Portfolio/Multi-Topic Hardmode sky island content

B

Barinade

Terrarian
So it's pretty known that sky islands do nothing for you for the majority of your time playing. Once you have a set of wings they become pretty useless. This thread is centered around content for sky islands that can last through the entire Terraria playthrough. I wish I had spriting skills to add some in-game pictures but sadly I do not.

The Main Idea
This is simple. Break a heart/orb and there's a chance for a meteor, but kill a Wyvern and there's a chance to eliminate a previous sky island and replace it with a hardmode version. Hardmode sky island chests have to be opened with a Cloud Key (Rare Wyvern drop, maybe very rare Harpy drop, consumed) and hardmode sky islands will not be removed to make room for another until the chest is unlocked. A detailed process for this will be at the bottom of the post in a spoiler, a friend suggested I include a detailed process.

When you unlock a "Cloud Chest" an enraged wyvern spawns, which is faster than a normal wyvern with no defense debuff. If a player tries to open the unlocked chest before the wyvern is killed the wyvern will get faster, keeping the speed buff and more speed every time an attempt is made to open the chest; if the wyvern despawns rather than being killed the chest will relock itself.

All Wyvern should have a 50% health ragemode AI and look, he's way too easy to dodge. Since the Wyvern deals a lot of damage already, maybe just an AI change rather than stat buffs. Speed increased with defense lowered maybe.

Island would generate the following loot, a lot of these will be vanity.
WoF Killed-
- (RARE) Glass Prism (Summons a rainbow that stays above your head at all times)
- (RARE) Grumpy Cloud (Summons a raining cloud that stays above your head at all times)
- (VERY RARE) Wyvern Call (Summons a mini Wyvern to fight for you)
- (VERY RARE) Shiny Feather (Summons a pet harpy)
- (COMMON) Cloudy Eyes (Summons enemy Wyvern when above correct height, damages player otherwise, eyes are visible in hotbar item when correct height, consumed)
- (UNCOMMON) Mini Cloud (Stackable accessory, generates a cloud under you for you to stand on instead of descending after jump, up to 5 times with 5 in a stack)
- (COMMON) 1-10 Sun Essence (Material, can be thrown to for light, floats like a soul, goes straight until it hits your cursor or a block then floats, can be retrieved after time has passed)
- (COMMON) Bracers (Material, can be worn for small defense boost, visible on character, white/blue/yellow colors)
- (CRAFT ITEM) Sun Bracers (Accessory, 30 sun essence and a pair of bracers, generates light similar to mining helmet, we need more light sources for exploring)
- (EXTREMELY RARE) Blazed Rod (Imagine Heat Ray but the beam is a cone of heat waves that pierce enemies, ~15 block distance)
- (EXTREMELY RARE) Puff Puff Pass (Summons a Puff Puff (small rain cloud) that hovers above enemies raining on them to deal damage)
- (RARE) Falkor Punch (Magic weapon, shoots a cloud in the shape of a fist to damage enemies) (The double reference is strong in this one)

Any Mechanical Boss Killed-
- (COMMON) Added chance for a mechanical boss summon item as extra loot, higher chances for bosses that have yet to be killed.
- (VERY RARE) Wyvern Remote (Same as Wyvern Call but a mechanical Wyvern with higher stats.)

Plantera Killed-
- (COMMON) 10-50 Perfect Waterdrops (Speeds up growth, similar to the regrowth staff change, but in a consumable, as extra loot)
- (EXTREMELY RARE) Killer Bud (Summons a baby Plantera to fight for you)

Fishron Killed- (Needs more. Suggestions?)
- (VERY RARE) Winged Bait (Summons a number of flying fish to fight for you)

There may or may not be references that are unsuitable for the game. The names are, obviously, optional and can be changed.
But there is an item called golden shower after all...
Plus, the game is multiplayer, kids be seein' worse from other players.

A lot of this is probably really silly, but the sky islands do need more content, and I'm relying on thread replies to help build the suggestion.
If anyone wants to make sprites for these, please do.
If anyone wants to format the suggestion, please do. I'll try to match it when adding on.
Also, sorry for the lack of formatting, it's been a long day.
Alright, so. The generation process. I know you guys are the experts but this is how I'd do it.

When generating a world, store the locations of the sky island chests.
I'm sure sky islands have a max width/heighth they can be. Pick one of the stored locations and when you go to remove it, just scan the area around the chest location for sky island blocks and remove them.
You could generate the hardmode island right where the old island was, but that would be easy to find. Pick random locations in the sky, check if there are blocks within width/heighth of the hardmode island (+20 blocks maybe), if a block is found try a new random location, but stop after so many retries.
Then, plop the island at the random coordinate. Send a message saying a "A new sky island has blown in!" or something more clever, maybe a reference to a Scorpions song, whatever.
 
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Barinade said:
That doesn't mean it's not possible to generate more after worldgen. I mean, meteors are generated after the world is created...
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That's blocks being converted to other blocks. Chests are different- you don't just generate the block, you also generate the inventory within, as well as a lot of new structures. In Terraria, new structures are only made on worldgen, so that kills the island conversion idea too, unless you want the houses to be the same shape.
 
Barinade said:
That doesn't mean it's not possible to generate more after worldgen. I mean, meteors are generated after the world is created...
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That's because they replace exisiting tiles. They don't generate new ones out of thin air. Chests can't do the same.

First, I really need to see the stats on your items. Also,

Barinade said:
Break a heart/orb and there's a chance for a meteor, but kill a Wyvern and there's a chance to eliminate a previous sky island and replace it with a hardmode version.
Click to expand...
A sky island is not determined by tiles. It is determined by elevation. The same goes for mobs in the sky. There is no changing a sky island to hardmode with how the game currently determines mob spawning. Also, if someone has destroyed their islands, or at least most of each, then this is pointless. They are, at best, miniscule biomes rather than proper ones, like those jungle shrines you see.
 
