Roadmap
As of now (July 13, 2022), none of this info is current. This is all assumed to be from desht. I'm including it here to get a peak into the dev's ideas, so that maybe they can be designed in the future, continuing the legacy, and keeping STB in the eye's of server owners!
The current STB release creates a useful framework for custom item definition and persistence, adds an energy system, and adds a number of handy items and blocks, but it is very much a beta at this point. Here's an idea of what needs to be done:
Next Release (v1.0?)
Blast Furnace: supercharged furnace, will need to be adjacent to lava & also require SCU. Tier 2 machine. Multi-block (2 high) structure. Will be needed for certain higher-tier (tier 3?) recipes. Undecided if it will be able to process standard furnace recipes...
XP Bank - bank XP, possibly absorb raw XP items, for a SCU cost. Will probably allow dispensing XP in the form of Bottles O' Enchanting, or raw XP. (Later on, this will be able to supply machines which use XP: auto-enchanting, mob-spawning..)
Repair Station: repair tools using SCU and repair resources (e.g. iron for iron tools, etc.). No XP cost, but non-trivial SCU cost.
Geothermal Generator: tier 2 generator, requires water (a use for the Pump!) and to be placed above lava. Will slowly turn lava below it to stone (cobble?) and will send the resulting steam to a Steam Turbine to generate SCU. Will be rather efficient.
Wind Generator: convert wind energy to SCU. Will need plenty of space and work better at higher Y levels. Will require a crafted rotor, which will wear out over time (possibly multiple tiers of rotor with differing lifespans & SCU generation). More SCU but more rotor wear during storms. Will also require a Rotary Generator to actually generate SCU.
Hydro Generator: convert flowing water to SCU. Like the wind generator, will need crafted turbine blades and a separate Rotary Generator. Best power generation will be from water falling directly onto the top of the generator from a great height.
Item Router Storage module: place in an Item Router which is adjacent to a bank of BSU/HSU blocks, and it will intelligently store or pull the item in the right storage unit. This will only work with BSU/HSU's, not vanilla chests.
Auto-crafting machine; place an item into it, choose one of the (vanilla crafting) recipes which make that item, and it will automatically make copies of the item from ingredients in its inventory.
Wireless redstone: behaving somewhat like ender storage with frequencies and global/personal visibility.
More on Energy Generation
The current two tier 1 & 2 generators (Heat Engine and Basic/Dense Solars) are single-block generators, but future energy generation is likely to require multiple blocks to actually output SCU. For example:
Geothermal Generator will produce steam, by piping water into lava and getting steam back (slowly solidifying the lava in the process).
A Boiler will produce steam from water and burnable fuel (will be more efficient than a Heat Engine)
Wind Turbine will produce rotary energy, as will a Hydro Generator.
A Steam Turbine will turn steam energy (from Geothermal & Boiler) into rotary energy.
A Rotary Generator will turn rotary energy (from Steam Turbine, Wind Generator & Hydro Generator) into SCU.
Some kind of biofuel engine (producing rotary energy) fuelled by fermented farm products is likely in the future. Fermentation process will require machinery & SCU too...
The idea will be to place these blocks adjacent to each other, possibly on a specific side. E.g. Wind Generator will output rotational energy at the back, so put the Generator behind it. A Boiler will output steam upward, so put a Steam Turbine on top of the boiler and Generator behind the turbine. And so on...
It all gets a bit more complex than single generators in a block, but hopefully also a bit more interesting. There will be some maintenance costs to all this - I don't want free energy especially from solar/wind (solar already requires consumable PV cells) - but at the same time I want to keep the tediousness low. Turbine blades for wind/hydro/steam generators may need replacement (or repair, for less material cost) periodically for example; better materials and perhaps a craftable lubricant could mitigate that. Geothermal not much of an issue; lava is a consumable resource.
Tier 3 Stuff?
*Need to decide on tier 3 components and requirements to make them...
Tier 3 energy storage: 1M energy cell and 1M battery box. Going to need diamonds.
Ender cage: upgraded version of the ender leash which can also store a hostile mob. Won't be cheap.
Mob spawner: will need SCU, XP, and an ender cage with a stored mob - will spawn copies of that mob. Won't work on bosses (wither/ender dragon). Will need limiting mechanic to avoid excessive spawning of mobs like wither skeletons (probably high SCU or XP requirement)
Auto-enchanter: will need SCU and XP. May allow specific enchantment to be selected. Possibly require the enchantment to be learned first via insertion of enchanted book.
Auto-disenchanter: will need SCU. Strip random enchantments off items, probably damaging the item, producing enchanted books.
Auto-miner: scan downwards, pulling ores out of the ground, replacing with stone (cobble/dirt?). High SCU requirement. Configurable via upgrades?
Testing
This really needs a ton of testing by people other than myself. I'd welcome any and all attempts to break it, asking only that well-written bug reports (or even better, github pull requests!) are sent.
In particular, I'd like to know:
*How well this performs with many players using many blocks and items. Some functionality is likely to be somewhat CPU intensive (item routers in particular need to do a lot of inventory scanning and the vacuum module needs to regularly search for items on the ground).
How well it interacts with other plugins, in particular protection plugins. I know that plugins such as Movecraft which shift blocks around will break this, but I'm not sure there's an easy workaround.
Any potential exploits which allow item/block duping etc.
Tech Tree
The initial release adds a few items and machine, but I plan to design a bigger tech tree with multiple tiers of advancement. Everything in the current release can be considered tier 1 (although I'm debating whether solar cells should be as easy to obtain - free power and all that...) Newer categories of items will include:
Machines that require a water supply or lava supply - a use for the Pump
Automated farming - I like the way Minefactory Reloaded does things and I may emulate some of that, but I have other ideas too
Automated crafting
Better enchantment handling
Mob spawning control
Larger scale machines: terrain modification, automated mining... this will be higher tier stuff for sure
More varied and interesting mechanisms for power generation and storage
Powered item repair system (alternative to the anvil)
New weapons and armour perhaps?
Higher tech item storage and retrieval system (think Applied Energistics, only probably more limited :) )
Some of this may be released as separate plugins; STB is intended to make it very easy for other plugins to create new items & blocks.
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