Minecraft Musings: Temperature and Pipes

[Dazureus]

This just sneaked into my head earlier today, and I started thinking about improvements I'd make to Minecraft if I could code (maybe it's time to learn). After a little bit, I settled on a temperature system for Minecraft. It eventually drifted into a piping system and is continuing to trundle into other areas. So basically I just want to pretend that my opinion matters and that this is going into 'Nillacraft, and that you're interested and want to suggest things or tweak what I have.

This is what I've thought up so far:

A simple 16-point scale with some examples of things relevant to temperature.
Daylight +0, Nighttime -1, Direct Sunlight +1

0- Some Special Block Which Would Be Good For Stuff
1-
2- Ice Block Heat
3-Cold Biome Temp, Water Freezes
4-Cold Biome Temp
5-Cave Temp
6-Ice Melts
7-Average Biome Temp
8-Average Biome Temp
9-
10-Hot Biome Temp
11-Hot Biome Temp
12-Nether Temp, Water Boils
13-Iron Becomes Red-Hot, Wood Ignites
14-Fire Block Heat
15- Lava Block Heat

Blocks either take on a temperature depending on their location (cave or biomes), or have an inherent heat level that can alter their environment. Heat levels drop and increase the way light levels do- If something has a heat level of 15, the adjacent blocks will become h14, and those next to it become 13, and so on. Everything will of course tend to the default temp for an area, but perhaps not just on a "-1, -1, -1" basis, depending on the materials.

Thermometer item, which displays the current temperature of a block when rightclicking whilst holding it. It slowly reverts to show the temp of the air around you after a little bit. Perhaps crafting it with a slime ball makes it wall-mountable.

What good is a temperature system without any way to have fun with it? I have a couple of ideas, but any other suggestions would be nice. Water, when it reaches a boiling point, produces steam a few blocks above- maybe 3 or 4. I like to think that it opens up a few new options, but to be frank I haven't thought of anything besides adding a fan block that can generate a redstone signal or turn an axle when it's turned. And I'm not sure how much good that would be, especially in the case of redstone. I like the idea of being able to produce ice blocks on demand, so a craftable very-very-cold block would be good for making skating rinks or an ice factory for making houses or for perpetuating a house made of ice in the desert. I need some other ideas here, I think. Some things, when heated, could become harmful to people. Iron blocks would become unsafe to stand on or bump against, and riding on a minecraft would be a bad idea if it wasn't padded (also, padded minecarts). The advantages to this? Off the bat... It would look cool, glowing iron everywhere, and I guess you could make a trap or two with it. Suggest more!

So, after that we have pipes. I've come up with a few blocks that would make for some fun systems.

Pipe: standard pipe block, made of metal. Maybe not iron, maybe add a new ore, unsure atm. Pipes have a window so you can see what's flowing through, and which direction. They also let you travel long distances without changing the heat of the contents. Can carry water, lava, items, steam or just air.

Wooden Pipe: useful for carrying water, doesn't consume delicious iron. Don't try carrying lava with it.

Valve: Pipe with an on/off switch. There also may need to be a device that can reverse the flow of a pipe. Redstone compatible.

Compression Chamber: This is where it got interesting for me. A storage unit connected to pipes, with one input and one output. It takes in something from the input pipe, water, lava(?), steam or just air, and at the end of the output pipe it expels the input material forcefully, with different effects. Good for aesthetic or functional fountains, spraying liquid hot magma all over everything or pushing stuff off cliffs, and steam produces a damaging stream of fog, which scatters and lingers if it hits a block, creating a thickish smokescreen. It could get clogged if you send items down the input pipe, or alter what comes out. Dyes and steam for colored fog?

Grates: Keeps items from flowing down pipe entrances, and disperses steam right as it comes out so it's not a hazard. Probably good for other things, too.

So even if you're not interested in suggesting stuff, your opinion on this would be nice, and if you're totally apathetic to the thread I'm just glad to have it out of my head. I think it would be fun to develop this further, though.

