Wooden cart

[djvirus]

Cart for hauling more recources. It could carry 4 storage containers (chests, baskets, storage vessels, barrels etc). If the player decides to use an empty cart, they could fill it with piles of general recources such as firewood, rocks, logs, grass, ore, coal, gravel etc. The more items are being carried the slower the player can move with the cart. Additionaly the player would get hungry alot faster. It would benefit alot from roads or dirt paths. Cart can take damage or break if the player is careless (falldamage etc..)

Edited October 15, 2022 by djvirus

[Rhyagelle]

This would be really, really helpful!

[Hal13]

Carts are only useful on relatively flat roads, which is why many civilisations did invent the wheel, but never used it for transportation.

If the route is too steep it is way more useful to just use the animals you'd need to draw the cart anyway and pack the goods onto them directly, even if you'd do the drawing yourself it'd feel less strenuous to just go multiple times up and down to haul all the stuff. Of course weight is of no concern in VS, but multiblock entities are and as you want to be able to place containers on it there lies the problem, a wheelbarrow could be feasible basically making use of code similar to the carry capacity mod, but afaik multiblock vehicles are still way out of scope.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Hal13

[Thorfinn]

You would likely have to go with something like a covered wagon, @Hal13, so that you don't have to render all the variant loads. Rather than using a plethora of containers, it would probably be easier to just use it as a portable container with more spaces.

I would think a wheelbarrow would be a simpler implementation. Something similar to CarryCapacity, but instead of going on your back, picking it up occupies both hands?

[EDIT] Opened this up and started replying hours ago. Should have refreshed rather than repeating your post. DOH! [/EDIT]

Edited October 18, 2022 by Thorfinn

[Hal13]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

You would likely have to go with something like a covered wagon, @Hal13, so that you don't have to render all the variant loads. Rather than using a plethora of containers, it would probably be easier to just use it as a portable container with more spaces.

I mean theoretically if you could place containers on it you wouldn't necessarily need special renders for all possible loads IF it was a multiblock entity, then you'd just have the base cart and separately from it the containers that get rendered, of course a covered wagon could just use the player character inventory code with container slots providing space, or maybe the wagon could have 4-8 inventory slots, that each can either hold a stack of items or a single container providing its slots as extra slots not suitable for further expansion. But even that would need a movable entity that's at least 2x2x2 blocks big (3 long might look better) and for now afaik there is no code for such even only on the roadmap (multiblock ships are IF possible and that code could be used for these wagons too) yet. Additionally there is the problem of heavy carts and wagons only being useful for flat areas and on roads or materials that don't budge under the weight, anything like dirt, sand, gravel and similar basically is unsuited to support such heavy loads and the wheels will get stuck constantly.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of road networks and massive infrastructure projects getting actually useful/necessary for big haul transportation, but I don't see it coming in the foreseeable future.

[Thorfinn]

Laying out a 3-wide path any meaningfully large distance would be incredibly tedious. An option, I suppose, is that the cart just has a penalty when off-roading. (Yeah, I agree, massive penalty on dry sand, I'd think.) Considering you can't even step up one block, the cart would be impassible. You would need to come up with some angled block. Or maybe set the rule that a cart wheel can go up a half block.

Re: multiblocks, isn't that more or less what machinery is? So a helve hammer on wheels that has whatever is considered to be a flat space? (Shelf, table, block, whatever.)

That said, I'm not much of a path guy. There are so many better things I could do with my time. Including starting a new game and redoing all the parts of the game I find most enjoyable.

[EDIT]

BTW, a cart need not be an actual entity. until you put it down. I'm thinking CarryCapacity again. Rather than seeing the basket/chest/vessel in your hands, it shows your hands down pulling the cart or pushing the 'barrow. The cart would not exist as an entity until you placed it, again, similar to CarryCapacity.

Another thought: I have not looked at it yet, but there's a recent mod that incorporates a minecart that sounds pretty similar to the OP's suggestion.

[/EDIT]

Edited October 19, 2022 by Thorfinn

[Hal13]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Re: multiblocks, isn't that more or less what machinery is? So a helve hammer on wheels that has whatever is considered to be a flat space? (Shelf, table, block, whatever.)

not quite, the machinery doesn't move from its position and basically is located at a fixed single-block-location even though it has a bigger footprint. but being able to turn a helve hammer around that position would break its functionality as the code only works in 4 of infinite possible positions.

