Loving Days, Hating Nights.?!

[MaGriffw]

Greetings fellow Diamond Chasers!

Tonight I was glazing through the forums in search of updated info, when I came across a few posts, started reading, and stumbled into a topic I wasn't sure had been addressed. So I thought to myself, why not write up a post (book) about this subject, and see about getting the attention of some willing Mod Dev. to consider the project in the future. Firstly, I think it should be pointed out that I know close to nothing about what Mod Dev's. have to work with in the coding of mods to make them work with Minecraft without destroying base code. So I'm going to assume that my idea might be impossible. (as in, it's hard-wired into the game itself, and unchangeable.)

Okay so, we've all been there. We start a new world, a new server, a new beginning of ideas, landscapes, and terrain! We set out into the wilderness hoping to find that ideal location. A secluded glen, a river side forest, an open meadow, or air-thinned mountain side. Our time, though is limited! We have to race, run, punch, dig, chop, craft, and build our way into some sort of rudimentary hovel, a hobbit hole of not-so-epic proportions. Usually this means a long night with little to no lights, no bed, and barely an idea in our memory of how long the nights last. Thus we wait, hearing critters, creatures, zombie's groaning, skeletons clattering, and the silence of creepers wandering around outside of our pocket of protection. And we wait... and wait.. and Wait! Idea!

What if their were a mod, a setting, a config file we could dive into, and set the amount of time an in-game day/night lasts?! This would be Epic! Of course, it would have to be set up so any laymen could understand it. I've attempted to wrap my head around /time set ##### settings to understand what a day equates to, and then I took some aspirin to calm the swelling of my brain. But if there was a simple reference of numbers, or true/false lines of 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, and 60 minute intervals? That I could wrap my head around quickly.

Just imagine; a world where your days last for any hour, the night lasts 5 minutes. It would have to be separate day from night, and again I'm not even certain the game could be altered, but.. a Miner of diamonds can dream can't he? Give me your thoughts all, and who knows. Maybe they'll add it to Forge, or something.

Sincerely,
Griff ^..^/

 

[Larmonade]

A situation in the reverse - 10 minute days followed by an hour-long night - also seems like it might be a neat challenge. A kind of "batten down the hatches, winter is coming!" Kind of mad dash to get things done in the fading daylight.

 

[AshmanTheGuy]

A situation in the reverse - 10 minute days followed by an hour-long night - also seems like it might be a neat challenge. A kind of "batten down the hatches, winter is coming!" Kind of mad dash to get things done in the fading daylight.

That sounds like a rather nice idea, actually!

It would certainly add pressure on getting materials fast, but I would like it more if it gave you a sort of countdown on the Clock, or something. It would be great to be given your remaining time before it turns night and you get creepers wanting to turn you inside-out for your diamonds.

 

[Adonis0]

I'm not a modder, but this should definitely be able to be done as Mystcraft allows for customised celestial body movement. Although how it works for those ages is Day when there's a sun in the sky, and night when there's no sun in the sky

Can't customise their lengths separately.. but with some quick math you should be able to do something with two suns moving at different speeds to allow for a long day and short night.

 

[MaGriffw]

That sounds like a rather nice idea, actually!

It would certainly add pressure on getting materials fast, but I would like it more if it gave you a sort of countdown on the Clock, or something. It would be great to be given your remaining time before it turns night and you get creepers wanting to turn you inside-out for your diamonds.

I have to say I like this addition to the idea that I highlighted in bold. Honestly, even if there was an announcement in 'chat' that said something like "6am, 9am, Noon,..." etc. But to honestly have the customizing to include/exclude a chat message in a config for this idea in a mod would go miles. Plus the simplicity of it would allow it to be easily maintained (Unless there was a whole new re-write of the core code.) for many versions of Minecraft to come. ^..^

Also in a sub-note to the forum designer... is the Spell correction part of the forums, or the browser, because to all of us, Minecraft is a word, not an error. lol

Griff ^..^/

 

[rhn]

I often think that it would be nice with something like this. My main concern is not in the early game, but later when you are building something and getting damn annoyed that you have to constantly travel back and forth to your bed. Would be nice with the possibility to lengthen the days and nights to more than 10 minutes.

However without having much knowledge about it, I would reckon that making non-symmetric day and nights might be hard. There's the whole mechanic of clocks etc. to deal with too. And you would actually have to alter the movement of the "sky sphere" to something non-linear.

 

[AshmanTheGuy]

Also in a sub-note to the forum designer... is the Spell correction part of the forums, or the browser, because to all of us, Minecraft is a word, not an error. lol

Considering that I sometimes use my iPad to respond here, it get VERY annoying since it likes to twist my words.

