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killster550

Star navigations

42 posts in this topic

first of all, thank you Spumwack for uttering the idea (that'll help any copyright haters)

so spumwack in his latest vid mentioned how it would be useful if stars or constellations could be used for navigation during the night, at sea, like how we use the clouds and sun at day :D

methinks it'd be an interesting thing to learn, because you'd need to figure out which constellation goes where at any time of night, which is a tough skill to master.

as for believability, we've been using constellations for navigation since we went out to sea in the first place, so it fits within the era, and the means of doing this would be to replace the current night stars with a different one (good luck on that, i know it'll be tough) and/or use a sextant to be able to measure what the relationship between them and the current time and direction is (that sounds confusing)

basically, you see the Great Bear, at the first half of night, while going east. using a sextant will allow you to register tht information in a blueprint-type book, eventually filling up with all directions and constellations, (for nother bit of difficulty, make players able to manually line up constellations of their own (incoming dick constellations) this would allow for massive customization options,

and to create a final layer of challenge in the idea: perhaps generate a randomizer or make the night sky change sky types according to the calender function, like you can see great bear in august, but not in april par example

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Nice Idea... of course... but is this really a feature we want to have in a computer game?

You cannot take ONE concept - how realistic it ever will be - put it in a non-realistic setting and be sure, that it will fit in the whole concept.

To be realistic - no one ever will use such a thing, cause if it't REALLY works in a realistic way, no one could handle it!

Be honest - who of you is able to navigate only by the stars? I'll bet the most oft you only know 3-4 constellations per name - and can identify 2 of them when looking into the sky at night.

The Idea sounds interesting - but don't forgett about one thing; This is only a GAME.

It's not an simulation of life - and it never will be!

What a game should handle is, to offer 'playability' - not 'realism' - it's simple; this is not the duty of a game!

I've read about the idea of implementing a whole 'tier' besides metal by adding ceramic-working to the game.

Also a quite neat idea on the surface, but if you read the imagination, how this should be realised in the game...

What would such a hard concept really offer the player?

In my oppinion only ONE thing, and that is the even more urgent need to look into a guide or the wiki only for knowing how to proceed in the game.

There's no real opportunity in the game, to figure out how to do it only by trying - if you make it more complex that it allready is, there's no bonus for the player - only more things he will not figure out by himself. That's not what a GAME should offer!

What I want to say;

I also like the idea of complexity and realism in games I'd play. But I deal with the trouble of proper 'Gamedesign' since years, and if I've learned one thing, than it would be, that complexity never is a garant for a satisfying gameplay!

That all sounds good in your mind, when thinking about it - but think about the people, that play the game and DON'T have invented it. They don't know about, how to do complicated things that never are explained. And reading a manual for it deprive you the feeling of figuring out something by yourself!

As for 'Navigation by stars' I would in any way vote for a clear NO. Too complex, too less need for it in the used game-engine, too much work for the coders, too little payback for the playability. There are so much other things, that would help the concept to get even more satisfying - things that never will be implemented, simply because it's too much work to change the engine/programmcore - If someone will deal with this to make it as an plugin for TFC - do what you want, I'm sure there are lot of people who will enjoy this - but I'll bet, there are way more, those never will need this feature.

Especially for Minecraft there is one rule: The less you change, the less you'll hurt the compatibility with other mods.

Sure, TFC is designed to be played alone - but think about the people who'll play the mod - everyone has a different taste - don't take them away their opportunity to choose for themselves. ;)

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The only place this might be useful would be on the ocean, where there are no other landmarks. And then it would only be useful if you were unable to keep a constant heading due to currents, waves or wind. But this is Minecraft, where none of those exist, hold forward and you've got a straight line. But sure your mouse might get budged and you start heading off-course but the world is made up of a gigantic grid. If you can't follow a grid, then stars aren't going to help you.

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I agree a lot of work not a lot of pay-off, would be great if they had extra time to put it in but I'm pretty sure they are doing other things with a little more importance.

Waveshaper: You addressed a lot of the issue of a mod like ours (compatibility, the possibility of learning right off the bat how to play, etc.) and its obvious you know what you are talking about however I think you are missing some things here our compatibility is actually pretty good right now and only requires world gen and recipe tweaks in fact work on patch is going on right now. This I agree is a bummer that we are yet to have full control but as we are in Beta much work still needs to be done just to allow gameplay control. Lets just get the features in first and then we can start messing with who wants what.

