[Mod] travelnet teleporters/bookmarks [2.0][travelnet]

[xianjiro]

Has anyone noticed mese disappearing from your inventory when using Travelnet? I don't really believe that's the issue, but just thought I'd check since I'm not finding anything by searching the forum. I've had it happen twice now.

The other possibility - both times I was mining lava/obsidian - then I used Travelnet to return home. But I noticed that the mese was gone after using Travelnet to the lava dome, I started mining obsidian, and when my mese pick ran out, I looked in my inventory and my mese ore was gone.

First time it happened, I assumed I must have hit the throw key and just not seen it or done something equally dumb like put it in the trash, but I'm very clear neither of those happened this time.

Odd.

[Sokomine]

Has anyone noticed mese disappearing from your inventory when using Travelnet? I don't really believe that's the issue, but just thought I'd check since I'm not finding anything by searching the forum. I've had it happen twice now.

Travelnet as such doesn't change your inventory. However, there's an explicit function

Code: Select all

travelnet.allow_travel

that can be used by servers to decide weather the player will be allowed to use the travelnet or not - and the server might charge you a usage fee. If you play in singleplayer, please grep for travelnet.allow_travel in all the mods you've got enabled. If you're playing on a server, please ask there if anything was changed in that regard.

[xianjiro]

Has anyone noticed mese disappearing from your inventory when using Travelnet? I don't really believe that's the issue, but just thought I'd check since I'm not finding anything by searching the forum. I've had it happen twice now.

Travelnet as such doesn't change your inventory. However, there's an explicit function

Code: Select all

travelnet.allow_travel

that can be used by servers to decide weather the player will be allowed to use the travelnet or not - and the server might charge you a usage fee. If you play in singleplayer, please grep for travelnet.allow_travel in all the mods you've got enabled. If you're playing on a server, please ask there if anything was changed in that regard.

Thanks! I might not get to look at this for a few days, but will definitely check it out. I only play in single player mode and admit that one thing I should do is test to see if mese disappears after using Travelnet, but I'm pretty confident that's not the issue since I hadn't noticed anything else disappearing and wasn't able to say definitively that it even happened until last night. I've not noticed anything like this yet in the game, but I only update to the new version about a month ago and that's when I installed Travelnet. Will have to check if any other mods were new, but granted, it's possible some combo isn't playing nice and other items might also be disappearing, but I haven't really noticed. (Mese takes a bit more work to find, so it's "my precious.")

[xianjiro]

Okay, tried to recreate the issue by using travelnet extensively and mining obsidian but noticed no changes in inventory so don't believe it's that but haven't greped all mods for travelnet.allow_travel yet. Will report back when I've checked that.

[Sokomine]

Okay, tried to recreate the issue by using travelnet extensively and mining obsidian but noticed no changes in inventory so don't believe it's that but haven't greped all mods for travelnet.allow_travel yet. Will report back when I've checked that.

Maybe you ought to grep for default:mese_crystal then. Or it was a strange glitch and not all data was saved to disk?

[Grigor]

Ahoy Sokomine! I use your mod a great deal, and I was thinking it'd be worth putting damage points / health loss / every time you use the travelnet box. Dematerialising should really take it out of you. This would stop players jumping from one box to another just to pick up a twig - you'd really want to make that journey.

What line of code would you need to add, and where, if I wanted to do this just for myself (personal use only)?

[redblade7]

Since 5.2.0 I have been having a lot of travelnet-related crashes of my servers:

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2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]: ServerError: AsyncErr: ServerThread::run Lua: Runtime error from mod 'travelnet' in callback on_playerReceiveFields(): Invalid position (expected table got nil).
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]: stack traceback:
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]:       [C]: in function 'get_meta'
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]:       (REMOVED)/bin/../games/minetest_game/mods/travelnet/init.lua:214: in function <(REMOVED)/bin/../games/minetest_game/mods/travelnet/init.lua:205>
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]:       (REMOVED)/bin/../builtin/game/register.lua:429: in function <(REMOVED)/bin/../builtin/game/register.lua:413>
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]: stack traceback:
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]:       [C]: in function 'get_meta'
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]:       (REMOVED)/bin/../games/minetest_game/mods/travelnet/init.lua:214: in function <(REMOVED)/bin/../games/minetest_game/mods/travelnet/init.lua:205>
2020-06-12 08:14:21: ERROR[Main]:       (REMOVED)/bin/../builtin/game/register.lua:429: in function <(REMOVED)/bin/../builtin/game/register.lua:413>

[Irremann]

What do you think?

