RELEASED Bees! v:Unstable/Pre 1.0

Or that. It'd be quicker than waiting for me.

 

Might it be possible at some point down the line of production to make an alternative to the petal-crafting of drones and queen method, by enabling an inclusion of localised flora from the biome as a means of generating "caught" bees of a specific type?
For instance, ensuring your bee catchers are placed in an area known to include the flora your desired bee type frequents, be it cactus flowers, fruit trees, hovering velocity dandelions, or whatever?
This sort of method would be more time and scrounging based: locating the correct flora that can produce the bee type you are seeking, etc, and then placing a bee catcher in that area, activating it (maybe some sort of small battery or solar-power system that lasts X in-game hours), and then coming back from time to time to see if your trap has been successful? Obviously, young queens would be sparser than the drones still.
Maybe another item could be included in your mod, such as a wild hive, that could be attached to the relevant tree/rock/object type in the biome by the world-gen? Perhaps these wild hives could emit a small swarm npc, similar to the awesome little animated one you have around your apiary, and the bee catcher would attract these if one was present in the area, enabling the capture of the young queen and some drones for your apiaries?
The apiaries themselves could also have environmental requirements based on the bee type housed within, and might require some sort of technology-based climate control system, if they are not going to be located in the world that the bee type was from?
The possibilities of this mod are quite incredible! Thanks for the update!!
Apologies - trying hard to stop rambling here. Quite excited for this mod, and very glad you are getting some assistance from the other talented mod-makers here. Cheers guys/girls!

 

So... this is the Starbound make of the Bees mod from Minecraft? I can get behind that.
I'm not a programmer, but I have a lot of ideas for interesting/cool things. Feel free to use any of my suggestions, modified as you please.
Ideas, some of which have already been stated, some of which haven't:

• A specialty crafting station. A crafting table with a small burner and tin pot on it for melting wax, with a few jars would be the start, with a higher-tier table later that gives access to more recipes, and covered in more modern apiarist's materials. The basic table would probably look like a wooden desk of some kind, and cost planks, logs, copper, and a little bit of iron. To upgrade it into the advanced version, which could have a small centrifuge and a more modern-looking wax smelter, you would use titanium panels, some steel bars, and a couple of circuit boards and copper bars for the wiring. For the place you combine bee species, you have a glass tank with simple plastic edges, costing nothing more impressive than a few glass blocks and some pixels. It could be a 3x2 object with a few 'bees' living in it; it's a Breeding Tank, and would be able to have things put on top of it.
• Biome-specific bees. Each planet has a specific type of bee that inhabits it, being plain ol' generic Bees on Forest and Grasslands biomes, while Jungles, Snow Planets, and the like have specialty bees, like Killer Bees and Frost Bees, respectively. Each has a special aspect that makes it unique; Killer bees produce honey faster, but you need an apiarist's (beekeeper's) suit or they sting the crap out of you whenever you get within a couple of tiles of the hive, while Frost bees can sometimes (rarely) provide crystals. Also, Alien Bees from Tentacle biomes, with a freaky/maybe adorable look, and Space Bees in little astronaut helmets, for the lulz, found only on Moons, and Void Bees in the Asteroid Belts (because freaky purple-eyed black bees that produce Matter Blocks instead of honey are cool)
• Wax as a possible drop. Have a 6~12% chance for the hives to also drop a Wax Chunk item when you collect the honey, which can be smelted down in a furnace to form Wax Bars (3x per bar). Each bar can be used for a variety of wax-based purposes, such as getting a quartet of candles from a single bar and a fabric at the Apiarist's stations, and the later tiers having the option to color the candles with a little bit of a given dye color, in the same style as the Dyeing Bucket mod, but specifically for the candles. Other uses are for making Wax Blocks (3 bars to a block, similar to Packed Dirt blocks), making advanced Beehives that have a higher drop rate of between 1 and 3 honey at a time, depending on the advanced level, or produce honey faster, but only one at a time, etc. As well, Wax could be for any number of decorations, and even, potentially, be put through a refinery for a small amount of pixels (~10px)
• Honey recipes. Honey Glazed Ham, requiring (of course) Alien Ham and two Honey, a Honey-nut Bolt-O's, which are Bolt-O's and a honey, and described as 'nearly edible!', some Spicy Honey Mustard sauce, which is a Chili, a Honey, and can be used to make Spicy Honey Glazed Jerky, which is two Spicy Honey Mustard and trio of uncooked Alien Bacon, and you get 3 of the Jerky as a result; The Jerky and sauce alike provide a speed boost effect, because your mouth just caught on delicious fire.
• Bee Wings back item. In two forms, even; one being made from fabric, wax, and pixels, it's a set of bee-like wings, that give the usual fall damage reduction, gliding, and jump boost as normal wings, but with an animated 'in use' frame, where they buzz up and down, instead of just a lone flap, like the in-game wings do. The second one is made from 100 drones you've collected (why the f*** do you ahve that many bees?!) and one queen, and is a swarm of bees on your back. The swarm wings are constantly moving, with no noticeable difference while jumping or not, and give normal wing bonuses. Also, it makes you look like you've got a cloud of bees behind and around you.

