Guide Book

alaindustrial:guide_book

UtilityImplementedguide-booktutorialonboardingdocumentationutility

Summary

The Guide Book is Ala Industrial's in-game manual. A new player lands in a world with non-trivial mechanics (EU/FE instead of FE, LV/MV/HV voltage tiers, cables with distance loss, machine face ports) and, with no built-in tutorial, is left to guess or read an external wiki. The book removes that entry barrier: the player receives it in their inventory automatically on first spawn (exactly once), opens it with a right-click — a full-screen view with tabs and page navigation — and works through the chapters up to a first working power grid and machine without leaving the game.

The book needs no energy and does nothing mechanically — it is pure reading material. Its content is built from the same source as the mod's wiki site, so the numbers in the book never drift from the game.

Mini-example: enter a new world → the "Guide Book" is in your inventory → right-click → a screen opens on the "Getting Started" tab → click the "Solar Panel" link → read how much EU/FE it makes and how to craft it.

How you get it

• Auto-given on first join. The first time a player enters a world, the book is placed in their inventory exactly once. The "already given" ledger lives in per-world saved data (a SavedData holding a set of UUIDs) — it survives death/respawn/dimension changes and never double-gives on relog.
• Existing players get it once on a mod update too: their UUID isn't in the ledger yet, so the book is given on their first join after the update and the UUID is added.
• Recovery if lost — two safeguards, neither of which gates the auto-give:
  • a craft (cheap, LV-accessible, not schematic-gated);
  • the /alaindustrial guide command (reuses the existing /ala command; gives/opens the book). The player is never locked out of the tutorial.
• If the inventory is full during auto-give, the book drops at the player's feet (never lost).

Interface

Opened with a right-click — a full-screen window (not a chest: no slots, no inventory). It has:

• Tabs (top-level chapters) that mirror the wiki site's category grouping plus a leading
  1. Getting Started — hand-written onboarding: first generator → first cable → first machine;
  2. Energy — what EU/FE is, LV/MV/HV tiers, cables and distance loss, face ports;
  3. Generators, 4. Machines, 5. Storage, 6. Energy Transfer,
  4. Materials, 8. Items & Tools, 9. Components, 10. Utilities.
• Entry list within a tab (one per block/item/mechanic), scrollable.
• Entry page — a spread with page navigation (next/prev) and a "back" button to the list.
• Clickable links inside the text — jump to another entry (and, in v1.1, to an anchor within it).
• Recipe widget on a page — a crafting/processing grid (draws ingredients + result; works without JEI/REI installed).
• Text is word-wrapped, and long lists scroll.

Visually it follows the mod style — the same palette and bevel panels as the other interfaces.

Content

• The book covers every block and item already in the game: for each one, a short description, its stats (tier, EU/FE, buffer) and its crafting recipe.
• The numbers in the book (EU/FE, tiers, buffers, recipes) come from the same source as the wiki site, so they always match the game — no drift.
• Planned and not-yet-added blocks are left out: the book never promises what isn't in the game yet.
• The framing "Getting Started" and "Energy" chapters are written as an introductory tutorial for new players.

Block Properties

The book is an item (not a block): it can't be placed, stacks to 1, has no EU/FE buffer. Its "shape" is an ordinary item model (→ item/generated with the icon). Right-click opens the GUI (see "Interface"); no block is placed in the world, no collision.

Recipes

The craft is a dead-simple shapeless recipe: a vanilla minecraft:book + (the earliest, cheapest mod component). Not schematic-gated (the book is auto-given anyway; the craft only recovers a lost one).

Progression

• Tier: none (a utility, not part of the energy chain). Available immediately — it's the entry point into progression, not a rung of it. It guides the player through the mod's real progression (ore → generator → cable → machine → tiers).

Localization

• v1: en_us + ru_ru — full chapter content (en_us is the source, as everywhere in the mod).
• The other locales (everything but the generated en_us and ru_ru) are assembled from the translation maps (build_book_locale.py apply): chapter content is fully translated, and the book exists in every locale of the mod.
• All book text is via lang keys; no hardcoded strings (project rule).

Related

• The book is built from the same source as the mod's wiki site: the same content and the same numbers, but right in the player's hands.

Crafting

Shapeless Crafting

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Guide Book