I often think that it would be nice with something like this. My main concern is not in the early game, but later when you are building something and getting damn annoyed that you have to constantly travel back and forth to your bed. Would be nice with the possibility to lengthen the days and nights to more than 10 minutes.

However without having much knowledge about it, I would reckon that making non-symmetric day and nights might be hard. There's the whole mechanic of clocks etc. to deal with too. And you would actually have to alter the movement of the "sky sphere" to something non-linear.

Yeah. That's going to be a problem, especially coming down to the Vanilla Clock item. It just won't be useable if you set the time too high for, say, just the night.

As I mentioned above about how having a countdown until sunset/sunrise would be handy, perhaps there could be a new recipe that upgrades the Clock item, allowing you to craft a digital clock, perhaps?

And as for the Sky Sphere, that probably would have to change speed to meet with the new setting, which would look strange if you have the setting on 'Day 30 Min/Night 5 Min’, because sunset would cause the speed of the sky to increase, and then decrease again when sunrise begins.

Despite this, I have seen the Sun travelling very slowly when I used to play the mod AdventureCraft long ago. That allowed you to change how fast the time goes as one of the settings (Although it applied for both day and night).

So, the idea of different timescales for the day and night cycle would be really nice to see. Yes, the sky may look strange when it starts the transition between day to night, and the regular Clock would be impossible to understand, but in the end it could be something to add quite some challenge to existing FTB worlds.

 

[Siro]

Here you go: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1992190-advancetime-mod-change-time-day-length-and-calendar/

I found it while I was trying to find a way to make beds useless as spawnpoints/for sleeping.

 

[Methusalem]

I often think that it would be nice with something like this. My main concern is not in the early game, but later when you are building something and getting damn annoyed that you have to constantly travel back and forth to your bed. Would be nice with the possibility to lengthen the days and nights to more than 10 minutes.

However without having much knowledge about it, I would reckon that making non-symmetric day and nights might be hard. There's the whole mechanic of clocks etc. to deal with too. And you would actually have to alter the movement of the "sky sphere" to something non-linear.

If mob spawns during the night are your concern, then a couple of Magnum Torches will already resolve it.

If you want to have physically sun light, then maybe move into a Mystcraft age. It makes it now really easy to create a copy of the overworld (pages with Natural Biomes, Natural Terrain, Natural <whatever> Color). And then either have constant day time (Zero Length, Zenith, Normal Sun) or play around with the suns to limit the night time to whatever you like. For example a Double Length sun together with a Normal Length sun and you will have day 75% of the time and night 25%.

 

[rhn]

If mob spawns during the night are your concern, then a couple of Magnum Torches will already resolve it.

If you want to have physically sun light, then maybe move into a Mystcraft age. It makes it now really easy to create a copy of the overworld (pages with Natural Biomes, Natural Terrain, Natural <whatever> Color). And then either have constant day time (Zero Length, Zenith, Normal Sun) or play around with the suns to limit the night time to whatever you like. For example a Double Length sun together with a Normal Length sun and you will have day 75% of the time and night 25%.

Its partly the mobs and partly just the light. I just don't bother with Magnum torches until I am done building. If its just aesthetic details around my base I probably wont even bother when its done. It could also just be changing/repairing/fixing some terrain here and there.
And of course I can detail day/night in mystcraft worlds, but I always try to limit the load on my PC/server to a minimum and several mystcraft ages constantly loaded arent really ideal, so try and keep it to a minimum. And despite how many arguments there is to mystcraft worlds being safe etc. there is still an increased chance that something goes wrong. Unnoticed decay or file corruptions etc. So I prefer to stick to the Overworld for anything that I would be sorry to loose.

 

[AshmanTheGuy]

Its partly the mobs and partly just the light. I just don't bother with Magnum torches until I am done building. If its just aesthetic details around my base I probably wont even bother when its done. It could also just be changing/repairing/fixing some terrain here and there.
And of course I can detail day/night in mystcraft worlds, but I always try to limit the load on my PC/server to a minimum and several mystcraft ages constantly loaded arent really ideal, so try and keep it to a minimum. And despite how many arguments there is to mystcraft worlds being safe etc. there is still an increased chance that something goes wrong. Unnoticed decay or file corruptions etc. So I prefer to stick to the Overworld for anything that I would be sorry to loose.

This is why I never use Mystcraft. It's just really hard to perfect, especially without experience.

 

[rhn]

This is why I never use Mystcraft. It's just really hard to perfect, especially without experience.

I use mystcraft purely for mining, exploration, gathering of resources etc. That way the most I could loose is a couple quarries, a lava pump setup etc.