Alright, that's all I got for now, I'll prolly come up with more some time. I can't wait for this mod to go just a little farther!

 

Another thing he might try. In terreria, honey could be used to increase healing, so a crafting item that uses a little wax and some honey that could be opened into a specific area and form a bath of honey, that would help heal you faster. Do it yourself candles, colored torches mostly, but perhaps with a different coloration, a food item to be sure.

 

Cactuar updated Apiaries, Bees, and Honey! (WIP!) with a new update entry:

Nocturnal Bees, Bee Catcher Change, Crafting Table.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

working on a breeding station and larva hatchery!

then im gonna refine the artwork.

 

some suggestions:

1.) apiaries in the vicinity of other crops/saplings will cause them to grow at a faster rate and drop more food/seeds when harvested
2.) different types of bees work on different crops, i.e. standard bees work on generally 'real' crops, carrots, tomatoes, etc. Cyberbees work on Glitch crops, and so on.
3.) a special class of trees (which is basically a copy of existing tree types) that when encountered have the different types of wild beehives on them (i.e 'normal' trees have normal bees, and metallic trees have Cyberbees). Attempting to harvest/approach the hive by cutting the tree or the hive directly will aggro a swarm of bees, which are deadly unless you craft beekeeper gear to mitigate damage and/or use tools to kill the swarm, such as a net or a smoke gun.
4.) Aside from enhancing crops, the different bee types, once tamed, can have special bonuses if turned into pets or spawners. As a pet, a Crystal Bee Swarm might provide light and cause ores to light up in the dark. As a Spawner, a Cyberbee Swarm Spawner might be wired to attack mobs that trigger it.

 

did minecraft forestry's beekeeping part inspire you to make this mod?

 

Yes, it did.

 

Cactuar updated Apiaries, Bees, and Honey! with a new update entry:

Bee breeding, silk, bug catcher, and more!

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Damn, the progression of this mod is astounding, even in the span of a day! Only 32 total downloads so far, but it is an awesome mod all the same. Underappreciated, if I may say so.

 

I only work part time! Thank you!

From here it's an uphill battle. My planned future content requires me to learn a lot more Lua.

 

Soldier on!! This is going so very well Thankyou muchly for all your efforts thus far - it's quite inspiring, your work ethic!
The new bee types are fantastic, btw, and the changes to the bee catcher are really nice.

 

Thank you very much for all your feedback by the way!

Oh, and i had my brother redo the silk fly, ill have to post a minor update with that and a wax sword in a few minutes.

 

Cactuar updated Bee Breeding, apiaries, and honey! with a new update entry:

Minor bug fix, Wax Sword

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Oh my goodness! All these new toys - I feel like a kid in some kind of a store!!
Bee breeding so fast, and now the bug catching, it's just almost too much.
This is the new Christmas. Beefest, it shall be called henceforth, and the bringer of the toys is a giant dancing cactus man.
Thankyou!!!

 

Wax sword?

Er.. Normally, I'm perfectly fine with mod-makers adding custom content for their mod, but there are limits to that, at which, upon being crossed, I think "That is just plain weird".

If it is a placeable object, it'd be fine. But if it is a weapon.. Well, I'd imagine it doing minor damage and then breaking. Maybe if it were called an "Ironwax Sword" would I consider it a weapon.

 

Haha yeah, i just wanted to make a little novelty item out of the wax, I'm toying with the idea of using the wax to make castings for something.. but I don't know what to do with that.

Also, i need to pump out some real content with the current list of combs before i continue down lines of bees....

Then I need to see if there's a way to get biome info in a lua script.

 

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Wax_Sword <--- It's a reference to that, btw. I am a cactuar, after all.

 

Cactuar updated Bee Breeding, apiaries, and honey! with a new update entry:

Bug Fixes, Potions.

Read the rest of this update entry...