User:Simons Mith

My IP address is 82.69.54.207; I tend to do most of my edits without logging in unless I need to upload an image or something. 82.69.54.207 02:01, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Passive Mobs Wishlist
An attempt to collate all the mob-related stuff that is somewhere on the borders between 'bugs' 'annoyances' and 'feature requests'.

For anyone inclined to take this too seriously, I also want a pony.

Mob Genders
All passive mobs in the game are of 'indeterminate gender'; any two of the same type can be mated to produce offspring. Where mobs have distinguishing features, they appear female - cows produce milk and chickens lay eggs, for example. Notch (or Jeb) is on record as saying it 'would be cool' if all mobs in minecraft came from eggs.

Nevertheless I would like to have male and female mobs. This slightly complicates breeding, but adds a bit more variety to the game. Roosters can crow, and bulls, boars and rams could be more aggressive than their female counterparts, possibly with wild ones having a tendency to attack the player.

Mob Activity at Night
Mobs are just as active (and just as noisy) at night as they are during the day. At night they should move less, make less noise, and, you know, sleep.

Mobs Heal Injuries
Would be nice if mobs healed injuries, and only bred if fed when on full health.

Mobs Flee Damage
Another reported bug. Sometimes mobs charge towards damage when they suffer it. Re-rerandomising the direction a mob flees whenever it takes additional damage should fix that, I assume.

Mobs Disturb Terrain
Especially when there's lots of mobs, they should tend to turn grass to dirt, dig up long grass, uproot the odd sapling or mushroom, etc. Dogs could dig the occasional hole in dirt or sand...

Mobs Avoid Other Non-Passive Mobs
Even though zombies and skellies don't currently attack them, I think animals should still be frightened of them.

Mobs should be less keen on water
The current mob wandering algorithm says 'move towards grass if there's grass nearby'. 'If there's grass all around, move randomly.' 'If there's no grass, move towards light.' So if there's light all around, but no grass (which commonly occurs in water), mobs will move randomly and may never get back to land again.

I would also suggest adding, 'if in water of a given depth, move to water of a lesser depth'. Also, why not give pigs and chickens a slight preference for forests, cows and pigs a preference for lower altitudes - height 50-100, say, sheep and chickens a preference for heights 75-150 or so?

Larger mobs should avoid steep drops
Perhaps cows should even suffer damage if they fall more than two meters.

Chickens
A reported bug is that chickens look up when they mean to look down and vice versa. Having them look down often appears to give them a rather cute fascination with Steve's shoelaces, which I like. When this bug is fixed, I would like it if chickens looked at the player's feet by default rather than his face. Presumably easy enough to do by subtracting one metre from the vertical look-at point.

Chickens should be shearable for feathers. And then should need to eat before they can do it again.

Chickens should avoid laying eggs on hard or cold surfaces or in water.

Pigs
Pigs should drop 1-2 meat when they die, not 0-2.

Possible risk of food poisoning when eating raw pork?

Cows
Like sheep needing to eat before they can be re-sheared, cows should need to eat some grass before they can provide more milk.

Sheep
Sheep should drop 1-2 mutton when they die.

Sheared sheep should not revert to the white 'sheared sheep' skin until they regrow their wool; each colour of sheared sheep should still be that colour when sheared.

KEEP: Dyed sheep colours being heriditary is a very useful shortcut. Please don't ever get rid of it.

Babies
I don't disagree with the principle of killing babies not dropping any resources at all. But... we do eat lamb, so if a patch came out allowing babies to be killed, I'm not sure I'd object.

Presumably ocelots and wild wolves have no such qualms?

Coding omissions: Baby sheep shouldn't be shearable (fixed) Baby pigs shouldn't be rideable (fixed) Baby cows and mooshrooms shouldn't be milkable Baby chickens shouldn't be shearable (placeholder)

Advanced Construction Talk
C&P to preserve my braindump of possible features, as main page is useless and pending deletion.


