[1.3] Treat chest as peripheral device

I think a lot of people want turtles to automatically drop/get resources from chests.
Although it is possible to make a new block/device for it, maybe it is a good idea that turtles treat an adjacent chest as a device itself (like a disk drive) and then handle it via the peripheral API.

Do you think it is a good idea? Or would it make turtles overpowered?

EDIT:
Now possible using this peripheral mod :mellow:/>/> :
http://www.computercraft.info/forums2/index.php?/topic/738-cc-132-mc-124-advanced-resource-processing/

I'd say that it'd be too useful for griefing then. Better to make a chest-loader, block that'd serve as a turtle-chest interface.

Liraal, on 08 March 2012 - 03:14 PM said:

I'd say that it'd be too useful for griefing then.

How do you mean exactly? I'm just curious because I'm not playing SMP much.

well, you break into a house and suck up all the chests…

Oh I see, kind of like having minions do the dirty work. Outsourcing griefing, so to speak. :mellow:/>/>
But I guess you'd have to send more than one turtle, since it only has room for 9 Stacks.
On the other hand, if the server is not using a protection mod to keep people's chests safe, then you could empty them just as well manually.

Yes, it would indeed be a problem for servers with chest protection (like LWC or lockette in bukkit). Turtles probably bypass it. But it is easy to fix with a config option, so turtles only can "store" and not "load" items from chests.

Liraal, on 08 March 2012 - 03:14 PM said:

I'd say that it'd be too useful for griefing then. Better to make a chest-loader, block that'd serve as a turtle-chest interface.

Send a turtle in, have it place a chest loader, suck up 8 stacks, take the chest loader. Lather-rinse-repeat.

well, maybe make chest-loaders not possible to place for turtles? or make the former a config option?

A better protection would be an EMP device. A block that would cause any turtles within a certain radius to shut down or just not move.
Maybe a selective protection on it, like the EMP has a frequency it emits at that you could input into a turtle to let it operate in the field normally.

But that could bite you in the ass just as well, because then you could have griefers go nuts with setting off EMPs, causing a mass turtle blackout.

Then you need extra protection against such an attack. There are many guard mods/plugins that white/blacklist the placing of blocks by block, location, and player.

TMP (turtle motive preventer)- Perhiperal block with stand alone capabilities. By itself, when given a redstone current it creates an 11x11x11 anti-turtle field centered on itself. All turtles that enter this field are stuck, any move, break, or place commands fail.
When connected to a computer, opens an API that gives on/off, range, and whitelist control. Whitelist is populated by tutle ID's that are allowed to move in the field. Range allows the X/Y/Z size of the field to be varried individually (always centered on the block).

Liraal, on 08 March 2012 - 03:14 PM said:

I'd say that it'd be too useful for griefing then. Better to make a chest-loader, block that'd serve as a turtle-chest interface.

I'm not a multi-player, so only a humble opinion:
For griefing turtle has ability to dig. Please do not make turtle blind dumb invalid vulnerable hard_to_use toy.

Im not proposing such a thing, but a chest-sucking turtle would harm every server making CC unplayable in SMP… No admin i can think f would allow it.

And chest-digging turtle will be allowed you think?
It is so easy to dig up whole building bu turtle.

wouldn't the turtle be as easily able to destroy the chest and gather the items from the ground?
I admit I never had issues with griefers playing mostly on SSP and on a private server with friends/coworkers only, but I hate when fun or useful stuff gets cut off because of the potential for misuse in some situations.
Turtles interacting with inventories would be a great buff on their usefulness (not only chests, anything with an inventory) and griefers will grief anyway in some way and with turtles able to eventually flatten the entire map drawing penises with wool on the ground, I don't think chests are the main issue there.

