Ore Detectors
Ore Detectors
About time to replace that boring trench-mining with some actual excavation!
Note: This plugin is in alpha - features and behaviors are subject to change.
What is OreDetectors?
Similar to how real-life metal-detectors work this plugin adds a set of new items to your Minecraft-server: Ore detectors!
Players will be able to craft these ore-detector items in a workbench, a different one for each ore type, and then while equipped / activated, it will regularly emit sound pulses based on the quantity and distance of matching ore-blocks in a spherical radius around the player.
Once activated the detector remains active for as long as it remains in the players hotbar - or until manual deactivation or the detector runs out of energy. This enables the player to switch to a pick-axe or other tool while still keeping the detector running.
Check out the Reviews page for some videos of OD in action!
Why add OreDetectors to your server?
The goals of OreDetectors:
- To enrich Minecrafts gameplay with a new balanced mechanic that offer a more rewarding search&explore mining experience that engages the player in the mining process.
- Transform the dull time sink known as trench-mining from a brain dead stare-at-the-screen-while-holding-left-mouse-button-and-w into actual excavation gameplay that rewards mental effort.
- Have you ever walked into a mining-trench and thought "Wow. This place looks really interesting, I think exploring these mine-shafts will be really fun!" ...not even once right. OreDetectors hopes to encourage players to create a more interesting looking underground world in Minecraft.
- Reduce the temptation of x-ray cheating by making mining less boring and more engaging (in a non-overpowered way)!
Sounds good? Give OreDetectors a try! :)
> In early user testing using OreDetectors to find minerals was considered fun/exciting!
Detector Recipes
All detectors are crafted like a plus-sign with a clock at the center. What to put in the remaining four slots depends on what detector you want to make.
Currently these detectors exist: | Example: |
---|---|
Iron detector crafted from iron ore (the block) Redstone detector crafted from redstone (the item) Gold detector crafted from gold ore (the block) Lapis detector crafted from lapis (the item) Diamond detector crafted from diamonds (the item) Emerald detector crafted from emeralds (the item) |
Features
- Current features:
- Repeatedly scans all blocks in a sphere around the players location and calculates an ore-score based on current score-formula*.
- On each scan the ore-score is displayed and a "blip" sound is played based on the score.
- "Blip" intensity and Scan speed increases with increasing score.
(Think of the motion detectors in Aliens 2!) ;) - Range is hard coded: 7 for iron/redstone, 6 for gold/lapis, 5 for diamond/emerald.
- Separate 'crafting' and 'use' permissions for all detectors! (All allowed by default.)
Perhaps you want to limit crafting/usage of detectors in some way? Only sell them from shops perhaps? - Block searches are performed in the background to avoid server spikes.
- Adaptive async scheduling delays to minimize computation-to-presentation delay.
- Partial language support (currently: console messages, activation/deactivation and on/off messages).
- A player can only have 1 detector active at a time!
(Activating a second one deactivates the first one.) - Toggle the detector by holding it and right-clicking (on a non-interactive block or in the air.)
(For example: right clicking a door or workbench wont toggle the detector but will just interact with the block normally). - Once activated, the detector must remain in the players quickbar to stay active.
(It can be moved around, but if you move it away from your quickbar the detector will deactivate). - McStats support.
- Detectors have no durability / energy charge in the pre-alpha.
- Pre-Alpha:
There are some minor known issues.(All known issues fixed in v0.0.8!)
- Planned features:
- OreDetectors fully configurable in their own config file, including ability to add your own custom detectors. (Role-playing in a desert: Water Detector! Mining the depths: Lava Detector! Exploring structures: Trap Detector!)
- Detectors that react to more than one type of block. (Needed for the examples above.)
- Energy charge / durability that would require detectors to be recharged / replaced occasionally (perhaps by infusing it with more ore in a workbench / anvil, or charging it for a long time in a furnace). (Configurable!)
- Detector variations, like varying range, durability, different score formulas* or "advanced" detectors with multiple toggleable modes, perhaps by modifying a detector in an workbench / anvil / enchantment-table.
