Mod developer’s documentation for the Pedology mod for Minetest

Nodes

Ground nodes

The ground nodes are the most basic nodes in this mod. They mainly differ in density. Except coarse sand, all ground nodes can be wet between a wetness level between 0 (dry) and 5 (slurry). Each ground type has a maximum wetness level. It is intended for later versions to reserve wetness levels 4 and 5 for mud (high-viscosity liquids), whereas levels 0-3 are used for solid blocks.

Here is the list of ground blocks with the maximum wetness level:

• clay: 5
• fine silt: 5
• medium silt: 4
• coarse silt: 3
• fine sand: 2
• medium sand: 1
• coarse sand: 0
• fine gravel: 1
• medium gravel: 2
• coarse gravel: 2

Currently, sand and gravel are not affected by gravity.

Air and vacuum

As an experimental feature, Pedology adds two new air node type and a vacuum node type:

• thin air
• very thin air
• vacuum

All three behave like the ordinary air. The vacuum is special as it removes 4 hearts per seconds for any lifeform which is inside it. The other node types have no special properties.

It has yet to be decided wheather these nodes are kept.

Liquids

Yes, there are some water and lava nodes, but are currently experimental.

Itemstrings

Ground nodes

The itemstrings of all ground nodes follow this pattern:

pedology:<type>_<wetness>

where “<type>” is replaced with the ground type and “wetness” with the wetness level

Types

• clay: clay
• fine silt: silt_fine
• medium silt: silt_medium
• coarse silt: silt_coarse
• fine sand: sand_fine
• medium sand: sand_medium
• coarse sand: sand_coarse
• fine gravel: gravel_fine
• medium gravel: gravel_medium
• coarse gravel: gravel_coarse

Example

The itemstring for “dry clay” is “pedology:clay_0”

Air

• thin air: pedology:air_thinair1
• very thin air: pedology:air_thinair2
• vacuum: pedology:vacuum

Groups

Used groups

The mod uses the following existing groups:

• water: A value of 1 means the node is water. This group is used to wetten sucky nodes.
• not_in_creative_inventory: For value of 1: This node type should not be added into creative inventories. This group is used by the creative mod of minetest_game, for example.
• crumbly: Used for compatibility with minetest_game. Usage may change in the future.
• sand: 1 means the node is sand. Used for compatiblity with minetest_game. Usage may change in the future.
• flammable: Used by turf (value: 1), indicates the nodes are flammable. Value can range from 1-3, 1 being the slowest.

New groups

The mod introduces the following groups:

• wet: Wetness level. Currently, the wetness level ranges from 0 to 5. The wetness descriptions are:
  • 0: dry (solid) (node is not member of the wet group)
  • 1: wet (solid)
  • 2: watery (solid)
  • 3: sludgy (solid)
  • 4: muddy (now solid, liquid in later versions)
  • 5: slurry (now solid, liquid in later versions)
• sucky: Suckyness. Declares a node to “suck” wetness from water and oozing nodes. Any non-zero value makes the node a “sucky” node
• oozing: Oozing level. Members of this group can transfer their wetness to sucky nodes. Any non-zero value makes the node an “oozing” node. Maybe different oozing levels will be used in future. Nodes should be only added to this group if they are also wet.
• melting_point: the minimal temperature at which the node becomes destroyed. This depends on the hotness of neighbor nodes. Planned for later versions.
• hot: The temperature of the node. Not used yet, but intended for lava, therefore planned for late versions.
• sun_dry: If 1, the node may dry off over time when it is in direct sun light

Functions

pedology.dry(pos)

Reduces the wetness level of the node at pos by 1, if possible. This is done by replacing the node with a “drier” version of it, if available.

Parameters

• pos: Position of node, specified as a table of the format { x = x, y = y, z = z}

Return value

nil

pedology.wetten(pos)

Increases the wetness level of the node at pos by 1, if possible. This is done by replacing the node with a “wetter” version of it, if available.

Parameters

• pos: Position of node, specified as a table of the format { x = x, y = y, z = z}

  Return value

nil

pedology.register_sucky_group(basename, basedescription, lumpdescription, maxwet, oozeinterval, oozechance, melttable, dropcount, sounds, additional_groups)

Registers a bunch of sucky and oozing nodes to Pedology . This function assumes that textures are ready for the node, one texture for each wetness level (up to maxwet). They have to be named according to the pattern pedology_<basename>_<wetness>.png and must reside in the textures folder. Example name: pedology_clay_0.png is the texture for dry clay, pedology_clay_1.png is texture for wet clay, and so on.

Parameters

• basename: A part of the internal itemstring of all the nodes to be registered. The full itemstring for a node would be “pedology:<basename>_<wetness>, where “<basename>” is replaced with the given basename and “<wetness>” is replaced with the wetness level (a single digit). This parameter is also used to find the textures.
• basedescription: A part of the user-visible description for each node. The full description is built from the template “<wetnessstring> <basedescription>. <wetnessstring> would be “dry”, “wet”, “watery”, “sludgy”, “muddy” or “slurry”.
• lumpdescription: The full description of the “lump” version of the block (if any)
• maxwet: The maximum wetness level of the nodes. Must be at least 0 and at most 5.
• oozeinterval: The interval in seconds in which the node may ooze its wetness to other nodes (Minimum: 1)
• oozechance: The interted chance (1/oozechance) to ooze each time the oozeinterval has passed.
• melttable: Table of melting_point values for each wetness level. The table length must equal maxwet+1. This parameter may alternatively be nil (all nodes are indestructible by heat then). Note that lava and melting points are not implemented yet.
• dropcount: How many lumps nodes of this group drop, when mined. If 0, they simply drop themselves (NOT recommended)
• sounds: Sound specification for every node (Definition is the same as for minetest.register_node).
• additional_groups: Table of additional groups for every node. May also be empty or nil, meaning no additional groups will be added.

Return value

nil

License

This mod is free software. The entire mod (code, textures, everything) is licensed under the MIT License. Enjoy! :-)