[maibock]

Can just inherit the backpack/container code from the player's inventory, apply it to said cart, then add a piece of code (similar to the rendering of leather backpacks on the players back) relating to the rendering of objects on the cart itself.

[Hal13]

26 minutes ago, maibock said:

Can just inherit the backpack/container code from the player's inventory, apply it to said cart, then add a piece of code (similar to the rendering of leather backpacks on the players back) relating to the rendering of objects on the cart itself.

That's what i wrote, rendering it is likely no problem... But you'd have to shrink the cart to being a mere wheelbarrow of about a block size or new code for handling entities wider/longer than a block is needed (how to determine if some block is in the way, how to handle step up/down, ...).

I mean you could write some code making a cart consisting of a hit box for each of its wheels (with their centers at fixed distances from each other) and another one for the cart itself (which is based in the centers of the wheel's hitboxes and the model itself only uses this hitbox to figure out its orientation), and set some rule that no wheel hit box may be higher or lower than half a block than any other or it counts as not supporting the cart... something like that... Making something like this work is likely the problem which needs to be overcome before we get any multiblock vehicle/creature.

[_Mason]

On 10/20/2022 at 2:57 PM, Hal13 said:

you'd have to shrink the cart to being a mere wheelbarrow of about a block size

That is exactly what I would like out of the addition of a cart in the game. Anything bigger and you would meet upon issues regarding things looking proper. There are those "pioneer" handcarts with huge wheels that I believe are perfect candidates to be shrunk down, look the part of something you could drag over these 1-block jumps.
A small 1-block cart you can perfectly see it just strapped on you and tagging along while you keep both your hands free and still have full mobility (well, maybe some % penalty or losing the ability to sprint), no need for added animation, while still looking the part. Some bits like the arms and wheels can extend past the block in size and noone will find it weird, just keep the main body and hitbox contained to one block or less.

I also support the idea of making the cart's inventory system act like 4 additional backpack slots, so you can have your cart early without worrying about it being too useful early in the game or not enough later on, 'cause its storage capacity is tied to backpack progression. You can also make a full cart look full by just having the models of the backpacks appear on it.

Edited October 25, 2022 by _Mason

[Hal13]

On 10/25/2022 at 1:04 PM, _Mason said:

That is exactly what I would like out of the addition of a cart in the game.

That isn't the suggestion though. And in the long run the devs need to figure out how to handle multiblock veicles and mobs anyway, hence coming up with ideas leading to it and how it could work might be useful for them.

On 10/25/2022 at 1:04 PM, _Mason said:

I also support the idea of making the cart's inventory system act like 4 additional backpack slots, so you can have your cart early without worrying about it being too useful early in the game or not enough later on, 'cause its storage capacity is tied to backpack progression. You can also make a full cart look full by just having the models of the backpacks appear on it.

That hasn't been suggested until now (until now it was about chests and other bigger containers), but I like that idea for a downsized cart / wheelbarrow... My idea would have been to just make it only 1 slot for a standard placeable container.

[_Mason]

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

That isn't the suggestion though.

That's true, but personally I would prefer if the motion to get a cart would be more along the lines of a small one that's one block in size. There's too much verticality in VS for anything bigger that's not on legs to look proper being dragged around.

4 hours ago, Hal13 said:

That hasn't been suggested until now (until now it was about chests and other bigger containers), but I like that idea for a downsized cart / wheelbarrow... My idea would have been to just make it only 1 slot for a standard placeable container.

Maibock came in before me, I believe. Putting otherwise static storage containers on the cart could also work, afterall it's not like storage progression is that dissimilar. I still think 4 slots bring more flexibility to the system than 1, specially if more specialized backpacks like the mining bag come out: you have higher potential carry capacity than the single chest you could add, but you have to plan ahead. You could then also put whatever other non-backpack item the game allows you to put in a backpack slot, like a skep or whatever else comes in the future, on the cart, never having to fully sacrifice carry capacity or what's on you rather than your cart.