RTS in minecraft

[hartham]

I was thinking this

What if you could create a block that mad minecraft a RTS?

Then yuo could create another block to make steves (doesn't have to be steves)

And you could make them mine, build, chop trees, etc.

what does everyone think? (just the basic idea of it)

[arctichenry]

That would be intresting as a standalone game, but as a MC addition, perhaps.

[The_DarthMoogle]

Turtles bro.

They aren't steves, too.

I'm sure you have the intelligence to mash everyone else's scripts together to make a centralised army of the things.

[hartham]

That would be intresting as a standalone game, but as a MC addition, perhaps.

technically that would be a game in development called "castle story"

[Weylin]

I would like to be able to make an android factory, with each of the units needing to eat coal or batteries to keep running (they'd eject depleted batteries), and they could all be commanded from a central control.

General controls, nothing too specific... Go to X,Y, harvest logs within 50 meters, place logs in chest at or nearest to X,Y,Z

[The_DarthMoogle]

Minecolony is an excellent mod based on the 'Anno' series of games.

It's dead fun, and there's supercool updates on the horizon, I'm sure.

[hartham]

i was thinking you actually went into an rts camera,make blueprints for buildings, and hopefully have a physics engine :D

[Weylin]

I'm not sure what you mean by a physics engine, but the first 2 should certainly be possible.

[hartham]

i mean lets say you built a tower yet a creeper blew up some critical foundations then the tower would come crashing down

[The_DarthMoogle]

i mean lets say you built a tower yet a creeper blew up some critical foundations then the tower would come crashing down

Now that's going to be a gigantic pain in the arse.

The most you could do is have the whole tower act like gravel once hit (or when its HPs expire), and the blocks would become drops once they hit the floor.

[hartham]

Now that's going to be a gigantic pain in the arse.

The most you could do is have the whole tower act like gravel once hit (or when its HPs expire), and the blocks would become drops once they hit the floor.

perhaps it can be like that then the advanced physics could be in hardcore mode

[The_DarthMoogle]

perhaps it can be like that then the advanced physics could be in hardcore mode

You see, it's this 'advanced physics' you speak of that worries me.

I don't think you understand how shit convoluted minecraft is coded.

[hartham]

true but i saw a mod that adds tornados and the blocks were flying in many directions

[charcharmunro]

That's just done by converting the blocks into entities so they can move around. It's what happens when gravel and sand fall, too.

[hartham]

That's just done by converting the blocks into entities so they can move around. It's what happens when gravel and sand fall, too.

good to know :D

[Xylord]

You see, it's this 'advanced physics' you speak of that worries me.

I don't think you understand how shit convoluted minecraft is coded.

Well, technically, all we'd have to do is have the system make checks about the state of a block compared to the ground. For example, on the first tick, the tree is complete, it touches the ground. But on the second, the player has broken one of the logs. The system detects the upper part of the tree isn't touching any other blocks, and if it isn't, the whole thing becomes an entity and starts falling. Then, you'd have to make some physic-ish stuffso the way the entity falls seems legit,and once it's settled, it becomes block back.

Sure, it would be pretty complicated, but not really impossible at all if you ask me. It uses some principles from zeppelin, actually.

[SirStompsalot]

I've been working on a mod like this. I love MineColony (in fact I still play it) but it just wasn't enough. I wanted multiplayer RTS, where your towns would in fact have armies. I created 50 blocks (via metadata) that created a villager that had a specific task. Great in theory, right?

Well, as it turns out, AI & pathfinding in MC is hard. Millionaire suffered from this I know. Minecolony does a great job over short distances. But what happens when you want to pathfind over a couple thousand blocks? You have to use two dimensional A*, at which point you'll notice performance problems. At short distances, native MC pathfinding works alright. Anything over that, and you'll have to write your own.

Next problem: what happens if you wanted to move multiple groups of entities at the same time? Then you're getting into moving multiple boids in groups, have to deal with collision logic & flock logic. What I decided to do was use a general, a master entity that ran the pathfinding over two dimensions; the rest of the boids would follow him. But this was also a problem because you also need to spread them out, and they need to do local path finding to check for safe terrain (otherwise they might run into a cactus/lava/fire etc). Here's a prototype video for what I was thinking I made a while back. Hadn't implemented the follow logic at this point.

Now, onto the topic of physics & destruction of builds influencing their overall structure, as Xylord said that's doable, but its going to be a challenge. The casting to entities and back isn't what bugs me, its making it believable. However, standard MC conventions are just to use explosions, so I like the idea.

[hartham]

Here is one big thing though......i can't mod D:

(topic is suggestion)