Flower's Dev Diary (Week of October 23rd)

[FlowerChild]

Another week, another round of feature development :)

As always, rules for this thread:

-DO NOT post suggestions.
-DO NOT critique unreleased features. Wait until you've had a chance to try them before passing judgement.

With that out of the way:

This week I'll open up with something a little different: A screenshot of the test-facility I built for the NEXT feature I'll be working on ;)

Spoiler

Show

Last week was quite productive for me in the end. After kicking my XCom addiction I moved onto revamping the MC tech-tree with regards to explosives (finally giving a purpose to the end dimension in the process) as well as adding a shit-load of new aesthetic blocks into the mod.

This week I've already wrapped up some additional changes I wanted to make to explosives, and have started in on a "special project" which I won't be giving any clues on just yet (well, other than the test-facility I've prepared for it above).

Which means that I suspect this will be a rather short dev-diary this week, as I don't really want to give anything away there. In terms of slightly long-term plans though, I do have a few changes planned for zombies and potentially a couple of other mobs later in the week.

Otherwise, I think I've just been thinking a lot about my plans for 1.4, as I will likely be thrown back into the MC update cycle later in the week. I'm still planning a few nerfs for the first release there, namely ripping out being able to farm animals in the nether, as well as getting rid of most of the vanilla anvil functionality. Hopefully I'll be spending a little play-time with the pre-release before the final one to solidify my plans there.

Anyways, guess that's it for now. There's not a whole lot that I can say when I'm working away in my secret lair ;)

[Twololcats]

Oh the teasers, so intriguing
And about 1.4 changes, this is just a question I swear but will we still be able to rename items? I don't care about repairing since we can do that in the crucible.
Anyways I bet whatever you do will be awesome so don't let me sway you!

[Gunnerman21]

Wow man, this diary might as well have been an update, because when I saw those white-stone pillars... I had no idea we could build those! :D This gives me way more incentive to find the end. Besides brimstone of course..

Flaunt it Flower! Flaunt it!

[FlowerChild]

Wow man, this diary might as well have been an update, because when I saw those white-stone pillars... I had no idea we could build those! :D

Tables too, in case you didn't notice ;)

One of the changes I made last week is to restructure the Moulding blocks so that they each also include room for Pillars, Pedestals, and Tables in a single blockID. As such, you guys can expect several new decorative blocks of these types in the near future :)

[CumuloNimbus10]

Wow man, this diary might as well have been an update, because when I saw those white-stone pillars... I had no idea we could build those! :D

Tables too, in case you didn't notice ;)

One of the changes I made last week is to restructure the Moulding blocks so that they each also include room for Pillars, Pedestals, and Tables in a single blockID. As such, you guys can expect several new decorative blocks of these types in the near future :)

Wow, BTW just keeps getting better and better! New decorative blocks are always fun to use in builds.

Thanks for all of the work that you put into this mod FC. Being a senior in high school, BTW is always a nice way to end my day after doing Calculus and Physics, if I find the time. I can't wait to see what's in store for the future of BTW, especially with this new "test area"...

[Six]

Huh, I'd avoided trying white cobble as a building material mostly out of my dislike of the plain cobble look. But it looks really nice there.

As for what the test-facility is for... not much is really given away there at all. Plain looking room, 3-4 blocks tall, white cobble floor, double chest, wooden door and plenty of windows to see in/out. The wicker above the door and on the opposite wall stands out a little, but I assume it is just for decoration. I look forward to seeing where this leads...

[FlowerChild]

Huh, I'd avoided trying white cobble as a building material mostly out of my dislike of the plain cobble look. But it looks really nice there.

As for what the test-facility is for... not much is really given away there at all. Plain looking room, 3-4 blocks tall, white cobble floor, double chest, wooden door and plenty of windows to see in/out. The wicker above the door and on the opposite wall stands out a little, but I assume it is just for decoration. I look forward to seeing where this leads...