If turtles could bypass LWC protections, I know many servers that would simply ban them. Right now there's no way you can touch an LWC chest, what makes it grief-safe.

well, I guess then that it would need a config for the turtles where to add a list of "untouchable IDs" that they can't interact with.
Would that be enough to solve the issue?

if you ask me turtles are no more dangerous than pipes, and that's effectively what we seem to talking about turning the turtles into. I personally like the idea of using turtles as an alternative to pipes it would revolutionize automation in minecraft(it would also have lag benefits cause there isn't as many entities wizzing around). if dan200 doesn't make turtles "safe" for smp someone else will so I wouldn't worry about that.

Turtles are already griefing tools, its so easy to get them to fill an area full of holes, make them place random traps etc. turtles aren't safe to use on any server. I see no harm in adding this feature, if turtles get anti-grief protection settings then adding a setting for chest access shouldn't be a problem.

Like others have said you could easily just use buildcraft to syphon from a chest to grief.

Beside I'm not even sure that crippling mods to limit the symptom of a bigger issue (the griefer themselves) is even a good idea. It would be like making people who buy movies see antipiracy propaganda that gets cut out in the pirated ver… oh wait. :mellow:/>/>
I can think of someway to grief the hell out of everything with pretty much every addon I have installed anyway, turtles would just be able to do it by themselves ;)/>/>

ATTENTION THE FOLLOWING POST IS INTENDED AS A JOKE

griefing wise we are forgetting the most popular griefing tool of them all. the pickaxe. this tool has ravaged SMP since the beginning with it gierfers have destroyed property, looted chests, laid traps, gathered blocks for their obscene constructions, and out right killed people with them. this overpowered multipurpose griefing tool can be crafted way to easily and can help a griefer hit diamonds in just over 5minutes of play if he is lucky. people normally associate griefers with flintandsteel or tnt cause they are bright and flashy but how did the griefer get those in the first place? with a pickaxe. I propose pickaxes be more tightly regulated or out right banned. if there was no pickaxe there would be no need for obsidian houses or fire proofing and we can all finally build tree houses in peace.

passinglurker, on 08 March 2012 - 08:43 PM said:

ATTENTION THE FOLLOWING POST IS INTENDED AS A JOKE

griefing wise we are forgetting the most popular griefing tool of them all. the pickaxe. this tool has ravaged SMP since the beginning with it gierfers have destroyed property, looted chests, laid traps, gathered blocks for their obscene constructions, and out right killed people with them. this overpowered multipurpose griefing tool can be crafted way to easily and can help a griefer hit diamonds in just over 5minutes of play if he is lucky. people normally associate griefers with flintandsteel or tnt cause they are bright and flashy but how did the griefer get those in the first place? with a pickaxe. I propose pickaxes be more tightly regulated or out right banned. if there was no pickaxe there would be no need for obsidian houses an fire proofing and we can all finally build tree houses in peace.

You forget the worst greifing tool of all. Feet.
Without feet, greifers could never get around to break blocks and steal stuff.

STILL JOKING

yes we should all be made to make do with what we have where we spawn if you don't like where you are dig down(it will all be over soon)

Seriously, turtles already can bypass all the protections: dig protected blocks, get into restricted areas, place TNT and explode it everywhere they (or their owner) want. The only way to protect 'peaceful' servers against turtle-griefing is config option to disable turtles. If you simply disable all griefing functionality, turtles will become useless.
So why not add another useful 'griefing' function? At least if someone makes protection against turtle-griefing in SMP, he will also disallow them sucking protected chests of the different owner.

How about turtle stores player, who "place" it in world, and all turtle actions allowed based on that player access rule?
Also that player is the one, who has access to turtle console (or able to input keys/items).

Sebra, on 11 March 2012 - 05:23 PM said:

How about turtle stores player, who "place" it in world, and all turtle actions allowed based on that player access rule?
Also that player is the one, who has access to turtle console (or able to input keys/items).

To be fair, these issues would be for the bukkit porters to resolve. SMP Vanilla has no anti griefer stuff, so dan really should not add any method to get the player who placed it.

