Mod Ideas

[nikminers]

I'm new to minetest and have no programming skills whatsoever, but I do have ideas for mods.

I would like them to be compatible with version 0.4.4 of Minetest (my fave version) and up. Don't like how files in later versions were organized or how the ability to move through nodes by default when in fly mode was disabled. I know this can be re-enabled easily, but that's besides the point, it adds unnecessary work.

- auto-fill
This would work by selecting 2 points in the air with an auto fill tool. This tool would outline the empty node it's pointing at and be able to "punch" the air to create point a & b. For example, if you select a point high in the air and a point straight down near the ground, that would prep an area to be filled in a straight line up and down, with each empty node being outlined. This would also work for horizontal lines. If you select 2 points from corner-to-corner in the same row or column you can prep an area for a wall, floor, or ceiling. If you select 2 points in different rows and columns, that would prep an area for a hollow structure, or a 2-layer wall, floor, or ceiling. Once an area is prepped, all you would need to do afterward is place your material of choice in any empty outlined node by punching, and viola you have a simple 3-step shape or structure to build upon, saving loads of time. I would have said place on the empty node, but that would create conflicts with items that drop when placed, such as tools. I'm aware of worldedit but that method is not as beginner-friendly and people like me would never consider using it.

- mian-menu-level mod and texture switching
Pretty much self-explainatory. Add the ability to enable or disable mods and switch texture packs from the main menu (excluding main menu textures of course, may be a risk of crashing). This mod would be especially useful when other mods begin to act up and crash your game, and beginner users would have an easier time applying texture packs. This should also allow players to switch textures in other mods with their own textures, this would require a new folder in the game's file system labelled "alternative mod textures", each texture folder in this directory should be labelled "*mod name here* texture pack" Adding a system-monitor with a simple interface (something like a meter with a needle that goes between "performance(fast but ugly)" and "quality (slow but beautiful)" would be helpful so players/creators can determine which combination of textures and mods will have the most favourable performance-to-content ratio according to system specs and programs running in the background. This would work by running a virtual game strictly in the console and doing a stress test/fps check and reporting back to the system monitor for a measure of the performance/quality ratio and to report any crashes that may/will occur.

- REWIND!!! (AKA save/load menu)
There have been many times I have seriously f****d something up and inadvertently ruined many hours of hard, tedious work, especially with the bazooka from the firearms mod. A feature that auto-saves once every 10-20 mins, and allows you to save in-game as well would be very appreciated. Having it save with a thumbnail image would help identify where you were. The save menu should be accessible as if it were an inventory, just press a single key to save and/or load in-game. A cache of 10-15 auto-saves and 5-10 self-saves would be ideal. The auto-save cache should empty once the game is exited, but the self-save cache should remain, and a load menu should be presented when entering your game so you can start where you want. This would have the added benefit of being able to create a similar world in different ways without needing to mess around in the file folders.

- in-game music playlist
This would be a simple mod really. It would use a shortcut key to access a menu that is linked to a music folder/folders anywhere on your hard drive using an interface something like windows explorer. It should utilize a media player that exists outside of the game (preferrably one created for Minetest) and mute other in-game sounds. A simple menu bar should be accessible through the same shortcut allowing you to switch songs, switch playlists, pause, and turn shuffle/repeat on or off. As a measure against crashing the menu should be locked open before re-entering the game to give the media player time to initialize, load all files, and begin playing music.

If any of these mods exist as I described them please point me in the right direction, If not then all I ask is to be credited for the idea/concept should anybody take up the long, tedious task of actually making these mods.

[hdastwb]

auto-fill: you are almost exactly describing worldedit—take a closer look; it's not that hard to learn. It would be rather difficult to select by punching air, though; try going underwater and collecting a certain block of water with a bucket.

main-menu mod/texture switching: mod switching is implemented at least in 4.7, so you will be able to configure mods with a GUI if you upgrade. Texture switching would be a cool feature; as of now all of the textures need to be in one directory (.minetest/textures/all) but it would be nice to be able to install and configure texture packs like mods. However, this is not something that can be modded but rather an engine issue, and I would advise giving the engine devs a wide berth as they don't like being interfered with and have very…different ideas in terms of coding style. It is possible to change the menu textures when on the menu; get a newer copy (4.7) and install more than one game on it to see it in action.

rewind: the closest thing we have is rollback, but I'm not sure if that reverts bazooka hits or even works in singleplayer.

music playlist: look at the ambiance mod (http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=2807); however, even if Irrlicht provides a file menu, formspec does not (understandably, since it would constitute a major security breach for any server). Also, because all mods are server-side, the ability to start external programs on clients would be an even larger security breach. if you want to have music play in an external program on your client, the best way to do that probably would be just manipulating the program manually. You do have access to os.execute() though, so you could probably write a mod that interfaces your own media player on your own computer if it has some sort of shell interface.

If you want to grant noclip to users by default, write the following line to minetest.conf:

Code: Select all

default_privs = interact, shout, noclip

You can also "/grant [player] all" to easily grant someone every privilege rather than having to do all of them individually; this is probably the easiest way to do it in singleplayer.

[nikminers]

So worldedit does all the functions I described? Including placing nodes in air and making hollow boxed structures? I just got 4.7 because 4.4 started acting up, and after a hour I finally understood the modding process and file organization in 4.7.

