Suggestion: Luminator ideas

As far as I know, the light level (and thus range) is hard-coded into the Minecraft engine.
Also, it is my understanding that light level and range acannot be independent of one another. Light level decays one point per block from the source - so an item that has a light level of 15 will always emit level 8 in a square that is 7 blocks away from the source, providing there are no obstructions or other sources.

So I'm not sure what could be done, but I do agree that Luminators should have some reason to be preferred over the other sources - and that currently, they really do not, aside from their snappy appearance.

Quote from Plystire

So after using luminators in a few different ways, here's some suggestions I have for them.

1) Make them charge faster by hand... either flat out faster, or faster based on the energy device used (battery slowest, lapotron fastest)
2) Make their charge last longer (not consume more energy, just make the energy last longer), as I think they should be less of a maintenance deal.
3) Is it possible to increase their light range? As it stands now, there is not much incentive to use these over the other light sources like glowstone, or jackolanterns, or RP2 lights. I think the reward for using a power-consuming light source would be more light from a single block. I think if the luminator was capable of putting out a light level of 18 (effectively 15 for 3 blocks), it would make more sense to be putting our precious power into these things.

Here's hoping!

-Faster by hand I want.
-Not consume more energy, but make energy last longer. The 'but' makes that extremely confusing. You want the energy to last for a longer time, via using less energy, right?
-Yep, Impossible to increase range without baseclass modification (well, almost). Ofc, if he added back microwave lights, to roast zombies, I suppose that would be nice, although a teslacoil already does that job well enough.

(I wonder if it would be possible to make luminators project an *air-like* block that you can walk through, but gives off 15 light. specifically, project one of them in all six directions, skipping one block, which must be air or a transparent block, as a hackish method of extending the light)

Quote

(I wonder if it would be possible to make luminators project an *air-like* block that you can walk through, but gives off 15 light. specifically, project one of them in all six directions, skipping one block, which must be air or a transparent block, as a hackish method of extending the light)

That's... a pretty brilliant idea! Quick! Someone phone alba if this would be practical to code!

Quote from Plystire

Where did I say "but"? You're the only one that said "but". I think the way I worded my sentence was rather clear.

The jist of my suggestions is: Luminators are a shoddy, high maintenance version of glowstone. They either need perks (other than aesthetics) or they have no good purpose IMO.

I suppose That means I just screwed up reading it. Never mind, no contrediction.

As for the Air blocks, that is unfortunate, but not extremely surprising.

Quote from Ranakastrasz

(I wonder if it would be possible to make luminators project an *air-like* block that you can walk through, but gives off 15 light. specifically, project one of them in all six directions, skipping one block, which must be air or a transparent block, as a hackish method of extending the light)

Damn, you beat me to it!

Quote from Alblaka

Pseudo-Air blocks are a bad idea. Minecrafts code isnt meant to handle anything but ID 0 as air.

What about reeds, flowers, saplings, tall grass etc etc... Torches? You can walk through them.
Wouldn't it be possible to make a light emitting block that is removed when the luminator is removed.
That is added once where there is air blocks to replace.
That has no texture and cannot be removed by clicking on it and IS removed by placing a block over it.

Sure, if possible and you accidentally place a block over it you get weird results. Maybe make the luminator re-create these light blocks every once in a while if there is room for them?
If it is impossible without altering the base classes then bug Eloraam about it so she can add it to Forge. Eloraam is already going to mess with the lighting engine to make her sub blocks block light which they don't do currently.

Personally, and not just to bug Albabla, I'd suggest a default off config option that makes normal torches burn out after a while (mod for that somewhere, but I think it's vastly outdated), make glowstone emit significantly less light (par/just about RS torch?), and config on Illluminator storage (personal preference, I want to be able to experience a power outage when there is a power outage).
Yay for immersion when my MFSU explodes and I have only a wimpy later going to possibly be added in flashlight to guide my path.

Quote from iceball3

Personally, and not just to bug Albabla, I'd suggest a default off config option that makes normal torches burn out after a while (mod for that somewhere, but I think it's vastly outdated), make glowstone emit significantly less light (par/just about RS torch?), and config on Illluminator storage (personal preference, I want to be able to experience a power outage when there is a power outage).
Yay for immersion when my MFSU explodes and I have only a wimpy later going to possibly be added in flashlight to guide my path.

Yes, if torches would be a finite light source this would be awesome. You can make torches from trees anyways and with all these mods people are using (IC2, RP2, BC, Forestry etc) making a tree farm is very much possible.
Heck, it's even possible to make a semi automated tree farm in vanilla MC. (Pistons pushing newly grown tree trunks into large rows of just logs to cut with the chainsaw or even spend dynamite sticks on!)

However, reducing light emitted from lightstone any anything else doesn't make much sense to me. I would much rather have a block that makes ghost lights around it to increase it's lighting area.
It's not like i use all that precious glowstone to light my factories or mine shafts anyways... That would be a LOT of trips to the nether or so much energy spent in mass fabs to make them that i might as well use TMI...

Or if Luminators where easier to wire up over long distances with cheap wire that doesn't melt then we wouldn't need any other fix. (apart from finite torches)

I'm highly in favor of having torches either give off far less light or to have them burn out so that they luminators get some more love.

I checked out Quorg's Torch burn out mod which is very well designed, but the SMP version is for 1.0.0 only. 1.8.1 SSP only.

Quote from Lap

I'm highly in favor of having torches either give off far less light or to have them burn out so that they luminators get some more love.

I checked out Quorg's Torch burn out mod which is very well designed, but the SMP version is for 1.0.0 only. 1.8.1 SSP only.

Eh? All i find from him is 1.0.0 versions. Both SSP and SMP.

You would have to ask him for the SSP version for 1.8.1. He lists it in his changelog, but he only keeps up the download link for his latest version.

Don't want to make a new thread...

Please allow changing luminator EU storage from the config, because right now switches are useless.

Quote from koi

Don't want to make a new thread...

Please allow changing luminator EU storage from the config, because right now switches are useless.

How about making them store the 10k energy, but only will accept 100 EUs from a cable, any more and it says no!

That way, Battery charging works to make it long lasting, but EU (throttled via a light detector block most likely) would tell it to stop recieving power, and hence allow the lights to go off during the day.

Quote from Ranakastrasz

How about making them store the 10k energy, but only will accept 100 EUs from a cable, any more and it says no!
That way, Battery charging works to make it long lasting, but EU (throttled via a light detector block most likely) would tell it to stop recieving power, and hence allow the lights to go off during the day.

Honestly, I can't understand why they should be able to store energy without batteries. GUI with a battery slot should be appropriate.

Quote from koi

Honestly, I can't understand why they should be able to store energy without batteries. GUI with a battery slot should be appropriate.

Actually never thought of that before, that would be a great solution. Now only to fix the flickering from being powered by 1 EU packets.

Quote from Cadde

Actually never thought of that before, that would be a great solution. Now only to fix the flickering from being powered by 1 EU packets.

Which one would be a good solution?

As for the ability to store energy with batteries, I think that is interesting, and would certainly be far easier to use (especially if it accepted energy crystals)
As long as it does not allow wires to charge the battery or crystal beyond 100 EU's (or similar, something relatively short duration, which this is a mere seconds worth of power) , and requires manual charging beyond that point. (switch cable -> cut power -> lights go out within one second rather than one day)

My understanding of the suggestion is that Luminators would have three operating modes:

1) No internal battery - A small (maybe 32 eU) internal reserve topped off when it hits 2eU (this would make it turn off anywhere from 12 seconds to 136 seconds after the switch is flipped). (Reason: Energy on copper/from batbox/transformer is sent in 32 eU/t packets)
2) Internal battery (without external power) - Same behavior as now when run without external power; you may swap battery with the above small grace period (very fast charging).
3) Internal battery (with external power) - Charges the battery first, can double as a trickle charger for batteries/hand-tools/batpacks.

Quote from Ranakastrasz

Which one would be a good solution?

As for the ability to store energy with batteries, I think that is interesting, and would certainly be far easier to use (especially if it accepted energy crystals)
As long as it does not allow wires to charge the battery or crystal beyond 100 EU's (or similar, something relatively short duration, which this is a mere seconds worth of power) , and requires manual charging beyond that point. (switch cable -> cut power -> lights go out within one second rather than one day)

Obviously the battery one or i would have quoted you only.