Suggested "Vehicles" Module

MandarJ

New Member
Contributor
I am writing this forum post to propose a new module for Terasology: the "Vehicles" module.

Purpose:
The primary purpose of the Vehicles module is to add a way to build vehicles from blocks. The module should add basic blocks and structure templates for building vehicles (steering wheels, iron sheets, floaters, etc.). These blocks will be combined with pre-existing blocks to build vehicles like cars, buses, ships, and maybe even airships (which can be saved into templates so that they can be remade easily). Note that the movement mechanics for these vehicles should not be included in this module, but should be included in a separate module.

Structure:
The module should consist mainly of blocks, textures, and templates (assets) which will be used to build vehicles. These could be things like floaters (used to make things float in water), steering wheels, tires, embarking points (which the player should use to enter the vehicle), and building materials. The templates are structure templates made using the StructureTemplates module which contain either vehicle parts of complete vehicles. These will be used to build vehicles. There should be certain components which when applied to the vehicle turn it into a cohesive unit, and link them to the specific movement mechanic (in another module).

YogLabs has made a similar mod for Minecraft which adds steerable ships with floaters, steering wheels, measuring gauges, etc. which can be found here. The mod also has components such as hot air balloons which can be used to turn a nautical ship into an airship. They also have a video here which illustrates how these parts can be put together to make various kinds of sea and air ships.

The module should contain the following 2 events:
  1. "Vehicle embarked": Sent when the player embarks a vehicle. Contains information about the type of vehicle embarked and attributes pertaining to it.
  2. "Vehicle disembarked": Sent when the player disembarks the vehicle.
It could also contain events such as "Vehicle crashed", "No gas", etc.

The module could also contain systems pertaining to the first person view that the player will see when he/she embarks the vehicle. This, along with the embarking/disembarking mechanisms could be a modified version of the pre-existing mechanisms in the Rails module.

Extensibility:
Since the module consists mainly of assets, developers will be able to expand the module by adding more materials/blocks and vehicles. This involves adding the required blocks by adding .block files or prefabs and adding the necessary textures/blockTiles. Adding vehicles involves adding the required blocks (if any) and then adding a structure template containing the vehicle.
The module's 'embarked' and 'disembarked' events could be reused (or moved to another module) in modules which add rideable animals like horses, donkeys, etc.
Note that this module does not contain any movement/control logic. That should be taken care of by other modules.

This write-up is a very primitive and tentative high-level description of the module. Please do write your suggestions below :)
 
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Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
SpecOps
Good topic, bit over scope for what would be in a single module :)

Have you seen the Rails module? @Michael and @SkySom have worked on it some, it was originally started by @Adeon. It includes rail blocks, a mine cart, a locomotive, functionality for hooking them together, making them move, and even for the player to get in a cart and ride around.

I think Michael in particular got into working on the rails and rail vehicles attaching sensibly to the rails. That's a good scope for something vehicular, as it is specific to railed transport. Something like "free range" land vehicles and air vehicles would use pretty different technology and would most likely be in their own modules (or even entire sets of modules). Another means of transportation would be boats that could float and move in water.

Take a look at that module for some more inspiration, and perhaps make this more specific to a single mode of transportation other than Rails since that already exists. You could check out some existing mods from MC to get some ideas, like
(admittedly that's more an amusing play video about a mod, but anyway). Maybe focus on the idea of building a vehicle out of blocks in the same style, then activating the blocks in some fashion turns it into a movable vehicle.

Take a look around and get one more round of updates in here and that should do it for GCI I think. We can always work on this more over time and it is a great feature to play with :)
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
Contributor
Design
Logistics
SpecOps
Yeah better :)

Although "YogLabs has made a similar mod for Minecraft..." is a bit inaccurate, they just play/showcase mods, somebody else actually wrote that mod (and just about anything else they review)

I don't see the GCI task pending review, did it get approved?
 
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