[Mod] Telemosaic [telemosaic] (WIP)

[Ben]

Telemosaic mod

This mod provides teleportation pads, called "beacons". Unlike other teleportation mods, no menus or GUIs are used; you set the destination with a simple "key" item. There is no tooltip for the destination either, so signs are recommended.

Another difference is the limited default range of the beacons. To increase the range, you need to place "extenders" around the beacon. The extenders come in different colors, allowing the extenders to form a pretty pattern; hence the name "telemosaic".

Current behavior

Beacons are created with 2 diamonds, 3 obsidian blocks, and a wooden door: first row diamond, door, diamond; second row the obsidian blocks.

Right-clicking a beacon with a default mese crystal fragment remembers the position in the fragment, which turns into a telemosaic key. Right-clicking a second beacon with the key sets up a teleportation route from the second beacon to the first beacon. To set up a return path, right-click the second beacon with the fragment, and the first beacon with the resulting key again. Protected beacons cannot be configured this way, but they can still be used by anyone!

The beacons do not need to be strictly paired this way: rings or star-shaped networks are also possible. Each beacon has only a single destination, but can itself be the destination of several others.

Keys can be crafted back into a mese crystal fragment if you don't want to configure a beacon after all.

Beacons will check that their destination is sane: the destination still needs to be a beacon, and the two nodes above it should be clear for walking / standing in. If your Minetest version supports it, the beacon will emerge the area prior to checking and teleporting. Emerging is merely a convenience, though.

Beacons have a maximum range of 20 nodes. If the destination is too far away, the beacon will turn red and will not function.To extend the range for a beacon, place "extenders" next to it, within a 7x7 horizontal square centered on the beacon.

Extenders come in three tiers: tier 1 extends all affected beacons by 5 nodes, tier 2 by 20 nodes, and tier 3 by 80 nodes. Placing or digging extenders will update affected beacons.

Tier 1 extenders are crafted by placing an obsidian block, a wooden door, and another obsidian block in a horizontal row. Tier 2 extenders are crafted with an obsidian block in the middle, surrounded by a cross of four tier 1 extenders. Tier 3 extenders are crafted with an obsidian block surrounded by four tier 2 extenders.

Extenders can be colored with any of the dyes found in the dye mod. Colored extenders work just like regular extenders, both for teleporting and for recipes. To "uncolor" an extender, dye it grey.

Spoiler

An active beacon with extenders around. Pagoda not included.


Left to right: freshly placed beacon, configured beacon, beacon out of range. Player is wielding a key.


Crafting recipes for the beacon and the three extender tiers.

Future plans

• Particle and sound effects
• Protected beacons (will not teleport if is_protected)

Version: 0.5.0
License: Code LGPL 2.1, Textures CC-BY-SA
Repository: GitHub

Download:

• Version 0.5.0 (.zip)

Spoiler

• Version 0.4.1 (.zip)
• Version 0.4.0 (.zip)
• Version 0.3.1 (.zip)
• Version 0.3.0 (.zip)
• Version 0.2.0 (.zip)
• Version 0.1.0 (.zip)

Dependencies:

• default
• doors
• dye (optional)

[oleastre]

Cool, I was thinking about creating a similar mod !

[Krock]

The mod idea is good but please add a destination set protection, otherwise everyone could mess up the destination locations.

[Ben]

The mod idea is good but please add a destination set protection, otherwise everyone could mess up the destination locations.

Oh, no worries, it'll use the standard protection mechanisms. It's right there in the "future plans" section, isn't it?

Wait, it isn't? Oh dear… uh, just a sec please…

There. Yes, I'm planning to use the standard is_protected function that all the area protection mods use to limit who can change a destination. In addition, I should think about locked beacons that can't even be used (i.e. won't teleport) unless cleared by protection. Or to protect a destination beacon from generating a key.

[Ben]

Version 0.2.0 released

Nothing much; beacons have a maximum range of 20 nodes now. Yes, this is very low, but the idea is to use extenders to increase this. If you still want to fool around with very long range teleports, check the "config" section in init.lua .

Beacons also start with an "inactive" look, and light up when activated (in a texture sense – beacons don't actually give off light. Yet :-P). If you set a destination that's too far away, it turns red instead. The plan is to update this as extenders are placed around it, so you can in fact see when you've placed enough.

[eduardomezencio]

I'm liking this a lot! I think this kind of teleporter is very easy to integrate in a game because of it's simple design that would fit a variety of themes and the absence of menus. And it also looks pretty good!

[eduardomezencio]

Also, what kind of sound effects you imagine for this mod? Maybe I can be of some help creating some, if you want synthesized sounds (instead of recorded sounds).

