Minecart Mania or similar successor.

Discussion in 'Archived: Plugin Requests' started by Don Redhorse, Dec 18, 2011.

  1. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    Ok, a new thread, started because of a discussion which started here, so you better head over and read those posts first!!!!!

    So 2 questions did come up:

    a) do we need Minecart Mania or a success (keeping in mind that commandbook is almost dead, perhaps falsebook would be an option?)
    b) What functionality do we need?

    As we have boosters some stuff isn't really needed anymore, but a lot of the functionality still is
    • Switching based on occupation / kind of cart
    • Launch / Stop of cart
    • Direction of cart
    • Eject / Entry of players
    • Station Design
    • Track Routing
    • Sensors
    • RedStone
    • Signals
    I wouldn't mind to learn from fresh, especially as a lot of minecart mania systems got purged due to the new creation algorythm, so I don't think that a one to one transition is necessary.

    I would like to see some more steering, like wack to the front to start etc... but also not being able to go backwards... so orientation of tracks.

    And the auto pickup and dispensing was a cool feature... we did lay tracks in our mines and just dumped the stuff we did mine in a chest, a minecart did pick it up and would drop it into another chest, from there it would than be taken by another minecart and distributed in other chests or put into furnaces... so we had a cool warehouse and didn't need to run back and forth.

    Also what I did never finish was a Signal from one Station to the Other station that cart was coming in or to have a single track with double track areas where the cart would stop when another cart was coming from the opposite direction.

    Any other ideas?
     
  2. Offline

    DrAgonmoray

  3. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    he will know... I put up a linky in the other thread... @Afforess will need some time though as he just posted when I was typing..
     
  4. Offline

    bergerkiller

    Ok feature requests as I see it. Let's see...
    In TrainCarts we have complete trains, so 'kind of cart' is not really of use. Perhaps if the train has a passenger?
    All switching can be done through tags already, I guess I need to add hard-coded tags too. Problem is that signs only have room for 4 lines of 15-16 characters. How do you want that established on the sign?
    What are the args? I suppose arg0 is the 'if' statement..but I dunno.

    Already possible and is greatly advanced. Launching is smoothed and the length to launch at can be set.

    This is actually part of the launching bit, or not (?)

    All already in.

    How exactly do you mean? If you mean wireless redstone, then take a look at Redstone Mania. Most of my sign systems already toggle a lever. (like the tag/station signs)

    Also note that I am NOT going to use 'special types of blocks to do stuff'. It's more annoying than useful, like when I made a rollercoaster out of iron and Minecart Mania ejected me out of my train :(

    See also this page
     
  5. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    Didn't thought about that, but you could perhaps cut the trains in carts again and move empty carts to the left, player carts straight ahead etc?

    But that was the idea... I think MM (MinecartMania) called it sorter block:

    Guess I need to read up on your plugin and you on MM :)

    Yes, at that place... but what about you come to a track, drop a cart and head of into the wrong direction? Similar if you stop the cart and turn around and start the cart again, that is what I meant with direction... could be just a specific block pattern or a sign

    Probably yes... something like this..

    -----------x==========x-------------

    where the cart stops in the ==== bit if the cart is coming from the left and there is already a cart coming from the right.. that should work for more than one cart... so a way to mark a part of the track occupied and waiting for access.
     
  6. Offline

    bergerkiller

    @Don Redhorse It's a bit hard to cut them in parts again. Of course, I can get the members in a train, but how do I call them? They don't have a clear ID (like a name) which it can recognize. And setting cart names is kinda tedious. Indices are also impossible, since the order is reversed whenever the train changes direction. (the front cart is always index 0)

    Using station signs it's possible to make sure a cart always heads into the right direction. Someone else mentioned adding a 'station radius' too, which seemed a good idea to me. Problem is: how can I detect the station? All sign-related features are only stored on the sign.

