Dungeon Crawler: Modpack WIP, Need YOUR Suggestions!

[Emblin]

*UPDATE*

I have improved the balancing of weapons and armor.
I am still trying to create dungeons
I am still improving monster stats

Suggestions would be VERY appreciated right now, I need ideas and support for this pack to work

 

[Emblin]

Can anyone tell me how to make passive health regen constant? As in, you regenerate health at about peaceful mode rate, even in hard difficulty. It is a pretty important thing I need

*EDIT*
I also would REALLY like to know if there is a mod that gives you a self status bar. In my modpack you always have more hearts that 10, which causes your heart colors to change up to 10 different colors, and people can't remember what color is what health.

ex: If you have 100 hearts, your heart bar turns white.

TL;DR, I need a mod that changes your gui to show how many hearts you have in numbers

 

[Someone Else 37]

As for displaying your health as a number... I don't know. But for making passive health regen, one way to do it would be to give players a constant regen buff, through something like the RFTools Environmental Controller. Just hide one of those somewhere and give it a creative energy cell.

As for getting companion mobs to work, you said that they will only teleport to the dungeon if the area they were previously in remains chunkloaded, correct? You could exploit that. Have two separate griefproofed "holding pen" areas that are absolutely identical except that one is permanently chunkloaded, while the other is not. Keep the "home base" islands chunkloaded as well, as well as the dungeons for some amount of time after the player has left (by dropping an enderpearl into a Railcraft world anchor, for instance).

When the player wants to warp to a no-companion dungeon, teleport them to the non-chunkloaded holding area first, then wait a few seconds for the companions to follow, then teleport the player to the actual dungeon. The holding area unloads, and the companions get left behind. For companion-friendly dungeons, do the same thing, except use the perma-loaded holding area, so the companions will be able to follow. Probably be a good idea to keep the holding areas within the player-chunkloading radius of the home base island, so when the player returns from a dungeon, any companions stuck in the holding areas can warp out.

On the dungeon side, you'd need a way to detect when a player leaves- or, at least, when a player is present. You could do this by exploiting the player chunkloading radius. Have a redstone clock of some sort within ten chunks of all parts of the dungeon, but outside the range of any world anchors (and they have to be Railcraft world anchors, with fuel use and automation compatibility enabled in the config) within the dungeon. When there are no players in the dungeon, the clock unloads and ceases ticking. When a player is in the dungeon, the clock starts ticking again, and triggers a dropper fed by a creative strongbox (or something of that nature) to start feeding items into the world anchor. Then, when the player leaves, the clock stops ticking, but the world anchor continues to run for a bit, allowing any companions to teleport out. When the anchor uses up all the items buffered inside it, it ceases functioning and unloads the dungeon.

The limitation, of course, is that you don't want the dungeon to load up when the player enters a nearby dungeon, which can only be remedied by making sure there's at least twelve or so chunks between dungeons.

It'd probably be simpler- and more effective- to rig up some kind of player-detecting sensor, and simply turn off the chunkloader a few seconds after there are no more players present. Could be done with a command block, a comparator, and a few Vanilla redstone repeaters, even.

Finally, on a different subject, if you're still having trouble getting mobs to go through opened HQM gate blocks, try using water, conveyor belts, or something to shove them through, or make the ceiling out of the gates and have them fall.

 

[Emblin]

Your companion buffer idea sounds pretty confusing in text. I'll have to go and personally try it on singleplayer, it'll probably make more sense then.

And no worries about being too close to dungeons. For my sanity, I had long ago decided each dungeon is placed exactly 500 blocks away from the previous one. So there are dungeons at X=1000,Y=100,Z=1000, and X=1500,Y=100,Z=1000, and X1=500,Y=100,Z=1500. So I can find them much easier, and that the player will have a long ways to go if they want to cheat and bridge to other dungeons.

And the issue with HQM blocks is that they are solid to everything but the player. So when the HQM gate blocks had deactivated, the mobs standing on top didn't fall.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Your companion buffer idea sounds pretty confusing in text. I'll have to go and personally try it on singleplayer, it'll probably make more sense then.

