Sky lands pack concept

[Dr_Teath]

Hi all, I’m back with another travesty to impose upon the world.
Blue Systems is sitting in a fairly good place at the moment. It is feeling right and most of the changes I am making are fairly minor bug fixes and conflict resolutions.

I have two other ideas for packs I’ve been throwing around for a while. One is a very bare bones concept and the other is developed enough to start the process of prototyping. So I thought I would put the more developed idea out there for people to critique and generally rip to bits.

Basic concept;

• The over-world is generated as a ‘sky lands’ world type. The world generates as large flying island of various biomes with void beneath.
• This is a techno-magical pack with any purely tech mods cross integrated in to magic mods.
• The pack will be built on a foundation of embers rekindled.
• The pack starts out low-tech, with kilns, simple tools, and research tables. Eventually finishing with techno-magical nuclear power and matter-energy systems.
• Late game resource procession will require significant effort. High tech materials will be required to be separated from natural alloys or aggregate materials.
• Traditional methods of resource generation such ex nihilo and sky resources will not be included. Resource collection will be customised and gated.
• Davincis Vessels or other ‘vehicle’ mods will be use for transport. Teleportation will be limited or require end game tech.
• Where possible, I want to encourage people to have bases in the nether and the end. In order to do this, some mid and late game recipes will require rare regents derived from plants and mobs that can only be farmed in those dimensions.
• I hope to include things like quests and lore in the pack, but these features require a significant time investment to perfect. They may be a pipe dream.

Lore concept;
Long ago, our world was filled with lush forests, verdant planes, lake and oceans brimming with life. When gods fight, mortals suffer. Such was the power and fury of their war, that ground beneath our feet gave way.
And so we are left with this. The world is shattered, our people scattered to the winds. But we are strong, we will survive.





As of right now, the ‘prototype concept’ pack contain 268 active mods jar files, which forge reads as being 304 mods. This is will change as things are developed, tweaked and balanced.

Feel free to throw ideas, suggestions and criticisms at me. So, tell me what you think.
P.S Dear Ele, currently tcon is in the pack and space mods are NOT in the pack.

 

[Microjet]

hey Teath, Love the idea of a magic-tech based sky islands/lands pack, (especially after suffering stoneblocks claustrophobia lol)
I have maybe two things to add though, Won't having bases in the end conflict with lolnet's usual methods to reset those dimensions?

To go along with the very limited teleportation, would you also recommend disabling the TPA and RTP commands? I was a huge fan of the old archimedes ships mod in spite of all the problems it caused, very interested to see what's available now. and with a map like you've pictured above I feel like traveling through it will be much more fun than your average overworld.

 

[anarki99nz]

Looks like a really interesting idea to me. Im not usually a fan of skyblocks but sky islands reminds me a lot of the Aether, which I always liked. The only thing that bugs me is the use of Embers, but thats just me

 

[dezil_nz]

Did you say steam punk?

 

[Dr_Teath]

I do wish there was a good steam punk mod out there.
I'd love to be able to build a working Newcomen steam engine in minecraft.

 

[Reverse_Cocoa]

Would love to try embers, that mod looks so beautiful.

 

[mikhaila666]

Sounds like a neat concept.
-Vanilla nether portal mechanics might be a pain. You will want each person's starting point to be far enough away from each other that the portals don't link, or code something so they don't. Never fun to come back from the nether in someone else's base and be stuck. Or, allow TP back to base with long cool down and a minute warmup.
-Disable TPA. Now people really need those routes through the nether and end, or a skyship.

This pack could be great just for the building opportunities with that type of landscape. I'd certainly come back and play it.

 

[dezil_nz]

could use the mod that is in PO3 that when you fall in the void in the overworld you end up in the nether

 

[mikhaila666]

That would work. Get to the nether by jumping, get back by /home, with possibly a cool-down or warm-up or both. No need for nether portals at that point.

 

[Dr_Teath]

I am all for getting rid of /tpa /god and /fly but I’d suggest you have a look in on Blue Systems so see how that feels in terms of game play.

I prefer the ‘NetherPortalFix’ solution that gets rid of the vanilla subspace bubble effect, but still requires you to build a portal. I quite like gating nether access the vanilla way, especially because my nether is harsher than vanilla.

Disclaimer; all of this is still theoretical, none of the progression has been implemented yet and it still open to discussion.

Pack status!
Right now I’m still in the concept and prototyping phase, but I have resolved the world generator hanging issue I was having. I’m fairly happy with the mod list at the moment, but that is always subject to change. Right now, the pack only contain the vanilla dimensions and I do not plan to add any. My progression concept is broken in to loose tiers, divided by a research driven, game stages system and supplemented with efab for complex items. Late game materials will of course require access to the correct tech to process. For a techno-magical pack, it feels rather light on for magic. I intend to combat this by weaving items from magical mods in to the tech mods at most levels.

My biggest disclaimer at the moment is that the tiers could very well change as I dig deeper in to the pack. I am excited about the prospect of messing with modular machinery and I may end up scattering its machines throughout the packs progression line. This is just a rough draft and has been changing frequently, but it is a good starting point.

Tier 1
Embers
Roots
Research Table

Tier 2
Tinkers’ construct
Factory Tech
Davinci’s Vessels

Tier 3
Immersive engineering
Efab

Tier 4
Pneumaticraft: repressurized
Modular machinery

Tier 5
Actually additions
PSI

Tier 6
Blood magic
Nuclearcraft

Tier 7
Cyberware
Sync
Xnet

Tier 8
Applied energistics
Ender IO
Genetics reborn

So, tell me what you think.

 

[dezil_nz]

@Dr_Teath you are talking to the god of hard packs

 

[Dr_Teath]

@dezil_nz That's all well and good but what do you think of the proposed progression line.
I know you made blood n' bone your bitch, but that's not really relevant here

 

[dezil_nz]

oh i was talking about @mikhaila666 i was just his side kick in all our adventures

 

[mikhaila666]

I got accused by a few people of "sucking all the fun out of packs". (Ironic, since Dez and I were putting in hundreds of hours to make the packs, and sucking the fun out our lives in the process. Kudos for working on packs, i know how hard that is. ) Generally I try to find all the loopholes people look forward to exploiting and try to close those doors. I like a hard pack to stay that way as you progress. Dez and I had great fun with some packs like BnB and a couple of others. You always hit a point though where some sort of tech made you invulnerable or you could get unlimited resources. The worst part was that mean't one person could then "share" with new players. I always felt that simply stole the experience of playing the hard pack for themselves.

In a pack with terrain like this, airships would rock.. and being able to /fly would just ruin things.

 

[mikhaila666]

Based on one of your pictures, one thing I'd suggest turning off is the damn AE meteors. Because of the way they spawn, many of the islands will get hit with them, ruining the landscape. Instead, put in recipes for the ingredients needed to make them. No reason to destroy so much landscape for a mod that you won't even get to until endgame.

 

[Dr_Teath]

You would be surprised how few of them generate.
But I take your point. I will pull them out of the generator.