Possible SMP coplayer who is colorblind

[MisterFister]

I have a friend who might be interested in joining me in a crew for a new multiplayer BTW server that I hope to set up for next weekend.

This individual is colorblind. I'm aware that there are different types of colorblindness, and I don't yet know which type my friend has, but I do gather the distinct impression that they can see "some" color, which means they're not monochrome black-and-white in their vision.

Do any texture packs exist to attempt to address or even partially mitigate this, where colorblindness might hopefully be an up-front and specific design consideration of the TP? If there were a feature to allow for color-info to be available as a tooltip popup with the in-game mouse cursor, would that be a feature of a TP or would that kind of functionality have to come from BTW itself? More generally, are there any members of the BTW community who might have close-hand experience with either their own or a friend's colorblindness when that friend was a direct co-player? Is that issue work-around-able enough that it becomes essentially a moot issue? My own BTW gameplay is a few years old (part of why I'm excited to be doing this) so I'm unfamiliar with significant portions of the current meta -- spoilers be damned, are there specific sections of gameplay that mismatches in color would create non-cosmetic problems (i.e. crafting recipes, in-game combat, etc.)?

FC, if not already something you've designed for, are there any ways for members of this community to help you incorporate colorblind-accessibility in the BTW mod itself? I.e., are there color-blot tests or html-encoding ranges of color that you would be able to leverage?

And my last two questions are borne specifically of my respectful ignorance in programming and modding: 1) Is colorblindness support something that could be toggleable either in-game or before game load? 2) Is such colorblindness support, whether toggleable or not, something that would need to be lockstepped with co-players on the same server, or could it be restricted to client-side functions?

(Side-question: On this same meta-topic of gaming access for players with physical or sensory restrictions, I think a possible follow-up question would be about players who might be hearing impaired, I'm guessing that designing edge-of-screen visual markers for in-game sounds, such as mob-sounds, is probably something that won't be possible?)

Thanks in advance!

[dawnraider]

Honestly there's not much where color makes a huge difference. There are several mod item textures which share the same texture but different color, but none where it's that much of an issue to read the tooltip. As far as existing TPs nothing exists for that purpose, but at the very least Conquest does have almost no recolors if you want to use that. Mesh's pack too, which is a very similar style. I cannot speak to Wyr3d's Derivation Omega or SockThing's Aurora in that regard.

The only bad thing I could think of that could happen is mistaking blasting oil for glue, but if you have blasting oil on your person without knowing it, that's on you for messing up.

[Epsilon]

As was hinted at by dawnraider a TP(Texture Pack) appears to be the easiest option.
Getting a 32x32 or higher TP installed is a bit tricky, but there are guides around here on how to get it done. And even so officially distributing a modded version if forbidden, if you send your modded version to your friend via private mail (or the likes) he just needs to drop it in the right folder.
Same goes for the TP.

For all that follows I'm maybe overestimating my knowledge and authority, so keep in mind I'm not the mod author nor did I write a mod for btw (even so I looked into it). But I'm studying computer science and am interested in all around game design for years now.
So:
Making a game colour blind friendly is a choice that, more often that not, needs to be made early. This is because it necessitates many areas of a game to be designed in a certain way (mainly this is the idea that all parts of the game need to function as intended under potentially vastly different circumstances).
Fortunately Minecraft is somewhat good at this (at least as far as visuals go), as almost everything you see is "easily" controllable with texture packs.
For texture packs that also means they can simply be toggled on and off, and for MC they also are independent of the server you play on.
So that all works in your favour.
For features like a hover indicator to display colour information... that is more heavy. Here I lack more specific knowledge about Minecraft code, but I guess it would mean significant effort to write a mod that does that in a good way.

To conclude.
The easy way would be to try one if the TPs you find around here.
The hard way would be to make up your own TP in collaboration with your friend.
Probably the best way is the middle ground: use one if the TPs you find here, but also get into how to mod a TP (it mostly is just using paint and saving the file with the right name) and just adjust the TP along the way as you too discover problems you run into...

[MisterFister]

Thanks for the reply, folks. I'll bear your suggestions in mind after contacting my friend to get a feel for their circumstances.