Lava is no longer renewable!?

[kaeza]

At this point, it's not about stone renewability. It's about lava itself. Large scale lava projects will become much more difficult if this reaches the stable version. Renewable lava is feature we once had, but it has now been removed for no good reason. As an experiment, download the unstable game, and try filling a pool with water. Wasn't that easy? Now try filling one with lava. It's quite difficult. There's no good reason for that.

Anybody wanting realism from Minetest isn't thinking about what the game really is. Is a world made of cubes at all realistic? No. As long as Minetest's worlds are made of cubes, it cannot be realistic.

It's also not about "mods" not being "good enough". It's about not stripping good features from the default game. If you want to add features, go get "mods". There's no problem with that. The problem comes from taking things out that were once there. Things that no one was complaining about. Renewable lava was a good thing.

By the way, making lava renewable again is winning in the poll. More people want to keep this feature than remove it. So why remove it? Coming in second is making is a configuration option. If we do that, everyone can be happy.

I'm fed up with this shit of *someone changes a small bit*, *everyone is "fuck this we want our thing back!"*. I don't give a shit if lava is finite/infinite, but I agree with onpon4 that these kinds of holy wars over a one line change are seriously overreacting.
In fact, I'm getting fed up with this forum. Since a few weeks ago everybody is fucking bitching about every change:
- We want our MESE back
- Nyancats are nonsense.
- New cobble texture destructs the view of our structures.
- New physics suck
- The new menu sucks
- We want our renewable lava back
Please stop this nonsense. I don't give a shit about any changes. Those that I don't agree with I just edit to my tastes. After all, it's the point in open source software.

[0gb.us]

[...]

So you're saying we shouldn't make our opinions known, and not try to make the game as best as it can be?

Also, I took a step back, and I think I understand where this disagreement is coming from. Finite lava would be better on a survival-type server, which is the vision PilzAdam has for the game. But many of us prefer building over trying to survive. On build servers, it's better to not run out of materials.

I think the minetest.conf setting is the only way everyone can win.

EDIT: It wouldn't even be that hard to implement, and would default to the new finite behaviour.

[kaeza]

I didn't say you shouldn't be allowed to express your opinion; I just say that it is overreacting.
Anyway, yes. Maybe this should be made something like "liquid_renewable = minetest.setting_get("creative_mode") or false". This is the change I did on my copy anyway.

[0gb.us]

It shouldn't be attached to creative mode though. Creative servers and build servers are not always the same thing.

All we are doing is expressing our opinions in the form of a debate. Nothing more. There's no swearing, there's no name calling, and as far as I know, we are all calm. Aside from you freaking out about what you think is us freaking out.

EDIT: Actually, there are a couple others that seem to be freaking out too, but everyone who is freaking out seems to be against us having a debate at all, if you see the pattern. Those actually involved in the debate (on all sides) don't seem to be having the issue.

[onpon4]

It's also not about "mods" not being "good enough". It's about not stripping good features from the default game. If you want to add features, go get "mods". There's no problem with that. The problem comes from taking things out that were once there. Things that no one was complaining about. Renewable lava was a good thing. The default game is what people get their fist look at. We shouldn't take away features that make it better.

This isn't taking away a feature that objectively makes everything better; this is changing a feature to suit the direction the developers are going for, as opposed to the way you (and apparently a good number of others) want it. There are arguments for both: how easy it is to grief, how easy it is to make stuff out of lava, rarity of obsidian, etc.

Regarding newcomers, like I said, I really don't understand the worry here. I don't think someone playing for the first time that hasn't played Minecraft is going to see lava at all, and if they do, they're not going to especially notice that they can't cause the lava to multiply. I think what they are more likely to notice is that the physics of it are so silly, and that's only if they think to craft a bucket and use it to dump lava somewhere.

Newcomers from Minecraft, on the other hand, might actually care, but they would be expecting the non-renewable lava, if that's how it is in Minecraft. Confronted with renewable lava, assuming they notice at all, I don't tend to think they would say, "Wow, that's amazing, I always wanted to be able to make more lava!" I think most of the reactions would be between "Huh, lava is like water in this game. That's cool, I guess," and "WHAT?! No limit to lava? That makes griefing easier!", mostly leaning toward the former.

Just to make a point: I thought absolutely nothing of the fact that the lava was renewable, and my brother, who likes Minecraft, didn't even encounter it. At this point, we both already know about mods and I have around 60 of them enabled.

[Traxie21]

Well said.. I must agree with you on that. Hey, why not make a new renewable liquid that also glows? Mabye photonic water or something like that?

[0gb.us]

Lava can be used for vandalism, but then again, most nodes can. But it can also be used constructively.

