-op for players and thus incorrectly documented in lua_api.txt. Maybe it is a bug in Minetest and needs to be reported, I am not sure yet.
Anyways, I don't think it is very important for now that carpets don't collide with other objects, but it should be done somehow.

It works, install worldedit if you don't have it, start minetest, then type
//lua minetest.get_player_by_name("singleplayer"):set_properties({visual_size={x=90,y=90}}) into chat and after that press F7 and view giant Sam.

lightonflux wrote:Could you host the mod on github.com (closed source service) or gitlab.com (FOSS service) so we can update easily via git? The abo feature in phpBB is not that well implemented, and getting fixes automatically is really comfortable!

done https://github.com/HybridDog/flying_carpet

Version 0.3.0 comes with a variety of updates:

• A wide range of particle effects have been added
• The carpet disappears if unoccupied and non-moving for 1 minute
• You can now get hurt by crashes with the flying carpet and a high speed, but not as mush as by free-falling
• Added more read-me text and description.txt
• Bug fixed: Flight sound continued playing when carpet was out of range

Most notably are the movement particles, seen in the screenshot above. If the flying carpet flies, star particles appear. They have 2 colors: Red and yellow. The yellow stars appear at the safe and normal speed.
Red stars are a warning sign that you are moving dangerously slow, if you keep slowing down, you would eventually become slower than the critical speed which means the magic carpet deactivates. Note that in the first 5 seconds, the magic carpet cannot deactivate.


I have now created my own Git repo online.
http://repo.or.cz/w/minetest_flying_carpet.git

This will be the official one, consider Hybrid Dog's repo unofficial. :P

Hybrid Dog, I have tried set_properties yet again and it indeed can set some visual things like the one you have shown. However, it seems the function can not change some basic things. Specifically, the following things appear to be unchangable even with set_properties:

• hp_max
• collide_with_objects
• physical
• is_visible
• makes_footstep_sound
• collisionbox

Hybrid Dog, I have tried set_properties yet again and it indeed can set some visual things like the one you have shown. However, it seems the function can not change some basic things. Specifically, the following things appear to be unchangable even with set_properties:

• hp_max
• collide_with_objects
• physical
• is_visible
• makes_footstep_sound
• collisionbox

ok, then enable the carpet's physical and temporary disable it if y velocity is bigger than 0

Hmm, no, thanks. That would be weirdly inconsistent. What would be the point, anyways? Object collisions are especially interesting when the carpet is moving, but those are not possible atm. I rather disable object collisions altogether than to have a weird mix. This is going to stay this way until I find a proper fix to avoid carpet—attached player collisions (if that even caused the problem).

Wuzzy wrote:Hmm, no, thanks. That would be weirdly inconsistent. What would be the point, anyways? Object collisions are especially interesting when the carpet is moving, but those are not possible atm. I rather disable object collisions altogether than to have a weird mix. This is going to stay this way until I find a proper fix to avoid carpet—attached player collisions (if that even caused the problem).

ok

Version 0.4.0 released!
This version comes with a lot of changes and a few bugfixes. Main changes are adding wear for flying, sliding (low wear) and especially crashing (high wear). There are also indicators for very high and critical wear levels. Fly safely, or else your carpet may disintegrate under your feet!
Other changes include a vastly improved liquid handling, a crafting recipe and a lot of gameplay tweaks.

Changelog:

• Cause wear by flying, sliding and crashing at high speeds
• Carpet will not drop freely into liquids anymore, instead it is slowed down like a player is
• Add crafting recipe for Minetest Game (and probably most forks)
• Flying carpet is now considered a tool and its stack size has been reduced to 1
• Emit black particles and later an annoying sound at very high wear levels
• Carpet is now heavily slowed down inside liquids based on viscosity
• Punching the carpet while flying now stops the flight, instead of collecting it
• Carpet can now be collected and entered only if the carpet is going slow or not moving
• Slightly improved minimum speed limit (now detects crashes in the first 5 seconds as well)
• It is not possible anymore to enter another carpet while sitting an a carpet (was needed to fix a bug)
• Add screenshot and other mod metadata
• Some other bugs were fixed

What do you think of Flying Carpet 0.4.0? IMO this version is still not ready for 1.0.0 since there are still some bad bugs lurking around (see 1st post). Especially I want to hear your opinion about the new wear system.

Carpet looks gorgeous!
Not sure why but space/shift does not work for me to control vertical carpet position. Also carpet starts moving automatically forward (not sure if it was intentional).

I did tons of crash while trying rise up carpet and wear/durability almost same as new (maybe speed was not enough).

Your mid-air crashes are a known problems and I have yet to find a solution, sorry. That's why it is still not version 1.0.0.
If your carpet came to an aprupt halt in mid-air, that's the bug. If it just fell down but kept its horizontal velocity, that's you either having not enough mana (if you have the mana mod installed) or you were too slow (red particles behind you).
Normally, if you just start flying in the air and don't press anything, the initial speed should be fast enough.

Yes, carpet starts automatically to fly, that's intentional. The flying carpet kinda behaves like an airplane, you need a minimum speed to fly. You also need a minimum speed in order to rise or sink. This is not a helicopter which can take off vertically. :P
The idea was to make flying a bit challenging, not trivial.

Read the readme file for more infos on how to use the flying carpet.

nice mod, but i prefer heli(more cheaty :P)

Version 0.5.0 released!

Changes:
- The flying carpet now has a complete entry for the Documentation System. The mod supports both doc_items and doc_identifier (the lookup tool)
- Add intllib support
- Add German translation
- Some code cleanup and refactoring
- Use Markdown format for README

Fantastic mod!