[Mod] Modular tunnel boring/building machine [digtron][0.8]

[Diamond knight]

This should be expanded to more than just tunnel boring machines, it would be perfect for large custom vehicles, I suggest an advanced version on the green motor be added, and a boat motor, and a jet motor that does not need traction. This would go well with space mods to build rockets.

[texmex]

This should be expanded to more than just tunnel boring machines, it would be perfect for large custom vehicles, I suggest an advanced version on the green motor be added, and a boat motor, and a jet motor that does not need traction. This would go well with space mods to build rockets.

I disagree. I think it should do one thing well, kind of like the unix philosophy. I think it does just that as of now, with some polishing left before it becomes an outstanding mod. Some other mods like mesecons and technics does too much in my opinion, and their UIs demands programming in their own regard (and not in an in-game way). Digtron as of now strikes a very good balance between complexity and the learning curve of new players.

Another aspect of digtron being well suited for drill type machines is that the teleport style movement is jerky but feels completely conceptually justified by the real-life nature of drilling. That type of movement does not work well for vehicles with fluid movements such as boats or rockets. Look at the minetest_game boat mod for reference, it's completely differently built.

[texmex]

Quick tip for that last touch polishing session, FaceDeer. Awards is a great achievement mod you could add some entries into. For instance:

• "No looking back." Place your first digtron component.
• "Riding the storm." Complete your first digtron movement.
• "In too deep." Use a digtron in nether realm (nether mod)

and so on.

[FaceDeer]

A similiar MT look could be applied to the inventory hopper, making it remind of the MT chest a bit. Just a thought!

Yeah, the inventory modules were one of the things I did quick-and-dirty programmer art for, just to make sure I could visually distinguish them while doing development. They definitely need a better art pass before the mod is released. I'm not sure that copying the furnace's appearance for the fuel module would be appropriate since the fuel module only *stores* fuel rather than actually *burning* it, but something more suggestive of a grimy hopper filled with coal is definitely in order.

BTW: I wanted to compare the effects of particles on/off,
but after I un-checked "Particles" in the game-settings,
the digtron still produces smoke etc. when activating the controller.

How is that supposed to work ?

I've never actually tried turning off particles in the game's setting panel before. I see the same issue - particles are still being shown even though the game settings have been set to particles-off. I wonder if perhaps that's a Minetest bug? I wouldn't think that something in the game settings pane could be overridden by a mod like this and would require explicit handling on my part. I'll add it to my to-investigate list.

In the meantime, try going into init.lua and changing "digtron.particle_effects = true " to false. That should prevent the Digtron mod from attempting to display particle effects.

This should be expanded to more than just tunnel boring machines, it would be perfect for large custom vehicles, I suggest an advanced version on the green motor be added, and a boat motor, and a jet motor that does not need traction. This would go well with space mods to build rockets.

As Texmex says, this mod isn't really being made with general vehicular usage in mind. But that said, I will definitely be doing some more work on the "traction" concept in the near future and one of the things I was thinking of doing is exempting the pusher module from traction requirements. Now that there's a crate that can pick up and put down a Digtron anywhere keeping the pusher limited in how it can push a Digtron around doesn't really add much to the challenge of using Digtron properly, just unnecessary annoyance instead.

If anyone wants additional decorative "vehicle" components to add to a Digtron beyond those metal panels I added a little while back, feel free to suggest some or even to whip some up. All you need to do to make a node into a Digtron node is to add "digtron = 1" to the node's groups, that will cause it to be considered part of a Digtron array and get moved with the rest of them. It's a low priority for me right now though, and I can't guarantee that I'll add more decorative nodes to the base mod. Maybe if there are enough it'd be worthwhile to create a separate mod that can be installed alongside the base Digtron that includes the decorations.

Quick tip for that last touch polishing session, FaceDeer. Awards is a great achievement mod you could add some entries into.

Added to the to-do list, that looks nice.

