Feature discussion: "Reification Halo" (aka. Corporea Halo)

Wormbo

tl;dr: Trying to figure out how to combine corporea functionality and the Assembly Halo item for mobile access to crafting materials and/or crafting results.

I have time available so I thought I might give implementing this idea a go, except many details of it are not very well defined. Here's what I gathered from the Discord (excluding anything from VIP areas, as I don't have access to those):

It should be somewhat expensive to craft and definitely require end-game ingredients.
It has the basic functionality of the Assembly Halo, i.e. it's a mobile crafting table with memory slots.
It connects to a corporea network to request items from there instead of using items from the player's inventory.
It will try to request the result item from the network instead of crafting it. Failing that, it will attempt to request the ingredient items necessary to craft the result item.
It may require mana to communicate with the corporea network.

Other details discussed so far that I don't quite agree with:

It could be a relic. – Somewhat breaks the 6-sided dice concept and it doesn't feel unique enough, considering you have free access to both an assembly halo and the various corporea features without the help of the gaia guardian already.
It should only work while standing next to a Corporea Index. – I find that block clunky to use already. It captures your chat input and you don't get a preview. The chat capturing is part of the reason why its range is limited. If you hold an item that specifically communicates with a corporea network and you pay for its use with mana, a much larger range should be possible.
"Feed mode" to provide items to a Manufactory Halo. – That simplifies auto-crafting a bit too much, even though it would probably burn through a lot of mana.
Passive mana drain. – I believe it should only drain mana for active communication, i.e. checking the availability of items and actually requesting them. A small passive drain would probably be okay while holding it, maybe proportional to how many recipes are stored.
Being able to store multiple recipes per sector on the halo UI. – I think it's better to keep the UI functionality close to the other two crafting halo items.

Things that would definitely be needed as infrastructure to make this work properly:

Corporea transactions, or atomic multi-type requests. For example, when crafting chains this way, it would be the worst to have it request an ingot and then the system is out of nuggets (or vice versa), since the iron came from compacting drawers. Corporea is not a two-way system, so putting back already requested items is not possible.
A performance-friendly way to find a nearby corporea index, even further than a few blocks away, if not hard-linking to a particular index block. This could probably be implemented using the POI system.
Maybe support for auto-crafting requests from UI via JEI/REI/EMI while holding the Corporea Halo, somehow.

But here are some of the actual open questions for discussion:

How would the connection to a corporea network actually work? Does it just link up to the closest corporea index within range? Closest corporea (master) spark in range? Or is it linked specifically to a particular corporea index, or maybe even to a corporea (master) spark? What kind of range should it have? And should it be configurable? (probably yes)
How are request items stored? Does it only support craftable items or possibly also allow items somehow that cannot be created on a crafting table? If so, how would the halo entry be created for those? (maybe matching the last corporea request by the player?)
What happens if you craft something that has remaining items? (e.g. you request a cake, but the network doesn't have any, so you make one with requested milk buckets, but that leaves behind empty buckets)
How should the mana costs be structured, and how much should it actually cost? Is there a range penalty? A penalty or discount for requesting multiple items? Is the penalty flat per request or does it scale with the request volume? (and so on)

Please let me know your thoughts. Any input is appreciated.

williewillus

Wormbo It will try to request the result item from the network instead of crafting it. Failing that, it will attempt to request the ingredient items necessary to craft the result item.

does this nest? if so seems a bit too powerful.

Wormbo A performance-friendly way to find a nearby corporea index, even further than a few blocks away, if not hard-linking to a particular index block. This could probably be implemented using the POI system.

POI system sounds feasible for this

Wormbo How would the connection to a corporea network actually work? Does it just link up to the closest corporea index within range? Closest corporea (master) spark in range? Or is it linked specifically to a particular corporea index, or maybe even to a corporea (master) spark? What kind of range should it have? And should it be configurable? (probably yes)

closest network in range, as if a corporea spark was placed at the player's head position rounded to the nearest block. If by "configurable" you mean the network color can be chosen then yes, otherwise I'm not too keen on having any new configuration options.

Wormbo

williewillus

I would say it should not nest. Source of information is only the one stored crafting recipe, otherwise it would need to potentially resolve circular dependencies.

In standard corporea spark range of a network sounds good, except I'll have to further look into the POI system to make sure that would work for optimizing up spark location lookups. I don't know if it can handle multiple POIs per block position, since spark entities could be in the block space of another POI block or on top of a POI block, whichever ends up being used. I guess I could fall back to the POI system to find a corporea index in the area and check if the player is in "corporea range" of that index's network.

As for color configuration, that probably happens by crafting with a dye item. I would rather not have to try and aim at a corporea spark entity to click it while the halo UI is open.

Wormbo

I'm finding more "fun" limitations in the corporea request system, which was not designed to be used by a moving requester. It probably also won't necessarily make sense to replay a failed request by the halo at a later point.

And at least on Forge it's possible to fail requesting a set of item types even if the simulation suggested it might work. (Fabric has transfer transactions for that kind of thing.) So I guess on Forge there will be a possibility that a crafting attempt looks like it's going to work, but end up with a partial set of ingredient items ending up in the player's inventory instead (or even throwing them out because there's not enough room).

Wormbo

New plan: Split this up into two steps – first make a mobile corporea request item (the "Reification Halo"; no crafting capabilities, only a way to access the corporea network without having to interact with a particular block), then later make an upgrade that can also request ingredients for crafting (the "Reifactory Halo", crafted by combining an Assembly Halo with a Reification Halo).

