Better than Horses (No Alligators please)

[FlowerChild]

Damn it, I was trying to word that post to eliminate that sentiment.

No worries man, I'm kicking myself in the ass for it, you're not ;)

[Uristqwerty]

The most forward-compatible temporary solution I can think of is just to search for a "BTW_addon.txt" file in the root of the addon zip/jar/directory, where the first line is "class: a.path.to.some.class.Here", then calling Class.forName() on the specified class, once the addon is part of the classpath.

Relatively easy to implement, and easy to just ignore the text file if an alternative loading system is later implemented.

[FlowerChild]

The most forward-compatible temporary solution I can think of is just to search for a "BTW_addon.txt" file in the root of the addon zip/jar/directory, where the first line is "class: a.path.to.some.class.Here", then calling Class.forName() on the specified class, once the addon is part of the classpath.

Relatively easy to implement, and easy to just ignore the text file if an alternative loading system is later implemented.

Don't man...just don't.

I'd prefer not to get programming advice, thanks, and I haven't asked for any.

[mogulus]

FC, seriously don't sweat it. We can distribute, it just requires modifying a vanilla base class (any of them as far as I can tell, and there's plenty to choose from). Also, horses aren't all that close to being ready to release, sure they work and everything, but many of the features designed for them and all of the balancing remains to be done. I'll probably be able to put some work into that this week, so we can hopefully release an alpha with at least some amount of polish (and balancing).

Is it possible now to release the alpha now that Dnoved modified the class file, or are we still a ways out from that?

[weldaSB]

Yes I believe it is, and I have been working on downloading everything I need, so I might have a release out tonight. That is if all of my steam summer sale games don't distract me.

[DaveYanakov]

DNoved has put together an early alpha release which can be found here

This is very much a work in progress but the galloping and gelding are in place. To install, just drop the files into your jar once everything else is done. I strongly recommend making a backup copy of your minecraft.jar before adding anything in and testing on a fresh world rather than one in which you have a history.

Horses will never feel much like Minecraft but with effort I hope we can produce something that feels like Better Than Wolves.

[mogulus]

Freaking sweet!!! So I just started a creative game and lobbed a horse egg to see one in my game for the FIRST TIME ever, and the model looks great.. I really do have to say thanks for the hard work!

The controls stumped me at first. I thought for a moment that controls hadn't been implemented but then I realized I was really over thinking it. The space bar was what threw me off, but it makes sense, because I guess you're kicking him in the sides to make him move, hence the jump button...that being said, the controls feel pretty good.

I know you're going to do way more to it and as you said, it's an alpha release, but for my two cents the main thing I noticed was the little guy seemed way faster and agile than he should (?) be.

Anyway, huge thumbs up!

[DaveYanakov]

Only because they don't founder yet. I had hoped for a control scheme that turned more like boats when at high speed but there were a few issues.

Grom PE has made a patch for those who want to run this side by side with the Biomes o Plenty addon. Download it here and add it to the jar last.

[DaveYanakov]

Also please keep in mind that the reward is balanced by effort. In final form these horses will be the very devil to capture and train. Once you do, you will still be looking at a very long term investment for the payoff of keeping a mount available.

They will not travel as quickly nor as tirelessly as a railcar and as such will never replace them for established routes but when exploring new territory they will be worth the extreme efforts you went to.

This is not the case in this test release as it would be rude to expect someone to test a feature that they had to put eight hours of time in every time they wanted to reproduce a bug in order to write the report.

[mogulus]

I want to help with some playtesting but with what you said above I am worried that in doing so I may report something as a bug that is intended behavior. IE: erratic movement, etc.

There are two things I would like to ask so far. The first being the spawn conditions. I have only seen horses in creative mode, though I'm playing biomes o plenty right now and haven't found any plains. I assume that is where I will find them, but figured maybe the author of the patch may have tweaked it so a few more places may contain said entity.

secondly, as it is now, alpha release is not multiplayer over lan. the joining player experiences server error and disconnect. I have tried both patched and non patched and got the same result.

And would i be correct in assuming that it ate that apple that I threw at it, or what?
so far i'm liking what i'm hearing/seeing from you. The idea of getting attatched to a "pet" or "partner in transit" and living with it/feeling it's loss after it dies is very close to what I always hoped for with cats and wolves.

[DNoved1]

Horses currently only spawn in vanilla biomes, and relatively rarely at that. If it is possible to add horses to the BoP spawnlist I may look into doing so, but as it is they will not.

The multiplayer thing is likely a result of the relatively hacky solution I made to release the alpha without modifying a FC modified class, which prevents it from working on a server (which to my understanding wouldn't affect multiplayer lan, but doesn't entirely surprise me that it does either).

Horses eat certain items off of the ground. Yes, apples are one of these items.

