advice

[schefrog]

Hi All,

 

I am looking for ideas for my final project and I have that crazy idea to write a mod for Minecraft as my kids love the game and play it all the time. I have no experience in modding or Forge but I am good in Java and I can spend up to 200 hours. What do you think could be done in that time? Any suggestions are very appreciated. Is Forge still the offical-unofficial API for Minecraft modding? I am a bit confused since I was reading about an official Plugin-API and addons the other day.

 

I also asked the kids for some ideas and got the following list. Can you advise whether or not these are possible with Forge? I guess some things already exist. Also, as I should code, I am afraid that drawing textures and modelling take most of the time. What do you think from your experience?

 

• math zombies (which can only be killed by solving a math task showing above their head) - I admit this was my idea
• magpies stealing shiny things (like gems) from the players inventory
• divining rod  / detector (or compass) which can be used to search for some rare ore (which can be selected in a gui)
• a sword that lights up when monsters are near (like Sting), made of moon stone
• meteor shower giving meteor stone
• teleporter phone booth for travelling around
• fireballs
• lembas (an elfish bread that makes you faster and full for long)
• poseidon's trident (or aquaman's) which can be used for letting it rain, fishing, healing in the water, breathing under water
• thor's hammer which can fire lightnings (unbreakable)
• emojis in chat messages
• flyable bats

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Kind regards

Edited November 13, 2017 by schefrog

[Differentiation]

1 hour ago, schefrog said:

• thor's hammer which can fire lightnings (unbreakable)
•  

There are two things you may be talking about:

1. Firing lightnings when the player left-clicks at anything, or

2. Firing lightnings when the player hits an entity.

 

For the first option, you follow these steps. I, however, recommend you learn some Forge modding first. Once you did, follow these steps:

1. Use the MousInputEvent and fire it when the player left clicks.

2. Once fired, get the player's look vector by using the Vec3d class.

3. Summon a lightning bolt at the player's look vector. Make sure you manage each side (server and client side) appropriately when summoning!

 

For the second option, follow these steps:

1. Use the LivingAttackEvent which fires when an entity attacks another.

3. Summon a lightning bolt at the target. Make sure you manage each side (server and client side) appropriately when summoning!

 

Hope this kind of helps. Again, you can see that you must have prior knowledge of Forge code. I can relate to your state. When I started modding, I only knew Java, but not Forge API. Then I learned step by step and I am still learning the complex parts! It does take some time, but I believe 200 hours is plenty more than enough to get some things done, only if you manage your time wisely and learn as much as possible.

[Differentiation]

1 hour ago, schefrog said:

Hi All,

 

I am looking for ideas for my final project and I have that crazy idea to write a mod for Minecraft as my kids love the game and play it all the time. I have no experience in modding or Forge but I am good in Java and I can spend up to 200 hours. What do you think could be done in that time? Any suggestions are very appreciated. Is Forge still the offical-unofficial API for Minecraft modding? I am a bit confused since I was reading about an official Plugin-API and addons the other day.

 

I also asked the kids for some ideas and got the following list. Can you advise whether or not these are possible with Forge? I guess some things already exist. Also, as I should code, I am afraid that drawing textures and modelling take most of the time. What do you think from your experience?

 

• math zombies (which can only be killed by solving a math task showing above their head) - I admit this was my idea
• magpies stealing shiny things (like gems) from the players inventory
• divining rod  / detector (or compass) which can be used to search for some rare ore (which can be selected in a gui)
• a sword that lights up when monsters are near (like Sting), made of moon stone
• meteor shower giving meteor stone
• teleporter phone booth for travelling around
• fireballs
• lembas (an elfish bread that makes you faster and full for long)
• poseidon's trident (or aquaman's) which can be used for letting it rain, fishing, healing in the water, breathing under water
• thor's hammer which can fire lightnings (unbreakable)
• emojis in chat messages
• flyable bats

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Kind regards

Additionally, you may need to set up your project (mod) first! Make sure you don't just start making random classes!

[Draco18s]

Good luck with the divining rod.

No really. I've gone to a lot of effort to create ore-finder mechanics and I'm only happy with one of them (the other *works* but has display problems) and it is not a divining rod. 