The location is being stored, not the island itself. You could remove every single block and the location should still be stored. All you have to do is scan the area and remove blocks if they weren't already removed.

There may not be a feature to generate a chest after original generation but that's not what this thread is about. It's about new content, as in adding that functionality.

If a player can place a chest then code obviously can, it just needs to be written.

The rest of your comment, @Freenight, made no sense.

Stats are up in the air (pun slightly intended), this is just a starting idea. I'm hoping others contribute to it.
 
Barinade said:
The rest of your comment, Freenight, made no sense.
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I'm too lazy to figure out which one, so I'll go through the motion again.

Sky islands, as they are now, are not biomes like corruption, hallow and etc. For example, if you put jungle tiles at the same level as floating islands, you will only get harpies. Because floating islands, on the whole, aren't biomes. They merely indicate the elevation at which harpies and wyverns can spawn. If you will, they are just those jungle shrines or underground cabins, placed high up in the air with different loots. That is all. If I haven't made myself clear with that, nothing else will.
 
Freenight said:
I'm too lazy to figure out which one, so I'll go through the motion again.

Sky islands, as they are now, are not biomes like corruption, hallow and etc. For example, if you put jungle tiles at the same level as floating islands, you will only get harpies. Because floating islands, on the whole, aren't biomes. They merely indicate the elevation at which harpies and wyverns can spawn. If you will, they are just those jungle shrines or underground cabins, placed high up in the air with different loots. That is all. If I haven't made myself clear with that, nothing else will.
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I don't recall saying anything about a biomes, so what is your point? Are you just putting this down just because you want to? I've yet to see any valid reason the idea won't work.
 
What I am saying, "replacing one of the floating islands to hardmode" won't work. If you do it for one, you do it for all.

Generating new tiles while you are playing has never been done before. Never. Apart from us putting blocks one by one, and Antlion shooting one block of sand at a time, Relogic has never created something out of thin air while we are playing. If it was possible, it would have been done before. The engine of the game doesn't allow procedurally generated biomes. Am I getting my point across yet?
 
Freenight said:
What I am saying, "replacing one of the floating islands to hardmode" won't work. If you do it for one, you do it for all.

Generating new tiles while you are playing has never been done before. Never. Apart from us putting blocks one by one, and Antlion shooting one block of sand at a time, Relogic has never created something out of thin air while we are playing. If it was possible, it would have been done before. The engine of the game doesn't allow procedurally generated biomes. Am I getting my point across yet?
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Your point is invalid though. Just because it's not currently coded to insert new blocks after generation doesn't mean it can't be. This is a new content suggestion, not a "use old content but in this way" suggestion. I don't know why you think it's impossible, that's a silly thought. I feel like you're not understanding how I have suggested it should be done, maybe you should read through the original post again, and if you still have the thought then maybe you should find something better to do than declare things impossible when there is no reason for it to be.
 
Barinade said:
Your point is invalid though. Just because it's not currently coded to insert new blocks after generation doesn't mean it can't be. This is a new content suggestion, not a "use old content but in this way" suggestion. I don't know why you think it's impossible, that's a silly thought. I feel like you're not understanding how I have suggested it should be done, maybe you should read through the original post again, and if you still have the thought then maybe you should find something better to do than declare things impossible when there is no reason for it to be.
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He's saying that since it would require radical new coding that would be difficult to implement for something so small, it is unlikely to be added.
 
I like the items, but I put question marks next to the islands being eliminated and replaced.
Are you saying islands would completely disappear and be recreated? What if someone build a house there?

Edit: I also want to add that I'd really hate to see content that drastically changes or even removes parts of the world. The meteors are bad, but stop spawning if you leave them alone. Corruption can be cleaned (mostly).
I don't really want yet another thing that messes up my world.
 
MegaMage314 said:
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing wasn't possible in Terraria's current game engine.
Click to expand...
I just don't really see it happening. Some suggestions get shot down because of the way trees grow. TREES. SHOT DOWN BY @Cenx HERSELF BECUASE OF TREES. (I forget which one it was, but it had to do with the Staff of Regrowth.) If that's enough to kill a part of a suggestion, then this suggestion has been drop-kicked into a volcano with an atom bomb strapped to it- and the volcano is on a planet headed towards its sun, which is itself being sucked into a black hole.
 
I really like this but give me some stats for weapons and how much damage, also sprite. But overall this is a great suggestion :happy:
 
DestroyerOfTheDestroyer said:
I just don't really see it happening. Some suggestions get shot down because of the way trees grow.
Click to expand...
Terrain changes are perfectly possible. Meteors and trees growing are proof of that. The only problem is that these changes don't happen when a player is in the neighbourhood. So I would actually not be surprised if Red could conjure up floating islands in mid-game if he wanted to. But in the end only Red knows his engine's limitations I guess.
 
Barinade said:
With a poor reason, just because it's not done already doesn't mean it can't be done.
Click to expand...
Look, it's not as if we dislike the idea entirely. But generating completely new tiles during gameplay is just not feasible with the game. Why do you think the temple always exist even during PHM? If Red could just destroy a whole area of the jungle and replace it with the temple, no doubt that's what he would've done.

What we're telling you really, is figure out a way so that when HM is triggered, your new content will only be accessible then. The simplest is basically what Red himself has done, by generating a sky dungeon during world-gen, and locking it until the condition is met. That's all. You're holding on to this bit a bit too vehemently, I say.
 
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