[Ben]

I'm liking this a lot! I think this kind of teleporter is very easy to integrate in a game because of it's simple design that would fit a variety of themes and the absence of menus. And it also looks pretty good!

Hehe, thanks! I'm amazed that someone would think this looks good - I'm really not much of an artist :-P

Yes, the absence of menus is basically the point of this mod. I think it makes it a lot more immersive. But it's naturally a bit more complicated and unwieldy. For some worlds, especially those resembling creative graphical chat rooms, the travelnet mod or similar make much more sense. But not all worlds are like that.

Also, what kind of sound effects you imagine for this mod? Maybe I can be of some help creating some, if you want synthesized sounds (instead of recorded sounds).

I'd love some synthesized sounds! Let me see what sounds we would need:

• a sound for creating a key (i.e. using a mese crystal fragment on a beacon)
• a sound for using a key to configure a beacon (can be the same sound)
• a sound for the teleport "charging up". This would start after standing on the beacon for about 1 second, and last a second or two
• a sound for a successful teleport (this is the most important one, I think)
• a sound for an unsuccessful teleport or other error. I do plan to check for a beacon at the other end, so teleports can be disrupted this way.

Whew, that's actually a long list. We can probably get away with default stone sounds for everything else.

While writing this list, I thought of a mechanical change: instead of configuring beacons with "keys", how about holding a beacon block in your hand, and using it on a beacon on the ground to set the destination of the held one? Then it would already be configured by the time you placed it. And if you dig up a beacon, it would need to remember its configuration (probably solvable by some callback).

This would make it more convenient, but I'm not sure that's what I want. I think I'll stick with keys, and add this "fast mode" as a configuration option :-P

[eduardomezencio]

I'll try to create some nice sounds. It may take some time, but I'll report back as soon as possible.

While writing this list, I thought of a mechanical change: instead of configuring beacons with "keys", how about holding a beacon block in your hand, and using it on a beacon on the ground to set the destination of the held one? Then it would already be configured by the time you placed it. And if you dig up a beacon, it would need to remember its configuration (probably solvable by some callback).

This would make it more convenient, but I'm not sure that's what I want. I think I'll stick with keys, and add this "fast mode" as a configuration option :-P

I like the keys. I would definitely keep them. One thing that you should change is to remove the key from the creative inventory and also remove Telemosaic Beacon (on) and Telemosaic Beacon (err), because the player should not be able to get/build them directly. Using a key from the creative inventory even crashes the game.

[Ben]

Version 0.3.0 released

Extenders are added, as was foretold 5 posts above. This includes the beacons turning blue or red when enough extenders are added / removed.

Also: new screenshots. Check them out!

[Ben]

[...] One thing that you should change is to remove the key from the creative inventory and also remove Telemosaic Beacon (on) and Telemosaic Beacon (err), because the player should not be able to get/build them directly. Using a key from the creative inventory even crashes the game.

Good catch – I actually remembered to remove the on and err versions from the creative inventory in version 0.3.0, but forgot the keys. Oh well, expect a 0.3.1 soon, and until then: don't use keys you just found on the floor :-P

[Ben]

Version 0.3.1 released

Yeah, that was fast :-/

[eduardomezencio]

Version 0.3.1 released

Yeah, that was fast :-/

Tested it and everything is working fine. Some remarks:

- Since, as I pointed out earlier, this teleporter has the advantage of simplicity, could you elaborate on why you think 3 tiers of extenders would be a good idea? Is it because you're planning significant difference in cost to craft each of them? I'm not sure, but maybe only one extender could work better. Just maybe, I don't know really.

- Do you think you could make it in a way that extenders would extend the range only in the direction it is placed? I think it would be nice. The way things are now (as far as I could understand), teleporters with an extender nearby work like an enhanced teleporter. It's the same thing as it would be if you just had a Beacon lv1, Beacon lv2 and so on. Making the extenders directional, they would work in a unique way, that would kind of justify better their existence. I know the code would be more complicated. But I think it's worth it. (Also it would allow a player to know the general direction a beacon is taking him, just by looking at the placement of extenders)

[Ben]

- Since, as I pointed out earlier, this teleporter has the advantage of simplicity, could you elaborate on why you think 3 tiers of extenders would be a good idea? Is it because you're planning significant difference in cost to craft each of them? I'm not sure, but maybe only one extender could work better. Just maybe, I don't know really.

Yes, that's it. A tier 2 extender will cost as much as four tier 1 extenders (plus a little extra), a tier 3 a bit more than four tier 2s. In fact, I plan to make the lower tiers part of the crafting pattern for higher tiers. You're basically paying the same price per 5 blocks extension, except for the slight bonus for space conservation.

