Giving a standard block an inventory?

[ianc1215]

I have a concept for a mod I am working on. To put it in a nutshell the mod would use a cauldron which the player would throw the items into. However unlike mods like Thaumcraft where the items are converted into essentia I would leave the items as items once thrown in. I'm thinking I would need to store 10 or so items inside the cauldron (maybe more). I wouldn't need any GUI of any kind, just a way to store the items so the cauldron retains the contents while rebooting the server or other events.

 

I took a look at the various container classes that are used for chests and such. I thought that sounded like the right idea but I thought rather than possibly running around in circles I should ask for advice.

 

I was going use the "onEntityCollidedWithBlock" (I think it's spelled right) method as the way to get the item thrown in the cauldron but that is as far as the idea got.

 

Any ideas?

[shadowfacts]

Depends, do you mean your own cauldron block or the Vanilla one? Making your own would be the easiest way to accomplish this. Your block would have a TileEntity that stored an ItemStack[] which would be your inventory, then in your block, you would perform the appropriate checks in onEntityCollidedWithBlock, then add the EntityItem's item stack to the TE's inventory and kill the EntityItem.

[Draco18s]

Simply:

 

You can't use the vanilla cauldron.  It does not have a TE and you need a TE to store items.

[ianc1215]

I should have mentioned in my post. I would be creating a new cauldron that is based on the vanilla cauldron. But to clarify I would not be trying to use the vanilla one. My idea was something like the thaumcraft cauldron. Basically somehow take a vanilla cauldron and "transform" it into a mod specific cauldron.

 

I am guessing that by doing so I open up my options greatly?

[ianc1215]

So what would be the best way to implement an inventory to the cauldron? Would l use one of base classes like InventoryBasic?

 

All I need to do is add / remove items and know what items have been added since they will affect the recipes.