Is this possible with a mod?

[wmcritter]

Hi everyone, I have an idea for a game based on Minecraft that I'm going to make. I'm trying to figure out if I need to start from scratch, or build the game as a mod for Minecraft. To know which way I need to go, I need to know if a mod is capable of doing what I require.

Here are the 3 major requirements:

1.) I need to be able to change the player's shape. Instead of a humanoid, I want the player to control a space ship.

2.) I want a spherical world instead of a flat world.

3.) I want to adjust or remove gravity.

Does anyone know if these 3 things can be done with a mod? I've just started learning about mods and have built some tutorials on easy things like new types of blocks and items. But I have not seen any tutorials about really radical changes like the ones I require. So, before I invest a lot of time in learning about mods, I would just like to know if you guys think it is possible to do in a mod.

 

Thanks for you input.

 

[Ernio]

If I'd have to keep it short:

1. Yes - rendering easy, colision boxes harder, will require ASM or if you can't do that - there is "Player API" and "Render Player API" that would give you full access to player classes.

 

2. As long as you keep your planets in 256 height - it's just a mattrer of writing good WorldGen. If you want to have "higher" maps then I will stop you right here: Minecraft's chunks are verticall, with more height - more data needs to be loaded/generated when you load new chunk. It was even possible in some beta version (1.9?) to have like 2k height - lagged shit out of game. So BIG NOPE if you want that. You would have to rewrite whole world loaders to work in cubes (so chunks are 16x16x16, not 16xheightx16) for it to work well. There is mod that does it (is there still?) lookup Cubic Chunks (something like that).

 

3. Easy.

 

Oh and if you want "round" worlds - you probably also want for entites to rotate to stand on ground, no matter what side. There was also mod like that (entities could walk on walls, or ceiling). SO just sayin - it is all possilbe. Tons of engine changes tho. Still less than writing own game - but you know, sometimes it's for the best to write game like it should, not change what was made before. Also - making whole game takes at least 2 years to be even considered good, so just saying.

[wmcritter]

Thanks for the input Ernio. I think I can work within the limitations you outlined. I know there will be challenges, I just didn't want to waste a ton of time and effort if there is some part that is simply impossible to accomplish.

 

I actually started this project by building a prototype in Unity. But then I heard that modding Minecraft was pretty easy and flexible, so I am investigating it as a possibility. It would definitely be faster to modify the existing code base rather writing everything from the ground up. Just trying to be thorough and explore all my options

 

Thanks again.