Villager reproduction mechanics?

[Cronyx]

I'm having trouble getting my village population to go up. Has BTW changed anything about how they reproduce that I'm not aware of? I'm building additional houses that are about the same dimensions as the rest of the housing, but it isn't really effecting anything that I can tell. Thanks :)

[Rianaru]

Just work on doors. The reproduction system is based off of the number of doors within a certain radius of the villager I think. Anyways I do know that if you build tons of doors, more villagers will be born. I think it's something like 2/3 villager for ever door or something.
EDIT: anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

[FlowerChild]

Nope...the mod doesn't change that.

I had *planned* to give villagers a big overhaul, but those ideas got triaged in me moving towards wrapping BTW up.

[Cronyx]

Nope...the mod doesn't change that.

I had *planned* to give villagers a big overhaul, but those ideas got triaged in me moving towards wrapping BTW up.

I'm a little bit out of the loop, FC, sorry. Do you plan to end support for the mod?

[Ferrus.Manus]

I'm a little bit out of the loop, FC, sorry. Do you plan to end support for the mod?

No, BtW will be supported and updated to new versions of Minecraft, it simply won't receive any major new features after FC wraps it up.

[Cronyx]

it simply won't receive any major new features after FC wraps it up.

Is that when BTB comes back?

[Eriottosan]

it simply won't receive any major new features after FC wraps it up.

Is that when BTB comes back?

Is that meant to be funny, trolly, or idiotic?

[Thordan Ssoa]

Is that meant to be funny, trolly, or idiotic?

Considering how many of these BTB questions have been popping up lately, I'm thinking it's supposed to be trolly.

[SterlingRed]

What makes a door valid to cause villager reproduction is a little whacked. Rules are here: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Villa ... population

Generally, you need 3x as many doors as you have villagers. For a door to be considered valid for spawning, it must have open space (sky) within 5 blocks on one side of the door, and on the other side of the door there cannot be an equal number of roof blocks on the left and right of the door. Ie, no symmetry with doors being precisely in the center of a wall.

Each door does not need its own building. You can place as many doors as you want in the same wall as long as they meet the above conditions. One quick way to increase a village population cap is to toss more doors into the walls of the existing buildings.

[Cronyx]

Is that meant to be funny, trolly, or idiotic?

Third option: Ignorant. It's just an honest question.

All I know is a conversation in the (most recent, now locked) BTB thread on the curse minecraft forum that said something to the effect of FC now being back in charge or owning or something the mod, with a link to this forum with an "explanation" however the supposed explanation is inaccessible, linking to an area of the forum I don't have access to.

I used to have a multiplayer server up for BTB for a long while, private for me and about five friends, and we had built up our world a lot, a few huge oil refineries in the ocean, with oil distribution pipes laid under the ocean floor along side mine cart tracks, and a series of "utility/sewer tunnels" under our primary village leading out of a central distribution center where oil was processed into gasoline, as well as huge storage tanks for lava and water that we delivered to each house. Redstone, gas, lava, and mechanical power were laid in those utility tunnels along side minecart tracks. We quit playing and let the payment cycle on our server lapse when we all got into the beta for Planetside 2. Then we all got the Minecraft itch again, we wanted to get a new server host and upload our old world and pick up where we left off. BTB was no where to be found (and I don't really know what happened), so we held off on playing because we didn't want to load our world and have everything break. Last week we finally went ahead and bought a new server and just started a new map, but we're mostly dicking around, just experimenting with new features but not building anything seriously, wanting to wait till the new BTB got released. I've got the old version still downloaded *somewhere* on my hard drive, maybe even the old minecraft.jar but I'm not sure if I've got a copy of the server .jar still. We'd settle for playing the newest old version that had been released if we had to though.

So, yeah, Ignorant. I have no idea what happened or what the current state is. We just all want to play again on the map we put effort into. We've -- well I'll just speak for myself -- I've never had as much fun in Video Gaming /ever/ than I did playing with Better Than Wolves + Buildcraft. I played the hell out of it single player, for about a year, when that's all there was, blueballing myself hoping for one day having a multiplayer version, then that finally happened and it feels like we only got to play for a few months. I just want to get back into that *so bad*.

EDIT: This is the thread I was talking about:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/121 ... -outdated/

And this is the exact post by Gilberreke I was talking about:
"This mod is now property of FlowerChild again. Contact him with questions regarding the future of the mod. Thanks for understanding."
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/121 ... ry16218162

Here's FC's reply:
"I've made an announcement here with regards to the current state of BTB:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4738
Please stay tuned for further news"
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/121 ... ry16224489

That link posted by FC: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4738
returns: "You are not authorised to read this forum."

So I have no idea what's up beyond that.