I have also noticed erratic movement while riding horses, however this is likely related to the natural aversion a horse has towards the player. You may notice while not riding them they will run away, basically, the same thing is happening while you are riding them. In the future they will likely just buck you until you train this instinctual aversion out of them.

Edit: Actually, with regards to BoP compatibility, I could easily add a hook for other mods to add the horse to their own biomes' spawn list, assuming they are normal 'BiomeGenBase' biomes.

Edit2: just added the ability for other mods to add horses to their own biomes.

BTH now has a public ArrayList of type Object[] called biomeSpawnList. The Object array is expected to contain a BiomeGenBase array, an integer specifying the spawn weight, an integer specifying the minimum size a group of horses can spawn in, and an integer containing the maximum size a group of horses can spawn in. To add custom biomes, just use

Code: Select all

BTHBetterThanHorses.biomeSpawnList.add(new Object[] {arrayOfBiomes[], spawnWeight, minSpawn, maxSpawn});

in the PreInitialize function for FCAddon. For balance purposes it's worth noting that horses currently have a spawn weight of 3 with a min group size of 2 and a max of 4.

Edit3: If others would like to add horses to their biomes without installing BTH into their coding directory (realized this would be rather inconvienent), they can use the following code:

Code: Select all

try {
	Class BTH = Class.forName("BTHBetterThanHorses");
	ArrayList biomeSpawnList = (ArrayList)BTH.getField("biomeSpawnList").get(null);
	biomeSpawnList.add(new Object[] {arrayOfBiomes[], spawnWeight, minSpawn, maxSpawn});	
} catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
	//shouldn't happen
} catch (NoSuchFieldException e) {
	//shouldn't happen
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
	//BTH is not installed, do nothing
}

[DNoved1]

New release: Here

Changes from the previous version:

• *Added the ability for other mods to add horses to their custom biomes.
  *Changed the class that BTH uses to load to the obsidian block so that a compatibility patch is no longer necessary.

[TheGatesofLogic]

nobody minds if i rewrite the OP right? I'll add a list of contributors and the download link, but I think we should leave info on the details to be worked out on their own

[DaveYanakov]

Go for it.

I am planning on doing a relaunch of the thread once an actual play release is ready to avoid confusion since there are a couple pages worth of posts unrelated to the finished product.

[mogulus]

Concerning the problem with biomes o plenty, if you're already changing things, is it at all possible to make it work in multiplayer LAN? Or do we need the modding API implemented to do that?

[DaveYanakov]

That's something the API would greatly help with. It's doable with patching but that runs into access issues.

DNoved is still working on these things but will be away for finals. As always, it's an open project so if anyone wants to create a fork to work on something, the design document is on the git wiki.

[DNoved1]

New release: Here

Changes from the previous version:

• *Changed where the packet handling code is put. This means lan should work, and possibly dedicated servers. If you installed a previous version of BTH you will need to replace a vanilla class that BTH no longer uses, available here.

I'm fairly certain that this will work, but if not please mention it either here or at the BTH Github page, here. As mentioned though, I'm fairly busy studying for finals, and as such responses may not be immediate.

[mogulus]

It works in LAN and l can devote some play rest time to it after work this morning :) you gave me something to look forward to so thanks for taking the time to do that.

I assume I shouldn't be looking for them in biomes o plenty yet? I will be testing in survival and want to make sure I'm not using the wrong terrain gen rules.

[FlowerChild]

I grant permission to the Better Than Horses team to decompile and reverse engineer Better Than Wolves solely for the purposes of developing the Better Than Horses add-on, and with the understanding that such permission may be revoked at any time.

[DaveYanakov]

I am sorry that it came to this. I just want to say thank you for taking the time to post your permission here and for the trust implied by it.

[woeuntoyou]

Are the horses supposed to be really hard to maneuver or is that part still work in progress? Or maybe I'm missing something?

[DaveYanakov]

The horses are likely trying to run away from you at the moment. They're doing so at a walk because this is a test build rather than something we would call playable. Part of the training process is letting them get used to being around people. Til then they will run from players as if they were zombies or fire.

After that they should still be tough to steer at a run. Trying to spin half a ton of high speed meat on a teensy little ankle bone is going to end in tragedy for somebody.

[woeuntoyou]

Oh ok, got it.

[DNoved1]

New release: Here

Changes from the previous version:

• *Added compatibility with jorgebonafe's Astrolabe Addon.

[Rob]

New release: Here

Changes from the previous version:

• *Added compatibility with jorgebonafe's Astrolabe Addon.

This addon and astrolabe both use:

• BTHNetServerHandler.class
• jk.class

I assume I install BTH last. But, I just want to clarify for myself and future installers.

Edit: Might I also suggest giving each update a new version number? They have all been 0.1. Makes it very hard to determine which is the current update, or if the file was even updated at all.