After thinking it over for a decent amount of time, I decided to make the plunge, and make a whole Minetest game based off of floating islands, as brought up in my skylands thread.
So, apart from the obvious implementation of skylands throughout the whole world-space, this packages numerous mods from the forum in the base game, with the goal of streamlining the sky theme and making it easier to get things done when huge voids separate the lands. These mods are:
[beds] (PilzAdam version) --since exploring hole-filled islands at night can be detrimental to your health.
[bone] --BlockMen's mod to add bones and bonemeal to Minetest. Because instant tree growing is a must for bridge builders.
[bridgetool] --A mod by Kilarin that is perfect for easily creating bridges between islands.
[farming] --not to be mistaken for the default farming mod; this is TenPlus1's version, which I feel is somewhat cleaner and superior.
[flyingmachine] --I still need to edit in a craft recipe for Controller, but I mainly included this as a secondary option for sky travel, and a reason to build sky-docks. ;)
[helicopter] --A very well done mod by Pavel_S, which I am giving as a default item to allow players to leave the starting island.
[inventory_plus] --You know what this does. xD
[mesecons] --I personally advocate the belief this should be included with the base game. In any case, this is very useful for automating certain tasks, such as building bridges between islands with an injector-style setup.
[moreblocks] --Necessary for nicer skylands.
[moreores] --ditto.
[moretrees] --Variety is the spice of life. Now fully integrated into island generation!
[plants_lib] --Variety comes at a price, lol.
[pipeworks] --Another mod that has many functions, and with the rarity of water in the floatlands, a way to pipe it around is welcome.
[technic] --One of the most powerful and involved machinery mods out there. Take the time to learn it, and you won't regret it.
[throwing] --Arrows are very useful, and I can think of no better use for the teleport arrows than here.
[unifieddyes] --Useful, depended on by a decent number of mods.
In addition to these, all the regular base game mods are here, as well as one more half-mod (demi-mod? xD):
skytest_init, which does two things: Force the mapgen to use singlenode, and generate an island a short distance below origin to serve as a safe starting place. The island is a sort of bowl filled with water so as to cushion the fall of any player. Picture:
Now onto the specifics of the game itself. When players join, give_initial_stuff is active by default, although here it only gives 99 torches, one steel pick, one steel shovel, a steel axe, 99 cobble, a bridgetool, and one helicopter. The torches are there to help when islands shade each other (which is very common). This game runs in parallel with my development of skylands, so usually any updates there follow here shortly after. Eventually, I would even like to add a goal to this game, potentially finding some sky temple or slaying some dragon (or both). But that's still a ways away.
Now, for the proper things:
Download:
https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/Sky-T ... master.zip Unzip in the games folder of your Minetest installation, and rename to sky-test.
GitHub:
https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/Sky-Test-gameLicense: WTFPL (for now)
SCREENSHOTS! (Outdated)
Approaching a volcanic biome island in a helicopter at night:
Cross-section of three arid biomes:
Island with a lake surrounded by various trees from MoreTrees:
Massive island:
Waterfall:
The treachery of night!
Enjoy, and be sure to post your thoughts and suggestions.
Nam ex spatio, omnes res venire possunt.
Why let the ground limit you when you can reach for the sky?
Back to college now, yay for sophomore year schedules. :P