Zedwork

1.9 snapshots are now coming out, so of course I have been playing with them and command blocks to see what is possible. Less focused on changing mechanics, rather tools for securing LVS or improving the experience for new players on Zurvival and LVS.

Today I had inspiration for how to guide players to a destination. On LVS we try to guide new players to the Community Farm and then the Community Warps using coloured glass in the path, but many miss the signs explaining this and don't understand what the coloured glass in the path means. So, I have created this in 15w32c:

http://gfycat.com/FaroffTastyEeve

It uses ShulkerBullets for pathfinding through an underground tunnel, with an invisible ArmorStand with a CustomeName being continuously teleported to 2 blocks above the ShulkerBullet. The ShulkerBullet is targeting an invulnerable Creeper, which it hits at the end of the video causing the ArmorStand to shoot up into the air, never to be seen again.

It's not perfect, but this is where I got to today. I thought some of you may be interested in what I get up to on the snapshots, let me know if you are and if you'd be interested in seeing more or perhaps more of the technical details

This looks very fancy, Zed! Great work!
I know you said you're not completely done with it, but I'm assuming when the armour stand floats into the air, it will be destroyed?
Been messing with command blocks more recently myself, but I don't know if I will ever be able to do stuff like that, only just started to get the hang of scoreboards. I wonder what the new "stat.sneakTime" could do...

Actually, that ArmorStand shoots up into the sky forever, climbing at 2 blocks per second. Never stopping.

I kill them occasionally with /kill

My original plan was to have it sink into the ground, it shooting up into the sky was just an accident

Couldn't you use a command block to kill it when it gets to a certain height?

Ooooh, I really like this. It'll be very interesting to see what all can be done with shulkers' projectiles. Would grief-ers be able to mess this up by digging up the ground and creating an opening for the shulker bullet to escape?

Calzah wrote:Couldn't you use a command block to kill it when it gets to a certain height?

I will probably use a command block to kill it when the ShulkerBullet dies (on impact with the target entity), I still think it would look best sinking into the ground rather than shooting off into the sky.

HOMINIX wrote:Would grief-ers be able to mess this up by digging up the ground and creating an opening for the shulker bullet to escape?

Potentially, but they don't like going in a vertical direction away from their target; if the target is below they are unlikely to go up in order to pathfinder toward them. If a griefer made a hole in the path, in the roof of the ShulkerBullet's tunnel, it would not be likely to choose to shoot up out of that hole. This is why the text stays at the same height, despite there being stairs in the path, as adding a 1 block higher tunnel in its path just lead it to turn around and try to find an alternate route. Still trying to figure that one out, if at all possible.

Earlier we were talking on the server about icons to go with the text to denote the destination, like Wheat for the farm. Calzah suggested an ender pearl for the warps. Here is how that looks:

http://gfycat.com/AccomplishedAnotherIndianhare

Great idea, can't wait to what new features you implement into LVS.

Looks awesome. Its way over my head code-wise but I think it will help the new players.

How does the new entity's work fps wise? Does it drain the fps or is it left unaffected?

Been playing with it a bit more, and have a more complete/usable version which actually removes the invisible armour stands, rather than letting them fly off into the sky to survive for an infinite time.

I now have two pathfinding holograms that go to two seperate destinations, they appear alternately and I would likely have them do so repeatedly so long as a player with less than an hour of play time is in the spawn town. Hopefully this will allow a new player to visit the farm, and upon exiting follow a passing hologram on its way to the warps, as seen below:

http://gfycat.com/TeemingClutteredHoneybadger

Forseth wrote:
How does the new entity's work fps wise? Does it drain the fps or is it left unaffected?

I haven't seen a noticeable change on my hardware, I do not know overall. Can always make the ShulkerBullets invisible to avoid clients rendering them.