Armillary Sphere Space Travel

[CreeperCannibal]

Note that this is not a suggestion for the mod or even an add-on, it's an idea to talk about.
I want to create a form of space travel that has a bit of randomness to it. Rather than a spaceship I want to go with a more magical route. So I was thinking about using an armillary sphere (cube) where different configurations of the rings will take the player to a different planet/dimension. Eg the outermost and middle ring aligned with the center ring unaligned will load up a different dimension in comparison to all rings aligned. I was wondering what other people's takes might be on this idea.

[Rianaru]

If this isn't from it already, I'd suggest taking some inspiration from the Stargate series :)

[CreeperCannibal]

If this isn't from it already, I'd suggest taking some inspiration from the Stargate series :)

I've watched Stargate a few times. I think if anything I would probably pull the variety of environments from the series. Such as the purple crystal field.

[Gilberreke]

This reminds me of time travel in Thorgal.

In that comic, space-time is represented as a series of concentric circles. Move along the rings, you travel in space, jump across to another ring, you move in time. There's certain wormholes connecting rings that allow people to accidentally travel in time.

[CreeperCannibal]

This reminds me of time travel in Thorgal.
In that comic, space-time is represented as a series of concentric circles. Move along the rings, you travel in space, jump across to another ring, you move in time. There's certain wormholes connecting rings that allow people to accidentally travel in time.

Interesting, I'll have to check the comic out to get a better grasp. Maybe put the degenerate era into one of those dimensions. Honestly though, I prefer to stay in the realm of different environments through planetary travel with no additives.

[SterlingRed]

Take a look at the god awful sci fi show farscape. The main character used wormholes to travel and they had quite a bit of randomness to them.

[DaveYanakov]

Sliders was a great show for as long as I was able to keep watching it.

[CreeperCannibal]

Sliders was pretty good It brought back memories of watching a simular show, as stated above farscape - not so much. While watching these shows I developed more about the block and how it would function. It would be similar to the enchantment table in it's looks except the block portion would look like wood with iron trim, the animated piece would be a square within a square within a square which rotates. When right clicked a gui would open that is simular to a combination lock except the three slots would be different positions of the rings ( | Vertical and facing the player, [ ] Not facing the player, - Horizontal and facing the player) Below the three slots would be a button that sais "Go to world" When clicked The response is either "Incorrect combination" or the player is insta teleported to a random world.

[haphazardnuke]

This sounds really cool, but when I think of armillary sphere-based travel or weaponry or anything, I tend to imagine them being quite large, to the point where the innermost ring is wider than a person is tall (think "Thor" or a certain scene from TESV Skyrim). Going that route would be much more difficult in terms of Minecraft, since if you wanted the rings to move they'd have to be entities, but physically building large rings of some material and arranging them *just so* would be really cool.

Also, will the armillary sphere actually project a portal, or will you just teleport the player directly? Personally, I'd have it project a portal, potentially explosive if the rings were aligned wrong (interdimensional travel is a dangerous thing!) but now I'm just rambling.

[Racooknight]

Just to add my pinch of salt : this bukkit plugin, Runecraft, is based upon actually drawing runes out of minecraft materials, and having them consumed by the activation of the rune, which produces some more or less powerful effect, depending on the quality of the materials used.

It has a teleportation system where you can connect two gates by using a certain key, drawn into a bigger shape that's the same for all teleportation runes (out of obsidian if I remember correctly, so not too early game stuff). Those ones don't consume the block they're made of.

[BinoAl]

Just to add my pinch of salt : this bukkit plugin, Runecraft, is based upon actually drawing runes out of minecraft materials, and having them consumed by the activation of the rune, which produces some more or less powerful effect, depending on the quality of the materials used.

It has a teleportation system where you can connect two gates by using a certain key, drawn into a bigger shape that's the same for all teleportation runes (out of obsidian if I remember correctly, so not too early game stuff). Those ones don't consume the block they're made of.

I used to host a small server for friends using this plugin, it's really neat. It actually is rather well balanced, too, at least in terms of throwing a lot of rare materials at it for big effects. It inspired a semi auto bookshelf creation facility in my server at one point, since bookshelves are a higher tier material for use in the runes

[CreeperCannibal]

The entity I imagine is something along the lines of the book in an enchanting table, something small and only active when the player is close (Concentric Squares perhaps). The Ender Crystal is a good visual on what the entity might look like, except the cubes will be empty squares, no fire and the base will be the crafted table. Building a unique structure around the now named armillary cube is something I'll have to look into. Maybe the player crafts the table then procedes to build the rings on top of the table. Some kind of base block (vanilla block) could define where the connection point between table and rings are. If build right all materials will vanish leaving behind the fully functioning armillary cube in the place of the base block (on top of the table). If build wrong, the catastrophe will be something different than just an explosion. To up the risk, the table, once built, if retrieved will lose the rings, this might promote a unique building spot.