Want to add some biomes but...

[Peril]

Okay,

So after some time away from Minetest (a few years) I want to build up my mods again to create a more... entertaining game. I'm starting off withe absolute basics so far.

Ambience
Farming
Smart Inventory (sorry but Sfinv, apparently doesn't show up for me).

I'm beginning to look at different biome mods, but it's hard to find ones that will work with a variety of other mods. For example Ethereal, is a hugely complex mod integrating varying different aspects and over-rides some stuff that I'd otherwise like to keep.

Could someone recommend me a good ocean/sea mod that would make the oceans far more...interesting?

As a side note, I'm assuming that Mob_Redo is still the best for monsters?

[ShadMOrdre]

Peril,

If sfinv isn't in the game/mods folder, then your version of Minetest and Minetest Game are outdated. Start with this.

Ethereal, Australia, Aotera, valleys_c, moretrees, plantlife, and biome_lib are all great biome mods. However, they are all either incompatible with each other, as each tends to clear the registered decorations, or they require alot of processing power, and thus create lag.

Shameless plug: Please try lib_materials and lib_ecology, both are mods that I created and can be quickly accessed via my signature below. lib_materials pulls dirt, sand, stone, and some other nodes from darkage, xdecor, moreores, rocks, and the Farlands MT Game. lib_ecology combines ethereal, valleys_c, moretrees, plant_lib, flowers, and other mods, as well as the Farlands game into a lightweight biome mod. There are well over 200 biomes, 50+ trees, 90+plants from the above mentioned mods. And.....it does NOT clear the registered decorations, so should be compatible with the other biome type mods mentioned at the top, as long as you add those mods as a dependency for lib_ecology, so that lib_ecology biomes are not overwritten by the other mod.

Shad

[Peril]

Hi,

Nah, it was a fresh install of Minetest and yes, it was in the mods folder. Alas, it didn't want to show up. No idea why, everything else works.

I'm not keen on Ethereal primarily because it might remove stuff I want, but I will certainly take a look into lib_ecology. Although, there doesn't seem to be anything in the oceans from the screenshots. Will investigate nevertheless.

[ShadMOrdre]

Peril,

So the sfinv mod is part of default. It is included with Minetest Game, in the mod folder for the game. If you also have sfinv in your mods folder, they will cancel each other out, and you won't see sfinv in the game.

Yes, lib_ecology is lacking in the ocean department. There should be coral, but many of the underwater plants have been waiting on a new feature in 5.0.0. There are also other somewhat barren landscapes. 250 biomes is alot to fill, and after two solid months of obsessing over the details, I took a break. I'll be diving back into this soon, to get it updated for 5.0.0, and some other planned features.

[paramat]

Any mod that uses 'biome_lib' such as moretrees, plantlife, is extrememly intensive and unnecessarily so, these mods really need rewriting, the code is a bad example.

[ShadMOrdre]

I'd like to point out that while I use the textures and trees, and even used moretrees to generate schematics, lib_ecology runs light, there are no dependencies on biome_lib, and the only code used from moretrees, are the L-Tree definitions, which are no longer used in lib_ecology.

Using lua schematic tables and textures, I have recreated most of ethereal, moretrees, valleys_c, and other biomes that seemed relevant.

It certainly runs better, in that I can fly around a roughly 1 sqkm area inworld, and actually view a good part of that generated space using infinite view. Of course, FPS suffers, but I can still move, even if at only 1 FPS, but sometimes as high as 7 or 8 FPS.

[Peril]

Any mod that uses 'biome_lib' such as moretrees, plantlife, is extrememly intensive and unnecessarily so, these mods really need rewriting, the code is a bad example.

That is indeed interesting as I had been about to grab one of them. My system can handle intensive, but no point straining my system unnecessarily.

I'm not sure about you guys, but 30FPS is as low as I like....

[Sokomine]

Could someone recommend me a good ocean/sea mod that would make the oceans far more...interesting?

There's the sea modpack. It adds a lot of diffrent nodes and features to the oceans. It might still run with recent MT. Minetest game improved a lot regarding ocean floors and life as well. And if you want something placed onto the water of your oceans, my ships_on_mapgen mod can add ships and shipwrecks.

Ethereal, Australia, Aotera, valleys_c, moretrees, plantlife, and biome_lib are all great biome mods. However, they are all either incompatible with each other, as each tends to clear the registered decorations, or they require alot of processing power, and thus create lag.

Yes, that's a pity. It would often be great to have plants from diffrent games. Perhaps your lib_ecology mod is a good solution to that.

Any mod that uses 'biome_lib' such as moretrees, plantlife, is extrememly intensive and unnecessarily so, these mods really need rewriting, the code is a bad example.

Quite a lot of the load comes from the plants beeing terribly demanding on where and how they want to grow.

[ShadMOrdre]

lib_ecology simply defines the nodes, biomes, and decorations, leaving the rest up to the engine, as far as generation. I have already begun the process of converting some of the plants to node_timers, and only use the leaf_decay abm, as far as I can tell in the code. Please do look at both lib_materials, (the mod that defines stone, dirt, and dirt_with_grass nodes), and lib_ecology. My purpose has been to provide all the plants, trees, natural elements, and ecosystems, all within a light weight package that will run on my low end computers.

I purposely use 16x16 pixel, 16 color graphics, and most have been converted, allowing me to achieve moderate FPS of 20-30.

lib_materials combines bakedclay, darkage, moreblocks, moreores, ethereal, valleys_c, technic, xdecor, and others, to provide a rich source of stone, dirt, and sand types. It also provides over 30 grass types, spread over about 10 different dirt types, allowing the 250+ biome definitions in lib_ecology to have unique materials as well as unique plantlife.

lib_ecology contains moretrees, ethereal, valleys_c, and others, combined into a single mod, without all the overhead of those mods, as well as, without the incompatibility of each of those mods with others.

[Sokomine]

Seems I missed lib_ecology somehow. My trees_lib mod attempts to provide all that trees need - sapling growth, registering of nodes etc.

[Brian Gaucher]

Consider checking out here for some ocean improvements.
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