- Do you think you could make it in a way that extenders would extend the range only in the direction it is placed? I think it would be nice. The way things are now (as far as I could understand), teleporters with an extender nearby work like an enhanced teleporter. It's the same thing as it would be if you just had a Beacon lv1, Beacon lv2 and so on. Making the extenders directional, they would work in a unique way, that would kind of justify better their existence. I know the code would be more complicated. But I think it's worth it. (Also it would allow a player to know the general direction a beacon is taking him, just by looking at the placement of extenders)

Could be nice, but that's not the direction I plan to go. For me, the extenders are the tangible effort required for a far teleport – and I also love rewarding infrastructure ;-) I'm also looking forward to neat patterns of beacons sharing extenders – it makes sense to have "teleport hubs" then. We'll have to see how this plays out.

[Ben]

Version 0.4.0 released

This version adds the crafting recipes for the beacon and the three extender tiers. See the main post for the crafting recipes. As promised, the cost for the extenders slightly more than quadruples. Also, keys can be re-crafted back into mese crystal fragments without configuring a beacon.

Second feature: protection mode! If a beacon is protected (by an area mod or similar), it cannot be configured / rerouted with a key, unless you're the "owner" of the area. This only applies to configuration (and digging, of course); a protected beacon can still be used to teleport. I'm planning a special "private beacon" which will test for protection (of the source, not the destination) before teleporting.

[Ben]

Version 0.4.1 released

No new features, really, which is why this is a "patch level" version bump. But before teleporting, a beacon checks if the destination node is still a beacon itself, and whether there is "room to stand" above it.

To facilitate this, and hopefully make the teleport a bit less jarring, the destination area is emerged (see minetest.emerge_area) about 1.5 seconds before the actual check and teleport. The emerged area is just the destination node and the two nodes above it; it may make more sense to expand this a bit.

[Ben]

Version 0.5.0 released

This version adds colored extenders. Extenders can be colored with any of the dyes from the dye mod (craft an extender and some dye in any order). Colored extenders work just as well as normal extenders, they just look prettier ;-) Well, actually, the colors are not tuned yet. So "prettier" may be stretching it a bit.

Oh, and they're also not visible in the creative inventory. If you do find yourself placing massive amounts of colored extenders, you may want to temporarily allow them into creative inventory (just change the code).

I'll try to get a screenshot up, unless someone here beats me to it.

[oleastre]

Small note: in your README.md file, the installation instructions tells the user to rename the extracted folder "bewarethedark" ...
I suppose it should be "telemosaic" :)

[Ben]

Small note: in your README.md file, the installation instructions tells the user to rename the extracted folder "bewarethedark" ...
I suppose it should be "telemosaic" :)

Argh, thanks. I guess you can tell a lot of this is copy & paste :-P I'll fix it when I get around to it.

[texmex]

I like this mod! I believe it clashes with nether mod though, making the mese fragment do nothing for this mod. Nether still works however.

I believe nether mod "claims" every use of mese fragments.

[texmex]

I forked the repo and added sounds and particles to it. Thanks to Wuzzy and returnmirror for sound and code.

I like how this mod forces the player to work quite hard for both beacons and extenders and that extenders keeps the "locality factor" (that you can't just teleport across the whole world easily just because teleporting has been discovered)

[texmex]

I've added settingtypes to my fork of telemosaic, so that you can set your own ranges for the three extender types and the beacon. There's also a setting for the delay before player is teleported.

[texmex]

I'd love some synthesized sounds! Let me see what sounds we would need:

• a sound for creating a key (i.e. using a mese crystal fragment on a beacon)
• a sound for using a key to configure a beacon (can be the same sound)
• a sound for the teleport "charging up". This would start after standing on the beacon for about 1 second, and last a second or two
• a sound for a successful teleport (this is the most important one, I think)
• a sound for an unsuccessful teleport or other error. I do plan to check for a beacon at the other end, so teleports can be disrupted this way.

Whew, that's actually a long list. We can probably get away with default stone sounds for everything else.

Made it an issue for me to work through.

[azekill_DIABLO]

how long the delay?

That would be what the setting states which, you know, depends on the setting. ;)

great! i like mods with settings

[Ben]

Hello everyone, really sorry I haven't been active lately – I had some other issues besides Minetest, and then I got more into the C++ side of things, so any mod work ground to a halt…

But yes, I'd like to pick up work on this mod again, and definitely check out your fork, @texmex! Thanks for working on it!