A few questions from a new player

[gregor3000]

I've installed this game both to Linux (latest stable via PPA) and Windows XP maschine. The game works ok. But there are a couple of things i do not understand.

1. When you place a cube (e.g. a piece of dirt) the player can get stuck inside it (i.e. everything goes dark until you jump out). Is this only a bug or a feature?

2. i've added some mods as bare game is a bit too plain. so far i've managed to get them work only in windows install. But will retry on linux a bit later. anyway the following is unknown to me:

- why do mods that need dependencies not come with those dependencies preinstalled?

- the animals mod works nicely, but it also creates quite a bit of lag. does anyone have any advice on how to reduce the lag? Or maybe which parts of this mod is good to turn off without loosing too much from it? Or should i use another mod to add a bit of life to the world?

- is there a plan to integrate/add some of the best/most used mods into main game?

[Calinou]

1. When you place a cube (e.g. a piece of dirt) the player can get stuck inside it (i.e. everything goes dark until you jump out). Is this only a bug or a feature?

In the latest Git, this isn't the case anymore. It isn't a bug, but it isn't a feature either. See it as a quirk/trick for now, it'll be fixed later.

- why do mods that need dependencies not come with those dependencies preinstalled?

To avoid data cloning and outdated mods. This is exactly the purpose of dynamic linking.

- the animals mod works nicely, but it also creates quite a bit of lag. does anyone have any advice on how to reduce the lag? Or maybe which parts of this mod is good to turn off without loosing too much from it? Or should i use another mod to add a bit of life to the world?

Try Simple Mobs.

- is there a plan to integrate/add some of the best/most used mods into main game?

Sometimes, yes, but don't count on it too much.

[Sokomine]

1. When you place a cube (e.g. a piece of dirt) the player can get stuck inside it (i.e. everything goes dark until you jump out). Is this only a bug or a feature?

You seem to see it as a bug, I see it as a feature :-) Newer builds of Minetest unfortionately do no longer allow to place a block where you stand - that circumvents the problem, but it is also very annoying when building.

- the animals mod works nicely, but it also creates quite a bit of lag. does anyone have any advice on how to reduce the lag? Or maybe which parts of this mod is good to turn off without loosing too much from it? Or should i use another mod to add a bit of life to the world?

The vombies are probably the most expensive. First try to turn them off. Type /mobf ingame and have a look at the menu it shows. Apart from that, there will still be some lag on newly generated areas. The rest ought to run fine as long as it's singleplayer and your machine is not too slow.

[gregor3000]

ah thanks for the answers.

i also plan to give simple mobs a try, but haven't gottent arround to it yet. as soon as i start minetest the kid wants to play with it :-)

i hope at least more mods get's into "official" mods available in mods menu. i mean there is a page of most popular mods and at least those (i think there is 7 or 8 of them) should be in there along with their dependencies.

[Inocudom]

ah thanks for the answers.

i also plan to give simple mobs a try, but haven't gottent arround to it yet. as soon as i start minetest the kid wants to play with it :-)

i hope at least more mods get's into "official" mods available in mods menu. i mean there is a page of most popular mods and at least those (i think there is 7 or 8 of them) should be in there along with their dependencies.

Try the mobs mod linked to below too:
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=8798
You get to ride horses and keep bees as pets with it.