And reading the suggestions in this forum, responses fall into two categories: it can already be done, or a peripheral can be made for that. On the first category, I'm actually pretty impressed with what turtles can already do. They're player-simulators with the ability to move, mine, compare, think, and place. What more can there be?
Well, the turtles move more like blocks than players. We can exist at a fractional x,y,z location but turtles cannot. You might see them move smoothly but I think that's an animation trick to mask their constantly integer block location. One of the "features" above was that players or zombies could nudge the wooden turtle. I'd like to expand on that. Make a wooden turtle like a mob instead of a block. That means it cannot levitate. Give it new API functionality:
- float, float, float turtle.accelerate(float, float) --x, z, also returns current values, useful for determining "at rest on ground"
- float, float, float turtle.velocity()
- bool turtle.jump() --attempts a vertical acceleration of a certain amount, will only fail if in the air not touching the ground
- float, float, float turtle.heading(float, float, float) --target yaw, pitch, roll, turn is at a constant rate, also returns current values
Those are some back-of-the-napkin API ideas to get the idea across. I think a mob-like turtle is sufficiently different from the block-like iron turtle to make this a compelling suggestion. It opens up an entirely different world of programming problems in Minecraft. It also makes sense that it is destructible, as mobs are destructible, too, and likewise with floating in water. It probably shouldn't have a diamond pick. Maybe make wooden turtles unable to mine but only interact (like Adventure mode).