- Full language support!
- Admin tools to monitor performance and usage.
- Auto-update support.
- Ability to 'Give' an OD to a player via commands. (And an option to turn of crafting.)
- At some point I might add a "Find the ores" mini-game where two or more players or teams of players search identical randomly generated cubes for ore blocks using Ore-Detectors. First one to find all ores win! Might release that as a separate plugin though.
- (Plugin filename will be normalized once I reach first alpha - OD is still in pre-alpha.)
*
Score formulas decides the "blip"-behavior of the detectors - i.e. how quantity and distance of ore-blocks affect it.
The motivation behind OreDetectors
I've been playing MC for several years and I'm always looking for ways to improve the gameplay without turning it into some kind of boring easy-mode experience. One of the areas that are often overlooked is the actual mining - where players gather the resources needed for the awesome creations they envision and wish to build. How many times has it not happened that the grand vision you had never got finished, or maybe barely even started, because acquiring the required materials was, not too difficult, but rather a task too boring and unengaging. Gathering resources and building up a server economy can be a lot of fun ...I just wish it wasn't such a brain dead task at times.
Note: This plugin uses Hidendras MCStats Metrics Lite (v0.0.6+)
(v0.0.5) There are no commands / permissions / config-settings!
(v0.0.6) There are 2 language files and 1 config (only for debug-settings).
(v0.0.7+) There are 2 language files and 1 config (for some advanced settings).
(Made for Java6/7 - source is included in the .jar :: Stats here: http://mcstats.org/plugin/OreDetectors)
Some of the assets (or parts thereof) on this page is copyright Mojang AB
In 1.16.4 I'm able to craft and turn on the item, but there's no beeping or indication of ores nearby. 6 years later I know but just thought you'd like to know.
Definetely looking forward to being able to configure the distance. I have sparse ore on my server. So the detector becomes invaluable. but the range is too short in our case. If it's a quick fix, Id like to ask if you could plop that in there when you get a free minute. Thanks in advance, Anor.
@nullschritt It already is in the code, I just haven't made a proper config for custom detectors yet.
@PapiDimmi Shouldn't be too hard, will add to my todo.
...Now the bad news:
I'm too busy with work to fix these things any time soon.
...and the good news:
v0.0.8 got approved?! That means the site has some staff again - nice! :)
(Also I'm still around, just too busy atm.)
@AnorZaken
Please add configurable range! I'de like to be able to increase these values quite a bit.
Since all of bukkit is basically standing still right now (I have received information that files are not currently being processed) I'm going to take a little risk and post the next version here: v0.0.8
Note: This is not a staff reviewed version!
As always full source is included in the jar, so if you have any doubts you can read the source and compile it yourself.
(As a personal note though: I'm a software developer and I wouldn't risk my reputation by releasing something malicious! How would I be able to get future employment after that!?)
I hope this site survives... but it feels like one might need to start looking for alternative ways of distribution :( :(
More info here.
@stefan457games
Thanks! :)
Created a Reviews-page and added your video to it!
(Although permissions does exist (total of 14 permissions). Made a comment about it on the video.)
Video Tutorial on the Plugin:
https://goo.gl/dw9gWX
Credits Video: (Stefan_Gamer)
=== : A little news about the next version : ===
OreDetectors v0.0.8 is progressing nicely!
I really want to get rid of known issues with this upcoming release - it will fix all known visual issues with lore/deactivation/crafting for every possible way an item can be moved around in inventories! In the process I found and reported this bug: BUKKIT-5785 which I had to create a workaround for (done!).
My next step is to prevent stacking of active OD-items - this is necessary in preparation for when they have energy-charge* (Edit: done!). I need to implement it in this release anyway because the new item-handling code is optimized performance-wise to take advantage of the fact that active OD-item stacks will never contain more than 1 item.
(*Energy-charge is similar to durability except it wont break once it reaches 0.)
