FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I really like Glomie's protector mod, but it has a dependency on moreores, which I don't feel like installing, so I built my own. Mine has the advantage of only depending on default and bucket. Oh, and it also defends your territory against bucket-based attacks (including any mod that defines bucket liquids using the API defined by the bucket mod), unlike the original protector mod. Anyway, after finally getting it to work correctly, I realized that I'm not sure if I'm happy with the current crafting recipe: locked chest (for ownership) plus mese (so you have to do some digging before you can protect anything). I've thought about a few other recipes, but I'm still a bit indecisive. I could use some input, either your thoughts on my ideas or if you have better ideas you want me to consider. So far, here are my ideas.

mese
locked chest

My original idea. No foreseeable issues. The mese provides a way to make people work a bit before they can claim land, and the chest represents ownership. You do need to dig a while to fine mese, but once you find it, you find a lot of it, so protect blocks would be plentiful.

clay block
locked chest

Same reasons as above, but clay seems to be more rare, limiting the number of protect blocks that can be feasibly made. This limitation could be a problem however, as players need to be able to stop jerks from trashing their creations. Too few protect blocks may discourage larger projects.

brick block
locked chest

Same reasons and issues as using clay blocks.

cactus, mese, desert grass
torch, locked chest, bookshelf
furnace, glass, door

… or some other combination of things you would need to travel everywhere to get. You would need to be well-traveled to claim territory. However, I think players would get annoyed with this recipe very quickly.

locked chest, locked chest, locked chest
locked chest, locked chest, locked chest
locked chest, locked chest, locked chest

I don't have much to say about this one, exept that the recipie would be reversable. It would also require as mush iron as an iron block.

iron, iron, iron
iron, planks, iron
iron, iron, iron

A sort of reversed chest. Instead of protecting things on the inside, it protectes things on the outside.

locked chest

One locked chest becomes one protection block. Also, one protection block would be able to be converted back to one locked chest.

iron, iron, iron
iron, locked chest, iron
iron, iron, iron

Proposed by qwrwed. I'm guessing it's like an ultra-locked chest? The block design might look like a grey/silver chest.

cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone
cobblestone, mese, cobblestone
cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone

It still has the locked chest feel, but without having to spend both mese AND precious iron. A side benefit is that it gives players something to do with all that cobblestone they dig up. Unlike wood, there's a finite amount of cobblestone, but you only need so many furnaces and cobblestone staircases. Unless someone has a better idea, I think this is the one I'm going to go with.

planks, planks, planks
planks, iron lump, planks
planks, planks, planks

Another idea, but not one I like. Just throwing it out there in case it sparks someone else's ideas. This would be just like a locked chest, but you would use the iron without cooking it first. Not a good idea, but an idea.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and help.

I like the second-last one, but replace the planks with a locked chest.

That sounds interesting. It would be like a more heavily locked chest? Maybe the graphic for that would be a silver chest. I haven't actually finalized the graphic yet. For now, I'm using the image of the bottom of a chest for all six sides as a place holder. It actually looks nice though, so I might keep it that way, depending on which recipie I decide on.

If you use that texture, you should keep the border but make the inside(brown wood) more grey/silver.

Yeah, that might look nice. Also, I think there should be a way to distinguish them from chests more easily. Perhaps I'll add a carving of a flag to all six sides.

I got to thinking though. Maybe we don't even need a new block. Maybe I should apply the effect to the existing locked chests. So, you would mark your territory by placing down a locked chest, which would protect both you creations and your possessions. Good idea? Bad idea?

EDIT: I just realized that was a bad idea for a couple reasons. [s]I forgot that part of the code is part of the protect block itself because most of the heavy-lifting code is handled elsewhere. Implementing this in the chests would require redefining the chest.[/s] What was I thinking? None of the code is in the block itself, aside from the ownership and display message, both of which are also in the chest. I'm just tired. I had to redefine the buckets, but that was a necessary evil. I would prefer to leave the original items as unchanged as possible. But most of all, I've seen people sharing a house, with each player having a locked chest in the treasury. That wouldn't really work well if the chests were generating protection fields, as the fields would clash.

