Flower's Dev Diary (Week of Jan 28th)

[FlowerChild]

Another week, another round of feature development (for real this time!) :)

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, let's open with an in-game screenshot:

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That would be the grinder of my work in progress wither skeleton farm complete with Chopping Blocks for maximum decapitation potential :)

You see, with all the work I've been doing on beacons as of late, my own main world has lagged behind somewhat in terms of actually keeping up with the mod's tech-tree. As a result, I've decided to set aside the day to just play the mod on work on my own beacons ;)

Looking back over the past couple of weeks, I've had quite the burst of creative energy that I directed towards beacons, and I'm quite pleased with the results. They've gone from being nigh-useless in vanilla to being what I consider to be true "end game" content that will likely keep players occupied and making discoveries for weeks and potentially months to come.

IMO, that's the right way to go with the mod's development at present, given that I'll soon be moving on to a new project. It's the kind of content that keeps a game or mod interesting long after new features have stopped being added to it, and we'll likely be seeing more content along those lines in the near future.

For this week though, I largely plan on focusing on wrapping up a few loose ends. For example, while all the beacons are in, there are still several aspects of them I'd like to tweak and polish, like extending the looting effect to *all* mobs (not just player killed ones) within the range of influence of that particular beacon type. There's also a number of odds and ends related to features that are already in the mod but which I do not wish to spoil by giving additional info about them ;)

After that, I intend to move on to finalizing enchanting. As many of you have noticed, several of the Arcane Scrolls are not yet in the mod, and I plan to take care of that, as well as potentially making some tweaks to enchanting as a whole within MC. With the arcane scrolls, I had previously designed sources for them which were tied into the various stronghold locations and such, but given I've triaged most of those plans to facilitate me moving onto RTH, I'll be providing sources for them based on the current content in the game instead. For example, one of the sources discussed in another thread is obtaining water breathing scrolls from squid.

Another item I hope to get to is finally taking care of what happens to animals in the Nether and The End dimension. That one has been lingering around for awhile now, and I've been procrastinating about it due to it involving a fair amount of work to get the results I'm looking for.

Looking to the future, I really also need to set aside some solid time to address some of the nastier outstanding bugs in the mod. The Pulleys and Platforms are a perfect example, as that one has been hanging around since the 1.3 update but I've again been putting it off as it requires quite an extensive reworking of the existing code. This of course all needs to be taken care of before I can call BTW "done".

Anyways, I think that sums up where I am for now. I hope all of you are having a good time playing around with the beacons in your own worlds :)

[icynewyear]

I just wanted to take a moment and say that the recent updates have been amazing. Thank you.

[Locke]

You see, with all the work I've been doing on beacons as of late, my own main world has lagged behind somewhat in terms of actually keeping up with the mod's tech-tree. As a result, I've decided to set aside the day to just play the mod on work on my own beacons ;)

Out of interest, why do you have chopping blocks on top of one another? Wouldn't one chopping block and saw work just fine?

[Sarudak]

Cool stuff. I'll have you know that it was the desire to make beacons that has finally pushed me into building a nether base. My first railway. A nether mob trap based around the nether fort. Massive concrete production for covering the nether. And I'm even looking at experimenting with blood wood. I just wish there was some way to prevent ghast spawns. RIP open spaces. I will miss you.

[FlowerChild]

Out of interest, why do you have chopping blocks on top of one another? Wouldn't one chopping block and saw work just fine?

I suppose so, but I thought it cooler to have a bank (I think there's actually 3 with one you can't see in the screen, to cover the full height of a wither skeleton) of Chopping Blocks pushing the mob into multiple Saws.

I'm not beyond a few largely aesthetic details like that in my contraptions :)

Cool stuff. I'll have you know that it was the desire to make beacons that has finally pushed me into building a nether base. My first railway. A nether mob trap based around the nether fort. Massive concrete production for covering the nether. And I'm even looking at experimenting with blood wood. I just wish there was some way to prevent ghast spawns. RIP open spaces. I will miss you.

Awesome stuff man! If it's motivated you to undertake that many in-game projects, I guess I did something right :)

[xou816]

Quite a lot of work for you to do then... Well, good luck!
Thank you for your work :) oh and I think it makes us all very glad to see you in a better mood since a few days... You looked somewhat depressed and totally demotivated some time ago... So yeah, cool to see that you're back on the rails!