 

[Farroes]

those are some really cool ideas. It would be cool if we could somehow change the biome of an area, to turn a desert into a snowy region. Make everything like Hoth.

 

[eisbaerBorealis]

I'd like it if North/South were a component. I don't mean to forget our southern-hemisphere friends But I'd like it if my chances of finding snow were better up North. Maybe even have a set distance (like 10000 blocks northwards) where it's almost ALL snowy. Or perhaps 0,0 could be the equator, so that the edges of the map (don't know how this would work) would have the snow...

Maybe have food go bad in warm temperatures after x game days, and ice in a chest would have to either be padded placed in a cool/cold area. Maybe have ice-cold water damage after a while. Have a body-temperature? You need to start a fire in snowy biomes once in a while, and you maybe need to jump in water in hot places (you might need to make an exception when visiting the Nether) otherwise you start taking damage. Have something similar to the bubbles above your hearts, but they only show up if you've been in temperatures of, say <2 or >13. And of course, each marker would disappear once every few minutes of real-time. No ten-seconds and you're taking damage kind of thing.

I like this idea. I'm taking a Java programming class right now, and if I ever get around to making mods, I may try this out (and discuss it with you/give you credit, etc.)

 

[Dazureus]

Farroes- That would probably end up being the domain of cheaters and server admins. Maybe there could be items that cause snow or rain in any biome, though. Something you get from an Adventure Update dungeon, mayhaps?
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IkaosI- I'd agree that finite water would make pipes better, but I haven't found a system that I like to use personally. On one video of a finite water mod, the guy accidentally placed an ocean source block up a few levels and it tsunami'd his entire map. It also floods caves totally, making them generally inaccessible and way too annoying to bother clearing out. Neither have I thought up something better than that.

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eisbaerBorealis- The thing about Minecraft is that a world is theoretically/practically infinite. Equators and poles wouldn't really work for vanilla. It would be amusing if you had the option for sure, but not as standard MC.

I like the idea of a body temperature, but probably only visible to the player with a thermometer. If you're out too long in the cold and you don't have a coat or something (Note: add a coat or something), the hearts on your health bar slowly turn blue one by one and as they do, you take damage. After reaching certain damage thresholds other effects may set in- you walk slower, can't sneak or sprint (because Notch is adding sprinting apparently), or have to climb up blocks instead of jumping (I'd laugh. Something similar could happen in extreme heat (but with grilled hearts. ). Perhaps introducing some sort of cold ore would make this easier? If so, that would be good for the Nether- You're running on batteries the whole time, and only once you have a climate-controlled base can you hang your hat. Porkchops should cook when placed on hot stones.

There will have to be some measures in place to keep problematic calcuations from happening. Say, if there's a fire block present, it will always be at h14, regardless of other factors. Water is a bit confusing as well. I'd like to use it to cool things down, which means it would have an inherent heat (maybe about cave level), but I'd also like to see it boiling naturally in hot biomes, which means it would need an alterable heat level. I dunno!

 

[Drastikos]

I like you ideas.
I've always wanted to make a city with a working water/sewer system. Your pipes would make that much better than the overly bulky aqueduct type system I've imagined.

Compression chambers sound cool too!
Would help with getting hot and cold water up to the tops of towers. We'd be able to run a hot bath, and maybe soaking in it would slowly replenish health.

If we ever get gasses other than air, and if we had some combustible gases would could pipe those in for gas cooking ranges/furnaces.
Imagine smelting or cooking and not having to feed it coal/charcoal all the time!

If we had pipes with the windows, and a reactive gas like neon, it'd make for some pretty sweet lighting.

Pipe Dream here:
Taking that sorta idea to a larger scale where the tubes carry neon'ish gas (red,green,blue) leading to a glass block, each in groups of three.. now make those triple block groups side by side and a lot of them and stand WAY back...
We'd have a TV!! lol
Nothing to display on it, but still..