EDIT: What about

cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone
cobblestone, mese, cobblestone
cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone

It still has the locked chest feel, but without having to spend both mese AND precious iron. A side benefit is that it gives players something to do with all that cobblestone they dig up. Unlike wood, there's a finite amount of cobblestone, but you only need so many furnaces and cobblestone staircases. Unless someone has a better idea, I think this is the one I'm going to go with.

planks, planks, planks
planks, iron lump, planks
planks, planks, planks

Another idea, but not one I like. Just throwing it out there in case it sparks someone else's ideas. This would be just like a locked chest, but you would use the iron without cooking it first. Not a good idea, but an idea.

EDIT: I just realized that if I go with the cobblestone / mese idea, the locked chests would be made from planks and iron, two of the tool head materials, and protection blocks, the other ownable blocks, would be made from cobblestone and mese, the other two tool head materials. All ownable blocks would be made from tool head materials, a funny coincidence.

0gb.us wrote:I've seen people sharing a house, with each player having a locked chest in the treasury. That wouldn't really work well if the chests were generating protection fields, as the fields would clash.

You should make it so the areas can be shared; any owners can type in the names of other people who they want to share it with, but non-owners can't edit it, like a shared locked sign. Actually, add two blocks, one which any owners can add to and one which only the original owner can add to.

Oh, wow. That would be a fabulous idea! Too bad I don't actually know Lua, and I'm new to the Minetest application programing interface. I patched this mod together using Internet searches and my knowledge of other programing languages. So, that would be way over my head for the time being. I've got final projects due this week, but next week, I'll clean up the code , figure out what sort of licensing I have to use (since I borrowed code from both the buckets mod and the protector mod), draw the block, and release version 0.0. I'll try to get shared protect blocks into version 0.1. They add complications, due to the fact that a shared protect block would not be able to share space with other protect blocks placed by the original placer in some cercumstances, but would be able to in others.

By the way, I didn't know locked signs could be shared. That's pretty nifty. I might have to make a mod to add that to locked chests as well, if someone hasn't beaten me to it.

0gb.us wrote:By the way, I didn't know locked signs could be shared. That's pretty nifty. I might have to make a mod to add that to locked chests as well, if someone hasn't beaten me to it.

I meant locked signs AS IF they were shared. They don't actually exist yet, unfortunately; i just meant it could only be edited by a few people.

Maybe we could use a tool and when you punch a block it automaticly protects it.

qwrwed wrote:

0gb.us wrote:By the way, I didn't know locked signs could be shared. That's pretty nifty. I might have to make a mod to add that to locked chests as well, if someone hasn't beaten me to it.

I meant locked signs AS IF they were shared. They don't actually exist yet, unfortunately; i just meant it could only be edited by a few people.

I've been mulling it over, and I don't think I have the skills to accomplish this in protect blocks. I will likely implement a whitelist locked chest and a blacklist locked chest though, as they would be much easier to build (I already have the method figured out, I just have to figure out how to do it in Lua), and some people would find them useful. I was going to call them applewood chests, and include an apple in the recipe. They would have a red-ish tint to them, and the whitelist (locked applewood chest) would have the iron ingot, while the blacklist (applewood chest) would not. But after using the words "whitelist" and "blacklist" in this post, I think coal and clay would be more appropriate crafting ingredients, resulting in black and white chests (both in color and in name).

Shared locked signs would be cool, but I'm not going to take the time to build them. I haven't seen much sign tempering, as there wouldn't be much point. The only time people would like to mess up signs is when they effect something else, for example shops and player detectors. But shops use locked signs already, and as far as I know, player detectors only react to default:sign, or whatever the sign is called. I'm too busy/lazy to look it up right now. In any case, shared locked signs wouldn't be as helpful as they sound, in my opinion, unless added to the default game, but I don't think they belong there. Even then, they would have limited use.

Josh wrote:Maybe we could use a tool and when you punch a block it automatically protects it.

A great idea in theory, but it would require adding meta data to every block (unless you have a better way) defining who owned it, with the default being nil. If every block in the game, including for example stone, has metadata, file size would go through the roof! In addition, if I understand correctly, the tool would only protect the block it hit, not the space around it, right? That means there would be no way to protect air. I came across this problem when I was deciding whether or not the new server I am putting up even needs protect blocks. Although not very good looking, you can build a house out of locked chests, each with a stack of cobble in them to prevent the chests from being moved. Essentially, this would give you an bizarre-looking house, with protected walls. However, someone else could come in and fill your house with their protected blocks (in this case locked chests). Instead of people giving you grief by ripping up your house, they could give you grief by filling your house completely, making it unusable. Also, if every block can be a protect block, what happens when you want to remove your protect blocks, but can't tell which ones even are protect blocks?

