Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-27130828-20160310172552

One of the great things about minecraft is the sandbox gameplay. This allows great variation and creativity. The same should be applied to building ships. These are a planned feature and will be implemented, the following are just suggestions on how this might be done. I also accidentally posted an unfinished version without logging in, ignore that one.

1.) The ships in the mod could be modeled after the Archimides ships mod with some changes.This mod allows the player to build a ship and then attach a ships wheel to define the entity. This mod also allows players to ride as passengers and NPCs and animals to ride using wooden crates. When the ship is assembled with the ships wheel, it is no longer a solid block and can move through the water.

2.) The changes

a.) The size limit is currently 2000 blocks or so in the Archimedes ship mod. However, This doesn't allow the creation of large galleys, especially with multiple sails. This limit could be upped to at least 5000 and even up to 10,000. This would allow the creation of very large ships.

b.) Weight distribution. Currently in the Archimedes ships mod, if you make a large hollow ship, the ship rises a long way out of the water. While this is somewhat realistic, because it provides the need for ballast, however the bouyancy should be reduced. The possibility of a ship sinking if it is too heavy should be kept.

c.) The Archimedes ship mod allows a player to slap the ships wheel on anything made out of wood and sail off. This isn't realistic.

     i.) When using a captains wheel, sail blocks should be placed on the ship in order to provide movement. The sail blocks  could be made by placing wool in a 4x4 grid. The output would be 4 sail blocks. The sails could be dyed by crafting them  with dyed wool. The ship would register a sail if more than 8 (this number can be changed) blocks were placed adjacent to each other (adjacent could also mean with only an edge touching). The amount of sail blocks would be proportional to the number of non-sail blocks in the ship, as well as the  weight of these blocks. The more blocks and the heavier the blocks, the more sail needed, i.e. if a ship's hull was 500  blocks, 100 sail blocks would be needed, or if the ship was 500 blocks and 20 of those blocks were stone 110 sail blocks would be needed. The exact numbers can be changed as needed. Another feature could be that the more sail added to ship makes it go faster up to a certain point, i.e. if a ship is 500 blocks 100 sail blocks would be the minimum required to move and for every 20 blocks added the ship would go a certain increment faster. This would continue until a certain cap off point,like 180 sail blocks, after which the ship would not go any faster.

ii.) A second option other than using a ships wheel could be using a long oar, like a sculling oar. This method could be used on small boats, rafts, and barges, instead of sails. The crafting pattern could be made using an iron ingot, a wooden shovel, a stick, and a piece of leather in this pattern (O's are empty spaces)

O   stick  O

O iron  shovel

O leather O

This oar could be attached to the back of the ship and used to steer and propel the craft, similar to the ships wheel. A ship with this attached should be no more than 50 or 60 blocks, with more blocks equaling less speed. (Unless crewmen are implemented, this will come later in this post)

d.)Not only could players build ships, but they could be implemented into the mod. A good example is the corsairs of Umbar. If a village is by the sea it could have docks with two or three ships by them. These ships could be taken by any player, but are heavily gaurded. The same could be implemented with the elves of Lindon, Gondor, and Dol Amroth. The exact design of the ship is up to the mod creator.

e.)  Miscellanious (More advanced and less important) These suggestions would be hard to implement and may even be impossible. [I'm not a coder : )]   Use them as you see fit.

i.) Crew members. Members of a faction that can help with the ship. Crew members could help row with sculling oars if commanded to.    This could be done using a gui like othe hired units.  Sculling oars could also be set to either the steering oar or a locomotion oar. When commanded the unit takes the nearest locomotion oar. In multiplayer, players could also man the locomotion oars. The addtion of crew members would mean larger and faster rowing boats could be made. Crew members could help sailing ships by allowing the ship to maneuver better and go slightly faster, as if they were trimming the sails. Crew stations could be made that were similar to wooden crates. When commanded the Crew members would take the nearest station.

 ii.) Viking Ships and Triremes. With the addition of crew members and rowing oars, ships like triremes and viking ships could be made. This would allow for greater variation in ship design. These ships have both sails and oars. The addition of oars would increase the speed of the ship even past the max speed set by the sail blocks. An equivelent could be that for a 500 block ship 6 crew members are the equivelent of 20 sail blocks up to 12 crew members. So where the max was 180 sail blocks, the ship now moves as if it has 220 sail blocks.

<p style="font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:26px;margin-bottom:0px!important;"> iii.) Weopons and ship damage. While in Middle Earth cannons would not be implemented, ballistae and even small catapults(on a very large ship) could be put on a ship. These are part of the siege weapons, another feature that will be implemented. Crew members could be stationed at thes weapons and fire them at enemies within range. This also leads to ship health. A direct hit to land or from a catapult could "damage" the ship causing it to dissassemble as an entity and become blocks again, with a hole in the side. This would mean that if the captain tried to assemble the ship it would sink. The catapult could be on another ship or on land. In the case of a medieval ship battle, seige weapons would have been rarely used to sink a ship. Instead, the ship would have been boarded. This could be done by having Crew members called Boarders use grappling hooks to connect to a ship that is in close proximity. Once connected the grappling hooks draw the ships close to each other, when they are within 2 blocks both ships become solid entities and can be boarded.

<p style="font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:26px;margin-bottom:0px!important;"> Thanks for reading, let me know what you think. : )

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