Check if player is able to craft item which has multiple possible inputs

[Fubar]

Hello there.

I'm currently trying to check if a player would be able to craft an item based on the items the player has in their inventory.

This should be done without using a crafting table or gui. The check is triggered automatically after a specific event (for example right-clicking with an item).

I'm using a 3x3 "InventoryCrafting" matrix to craft items.

 

It's pretty simple if every slot of a crafting recipe has only 1 valid input. I loop through all slots of the recipe and through the player's inventory to check if all items are available.

The problem occurs if a recipe uses the ore dictionary and has multiple valid inputs for a single slot.

 

Let's say there is a recipe which requires "anyFoodItem" in Slot 1 and an "apple" in the 2nd slot.

The player has a bread and an apple in it's inventory. Now I loop through the recipe slots + inventory.

It looks for any food item, finds the bread and puts it into the first slot. Afterwards it finds the apple and puts it into the second slot => The recipe works.

But there's a problem. It will not work if both items in the player's inventory are swapped. So instead of "bread, apple" => "apple, bread"

It looks for any food item, finds the apple and puts it into the first slot. Now it finds the bread, but is unable to put it into the second slot since apples are the only valid item for that slot.

This results into a non-working recipe even if the player would be able to craft the item.

 

To fix this problem I would need to arrange the items in a smart way.

My idea was to check every slot in the crafting matrix and fill the ones which have the least possible items first. But I'm not sure if that works well or if there's a better method.

[Draco18s]

You're probably better off doing this the other way around:

Loop over the recipes list and see if the player has the required items.

[Fubar]

The result + problem would be the same.

If it finds an item which can go into slot1 + slot2 and afterwards an item which can only go into slot1 it doesn't work, since the first item was already sent to slot1 and occupies it.

 

That's why I was thinking about some kind of priority system so the second item goes into slot1 first (it has less possibilities) and then the first item goes into the second slot, since it can go into either of them.

[Draco18s]

Are you trying to fill actual grid slots, or are you just checking to see if the player can craft a given item?

(Also, don't forget you can split stacks: that bread in your example could actually fill both slots!)

Edited February 27, 2017 by Draco18s

[Fubar]

It could fill both, but it should only do if the player has enough items. If the player had one of each it wouldn't work.

 

Currently I'm:

- Creating a copy of the inventory

- Create an InventoryMatrix (3x3 slots)

- Fill the matrix with valid input items from the copied inventory

- Reduce the stack size from pulled ItemStacks by one or set them to null if they reach zero

- Use the "findMatchingRecipe" function from the CraftingManager class to check if the matrix would output an item

- If yes: Do changes to original inventory and give the output ItemStack to the player

Edited February 27, 2017 by Fubar

[Fubar]

Any more ideas are appreciated.

 

Thank you.

[Draco18s]

I'm not sure what your use-case is, still. Like, why are you checking every item in the player's inventory to see if that results in a valid craft? What's the point?

 

I don't see any reason why the player would ever use an item that "automatically crafts everything in their inventory into whatever it can."

Edited February 28, 2017 by Draco18s