Well, honestly, there aren't any clues in there :)

However, I do like to share a screenshot in each dev diary and I thought that would make for a nice one given it makes use of some of the stuff in the last release, and is the beginning of what will come next :)

As an aside, I often build such facilities in game when I'm planning a new feature. This helps me to visualize exactly what I want it to look like in the space it will occupy, and in the case of functional builds helps to motivate me as all I need to do (even if it takes me 20 hours work) is "just plop it down right there" :)

Like, you can see some of my test aqueducts in the background there, and I had some of those all laid out even before I had a texture or a single line of code written for the Screw Pump ;)

[Splee999]

Hmm... I wonder if this structure has anything to do with the changes to villagers FC was planning on. Perhaps our slaves friends will start demanding real houses instead of structures made out of doors?

[Detritus]

Dev Diary! Yay!

I like the look of that building; looks very Roman, and I think Roman buildings make more sense in that colour than the plain grey stone pillars and such. Looks great, Flower :)

[Rianaru]

This picture makes me wonder if there's some sort of special chemical property of white stone that will enable a certain mechanic within a building made of the stuff...O_o

...Or FC just wanted to use the new look and it means nothing.

[Azdoine]

This picture makes me wonder if there's some sort of special chemical property of white stone that will enable a certain mechanic within a building made of the stuff...O_o

...Or FC just wanted to use the new look and it means nothing.

...*tinfoil hat*

[Jamaize]

Given the explosive nature of the last release and those lovely white pilars; I can't get this out of my head and am awaiting a screenshot update after some "testing" of a nice big crater...

Spoiler

Show

[SterlingRed]

White stone does look particularly amazing! Especially built like that.
Inside dimensions of the test facility appear to be 13x9x5. No obvious mechanical power source, although it could be under the floor and that aqueduct could be easily extended. So can't really make any assumptions about it.

[CycloneSP]

Since this is a testing facility, and seeing that it is an empty building, does this mean that whatever you are working on implies that it needs to be contained perchance? And if it does not -need- to be contained, judging from the dimensions, it shouldn't require too much room.


Right?





The suspense! It is killing me!!!

[Six]

Spoiler

Show

I know the tech level isn't quite up to the stage of orbital lasers, but a guy can dream.

[Poppycocks]

Spoiler

Show

I know the tech level isn't quite up to the stage of orbital lasers, but a guy can dream.

Beacon block.

[Stormweaver]

Beacon block.

Now all we need is someone to build it.

[MoRmEnGiL]

I misread that as bacon block. Compact food storing :P

But that marble house caught me completely off guard, didn't expect that. Looks very cool!

[Sarudak]

So whatever it is it's fairly small but some kind of multiblock system.

On a side note I had no idea that you could do all that stuff with white stone.

Also Dev journals again! Yay!

[jakerman999]

One of the changes I made last week is to restructure the Moulding blocks so that they each also include room for Pillars, Pedestals, and Tables in a single blockID. As such, you guys can expect several new decorative blocks of these types in the near future :)

I've been trying to piece together what this change was, but I've only seen bits and pieces of what you've done scattered here and there. My best guess is that you've added more bits to a blocks meta-data, how close am I?

[Sarudak]

My best guess is that you've added more bits to a blocks meta-data, how close am I?

That only happens in his most fanciful dreams...

[Battlecat]

Tables too, in case you didn't notice ;)

One of the changes I made last week is to restructure the Moulding blocks so that they each also include room for Pillars, Pedestals, and Tables in a single blockID. As such, you guys can expect several new decorative blocks of these types in the near future :)

What sorcery is this? Seriously though, that's wonderful!

I am highly intrigued by this secret project. I certainly like the appearance of the building you're doing your testing in.

[FlowerChild]

Nah, it's pretty simple and just a slight modification of how I use metadata with the mouldings.

Mouldings have twelve different alignments. 12 variations actually requires the full 4 bits, but it leaves values 12-15 unoccupied out of a possible 16 values (zero included).

So, this leaves 4 values, unassociated with the others, unused, which I've now occupied with columns, pedestals (up and down), and tables.

Previously I was waiting on the extended blockIDs to do stuff like this because doing this kind of metadata thing overly complicates the code and makes it more difficult to maintain, and because all blocks sharing a blockID share the same physical properties (like hardness, stepsound, etc.)