Last night I started adding support for the Doc modpack, which puts user documentation in-game. It'll be nice to trim down that huge README.txt and put the text someplace that the player is more likely to actually read it. :)

[FaceDeer]

Just added a pile of achievements via an optional dependency on the Awards mod. I've left them all non-secret for now so you guys can browse the list and let me know if any look dumb. Haven't tested all of them yet, I'll diddle with my awards.txt file at some point tomorrow and see if I can't unlock them all to make sure I haven't added a time-bomb to crash the game on the millionth node dug. :)

[FaceDeer]

Today's update: all the settings you used to have to edit init.lua for are now available from the in-game "Settings" tab (click the "Advanced" button and then expand the "mods" section to find the Digtron settings).

Also, the mod should now respect the main "enable particles" setting. I guess that really was something each mod needs to explicitly read and implement.

[texmex]

We need tooltip line breaks.

+ Spoiler

[FaceDeer]

We need tooltip line breaks.

Line breaks added. :)

I didn't create a node upgrader for this change so controllers, builders, and intermittent diggers in existing games will still have some overly-long tooltips. Digging and replacing the nodes in question will cause them to be fixed. The tooltips are part of the formspec, which is initialized on node creation and which my Digtron code then copies unaltered when a Digtron moves or is crated. I figured this was a largely cosmetic issue, not something feature-breaking, so upgrading them would be more risk than reward.

[FaceDeer]

Latest significant changes:

• Revamped how traction works. Digtrons can always move downward regardless of traction, and pushers ignore traction in every direction (pushers were starting to become a bit irrelevant so perhaps this will make them more useful again)
• Drastically trimmed down the Readme.txt (and the documentation in the first post of this thread) now that the detailed documentation has been added in-game via the "doc" mod. I also added a link to the wiki page to the description (thanks for all the work on that, Hajo!).
• New textures for the various storage modules. For those who've modified the textures in their local copy and need to change how the control module tinting is done, that's now defined at the top of init.lua instead of via semitransparent overlay textures. The tint for soft-material diggers is also customizable that way as well.

There's very little left in my to-do list now. Getting close to a release candidate. :)

[atlasmoon]

Hi

When I started this mod, I got the following error :

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: ========== ERROR FROM LUA ===========
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: Failed to load and run script from
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: /.minetest/mods/digtron/init.lua:
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: /.minetest/mods/digtron/init.lua:104: attempt to call field 'register_lbm' (a nil value)
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: stack traceback:
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]:    /.minetest/mods/digtron/init.lua:104: in main chunk
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: ======= END OF ERROR FROM LUA ========
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: Server: Failed to load and run /.minetest/mods/digtron/init.lua
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: ModError: ModError: Failed to load and run /.minetest/mods/digtron/init.lua
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: Error from Lua:
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: /.minetest/mods/digtron/init.lua:104: attempt to call field 'register_lbm' (a nil value)
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: stack traceback:
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]:    /.minetest/mods/digtron/init.lua:104: in main chunk
2017-01-23 12:52:44: ERROR[main]: Check debug.txt for details.

[DS-minetest]

@atlasmoon: What Minetest version do you use?

[orwell]

Edit: Duplicate.
What's your minetest version?

[atlasmoon]

Minetest 0.4.13
Ubuntu 16.04 x64

p.s:I had this issue only with this mod.
Thanks

[texmex]

That is super old. Digtron is probably built with newer engine features. There's a proper PPA for Ubuntu that has the latest versions, no need to stay behind.

[FaceDeer]

Yeah, 0.4.13 is just too old I'm afraid. I downloaded a copy and tried it out and even with the register_lbm calls removed (they're only needed for upgrading nodes from older versions of Digtron) there are other features Digtron uses that aren't supported in earlier versions of Minetest. It'd be a lot of work to make Digtron backward compatible to 0.4.13.

The latest verison of Minetest is 0.4.15, I'd suggest trying it out. It's nice. :)

[atlasmoon]

@ texmex
@ FaceDeer

Yeah, IT IS WORKING.

Strange I got the old version. I followed all the procedure and installed the game. They should update the site so new players get directly the PPA instead of the old version.

Sincerely, this is why I searched all minecraft like sandbox and installed this game. remind me of the great TBM of minecraft. Miss the mining laser one too, but seems there is no mod like here (for the moment ;) ).

