Pumps

[Triskelli]

Yeah yeah, I know that Pumps have been suggested an untold number of times. And honestly, I debate whether it's worth a new thread to discuss it.

But I DO think it's worth an honest discussion. Namely, what would a Pump do, and why would we need one?


The reason I'm thinking about pumps in the first place is because... Well, if we assume that steam power is coming, we quickly run into a problem. What are Steam Engines useful for that couldn't technically be powered by waterwheels or windmills? The first few that come to mind are Locomotives, Lathes, and Water Pumps. And historically, that's what steam engines started off doing: They were set to work pumping water out of coal mines.


So we have some historical and logical precedent. But aside from the obvious, what would a pump do in Minecraft?

Well, to answer that question, let me ask my own in return.

Have you ever tried making an artificial island in Minecraft?




It's a worthy project, but it takes forever if you want to get the job done right. Even if you manage to fill the walls with sand or gravel, you've got to fill in the ENTIRE area. Which is doubly frustrating if you had wanted to keep the island hollow to house your doom fort. And the same situation occurs if you want to fill an area with water: If you want to eliminate all the potential flowing you've got to do it layer by layer.


Of course, these are more extreme examples. Far more practical and common would be draining the numerous lakes of Magma deep within the earth. The current options are either bucketing the lake away, or turning those blocks to Obsidian and mining it all out. A pump would be able to do in an instant what would take Steve hours to accomplish.


Okay, so yeah, pumps would be useful. So how would they work? Unfortunately, this is where I'm stuck. Pumps should work with current Minecraft liquid physics, so no Finite water. The tricky bit is rationalizing what happens to all the liquid that is pumped in and out of the machine. It all sounds so simple until you actually sit down to think about it.

[Damion Rayne]

Trisk,

Buildcraft Pumps + BTW = Doing what you're suggesting. :)

[Triskelli]

Trisk,

Buildcraft Pumps + BTW = Doing what you're suggesting. :)

...!

Rayne, I know you're right, but we shouldn't have to depend on cross compatibility for features of the mod. Besides, this is less about resource management (Collecting the water or lava) and more about terraforming (Moving the water from place to place).

[BinoAl]

Trisk,

Buildcraft Pumps + BTW = Doing what you're suggesting. :)

...!

Rayne, I know you're right, but we shouldn't have to depend on cross compatibility for features of the mod. Besides, this is less about resource management (Collecting the water or lava) and more about terraforming (Moving the water from place to place).

Plus, this could still lead to an interesting discussion. Instead of ending it with "It's been done", we should discuss new ways to do it, maybe some that fit better into the style of btw

[PuppetRebel]

I would love to not need another mod for this particular functionality.
To me it only makes sense for us to have other ways to harness the element of water. We have a few ways to harness fire.
I just don't have any good ideas as to how to tie it in to BTW. ;D

[Camerinthus]

Concrete can take out water quickly now, so the problem is much less so with lava than water. Just pour a bucket of concrete into a lava pool, and mine out the smoothstone.

[Triskelli]

Well, the obvious point for it in the tech-tree is if/when Steam Engines are introduced.

As for HOW a pump would empty/fill a room... Anyone remember the way Water Physics used to work?



With a little tweaking, that'd be a good way to fill in a designated area. The problem is that this would be an automatic process, and eliminate any reason to maintain pumps after they've been used.

Wait, brainstorm! Pumps might also be useful as a legit method of moving items vertically (Wow, that's a lot like Buildcraft.)


Ugh. Anyone have some good ideas on implementation? I'm drawing blanks.

[Battosay]

Definitey interesting, and wanted, but so far away of Steeve's tech level imo.
And yeah, sayin' it has already been made in another mod isn't really an argument ;)
You can still debate and talk about it, even if it's quite unlikely to happen in a near future.

[BigShinyToys]

Steam Engines Have NOT been confirmed By FC and the whistle that people use as proof Could not have been because FC douse NOT have a API for sound that means NO custom sounds . No whistle means NO STEAM ENGINES.