Now understanding TFC I agree is difficult but I assure you this isn't our fault you can't tell me you started playing minecraft without looking at a wiki, have someone teach you or watching youtube, it simply isn't possible. Same goes here just all over again, there are simply way to many possibilities in this game to allow guesswork, it just isn't possible to guess things like recipes. If there was a guidebook that gave you hints or something like that (maybe achievements) that would be alright but these have all been shot down already. If you have a better idea to allow educated guesses without tearing out features though fire away.

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I'm not a coder, so excuse me while I ask open questions in regards to the use and functionality of a night sky. As far as coding it, wouldn't it be as simple as separating the sun/moon and the stars themselves into two different layers that move differently, with sun and moon keeping a relatively similar pattern and stars having more rotation on the verticle axis rather than the horizontal one? (And obviously a much slower one for star movement). While I agree the primary use for this is while on the ocean, the truth is that if you have to travel a long distance (such as on SMP servers where people have spread out) and don't use a minimap and coordinates, wouldn't an alternative method be to travel in the general direction of two stars to the left and straight on till morning?

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I agree a lot of work not a lot of pay-off, would be great if they had extra time to put it in but I'm pretty sure they are doing other things with a little more importance.

Waveshaper: You addressed a lot of the issue of a mod like ours (compatibility, the possibility of learning right off the bat how to play, etc.) and its obvious you know what you are talking about however I think you are missing some things here our compatibility is actually pretty good right now and only requires world gen and recipe tweaks in fact work on patch is going on right now. This I agree is a bummer that we are yet to have full control but as we are in Beta much work still needs to be done just to allow gameplay control. Lets just get the features in first and then we can start messing with who wants what.

Now understanding TFC I agree is difficult but I assure you this isn't our fault you can't tell me you started playing minecraft without looking at a wiki, have someone teach you or watching youtube, it simply isn't possible. Same goes here just all over again, there are simply way to many possibilities in this game to allow guesswork, it just isn't possible to guess things like recipes. If there was a guidebook that gave you hints or something like that (maybe achievements) that would be alright but these have all been shot down already. If you have a better idea to allow educated guesses without tearing out features though fire away.

Of course, of course - but what I addressed isn't only a TFC-Problem. Nearly all mods ends in this dilemma if they want to add TOO much stuff.

That's the reason, why many project came to a point of using their very own engine sooner or later.

If I HAD a idea dealing with this, I would tell ya - but I'm not sure if there is solution at all. ;)

I mean - no one would be hurt by adding this feature - everyone who don't need it can simply ignore it.

From this point of view, it's not that big thing.

What I want to ask is, how many player ever would really use this feature, if it's in and if this would be worth the effort.

The Idea itself is good - really good actually - but I'm not sure if it is more than just a concept. ^^

I'm not a coder, so excuse me while I ask open questions in regards to the use and functionality of a night sky. As far as coding it, wouldn't it be as simple as separating the sun/moon and the stars themselves into two different layers that move differently, with sun and moon keeping a relatively similar pattern and stars having more rotation on the verticle axis rather than the horizontal one? (And obviously a much slower one for star movement). While I agree the primary use for this is while on the ocean, the truth is that if you have to travel a long distance (such as on SMP servers where people have spread out) and don't use a minimap and coordinates, wouldn't an alternative method be to travel in the general direction of two stars to the left and straight on till morning?

I think, to implement it on the technically side, it wouldn't be THAT problem.

But at least you'll need someone who can code this out of vanilla AND know about astronomy and how the sky looks and changes.

It would probably enough to make a rudimentary system for TFC, but also then you have to find a concept that allows you safe navigation.

If you look on the mod-setups of the most player - nearly everyone have a minimap - so do they really need such thing?

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i really should use the search function EVERY post i make :3 forget it once, boom, your nailed to the wall :D

ah well, i discussed a manner of usage for navigation with said idea, deal with it ;D

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I'll be honest, this is a better title than Astral Movement, I'd assumed that was about space travel the first time I saw it.

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This sounds like such a cool idea, and serves two purposes: functional and aesthetic. When I first read the topic I thought about how beautiful the night sky would be with varying intensity stars and clusters:

Posted Image

I honestly can't remember what the sky looks like now, must not be too pretty :). But then I thought about how much time I spend outside at night anyway which is a very small amount of time. I would probably never see this, let only use it as a navigational device. Of course, then I'd get lost at night and WISH I had spent some time looking at the stars...

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I'm not a coder, so excuse me while I ask open questions in regards to the use and functionality of a night sky. As far as coding it, wouldn't it be as simple as separating the sun/moon and the stars themselves into two different layers that move differently, with sun and moon keeping a relatively similar pattern and stars having more rotation on the verticle axis rather than the horizontal one? (And obviously a much slower one for star movement).