Thanks team.

[hajo]

Miss the mining laser

Have a look at the tools that come with Advanced Trains.

[azekill_DIABLO]

The robot looks cheerful. Does it respect protection? id not like to have such a beast charging my house while eating my cobble walls.

[orwell]

Miss the mining laser

Have a look at the tools that come with Advanced Trains.

That's a debug item and WILL BE REMOVED!
Destroys everything, does not take care of survival, does not wear out, does not drop items... don't!

[FaceDeer]

The robot looks cheerful. Does it respect protection? id not like to have such a beast charging my house while eating my cobble walls.

It should respect protection, with the Digtron having only the permissions of the player clicking on it (or in the case of the auto-controller, the last player to set it running). If a Digtron tries to move into a protected node it will register an obstruction, and digging and building on protected nodes should fail as if it was an impenetrable wall. The crate will also register protected nodes as obstructed if someone tries to unpack a Digtron so that it overlaps protected area.

However, I must admit that I've done all my testing in single player mode. So while I coded Digtron to account for user permissions, I haven't actually *tried* a lot of the possible abuses that should be prevented.

The last feature left on my to-do list before I plan to declare version 1.0 release candidate is a "stop node" setting for the auto-controller that will let you select a particular node type for Digtron to treat as impassible. It was suggested a few weeks ago with the example of using torches to mark a spot where a tree-harvesting Digtron should stop. Was planning on getting that done in the next few days, you might find that useful.

[texmex]

Found out about this problem. Thought you might want to read it, but I'm not sure it is fixable from the digtron side. Possibly there are other cave generating mods out there that also eats away on our digtrons.

There is this wonderful MOD :
[Mod]Modular tunnel boring/building machine [digtron]
But when I use both of those MODs "Catacomb" + "TBM", I keep facing the issue that when catacomb generate new "room" or corridor, sometime it "eat" my boring machine. So could you please make it that catacomb reorganize "TBM" block and doesn't generate over them (So I can keep digging and same time generating catacomb, and avoid seeing my machine disappear when a new room is generated and have to build new one).

[FaceDeer]

Found out about this problem. Thought you might want to read it, but I'm not sure it is fixable from the digtron side. Possibly there are other cave generating mods out there that also eats away on our digtrons.

Aw. I actually encountered a similar problem when I was doing testing on earlier versions of Digtron, a default dungeon "ate" part of a tunneling machine. I think I fixed the problem as far as default dungeons are concerned by adding "ground_content = false" to the Digtron's components, but yeah, when it comes to map generation it's up to the individual mods to actually read and respect that flag. Some mods might deliberately decide not to respect that flag for various reasons.

I'll jump in the other thread and see if I can help Digtron and those other mods play nice with each other.

In the meantime, I can offer some ideas to maybe reduce the problem a bit:

• Build your Digtron so that you can be as near the front as possible as it moves. This will hopefully cause map chunks to be generated far enough in front of you that these mods will have finished their work by the time you get to them.
• If you're in Creative mode, use a crate to make a couple of copies of your Digtron before you go on a mining adventure. That way if one gets eaten it's not such a hassle rebuilding it.
• If you have free movement privs, fly through the ground ahead of the Digtron to pre-generate the map chunks you're planning to dig through. Spoilers, unfortunately. Maybe close your eyes while doing it.
• Maybe increasing the cycle time of the Digtron will help, again to cause mapgen to be finished by the time you get close to the edge. Not sure if this will really help though, and it'll make things annoyingly slow, so it's a last resort.

[texmex]

Figured it's a hard problem to solve. In the meantime I'll just tell my players that the earth giveth and the earth taketh. Thanks for looking into it!

[FaceDeer]

Figured it's a hard problem to solve. In the meantime I'll just tell my players that the earth giveth and the earth taketh. Thanks for looking into it!

Looks like there's a possible solution. If Paramat doesn't take it into his main repository I'll make a fork of catacombs that's compatible with Digtron for you. I like the idea of giant mechanical worms burrowing around through ground already honeycombed with dungeons.