I am planning a second mod though. I wasn't going to say anything until I fixed it, but I realized my protection mod in its current state doesn't allow compatibility with other protect mods. Glomie's doesn't either, so there's nothing I can do to make mine compatible with his without mod-specific hacks (which I won't do), but I plan to re-implement my protection fields using groups (such as cracky and oddly_breakable_by_hand). By scanning for blocks in the protectblock group, my mod will be expandable by other mods adding different styles of protect block. For example, I might add protect stairs and blocks you can walk through (like papyrus and apples) and such, so protection can be added anywhere without interfering with the basic use of the area. Most people are good about embedding them in walls, but in some circumstances, having more options would be better. As I said though, these extra styles of protect block would be in a second mod, so they don't need to be installed for the main functionality. I know I probably won't be installing three of my four planned mods, just because I want a server that is as close to being like default Minetest as is feasible without allowing trolls to mess things up for everyone.

-=-

By the way, I finished drawing the protect block and cleaning up the code. Although as I said, I'm going to need to rework some of the code again, now that I know how to implement it better. I started out trying to recolor the bottom of the chest, but it's just too colorful. I thought it had about eight colors on it, but it actually has a lot more. So I drew it from scratch, and based it off the chest bottom, but it only has four or five colors, making it easier to draw. Sixteen by sixteen isn't a very big image though, so I was unable to make a good-looking flag. I also tried drawing a keyhole and a padlock, but neither came out well. So I went with a key instead. Although it still doesn't look amazing or anything, at least it doesn't look stupid.

I'm working on a mod that allows to lock objects and share them between diffrent users. The owner can grant other players access to the locked object through typing /add playername in the additional input field. Setting passwords is also possible. I plan to include handling of groups of players so that a player can e.g. create a group "trusted" (or "project castle" or whatever) and doesn't have to enter all names in all relevant locked objects. I don't know if such a group function can be efficient enough for a protector block. The function has to figure out somehow if the player is in one of the groups who have access. This information can't be stored in the node concerned, so it has to come from the filesystem or a database.

The mod can be found at https://github.com/Sokomine/locks and includes a chest and a sign. xdoors2 is available in a modified version as well. The mod needs testing and feedback.

Sokomine wrote:I'm working on a mod that allows to lock objects and share them between diffrent users. The owner can grant other players access to the locked object through typing /add playername in the additional input field. Setting passwords is also possible. I plan to include handling of groups of players so that a player can e.g. create a group "trusted" (or "project castle" or whatever) and doesn't have to enter all names in all relevant locked objects. I don't know if such a group function can be efficient enough for a protector block. The function has to figure out somehow if the player is in one of the groups who have access. This information can't be stored in the node concerned, so it has to come from the filesystem or a database.

The mod can be found at https://github.com/Sokomine/locks and includes a chest and a sign. xdoors2 is available in a modified version as well. The mod needs testing and feedback.

Oh, nice. It looks like your shared locked chest are a lot better than mine. No point in me inventing square wheels, so I'll cross that off my list of things to build. I didn't actually WANT to build that one anyway, I just thought it would be useful. One of the other mods I'm planning is the same way.

mmm
I=iron
w=wood

I I I
I w I
I I I

I prefer the second to the last

0gb.us wrote:
cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone
cobblestone, mese, cobblestone
cobblestone, cobblestone, cobblestone

It still has the locked chest feel, but without having to spend both mese AND precious iron. A side benefit is that it gives players something to do with all that cobblestone they dig up. Unlike wood, there's a finite amount of cobblestone, but you only need so many furnaces and cobblestone staircases. Unless someone has a better idea, I think this is the one I'm going to go with.

This one I'm going with

This topic is incredibly old. The land claims provided by this plugin have grown beyond the need for protect nodes and crafting recipes. Take a look, if you'd like.

https://github.com/0gb-us/0gb.us_game/tree/master/0gb.us_game/mods/landclaim_0gb_us