This Reification Halo (aka. corporea request halo) would act like a portable combination of a Corporea Index (minus the chat input option) and several Corporea Crystal Cubes. While holding it in your main hand or off-hand, you can use the corporea request button in inventories as if you were standing next to a Corporea Index.
Otherwise, holding the halo in one hand an an item in the other, you can request that item type via the center segment of the halo UI. The item type of any request made with the halo can be stored on any of the other segments. Any requests via the halo UI work the same way as punching a Corporea Crystal Cube, i.e. you get one item of that type by default, or an entire stack of that item type while sneaking.
I could also imagine that the halo UI shows the number of items available in the connected network for the item type held in the other hand, and also for any stored item types. For performance reasons (and maybe also mana conservation reasons) this display might be restricted to the currently selected segment, or (if that's possible) only when holding another modifier key, e.g. whatever sprint is bound to. If the player is out of range of any network with a matching color, the segments retain last-known information but everything is sort-of grayed out, requests won't work, and no mana is consumed passively. The same would be true if within range of a network that has no Corporea Index.

Speaking of mana, I think something like the Spectranthemum flower's teleportation mana cost might be a good model for making requests. It scales linearly with the number of items being teleported and with the square root of the distance to teleport them. For the Reification Halo that distance would be measured to the nearest Corporea Index block in the connected network, and could be considered zero while the player is within interaction range of the Corporea Index. I could also imagine a passive mana cost for updating item counts, which would not be distance-based, as no items actually get teleported. Recounting happens once per second while the halo UI is up, like with a Corporea Crystal Cube. (The actual mana consumption might be smoothed out over the entire time the UI is shown and depend on the number of stored item types and whether another item is held in addition to the halo.)

The Reifactory Halo would be a strict upgrade to the Assembly Halo with corporea capabilities. No automatic crafting and no recursive crafting logic, just the option to get a crafting result or any missing ingredients from the connected corporea network, and to use the corporea request button. Same mana cost for item requests apply, where all requested ingredients count separately. Operation priority would be: If the item can be crafted with local resources, do so. If not, but the item is available in the network, it is requested directly. If the item is not available in the network, it will be crafted using as many locally available ingredients as possible, but any missing ingredients are requested from the network. There would need to be visual indicators for what's going to happen if a stored recipe is requested.

Wormbo

Small update:
Still working on the implementation of the Reification Halo, there are currently no plans to implement the Reifactory Halo, as it would require a somewhat larger modification/upgrade to the corporea request system to not request partial crafting ingredients.

The corporea requests with the halo generally work already. I have yet to implement the rendering stuff, except for what item is saved in each halo segment. The idea is that each segment with a stored item also displayed the known item count, similar to a corporea crystal cube (the counts are updated roughly once per second, and the idea is to keep them visible after a "disconnect", but gray them out), which explains why merely holding the halo drains some mana over time.

The current mechanism to store an item type is to either hold an item to save in the other hand and use the halo while looking at an empty segment. Alternatively, if the player is not holding another item, the item type of the last request with the halo can be stored. That's relevant, because I intend to support the corporea keybind while the player holds the halo, even when not standing next to an index. There's also the consideration that using the halo on the "index segment" (the equivalent for the crafting table segment of the assembly halo) opens the player's chat input for a text input request option, as if standing next to an index. There will probably be some kind of restriction, if only to protect the player from burning ridiculous amounts of mana from something like trying to get the challenge advancement for successfully making a maximum count request.

I've also been thinking about the crafting recipe. Currently it's analogous to the assembly halo, except elementium instead of manasteel, a corporea index instead of the crafting table, and pixie dust instead of the mana pearl. I'm considering to replace the pixie dust with a spectanthemum flower, because in my mind this item the request still happens at the connected corporea index, and the items are then teleported to the player.

For visuals, I also want to see if the item can display the network color. The idea is that the halo connects to the physically closest corporea index in any network with a spark in range. The network color indicator would pop up on the item's inventory icon to both signify that a connection is established, and, if in doubt, which network it is connected to.

KiNg

Regarding the open questions posed initially:

I think having an explicit link to a corporea master spark makes the most sense, similar to how the mana mirror works. The master spark (should) be unique per network, so it makes sense as the target. It also saves a lot of effort and computation in figuring out which network is closest.
I think the goal of the halo entries is so that if I'm out and about and need torches, I can simply click the torch segment and get torches. To that end, I think uncraftable items should be allowed, likely by using the offhand to "set" a segment, however, those would obviously only support requesting the item and not crafting it.
If you request a cake (and there are no cakes in the network) I think the correct outcome would be to craft the cake, and the 3 buckets end up in your inventory (since corporea doesn't support pushing the buckets back)
I would suggest making mana costs scale linearly with the number of items requested, and logarithmically with distance, possibly with a cap (so you don't drain full pools per item if you travel). I would also add a flat cost if the request is cross-dimension.
The current suggested implementation of the halo would be limited to a one-way flow of items, only useful to deliver items from storage to the player. I think that's fine, but would suggest that having some way to have the corporea storage system "pull" from the player would be an important and useful addition. This could be done fairly simply by adding a way to interact with a player's ender chest (likely using a player head to distinguish which player), or more complicated by adding a "paired" block that allows for direct pulls from the player's inventory.
Auto-crafting from UI via JEI/REI/EMI can likely piggyback on the current logic used by the request keybind ("c" by default I believe)

luveelvoom

KiNg Does the autocrafting nest, or does it only perform one step? If it does nest, perhaps it should use mana for each crafting step.
Also, about the mana cost: Personally, I believe distance squared is too much for an item the player will be using far from the base often. It works for the Spectrantheum because that's mostly used for inter-base dynamics, but I feel like distance to the 1.5 would be better for the halo, unless the base mana cost for transporting 1 item 1 block is something very low like 1 mana.
For crafting, it should definitely require gaia spirits. My thought would be assembly halo+4 gaia spirits+mana tablet+rune of sloth+terrasteel block, making it quite endgame.