In other news: I just added a "stop block" setting to the auto-controller, to allow players to fence in their Digtrons with a specific item. This is the last feature on my to-do list, everything else is nice-to-haves and get-to-somedays. So I declare release candidate 1. I'm going to spend a while just doing random testing and bugfixing now, with only the compatibility work previously mentioned remaining on the to-do list (it depends on other mods so I don't want to hold up on that basis alone).

[texmex]

Looks like there's a possible solution. If Paramat doesn't take it into his main repository I'll make a fork of catacombs that's compatible with Digtron for you. I like the idea of giant mechanical worms burrowing around through ground already honeycombed with dungeons.

That's very kind, thank you FaceDeer!

[FaceDeer]

TenPlus1 just added a modding API to his version of the Hopper mod, and it looks nice to me so I've updated both Digtron and my own fork of Hopper to use that API instead. It should be safe to mix and match the various different mods without crashes, but if you're using hoppers and want them to stay compatible with Digtron then the next time you update either mod to a version released after today you'll need to update the other mod as well. Just a heads-up.

Also, I forked Catacomb to add an API that would allow me to protect Digtron nodes against it. You'll need to install both this fork of Catacomb: https://github.com/FaceDeer/catacomb (I've submitted a pull request so paramat may include it into the main fork at some point) and the latest version of Digtron. I did some local testing and it seems to work, let me know if there's anything that breaks.

[atlasmoon]

Thanks FaceDeer

[texmex]

Players on my servers recently discovered the Digtron and having a lot of fun with it (I use the craftguides progressive to hide the what they cannot craft). I was thinking about the achievements. Who gets "Mine 100 diamonds with a Digtron"? I recall there's no ownership of Digtron nodes (which is fine, my server is about cooperation and resource sharing), so I assume every player get the achievement? Again, for my purposes it's a good thing but if you want to take it further someday, that could be an item on the list.

[FaceDeer]

Players on my servers recently discovered the Digtron and having a lot of fun with it (I use the craftguides progressive to hide the what they cannot craft). I was thinking about the achievements. Who gets "Mine 100 diamonds with a Digtron"?

Digtron controllers make note of the identity of the player who triggers it and the triggering player is the one who gets the credit. So if you're collaborating with someone to build a Digtron with an auto-controller to send it a thousand nodes down, make sure you're the one who actually clicks on the "execute" button in the formspec. :) If you come across someone else's Digtron and take it for a joyride you get the credit for whatever it digs as well.

This also applies to protected areas (or it should, anyway - I haven't extensively tested that part of things since most of my work is done in a single player test environment). If you run your Digtron into someone's protected zone, in theory you could have them come over and trigger the Digtron for you and it'll be allowed to dig in their areas.

I apologize, BTW, for not getting around to setting up the triggers on those achievements correctly to show progress bars. I've tested them and they trigger when you reach the milestones but there's some extra coding hoops I needed to jump through to make them show "50% of the way to this goal" indicators and I just remembered that I didn't get around to it. I'll take a look tomorrow to see if I can get that fixed.

I imagine it must be an interesting challenge figuring out how a Digtron works when you have to experiment to build the parts and don't know all the recipes. :)

[texmex]

Digtron controllers make note of the identity of the player who triggers it and the triggering player is the one who gets the credit.

That's is good and how I'd like it to be. Thank you!

I apologize, BTW, for not getting around to setting up the triggers on those achievements correctly to show progress bars. I've tested them and they trigger when you reach the milestones but there's some extra coding hoops I needed to jump through to make them show "50% of the way to this goal" indicators and I just remembered that I didn't get around to it. I'll take a look tomorrow to see if I can get that fixed.

No hurries! For me this detail is not that important.

I imagine it must be an interesting challenge figuring out how a Digtron works when you have to experiment to build the parts and don't know all the recipes. :)

Indeed, they have to be persistent. The audio and textual feedback from the digtron is very helpful once they have figured out the parts. In my opinion regular craft guides ruins the game in that it fully declares everything that can be crafted, right from the start.