Have you ever wanted a mod in minecraft where you can reproduce the greatest achievments of human kind in the 20th and 21st century?
A mod that rewards you for building epic dams, windmills and coal plants? Rewards you for exploring and building houses, farms and castles? Gives you the option to solve your problems by a variety of means and liberates your creativity from the chore of monotonous crafting systems and does it all through the use of interactive NPC's who can work with, or against you?
Deus Ex Machina (DXM), or god in the machine, is a mod that seeks to fulfill your ambitions. You will have the opportunity to build realistic machines to process your mineral wealth, workshops to assemble your creations, people to feed, cloth and defend. There will be cities, fortresses and farms, powerful explosives to shape and mine the terrain, and epic creations that dwarf everything that came before them!
The opportunities are endless. DXM is more than just a tech mod: it's an experience.
Deus Ex Machina is firmly rooted in a realistic world of ores, plant life, electrical, mechanical and chemical principles and the systems that grew from an understanding of these things.
Aside from it's technical aspects, DXM also emphasizes a strong social aspect where players are encouraged to interact with NPC's. Just as any given civilization was not the sole effort of one individual, players will need to harnass social and political forces to build their empires. From origins as humble as a camp in the wilderness, to villages, cities and nations, players will guide the development of their civilization from thatch huts to the stars.
Hundreds of hours of research have gone into learning and reading about human history for this to have been made possible.
What constraints minecraft placed upon the ability to accuratly portray this history was the only reason anything was changed.
In many cases ideas are abstracted for programmings sake but beyond that you will find the mod to be as educational as it is entertaining.
By default Deus Ex Machina will not interfere with other mods or vanilla game features, however, the mod is intended to be played as a tech mod by itself. Options to disable some of the vanilla game are intended to be activated as well.
Though DXM is built around the Universal Electricity framework it will not be considered to be a part of that world of mods, we will merely be using it as our electricity system.
**NOTICE**
If this is your first time visiting this github then I highly suggest reading documents in a certain order. You can find all design documents under the "issues" section of the github. Please contribute what you can in the form of ideas or suggestions by email: mensreamc@gmail.com. Contributers who offer high quality or consistent submissions will likely be granted github access. Now, on to the suggested reading:
I.Mod design philosophies and general mod overview (make sure you check out the general mod overview section of the article as it offers a more comprehensive rundown, the rest of the document is kind of the mission statement)
II.The DXM Experience (the end goal for the project - to craft an alternative experience to vanilla MC)
III.Workshop system and workshop block
IV.Labor system and housing/administration blocks
V.The peoples tools!
VI.Power plant/machine general blocks
VII.Mining machines and ore processing overview (you may need to consult Worldgen (mineral) alongside that)
IIX.Sub-critical steam plants (gives you a good idea of how power gen will work)
You will likely have a firm idea of what we are trying to achieve if you actually read those documents.
**THE PITCH PHASE**
**DATE WITHHELD UNTIL WORLDGEN/UE IMPLEMENTATION**
After consulting some people in regards to how long things will take I decided to scale the number, depth and scope of features back. The goal is to get the mod down to barebones for the pitch, which will involve me begging and groveling for some modders on the minecraft forums and anywhere else I can make a post on. For more info on what is the first release will hopefully look like consult the article titled "First release". For the first release we will be needing the following personel:
I.programmers
A.with a solid knowledge of java and a willingness to work based off the design documents
B.all money made from donations will necessarily go to the programmers. i am not in this for money but i don't expect others to share my enthusiasm
C.designers will work with programmers to make their lives as easy as possible. if the programmers deem something too cumbersome to code or suggest it would be a lag machine it should be reconsidered. this is not a dictatorship.
II.spriters
A.i can sprite myself and actually have many sprites done but i am no artist
III.testers
A.pretty sure there will be no shortage of testers
IV.co-designers
A.co-designers are people who can help me research things to make our designs as realistic as possible. should have a grasp on programming concepts but what we really want is people like chemists, physicists, engineers, etc
B.those guys that make big posts on tech mod forums about the right way to do tech stuff that no one listens to? yeah, we want those types of guys
V.supporters
A.supporters are people who can spread the word and be advocates for the project. people who can keep pitch threads bumped and offer the programmers, spriters and co-designers vocal and emotional support.
**PERSONNEL**
So far the project has accumulated a handful of personnel who have pledged to work on things to varying degrees. I will list what people have done as well as what they have pledged to do.
I.Mensrea (designer, spriter, forum chimp)
A.design docs, sprites
B.refining designs, making sprites
II.Captain_Shadows (programmer)
A.original coder and always with us in spirit, as I would have nothing without him
III.Shadowcode13 (programmer, mastermind) A.an ambitious young coder with everything going for him who reinvigorated the project
VI.Special thanks to frostbyte of futurecraft fame, two from IC forums, and everyone who took the time/had the decency to humor my usually inane questions or help me network with others.
**NAME CHANGE**
Deus Ex Machina may not be the best name as it is sort of cliche and does not say much about the mod. The following names have been picked as possible alternatives. If you have any suggestions/opinions please let me know by email or on skype.
I.blood and iron
A.pro: sounds cool and makes sense. catches the eye
B.con: violent connotations that may distort the mods image
II.rise of humanity (least votes)
A.pro: sounds cool and makes sense. describes the mod perfectly
B.con: sounds a lot like rise of nations, age of empires, X of Y cliche
III.imperium populi (most votes)
A.pro: sounds cool and makes sense. "empire of man"
B.con: latin is confusing to many people. doesnt make sense without "et"