[MOD] Geominer: cave-ins, flooding, deep mining! [geominer]

[Devy]

Hello! We are making a mod that will add layers of different kinds of stones. Each layer will get harder and harder to mine the further down the player gets. In each layer there will be ores that you need for crafting a pickaxe, as well as dungeons that will have a sapling the player needs to craft the pickaxe.

Dev update [September 11th, 2017]: I'm back in school, and I do not know when I'll be back.


Please leave a comment!


How to play the mod.

Spoiler

Here's an example of how the mod will work, and how the player will progress deeper.
Player starts new save -> craft diamond pickaxe -> mine into the Diorite layer (around -300) and find the dungeon containing the Beryl sapling, and find the Beryl ore -> go to surface and grow the sapling into a bush -> craft sticks from bush stem -> use the sticks and Beryl ore drop to craft a pickaxe used to mine into the Granite layer -> etc. The player will follow this workflow to continue to the bottom.

Our goal with this mod is to provide a sense of progression to the game as well as surprises to keep the player interested.

List of things this mod adds.

Spoiler

• 10 layers of stone that increasingly get harder to mine the further down you get.
  10 types of saplings (spawn in default dungeons) and bush stems.
  10 types of ores.
  10 types of pickaxes.
  2 types of glowsticks. One type is droppable, and one type is throwable.
  Cave-ins that occur when the player is below -300. There is a 1 in 3000 chance every 2 minutes that a cave-in can happen. These cave-ins turn the ceiling into gravel, and the player is hurt if they get hit by one of the falling gravel blocks.
  Ropes that extend downwards from where the player places it. It places nodes below where the player palces the first one, and each node is a ladder.
  Gas that spawns as an ore and floats upwards. It blows up near players
  Flash floods that occur below -300 blocks.

Download, github, installation, license and dependencies.

Spoiler

Download: https://github.com/CoderForTheBetter/ge ... master.zip
Github: https://github.com/CoderForTheBetter/geominer

Installation: To install, click the download link above and extract the files. Rename the extracted folder to "geominer" and move it into your mods folder for Minetest. For more info on installing mods please visit this link: http://dev.minetest.net/Installing_Mods]

Rename to "geominer" after extracting.

License: https://github.com/CoderForTheBetter/ge ... ICENSE.txt (MIT)

Depends: default, flowers, TNT.

Screenshots and gifs.

Spoiler

Beryl layer along with items:

Another picture of the Beryl layer. It's called the Beryl layer because that is the ore you find, it is actually Diorite stone:

A picture of a transition between layers:

Here's a glowstick being dropped.

If you can't see that here's the link: https://gfycat.com/HonorableOrderlyEidolonhelvum?

Here's a cave-in happening in real time!
https://streamable.com/vsvbp


Here's gas blowing up.
https://giant.gfycat.com/IllinformedCir ... uirrel.gif


Here's a flash-flood in action.
https://gfycat.com/DapperEnviousBabirusa


Crystal block in action:

Things that will be added and changelog.

Spoiler

To come (things that will be added in the future):
1. Ropes that can be placed on a ceiling and will extend to floor that allow the player to go up and down fast. Added
2. Cave-ins (this may be too hard to implement). Added
3. Dungeons (very important for progression in the mod. Player can't progress without this). Added
4. Gas veins/blobs. This will be a node that spawns as an ore and if a torch comes to close to it, it will blow up. Added
5. Low oxygen? Torches will burn out unless you craft a torch made for that layer. Player will start taking damage without oxygen mask and tanks.
6. Flash flooding? Most likely harder to implement than cave-ins. Added
7. An end goal? Why is the player digging so far down? Should there be a big reward? Or a reason to keep coming down to the bottom?
8. Spooky cave sounds? When the player is underground play sounds that will surprise them. This is hard since there will need to be a lot of sounds so the player doesn't have to listen to repeated sounds.
9. Settings for toggling stuff? Added

Changelog:
5/31/17: Nothing here! The base of the mod exists, and once we update the mod further I will put the changes here.