When I was describing the music mod I was actually just thinking of something that would be a single-player alternative to playing music in something like Winamp or WMP then proceeding to the game, which would cause lag since literally every music player I know of would require a performance-intensive gui. A Minetest music player should be nearly gui-free with the exception of file selection and 4-5 buttons for music playing.

For the save mod I tried getting too descriptive. I was thinking of adding a daggerfall-like save/load menu with lower graphics and an auto-save section to load from. I know there would be issues in the engine, but I'm expecting this to be a possibility by 0.5.0.

Unfortunately I can't program at all and am just barely able to alter lua files to suit my preferrences, so I have to rely on others for mods.

Slightly off-topic; How do I restore the water to act like it did in 4.4. I tried building ponds and lakes but just wound up with puddles at the edges of my lake/pond-to-be. Quite frustrating really. It does this whether finite water is enabled or not so that isn't where the issue lies. Is there a file I would replace in 4.7 with a file from 4.4? Also, interactive items such as doors won't open in 4.7 creative mode, only break. How do I fix this?

[jojoa1997]

The texture switching is really easy to have multiple directories outside of MiniTest/textures/all. Simply make a directory in the all folder and then add the folder name after all in MiniTest.conf. also in game texture switching would be really nice.

[Rehlgamer101]

I'm new to minetest and have no programming skills whatsoever, but I do have ideas for mods.

I would like them to be compatible with version 0.4.4 of Minetest (my fave version) and up. Don't like how files in later versions were organized or how the ability to move through nodes by default when in fly mode was disabled. I know this can be re-enabled easily, but that's besides the point, it adds unnecessary work.

- auto-fill
This would work by selecting 2 points in the air with an auto fill tool. This tool would outline the empty node it's pointing at and be able to "punch" the air to create point a & b. For example, if you select a point high in the air and a point straight down near the ground, that would prep an area to be filled in a straight line up and down, with each empty node being outlined. This would also work for horizontal lines. If you select 2 points from corner-to-corner in the same row or column you can prep an area for a wall, floor, or ceiling. If you select 2 points in different rows and columns, that would prep an area for a hollow structure, or a 2-layer wall, floor, or ceiling. Once an area is prepped, all you would need to do afterward is place your material of choice in any empty outlined node by punching, and viola you have a simple 3-step shape or structure to build upon, saving loads of time. I would have said place on the empty node, but that would create conflicts with items that drop when placed, such as tools. I'm aware of worldedit but that method is not as beginner-friendly and people like me would never consider using it.

- mian-menu-level mod and texture switching
Pretty much self-explainatory. Add the ability to enable or disable mods and switch texture packs from the main menu (excluding main menu textures of course, may be a risk of crashing). This mod would be especially useful when other mods begin to act up and crash your game, and beginner users would have an easier time applying texture packs. This should also allow players to switch textures in other mods with their own textures, this would require a new folder in the game's file system labelled "alternative mod textures", each texture folder in this directory should be labelled "*mod name here* texture pack" Adding a system-monitor with a simple interface (something like a meter with a needle that goes between "performance(fast but ugly)" and "quality (slow but beautiful)" would be helpful so players/creators can determine which combination of textures and mods will have the most favourable performance-to-content ratio according to system specs and programs running in the background. This would work by running a virtual game strictly in the console and doing a stress test/fps check and reporting back to the system monitor for a measure of the performance/quality ratio and to report any crashes that may/will occur.

- REWIND!!! (AKA save/load menu)
There have been many times I have seriously f****d something up and inadvertently ruined many hours of hard, tedious work, especially with the bazooka from the firearms mod. A feature that auto-saves once every 10-20 mins, and allows you to save in-game as well would be very appreciated. Having it save with a thumbnail image would help identify where you were. The save menu should be accessible as if it were an inventory, just press a single key to save and/or load in-game. A cache of 10-15 auto-saves and 5-10 self-saves would be ideal. The auto-save cache should empty once the game is exited, but the self-save cache should remain, and a load menu should be presented when entering your game so you can start where you want. This would have the added benefit of being able to create a similar world in different ways without needing to mess around in the file folders.

- in-game music playlist
This would be a simple mod really. It would use a shortcut key to access a menu that is linked to a music folder/folders anywhere on your hard drive using an interface something like windows explorer. It should utilize a media player that exists outside of the game (preferrably one created for Minetest) and mute other in-game sounds. A simple menu bar should be accessible through the same shortcut allowing you to switch songs, switch playlists, pause, and turn shuffle/repeat on or off. As a measure against crashing the menu should be locked open before re-entering the game to give the media player time to initialize, load all files, and begin playing music.

If any of these mods exist as I described them please point me in the right direction, If not then all I ask is to be credited for the idea/concept should anybody take up the long, tedious task of actually making these mods.

Music playlist Idea is awesome! someone should totally make that dude!

[ElectricSolstice]

Is there a mod or programming tool that will automatically generate some html documentation on the recipes and such for Minetest mods. Would be nice to have a way to autogenerate such things rather than having to look through a mod to figure out the recipes. Also, would probably just make documentation easier on the mod creators.

[kaeza]

Is there a mod or programming tool that will automatically generate some html documentation on the recipes and such for Minetest mods. Would be nice to have a way to autogenerate such things rather than having to look through a mod to figure out the recipes. Also, would probably just make documentation easier on the mod creators.

Try looking at one of these:
- craft_guide: viewtopic.php?id=2334
- unified_inventory: viewtopic.php?id=3933

They don't exactly do what you meant, but are nice to have to browse recipes.

Edit: There was also this one, but looks like the author removed it.