that’s right gamers, i’ve decided to further investigate the idea that gives me an excuse to play minecraft for homework.

Let me address all the FAQs:

What is your idea, exactly??

In Minecraft, the stars right now are static. Many a modder has made mods to make the sky prettier or to include planets you can fly to– but I’m a simple gal. I’ll be making a mod that simply adds constellations to the sky that you can see when you hover over a star or in the general area of a constellation. This could potentially revolutionize the coordinate system and the waypoint system used in many mods.

How did you come up with such a simple, yet elegant idea?

T’was a night or day or afternoon much like the one you’re reading this during, and I thought, “hey, I like Minecraft,” at the same time as I thought, “Hey, I like stars.” Some might call it a slow hunch. Others, mere coincidence. But the fact is: the rest is history.
I’ve also always wanted to learn how to mod Minecraft since it looks so easy but I know it’s pretty difficult. And I wanna do something fun for thesis that I probably won’t have the real time or resources to do once I get out into the “real world”.

Surely someone has done this before?

Surprisingly, not as far as I can tell. As far as TCNJ goes, I don’t remember ever hearing anyone modding Minecraft for thesis and I can’t find anything about it on the internet (except an article about a minecraft map I made with Miles for IMMovation I).
And although players have discussed and mapped constellations extensively, I can’t find a single mod that does what I’m trying to do, simply highlight the constellations in the sky. All the mods go too far, either retexturing the sky entirely or including constellations deep in a magic mod that you can’t customize or see with the naked eye (you need a mod telescope thing). Related links:
Astral Sorcery
FTB Constellations
Stellarium
Stellar Sky mod
“Constellation” mod
Reddit discussion about constellations in Minecraft

That’s cool and all, but you and what experience??

I’d like to present a skill I’d never put on my resume: I’ve been playing Minecraft since at least beta– my brother might have let me play Alpha but I was too young to remember. I do, however, remember the little ‘Beta’ word in the corner of the screen and I remember asking my dad for like $10 so I could get my own account instead of sharing with my brother.
Also, Java was my first coding language, and that’s the version of Minecraft I’ll be modding. My dad and my brother also code things for a living having studied computer science in college, so I’ve got a good support system.

What’ll you need for your journey? (hardware / software)

Hardware is easy, it’s just a computer than can run the coding software and Minecraft. I’ll also initially try to code this mod as a server-side mod so you can connect on a vanilla client, so I’ll also probably end up setting up a little baby server on my computer or asking my brother to allocate some server space like he’s done before. I know literally nothing about servers and next to nothing about modding, though. But that’s the challenge!!
Luckily I’m semi-familiar with Java, so I’ll probably end up using Eclipse. Don’t you dare say anything bad about my baby Eclipse–it’s got an ironic name considering the mod I’m making, and sure, it never installs right on the first go, it’s just playing hard to get. When you really get to know the program, you really start to appreciate it. And also I trust it because my HS comp sci teacher trusted it. Also, did you know:

What’ll you need for your journey? (skillz)

So again, I know Java. That’s a plus. As for all skills I know or don’t know:
+ Java
+ How to survive the first night in Minecraft
– Running a server
– Modding
– Modding a server
+ Object-oriented programming
+ Logical / Mathematical thinking
+ Patience
+ Endurance
+ An insane amount of time in the Spring semester since I won’t be Station Manager anymore :(((
– Modding in general
– Oh wait I already said that last one ok you get the idea

Do you have stretch goals for your GoFundMe (that doesn’t exist)??

Yes I do!!!! The main goal is to get some kind of constellations working, but like Ault said on a previous post, this project works well because I can scale up once I get the basic building blocks down. And if I can’t get them down… Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.
Also, see the TL;DR section below for a simplified table of my stretch goals organized as “Priorities” where the highest priority is 0.

I have another question you didn’t answer!! >:[

Oh noooooooooo. I did answer all the questions on the assignment on Canvas, but I’m totally down to chat more about my project. Find me on the Discord or comment below and I’ll address your questions here.

🄱🅄🅃 🅆🄰🄸🅃, 🅃🄷🄴🅁🄴’🅂 🄼🄾🅁🄴!!!

I hope you’ve been keepin’ your ear close to the ground when it comes to Minecraft updates, because… uh.. I haven’t, but luckily the YouTube algorithm has for me (and I will too from now on). Apart from STEVE BEING IN SMASH NOW, there’s more news on this blocky frontier:

Yes that’s right, summer 2021 here we come!! the new update sounds sick as heck, so I watched this video to get the gist of it since I couldn’t be asked to read anything this weekend. And I thought I had learned about everything, but my inner Minecraft gamer was telling me that there must be something more, so I broke down and found an article about it too. So I read it, and it’s like blah blah blah new minecraft things woohoo…

look closer

¿¿ʇɔǝɾoɹd ʎɯ ɹoɟ uɐǝɯ sıɥʇ sǝop ʇɐɥʍ os

phenominal question, thank you for asking. Answer:

I thought of it first!!
You can check the links! My 3 ideas 4 thesis is posted well before the announcement, so I have 100% dibs.
Although… this could really play into my favor. Lately, it seems like Minecraft is adding a lot of popular mods into the game (see the addition of Copper in the same Caves & Cliffs update). So maybe if my mod is good enough it could be added too???👉👈

To wrap things up, here are a few questions I still have to answer:

Are the stars objects? Can they be made into objects? → How do I find them in the source code? How do I get the source code?????
How to display constellation lines? Constellation names? How to make them accessible?
Is it the same star map over the entire map? Are there hemispheres? Seasons? Should there be a “person” marker on the star map? → Celestial model?Can the mod be server-side so vanilla clients can connect and use the mod without changing their clients? → Spigot, bukkit, paper?
How to “push” new versions of the mod out to the server? → Local server?
Can I somehow integrate these new telescopes into my mod? Or make it so it'll be easy to add them later?

Also what should the mod be named?

Currently working with:

The Stars

Constellations

Now With Constellations

Ursa Major & More

Maybe something else idk i haven’t decided.

Regardless, I’m moving forward with my idea: modding Minecraft.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey of this post. It’s just the beginning.

PRIORITY LEVEL	GOAL	DESCRIPTION
P0	HARD CODE CONSTELLATIONS	Code constellations into the game, unmoveable, unnameable. Constellations are able to be “seen” only at night and only when highlighting them with cursor / crosshair.
p1	NAMEABLE	custom constellation names, custom constellation shapes (for the server)
p2	OUTRAGEOUS	constellations lead to treasure items: star map, telescope (from update??)

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Hope you have a good rest of your day 🙂