[Desour]

<screenshot of travelnet connected to technic power>
What do you think?

Actually, that's a very nice idea. If you require the infrastructure near the travelnet to power it with technic power, it gets much more restricted, and hence looses its cheatyness.
If you now make the demand dependent on the travel distance, it's even better (IIRC, battery boxes have a max supply they can provide in one technic step, so to travel farther, you need more battery boxes).

Something similar could be done for /home destinations. I.e. you could have an item that you have to power, and a home-pad where you are teleported to. So, you can just set your home if you've made the according infrastructure. And also, you won't always use /home instead of walking 20 nodes or so.

[wsor4035]

<screenshot of travelnet connected to technic power>
What do you think?

Actually, that's a very nice idea. If you require the infrastructure near the travelnet to power it with technic power, it gets much more restricted, and hence looses its cheatyness.
If you now make the demand dependent on the travel distance, it's even better (IIRC, battery boxes have a max supply they can provide in one technic step, so to travel farther, you need more battery boxes).

Something similar could be done for /home destinations. I.e. you could have an item that you have to power, and a home-pad where you are teleported to. So, you can just set your home if you've made the according infrastructure. And also, you won't always use /home instead of walking 20 nodes or so.

https://content.minetest.net/packages/m ... ansporter/ might be similar to what your looking for

[indeeder]

Why travelnets counts as "cheating" with mines 5k deep (and much more)? Noobs should spend half playtime on ladders instead of mining or using mined loot? Asking for a friend.

[Blockhead]

Why travelnets counts as "cheating" with mines 5k deep (and much more)? Noobs should spend half playtime on ladders instead of mining or using mined loot? Asking for a friend.

In terms of game design: If it's powerful, it shouldn't be free. In terms of realism, teleportation doesn't exist (yet?). This is where a problem with vanilla MTG shows up. Of course, you could use carts, but that takes loads of iron, space for the tracks and if you turn a lot it's kind of dizzying. But there are mods that make it easier to travel after paying a cost, like Realtime Elevators, though even those don't require power.

I would also say that having to fuel or power things is also better than infinite free use. That way, travel that can be fast but expensive to build and use does not make the game "creative mode" or "survival lite". But that's just my opinion on how to balance fast transport, horizontal or vertical.

[indeeder]

No no, i'm talking not about tech. Sorry for my bad english!
I'm about newbies on servers. They deserve frustration, because teleportation is not invented? Even on mc tech servers there are some minimum of sethomes, at least 2 - one for base, other for mining. Because game is for fun, not for reality. For reality we have actual reality.
So - with travelnets server have more life, more ppl stays a bit longer and server have more chances to make them as loyal players.

[Blockhead]

No no, i'm talking not about tech. Sorry for my bad english!
I'm about newbies on servers. They deserve frustration, because teleportation is not invented?

Let me try to explain more clearly. I did not say realism is everything but I intend it to be understood that realism AND fun gameplay can be co-exist in a way that is still balanced as a fun game. You can have teleportation in your game or not, but I think that infinite free teleports is just lazy game design.

Noobs: they deserve to have to do work in order to move fast, just like anyone else. No handouts. The bigger problem for newbies on many servers is getting them to where there's actual free land that isn't protected - teleports are only one solution for that. There are solutions like random spawn locations, choosing an initial spawn after doing a tutorial/induction, or a single-use teleport. And Travelnet is only one mod - there are others like teleport potion and telemosaic that I like better (but I won't go on in detail, because this is the travelnet thread...). So teleportation for newbies isn't really well-solved by Travelnet specifically. It's still up to the server admin to have Travelnets (or teleport pads, or telemosaics) at the place where players first join.

Even on mc tech servers there are some minimum of sethomes, at least 2 - one for base, other for mining

This is still lazy game design and catering to lazy players. Who says the teleports should be free? Make them cost a few pieces of coal and a chicken carcass or something. If you don't have any cost, people won't have to think about planning their trips properly. Not everything the player immediately wants is good for them - delayed gratification is important too.

[Irremann]

Free teleports make it meaningless: rails and trolleys, trains, roads, bicycles and other vehicles. And just yellow booths stick out everywhere. I made the mistake of using this mod on the server at all. I complicated the recipe, but it's still not enough.
Connecting to electricity is crashing the game for now, I'm working on it.