And no worries about being too close to dungeons. For my sanity, I had long ago decided each dungeon is placed exactly 500 blocks away from the previous one. So there are dungeons at X=1000,Y=100,Z=1000, and X=1500,Y=100,Z=1000, and X1=500,Y=100,Z=1500. So I can find them much easier, and that the player will have a long ways to go if they want to cheat and bridge to other dungeons.

And the issue with HQM blocks is that they are solid to everything but the player. So when the HQM gate blocks had deactivated, the mobs standing on top didn't fall.

500 blocks should be more than far enough for the chunkloading-based method to work. If I remember correctly, the player chunkloading radius is 10 chunks, or 160 blocks.

I'll see about getting a proof of concept working in a testworld, so I can take some screenshots.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Ok, I have screenshots of a system that *should* work, derpy Vanilla Minecraft wolf behavior notwithstanding:

Spoiler: Teleporter Room

These two screenshots show the redstone needed on the home-base-side from two different angles. I apologize for the broken item textures; there appears to be a weird platform-dependent bug in Forge causing that, and I don't know what mod fixes it.

Here, you can see what the player would normally need to interact with, as well as the redstone behind it. The two command blocks at the front are both programmed with a /tp @a command, differing only in the particular location that all players in the dimension are teleported to. Behind them is nothing more than a 30-second delay circuit. I strongly recommend using a State Cell from ProjectRed/BluePower/whatever instead. Each individual dungeon would need its own copy of this circuit (which would be no problem spacewise if it's condensed into single state cell) or some kind of multiplexing circuit so all the teleporters can share a common timer.

Here's a close-up of the timer circuit:

At the left are the two inputs. Each would ordinarily get its own copy of the rest of the circuit, as mentioned, but I was too lazy to duplicate it twice. When the button on a command block at left is pressed, the player is instantly teleported to one of the holding pens, while the left piston here simultaneously pushes the redstone block into the other position, adjacent to the other hopper. There are a total of 60 blocks of cobblestone shared between the hoppers. At the moment, they're all stored in the left hopper which is disabled by the redstone block; however, when the redstone block is toggled, they will start flowing into the other hopper at a rate of one cobble per half second. Thirty seconds later, all the cobblestone has moved into the right hopper (which currently has the redstone block next to it), so the comparator reads that the left hopper is empty and ceases outputting any signal at all. This causes the redstone torch there to turn on, which in turn triggers the command block at the top right and the right-hand piston. The command block teleports the player from the holding pen to the particular dungeon they wanted to go to in the first place, while the piston pushes the redstone block back to the left and starts resetting the timer.

Also, in this screenshot, you can see my "companion" Wuf, standing on the admin anchor at the left.

Spoiler: The Holding Pens

As you can see, the only difference between them is that one is within range of the world anchor (as shown by my Trackman's Goggles); while the other is not. The "Companions OK" command block in the first screenshot warps the player to the chunkloaded platform; the other command block teleports the player to the other platform.

Following some testing done after I built these platforms, the unchunkloaded one may need to be built an additional sixteen blocks farther away from the chunkloader. The world anchors seem to load a 5x5 chunk area in some cases.

The idea here is that when the player is teleported to either platform, their companions will teleport to the platform as well within 30 seconds. If they're on the chunkloaded platform, they will be able to follow the player to the dungeon; if not, they'll unload and get stuck. I was unable to test this, as my derpy canine friend would only actually teleport to me half of the time. Hopefully the CustomNPC companions are more reliable.

Also, both platforms should be built within the player's chunkloading radius of home base, so that any companions stranded on them can teleport out.

Spoiler: The Dungeon

First off, here's the player detector:

Nothing more than a simple redstone torch 3-clock located well outside the range of the admin anchor whose aura you can see at left. For the purposes of placing this, be aware that the radius of the anchor seems to be 5x5- make sure there's two whole chunks between the anchor and this timer.

The command block you see there is configured to /say Timer tick whenever the timer ticks.

Now, here's the chunkloaded part of the circuit:

The signal from the timer comes in at the top of this screenshot. The first thing it encounters is a pulse generator with a 3-tick repeater and a redstone torch, which ensures that the next part of of the circuit can never receive a constant ON signal, no matter what phase the clock gets stuck on. It could be replaced with a single pulse former gate from your favorite RedPower clone.