As far as lava multiplying, it even gets in my way when it does that. To be honest, I think mining is harder with renewable lava. It gives an added challenge.

Lava NOT acting like water is inconsistent. One regenerates, but the other doesn't? It doesn't make sense.

If we add it as a conf setting, everyone can have their personal preference. No one has to be unhappy. Why not just add that? It changes two lines of code, and they are only run at start-up time. So it doesn't needlessly complicate anything. Regardless of personal opinion, there is no down side to adding it as a conf setting.

[Mito551]

Lava NOT acting like water is inconsistent. One regenerates, but the other doesn't? It doesn't make sense.

Exactly.

If we add it as a conf setting, everyone can have their personal preference. No one has to be unhappy. Why not just add that? It changes two lines of code, and they are only run at start-up time. So it doesn't needlessly complicate anything. Regardless of personal opinion, there is no down side to adding it as a conf setting.

+1

[PilzAdam]

2 official games are added: "Survival" and "Build".
The "Build" game has renewable lava. Now STFU :-)

[0gb.us]

2 official games are added: "Survival" and "Build".
The "Build" game has renewable lava. Now STFU :-)

Okay. All the blocks seem to be there, plus this was merged, giving all games unlimited trees, not just minetest_game.

Awesome, thanks!

One last inquiry. Is there any chance build can get access to give_initial_stuff? Even if no, I'll shut up now.

[PilzAdam]

2 official games are added: "Survival" and "Build".
The "Build" game has renewable lava. Now STFU :-)

Okay. All the blocks seem to be there, plus this was merged, giving all games unlimited trees, not just minetest_game.

Awesome, thanks!

One last inquiry. Is there any chance build can get access to give_initial_stuff? Even if no, I'll shut up now.

http://irc.minetest.ru/minetest-dev/2013-03-23#i_2949892
Sorry for just answering with a link...

[0gb.us]

http://irc.minetest.ru/minetest-dev/2013-03-23#i_2949892
Sorry for just answering with a link...

I agree with the logic behind legacy. Without sapling growth depending on it, it is just a backwards-compatibility thing.

I disagree with the give_initial_stuff logic (and I do use it). It is turned off by default, so if a different gift-giving system for newcomers was added by a server, give_initial_stuff could just be ignored. But it's not a big deal. People can make their own tools.

Thanks again!

[dslynx]

I didn't go through all 7 pages of this thread, and I'm new to minetest, but thought I would chime in, hoping that there would be a simple answer. I added finite_liquids = true and tried both true/false without any changes.

Anyway, the only reason I chime in, is because we spent about 2 hours looking for our house when our party was lost. In another game, we made a habit of building a tall stack and tossing a lava on top, letting it pour down so that it was visible even at night. Throw some glass block around it to keep kids from falling in it and your all set. We did that here, and it only pours down about 10 levels.

Anyway, I'd like to +1 the conf setting and thanks for the great game. My kids like it even better than the alternative we've spent 100+ hours playing on and the fact that this requires less system resources allows our older machines to play it when friends come over.

[Sokomine]

You can press F5 and write down the coordinates in order to find back to your house. Unfortionately, even a huge tower doesn't help if your view range is not high enough. There are also mods that set the spawn point (e.g. beds/papyrus_bed).

[0gb.us]

You can press F5 and write down the coordinates in order to find back to your house. Unfortionately, even a huge tower doesn't help if your view range is not high enough. There are also mods that set the spawn point (e.g. beds/papyrus_bed).

Or the built-in method.

/set -n static_spawnpoint x,y,x

[rarkenin]

You can press F5 and write down the coordinates in order to find back to your house. Unfortionately, even a huge tower doesn't help if your view range is not high enough. There are also mods that set the spawn point (e.g. beds/papyrus_bed).

Or the built-in method.

/set -n static_spawnpoint x,y,x

Only persists for the current session.

[PilzAdam]

You can press F5 and write down the coordinates in order to find back to your house. Unfortionately, even a huge tower doesn't help if your view range is not high enough. There are also mods that set the spawn point (e.g. beds/papyrus_bed).

Or the built-in method.

/set -n static_spawnpoint x,y,x

Only persists for the current session.

No, its saved in minetest.conf

[0gb.us]

Or the built-in method.

/set -n static_spawnpoint x,y,x

Only persists for the current session.

No, its saved in minetest.conf

It will only save to the conf file if you opened the server with the GUI. So you're both right.

[prestidigitator]

It also cannot write to the configuration file if the game is installed in standard locations on Linux rather than run in-place. The file /usr/share/minetest/games/minetest_game/game.conf is writable only by root. So unless the game makes a copy of it and stores the copy under ~/.minetest somewhere to use for the next session, no changes to the settings are going to persist.

