BetterThenWolves Mod
For a quick look at what this mod is all about, here's a little video trailer highlighting some of the features:
Many of us have been frustrated by the focus on rather frivolous features (ahem...wolves) in recent Minecraft updates. This Mod actually spawned out of a thread in these forums discussing easy to implement features that were sorely lacking from the main game, that folks would rather have seen in those updates.
As such, Better Than Wolves includes the following new block types intended to improve and expand upon the gameplay of Minecraft, and more fully develop some of the features that seem to have received so little attention as of late.
[*** FEATURE LIST ***]
1) Powered light blocks: The name says it all :)
Note that these can be powered indirectly. In other words, if a neighboring block is receiving power, these will light up. This allow you to, for example, place them on the cieling, and run wires above the cieling to give them power, without having to do any complicated wiring.
2) Hibachi: The top surface of block ignites when it receives power, and extinguishes when power stops. (Thanks to GunboatDebater for the block idea)
A little video of the lights and hibachis in action:
3) Minecart Plate: Why turn pressure plates into a block? Well, one thing that is currently missing from the pressure plates in game is that there is no way to have them reliably trigger by the passage of a minecart. These blocks will correct that problem using a similar mechanism to the booster above: when a minecart passes over the block, the block generates a redstone signal. Simple, yet effective. Minecart Plates now come in 3 different varieties: wood, stone, & iron. The only difference in the crafting recipe, is the type of pressure plate used (note that iron pressure plates are also an item in this mod). Wood plates are triggered by any cart. Stone plates by any cart containing something (player, mob, chest, or oven). Iron plates are only triggered by carts containing the player. This provides for full minecart switching-station functionality, allowing you to automatically sort your carts into empty, cargo, and passenger (Thanks to Andersmith for the idea of breaking up the plates into wood and stone versions).
this second vid shows the different plate types in action:
4) Cement Buckets: Flows like a liquid, but solidifies into a solid block of smooth stone with time. If a redstone signal is applied to a source block of cement placed in the world, it keeps it in its liquid state until the signal is turned off (useful for cement traps + syncronizing flow for mass simultaneous construction). Note that using soul sand to create cement does come alone with certain moral ramifications...
Thanks to some random guy on an SMP server, whose name I can't remember, for coming up with this one :)
And btw, that huge mountain I'm standing on was created with the buckets of cement I dumped while testing this feature out. The partially burried structure at the bottom is what is left of my house, encased in cement ;)
5)Iron Pressure Plates: How many times have you designed a circuit containing a pressure plate, only to realize it wouldn't work right because passing cows, creepers and even chickens would accidentally trigger it? Well, these pressure plates are triggered by the player, and the player only. These are also be used in the crafting recipe for iron minecart pressure plates.
6)Block Dispenser: Functions like an item dispenser, but dispenses blocks and entities in front of the dispenser instead. With regular blocks, when the dispenser receives power, the block is placed in front, then removed once the dispenser is powered down. Also varies from a typical dispenser in that in places fully functional minecart and boats in front of it, rather than the items.
Why is this useful? How about self-loading cannons? Water/lava/gravel/sand/bomb traps? Minecart dispensers that actually place the minecart on the tracks? Trap doors? Secret passages? Self-extending draw-bridges? A boat dispenser that drops a ready to use boat? Self-modifying circuits (this thing works on all redstone elements)? Oh my :)
In terms of the crafting recipe, the logic behind it is that with time the mossy cobble absorbs some of the attributes of the spawner around which it exists. Applying a red-stone current activates some of these latent spawning properties.