[indeeder]

Travelnets is for mining. No train can move me to the cave. Ppl is ok to spend couple irl hours to find a place for a base. Anyway you dont want to live near road, because of annoying "funny guys".
And - your server is gaining troubles, because noone like your trains, so please make travelnets bad for all others? Do i get you right?

"lazy game design" - it's about 2 homes? :) My english is bad, but i'm not THAT dumb.

[Blockhead]

Travelnets is for mining. No train can move me to the cave.

That's why I said one should use realtime elevators for vertical movement.

And - your server is gaining troubles, because noone like your trains, so please make travelnets bad for all others? Do i get you right?

Nope, you can keep your travelnets on your server of course. I'm not going to use them myself though, and I'll feel free to tell you why.

"lazy game design" - it's about 2 homes? :) My english is bad, but i'm not THAT dumb.

Maybe lazy suits some people anyway..

[SuperStarSonic]

Travelnets is for mining. No train can move me to the cave.

That's why I said one should use realtime elevators for vertical movement.

I don't think anyone wants to spend 15 minutes going down an elevator to get a few mese.

[Blockhead]

Use realtime elevators for vertical movement.

I don't think anyone wants to spend 15 minutes going down an elevator to get a few mese.

Well, they should be going down for more than a bit of mese if they want to go down. Then they'll have to be careful about what to bring in their inventory, too. It takes a well-planned trip. Mese can be found relatively near the surface, starting at -64, so 15 minutes going down isn't necessary either. Same with the ores - sure, they are richer further down, but mostly they exist near the surface as well. So now you have to consider whether you want to go further down and get more ores, but at the cost of your time. Ah well, not enough instant gratification I guess.

Also, the fact that Minetest Game encourages you to go really, really deep is not that good of a design. It's kind of a "I've got the whole space, so I'm gonna use the whole space!" deal. The extra ore spawns with y_max < -256 are kind of bad design if you ask me, especially for the base game where the fastest way up is carts, 2nd fastest probably ladders. Maaybe push it down to -512, just with the extra large caves Minetest mapgen has. For the modded game, -512 doesn't take very long at all with realtime elevators. The elevators from that mod go much faster than real life elevators.

To mention mods again: A lot of people and servers use Unified Inventory or i3, which include extra storage bags. So part of your preparation for mining is acquiring bags if you don't have them, and then emptying them before and after mining trips. So even if the elevator trip takes 15 minutes (which it likely won't), you can mine down there for hours at a time.

But like I said, laziness suits a lot of people. They prefer to play a more casual game, just sort of building stuff, playing a bit of easy survival, then go visit people's houses and the public spaces, and chat a lot. So it's understandable they want teleports. It just comes at the cost of a compromised game - but, as a chatroom rather than a game, of course they don't really mind the compromise to the game. Chatrooms are a dime a dozen on the internet though, so if all your Minetest server is is a chatroom then it's not really doing much is it?

[indeeder]

One of biggest minetest pros: deep mining. You can go down for hours. You can find many cool caves where you'll want to get back. Thanks to travelnets - it's possible. You can invent your way to go down, it's addictive. Also with travelnets you can build few bases as one, with, like few rooms. That's impossible without teleporting. Also locked travelnets - theyre absolutely amazing. One of greatest minetest mod, mod brings space as construct in your plans.
Sure, it wont fit in train server. So - just remove travelnets.

[Irremann]

Great idea with the train to the cave. I think I know what I'm going to do on the weekend =).

[xianjiro]

I think it really just depends what one wants out of their gaming experience. I play solo and have only played solo as I've never been interested in shared computer gaming experiences (though I do enjoy playing board/card games with people real-time). I put in many MT hours exploring and climbing up and down caves and mountains. I've also put in the hours mining, building, and traveling in minecarts (though now I use them more for relaxation). Then I progressed to flying through caves and across terrains. Then I installed Travelnet.

Mostly I play the game now when I want to build something I see in my mind. Or maybe when I want to play a what-if? type scenario. While I agree that it would make sense for them to 'cost' something to use, it's not like the basic minetest_game 'costs' anything: we only have to eat to restore lost hearts, our lives don't waste away (in the out-of-box installation) naturally when we spend hours deep underground filling our inventory/bags with whatever ores we are looking for.