[jabelar]

Easy:

• lembas (an elfish bread that makes you faster and full for long)
• divining rod  / detector (or compass) which can be used to search for some rare ore (which can be selected in a gui)
• math zombies (which can only be killed by solving a math task showing above their head) - I admit this was my idea
• a sword that lights up when monsters are near (like Sting), made of moon stone
• fireballs

Intermediate / Fair Bit Of Effort:

• poseidon's trident (or aquaman's) which can be used for letting it rain, fishing, healing in the water, breathing under water
• teleporter phone booth for travelling around
• thor's hammer which can fire lightnings (unbreakable)
• emojis in chat messages
• meteor shower giving meteor stone
• flyable bats
• magpies stealing shiny things (like gems) from the players inventory

[Differentiation]

33 minutes ago, jabelar said:

• flyable bats
•  

But what does "flyable bats" mean in this context?

[jeffryfisher]

On 11/13/2017 at 2:02 PM, schefrog said:

Can you advise whether or not these are possible with Forge? I guess some things already exist. Also, as I should code, I am afraid that drawing textures and modelling take most of the time. What do you think from your experience?

 

• math zombies (which can only be killed by solving a math task showing above their head) - I admit this was my idea
• magpies stealing shiny things (like gems) from the players inventory
• divining rod  / detector (or compass) which can be used to search for some rare ore (which can be selected in a gui)
• a sword that lights up when monsters are near (like Sting), made of moon stone
• meteor shower giving meteor stone
• teleporter phone booth for traveling around
• fireballs
• lembas (an elfish bread that makes you faster and full for long)
• poseidon's trident (or aquaman's) which can be used for letting it rain, fishing, healing in the water, breathing under water
• thor's hammer which can fire lightnings (unbreakable)
• emojis in chat messages
• flyable bats

 

First, a general bit of advice: Do a dirt-simple "my first mod" to climb the Forge setup and mod-structure learning curve. Perhaps introduce your "moon stone". An experienced programmer should be able to come up to full speed in about two weeks working half-time. Having been through the gauntlet once, you'll then be ready to plan and research something with more "meat".

 

Second: Use your IDE to jump into some of the vanilla classes to see how they do what they do. When contemplating a mod, look for a vanilla game element that does something similar. Quite often you can even subclass a vanilla class so it does much of the heavy lifting for you, freeing you to focus on what makes your game element special.

 

Math Zombie: Sounds deadly, especially for newly-spawned players who have enough trouble against vanilla zombies. I would spawn them only in a special location (or near a special block), and I would invent a math sword that opens a text box when right-clicked into air. The answer could then be typed and subsequently beaten into the zombie's head. To simplify things, all of your math zombies could display the same problem until somebody answers it.

 

Magpies: Stealing from player inventory sounds vicious. I'm not sure that's a good idea unless the "magpie" stays in the area (and stays away from lava). Otherwise the game could become too unpleasant to play (I would not want to return to a world where I can never keep my hard-earned diamonds). For magpie model and starting behavior, see bats.

 

Detector: See discussions on "x-ray mods" for how OP they can be. YMMV. Just be sure your mod relies on server consent. Client-only mods that peek at supposedly hidden blocks can get you banned from most servers.

 

Monster warning: Sting glowed when orcs were near, so it would be reasonable for your sword to glow for one monster, and no monster type needs detection more than the creeper (if you want to know why, then just sneak up behind one of your kids during a Minecraft session and make a soft hiss...). I recommend designing an enchantment that detects creepers, with higher level enchants detecting at greater range. Then invent your moonstone sword and make it enchantable by that enchantment in addition to other sword enchants.

 

Teleporter: See command blocks (which can be activated by pressure plates).

 

Fireballs: See Fire charges.

 

Lembas: Hunger became trivial a few versions ago. Food now lasts so long that one stack of cooked chicken might last longer than a player would want to play in a world. Your mod would need to dial-up hunger to 1.6.4 levels to make Lembas meaningful.

 

Trident: Sounds OP, but you could make a meteor-metal trident "sword" and then create enchants for it to do what potions and helm enchants do now.

 

Thor's Hammer (aka Mjolnir): I'm not sure how to use the hammer to aim the lightning, but I know you can find the weather in the world class so see how a lightning bolt entity is spawned.

 

Emojis: Little bang for the effort. I recommend typing them the old-fashioned way with punctuation marks.

 

Flyable bats? You mean ridable, like giant eagles?

 

Also consider: Wargs ("horses" shaped like large wolves), palantir (very advanced), Sauron boss, mythril... Before starting, you might also search at CurseForge to see what mods are already out there waiting to be downloaded.

 

Good luck!