Just thought i would clear that up a bit.
This myth goes along with the endermen not picking up user placed blocks. That was NEVER confirmed by Notch Or Jeb .

But if steam is added then pipes will be needed and pumps and holding tanks ect Not a simple system to add. And for what gain.

so to sum up i don like it Mutch Depends on implementation thought.

[Mason11987]

Steam Engines Have NOT been confirmed By FC and the whistle that people use as proof Could not have been because FC douse NOT have a API for sound that means NO custom sounds . No whistle means NO STEAM ENGINES.

No sound API... yet. No whistle means no steam engines, kind of an assumption don't you think? I would have said that windmills would have required a wind sound, but they don't, or mills a milling sound, but they don't, or bellows a wind sound, they don't, or turntable it's own sound, it doesn't. Most of the BTW new stuff could easily have it's own sound, the fact that it doesn't means nothing to making them.

I agree it hasn't been confirmed, but not having an actual whistle sound means nothing to whether steam is the next age.

[DaveYanakov]

I have tried many, many times to make artificial islands but now that concrete wins conflicts with water and lava, it fills that need quite nicely for me. It can be used fairly easily to fill in the space water occupies and then be reshaped at need.

[BinoAl]

Steam Engines Have NOT been confirmed By FC and the whistle that people use as proof Could not have been because FC douse NOT have a API for sound that means NO custom sounds . No whistle means NO STEAM ENGINES.

By that logic, the hint of the song "youuuu spin me right round baby right rouuuunddd like a record babyyy..." couldn't hint at the turntable, because he doesn't have any way to play the song in-game >.> Just because there aren't any in-game sounds yet doesn't mean a whistle hints at steam. Also, douse? really? </grammarnazi>

[sargunv]

and the whistle that people use as proof Could not have been because FC douse NOT have a API for sound that means NO custom sounds .

A sound API may be added to Forge in the (near?) future.

[Battosay]

It's even 100% sure they'll add a sound API in the forge at some point.
And it's also sure we'll get steam in BTW ... at some point ;)

[Deepsniper]

It's even 100% sure they'll add a sound API in the forge at some point.
And it's also sure we'll get steam in BTW ... at some point ;)

Yeah We'll get steam if and only we behave. And whenever FC thinks that Battosay is ready to learn a completely new system I like the idea of pumps though... the way that Buildcraft as awesome as it is, is going further and further away from BTW style especially with the new 2.2 preview I watched yesterday... A nice addition of pumps would help and they could also make some other concepts that I cant think of easier?

[Triskelli]

Yeah, like another concept that springs to mind is moats and canal-locks. Pistons and BDs may be able to control water flow, but there's no real way to change water-level with any sense of urgency.

[BigShinyToys]

By that logic, the hint of the song "youuuu spin me right round baby right rouuuunddd like a record babyyy..." couldn't hint at the turntable, because he doesn't have any way to play the song in-game >.> Just because there aren't any in-game sounds yet doesn't mean a whistle hints at steam. Also, douse? really? </grammarnazi>

I was referring to the vid that FC put out (cant find link) that had the sound of a whistle in it . After that people started saying steam is going to be added because the whistle was form some kind of steam powered device. But for if it could be added to minecraft that is certainly possible Sorry for the confusion there .

[MagusUnion]

Trisk,

Buildcraft Pumps + BTW = Doing what you're suggesting. :)

...!

Rayne, I know you're right, but we shouldn't have to depend on cross compatibility for features of the mod. Besides, this is less about resource management (Collecting the water or lava) and more about terraforming (Moving the water from place to place).

That's not 'dependency'... that's using one feature, and collaborating it with another. Why should Flowerchild change his design when Spacetoad presents a wonderful solution to this difficulty already? Besides, part of the reason why MCForge exist is because mods can (and successfully will) work together in greater game play fashion...

But I digress... I don't see how one would go about having a mechanical driven pump system beyond, say, a well design. Which really wouldn't help in this case that you speak of...

[Triskelli]

Yet another valid point, Magus.

Was thinking about this earlier today, and I think I have a decent grasp on how this could be implemented. Having proper Pumps would require three new blocks.