 * I was wondering if this page should even be continued becasue there has been little to no progress on this page. Does anyone agree else agree?  Spout off ideas here or on my talk page. -Choolio123
 * I see no reason to keep it. Most 'advanced' designs (redstone, mob grinders, automatic farming, etc.) already have their own pages anyway. -- Orthotope 17:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose there are two distinct types of 'advanced' design. One is mob grinders, automatic farms and the like. These are things which usually have one or more critical blocks where if you don't place them exactly right the mechanism doesn't work properly. But these structures do rightly tend to have their own pages. But the other important type of 'advanced design' is big or artistically complex structures where your blueprint doesn't have any particular constraints, and therefore every one of these structures can be unique. So we can't provide specific instructions, but it would still be nice to provide generic construction advice for these types of structure.82.69.54.207 12:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I just deleted some meaningless content, but the whole page needs to be redone. With a title like Advanced Construction, I'd expect the quality level more approaching the VoxelBox.-josiah April 6 2012


 * Well, what /should/ go on this page? I have to admit I'm a bit stuck for ideas, I've added a brain dump of possible topics, but certainly just because something's big doesn't mean it qualifies as advanced. And to say, "to build an advanced X" (for whatever X may be) "needs at least 200,000 stone blocks, 50000 fences..." etc. is so trite as to be completely pointless. Anyone doing advanced construction will either be doing it in Creative, in which case they will have unlimited materials, or they will have already calculated in advance what they're going to need - because that's surely standard practice for any competent builder. Once you're very skilled you presumably get a feel for how much material a construct of a given size will need anyway.82.69.54.207 23:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Possible Section Wishlist
The kind of subjects that might be useful for advanced constructors include (I'm guessing):


 * Tips on planning the project


 * Determining what materials will be needed - including some estimating tips/rules of thumb


 * Using external design tools such as bitmap editors, Google Sketchup, AutoCad, the GIMP, PoVRay - I don't know, but programs like those are presumably commonly used. Possibly include some discussion of the pros and cons of these various tools.


 * Aesthetic considerations such as colour schemes, materials to be used, decorative embellishments etc.


 * Scale considerations - e.g. how to go about something like the 5x lifesize model of the Millennium Falcon, or the model of Minas Tirith, or the Enterprise


 * Managing cooperative groups of players, as this is how mnay advanced projects are done. Do you use email, IRC, IM, online-chat, whiteboard apps...?


 * Tips on terraforming maps on large scales to accomodate a mega-project/finding suitable terrain/working with terrain rather than against it


 * Use of MCEdit and similar in-game tools for bulk terrain editing and building, either in-game or out. Descriptions of various suitable tools and their pros and cons.


 * Use of external terrain or building editors. (That is, building stuff outside of Minecraft then importing it in.) Descriptions of various suitable tools and their pros and cons. [For example you might have a design and construction chain of pencil and paper -> Google Sketchup -> Some External Mincecraft Block Editor -> import into MineCraft -> Final tweaks using McEdit]


 * Modular design tips (e.g. making a complex structure feasible by repeating simpler parts)


 * Producing models suitable for real-world output (e.g. 3D printing)


 * Tips for converting from real-world models to Minecraft


 * Tips for converting from other computer models (e.g. Quake maps) to Minecraft


 * Scaffolding tips for large structures (Presumably less applicable to creative mode, but what do I know?)


 * Automatic construction - e.g. using water + lava + pistons, or saplings + bonemeal


 * Dealing with hard-to-manage materials - such as building an ice palace or an obsidian tower


 * Dealing with adverse construction environments, as for water bases, floating islands, possibly ships, submarines, aircraft


 * Building tips for the Nether or the End?


 * Making construction videos, including tips for timelapse videos


 * Sources of inspiration


 * How long will it take? Estimating how much real-world time a structure of a given size is likely to take.

No wonder the page has stalled - doing it properly would be a daunting amount of work. If it could be done, then the page would definitely be worthwhile, but certainly all the stuff I've listed is outside my current skill level. I only just about know enough to try listing what might be useful... 82.69.54.207 23:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC)