Colored Turtles/Computers

Can we dye the turtles/computers in the future? Just nice for aesthetics and being able to identify when you have multiple turtles/computers in inventory or in one area.

Normal dye colors would work, and its just a texture change.

This would be simpler to remember which turtle is which if you have alot of 'em…

Nah, I don't like it.

Cranium, on 18 January 2013 - 12:27 PM said:

Nah, I don't like it.

Ditto.

I think it would clutter up the CC tab in creative waaay too much… there are already too many disks, imagine 8 turtles for every possible peripheral & tool combination :mellow:/> I thought OCS would be a problem but wow

sorry to shoot you down but I really think we have enough CC items at the moment without x8 or however many colors of dye there are

KaoS, on 18 January 2013 - 01:05 PM said:

sorry to shoot you down but I really think we have enough CC items at the moment without x8 or however many colors of dye there are

I agree!

Lets do the math… 16 colours of dyes… -1 because of light grey… now just sticking with Vanilla Turtles, not any added by peripherals, that is 19 turtles… so 15 * 19 means there would be 285 turtles… 285 turtles / max number of metadata gives us 285/16 = 17.8… so thats 18 block ids being consumed just by turtles… now lets add in computers thats a further 2 block ids, 16 for normal, 16 for advanced… so that means in just computers and turtles thats 20 block ids taken up by CC…. last issue… how do you then tell a dyed Adv computer from a dyed normal computer without opening the GUI?

Yeah…already using the metadata for different (and more pertinent) stuff. I don't hate the idea of being able to tell turtles apart visually, but I'm not eager to lose modems and tools for it.

Yeah, we wouldn't do anything stupid like list them all in the creative inventory. It is our choice what to list there…

Cloudy, on 18 January 2013 - 02:27 PM said:

Yeah, we wouldn't do anything stupid like list them all in the creative inventory. It is our choice what to list there…

Its a lot of consumed block ids just to add colours though.

And you wouldn't use metadata, damn!
You already have NBT at your disposal. You would just NBT them with a color tag. Then do a two pass render, one with the normal texture, and another decal texture with the glColor adjusted to the color of the turtle.

No extra ID's consumed, no metadata used…

I personally like the idea.

Edit: No TheOriginalBit You wouldn't have to use any block ID's at all

Edit2: I think for the computers you could just give them a band around the left right and back face. Like a pinstripe.

As for the turtles, maybe a bit cooler decal, but yeah not too difficult.

Cloudy, on 18 January 2013 - 02:27 PM said:

Yeah, we wouldn't do anything stupid like list them all in the creative inventory. It is our choice what to list there…

I am not a modder, my opinion is of little import here as I do know know nearly as much as I should (this is clearly shown by my repeated miscalculations), I have no clue what NBT is, I would not dream of telling you what to do with your mod but I can say that I disagree with this direction. this may motivate you to move in that direction but that is your decision and I just want to make my opinion known

what appeals to me in CC is:
1: it is coding related, I like coding
2: it is compact and still does what it needs to
3: the possibilities with this mod are endless

I feel that this suggestion compromises point 2

I thought that the colored disks were not necessary and I stick to that opinion with computers and turtles. to my mind they are not necessary and do not enhance the functionality of the mod. to add items to a mod that are not explicitly necessary is to risk becoming in some ways similar to Inficraft. When I first started playing I loved how everything most industrial mods could do was accomplished with so few items, the number of items grew but mostly they added incredible new coding possibilities like mouse functionality and automated crafting. thereafter I was confused as to why we would need a turtle equipped with a spade when a mining turtle fulfilled that role too, axes were also a confusion to me, colored disks were implemented when they did not change how a disk behaved in any way, turtles were given fuel limitations because they were too powerful and at the same time an additional 7 slots to put items in.

perhaps I have a different vision than you do and that would be my problem I guess but I urge you to focus on functionality when improving your mod, when anyone picks up a new mod they load it in with NEI and take a look at how it works, I hope they will not be assaulted by a long list of items that do the same thing but have "another decal texture" as I want this mod to spread as far and wide as it can.

I am not particularly eloquent when it comes to explaining myself. I know I can't hold a candle to nitrofingers and I hope it doesn't seem like I am attacking the approach you have taken. I just hope you can see my point of view here: do we really need 285 different types of turtles?

Weeellll…I do see value in having the ability to mark turtles visually, both aesthetically and functionally. I'm just not in love with the idea enough to derail the pursuit of other decided improvements (towards the issue of tool function, durability implementation is an example). If it's easy enough, I'm okay with it.

why dont you use the tile entity of pc to remeber the color. and when u shift right click with dye. you change it

wilcomega, on 18 January 2013 - 09:27 PM said:

why dont you use the tile entity of pc to remeber the color.

Thats NBT…

TheOriginalBIT, on 18 January 2013 - 09:35 PM said:

wilcomega, on 18 January 2013 - 09:27 PM said:

why dont you use the tile entity of pc to remeber the color.

Thats NBT…

NBT is on disk. Tile entities are in memory. Except for items where NBT is both.

Also, I support this suggestion.

I still don't see the use to this.

Dlcruz129, on 19 January 2013 - 04:01 AM said:

I still don't see the use to this.

You probably didn't see the use to colored floppies either, yet here they are. Same with printers, a lot of people tried to shoot that down with the same reason. So stop using that pathetic excuse for a reason to shoot down a suggestion. I think colored computers and turtles is a good idea, and a natural progression of colored floppies. Not very high on the priority list, but not a bad idea either. But then we'd probably need a different way to identify advanced computers… Hmm…

D3matt, on 19 January 2013 - 08:23 AM said:

Dlcruz129, on 19 January 2013 - 04:01 AM said:

I still don't see the use to this.

You probably didn't see the use to colored floppies either, yet here they are. Same with printers, a lot of people tried to shoot that down with the same reason. So stop using that pathetic excuse for a reason to shoot down a suggestion. I think colored computers and turtles is a good idea, and a natural progression of colored floppies. Not very high on the priority list, but not a bad idea either. But then we'd probably need a different way to identify advanced computers… Hmm…

Don't advanced computers have a green > on their front?

Nope.

Cloudy, on 20 January 2013 - 02:05 AM said:

Nope.

BEST POST EWAAAAA!! :P/>
No but seriously, Is this something you think are going to happen?

Dunno, maybe. It seems interesting, not too difficult to do. I doubt computers will be colourable, but I like the sound of turtles being colourable.

Maybe just have different shades? I imagine the coloured turtles looking a bit odd. But, I wouldn't mind them. It's not like we would be forced to use them. So why not? Apart from the whole "Block id's" thing.

Zoinky, on 22 January 2013 - 08:08 PM said:

Maybe just have different shades? I imagine the coloured turtles looking a bit odd. But, I wouldn't mind them. It's not like we would be forced to use them. So why not? Apart from the whole "Block id's" thing.

You wouldn't color the whole turtle/computer. That's silly.
Just decal it.

Secondly, There would be no extra block ids as it would be stored in NBT a long with where I assume the ID is stored, or the name. 'Less it's looked up each time the server needs to know the name of a computer or turtle, I doubt that is the case though.

And yes, You wouldn't be required to color your turtles, but it's a nice option. I'd love to have a red decal on all my attacking turtles, blue on my inventory turtles, green on my farming etc.

NeverCast, on 22 January 2013 - 08:13 PM said:

You wouldn't color the whole turtle/computer. That's silly.
Just decal it.

Secondly, There would be no extra block ids as it would be stored in NBT a long with where I assume the ID is stored, or the name. 'Less it's looked up each time the server needs to know the name of a computer or turtle, I doubt that is the case though.

And yes, You wouldn't be required to color your turtles, but it's a nice option. I'd love to have a red decal on all my attacking turtles, blue on my inventory turtles, green on my farming etc.