6/2/17: Finished the rest of the layers and redid the code that generates the layers of rocks. Now it uses biomes instead of the LUA voxel manipulator, meaning the chunks do not lag when loading now.

6/3/17: Added dungeons! You won't be able to play through the whole mod yet since the pickaxes are not yet configured to let you dig through all the layers. There is only one type of dungeon as of now, and that may change in the future. How the dungeon works is that it spawns randomly, and a sapling will spawn in one of five rooms. It is up to you to find where it spawned and go back to the surface to plant it.

6/4/17: Added more stuff and fixed some other things. Saplings now spawn in the default Minetest dungeons. Added glow sticks that when dropped, light up the area around them.

If you can't see that here's the link: https://gfycat.com/HonorableOrderlyEidolonhelvum?

6/5/17: The mod is fully playable now! At least I hope so. The hardness levels for both the pickaxes and the stone are done. I also added throwing to the glowsticks. To throw a glowstick you have to hold Q and press the right mouse button at the same time. Holding Q charges how far you will throw the glowstick. You cannot yet craft the glowstick.

6/6/17: Added cave-ins! If you are below layer -300 then you will have a one in 3000 chance of a cave-in. This chance is generated every two minutes for each player.
Once a cave-in starts, the ceiling above you will start being replaced by gravel and if one lands on you, then you will take damage fast. There is a bad quality sound file that plays during a cave-in and when you die it does not stop (bug).
Here's a video of it in action: https://streamable.com/vsvbp

There are also two types of glowsticks now. One is for dropping with Q, and the other is for holding down Q to charge a throw and then pressing the left mouse button to throw. Both of these do not have crafting recipes yet.

6/18/17: Added a node that spawns as an ore called 'gas.' These nodes will start an abm if it has a neighbor 'air.' Once the abm starts, the block will move upwards, or if it can't it will move forwards, backwards, left, or right.

If the node ends up within a radius of three blocks of a player then the node will blow up.

Here's a gif.

and if you can't see that: https://giant.gfycat.com/IllinformedCir ... uirrel.gif

6/30/17: Added flash floods that happen below -300 nodes, and recipes for ropes and glow-sticks have also been added.
Here's a flash-flood in action.
https://gfycat.com/DapperEnviousBabirusa


8/3/17: I added options for toggling underground events, gas spawning, stone layers spawning, and saplings spawning in dungeons. Note: if you enable any of these, expect the stuff that already spawned in your world to stay there, but do expect them to stop spawning. I have only tested these settings briefly, so if a setting doesn't work correctly please point it out. Thank you!

To access these settings, go to "settings" tab -> "Advanced Settings" button -> "Mods" dropdown -> "geominer" dropdown, and toggle any settings you like.

8/7/17: The settings actually work now. I also added some more settings to control layer depth.

8/9/17: Added new recipes for glowsticks. Added crystal blocks that spawn using minetest.on_generated. The new crystal blocks drop entities with a light that follows them down to the floor where they remove themselves from the world.

8/10/17: Fixed cave-in bug. Added independent settings for cave-ins and flash floods. Started work on final hell layer.

Bugs and fixed bugs as of 7/18/17:
Known bugs:
1. Glowsticks despawn sometimes (not sure why) and the light stays behind.
2. If player throws glowstick and logs off, then when they log back on the glowstick will be added again to their inv.
3. If a rope is placed above unloaded blocks then it will crash the game. Might be because it tries to replace ignore nodes with rope nodes. Maybe fixed? Can't replicate it anymore.

Fixed bugs:
1. Biomes are messed up. All the decorations spawn wherever they want. Fixed by paramat on 6/5/17: https://github.com/CoderForTheBetter/geominer/issues/1
2. If a player dies in the middle of a cave-in, the cave-in sound keeps playing until the end. Fixed: got rid of sound for now
3. No recipe for rope. Fixed
4. No recepie for glowsticks. Fixed

[Linuxdirk]

Layers of different stone types (and probably ores in form of veins and seams instead of blobs?) sound awesome!