    I get the idea that a complete train map will be needed with complex connections between it's elements...problem is, how do you simplify this in the real world? On a schematic-like view it's easy to see how it works...but if you only see some signs... (get my drift?)

    Believe me, TrainCarts has so many Utils and powerful mapping systems (including Track Mapping), but the main problem is keeping it simple so others can understand it...
     
  7. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    yeah I thought that... so it would be great if we could have single minecart trains ;-)

    concerning stations and routing:

    1) push a button, wack a sign, do whatever to set a destination, perhaps even /st 1234 ...[ST1234]
    2) On the track you have Signs at intersections:
    Straight: x2xx
    Left: xx3x
    Right: xxx4

    And you read it from the top... so ST1234 will go straight, next time perhaps left etc..

    It would be up to the admins / designers to figure it out..

    and a Sign with

    [Station]
    R:ST1234
    The Nice City
    of Splendor

    which will route a minecart / train right and display the message: You have reached The Nice City of Splendor.

    or did you mean something else? Because something like you depicted would need an offline editor and saving into a format you could parse... nice idea though.. you could map the intersections etc with Signs..

    Concerning Sign related features, don't know which events we have but why not use signs below detector rails? So the detector rail triggers an event (hopefully with a location) and you check if you have a sign at that location and do the rest.

    And I agree on the special blocks, very problematic also in survival worlds as they are resources.

    Oh yeah, for sure make tracks and perhaps connected redstone not affected by water and perhaps even only destroyable for certain permissions if being layed down in "offical" mode... that would be cool too.

    Will look into your plugins in a sec

    oh yeah... using station signs to force the direction... I don't think that this work when I put down my own minecart or?

    looked at the tag system... well we would still need a sorter... if empty, if player, if mob, if storage minecart empty, if storage minecart with x.y etc...

    otherwise your plugin looks quite neat :) perhaps take a look at the minecart mania wiki... and I hope some other people start posting here soon...

    ok.. I think you got most of the stuff covered... so for the destinations you need a sign below every junction but the plugin figures the route by itself I think, right?

    so I think you are missing
    * Autocart... would be cool if that could be controlled in some way though that people don't drive into the wrong direction http://wiki.afforess.com/Minecart_Mania-Plugin/Autocart
    * Item Collection... really really usefull http://wiki.afforess.com/Minecart_Mania-Plugin/Item_Collection
    * Sensors ... also very useful http://wiki.afforess.com/Minecart_Mania-Plugin/Redstone_Sign_Sensors
    * Farming... don't know... http://wiki.afforess.com/Minecart_Mania-Plugin/Automated_Farming

    Item Collection and Sensors would be my favourit... I think you got the rest covered

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 22, 2016
  8. Offline

    MacGyver420

    I completely agree with needing a new minecart mania, or for traincarts to simply add the features it had. I've been trying to setup traincarts to do the job recently and the problems ive run into are:
    Traincarts is very restone intensive, ive got more torches in my stations now than i know what to do with. Id prefer to not have to power everything. Id also like a better way of controlling routes than setting tags. With MM i could set all storage carts to divert to a specific location without the need to tag every cart thats sent out. Also some sort of command for users to set their station on the fly without needing permissions to set tags. Item collection and deposit are also also a must. Station launching seems iffy, i set it up with the torch to go left, i set the sign to go left, and itll go left 1/4 a block then head off in the wrong direction. Bring it back to the station for testing and itll work just fine... until the next time around.
    I have a pretty extensive train setup, and with MM out of commission most of it is pretty useless. It would be great if traincarts could pick up the torch with some of these features. I'd love to be able to run the TrainCarts Trains, along with the individual minecart systems ive already got setup.
     
  9. Offline

    bergerkiller

    @MacGyver420 Yeah there still is a lot of development going on, most of it being to 'simplify' the code used and this way spot errors more easily. For example, 'targetting' got replaced by a list of train actions to perform, of which any plugin can add their own extending Action.