[FlowerChild]

I decided to install a few windows in my grinder to provide a better view of the mayhem within...

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It's actually a two stage process where mobs first fall into the upper chamber and then get pushed by a piston into the kill room. I did this to minimize the fall damage they take to make sure as many as possible wind up getting killed against the Chopping Blocks to maximize their skull drops.

I also remembered why I built it with multiple Chopping Blocks and Saws (I built the grinder awhile ago): it's to take advantage of the hit boxes on the Saws so that live mobs are trapped in the area between the Saws and Chopping Blocks, but items have enough space to fall straight through.

Anyways, there may be more efficient ways to do this, but this one definitely works, and looks cool in action to boot ;)

One thing to note about my designs is that I almost always build more space into them then I need (in this case: vertical). Yes, contrary to many, I intentionally make things non-compact. The reason I do this is in case I decide to make changes or additions to a build later on. The extra space gives me a lot more flexibility when that happens, plus I like the aesthetic of large builds.

[thekyz]

Well i tend to the the same, I like it bulky, messy, & aesthetic at the same time :)

[ion]

a better way to make sure that mobs don't die is to use a vine and one button under it so it doesn't grow. this way monsters are slowed in their drop without taking any damage

[Eriottosan]

ion, you're confusing better with different ;).

FC, I love it! I'm actually in the middle of building a nether-based trap (haven't ever got round to it in the past, but with the beacony goodness, how can you not?).

I think it's great that you still set aside time to just play. I know it's part of your design philosophy anyway, but it's always nice to see when people practice what they preach - which is evident in the case of BTW due to how natural and balanced it feels.

An inspiration as always, man (:

[warmist]

<...>
I think it's great that you still set aside time to just play. I know it's part of your design philosophy anyway, but it's always nice to see when people practice what they preach - which is evident in the case of BTW due to how natural and balanced it feels.<...>

Thats FC for you :) I build organically (stuff everywhere, slowly growing outwards) but keeping it bulky is a really good idea, because now that i need to modify or add something, I have to build new area instead.

[Mason11987]

Even though I haven't had a lot of time to play BTW lately due to work I'm always excited to see a new Dev Diary. I'm pretty excited because there is a long list of things for me to do when I finally get the time to play some more. I'm excited about dropping a looting beacon on top of my mob farm when you make that change :).

Every change makes me both excited and concerned for what might come with RTH. Excited because it'll be awesome, and concerned because I'm not sure how vacation days will work out for me this year :P.

Thanks again FC!

[FlowerChild]

I think it's great that you still set aside time to just play. I know it's part of your design philosophy anyway, but it's always nice to see when people practice what they preach - which is evident in the case of BTW due to how natural and balanced it feels.

Thanks man! I think I may do the same today actually. After playing most of yesterday, my mob-trap output is still a trickle and I've gotten into synthesizing redstone heavily for the first time to complete it.

I always try to keep on top of the mod's tech tree as I don't really think it's reasonable of me to be designing features in such a way that I'm not willing to go through the process myself. If I find I'm not having fun in the process, I of course rebalance to make sure that I hit the right cost/benefit ratio so that the time invested feels worthwhile.

So far, the beacons feel good in that regard. I'm definitely enjoying myself, and I find myself wanting certain beacons as soon as I can get them to facilitate the process of completing the trap itself, and that kind of thing, which is definitely a good sign.

Here's a view of the interior of my mob trap as it is right now:

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I am basically using the same design as my previous pigman farm, with the exception of basing it on a Chopping Block grinder rather than just killing the mobs through fall damage. The unfortunate part of this design though is that the mobs take a point of damage with each level they are pushed down, which is one of the reasons why I am concerned with the fall damage down in the grinder chambers. I fooled around with trying to compress is down into just 2 or 3 blocks per level, but with no success.