Just like objects with durability, OD-items with different energy charge wont stack, but unlike objects with durability I will allow inactive OD-items with the same charge to stack! On activation the stack will simply split itself if needed. Neat huh? :P
- - - - -
EDIT2 : OreDetectors v0.0.8 uploaded! (Expect 5
~
7 days approval time.)So yeah, what's really nice about v0.0.8? :)
All known issues have been fixed! (I wanted to do this in v0.0.7 originally, but pushed it forward since there where no major issues and I wanted to get a release with permissions out as soon as possible.)
But anyway, I hope you will all like OD v0.0.8
- Make sure to grab it as soon as it comes out! ;)
So yeah... a lot of stuff is going on with bukkit and approval times are very long right now.
PM me if you want to get your hands on v0.0.7 sooner.
Edit: ...and now it's approved :P
@Tolle44
Nice gif! :D
(You are credited in the image description - aka when you hover it!)
Also don't worry! I love to make things tweakable! ;)
(Should I ever fail regarding this, let me know and I will surely fix it unless there is a very, very good reason not to.)
As a "Thank you" and tribute to your plugin, I made this:
Feel free to use it for your "Examples". Interval time is 2 seconds (like the Minecraft Wiki's) and is uploaded to www.imgur.com like your current example picture.
Cheers! :)
@AnorZaken
Ahh, I learned something new! I've been much in doubt whether it would work like that, but I actually ended up trying before your initial response, so my server has been running your plugin for a couple of days - my friends and I like it! :D Good work!
As for the planned changes: make everything toggle-able! There is nothing worse than a good plugin getting ruined because it "moves in certain directions" without option to opt out. An example of this was McMMO's AFK-prevention that was implemented for Acrobatics skill: it prevented players in using trainers where skills would be automatically trained while AFK. It takes time building these trainers/machines and some servers, my own included, allow these kind of functions, so the two versions that came after really lacked the opt-out function. Luckily they implemented the opt-out function later.
@Keyman1986
v0.0.7 has this - it's just awaiting approval. :)
Permissions to use & to craft separate per detector type. Thanks!
@Tolle44
As far as my testing shows O.D. should work with 1.6.4
<-->
1.7.9-R0.3 and anything in between. :)(Note: the file-list will still only claim R0.2 support because only beta/recommended can be selected as supported when uploading files to bukkit and R0.3 is only a development release - so don't get confused when the next version comes out and it still says R0.2)
@Keyman1986
v0.0.7 is complete!
- Most notably it adds permissions! ;)
Will upload it
tonight ortomorrow morning. pm if you want it earlier.Edit1: nvm, while version testing I found a bug in the language-file loading which I fixed - NOW it is complete! (...and I'm very much going to bed.)
Edit2: v0.0.7 is now uploaded and awaiting approval!
@Keyman1986
Thanks! :D
I will prioritize permissions, will probably add it to v0.0.7!
(I'm guessing crafting-permissions + usage-permissions is what you need?)
@Tolle44
It probably works on R0.3 I just haven't had time to do any testing because I've been very busy with work recently. But now I have two whole days off where I'm not going to work anything, only do what I like to - which means mostly coding!
^^
I will do some version testing tomorrow and get back to you with the results. I usually like to make my plugins compatible with multiple versions if possible, and 1.6.4 -> 1.7.9 is what I currently consider to be the optimal range (covers the majority of servers).
Oh, and thanks for the interest / support! :)
Currently running a dedicated server for friends where I look to install the most fun addons I can find. Server build is currently 1.6.4 (because of other plugins), but I intend to upgrade to CB 1.7.9-R0.3 since aforementioned has been recently updated.
Thing is, I really want THIS plugin too! It looks like a perfect way to, as you state, not ruining the fun of mining by "cheating" for it, but easing on the boredom-factor instead.
Is it possible to get a working version for CB 1.7.9-R0.3?
The biggest problem with all these plugins are the versions, so the best I can do is to find the most frequent denominator, and that is unfortunately R0.3 at the moment.
This plugin looks AWESOME! Keep it up!
[Edit: I have no idea how difficult it is to make the plugin compatible between versions. If making it compatible with 1.6.4 that would also be awesome :)]
Please add permissions!
Thanks awesome and not to OP