@ZeroGravitas ... this update is for you.
Why, thanks for the head's up! {blushing_emoji} Be warned, however, that my thoughts and feelings on this topic are (perhaps oddly) a little conservative.
I imagine
@Loki may already have hooked you guys up, then, but here's our old 1.3 wiring suggestions thread started by
@DicemanX at the end of last year (for anyone else who fancies a look too):
http://forums.terraria.org/index.ph...ing-view-the-devs-are-looking-for-ideas.6362/
Lots of good ideas, and many popular ones being repeated above (I started writing this post when we were at page 8 - it's moving too fast for my old brain). A couple of examples in common:
- Extra wire colours - seems overwhelmingly popular. I'm not too bothered either way, but if we do get more then quality of life/usability add-ons are going to be a necessity:
- Multi-coloured wrench tool (as an option, like @Leinfors suggested above, and other elsewhere).
- Colour specific wire cutters (e.g. suggested by @ZemmySix here). The raised use rate of cutters make it impossible to cut only the top wire colour, and you already had to remove green and blue to get at red, etc.
- The ability to highlight one wire colour (or hide the others), a mechanic related gear item, etc. (Perhaps the ability to see wiring on maps?)
- Logic Gates...
Yoraiz0r has mention logic gates a lot, pretty sure this is something we will be looking into.
... Is the suggestion I'm perhaps most concerned about people getting what they ask for, but not what they would have wanted. It could be easy to give too much power too simply, making more inventive and interesting solutions obsolete. I've also seen logic gates implemented in other games as if they were copy-pasted from a bad circuit simulator program, not in fitting with the context and too boring and abstract for people to actually bother using. I've been of the opinion that generally, us wiring enthusiasts have more than enough ways of making control systems, 'engines' and and the like, but relatively few things to justify their use...
Conversely, there are arguments that complex statue mob (or 'hoik') based mechanisms are a luxury for advanced wiring enthusiasts only. Also, it's invariably true that more complex components beget more complex possibilities (previously unimagined). But necessity is the mother of invention, not convenience. Without certain in-game difficulties many wouldn't bother turning to automation and it would have far less appeal in general.
some type of command block like item for maps.
Again, could be super-powerful, but devastate use of all other mechanisms, depending (note: I'm not really familiar with Minecraft).
I'm also a wet blanket in urging caution over implementing even seemingly small changes when it comes to wire activation. At the moment every wire event has to be triggered directly by a player (with a switch) or NPC (on a pressure plate), which means that all clever automation devices need birds, bunnies, monsters (or other weird NPC entities) moving about in there, all being a little absurd and wonderful. If traps, or some other device is able to activate wires directly then you may suddenly not need any of that eccentricity any more, it could all be just blocks clicking back and forth, lights flashing on and off, like one of the massive Minecraft computers of YouTube land.
I'm not entirely
against such an expansion of possibilities; it would definitely be exciting!
And it's
probably possible to have both (old and new types), if done very carefully (e.g. by ensuring long cool-downs on the relevant traps, or suchlike. Examples of this kind of auto-activation:
- Sirion's Lasers and photocells suggestion (old forums).
- @Snickerbobble's light beams (I think...). Perhaps, instead, waterfall colour logic, with streams detected selectively (as an alternative to light beams)?
-
Boulder statue that summons boulder
Since boulders trigger plates. Having them as one-use only has avoided the above issue.
- Spears being allowed to trigger plates (an absolutely minimal change, I've mentioned here, on the same topic).
Anyway...
...You meant the weather machine
or wireless teleporters? I think the wrench speed boost and smart cursor has made long distance wiring easier than most people realise. And I imagine it would be difficult to implement an arbitrary number of wireless point-to-point transfer systems in an elegant fashion. Even if you were to limit it to a unique item, with only 2 end-points, it would still be crazy powerful, letting you effectively carry around your entire base in your pocket! (Of course the portal gun already is that, pretty much.)
I'd also kinda like to know if conventional teleporters are going to be changed (or the entire wiring algorythms overalled) from the perspective of the teleporter tutorial(s) I've been (endeavouring) to produce. (I.e. will it be back to the drawing board in a couple months?
)
device that sends a signal when a plant blooms inside of it (for blood moon detectors, nighttime defense systems, etc)
Is the kind of unlikely mechanism I'd like to see. To avoid making a device a boring box with "bloodmoon detector" written on, requiring a little bit of discovery and suprise. A more subtle, indirect way of interfacing with plant blooming would be even more fun, I think.
I believe adding item sorting will greatly expand the possibilities of mechanisms, as in the ability to move around items between different areas using mechanisms. Things like conveyor belts/item pipes, item collectors, a mechanism that pulls items out of chests, etc.
Very cool area with many possibilities. The popular consensus seems to have been that 1.3 has so far nerfed auto-farming in general (via various direct and indirect consequences), if things swing back the other way then these kinds of mechanics might make great options.
Item hoiks are surprisingly workable, but fiddly and selective, so a conveyor or some kind might be nifty.
Storing to chests directly might be over-powered, except that a player needs to be around anyway for monsters to turn up in the wild. Dumping items out of chests (or special mechanism) might be even more interesting. Or automatically using items: I'm itching to see some bright spark automate the entire game progression sequence
, but summoning of some bosses seems to be the biggest obstacle (requiring player clicks).
Dumping out activated bombs, or drilling the block below, or some other mechanism that modifies (some) tile types in the world would be awesome! Fully AFK obsidian farms for a starter. Placing blocks would also be amazing, but far trickier/messier to implement, I think...
I was very pleased to see natural minecart tracks in worlds now (scouting them out and connecting them up is a hoot), and smart cursor is great for playing long distance routes (albeit a menace in confined areas!). I wonder if even more use could be made of these existing rails, in lieu of completely new 'conveyor belts', for example (or in addition
). Use them in place of 'pipes', such that they might ferry auto harvested plants, wood, etc. I'm a little hazy on this, but I have visions of them shunting up together (perhaps too many readings of the 'Troublesome Trucks' Thomas the Tank Engine story, as a kid). Any way of getting non-player carts on tracks would be fantastic for the virtually non-existant field of '
tracktronics' too. I think there's a lot of unused potential in the minecart system, with many wire-heads not even knowing that junction states (and boosters) can be flipped.
A few other cool things:
An accessory that sets blocks in the inactive state
Definitely useful for decorative building, but also for de-bugging machines that use actuated blocks.
Wired Dummy - activates when attacked.
Dummies are very cool already
but they are ripe for more direct wiring mechanisms too: another suggestion above was for a wire impulse to activate them to attract minion targeting, etc (you might sit armour on them too, for damage modifier...?). But
sending a signal when 'injured' would be even better - an alternative to trap activated plates, it would close that loop in an interesting way, allow lava detection, various things.
I like the sounds of freeze traps and any other myriad possibility. I was a little disappointed that 1.3.0 had no new traps worked into the event progression. Too difficult to find a place to world generate (or dynamically spawn) a 3rd tier of 'dungeon'? A few more active statues would be easy and cool, but the great variety of possible mob speeds for machine activations, makeshift sensors and such is already fairly under-used.
Anyway, sorry for the MEGA-POST!...
In summary: please can we have lots more devices to control, more input/output possibilities. What I most want to see is zany, Terraria style pseudo-wiring mechanics, in fitting with the existing context but perhaps even more weird and wonderful.
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