[Battosay]

I'm gonna go with the Ignorant option and show you the post just in case, because they are indeed unreadable, and some new people might not know what happened.
The message you can't access was this one, though it is really outdated, and the 2nd quote is the important one :

So here we are again a couple of months later...

Some of you have already noticed the banning of Gil and the resulting shut-down of the BTB MCF thread.

I think it will not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the mod closely that things were not working out with him taking ownership of the mod over the past couple of months. Updates were more or less non-existent, community interaction was minimal at best and seemed to involve a lot of broken promises with nothing ever coming out of it, and frankly, my belief is that the mod was dying a slow and lingering death in his hands which was painful and frustrating to both myself and other members of the BTB community.

I was originally thinking I would wait for it to take a decision as to what needed to be done, but with the announcement that 1.3 has been delayed by Mojang for another month, it became clear to me that I couldn't let this situation go on any longer if there was to be any hope of BTB's continued existence.

So, I've taken ownership of the mod once again. I'm currently considering various options with regards to its future, so I would ask the community to be patient over the next few days until a decision can be reached. I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a release for BTW, but once that is taken care of, I'll turn my full attention over to BTB to try and sort all this out.

My apologies to the community for all the uncertainty that this has caused. Honestly, in retrospect I would have much preferred it if I had simply retained ownership of the mod as the stress and frustration that this has caused over the past couple of months has consumed far more of my time than if I had simply kept working on it myself.

And the one explaining why BTB got canceled :

Ok guys, I feel I have left you hanging long enough with this, so I regret to inform you all that I have decided to cancel Better Then BuildCraft.

That's the gist of the matter, but after all the time that I know many of you have sunk into your worlds, I feel that I should explain why I am doing this as fully as possible.

For the past little while, I've been scrambling to try and find a solution to save the mod given a number of factors that were threatening it, which I'm sure many of you are already familiar with:

-SpaceToad left the modding scene, turning over BuildCraft to new developers.

-The new developers are embracing Forge functionality, which given the way BTW works, makes maintaining BTB increasingly difficult to impossible in its current format. This increases the amount of time required to maintain BTB dramatically.

-The new developers are also including new functionality in BC that I am not entirely comfortable with. While I had a rather unique relationship based on trust with SpaceToad, I have no relationship with the new developers, and while I am sure they are talented individuals, given I don't know them that well, I do not have the confidence in their design vision that I had in Toad's.

-The above factors, and the time demands of creating what are effectively two mods lead me to decide to turn BTB over to a third party. That did not work out. So much so that I considered BTB's eventual (and likely slow and lingering) death to be a certainty in their hands.

After mulling this over for a long time, I decided that the only way out of the above was to branch BC and take it over as my own, integrating it fully into BTB so that it would no longer be dependent upon a third party. This would have provided a number of advantages to the mod as well, as it would have effectively allowed me to redesign BC to more fully integrate with BTW.

This seemed like a good course of action, so I decided to embark on it. However, as I sat down to work on it, one question that was extremely relevant to the situation cropped up, which was one that I had previously neglected to ask myself in my haste to try and find a solution to the above problem:

Do you want to do this?

After long consideration, I unfortunately have to admit that I do not. When I realized this, I posted a message stating that the future of BTB was once again uncertain, and decided to take some time to think it over further just in case it was a passing sensation. Given a few more days to think it over though, I am realizing it is not.

As much as I can offer an explanation for what largely comes down to a feeling, here's the reasons I've managed to put together for why I no longer want to do this:

In the past, BTB was always somewhat of an "unofficial" add-on to BTW and BC that combined the work of two different mod-authors into somewhat of a cohesive whole. I think that there was still a clear distinction between the two however. BTW was my mod, BC was SpaceToad's. There was somewhat of an inherent assumption in that, that while we were trying to bridge the gap between the two mods, SpaceToad was doing his thing, which appealed to some people, while I was doing mine, which appealed to others, and while there may be a subset of people that enjoyed and wanted to use both together, the BC portion in no way represented any kind of official part of BTW.

However, with the intended move of taking over BC as my own, I get the sense that changed, and I was seeing it in some of the comments people were making about eventually combining the two mods into one. In taking over the BC code-base, I would kinda be giving my stamp of approval as this being part of, or an eventual part of, how the BTW tech-tree will develop.

Frankly, I'm not comfortable with that. BC, while very cool in its own right, would not be how I would choose to evolve the BTW tech-tree if left to my own devices. I don't think I'd ever make pipes a part of BTW for example, and really, that's pretty much *the* most fundamental aspect of BC. They're inherently magic-blocks with no real rationale, fantasy or no, behind the way they work. That's not something I can "fix" by making subtle changes to their design. It's inherent in both their in-game presentation and how they work. Quarries are another good example. Not only does the high-tech aspect of them conflict sharply with BTW, but do any of you see me doing auto-mining in that manner if/when it is included in BTW? I really don't think so.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't eventually want the same kind of functionality in BTW, or at least functionality that achieves the same goals, but I suspect I'd go about it in completely different ways. Again, SpaceToad has his way of doing things, and his particular design vision, just as I have mine. That doesn't make either of them wrong, or lesser, but they are indeed different, and it puts me in a distinctly uncomfortable situation to be trying and modify his to suit mine, instead of just implementing my own ideas to begin with.