Oh, that sounds great. Changed my mind, would love this feature :D/>

Zoinky, Both in New Zealand and both with 98 posts! :o/> ( 99 now )
Clone! >:D/>

i agree this would be neat. i do agree with the following points:

• being able to color your turtles is like coloring floppy disks, it has no true use other than sorting and organization.
• colored turtles are easier to identify, having multiple turtles working in a small area would warrant a little bit of clarity/organization and colored turtles would help with that.
• colored turtles would be more useful than colored disks.

but then again i'm just a nooooob :P/>

Turtle swarm debugging maybe?

If this would be added it would also be very nice if a turtle would have an API call to retrieve it's own 'color'. That way it's easier to write a single turtle program with different paths depending what color the turtle has. For example: you could have a stripmining program that would have different turtles work on different heights simply bases on their color.

ok even I must admit that would have its uses. good idea Hydra :)/>

Hydra, on 07 February 2013 - 02:48 AM said:

If this would be added it would also be very nice if a turtle would have an API call to retrieve it's own 'color'. That way it's easier to write a single turtle program with different paths depending what color the turtle has. For example: you could have a stripmining program that would have different turtles work on different heights simply bases on their color.

While adding the API to get the color would be a good idea if this was implemented, I don't see how using that would really simplify the code for something like that. We already have the turtle ID which could be used in a similar manner.

I view this turtle color concept as a visual aid for the player, and not something that really adds any value on the coding side. For example if you have some turtles working together while performing different functions, then the colors would be useful to the user to be able to distinguish what each turtles task is.

On the other hand, if the API included the ability for a turtle to change it's own color, you could use that to display turtle status.

The turtle id is different for every turtle. You want to have turtle 'groups' for some tasks so that different turtles (with different IDs) are within certain groups.

Let's say you have a 'farm' program for example. You could create a 'startup' program that, depending on the color of the turtle, would start different sub-programs. That way you can just have the same code on every single turtle but specialize them based on their crafted color. So if a cactus farm turtle would be green and a sugar cane turtle would be white, you could decide on startup which farming pattern to use simply based on their color.

It's just some ideas that would additional use to colored turtles other than it just being nice visually.

What if you can just a right click a turtle/computer with some dye. The color could be saved in a variable/NBT Tag this would not require any damage-values.

xuma202, on 07 February 2013 - 04:40 AM said:

What if you can just a right click a turtle/computer with some dye. The color could be saved in a variable/NBT Tag this would not require any damage-values.

all the damage values are used for peripherals so theres not much of a choice

Having an API that would allow you to change/get the turtle's color would lead to some really clever things.
Also colored turtles would make turtle chess more of a possibility. Using the tool it has to denote type of piece and color to denote team.

+1 for colored turtles.

Nobody suggesting using coloured turtles to make pixelart that can change on request?
Listen to your nerd side you know this to be true.

so why would we need an API to change it? seems like cheating, it should require dye to change. besides

1: place deployer
2: drop dye in
3: pulse redstone

like having the turtle edit its own skin?
could be cool :3

A turtle could change its color by using a dye pulled from its inventory. Leave it up to the program to determine how to get the desired dye color there.

i second this motion, and add custom colors to turtles. im all for making things organized and look good, thats what minecraft is all about lol

D3matt, on 19 January 2013 - 08:23 AM said:

Dlcruz129, on 19 January 2013 - 04:01 AM said:

I still don't see the use to this.

You probably didn't see the use to colored floppies either, yet here they are. Same with printers, a lot of people tried to shoot that down with the same reason. So stop using that pathetic excuse for a reason to shoot down a suggestion. I think colored computers and turtles is a good idea, and a natural progression of colored floppies. Not very high on the priority list, but not a bad idea either. But then we'd probably need a different way to identify advanced computers… Hmm…

Well said

Please don't dig up old topics. I'm keeping it open as I don't mind the idea too much, but please don't do it again.