Other kag-transports 0.2

Vermilicious submitted a new resource:

kag-transports - Various transport blocks

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that is freaking awesome!

 

m-ma-mabye you could add this... :3

 

Thanks for the kind words, guys & gals.

The work is far from done, and I use my own "pattern" in developing it, so I'm not sure how much of it is really a contender for being absorbed into the game. Plus, I'm not exactly experienced yet. That said, if any of it is deemed appropriate, there's no better recognition of one's work than to be made official in one way or another. So, of course I'm positive. In any case, I'm still going to work on this project, because I have more ideas, and I don't entirely agree with Geti on the usefulness. I don't view TTH or CTF as any less relevant, but I also think that messing too much with vanilla game modes is something one should be careful with. That's what mods are useful for; mixing and matching as you wish. It's the same thing with mechanisms. While I think Skinney's work is certainly interesting, I find the workings a bit complicated and not 100% useful (lots of components are rarely used either because they are poorly understood and/or of little practical use). Additionally, their implementation doesn't seem all that straight forward. I believe in simplicity when it comes to game-play elements, so I chose to free myself of as many outside factors as possible, and create something people could just use, with little knowledge prerequisites.

Progress update:
I haven't done much more work on the belt conveyors, I'm afraid, but I've been looking into a new set of components that could be a solution to the points I listed about blocks that only let through certain things, and some kind of vertical conveyor. I thought about things like lifts and elevators, and I found them troublesome to implement, mainly because I think it's best if they can be built block-by-block and work without the player having to combine different blocks in specific ways. What I've come up with is a pipe system. Pipes come in three flavors: a funnel segment that accepts certain input from one direction, a regular straight segment, and lastly a corner segment. They will transfer most smaller objects in whatever direction the pipes go, at a fixed speed. They're still in a very early stage though, and I haven't uploaded it yet. I might still consider other alternatives though.

 

Perhaps. There's always the issue of players possibly joining modded servers without knowing it and judging the game based solely on that experience, or simply being skeptical/afraid of joining a modded server. On the other hand, it's not easy to keep a big player base over time either. That also relates to how much content is available, vanilla- or mod-wise. Truth to be told, modding KAG ain't exactly easy, something I've complained about before. I've been considering doing something like this for a long time. In fact, I first suggested it back in July 2013: https://forum.thd.vg/threads/conveyor-belts-and-lifts.15276/ . I had tried getting started several times, but gave up the idea, and I very nearly did this time too. I don't exactly have any solution to this, however, but it is how it is. We aren't exactly swimming in awesome mods. One thing that could be cool, was if certain mods could be promoted somehow, to keep things fresh and exciting, but again, if there isn't much modding going on, it's not really going to help. Another thing is actually having the ability to host a proper server.

Either way, I hope these things are more carefully considered next time around :o)

Progress update:
I've spent so many hours on these pipes, geez, but it's starting to look like something. I need to figure out some strange collision behavior, "hide" the contents in the pipe and make sure items aren't hovering mid-air when they exit (no gravity).

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 26, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 25, 2016 ---

Just wanted to share a small animated gif of the pipes in action. I got a little hypnotized myself :o)

(Sorry about the somewhat poor colors, that's gif for you, I guess.)

The objects moving inside pipes aren't really supposed to be visible. I did, however, make it so that the items are in fact moving, when I could've gone with a simpler (and cheaper) approach of simply warping them to the next segment. I've been playing with the thought of a type of pipe that is wholly, or partially, transparent, so that you can actually witness what's going on. It's clearly cooler. The big variety in size of vanilla sprites is a limiting factor though. Secondly, the KAG world doesn't really contain any transparent materials (glass or sand), so that material costs won't make as much sense, and one would have to expand upon the palette (which is hard enough as it is; the pipes currently look slightly metallic). An alternative I was also considering, was pipes bulging where the items are, but that won't really work with multiple items at a time. I'll have to think about it. At least the functionality is there.

I expect to upload a new version containing these pipes shortly. If you're feeling bold, you can of course try the latest version off of GitHub.

Good week-end, fellas :o)

 

Vermilicious updated kag-transports with a new update entry:

Early Bird Pipe Edition

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Belt conveyors move in the direction they're facing when placed (made static). I suppose you can do the same by manually calling CBlob.SetFacingLeft(bool). Not sure if onSetStatic is called when loaded as part of a map. The sprites are automatically updated at the same time. If there are adjacent segments moving in the same direction, they are updated so that they appear seamless. No need to worry about what part it's going to look like. I haven't actually tried adding them to a map like that though. If you try, give a shout about how it worked :o)

 

Official Shark Seal Of Approval

 

Looks gr8, now we need to add-in auto-crafters and call this mod Factorio

 

Glad you got it to work! You mean you can't actually run faster than the belt? Yeah, it's something I've thought about too. I took the easy route of simply ensuring everything has a minimum velocity. I'll add a bullet point to the todo-list.

Haha, yes. The though has occurred to me. There are already factories in the game, and people have also made new ones (in Zombie Fortress Battlefield for example). If someone also makes building combining different kinds of inputs for new outputs you're well on the way. Certain buildings in vanilla kag already suck up loot. It's actually not hard to do, I reckon.