[ssieb]

There is one thing that was brought up earlier in the thread and is my only concern with turning on finite_liquid. If you find a still pool of lava or water and scoop one bucket out, it disturbs a large area and you can't scoop another bucket from it. I find that it's fun having liquids flow somewhat realistically (still needs a bit of tweaking) and it makes accidently breaking into a lava lake not such a disaster. But when the ocean starts flowing into a cavern it makes it very hard to get a bucket of water. And the same for lava.

Edit:
I just looked at the changelog and apparently I'm a few commits behind the fix for this... :-/ Sorry for the noise.

[vv221]

It also cannot write to the configuration file if the game is installed in standard locations on Linux rather than run in-place. The file /usr/share/minetest/games/minetest_game/game.conf is writable only by root. So unless the game makes a copy of it and stores the copy under ~/.minetest somewhere to use for the next session, no changes to the settings are going to persist.

The settings are read from ~/.minetest/minetest.conf if your server is launched from an user session.

[PatrocloPicchiaduro]

I just stumbled in this topic after trying to do the same trick one can apply to water on lava.

Well, in this game there is a nuclear power generator and other kinds of electric power generators.. maybe one mod can add a special block that given sufficient input power voltage ( I don't know yet if there is some kind of concept of it, but one can just make if longer to produce it with 'weak' sources of power), it can melt down a stone block into a lava block.

That way one can craft his own lava blocks for building purposes. No?

I stumbled upon this mod: viewtopic.php?id=8853
Although it doesn't use what I proposed, solves the problem for everyone :)

[Zatherz]

Well, in this game there is a nuclear power generator and other kinds of electric power generators..

I think you're talking about Technic here. In this case, ask the game authors.

[TenPlus1]

Lava can easily be made renewable by re-registering lava nodes in your mod like so:

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

-- Renewable lava (like water)
minetest.register_node(":default:lava_flowing", {
   description = "Flowing LaVa",
   inventory_image = minetest.inventorycube("default_lava.png"),
   drawtype = "flowingliquid",
   tiles = {"default_lava.png"},
   special_tiles = {
      {
         image="default_lava_flowing_animated.png",
         backface_culling=false,
         animation={type="vertical_frames", aspect_w=16, aspect_h=16, length=3.3}
      },
      {
         image="default_lava_flowing_animated.png",
         backface_culling=true,
         animation={type="vertical_frames", aspect_w=16, aspect_h=16, length=3.3}
      },
   },
   paramtype = "light",
   paramtype2 = "flowingliquid",
   light_source = LIGHT_MAX - 1,
   walkable = false,
   pointable = false,
   diggable = false,
   buildable_to = true,
   drop = "",
   drowning = 1,
   liquidtype = "flowing",
   liquid_alternative_flowing = "default:lava_flowing",
   liquid_alternative_source = "default:lava_source",
   liquid_viscosity = LAVA_VISC,
   damage_per_second = 4*2,
   post_effect_color = {a=192, r=255, g=64, b=0},
   groups = {lava=3, liquid=2, hot=3, igniter=1, not_in_creative_inventory=1},
})

minetest.register_node(":default:lava_source", {
   description = "LaVa Source",
   inventory_image = minetest.inventorycube("default_lava.png"),
   drawtype = "liquid",
   tiles = {
      {name="default_lava_source_animated.png", animation={type="vertical_frames", aspect_w=16, aspect_h=16, length=3.0}}
   },
   special_tiles = {
      -- New-style lava source material (mostly unused)
      {
         name="default_lava_source_animated.png",
         animation={type="vertical_frames", aspect_w=16, aspect_h=16, length=3.0},
         backface_culling = false,
      }
   },
   paramtype = "light",
   light_source = LIGHT_MAX - 1,
   walkable = false,
   pointable = false,
   diggable = false,
   buildable_to = true,
   drop = "",
   drowning = 1,
   liquidtype = "source",
   liquid_alternative_flowing = "default:lava_flowing",
   liquid_alternative_source = "default:lava_source",
   liquid_viscosity = LAVA_VISC,
   damage_per_second = 4*2,
   post_effect_color = {a=192, r=255, g=64, b=0},
   groups = {lava=3, liquid=2, hot=3, igniter=1},
})


...I use this to make obsidian generators in Xanadu server...

[rubenwardy]

This is probably better. Install it the same as above.

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

minetest.override_item("default:lava_source", {liquid_renewable = true})
minetest.override_item("default:lava_flowing", {liquid_renewable = true})

[TenPlus1]

Thanks ruben, I keep forgetting about the override function :)