Summary: Tower Defense like game where players defend a pathway using redstone devices and themselves. How It Works: -A Start path and end path would be set by the player. -The Mobs would spawn at the start path and attempt to take the shortest path to the end path. -Mobs would have a special AI that would prevent them from mindlessly running into a wall and getting nowhere. -If a mob detects that they cannot proceed down the path they will simply destroy blocks ahead of them until they can proceed. Or some kind of way to detect that if the start path is gonna be blocked off from the end path it will prevent the player from placing the block in the way. Mobs would ignore players (unless directly attacked by a player) and would focus on solely on getting to the end path. -Mobs will spawned by plugin will not burn by sunlight. -Waves would have a seperate config file where the player can set up how many waves, whats sent for the wave, how much health each mob in that wave to start with, what potion buffs they have when spawned, and of course how many of each mob would be sent during that wave. -Waves can have more than 1 type of mob spawn if wanted. -Mobs could either be spawned in a "lump" or in a "stream" style. -To start a wave, a button would of been set by the maker of the map that when pressed would start the wave. -This plugin would also have its own economy and shops, as killing mobs would give the player money to buy more redstone stuff, armor, weapons and so on. -Players would also get bonus cash for letting no mobs get to the end in that wave. -For lives, a region would be made so that, any block within the region would be considered a life, and whenever a mob gets to the end a life (block) would be removed. Information in this region would be saved so that when the players lose, the lives would be reset. -Obviously the playfield would be inside a region. Players not in the game would not be able to enter the region, and players in the game would not be able to leave. -If a player is in the game and tries to leave the playfield (without using the command) they simply would be teleported back to the player spawn point inside the game. -The play field information would be saved so as a game is finished the play field would reset itself to its original form so another game could be played whenever. -In a config file we would be able to set what every player would start with as well. -After a wave is finished the game would then announce the basic information on the next wave. -Shops would be set up on signs in a similar way like the Chest Shop plugin. My Ideas for commands and what they do. /TD Set Path, allows the maker to define the start and end paths. /TD Set Playfield, allows maker to define the games playfield. /TD Set Button, allows maker to set a specific button as the "start wave" button. /TD Set Lives, allows player to set region were the lives would be located. /TD Set Lobby, Defines spawn area where players gather before starting the game. /TD Ready, players in the lobby would type this to ready up, the game will not be start-able till everyone playing has readied up. Well this is all I can think of right now, if you have questions feel free to ask. I will be sure to add more details if any more ideas come up. If your one of the greedy plugin developers I guess I can pay $20 at most. Nobody must of seen this :/ EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
You're not going to get a plugin dev to make something this complicated for less than $50, unless they're really generous. Beyond that, do you have any idea how difficult it is to make a path-finding AI? The best bet would be to use default Minecraft path-finding, but that means you'd be limited to zombies and creepers.
Sorry if Im not made of money. Plus why wouldnt a developer not want to make this? It would show his/her skills and if it becomes popular (Which im sure it will) he/she will be more noticed and probably be hired by others which means that he would still be making money. Besides that what good developer would walk away from a good challenge?
The issue lies in the fact that this is more than a challenge, this would require extensive knowledge of pathfinding AI algorithms--something that is not an easy concept to grasp for most people. Additionally, without any client mod, you'd essentially have 2 options: 1) Teleport the mob on set intervals, effectively overwriting their own moving system (horrendous and difficult to code) or 2) Use a LOT of reflection to inject your own AI changes into the server itself--again, this is horrendous and difficult to code. It's a great idea, but it's hardly feasible for 99% of the developers on Bukkit, myself included. That being said, there is always the off chance that one of the more exceptional developers may take a liking to your idea--but you need to be patient and wait for that moment to come along, if ever.
It could be possible to bypass the navigation issue, and considering a 2-D Pathfinding, there are enough libraries that implement a simple a* pathfinding which would be all needed to put this into practice, or? Also with a little bit of simplification you could remove the need for extensive pathfinding entirely, I'd think. So, in conclusion, I would rather say, it requires an extensive amount of work, instead of an extensive amount of knowledge. It's a really good idea, btw. EDIT: I think I could do it, but looking at the views of this thread I don't see a popular demand that would justify that much work. Well, decided to do it after all. I think I'll have a working beta ready next weekend But: I'll do it with a fixed maze. EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
Cool. The maze will need to be pretty big as of course redstone circuits will be involved and those tend to be bulky as hell! Also may I suggest having at least 3 maze sizes? 1 for 2 players, 1 for 3 players and 1 for 4 players? Also you mentioned that this plugin doesnt look to be grabbing and demand, but im sure if you can get it to work it could be pretty popular. Im just lucky enough to never be noticed :/
There will be as many maze sizes as you want to You will be able to bulild one, select it, it will compute if there is a path from start to end, and play it But as I said, it will take a lot of time until every feature will be included
Thats all well and good. I can definitely wait. This plugin would definitely be a change from the Mob arenas, pvp arenas and so forth. Also what about shops? would we make the shopping region or will that come pre-configed as well? Or will the location be pre-made but still allow us to make the shop signs?
One thing after another^^ I havent put thought into that, and I won't do until I get the BasicStuff finished
I just finished the basic pathfinding AI for the mobs. It's even simpler than I thought it to be. IdealIdeas Would you be open to do a bit of the text work, if I open up the project on bukkitdev?
Text work? What kind of text work do you mean? Im up for anything. But dont expect me to respond fast over the weekdays as I have a 2nd shift job.