    @Don Redhorse I see potential in the sensor idea (and it's quite simple), only I do have some questions about it:
    - What should it check for? Passenger type (or none), item count in chest, minecart type, train tags and train names are already on my list, anything else?
    - What should it activate? Is redstone everything?
    - There is no room for 3 actions or statements (1 per track direction), how do you want to toggle track pieces?

    Also, I will probably add cart properties too, so you can set the owner of a single cart in a train and preserve cart owners even after trains link. What cart properties can you think of?
     
  10. Offline

    Sayshal

    I really hope you mean Craftbook, commandbook is not dead. :p
     
  11. Offline

    bergerkiller

    Ok I found out one major feature needed:
    - Split a train by simply toggling a track section without the train going crazy
    This will allow for cart-based and train-based track switching and even keep multiple-allowed carts connected. The main issue is that I have to fully rely on the track piece underneath, which can prove rather hard. But if this succeeds, some epic things are possible :)
     
  12. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    ah... yes... sorry...

    well like MM :)
    passenger type, empty, items, count... don't know.. type and ofcourse your tags and train names

    perhaps directly a wireless transmitter? otherwise redstone is fine, but perhaps integrate some more features via Redstone Mania.. direct connection between one sign and an other so that you can wack a sign an that would configure a cart on top of it.

    which also means that you need to fully configure carts / trains via signs

    concerning 3 rows... you don't need them... straight is default, left and right are exceptions.. you put the sign below the track to toggle, like you have now IIRC.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 22, 2016
  13. Offline

    bergerkiller

    @Don Redhorse Ok then I'll look into that. I do have to move some train properties to cart properties:
    - owners
    - tags
    - if mobs can enter
    But I already spot a few issues, one of them being 'how do I make sure the cart properties are linked to the right train'. But I'll figure it out...eventually.

    I also added 'secure delinking', which basically means:
    - Can cart travel to cart in front? No, then split the train in two.

    Another important question: how do you want to allow passengers in certain carts and/or the entire train? Can only owners enter the train and use the storage minecart? Ideas?
     
  14. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    configurable option I would think... mainly if you use trains they are official I would say, so everybody should be able to enter, that should be true with storage carts also... but perhaps if factions, or other rpg plugin would like to restrict it you should allow for that?

    single carts.. well they should be private I think... or public... I wouldn't mind... but we are a friendly server ...:)
     
  15. Offline

    MacGyver420

    Yeah something like a public default for trains and a private default for single carts, but configurable in the settings. But the Storage carts should definately be on a different permission. So people could enter a public train, but not access the storage cart attached to it.
     
  16. Offline

    andrewpo

    One feature I requested a long time ago was the ability to totally automate the farming process and set a destination on the storage cart that's picked up the wheat/sugar cane and send it into a rail network, and use the brick blocks and signs to route it.

    Sorry if it makes no sense xD
    but if you can make sense of it, the functionality for a storage cart to remember a destination (ideally from passing a [Station:XX] sign) would be awesome.
     
  17. Offline

    bergerkiller

    Ok status update on my 'successor':
    - Cart-specific destinations and track switching. This allows for carts to keep on following the tracks as expected, even after they link multiple times. A train of 8 carts managed to split in 8 separate carts easily.
    - Cart-specific properties. Will have things like ownership (if you can access the chest or enter the minecart and can destroy it or not)
    - A very sophisticated API. You can even add your own sign types externally and handle everything!
    - As understandable as can be: group.eject() for example
    - All sign systems split into [train] and [cart] if possible. For example, [cart] eject will eject a single cart, [train] eject will eject the entire train.
    - Dynamic train de-linking 100% working

    Will add a sign system to retrieve/put items in/to a chest of course. Crop farming, why not? Any other idea's?
     
  18. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    nice... people will for sure come up with some atm I don't have any... need to get it working first... need to use your latest code and than start finishing our main railway and than start putting up the real minecart system..

    btw: will you keep the sign powered by redstone approach or perhaps switch over to detector railway with sign beneath it?
     