Whenever this pulse former emits a redstone pulse, it triggers the command block nearest the top of the screen, which prints "Pulser tick" in the chatbox.

Next up is a sort of pulse lengthener circuit, consisting of two vanilla repeaters. The first is set to a 3-tick delay, while the second is set to a 4-tick delay. The 3-tick repeater lengthens each pulse coming from the pulse former a little bit, then the 4-tick lengthens it a bit more, with the effect that the successive pulses all get blurred into one. The second repeater never actually turns off as long as the timer keeps ticking. Don't ask me why this works; it just does.

Following that is a delay circuit not so different from the one shown earlier on the home base side. Whenever the second pulse-lengthening repeater is consistently ON, the right hopper is disabled and the left hopper is enabled, so the 60 cobblestones all flow into the right hopper. When the pulse lengthener's output turns OFF, meaning that the timer offscreen has stopped ticking, the cobble will start to flow into the left hopper. When the right hopper is completely drained once again, the comparator will cease pushing a signal into that grass block, allowing the redstone torch to turn on and disable the admin anchor.

I didn't end up having to edit RC's config files or mess with infinite item sources at all. The admin anchors can be turned off with a simple redstone signal just fine.

The command block next to the redstone torch prints "Disabling chunkloader" in the chatbox, so I know when that happens.

All of the circuitry in this screenshot could be boiled down into a single Pulse Former, a State Cell, and a NOT gate. Take the signal from the timer (which could itself be replaced with a Timer gate), run it through the Pulse Former, then immediately into a State Cell with a delay of 30 seconds. The "front" output of that gate (the one that turns on the whole time the state call is running) can then be inverted and fed into the chunkloader. Whenever the timer ticks more than once every thirty seconds, the State Cell produces a continuous positive output; this turns the inverter off and allows the chunkloader to run. When the timer gets stuck, the pulse former stops pulsing, so the state cell eventually runs out and turns its output off; the inverter then turns on and disables the chunkloader.

Spoiler: In Action

This screenshot was taken a few seconds after warping back to the home base area.

You can't really see it in the screenshot, but the chat spamming has stopped. Looks like one residual pulse made it through the pulse former; but that's it.

And then, half a minute later:

The Disabling chunkloader message fires, followed by silence.

The only part of this whole setup that doesn't work, as far as I know, is the companion itself. Wuf only seemed to follow me every other time I was teleported by any of the command blocks, regardless of how long I waited between teleportations.

Also, I used 30-second delays here because I thought that might be how long it would take for Wuf to catch up to me; in your map, I'd recommend setting the delays to however long it takes the CustomNPCs companions to reliably catch up to you.

 

[Emblin]

I am VERY impressed by this. I will try to attempt to recreate what you made. Do bear in mind that I suck at redstone and command blocks, so I'm gonna be slow on the uptake

 

[dragon_fang101]

Wouldn't the third party pack section be better for this? otherwise nice job!

 

[Emblin]

Wouldn't the third party pack section be better for this? otherwise nice job!

Yeaaah... Probably. I was a novice to the forums when I first posted this.

A moderator can move it if he/she wants.

 

[Emblin]

I made what Someone Else 37 created fairly easy. He described it very well. Thank you so much, my biggest companion issue has now been solved!

 

[Someone Else 37]

I made what Someone Else 37 created fairly easy. He described it very well. Thank you so much, my biggest companion issue has now been solved!

Glad I could help.

 

[Emblin]

Problem with companions #2:
On the original world, the one I am still creating, companions have their faction set to hostile against the monster faction. Which causes companions to kill the monsters, as they normally should.

But when generating a new world, the factions and their settings are gone, and companions cannot even attack monsters unless someone spawns in an NPC wand and manually changes it.


I had, a while ago, contacted the creator of Custom NPCs and asked him to add some way to automatically change faction data through commands. But I dont think he ever plans on adding a command that can change a faction's hostility...


What do I do?

 

[Type1Ninja]

Problem with companions #2:
On the original world, the one I am still creating, companions have their faction set to hostile against the monster faction. Which causes companions to kill the monsters, as they normally should.

But when generating a new world, the factions and their settings are gone, and companions cannot even attack monsters unless someone spawns in an NPC wand and manually changes it.