 

[RightLegRed]

Temperature is already in minecraft, which is why you see blotchy bits of water with ice.

Only recently could I take advantage of it via plugin though.

 

[Dazureus]

Well, I know it exists in some capacity, but all it does so far is determine what biomes should generate. It could be a lot more dynamic and functional.

 

[RedEchoRanger]

i haven't read very much of this thread, but i was thinking of how one could make hunting animals more realistic. My idea was to make heards of 1-20 cows or sheep travel from one point of the map to another. It would be super fun to hunt down a heard, especially if they start running when you kill one.

 

[unknownloner]

I've actually seen a couple mods that work together to kinda do this. not a full temperature thing but basically its got finite water/lava with pipes to move it, also iron blocks over lava/fire turn hot and will evaporate any water than touches it or damage mobs on it. thats about the extent of it though, a full temperature system would be cool

 

[Shenorai]

I can't help but wonder, "What does plumbing have to do with mining?"

 

[unknownloner]

Could be useful if you were to come across a lava pool, and rather than fill it all in or go around it you wanted to pump it up to a lava storage room for use in trash cans, traps, smelting, or whatever. then after the lava's gone you can continue your mining too.

 

[eisbaerBorealis]

I can't help but wonder, "What does plumbing have to do with mining?"

Keep in mind these aren't small pipes for toilets or sinks, these are large, industrial, heavy-duty pipes. Just another form of crafting/building/forming the world around you.

 

[Dazureus]

It got on my mind again, and I've revised the pipes and water a bit.

Water and pipe behavior- When pipes attempt to remove sources from a body of liquid, the game counts up the number of sources in that body, and if they exceed a certain number (I'm thinking biggish here- maybe 128?), it won't impact the pool at all. If the number of sources decreases due to block placement, it simply re-counts to see if pipes would now have any effect on it. Pipes try to orient themselves to face a liquid source. Basically, no more itty bitty infinite wells. They still exist, but they're bigger. If an 80-source pool was 4 blocks deep, and the mouth of the pipe was on the second level from the top, the pipe would face downwards into the body and when it begins draining the game would remove sources randomly from the outside edge of the pool (determined by being adjacent to air or solid [non-pipe] blocks), working it's way to the center. Once the first level was removed, the second level would do the same thing. Once the second level was consumed, the third would start draining as well, because the pipe's mouth is oriented downward into a source in the pool. If the pipe's mouth loses contact with the source, the game would stop calculating source removal and the drainage would stop. Pipe mouths also attract items when submerged. Extending the lifespan of items in lava could make for some fun additions to challenge maps, particularly the Burn Your Companion Cube Scene of the Portal challenge map.

Pipe blocks/Wooden Pipes- Basic tools for general pipery. Basically unchanged.

Reservoir blocks- replacement for Compressor blocks. Stores up to 8 water/lava sources. When filled to capacity, they can be broken and stacked 8 at a time and retain the liquid. Water changes to a default temperature when a water reservoir is replaced. So you really have "Reservoir", "Lava Reservoir" and "Water Reservoir" block IDs.

Nozzle blocks- Causes the input to be expelled with force, be it air, steam, water or lava. Produces strong jets of air and steam and cosmetically pretty fountains. Slowly drains Reservoirs of their contents like any output would, only without producing source blocks.

Valve blocks- Pipes with an on/off switch. A red light goes on or off to show which state it's in. Also determines where suction starts in a pipe system: when switched on, suction begins at the nearest mouth or grated mouth. If it's a tie to either end, nothing happens.

Grates- grates. Alters output: causes smokescreens when steam is piped through, and a weaker-than-a-nozzle jet of air. Keeps you from falling in?

Turbine blocks- Pipe blocks with a fan inside. Generates a redstone signal or turns an axle when something is moving through the pipe.

Wrench- a tool crafted from iron that breaks pipe blocks quite easily, and right-clicking lets you reorient pipes as well.