  19. Offline

    MacGyver420

    @bergerkiller
    I've completely moved my railroad over to using TrainCarts over MinecartMania and most things seem to be working quite well. I've currently got stations disabled because of the bounceback when leaving bug, but individual carts are working nicely. These new cart specific properties look great, i cant wait for the chest interaction.

    A couple of suggestions ive been thinking about:
    1) A cart/train property to bypass stations - I'd like to be able to send storage/minecarts through stations without stopping while still powered to work for other trains.
    2)A sign to Grab/Load players into minecarts - Like the ejector sign in reverse, similar to the Platform blocks of MinecartMania
    3) Text option on Trigger Signs - let us supply a word value in place of a countdown, id like to setup a system that displays what Station the train is currently in instead of just saying one will be along in a half hour.
     
  20. Offline

    bergerkiller

    @MacGyver420
    1.) Will be possible using smart track switching, but it's not a bad idea to add an 'ignore station' property too.

    2.) Good suggestion, will add it ASAP.

    3.) Mmmh only issue is: what (SignLink) key should it have? The %trigger% is already there, what would be the variable name for the train name that arrives when triggered by 'trigger'? '%triggertrain%'?
     
  21. Offline

    MacGyver420

    The only reason id like a property or for trains with destinations set to bypass stations rather than just track routing is that, my stations are already setup on a bypass of my normal cart stalls, and i dont really want to create a bypass for the bypass. :p And currently a person selecting the 11th station in the line, has to wait through all 10 stops on the way there.

    As for the name triggers i was thinking about letting them supply the variable name and the word to display instead of trying to pull a train name. Something like

    [Train]
    trigger
    variablename
    wordtodisplay

    where variablename is your signlink variable
    and wordtodisplay is what will replace your variable

    But that makes it kinda useless on a line with more than one train. But may be useful if you just wanted to display a message with a trigger. So maybe something like

    [Train]
    trigger
    nameoftrain
    nameofstation

    where nameoftrain is the train name or tag that will trigger the trigger and nameofstation is the word displayed? Then you just hardcode a signlink varible to each like %triggertrain% and %triggername%. Would this work with trigger signs? or require some new type of NameTrigger sign? Either way this feature isnt necessary and would just be added fluff.
     
  22. ooooooooooooh!!!

    im soo happy to see this, was just doing a search for MM for 1.0, only request i would have is to have it broken down into different parts like MM is currently.so if we didnt want one section, just dont load it. or maybe switches in the config.

    We heavily use MM on our server, for stations and rail networks, also some of the farms, but our biggets use for MM was store rooms, automatic item collection and sorting.

    more than happy to test anything out you need, going to go grab traincarts and see what that does now :)
     
  23. Offline

    sean_skroht

    Hi all

    I only just discovered this thread and I'm glad it has been created.

    Minecart Mania is an essential plugin for our server and we are actually still using it. We're using it with CB dev 1712 and it's pretty much working flawlessly.

    I'm not an experienced user of MM but one of our Admins uses it all the time and it seems that most of the features are working except for Storage Cart's dispensing out of chests. He has a completely automated factory set up for smelting items. So players can sell off iron ore into a chest which then gets picked up and taken to a furnace to be smelted into Iron Ingots and then these, in turn, get picked up and delivered to a chest where they can be sold. Same thing with gold, cobblestone, sand and anything else hat can be converted into another item using a furnace.

    Autofarming is another feature that is used quite extensively as well.

    So if this project is taken over by someone else we would like to see these exact same features retained.

    One thing though, we've seen that Minecart Mania still works on our server, so would it only be necessary to make minor changes to bring it up to date, and if the code is a mess as Afforess says it is, then would only code cleanup be necessary?

    If Minecart Mania features were to be incorporated into TrainCarts we would certainly like the option to be able to use individual carts on their own. I'm not sure if this is possible now as I've never used TrainCarts plugin.
     
