For awhile now, I've been wanting several different items as placeable building objects. One of these things were lenses. Then I thought, what could lenses do? I then remembered gemspark blocks, so what would happen if you stick one on?
First, here are the gemspark blocks. I've put in three extra for this suggestion, which are the azure gemspark block made from aquamarine, rose gemspark block made of
rose quartz, and the onyx gemspark block made of onyx, which glows black, because science.
Here is what happens when you place a lens on these blocks! The light beam would be much longer, of course. I'm hoping for at least 100 blocks, but I'm not sure how much this would lag the game.
You could have fancy fluorescent lights. Only one lens is needed in this example but.. symmetry, yeah.
You can use lenses to bounce the beams in different directions. A lens is bent by a hit of a hammer. If possible, you'd be able to place a lens within a tile occupied by a slanted gemspark block, for a cleaner looking diagonal shot.
Beams will pass through glass blocks, but any other non-glass block will cut off the beam. You can actuate these blocks to let the beam travel through.
Light beams take on a special effect when passing through the special glass blocks! Water gives a wavy effect, honey gives a honeycomb/loopy effect, lava gives a lavalamp effect (I tried), confetti gives a glitter effect, and midnight confetti gives what I call a "twilight beam." All effects are compatible with water's waviness. You can cancel out an effect by having the beam pass through the corresponding special glass block again.
You can place multiple lenses on a gemspark block to fire beams in different directions.
Shining a beam through a glass block will send a beam out of any lenses connected to it.
Black lens would have the same use as normal lenses, except it inverts the color of the beam. This produces a beam with a darker center.
Torches will change the color of the beam that passes over them.
Beams are continuous, but you can shorten them with an actuator that has NO block placed with it. The third example is how the beam would actually appear, with the first example being just a preview, it would be much longer. (might need a new item for this effect)
Beams that hit lenses placed on walls will produce a glowing circle. If something is wired up to this lens, it will activate something when it is made to glow. What's great about this function is it lets players send a signal across a large portion of the world, so no tedious wiring! You'd just need no blocks in the way, unless they are glass-type and/or actuated.
You can mix beam colors by crossing them over. You can make some existing beam colors, or some new ones, like dark colors with the onyx gemspark.
When placing lenses together, they will connect and form a larger beam. You can hammer them to split them apart for smaller beams. Connecting lenses can be used for decoration, like TV screens.
When a beam passes over a crystal shard, it becomes a power crystal. The color depends on the beam, not the crystal color. The second example shows pink, blue, and purple power crystals. Power crystals will shine short beams of light all over your room, and can be powered off via wiring.
I think these light beams would be a lot of fun to play with. You could have rooms full of multi-colored lights beaming in all sorts of directions! Disco rooms! You could make different figures with actuators and wiring and all sorts of stuff.
That's it! What do you think?
