Roadmap
Roadmap
The current STB release creates a useful framework for custom item definition and persistence, adds an energy system, and adds a number of handy items and blocks, but it is very much a beta at this point. Here's an idea of what needs to be done:
Next Release (v1.0?)
- Blast Furnace: supercharged furnace, will need to be adjacent to lava & also require SCU. Tier 2 machine. Multi-block (2 high) structure. Will be needed for certain higher-tier (tier 3?) recipes. Undecided if it will be able to process standard furnace recipes...
- XP Bank - bank XP, possibly absorb raw XP items, for a SCU cost. Will probably allow dispensing XP in the form of Bottles O' Enchanting, or raw XP. (Later on, this will be able to supply machines which use XP: auto-enchanting, mob-spawning..)
- Repair Station: repair tools using SCU and repair resources (e.g. iron for iron tools, etc.). No XP cost, but non-trivial SCU cost.
- Geothermal Generator: tier 2 generator, requires water (a use for the Pump!) and to be placed above lava. Will slowly turn lava below it to stone (cobble?) and will send the resulting steam to a Steam Turbine to generate SCU. Will be rather efficient.
- Wind Generator: convert wind energy to SCU. Will need plenty of space and work better at higher Y levels. Will require a crafted rotor, which will wear out over time (possibly multiple tiers of rotor with differing lifespans & SCU generation). More SCU but more rotor wear during storms. Will also require a Rotary Generator to actually generate SCU.
- Hydro Generator: convert flowing water to SCU. Like the wind generator, will need crafted turbine blades and a separate Rotary Generator. Best power generation will be from water falling directly onto the top of the generator from a great height.
- Item Router Storage module: place in an Item Router which is adjacent to a bank of BSU/HSU blocks, and it will intelligently store or pull the item in the right storage unit. This will only work with BSU/HSU's, not vanilla chests.
- Auto-crafting machine; place an item into it, choose one of the (vanilla crafting) recipes which make that item, and it will automatically make copies of the item from ingredients in its inventory.
- Wireless redstone: behaving somewhat like ender storage with frequencies and global/personal visibility.
More on Energy Generation
The current two tier 1 & 2 generators (Heat Engine and Basic/Dense Solars) are single-block generators, but future energy generation is likely to require multiple blocks to actually output SCU. For example:
- Geothermal Generator will produce steam, by piping water into lava and getting steam back (slowly solidifying the lava in the process).
- A Boiler will produce steam from water and burnable fuel (will be more efficient than a Heat Engine)
- Wind Turbine will produce rotary energy, as will a Hydro Generator.
- A Steam Turbine will turn steam energy (from Geothermal & Boiler) into rotary energy.
- A Rotary Generator will turn rotary energy (from Steam Turbine, Wind Generator & Hydro Generator) into SCU.
- Some kind of biofuel engine (producing rotary energy) fuelled by fermented farm products is likely in the future. Fermentation process will require machinery & SCU too...
The idea will be to place these blocks adjacent to each other, possibly on a specific side. E.g. Wind Generator will output rotational energy at the back, so put the Generator behind it. A Boiler will output steam upward, so put a Steam Turbine on top of the boiler and Generator behind the turbine. And so on...
It all gets a bit more complex than single generators in a block, but hopefully also a bit more interesting. There will be some maintenance costs to all this - I don't want free energy especially from solar/wind (solar already requires consumable PV cells) - but at the same time I want to keep the tediousness low. Turbine blades for wind/hydro/steam generators may need replacement (or repair, for less material cost) periodically for example; better materials and perhaps a craftable lubricant could mitigate that. Geothermal not much of an issue; lava is a consumable resource.
Tier 3 Stuff?
- Need to decide on tier 3 components and requirements to make them...
- Tier 3 energy storage: 1M energy cell and 1M battery box. Going to need diamonds.
- Ender cage: upgraded version of the ender leash which can also store a hostile mob. Won't be cheap.
- Mob spawner: will need SCU, XP, and an ender cage with a stored mob - will spawn copies of that mob. Won't work on bosses (wither/ender dragon). Will need limiting mechanic to avoid excessive spawning of mobs like wither skeletons (probably high SCU or XP requirement)
- Auto-enchanter: will need SCU and XP. May allow specific enchantment to be selected. Possibly require the enchantment to be learned first via insertion of enchanted book.
- Auto-disenchanter: will need SCU. Strip random enchantments off items, probably damaging the item, producing enchanted books.
- Auto-miner: scan downwards, pulling ores out of the ground, replacing with stone (cobble/dirt?). High SCU requirement. Configurable via upgrades?
Testing
This really needs a ton of testing by people other than myself. I'd welcome any and all attempts to break it, asking only that well-written bug reports (or even better, github pull requests!) are sent.
In particular, I'd like to know:
- How well this performs with many players using many blocks and items. Some functionality is likely to be somewhat CPU intensive (item routers in particular need to do a lot of inventory scanning and the vacuum module needs to regularly search for items on the ground).
- How well it interacts with other plugins, in particular protection plugins. I know that plugins such as Movecraft which shift blocks around will break this, but I'm not sure there's an easy workaround.
- Any potential exploits which allow item/block duping etc.
Tech Tree
The initial release adds a few items and machine, but I plan to design a bigger tech tree with multiple tiers of advancement. Everything in the current release can be considered tier 1 (although I'm debating whether solar cells should be as easy to obtain - free power and all that...)
Newer categories of items will include:
- Machines that require a water supply or lava supply - a use for the Pump
- Automated farming - I like the way Minefactory Reloaded does things and I may emulate some of that, but I have other ideas too
- Automated crafting
- Better enchantment handling
- Mob spawning control
- Larger scale machines: terrain modification, automated mining... this will be higher tier stuff for sure
- More varied and interesting mechanisms for power generation and storage
- Powered item repair system (alternative to the anvil)
- New weapons and armour perhaps?
- Higher tech item storage and retrieval system (think Applied Energistics, only probably more limited :) )
Some of this may be released as separate plugins; STB is intended to make it very easy for other plugins to create new items & blocks.