  24. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    well it is.. @bergerkiller is still coding like mad though and there are still some bugs.

    you will see a lot more features I think than in MM but you will need to redo the full setup as traincarts work differently.

    I don't know if anyone will pick up MM and keep the code alive... you could ask for it.. but that is not an easy task as the plugin is quite complex.
     
  25. we have already started making the switch from MM to TC, :D
     
  26. Offline

    bergerkiller

    I am almost there implementing all of Minecart Mania's features :)
    http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Bukkit/TrainCarts/Signs

    It currently has:
    - item transferring
    - lots of train interaction systems
    - train properties such as the speed limit and others
    - path finding
    - travel on top of pressure plates
    - detector signs to detect trains/carts on set tracks
    - item animations when transferring items
    - huge configuration with commented info
    - optimized train storage system (raw data storage, path finding data is compressed)
    - let storage minecarts pick up items
    - minecarts can break blocks on the sides (autofarming)
    - others?

    Being worked on:
    - detecting players, inventories, items, types, etc.
    - a wait sign to let trains wait until the track is cleared of other trains

    I have a few questions still...

    Block placement

    Minecart Mania allows you to 'plant' trees and seeds on farmland using minecarts, using a ridiculously high radius. I don't feel this is very realistic and it is easily exploitable. What should I do? Don't add block placement at all? How should blocks be placed?

    Farming

    It would be nice if I can farm trees, but this comes with the risk of destroying everything that is attached to the wood (including complete houses). So how should I go about this?

    Suggestions?

    Any suggestions of features I need to add (which Minecart Mania had)?
     
  27. block placement:
    I would want this in, but be more configurable, set max values for stuff in the config then have a sign that will specify how far above & around the cart it will look for where to place seeds / saplings.
    What i found hard with MM's harvesting was that i ended up tilling a huge amount of land around my farm, i ended up messing around with my track until i got it harvesting the area i wanted it to. not really sure how you can improve on what MM used to do.

    Farming:

    im not sure how MM did the tree farming, but i used to have a tree farm, with track around it, so any tree's within that area would be harvested, i personally would give a warning saying dont do a farm where u have build your house, a dedicated farm is the way forward, also MM used to just take the trunk away, and the leaves used to decay, would you do a similar thing?

    Our biggest problem with MM was that if you spawned a cart too close to a sign, it would just ignore the sign completely.

    We have built a store room, that sorts our loot out into neat chests :) but in doing so our pickup chest has to be over 8 blocks away from the spawning track, makes for some pretty big track work.

    Only other feature that im not sure if you have or not.. item stacking. MM had this. but say i had a chest nearly full of dirt, the last stack only had 54 instead of 64, MM would not put 10 dirt into this chest to fill it. if it was carrying EXACTLY 10 dirt, it would fill the chest, but it wouldn't split a stack, if you could do this it would be fantastic.
     
  28. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    well I think it is block placement and removing we are mainly aiming for aka farming

    so why not limit the farming to a region for best result, as you could calculate before where you put trees etc, and than limit the range blocks can be placed and removed to a distance in all direction to the cart?

    Or do you also aim at mining? Perhaps you could create an API for that part? An addon which replaced TNT mining... hmm.

    back to the now.. you could add a randomizer to placing and removing so that not everything is taken away, and perhaps even autoslow a mining cart... MM was cool but made it really easy, especially as it kept the chunks loaded.
     
  29. personally mining with a minecart doesnt apeal to me, so auto mine a huge tunnel i would just world edit it.

    maybe for limiting the effectiveness of a harvesting cart, could it look at a world guard region. which u could specify on a sign
     
  30. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    well I like tnt mining... but getting the sulphor in survival is just... stupid... but laying down a track of rails and let some storage carts do the same as a bunch of tnt would be cool... but there must be a drawback.. but that is for later
     

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