Currently turtles do respect world protection in the latest version of the bukkit port.

so now that that is out of the way lets get back to talking about using turtles as a compact pipe substitute.

How about making a special chest that can be programmed and also used by turtles? That way regular chests would be safe from the turtle onslaught.

so i guess the big question is would it be better to have turtles interact with vanilla minecraft inventories like the pipe mods do, or to make computercraft equivalents to crafting tables, chests, and furnaces? also keep in mind how long it would take to update either option.

just aad a config option or something that would turn this feature on/off, personally i more like that you can grief others

@passinglurker:
Many people use mods like industrialcraft, which add many new inventories. These should also be supported. So, adding new cc-specific chests and furnaces wouldn't be a good idea. All inventories would be supported when interfacing the generic vanilla inventory.

Turtles and Computers can hook up to piping systems from BC/RP2 if anyone didn't realize this yet :D/>/>

And I am working (slowly :D/>/> ) on developing a peripheral with Lua-controlled chest interface. It's still far from done, though.

Casper7526, on 16 March 2012 - 12:39 PM said:

Turtles and Computers can hook up to piping systems from BC/RP2 if anyone didn't realize this yet :D/>/>

Turtles and disk drives you mean. Computers has no inventory.

@Liraal:
how do you identify the items in the chest? You would need some representation of items in lua.

I also tried to write such a thing, it actually works quite well. It adds two blocks: one giving access to the items (as a database), and one actually interfacing a chest. It can be downloaded here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/63263434/ccadvanced.zip

Note: I'm not good in texture design. This download includes the ccterrain.png file. This is necessairy for the textures to work correctly.

@Xfel:
I don't, I simply swap slots :)/>/> Blind transfer, which fits pretty nicely with 'blind turtle' idea. Right now I have to actually make the peripheral part :D/>/>

Well, mine is a bit more aware of that, as I plan to create a programmable crafting table later, and for that I need full knowledge about the items.

no you don't you load the items into the slots and you tell the turtle which slots in the chest you are transferring ingredients from hold which items

Maybe something like a chest inside the turtle so you can put the items that are mined to the inside chest using a program and from the 'chest' to the turtle's place/dig inventory

would that be a better idea?

Xfel, on 16 March 2012 - 08:12 PM said:

Well, mine is a bit more aware of that, as I plan to create a programmable crafting table later, and for that I need full knowledge about the items.

Are you unable to help turtle to use standard crafting table? You program turtle, why to program table too?

Dirkus7, on 16 March 2012 - 08:57 PM said:

Maybe something like a chest inside the turtle so you can put the items that are mined to the inside chest using a program and from the 'chest' to the turtle's place/dig inventory

would that be a better idea?

Turtle designed to have small inventory. And that is a "chest" part.

Xfel, on 16 March 2012 - 08:00 PM said:

@Liraal:
how do you identify the items in the chest? You would need some representation of items in lua.

I also tried to write such a thing, it actually works quite well. It adds two blocks: one giving access to the items (as a database), and one actually interfacing a chest. It can be downloaded here: http://dl.dropbox.co.../ccadvanced.zip

Note: I'm not good in texture design. This download includes the ccterrain.png file. This is necessairy for the textures to work correctly.

I installed your mod, and the Block checking works fine :D/>/>
I tried some of the commands from peripheral.getMethods(), but of some I can't figure out how they work…
Anyway, it looks very promising!

Thank you.
I'm going to publish it in the peripheral library section soon. (Including a tutorial)

Espen, on 08 March 2012 - 03:34 PM said:

Oh I see, kind of like having minions do the dirty work. Outsourcing griefing, so to speak. :(/>/>
But I guess you'd have to send more than one turtle, since it only has room for 9 Stacks.
On the other hand, if the server is not using a protection mod to keep people's chests safe, then you could empty them just as well manually.

most srever protection doesnt expand to mods , for example i played a server with IC2 and redpower
and the redpower block breaker could break into the IC2 safes w/o any problems