However, I've become a little more receptive to it given that I'm now modifying block.class which gives me the ability to separate out those physical properties and assign different values to each "sub-block". I've yet to go through and separate each of them, but with the potential being there for me doing so now, part of the problem becomes a non-issue. I still dislike the maintenance cost in combining blocks like this, but given these are all aesthetic blocks so far, unlikely to undergo additional changes, I don't think it will be too bad here.

So yeah, it's a combination of a couple of things that have made me more receptive to the overall idea of doing stuff like this a little more than I have in the past. Part of it is probably just me getting sick of waiting on Mojang for the extended blockIDs ;)

[ElectronicRU]

Wow man, this diary might as well have been an update, because when I saw those white-stone pillars... I had no idea we could build those! :D

Tables too, in case you didn't notice ;)

One of the changes I made last week is to restructure the Moulding blocks so that they each also include room for Pillars, Pedestals, and Tables in a single blockID. As such, you guys can expect several new decorative blocks of these types in the near future :)

Wow, it's rather amazing. Good thing there is still room for 3 types of aesthetics in existing blocks, if I correctly understand what you have done, so more could be added in the future if you feel so.

Spoiler

Show

And I must squee.

[FlowerChild]

Oh, I forgot about this yesterday, but I just remembered an issue that's been on my mind that I wanted to discuss in this Dev Diary:

ModLoader.

Honestly, I'm a little worried about whether there will be a ML for 1.4. Up until recently I was expecting/hoping that even if 1.4 didn't have the ModAPI in it, in any significant form, it would still contain bare-bones ML-style functionality. This was reinforced by the only functionality I've seen described that seems to have been developed for the API being exactly this kind of thing.

Now, I haven't looked at the 1.4 pre-release code myself, but I've heard zero mention of this actually making it into 1.4, so I'm assuming it's no longer there.

So, without that, it means that the mod will basically be dependent on ML for at least another release, and frankly, I'm rather worried that ML will either not come out for 1.4, or will take a rather long time to do so.

I say this because ML has remained at "pre-release" status for about 3 months now, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of news from Risugami during that period. I put no fault on Risugami for this whatsoever BTW. If I were in his shoes, I would be extremely dispirited by the whole FML thing, and I doubt I'd want to work on it anymore either. This is why I've just kept soldiering on with ML during that period, writing my own SMP hooks to parallel its behavior and such during that time. I'm actually very sympathetic towards his current situation.

However, now with 1.4 approaching, I'm getting rather worried, so I think what I'm going to do is move forward with a back-up plan that I had during the port to 1.3, which is to initially create a non-ML version of the mod and release that while we wait to find out more about the future of ML.

What this means to you:

This likely means that the first 1.4 release of BTW will be truly incompatible with everything, and I do mean everything, up to and including add-on mods specifically written for it, and potentially even utilities like MCPatcher (not sure about that one, but it's a distinct possibility).

Yes, this sucks, which is why I'm talking about this ahead of time so that you guys are prepared for it if/when it does occur.

However, my priority in doing something like this is to make sure that development of BTW doesn't stall for an indefinite period of time. It's entirely possible that a new version of ML will pop up within days of the release of 1.4, in which case this won't be an issue. It is also possible however that this could drag on for weeks, or go on until 1.5 (or even later), in which case I don't want BTW dev to come to a grinding halt.

My intention at this point is to give it a good two weeks after the release of 1.4 before taking further action beyond this non-ML release. If it still looks like ML is MIA, at that point I will write my own equivalent to what it does so that add-on functionality can be restored. If it is released before then, I'll just promptly port back over to it and everything should be as it has been.

During that initial period though, and perhaps even extending beyond it, I will warn you guys that it may make sense for some of you to stick with 1.3, and I'll make sure to put out a release in the next couple of days so that you're left with a solid stable version if you're one of those people.

Anyways, I think that covers it. Again, I realize that this sucks pretty hard, but this is an unfortunate situation which I'm trying to deal with as best I can, and I would also ask people to keep in mind that this is likely temporary until Mojang gets at least the first version of their API out the door.