Add Mt Meru to Rings

[DokimiCU]

This is something I'd been thinking of adding for a while. Thought I'd try it out, as an experiment.

Adapts Paramats "Mount Meru" to add a giant tower at the centre of the map. This is an awesome "Big Dumb Object" which adds a fantastic central landmark to the map.

I've got it good enough to see that this could be worth having. It's not ready to go straight into the game yet. This is as far as I have time to take it.

Remaining issues

• players can spawn inside blocks
• players can spawn inside the central void without always being able to find a way out (EDIT: tried using megamorph to cut access, a bit hit and miss)
• looks strange in forest biomes, trees spawning inside the cracks. Might be nice to clear a barren zone around the structure... somehow. (EDIT: cleared most of it)
• Spawning inside this thing is confusing, it feels like it fills the whole world. On the other hand, that could work. This could be the Gateway. Your first task is to find a way out of it, and emerge into the wide open spaces outside. (EDIT: cleaned up shape has a nice central space)
• can't figure out how to set the base height, seems locked at -32m, which means it floats in water (ideally I'd want it going to -1000m right to the base of the city). Megamorph seems to successfully carve out space from it, so they might be compatible.
• Many variables for tweaking to get the ideal shape. (EDIT: got a decent shape)
• uses 2D noise to control moonglass vs antiquorium. Originally made to match to MT game biomes? Might be better as 3D noise? (EDIT: Fixed)
• it's cave system doesn't clear regular mapgen, so gets clogged up with random bits of rock from hills. (EDIT: Fixed)
• I've done zero playtesting. This would probably give a garunteed shelter of enormous size to all new players. (EDIT: it's an awesome "geewhizz" to start with. No worse than having caves, so far)
• Maybe add a setting to disable it until properly ready.

[DokimiCU]

I quite like this tower. It's fairly mad in just the right way. While playing I ended up making some more tweaks. Fixed some aspects.

[DokimiCU]

[DokimiCU]

Done a few more tweaks. This is getting better.

• Now goes down to city base.
• Has a nice central void chamber
• Decent overall shape

Main issue now is having the player spawn inside the structure/inside blocks. Also access to the central void is almost impossible, although is can be got into via shafts potentially, with difficulty. Not sure if it messes up anything in the city. Probably just aesthetics, as it seems to function just like another rock type.

[DokimiCU]

After this has had some play testing, and a way is found to stop players spanning inside Meru, this might be ready to merge in.

(Side note: I also experimented adding in Paramat's pathv7 which adds a road network. It's a nice mod, but I didn't like it here. Adds too many built structures to the surface. I think Rings + Meru might be enough for surface mega-structure ruins. Although I wouldn't mind having a giant Meru-style great wall surrounding the entire city.)

[Izzyb1234]

There is a lot of space to fill inside. The random generation internally isn't very useful - lots of space to explore, but no real reason to do so. What is the backstory going to be for the structure? Like what was it originally? I'm thinking, based on its size it must have been some sort of city structure. so with places for people to live, work, and play type thing. Likely before they were forced to move underground.

The randomness of the inside could be a consequence of whatever destroyed the planet and forced them underground. Same with the rings; they were part of something that was scattered across the lands. Maybe other mount meru type structures that were sliced into rings? Or something completely different?

I was thinking we could build rooms that could be placed randomly inside mount meru in the same way the city is built. not sure the details on placing the schematics, but it would give players reason to explore if they could find rooms in the mess that are partially intact to explore and find treasure in. It's big enough to almost be a game on its own. Kind of like the city; big space, lots of interesting looking rooms, but very little function. It'd be nice to be able to find rooms with machines that can do things. Like a factory layer in the city with machines in them the players could use and maybe repair - find working components to replace damaged or missing ones. Could find multiples of the same room to figure out what components go where type thing.

I was looking at the scifi-nodes mod as a source for some new nodes we could use. It has a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit, but think we could selectively import nodes we want. I've confirmed it works as a mod added to exile. Currently have it running on ex2 for people to play with. Maybe come up with some room designs we can copy to schematics for mapgen.

Thoughts?

Here's the contentdb page for the scifi-nodes mod https://content.minetest.net/packages/D00Med/scifi_nodes/

Here's the wiki page with details on the development servers. https://exile.planetofnix.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Dev.Servers

[Izzyb1234]

I updated the ex2 server to the latest version of this code and generated a new map. Looking pretty cool; joins up with city tunnels now. I added the scifi-nodes to it and enabled creative inventory for anyone wanting to play with them.

[DokimiCU]

Backstory: The real backstory, like everything, is that I thought it looked cool!

I was thinking this would be part of the city rather than something earlier, given that it's linked down to the city base. The random cracks could be due to something that exploded inside it (with current settings the cracks are bigger inside, while the outside is almost impenetrable).

Some possibilities:

• Makes me think of termite mounds were they have coolant/air exchange towers.
• Some kind of power source, e.g. some sci-fi thing equivalent to a giant fusion generator (which blew up)
• The teleportation gateway (players might always span inside the central void?).
• ???

Adding Rooms:

• Megamorph doesn't work well for setting rooms only in the tower. It will carve the same rooms into the entire surrounding landscape. Maybe they can be made to line up perfectly, but I suspect not.
• Void space. Meru code does allow a central void. I've currently got it as a small chamber ~200m up. Making the void too tall allows weather inside the tower. Maybe this could be done to have multiple void chambers, stacked all the way up (currently only allows one).
• Not sure if schematics placement would work via mapgen (or via something like mineclone's structures mod). Haven't tried. High likelihood they'll conflict.

Play testing:

• I've played a bit with it now. Mostly it functions as a landmark. Makes it harder to get lost.
• Also makes me want to climb it, just to see.
• Other than that it's mostly just "Gee whizz, that's big".
• Current settings for the cracks make trying to get inside near impossible and a death trap.

Scifi nodes:

• I've used that mod before. Lots of good stuff!

Where to take Meru...?

• It's greatest value is just sheer awe. Vast overwhelming scale. Perhaps any internal space should also focus on that. Big. Overwhelm. Huge. Sheer power. The city already has lots of tiny claustrophobic spaces, it's good to push the contrast. Go big.
• Writing this, I'm leaning towards some kind of failed power generator that blew up. The void space could contain some kind of reactor. It should be possible to code Meru itself to place a sphere inside the void (fiddly but doable). That would be the reactor core. Maybe add some new nodes to Artifacts. Something radioactive? Like a Chernobyl.

I'm unlikely to do more on this PR. I've hit my coding limits with it. I'm happy for people to take it where they want to go.