A Decent Terraria Wiring Mod

[Ani2]

What I'd like to see anytime soon in Technic would be a Terraria wiring mod.

I don't have any particular mod to reccomend but I reckon my experience in Technic would be a lot better if a mod was included in Technic with at least the following elements from the technical side of Terraria were included;

• Wires that could be...
  
• Suspended in midair
  
• Invisible to players who aren't holding technical items (including Terraria wires, Redstone, machines, and technical stuff from the other mods)
  
• Found in dungeon chests
  
• Only harvested with a Wirecutter tool that is found in dungeon chests
  
• Walked right through
  
• Compatible with Redstone via both input and output
  
• Blocks that would become transparent and able to be walked through when powered with Redstone or Terraria wires
  
• Dart Traps that...
  
• Fire arrows when powered by Redstone or Terraria wires
  
• Hold infinite arrows, except the arrows they fire do not stick in the ground and instead disappear on collision
  
• Statues resembling certain entities (such as mobs or lightning) that act as spawners but only run whilst being powered by Redstone or Terraria wires
  
• Useful Pressure Plates that are much harder to see (i.e. smaller, thinner) and can be dyed so that they can hide on almost any block
  
• Traps spawning in underground caverns that contain Dart Traps, Pressure Plates and Wires
  
• Timers that put out a signal a specified amount of time after a signal is recieved
  
• Boulders that obey gravity, can be crafted out of six Cobblestone in the shape of either a Door or a Platform, and do a lot of damage
  

I think these things would fit very well into Technic, and would be very glad if a mod could be found with these things included and implemented into Technic (and possibly Tekkit).

UPDATE (19 / 09 / 2012)

I was reading the Wire page on the TerrariaOnline wiki yesterday and noticed something I hadn't noticed before - Explosives.

Explosives are explosives (obviously) that can only be activated via electric signal. Now, as far as I know, Technic currently doesn't have an electrical-only explosive, so I thought Explosives from Terraria would be a good addition to this mod.

Shapelessly crafted from three TNT and some Redstone Dust, Explosives would appear like TNT but without the wrapping that reads TNT around it. It would also have some Redstone Dust on the top instead of the usual black string.

It could be activated via Terraria wires or Redstone signal.

[jakj]

• Blocks that would become transparent and able to be walked through when powered with Redstone or Terraria wires
  
• Useful Pressure Plates that are much harder to see (i.e. smaller, thinner) and can be dyed so that they can hide on almost any block
  
• Timers that put out a signal a specified amount of time after a signal is recieved
  
• Boulders that obey gravity, can be crafted out of six Cobblestone in the shape of either a Door or a Platform, and do a lot of damage
  

1) Problematic and way too much work for vanilla blocks, because you'd have to extend and replace every one; Fine if you mean just blocks added by the mod. Also, that's sort of the reverse of the MFFS mod, and you could even just use MFFS to do it.

2) There's already a mod for that; I forget what it's called, though.

3) That's called...a timer.

4) There's sort-of-kind-of a mod for that too, or rather, it adds gravity in general to the world.

[Ani2]

1) Problematic and way too much work for vanilla blocks, because you'd have to extend and replace every one; Fine if you mean just blocks added by the mod. Also, that's sort of the reverse of the MFFS mod, and you could even just use MFFS to do it.

2) There's already a mod for that; I forget what it's called, though.

3) That's called...a timer.

4) There's sort-of-kind-of a mod for that too, or rather, it adds gravity in general to the world.

1) I didn't mean everything - I mean new blocks, called Active/Inactive Blocks that deactivate/activate when the charge it's recieving is inverted (turned on/off). I mean exactly how it works in Terraria.

2) Whatever, I guess that's a valid argument. Either way though, something like this should make its way into Technic.

3) Yeah, exactly.

4) But what I'm talking about here is a specific Boulder block, not adding anything new to existing blocks, that does lots of damage and obeys gravity, making it a useful item specifically for trap-making.

[Xylord]

4) But what I'm talking about here is a specific Boulder block, not adding anything new to existing blocks, that does lots of damage and obeys gravity, making it a useful item specifically for trap-making.

Well, lava can kind of do that, and sand/gravel at a smaller extent.

The invisible to players not having technical items does sound good though.

The dart traps with infinite arrows are really just dispensers filled with arrows. Honestly, do you think anyone will fall in the same trap 396 times?

The statues are just dispensers with eggs in them.

[Ani2]

Well, lava can kind of do that, and sand/gravel at a smaller extent.

The invisible to players not having technical items does sound good though.

The dart traps with infinite arrows are really just dispensers filled with arrows. Honestly, do you think anyone will fall in the same trap 396 times?

The statues are just dispensers with eggs in them.

1) Yes, but Lava is slow, and Sand/Gravel are generally only going to do half a heart of damage. The point in the Boulder is that you place it on a platform of Active/Inactive blocks, and when someone presses the pressure plate the boulder falls on them and does some decent damage. You just can't get that from Sand/Gravle or Lava.

2) Yeah - out of all the things that could be included in this mod, the invisible wires would be the one thing I would keep. So far, even with Technic, players who see traps are immediately either going to grief them to hell (possibly for the heck of griefing or maybe even to harvest all of these semi-rare wires - which is also the reason I'm wanting a Wirecutter that is required to harvest the wires) or dodge them completely. Everyone knows that this is annoying, sucks, is suckily annoying and annoyingly sucky, and I just don't see why invisible wires hadn't been thought of before.