It is possible. You've pretty much described Better Skies in MCPatcher.

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Better Skies is randomized right? And anyway, like redundantsage said, it sounds pretty easy to me. Just add a map of the stars, and make it rotate slowly with the seasons. Right?

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Am I the only user who loses his sense of direction when I generate a new world?
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I am currently lost at sea.

This makes me sad.

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I am currently lost at sea.

This makes me sad.

Just keep navigating in a fixed direction (tip in case you don't have Rei's minimap or some similar tool: check the direction you are moving in by checking the movement of the sun. It moves from your left to your right when you are looking at the north). You will eventually hit land, and there you will have to either find civilization and find your way back home from there, or just make a new home there.

Or, if it's in your server or a singleplayer world with cheats allowed, just teleport to spawn : much less complicated.

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I forget they added spawn as a vanilla cheat....

It used to only be available with SPC!

I just went creative and started a spiral pattern until I found the mainland again, then figured out where I was from that point.

located an island with some Cass on the journey though, since been there and back twice with no incident.

Not enough to make anything yet, and all I'm getting from the mainland so far is copper, got some cass when I first started but I have no clue where it was and since searching have not been able to find any more.

Basically, when you have the landmarks available, take advantage of them, at sea you're just out of luck but on land mark things down!

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honestly, the minecraft clouds all travel in one single direction, the sun and moon constantly rotate in the same direction (east to west) the only time you could possibly get lost at sea would if if it begins raining and your boat turns on you for no reason, no need for Rei's for anything :D

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Unless you travel in a precise straight line according to the grid(which I seem to never be able to do) and only make perfect 180° turns it is in fact quite easy to find even though you assumed you were only travelling between two points you've made a quite large triangle.

a tiny deviation from center adds up, and if you for whatever reason have a tiny deviation to the right of center by the time you get there and back you could find yourself completely missing the mainland.

Now, you can of course copy down coords, but I greatly dislike that as a game mechanic.

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i never leave at the tip of an island but at the middle of it, so when i go west, i go nearly straight deviating no more than 50 blocks either side, and i literally use underwater landmarks to help me see how far i deviate at any given time, or any small mass of land :D

its just a matter of a good memorazation and counting ability, instead of just planting a giant marker with rei's

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I guess it is another thing that you can master. Stars would definitely be nice, but you can do without them. But honestly, why NOT add stars. IMHO, it is kind of what Dunk said once about Bismuth Bronze. There is really no point to make it over Bronze, but why not? It is an extra thing that serves a purpose and if you can't use Bronze, use Bismuth Bronze. Sure, you could use the sun and moon, but stars would help a lot more for precise navigation.

I think stars SHOULD be added, but...if they aren't well...not too much I can do about it right? I can do with the sun and moon themselves, but stars would flesh out navigation and allow for more precise movement. It could however, be too little payout for too much work, but IMHO, it is just borderline, maybe a bit on the worth it side.

Just my 2 cents.

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Yea, I think this is a very cool element. Maybe not extremely useful, but it's a good task Bioxx could take up when he wants a little down time. Procedurally generated stars? Or have a stash of real-life star clusters/constellations that are randomly strewn in the sky. Better yet, make up constellations specifically for the Terrafirmacraft world!

I loved games like Myst where you needed an actual real-life notebook to jot down clues, puzzle pieces, information. I could see myself charting the skies in a notebook, mapping the celestial bodies of my very own TFC world...

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I don't think we even need any predefined constellations. As long as I am sure the stars aren't going anywhere from that place, I can make up constellations of my own where I need them and where it fits. So, default minecraft sky will suffice. And if you think it's not, there may be semi-randomized stars, this isn't hard code-wise to place some dots and squares.

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I don't think we even need any predefined constellations. As long as I am sure the stars aren't going anywhere from that place, I can make up constellations of my own where I need them and where it fits. So, default minecraft sky will suffice. And if you think it's not, there may be semi-randomized stars, this isn't hard code-wise to place some dots and squares.

i keep being drawn to the idea from Animal Crossing, where you have a semi randomized starscape, and you get to make up your own constellations based on how you see the stars. Not saying we should be able to draw little lines in the sky, but it would be fun to see how different players interpret the patterns created by the stars
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Predefined constellations in a procedurally generated game seems very silly, put some stars up there and let us figure stuff out.

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So, default minecraft sky will suffice.

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