I had, a while ago, contacted the creator of Custom NPCs and asked him to add some way to automatically change faction data through commands. But I dont think he ever plans on adding a command that can change a faction's hostility...


What do I do?

Include a separate world download? Ask players to set the faction manually?

 

[Someone Else 37]

Include a separate world download? Ask players to set the faction manually?

I think there's a mod called Lockdown that lets you supply a default "template" world with your modpack, and any worlds that players try to create will, instead, be clones of your template. I'd assumed the whole time that you'd be using a system like this, since it takes out any and all having to mess with the world generator.

Last time I tried to use a pack with Lockdown (Pathfinder, in this case) on a server, it took some serious futzing to get it to actually load up the right world. I don't know how my server admin managed it, but he did, eventually. It works beautifully in singleplayer, though. It's just annoying when you're on SSP and you need to spawn in an item because of a bugged quest.

 

[Emblin]

I thought I said this, but apparently I didn't because derp. It is a lockdown world.

The issue is that APPARENTLY factions are save specific, yet faction data doesn't even go in the save folders, making lockdown unable to help.

If you ever have tried to edit Custom NPCs, you would probably see that it's something only creative players should mess with. Having players edit the factions manually is literally worse than giving them a command block. Custom NPCs can act as command blocks the same way, along with other things.



I thought of a solution, buts it's kinda sloppy. When downloading the mod pack, you get 5 copies of the same world, each manually edited by me to include the faction changes. Of course, if someone uses all 5 worlds (somehow), they'd have to re download the pack.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Hmm. Yeah, that sounds like a problem. The only possible solution I can think of would be to just have the map prepackaged with a properly-configured world (or five), and also offer a separate world download somewhere in case anyone needs an extra. But even a world download might not work, as it's most likely just a copy of the save folder, which, as you've found, apparently doesn't contain faction data anyway.

Having five separate, identical saves in the pack download seems a little inefficient filespace-wise... but I guess if you compress it, it'd probably work OK. Honestly, most people probably aren't going to need more than one copy of the save anyway; so if you only have it come with one save, you most likely wouldn't even get many complaints.

 

[dragon_fang101]

agrarian skies 2 has a neat little button that resets all the worlds in game. not sure what adds that though.

 

[Emblin]

Spoiler: Cloaked Buffer Rooms

Using the power of Openblocks Sky blocks, I cloaked a gigantic tower of Companion Buffer Rooms and put it right outside spawn. You can't see it at all (That obsidian disc isn't it). If you look on my minimap, it's the only indication it is actually there.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Spoiler: Cloaked Buffer Rooms

View attachment 23844

Using the power of Openblocks Sky blocks, I cloaked a gigantic tower of Companion Buffer Rooms and put it right outside spawn. You can't see it at all (That obsidian disc isn't it). If you look on my minimap, it's the only indication it is actually there.

Question: Why do you need more than one or two buffer rooms? What sort of technology are you using to teleport players to and from dungeons?

I'd imagined that you had a wall somewhere with command blocks behind it that, when a button is pressed, would /tp the player. In this case, you could do much as I did in my proof of concept and simply fire two command blocks with a delay between them.

However, I remember you mentioning a Warp Book at some point. I imagine this to be an item into which quest-obtained items could be placed to unlock new dungeon warps, which certainly seems like a much more efficient solution to me. However, I would also assume that such an item would not have the ability to teleport the player somewhere, then somewhere else a certain amount of time later, which would certainly necessitate your tower of buffers. Warp book takes the player to the buffer corresponding to the dungeon; a pressure plate on a delayed command block takes the player to the actual dungeon.

One thing I just realized (and which you probably already realized, judging by the existence of only one tower): If you don't mind the player knowing before entering the dungeon whether or not companions are OK, you don't really need the chunkloaded buffer rooms if the spawn area is chunkloaded all the time.

 

[Emblin]

You are pretty much correct. I plan that to find new dungeons, a player must either:
1: Buy the warp page from an NPC, the cost I have yet to determine
2: Unlock a dungeon by quest. Most of these ones will be "Legendary Dungeons", as in they'll be cooler and be a devolopment of plot

These warp pages teleport you into the buffer room for that specific dungeon only, and you just press the button to enter the dungeon.