The Pump,
The Pipe, and
The Tank.

So let me spin you an example of where, why, and how you'd use this system. Let's say you're mining and you come across a lake of lava. You need some obsidian for your bunker, but you don't want to dig out all the Obsidian, and you don't want to scoop all the lava out for an Obsidian farm.

So instead, you place down a few Pipes. You place it level with the lava, and you connect it to a crude pump. Pumps run on mechanical energy, so you'd need a waterwheel nearby as well. The pump has two ends where fluid can be pumped through, depending on the redstone current.

So you've got the pump running, and drawing out the lava. The pump spits out a source block of lava adjacent to it. This is ideal for people that want a source of lava while inside their base, or for setting up an obsidian harvester with a Block Dispenser. Every time the source block is removed, another source block is pulled from the lake.

But what if you want to drain a lake entirely? That's what the Tank is for. The Tank can "absorb" source blocks of fluid, and has a large inventory (128?). And depending on the redstone current, it can also drain source blocks like the pump does, taking them from its own inventory.


...So yeah, almost identical to the Buildcraft pumps. However, I do have an interesting point to make.

We're all assuming that we'll eventually have steam, right? I think that Pumps are a great place to begin that shift. Heat up a Tank with stoked Hibachis, and you get a Boiler. Pass that steam through Pipes back to a Pump, and the pump turns into an Engine, and can generate Mechanical power!

That turned into a bit of a rant, and got sidetracked. But it's an interesting solution to something we've all been pondering, and I hope that something similar to it is implemented.

[BinoAl]

Yet another valid point, Magus.

Was thinking about this earlier today, and I think I have a decent grasp on how this could be implemented...

I rather like this implementation. While I'm sure FC already has a way to make a boiler/other source of steam power in mind (assuming steam is being added), this would be a great way to do it. It would give us a solid first advantageous item for the age of steel (or steam), and provide a unique source of power, and a way to harness it.

[water mover]

please not the following is a outline of peusado code.
a theory but all shadows would do would change the blocks cords.

The problem with the other mods are that they make water finite which removes the possibility of infinite spring something many players enjoy making water finite also interferences with a lot of better than wolves code,
i do not know much about java but i know some c++ and i have a easy solution to make this work make all water surrounding pumps have a shadow which determinants there placement on the map, when the piston arm intrudes upon the water the shadow makes it act like a solid block for a small length of time. this could be implemented without piping as the player could just dig holes in the ground. this would also free up item i.d s with out the need for other blocks
to make water flow shadows would need to push shadows meaning that if one of the water blocks was in the way the block(s) with the shadow(s) would move.
one more hurdle gravity! using shadows falling blocks of water would take priority over other blocks below them and displace them.
in the event of water failing into ocean well we can let the wolves guy figure that out because he is probably alot smarter than me.

is anyone seeing what i am saying and are you getting the idea.
basically it lets you pressurize water in a manner similar to real life.

[Stormweaver]

in a manner similar to real life.

While I can't say I fully understand your idea, I'm pretty sure that you need to do a bit of reading on how water works in real life.

[water mover]

ok corrected "in a manner simulating real life."

my idea basically means water should be able the push water and pistons should be able to do the same.
in a sense allowing pistons to act as pumps and work without crafted pipes just dug ones
thus allowing (simulated) water pressure .
yes and i know how water works in real life.

what i mean by shadows would be a simple math formula which would allow recalculation of the waters cords on the map.
the hole shadows bit may already in minecraft in which cause FC's job just got easier and i just got dummer

[Sajuuk]

Am I the first to consider using pumps and pipes to suck dung out of wolves? I mean, if they are ever breedable it would be easy. Just farm and slurp that useful business out of there.
Doesn't have to be realistic, just fun! :D?

[jorgebonafe]

Am I the first to consider using pumps and pipes to suck dung out of wolves? I mean, if they are ever breedable it would be easy. Just farm and slurp that useful business out of there.
Doesn't have to be realistic, just fun! :D?

Oh, yeah! Now you're talking! I love it XD