EntityItem for planting seeds

[ILuvYouCompanionCube]

I'm trying to figure out a way to use a dispenser as a auto-planting  machine (if there's already a vanilla way to build an auto planting machine please let me know). I got a few ideas in mind. But to make it really cool, I need a way to use the EntityItem dropped by the dispenser. I need to know when the EntityItem stops. Does it have an event I can subscribe to or something? Or a callback I can register to execute somewhere between updates...

 

So, basically, I want to run code when the EntityItem dropped by a dispenser is stopped.

[hydroflame]

well i have sortof a idea, you could extends EntityItem and change the update method a bit so that after x tick is automaticly find the closest block (in a range of 2x2x2 lets say) and "kills" itself and make a new plant block wherever it seems appropriate.

 

actually this could be even cooler. you make a new kind of flower, set this flower to tick randomly and when it does you spawn polen or wtv that floats in the air, until it lands somewhere where it would either do nothing (lands on rock) or plant a new seed of the plant!

[ILuvYouCompanionCube]

I think the polen thing is a little out of my league haha. It would be super cool though. I'm just not experienced enough to try that.

 

About subclassing EntityItem, that was my first idea. I asked because I thought maybe there would be something ready for cases like that. Since there are things like EntityEvents and all that (things I don't understand yet).

 

I have other ideas, but now that you mentioned that, I'll go for subclassing EntityItem.

[ILuvYouCompanionCube]

  On 8/21/2013 at 7:45 PM, hydroflame said:

actually this could be even cooler. you make a new kind of flower, set this flower to tick randomly and when it does you spawn polen or wtv that floats in the air, until it lands somewhere where it would either do nothing (lands on rock) or plant a new seed of the plant!

 

someone make this polen thing please! imagine the possibilities. Make it something other modders could subclass. It would be a whole new world of possibilities. Specially if it was like a plugable behaviour... I'm imagining a mob releasing spores that would spawn horrible mushrooms that would release more spores and all those mushrooms would become mobs at night. And there's so much more that could come from that idea.

[hydroflame]

im actually thinking about doing it. ive always wanted to make farming more interresting

[ILuvYouCompanionCube]

  On 8/21/2013 at 8:14 PM, hydroflame said:

im actually thinking about doing it. ive always wanted to make farming more interresting

 

If you can, don't make it just for farming. Make it as general as possible, like something that generates spores (or whatever you call it) that floats randomly, that when in contact with something (specific or not) produce something (maybe something different depending on the surface it lands).

[hydroflame]

yes of course, but i mean the main concept was to do it for plants. so it might be more plant related then anything but ill still make it generic(thats how i do all things anyway)

[MineMaarten]

In the current build of my mod PneumaticCraft there are 14 different plants each with a different way of propagating themselves. A few of these plants do that in the way you've described. You also have to plant the plants by throwing them on the ground with Q instead of right-clicking the ground. Wiki page about the behaviours.

[ILuvYouCompanionCube]

That's really cool!!! Maybe our chat in this thread will give you some other ideas... I'm thinking of a mushroom that contaminates nearby cows turning them into mooshrooms. Or a plant that infects the player and gives him/her abilities and/or a disease. And you could spread it around while you moved through the world, or maybe infect other players. And why stop on cows and mooshrooms... every mob could have an infested version by a host plant.

 

Most of what I said is probably impossible or not worth the effort of implementing... I'm just letting my imagination go wild here. I'm so into this plant stuff right now for some reason.

[ILuvYouCompanionCube]

I'm definetly downloading pneumatic craft