WIP New features For Nether

[JoeEnderman]

This addresses https://github.com/minetest-mods/nether/issues/70 and https://github.com/minetest-mods/nether/issues/62

Whatever you do, don't merge yet, I still have some serious bugs to work out, plus some additional features I want to add. Feedback is important to me. What would you like to see improved or changed before it is ready?

[Treer]

(edited)

Feedback is important to me

I haven't had a proper look yet, this is merely my own opinion/philosophy - don't take it as any sort of rule...

Minetest tends to overflow with single purpose nodes. I think a mod like nether should add no more new nodes or tools than are needed for its purpose, e.g. if adding trees then my MO would be to either reuse suitable existing nodes or try to design any new node so that it has more than a single gaming reason/purpose to justify the addition to the game: In a block game, less can sometimes be more.

With this in mind, having the nether provide a full set of tools already feels a little unnecessary and risky to balance (e.g. I see comments like "Not sure what the point of the nether sword and axe are. If they are simply more powerful than diamond counter parts... reaching the nether early make the diamond set obsolete." and I find it hard to disagree, this unease was why I added a bonus against netherrack wear to the pick - the nether tools felt slightly unnecessary but there was a niche they could be adapted to fill).

Having the nether add two complete new sets of tools... what is the purpose behind two additional sets of tools? How will players know where these tools sit in the hierarchy? Are they balanced? Could you make the existing set of nether tools fulfil the role of these new tools, or make the existing tools more specialised?

What's the purpose of the new ores, can the old one be improved/renamed/retextured instead? (the new ores look more imaginative)

If it has something to do with "There needs to be a way out if you start in the Nether" then that could do with more explanation as it's not normally possible to start in the nether (is this going to change?), and if the nether is turned into a place where you can thrive then the game has lost an area where there is danger and an expedition relies on preparation (prep'ing creates "missions" in open-ended play).

[JoeEnderman]

All good points. I sort of like the creative features of the Nether toolset, but I feel like we need at least one more ore in the Nether. It could serve a different purpose than a toolset if you wanted. I really liked some of my new features and could move them to a seperate mod if amy go against your vision. I thought about adding a "Hot Water" in rare pools so obsidian could be made. There are no nodes with a lot of the functuons I wanted to add. There is no mushroom tree node in MTG. There is no hot water. There also is no purple ore I know of in any of the big mods. I admit I haven't played every mod though. As far as starting in the Nether. I don't know if there is a way to officially do that, but I wouldn't mind adding that. I just felt like there could be some more features. But, I understand if that is not your goal.

[JoeEnderman]

Murexium is currently Iron strength, but faster. If that feels OP, I could retune it.

I see you want the player to be able to prep and go on missions. I understand, but if there is nothing to be had in the Nether, why go? The Nether does provide some basic elements, and I want to add a handful of new ones to compliment them. My idea was a decorative wood in Hades Hinge. I may need to adjust the texture to better match Minetest wood. Additionally there would be several other things to help with survival. I want like a mini 1.16. https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Java_Edition_1.16

[Treer]

An ore is a means to an end, but what's the end here? I like your ore textures more than I like mese but an ore with little or no purpose adds incoherence to the game. The existing nether ore is a bit like this, and so is tin - players end up mining and stockpiling tin only to learn it was never fleshed out and there's not much you can do with all those chests of it.

There are no nodes with a lot of the functions I wanted to add.

Why not start there? Make nodes that fulfil a niche or have a reason to exist (fireproof wood -> fireproof boat?), then work backwards, if you find yourself with a bunch of recipes that are calling for some sort of extra ingredient, and nothing suitable already exists, then start looking at adding a new ore to enable those recipes?

if there is nothing to be had in the Nether, why go?

Yes! This is a good way to think about it. Reasons to go is what realm mods like the nether need, what can it provide the player that the overworld doesn't. Here are some reasons I tried to add:

• Fast travel - the portals now enable it with 8x scale difference between overworld and nether.
• Fumaroles - you can't build the cosiest overworld cottage without a little smoke rising from the chimney, and you can't find fumaroles just anywhere in the nether.
• Basalt - obsidian is the only node suitable for building portals from, so hewn basalt was meant to provide a portalstone which requires a serious journey to obtain, however very few people/mods are making use of extra custom portals so basalt usually doesn't add any purpose.
• Treasures that cannot be obtained anywhere else - like the Staff of Light, more are needed. (I had hoped to put them in chests in giant structures, but don't have time to do that)
• Exploration, novelty, an alternate environment. This is a big one, and things like the Hades Hinge add to it, the nether needs more of it. I'm not suggesting "no new nodes", just not adding inventory items/nodes for the sake of having more kinds of blocks.

fwiw, with hot water I'd worry that its purpose was to lower the cost of being ill-prepared in the nether, but I don't know what you had planned for it and accept that my vision is my own. I made water eventually evaporate on the lava ocean to reduce how much of the lava ocean you can easily turn to obsidian. Would hot water be better than bubbling hot mud that drops clay or dirt nodes (unless a silk touch shovel is used)?

could move them to a seperate mod if amy go against your vision

It's a community mod, I don't own it, but you asked for feedback so I'm offering a different angle on how the game sits with its parts.

I want like a mini 1.16

The Nether in Minecraft needed work (likewise this mod), but I must admit I've not been impressed with Microsoft's approach of "pick a biome and fill it with decorative nodes/mobs" - like no employee wants to be daring or stick their neck out with the $2b+ asset so they just decorate it instead. In many ways they made it better, but the nether also became more of a candyland and lost some of its netherness imo.

[JoeEnderman]

I agree, there should be a more volcanic theme to it. And I don't want to make it easier. I only want to add some basic stuff. Any suggestions on how to add new features without stripping the challenge? I agree the nodes should not be added without point, but they all serve points. Murexium serves to be iron in a dimension with no source of iron. It can be rarer. It could also be a mese competitor if it's rare enough. Softer but faster perhaps? The hot water could be hot sulphur mud in theory. It has to damage players, and be able to cool lava so the player could forge a way back out. I know you'd like people to have to prepare, but I'd like to have that option to get completely lost and forge a path back out from nothing One problem I did have was how will I make a Murexium bucket? Will it just be an iron bucket? Or a seperate bucket? Is there a way to have only certain parts of nether wastes and deep nether wastes have mushroom trees? And why do my mushroom trees not spawn? I know their code is far from perfect, but it looks to have everything required to spawn. One more addition I wanted to do was Devil's Down. A moldy source of wool. Rare, but possible to find. I don't know what weirdo wouldn't have just brought thier own wool, but alternate ways to do existing things sounds cool to me. That's my thing. Alternate paths for things are what makes a sandbox in my opinion.

[JoeEnderman]

Thanks for the feedback!

[JoeEnderman]

Ok, I think that the deep biomes could have a second mushroom tree. Now just hear me out a second. Maybe it could be orange? There aren't really orange woods in Minetest or any major mods. And the orange goes well against the blue as green does against red. Or rather they are opposite colors and in theory go well. But, I feel somehow they should be harder to get. Maybe they only grow on the lava crust? But that defeats the purpose of them being orange.

[Treer]

I'll have a look and see if I can figure out what's wrong.

If you gave it a two-line name, like: description = S("Murexium\nA poor substitute for iron")

Then everyone knows what it's for, why they might want Murexium tools, and roughly how those tools sit with the other tiers of tools. It no longer feels like yet another weird extra tier of tools.

[JoeEnderman]

\n is the Minetest command for a new line? I am not at my computer, so I can't make edits tonight, but if you have any more questions, I'll try to help.

[JoeEnderman]

I was inspired by https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/pig-iron-nether-iron and more ores when I made Murexium. I wanted a new fantastical metal, but not OP. The description of what I made would be more like, "This metal is suprisingly like iron, but lighter, and faster."

A lot of people neglect the hoe when making a new tool tier. And while it may be superfluous, I think it's cool to have the option anyway.

[Treer]

I was just trying to help with this

And why do my mushroom trees not spawn?

[JoeEnderman]

Thank you. Sorry if I said something rude. I didn't mean anything rude.

[JoeEnderman]

[JoeEnderman]

This is a potential look for an orange mushroom.

[JoeEnderman]

Ok, how do I make the mushrooms more rare? They almost spawn like a forest with those settings. They also seem to spawn embedded in the ground. What does sidelen and fill_ratio do?

edit: I figured it out, but I want to restrict them to their own biome instead I think.

[JoeEnderman]

I am working on missing textures.

[JoeEnderman]

Thanks for bringing my idea to life, I've been very busy on other mods recently.

Would you like me to continue developing this? I gave up because I could not justify the additions. They are really cool, but Treer is right. I am just adding stuff to add stuff as far as I can tell. But, if you have good reason for me to add stuff, I will finish this to the best of my ability.

[JoeEnderman]

Yep, also, since netherrack can't be broken without losing lots of durability, maybe the mushrooms could be convertible into gunpowder with a process

That seems like an unneeded feature to me.

[JoeEnderman]

Should they glow using the held light mod?

[JoeEnderman]

But this shouldn't be all, maybe they could autosmelt?

Sounds like a pain to implement.

[JoeEnderman]

Mushroom spawn is grammatically correct though, and sporeling is not a term I have heard of.

[JoeEnderman]

While mod parity is excellent, I don't see why changing to another term is better here. Spawn refers to a bit you cut off to grow elsewhere. Which is how my mushrooms function.

[JoeEnderman]

So, for mushroom planks, this, or recolor default planks? This gives a smoother looks which could insinuate the squeaky softness of mushrooms. But it would not blend well with existing wooden items.

[JoeEnderman]

Remove the vertical lines for consistency.

Thise are required to have boards that end, otherwise a biard could go on for eternity. It is consistent with Minecraft, Minetest, and every other game with a tiled wood texture.

[JoeEnderman]

Also, if placed next to a default plank, the lines don't match up.

Because Default planks don't end at the normal place, they decided to cut boards in half which looks terrible. An absolute travesty if you are a texture artist.

[JoeEnderman]

Hm, so, 3 boards instead of 4? To look more crude and handmade? Might be possible. Give me some time.

[JoeEnderman]

Compare

[JoeEnderman]

Ah, that's what you mean, but MTG wood is meant to also potentially look like the plastic stuff you find on the outer walls of buildings

I am fine with using it as a base, but my texture art skills say there are too many issues with the old plank texture to use it. No palette, bad alignment, and harsh contrast. Which any of those could be forgiven, but together are hard to swallow for me.

Edit: wood should look like wood, not plastic. You didn't go out into the middle of nowhere and create your own laminate on day one. Which also means it should probably look rough, but, since you have to use the same texture despite the player's skill, you should just make it decent and even.

[JoeEnderman]

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/76822001/246319643-95674cc5-865a-47d8-b4dc-057b2e23f237.jpg See how its one pixel down? This is so if their placed next to each other they match.

I am tired right now, so I am probably not explaining my point correctly. I cannot for the life of me tell what you are asking for. Can you show me a mockup using gimp or Libresprite, or Krita? It sounds like you want me to use my texture, but to change all the things that make it mine, thus negating me having made it at all. If you want it to be a neat match for the default ones, let's just colorshift default ones. If I am misunderstanding, sorry, and goodnight, maybe I will be able to think clearly in the morning.

[JoeEnderman]

Here is a fellow who had a similar thought to me. https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=20465

[JoeEnderman]

Basically, he made each plank unique, and, fixed them not aligning with the node like they should.

[JoeEnderman]

I'll show you why it bothers me tomorrow.

[JoeEnderman]

ok, its tommorow now.

I am in the middle of another project, but I will try to get back to you.

[JoeEnderman]

Do you see what is wrong here? this is what they did to the plank textures in Minetest. I can just hue shift the existing plank textures to make new ones like all the other mods do, or I can use my better ones. Please, do not ask me to commit the atrocity that is misaligning my textures. It looks horrible to me, and I'd never forgive myself.

[JoeEnderman]

First two are as is. third is my guess of something you could try to show me.

[JoeEnderman]

If you want to make this a certain way, feel free, but it seems our visions no longer match.

[JoeEnderman]

Hello

[JoeEnderman]

I am busy with other major projects at the moment, and all outside of Minetest. If I do get back to Minetest, I have a mod idea or two I want to work on. So, what you see here is everything available on my nether mod for a while at least. I will probably separate it out into a new mod anyway, and study more about biome design to perfect it. So, by the time this gets out, if it even does, I will have made a biome mod or two. Sorry if this disappoints. I can release all of my CC0 textures if you want, and leave a link here if you want to make a similar mod.

[JoeEnderman]

Ask around in the Discord, they might could help.

[JoeEnderman]

I hate to say this, but maybe read the rules next time? I know it is boring, but it can save you some headache. ChatGPT knows a little about Minetest, and can decipher error codes pretty well. But it gets anything added after 2016-2018 wrong frequently. It either reverts to the old way something was done, or uses the nearest Minecraft equivalent data.

[JoeEnderman]

I don't know.

[JoeEnderman]

JoeEnderman. But I don't see how that is relevant.

[programmerjake]

rather than hot water, you could have molten sulfur (note that in real life molten sulfur is red, not yellow) that solidifies next to water to technic:sulfur_block. when next to lava, the lava would solidify to obsidian and the sulfur would ignite with a blue flame (also matches real life). lava next to sulfur blocks could melt the sulfur, solidifying the lava to obsidian.