3) That's the point - more than one person can fall into the trap, and the Dart Trap won't lose any arrows.

4) Yeah, but they do look cool. And plus, when have we been able to get item and lightning spawn eggs?

[phoenix987]

The statues would be easy to do as a Bukkit plugin. You make a PlayerChangedWorldEvent listener that checks for certain block patterns around the last block change. If it matches, schedule a task to attempt to spawn a creature every so often around the statue. I might take a crack at it later this week.

The dart traps could use a BlockDispenseEvent listener to refill the dispenser inventory if it has arrows and possibly another item to keep them from being too easy to make.

Wires like Terraria's would be difficult. In Minecraft, wires have to occupy a block space in the world, and this prevents players from placing other blocks in the same space. So without rewriting all of the vanilla blocks and other mod blocks players could just place dirt everywhere to find the wires leading to the traps. If that's not a problem for you then it's just a matter of copying the redstone class(es) and giving the wire a transparent texture.

Boulders could just be dumb entities. Just add a tool to cut them out of stone and give them an attack value (bonus points for making it use the boulder's current velocity).

And as has been mentioned, there is already a mod for hidden pressure plates and Redpower has a timer.

[Ani2]

The statues would be easy to do as a Bukkit plugin. You make a PlayerChangedWorldEvent listener that checks for certain block patterns around the last block change. If it matches, schedule a task to attempt to spawn a creature every so often around the statue. I might take a crack at it later this week.

The dart traps could use a BlockDispenseEvent listener to refill the dispenser inventory if it has arrows and possibly another item to keep them from being too easy to make.

Wires like Terraria's would be difficult. In Minecraft, wires have to occupy a block space in the world, and this prevents players from placing other blocks in the same space. So without rewriting all of the vanilla blocks and other mod blocks players could just place dirt everywhere to find the wires leading to the traps. If that's not a problem for you then it's just a matter of copying the redstone class(es) and giving the wire a transparent texture.

Boulders could just be dumb entities. Just add a tool to cut them out of stone and give them an attack value (bonus points for making it use the boulder's current velocity).

And as has been mentioned, there is already a mod for hidden pressure plates and Redpower has a timer.

Well, first off, thanks for being the first person to understand my post and thus not shoot it down from the air with a semi-automatic rifle.

1 and 2) Well, I didn't understand what you said completely, being a programmer but not that good at Java, but I mostly see what you mean. Well, I do if you're agreeing with me.

3) Well... As I said, I ain't no pro programmer, but I'm thinking - couldn't you just have a separate layer for all the Terraria wires so they can go through blocks and stuff, just like they do in Terraria? Then you could give all the appropriate utilities and machines access to this layer to check whether wires are touching them in this layer... Right?

4) Dumb? You callin' Boulders DUMB? I'm hopin' that was a typo, buddy XD

5) Well, I didn't say that these things had to be in the mod, and as long as they're already there I'm not bothered.

[jakj]

Wires like Terraria's would be difficult. In Minecraft, wires have to occupy a block space in the world, and this prevents players from placing other blocks in the same space. So without rewriting all of the vanilla blocks and other mod blocks players could just place dirt everywhere to find the wires leading to the traps. If that's not a problem for you then it's just a matter of copying the redstone class(es) and giving the wire a transparent texture.

Nonononono, you've got your mind stuck inside the blocks again. Hasn't Redpower's covers (and Buildcraft's forthcoming facades) taught you anything?

Custom rendering!

(In fact, there's a mod that does something similiar to this already, that Dire did a spotlight on. Greenstone maybe? I forget.)

But anyway, you absolutely do not need to occupy every block with a wire, because you can render anywhere at any time. It's actually possible to have an entire setup with exactly zero blocks, if you never need the player to collide with something, because you can simply store your information in the world file and render it at will.

Without at least one block, though, it will be more difficult, and without at least one block in every chunk your stuff goes through, it will be problematic, but it will still work. A good middle-ground solution is to have a block placed at each vertex of your wire (meaning one at the start, one at the end, and one each time you want it to bend). That gives you plenty of tile entities to store your information in, and you can use tile-entity renderers to draw everything (and the renderer can easily check to see if something is in the player's hand before drawing).

Rule #1 of Minecraft: Be creative! Don't let an inherent limitation rule you, and think outside the blocks.

[Ani2]

Nonononono, you've got your mind stuck inside the blocks again. Hasn't Redpower's covers (and Buildcraft's forthcoming facades) taught you anything?

Custom rendering!

(In fact, there's a mod that does something similiar to this already, that Dire did a spotlight on. Greenstone maybe? I forget.)

But anyway, you absolutely do not need to occupy every block with a wire, because you can render anywhere at any time. It's actually possible to have an entire setup with exactly zero blocks, if you never need the player to collide with something, because you can simply store your information in the world file and render it at will.

Without at least one block, though, it will be more difficult, and without at least one block in every chunk your stuff goes through, it will be problematic, but it will still work. A good middle-ground solution is to have a block placed at each vertex of your wire (meaning one at the start, one at the end, and one each time you want it to bend). That gives you plenty of tile entities to store your information in, and you can use tile-entity renderers to draw everything (and the renderer can easily check to see if something is in the player's hand before drawing).

Rule #1 of Minecraft: Be creative! Don't let an inherent limitation rule you, and think outside the blocks.

I still reckon there are major advantages to having some Terraria-style wires.