570 posts
Posted 14 April 2014 - 01:29 PM
I think ComputerCraft would profit from having invisible rays that can be cast from a peripheral available as a block and turtle upgrade. I do agree that the idea does seem a little too "modern" for ComputerCraft but the idea could provide players with some interesting possibilities.
What they are and what they do:
When a ray is cast it will travel straight forward from where it was cast until it hits a block. When this occurs the computer that has cast the ray will receive an event that contains how far it has travelled until collision. To balance it a little bit, rays should take some time to cross larger distances. For example, rays could be used to calculate how much fuel is required to travel a certain distance or how deep a mine shaft is.
Here's where things get interesting:
Rays should be able to be cast from two different blocks: Ray casters and cameras. While a ray caster will only cast a single ray, cameras can be told to emit rays in a grid-wise manner.
Since cameras are hard to explain, here's a rough side-view of a camera (black block is the camera, black lines are the rays it emits, green block is just a random Minecraft block).
To make cameras more dynamic, they should be able to be told what size this "grid" of rays should be. Cameras will return a 2D table (to represent the grid) of distances rather than a single distance.
Additional suggestion:
Cameras are called cameras because with them you can create low-resolution images. However using regular colours it's very hard to make a recognisable image. So, I suggest that regular computers should support different shades of grey instead of just black and white. It would also make them used more often in creative mode.
What they are and what they do:
When a ray is cast it will travel straight forward from where it was cast until it hits a block. When this occurs the computer that has cast the ray will receive an event that contains how far it has travelled until collision. To balance it a little bit, rays should take some time to cross larger distances. For example, rays could be used to calculate how much fuel is required to travel a certain distance or how deep a mine shaft is.
Here's where things get interesting:
Rays should be able to be cast from two different blocks: Ray casters and cameras. While a ray caster will only cast a single ray, cameras can be told to emit rays in a grid-wise manner.
Since cameras are hard to explain, here's a rough side-view of a camera (black block is the camera, black lines are the rays it emits, green block is just a random Minecraft block).
To make cameras more dynamic, they should be able to be told what size this "grid" of rays should be. Cameras will return a 2D table (to represent the grid) of distances rather than a single distance.
Additional suggestion:
Cameras are called cameras because with them you can create low-resolution images. However using regular colours it's very hard to make a recognisable image. So, I suggest that regular computers should support different shades of grey instead of just black and white. It would also make them used more often in creative mode.