Which brings me to the other issue that's been bothering me: having BTB "hanging over" the tech-tree of BTW was beginning to make me feel limited in terms of the BTW design. Working on a mod like BTW is already difficult design-wise, as I have vanilla MC sitting on one end of the design, with me having to conform to that without really being able to restructure it. BTB then puts another consideration on the other end of the design which I have to conform to, to make sure the two tech-trees match up, and in a way in which we don't end up with drastically overlapping functionality.

Frankly, that's beginning to feel like it's stifling my creativity. I've been running into more and more situations where I come up with an idea for BTW, only to wind up thinking "oh...I can't do that because it would conflict with 'foo' in BC". That just isn't cool, and it takes a lot of the fun out of the process of modding.

The last problem I've realized, which may be the most significant of all, is that I don't particularly want to play BTB anymore. While I quite enjoyed the time I spent with my BTB world, it's been largely collecting dust for the past couple of months and I've returned to playing BTW almost exclusively, realizing that I just enjoy it more as a player. I *like* big clunky machines where stuff like vertical item transport is a design challenge you have to actively consider. The BC aspect of BTB just feels too easy to me, and adjustments to the tech tree and cost of items can do very little to remedy that considering that all they mean is that people will just wait until they reach the top of the combined tech-tree to build most of their systems. Initially, there was a high degree of novelty for me with my BTB world, as it was a huge departure from my normal way of playing MC. I did get a lot of enjoyment out of it as a result, but once I felt that I had "mastered" BTB as a player, I realized that I really did prefer just BTW alone.

The in-game design challenges it offers are far more interesting to me, and in terms of suspension of disbelief, the BTW world feels far more consistent to me than the BTB one. I suspect that will always be the case no matter how far the mods progress.

Obviously, I can not design for something that I am not playing, and I feel very reluctant about ultimately sacrificing the quality of BTW as a standalone by forcing myself to play BTB regularly. If BTW is good, I believe it's only because I'm an avid player of both MC and BTW. Similarly, any good that I managed to squeeze into BTB was likely only there because I was playing it rather hardcore at the time. Now though...I can not effectively design for something I do not wish to play.

Anyways, I guess that about sums up how I'm feeling, and why I've decided to discontinue the project. BTB was an extremely cool experiment and a heck of a lot of fun to play with while it lasted. However, given how things have changed since, I just no longer feel comfortable working on it or giving it my stamp of approval as any kind of "official" add-on to BTW. I am also no longer willing to commit the ever-increasing amounts of time necessary in order to maintain it, even if it were to remain unchanged from its current form.

I am sincerely regretful about people losing their BTB worlds in this. I think that was probably my primary motivation in trying to "save" BTB. However: I can not be committing to something like this simply out of guilt. As always, I mod because it's fun and I enjoy the process. Doing it for other reasons simply wouldn't work in the long run, as tempting as it may have been for me to try and do so regardless, for other people's benefit.

You have my apologies though, both for cancelling the project, and for prematurely announcing that it would keep going. I'm really not happy, or feel good, about either of those things, but I do hope that you guys can understand where I'm coming from with all this, and why I feel it needs to be done.

I'll leave the BTB subforum active for the next little while (probably until 1.3 comes out) to give everyone a chance to discuss this and help each other out with any issue related to the older versions.

[Cronyx]

I have to say I went into reading that reply pre-maturely pissed off, *expecting* to be pissed off. But the more I read FC's level headed, objective reasoning, the less I could argue with the points, and found myself nodding my head as I went further on. I really can't. He's right on every point. Especially the points regarding the obsolescence of many of BTW's features. Why spend resources now, on something that's going to be obsolete in a few tech levels, when you can wait a little while longer before building your factory? I don't think I ever once built any of the wicker grates/filters BTW uses, instead going for Buildcraft's pipe system. Though I have to admit it was ridiculously fun to give the middle finger to Second Law when setting up a water wheel on a mechanical wood engine, or rather, about 40 of them in parallel units of serial banks, slowly getting enough electrical energy out of one water wheel to run a quarry full time. :P

But then that really did take the mining out of Minecraft. I don't really know how to do most things in BTW; the mod was just a windmill/waterwheel/elevator mod for the most part for me, which is exactly his point, nearly half of BTW wasn't getting utilized, and I can't imagine my experience was atypical. And at the end of the day you can't keep creating something you don't like. I'm sad about my world but I can't really ethically be mad at FC for that.

