Procedural dungeon generation Mod - expert opinion

[MasterRoland]

Hey guys!

 

Quick intro:

I'm a master thesis student (computer science) from TUDelft, The Netherlands. I'm currently doing my master thesis project on procedural dungeon generation. The project consists of a generic framework that allows the creation of a 'universal dungeon model', and showcasing how that model can be used in a commercial product. I'm considering singleplayer Minecraft as the commercial product to showcase it in

 

My wishes:

I would like your expert opinion on the feasability of my plans. I have seen some basic mods + tutorials but not so much core mods, and I hope an 'insider' can tell me whether what I want is possible (+ perhaps some directions). If you tell me this is not possible, I can start looking for another game asap.

 

My plans:

[*]The player can select some dungeon settings in a custom GUI menu.

[*]The player builds and enters a portal much similar to how you enter the Nether. It will obviously be different in required materials and visuals.

[*]A new world is being loaded, different from the overworld or the Nether.

[*]The universal dungeon model needs to be generated based on the settings and additional inputs from the generic system (from a database or file).

[*]An actual dungeon needs to be generated in Minecraft, based on the universal model and the settings. I will need to place 'rooms' and 'hallways' first (structures of blocks basically, preferably not predefined but generated on the fly), and then surround the dungeon with the solid block type you encounter at the lowest height of the map. Given equal seed and settings, the same dungeon should be generated (highly prefered).

[*]The player spawns at the start of the dungeon.

[*]The dungeon will contain tasks for the player [related to Minecraft]. I would like to guide the player through these in some way (a GUI log or something similar).

[*]The player will move through the dungeon completing tasks. At the end there is a portal again, which transports him back to the place he build the portal (or his 'home'). He can keep all the items he found.

 

While all items need to be possible in some way, the most important item for me is the actual dungeon generation in Minecraft [5]. Is it possible to place (on the fly generated) structures in an empty world?

 

My final question is whether someone knows about a mod where locks and keys are introduced. Otherwise, I will probably try to create one myself (it would be nice if I could block the player from touching certain content before he completed his tasks).

 

With kind regards,

Roland

[thebest108]

Thats all possible, also how would you want the keys to work?

[MasterRoland]

Thank you for your response.

 

I was thinking of a generating a key-lock pair, where the key could be placed on blocks. As long as a lock is placed on a block, it cannot be broken. The key can remove the lock and then the block takes over its normal functionality.

 

I'm guessing the lock would be a block, and the key an item. Do you know whether its possible to generate these on the fly? Since I figured you need to register items and blocks before playing?

[thebest108]

I guess if you were really clever with generating nbt tags then you could, although it would be easier to have different colored keys rather than custom ones

[MasterRoland]

May I ask what nbt stands for? The 'different colored keys' idea probably means I'd have a fixed number of keys available? I doubt more than 25 keys are ever needed, although you never know. I highly prefer a decent solution that allows me to generate an 'infinite' amount of keys.

 

Edit: I thought of a 'core mod' as something that changes the actual game engine or core functionality (such as the standard world generation). I havent found a decent description for it though. Would you consider my mod a core mod, or not? As such, does Forge allow me to do all the things I listed, or should I go with MCP only?

 

Thanks for helping!

[thebest108]

I doubt you would need to make it a core mod. Unless there's some protected variable that you really need access to, you should be fine. Nbt is what minecraft uses to store custom data to an ItemStack ex. Tool enchantments. It is also used for things like storage blocks ex. A Chest containing items. You could be able to make a key have a custom pair of information so when you use it on a lock, it will read the nbt, and if it matches the lock it will unlock the lock. But still, for that you would need to generate the nbt randomly and in pairs.

[Dirius77]

The keys are possible with NBT, it would be quite easy to have each key have an integer stored in NBT data, the lock could then have the same NBT integer and a simple if statement could check if they matched and allow the key to open the lock.

 

As for the dungeon generation, I would look at the generation for villages as they are generated based off the seed and are placed procedurally (Just not infinitely)