[Devy]

Layers of different stone types (and probably ores in form of veins and seams instead of blobs?) sound awesome!

That is a good idea for the ores, but as of now they spawn in blobs.

Thank you for the response. If you have any ideas or questions feel free to tell me them.

[Diamond knight]

Maybe those classic miner game rocks that can only be destroyed by tnt? Possibly a single use "dynamite pickaxe" for if tnt is disabled.

[Devy]

Maybe those classic miner game rocks that can only be destroyed by tnt? Possibly a single use "dynamite pickaxe" for if tnt is disabled.

Him interesting concept. I'll but that on the maybe to do list. As of now, we are only working on getting the base of the mod working, then we'll turn to adding different features.

[texmex]

Need to try this out, sounds great!

[Devy]

Need to try this out, sounds great!

I hope you enjoy it! But right now there is no way to progress deeper, and there seems to be a performance problem for computers with lower specs.

If you do try it please report any bugs you find!

[Devy]

Added a lot of stuff! Finished the rest of the layers, and I redid the code that generates the layers by using biomes instead of lua voxel manipulator. It is a lot faster now.

[azekill_DIABLO]

this is awesome! i love this!

[Andrey01]

The mod is nice as always. Only here are much a lot of ores. Would be more interesting if you add plenty of new minerals and also interesting dungeons like underground parkours. Yes?

[Devy]

Added dungeons! You won't be able to play through the whole mod yet since the pickaxes are not yet configured to let you dig through all the layers.

There is only one type of dungeon as of now, and that may change in the future. How the dungeon works is that it spawns randomly, and a sapling will spawn in one of five rooms. It is up to you to find where it spawned and go back to the surface to plant it.

[azekill_DIABLO]

this mod is great!

[Devy]

this mod is great!

Thank you! If you see any bugs let me know.

[texmex]

Hey! The mod is kind of hard to do a complete test run of due to it's very intent of being slowly progressive, but I've managed to scramble a few thoughts by running around in creative mode:

The mod is sprawling a bit conceptually. Bush saplings, custom dungeons, stone types etc. I think the mod would gain from being conceptually streamlined a bit. Focus on the different, layers, ores and tools. Keep it simple, reduce the amount of new items that may clutter inventories up, and outsource extension of the core progression system to other new or existing mods (ropes already exists, use existing bush leaves, etc)

I would leave out the custom dungeon part and have the saplings spawn planted at somewhat rare occasions in existing mapgen generated tunnels, shacks or dungeons. The dungeons are hard to get right as is, and interferes brutally with other mapgen dungeon generation, or other underground mods.

For the layers part I would reduce the stone types to different hardness levels of the same stone, like it look in the first screenshots. This in order to not introduce a lot of new stone types just for hardness sake. The different stone levels could actually drop the same regular cobblestone. I'd also like to see smoother transitions between hardness levels and I think it's a good game feature for players to realize they're gonna need something tougher right when they start to smash away on the too-hard stone with their too-weak pickaxes.

What's the most interesting in this mod is the progression mechanic, so as you can read, I'm excited too see improvents in those areas the most. By doing one thing well (refining the cycle of digging-discovering-surfacing-tooling) this mod has the most potential. I really think it's a great idea that brings a long awaited dynamics to MT underground.

[Devy]

Hey! The mod is kind of hard to do a complete test run of due to it's very intent of being slowly progressive, but I've managed to scramble a few thoughts by running around in creative mode:

The mod is sprawling a bit conceptually. Bush saplings, custom dungeons, stone types etc. I think the mod would gain from being conceptually streamlined a bit. Focus on the different, layers, ores and tools. Keep it simple, reduce the amount of new items that may clutter inventories up, and outsource extension of the core progression system to other new or existing mods (ropes already exists, use existing bush leaves, etc)

I would leave out the custom dungeon part and have the saplings spawn planted at somewhat rare occasions in existing mapgen generated tunnels, shacks or dungeons. The dungeons are hard to get right as is, and interferes brutally with other mapgen dungeon generation, or other underground mods.

For the layers part I would reduce the stone types to different hardness levels of the same stone, like it look in the first screenshots. This in order to not introduce a lot of new stone types just for hardness sake. The different stone levels could actually drop the same regular cobblestone. I'd also like to see smoother transitions between hardness levels and I think it's a good game feature for players to realize they're gonna need something tougher right when they start to smash away on the too-hard stone with their too-weak pickaxes.

What's the most interesting in this mod is the progression mechanic, so as you can read, I'm excited too see improvents in those areas the most. By doing one thing well (refining the cycle of digging-discovering-surfacing-tooling) this mod has the most potential. I really think it's a great idea that brings a long awaited dynamics to MT underground.

Thanks for the feedback! It is always very helpful!

I was thinking about how these nodes and items might clutter inventories, and I will go with your way of using the default bush leaves. As for the stone, the reason I have different types is that I want the player to be able to keep being surprised by the new textures. If I use the same stone for all the layers, it will get boring fast.

I could just make the stones drop cobble in an attempt to save inventory space, and anyways, it's not like the stone textures we made are beautiful and people will want to build with them.

You're right about the dungeon spawning, it will interfere with other mapgen components and I guess I could have them spawn in the default dungeons. I will give this some thought.

As for the progression and hardness levels of the stones, I have not yet set all of that, it will still need work since I have not had the chance to refine it yet.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

[azekill_DIABLO]

maybe you should do less abrupt variations between layers.

[Devy]

maybe you should do less abrupt variations between layers.

Do you mean the textures clash? We have thought about that, and we might end up reorganizing them so that the transitions are smoother.

[Devy]

Added more stuff and fixed some other things. Saplings now spawn in the default Minetest dungeons. Added glow sticks that when dropped light up the area around them.

GIF

Spoiler

If you can't see that here's the link: https://gfycat.com/HonorableOrderlyEidolonhelvum?

[Devy]

The mod is fully playable now! At least I hope so. The hardness levels for both the pickaxes and the stone are done. I also added throwing to the glowsticks. To throw a glowstick you have to hold Q and press the right mouse button at the same time. Holding Q charges how far you will throw the glowstick. You cannot yet craft the glowstick.

[azekill_DIABLO]

WOw! those glowsticks are totally awesome!

[Devy]

WOw! those glowsticks are totally awesome!

Thanks!

[Linuxdirk]

Added glow sticks that when dropped light up the area around them.

Best. Idea. Ever. Period.

I wish colored light was a thing so they could turn blue (or green, depending on your texture for it).

[Otter]

The mod is fully playable now! At least I hope so. The hardness levels for both the pickaxes and the stone are done. I also added throwing to the glowsticks. To throw a glowstick you have to hold Q and press the right mouse button at the same time. Holding Q charges how far you will throw the glowstick. You cannot yet craft the glowstick.

I love the glowstick!

[Devy]

Added glow sticks that when dropped light up the area around them.

Best. Idea. Ever. Period.

I wish colored light was a thing so they could turn blue (or green, depending on your texture for it).

I know! I even looked at the source code for Minetest, and the lighting part is very complicated. I don't think there is an easy way for colored light without an overhaul of the lighting code. It's a shame.

Glad you like it though!

[Devy]

The mod is fully playable now! At least I hope so. The hardness levels for both the pickaxes and the stone are done. I also added throwing to the glowsticks. To throw a glowstick you have to hold Q and press the right mouse button at the same time. Holding Q charges how far you will throw the glowstick. You cannot yet craft the glowstick.

I love the glowstick!

Great! I'm glad you like it. If you see any bugs make sure to report them!