Thorton wrote:I see not much happening recently?
That's normal for LinuxGaming; LG has been a comfortably quiet server for a few years now. There are plenty of popular and high-volume Minetest servers out there for players to socialize on. LinuxGaming is more suited for grown-ups who prefer to putter at their own pace and not be constantly pestered.
For folks reading this who may be wondering if LG will be shut down because not much is going on -- no worries, I don't run the server for popularity or player count. LinuxGaming is going to be around for a long time to come. ;)
greeter and Stormfox, tossing a couple ideas in the hat
(nothing required or expected -- just ideas) for Fairhaven:
- There will be non-flyer visitors so occasionally test the builds with fly turned off to find trouble spots (or to create trouble spots in the case of traps and challenge designs -- "Shoots and Ladders" board game on YouTube).
- Borrowing from the concept of skyblock servers, instead of creating one massive platform, create smaller, skyland platforms at different altitudes and different horizontal distances apart connected by glass tubes and bridges. Glass so players can see the various platforms around them.
Elevators between skyland connections are good for instant vertical travel but that also diminishes the feel and effect of a multi-layered skycity. Moonrocks and anti-moonrocks are quick yet still allow the player to see stuff as they bounce past them. Ladders and rope are slow to traverse but allow the tourist to stop and look around. Sneak ladders would have been a great to have here; I really wish the MT devs had left them in. Sneak ladders had the speed of bouncing from moonrocks but also allowed the player to stop, up or down, to look around.
Another vertical connection idea would be waterfalls. Imagine a park made up of tiny skylands where ponds spill over an edge into another pond in the skyland below. One technical gotcha of that idea is that If the vertical distance between the two skyland ponds is more than 16m, the water will stop flowing in the *non-active* chunk. (LG's active block range is set to 16m to help reduce lag.)
When working with liquids in the sky, create temporary spill pans to catch unexpected or miscalculated spills. Even though players can't drown, lava doesn't burn or kill, and liquids don't displace torches and flora, spills are still a mess.
- Make skylands bumpy with hills on top and thick stalactites or large, dirt and stone masses below (as if the skyland had been torn from the earth). Furthering the torn-away look, add floating debris in the form of micro-skylands. Single blocks of dirt or stone or maybe a cluster just big enough to support a few flowers or small trees.
- Skyscrapers and other structures built from the *bottom* of skylands. This would only be possible for players with the fly priv (or if a flyer setup a scaffolding framework for the non-flyer builder to start from). Make the bottoms of the skylands the constructed areas and the tops of the skylands all nature looking.
- Docked airships could be another place for tourists to explore. Airships that are coming and going, mid-air, between skylands could have discreet, clear glass catwalks connecting them to a nearby structure or skylandmass so non-flyers could access them. Clear glass catwalks connecting an airship to two skylands would be a way to make one of the skylands appear to be disconnected and remote from the other skylands.
Airships don't have to be massive, luxury liners either. Think of the different types of vehicles that you see around you in real life: economy cars, SUVs, garbage trucks, mail trucks, police, fire, ambulance, etc.
- Heavy construction equipment. Cranes, dump trucks, bulldozers, cement trucks, loaders, backhoes, etc. Tires and tracks won't work in the sky so balloons, propellers, jet engines, sci-fi anti-gravity engines (old-style, cylindrical lava lamps can be rotated; glass-contained lava for engine noise and fiery exhaust). White wool micro-blocks from the saw can create the illusion of vapor trails coming off wings or as exhaust trails.
Again, these are just ideas.