Though I do wish there were more options to manipulate fluids in BTW. I miss being able to pump dry a flooded mine, of either water or lava. I wonder if we could possibly get iron- or obsidian-made screw pumps that would be able to withstand the heat of lava?

On that same note, while I love hard core buckets in principle, and I can't bring myself to turn them off simply because they make waterwheels feel like cheating when you can place water source blocks (never mind the added game mechanic of having to hunt for elevated mountain streams to build a water wheel under), I would like to find a way to properly fill a moat. I'm working on a sewer system right now that just doesn't feel sewer-y without water down the center of it, and building catwalks across it. Is there a way to fill a moat that I'm not aware of in the current mechanics, or could such a method be implemented? Perhaps a "high" setting for screw pumps that would provide enough torque and suction to them to actually draw water from one confined space, allowing for the draining of it, and moving that water elsewhere, the way Buildcraft pumps did? The "medium" setting on the screw pump would function as it does now. Beyond that minor complaint, I find that I like BTW just fine.

FC's quoted post here should really be moved somewhere public. It feels sincere and from the heart and I think is needed to ameliorate the confusion or hurt some people might be feeling at being unable to find updates. I know I feel better having read it.

[ion]

best way is to make a breeding facility.
make a plane with about 16 doors and only ONE villager on that plane. he keeps the village up. under it make a chamber 4 blocks under it, you can go further. and have 2 villagers free there.
those 2 villagers will start breeding indefinitely as they try to populate the village above.
the infinite bug is that the village above consider that it has only one villager in it, ignoring the villagers down. the dumb villagers down will try to populate the village above. grab them with minecarts, kill them use in iron golem factory, your choice. if you remove the villager above with a minecart( killing is also an option), you can stop the orgy beneath, so you can only use this when needed.

[FlowerChild]

Considering how many of these BTB questions have been popping up lately, I'm thinking it's supposed to be trolly.

Yeah, the thought has certainly crossed my mind as well, as I'm not sure where these guys are coming from all of a sudden.

The best one was the guy that posted a question regarding it to the Suggestion subforum. I issued him a warning for that, in response to which he decided to send me two wall of text PM's in which he went on to call me a nazi.

Needless to say, he's no longer with us :)

[Rawny]

best way is to make a breeding facility.

Spoiler

Show

make a plane with about 16 doors and only ONE villager on that plane. he keeps the village up. under it make a chamber 4 blocks under it, you can go further. and have 2 villagers free there.
those 2 villagers will start breeding indefinitely as they try to populate the village above.
the infinite bug is that the village above consider that it has only one villager in it, ignoring the villagers down. the dumb villagers down will try to populate the village above. grab them with minecarts, kill them use in iron golem factory, your choice. if you remove the villager above with a minecart( killing is also an option), you can stop the orgy beneath, so you can only use this when needed.

But you can't guarantee that its an adult can you?

Does anybody have a fully automated villager breeding system? How do you separate young from old? Is growth time twenty minutes (didn't see it mentioned in the wiki)?

[Rawny]

Arg, I've been messing around with different techniques but I cant seem to find anything reliable for production and sorting of villagers.

I've seen tracks and carts kinda work but logging in and out causes issues.

Anybody have a functional build?

[skarekrow_1]

Arg, I've been messing around with different techniques but I cant seem to find anything reliable for production and sorting of villagers.

I've seen tracks and carts kinda work but logging in and out causes issues.

Anybody have a functional build?

I feel your pain dude. So I spent many in-game hours trying to solve the problem.
This is what I came up with...

Spoiler

Show

The "Fishbowl" is the solution i came up with. It is just a water flow away from a small opening. (face-palm, it was so simple)
The pads are Golem spawning pads.


They then drop down to this level and get pushed to one end where there are two streams to push them into the middle.


Then down to the gate system courtesy of Battosay. (Thanks dude, you are the master of all things complex)


And off to the saws and sorting.

Link to Full Gallery

Hope this helps.

[TheGatesofLogic]

After all that about BTB I completely forgot this was about villagers.

Anyway, breeding is determined by number of houses. A house is defined as any building with a villager in it that has fewer sunlit blocks than roofs(door starts the calculation. Strategically placing doors is important. Also, no villagers 16 blocks below the village center (mean center of houses) count towards the total villager count. Villagers will constantly breed until the number villagers equals 35% of the number houses. If you make a platform with 2villagers in minecarts and surround it with vine traps the resultant baby villagers will fall down the pit and you can gather them with water flows and let them age with subsequent timers

Edit: yeah your design works but it's over complicated in my opinion. I prefer trap door timers and consistent outputs with my machines. An added bonus to how I do it is that it deprecates individual villagers in the process and prevents gathered villagers from breeding and clogging things.