 

[EnzymeA113]

Technically, if you are annoyed with not having a bed, you could just open your inventory, minimize the game, and do something else for ten or so minutes.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

I dunno. I generally start off by punching a few trees, making a stack of torches and stone picks (much easier now we can make charcoal), and then start mining. It then doesn't much matter what time of day it is from that point, as my first "shelter" generally consists of whichever hole in my cave I dug the largest (it need only consist of a workbench, furnace and chest).

The main resource the surface gives you is space to grow trees, so I need not return until I run out of wood. To build anything else of substance you need to do about as much terraforming below ground as you would above, so my farms and whatnot go indoors. My first couple of tree farms were actually constructed a block above bedrock level.

 

[MaGriffw]

Something else I'd thought about with a mod of this scale...
Ever notice, if you hit /time set 0, that the sun is already up? If we do any real-world comparatives at all, the sun would be sitting at about 8-9am depending on your location in the world, rather than 6am. I've never really understood that at all. I think the idea was that, if /time set 0 was used, that it would affect the mobs that had spawned immediately. But this happens the instant the 'sun' rises, about 1 in game hour earlier. To me, soppy as it sounds, there's something to be said for watching a sun rise, even if it's in a game.
Also, Nice find here.

Here you go: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1992190-advancetime-mod-change-time-day-length-and-calendar/

It's good to see something that comes close to the mark. As to the Mystcraft ages, I'm forced to agree with the masses. The lag/tick rate, along with any instability (Unless you disable it like I always do.) is a lot of stress on any server. Plus, combined with other bugs I've found about chunk loaded areas, makes a mystcraft 'Overworld' recreation all but useless. Might work for some, but not ideal.
Also I have to remember Bomb Bloke's idea. I keep forgetting that I don't have to build all the farms above ground. Might actually use this in my next server build. Leave the above ground stuff for workshop and aesthetics, and all the processing of ores, gems, and farms below in the basement areas.

Griff ^..^/

 

[AshmanTheGuy]

The main resource the surface gives you is space to grow trees, so I need not return until I run out of wood. To build anything else of substance you need to do about as much terraforming below ground as you would above, so my farms and whatnot go indoors. My first couple of tree farms were actually constructed a block above bedrock level.

Although I thought it would be really tough to do so, it does seem that once you have the materials, you can go subterranean and never resurface. I'm in the process of finishing a bunker on my current world. Once built, it'll have everything I would ever need without ever needing to go above ground. I have even thought of ditching my Solar Panels in favour of Nuclear/Geothermal energy to power my base. My only problem is Bees. Without the right genetic machines, I can't have them underground yet.

Of course, there may be other things that require direct sunlight, or a certain height in the world.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting people play the whole game underground - while you don't often "need" to come up, you'll eventually "want" to.

But by then, you'll've dug up so much cobble that you can defend your position with ease. In my first world, way back in alpha, if it happened to be day when I came near the surface to drop off my diggings, I would nip up and spam cobble everywhere. Eventually I had a fort large enough to build a farm in, with a small house in the middle(which only contained some stairs leading down to where I actually lived).

That was much of the point of the game, back then. The castle was all the more epic because it meant I'd earned the right to go out into the open air whenever I felt like it.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/09/20

Later things like beds and clocks came along - not to mention what mods brought! - and that all changed. These days you just punch a few trees'n'sheep, make a bed, and you can pretty much wander the surface world forever with it.

 

[AshmanTheGuy]

Yeah. Spending all your time underground will probably be boring as hell eventually. Plus, lack of sunlight surely can't be healthy

Plus, having the limits of underground can be a struggle to expand your base with, hence the reason I built so many rooms.

Plus, travelling underground would be hellish to say the least.

 

[MaGriffw]

Yeah. Spending all your time underground will probably be boring as hell eventually. Plus, lack of sunlight surely can't be healthy .

I'd do like I've done in the past for 'safe' zones in my deep mines. I'd get a stack of dirt for placing below, and dig up until I hit 'fresh air'. One glass block later, and it was digging back down to have a shaft of daylight at the bottom of the world.

I have to say, with the right setup, you could do an underground cavern style build, with tree's and the whole slam. The mods now a days give you lighting, and options you couldn't find in early vanilla. I'm considering this even now as I get started on our private, new, 1.6 server.

Griff ^..^/

 

[Siro]

Plus, travelling underground would be hellish to say the least.

Underground travel can be pretty classy actually. I made a video a couple years ago to show off the extent of a subway I built in vanilla survival on a server. My mega project was basically linking together other projects. At this point though, there are a lot better options for getting from point A to B.