I'm also thinking of setting up a beacon where that central floating island of netherrack is right now, for a cool "pyramid within an inverted pyramid" effect :)

[Sarudak]

I'd be careful building in the center. That trap looks like it could provide you an abrupt reminder of the effectiveness of saws combined with chopping blocks and the *fun* of hardcore spawn if you were to accidentally end up on one of those pressure plates. :)

[FlowerChild]

I'd be careful building in the center. That trap looks like it could provide you an abrupt reminder of the effectiveness of saws combined with chopping blocks and the *fun* of hardcore spawn if you were to accidentally end up on one of those pressure plates. :)

Hehe...believe me in that I've already fallen into this trap (and the previous one I built of this kind) on several occasions ;)

I'm rather quick on hacking my way out of the kill chamber now. On the bright side though, even if you do die, all your gear is nicely collected for you :)

[Sarudak]

Well there is that. I don't see how this trap will collect wither skeletons though. Unless you're changing where they spawn?

[thekyz]

Well there is that. I don't see how this trap will collect wither skeletons though. Unless you're changing where they spawn?

It could work if he built it at a junction in a fortress.

[FlowerChild]

I've been building it straight through the heart of a nether stronghold:

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As far as I know, that's sufficient to catch the wither skellie spawns as all it takes is a stronghold biome. Am I missing something about their spawn restrictions?

[Xaedblade]

As far as I know they only spawn on cross roads in the fortress... this vid shows more... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR6oATNOFSw

[Battlecat]

The intersections are optimal for farms but they will spawn on any nether fortress catwalk. This video details the spawning zones of wither skeletons.

Here's a brief summary: They'll spawn on the fortress catwalk surfaces and on pads created approximately 5 blocks above and below. They'll also spawn on areas about 5 blocks outwards horizontally, but it's dependent on the piece of the fortress you work with. The precise shape of the spawning box varies depending on the standard shaped segments of the fortress.

[Sarudak]

From the video I watched they only spawn in a very narrow area based on where the walkways spawn and the fort crossroads. This spawn are is restricted on all axes. The video may have been wrong but it tracks with my experience. I only occasionally see them off the walkways and they clearly could have wandered there themselves.

[FlowerChild]

Fuck :)

Ok, I've definitely contained some crossroads in my trap then, as I've seen them spawn inside, but that must have been pure chance. Before building, I simply consulted the wiki which said "spawns inside strongholds", and off I went. I don't generally like getting to heavy into the tutorial vids as it definitely takes an element of creativity away from the experience.

Will have to think on that, as that spawn mechanic is definitely not designed with mob-traps in mind as it's far from intuitive.

Looking over the code, I realized that the strongholds are not true biomes, but rather just map features, which I guess explains the limited vertical range.

[Thorium-232]

Will have to think on that, as that spawn mechanic is definitely not designed with mob-traps in mind as it's far from intuitive.

And with that, I hold off building my Wither farm in case something changes :) They're not hard to hunt by hand as is (hell, it's the most fun I've had in MC in quite a while) and I don't want to flip through the crossroads gymnastics if the spawning rules might loosen.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I think I'm going to change it. I just dug into the code and figured out precisely what is happening.

When the wither skeletons test for spawn conditions, they check if they're within a stronghold...so far so good.

Then, that test in turn cycles through what is supposed to be all the "components" of the stronghold (bridges, rooms, etc), BUT only considers the points at which generation starts...which are those crossroads, which have rather tiny bounding boxes.

So, outside of those very specific areas, they just don't spawn.

What I'm considering doing, is limiting that test to the first stage: checking if it's within the overall bounding box for the stronghold, and skipping the component tests. IMO, this will make the spawn conditions more closely resemble the much more intuitive "wither skeletons spawn within nether strongholds".

To give you an idea, that first test encompasses an area of 100X30X150 blocks for the stronghold I'm currently working in. I may ignore the y co-ordinate entirely actually (it seems a little small), and just allow them to spawn in the full vertical range.

Any objections? I considered just adjusting my trap but the more I thought about it, the more meta-gamey figuring out the whole spawning system for the wither skeletons feels. I know Mojang doesn't design with mob-traps in mind, but since I do, I think it makes sense for me to do something like this. Obviously, this change won't break existing traps (since the larger area encompasses the existing smaller ones), but if anyone here really likes the spawn conditions as is for some reason, now is the time to speak up on it.

[Jeet]

I assume that if you change it to the bounding box check of the fortress, they still would only spawn on nether brick?