Any way to keep chunks loaded in SSP?

[BorisTheCat]

Firstly: this is not a rant about how BTW is not Forge compatible, or how I want ___ mod to make my life easier. I love BTW with its rugged survival aspects. FC, thank you for making this happen!

As to the meat of the question... I find it terribly immersion breaking that plants stop growing and clocks stop ticking just because I nipped out of my base to gather some iron. Which is what I’m trying to do right now, explore the ravines and gather iron while my hemp and wheat grow.

So, is there any way to keep chunks loaded while playing BTW? It doesn’t have to be an actual chunk loader from a mod - I am hoping maybe there is some hack one can do with config files to just force Minecraft to keep certain chunks loaded forever. Or even if there was a way to increase the total amount of chunks being loaded at a time. I’m pretty sure I can handle more than the default setting in SSP with 8gb of ram - and would consider upgrading if necessary.

As a very last resort, if all of the above options are impossible: is there some sort of a style of gameplay that minimizes the impact of chunks containing my crop (and future mob) farms unloading?

[Calo290]

Build at spawn, a certain number of chunks around spawn always remain loaded.

[MaxAstro]

I will admit I have a similar issue - it's one of the aspects of MineCraft's design that always bothered me.

Especially now that I am looking at needing, for example, to build a mobtrap for witches and slimes. The nearest swamp is just far enough away from my base to not be in the chunk load range, and there's not really anything in the area worthwhile other than the swamp itself. Obviously I can spend some time branch mining for resources to keep the mobtrap going, but after a while it feels like it'll become a real source of temptation to AFK.

[woeuntoyou]

Build at spawn, a certain number of chunks around spawn always remain loaded.

Really? That explains why my items despawned when I died near spawn... I thought it was the furnaces burning that kept the chunks loaded.

Anyways, if this is true, do you guys consider it cheating to move the spawn (using NBTedit) by a few (~100) blocks to take advantage of this?

[MaxAstro]

do you guys consider it cheating...using NBTedit

Yes.

[LupusExMachina]

do you guys consider it cheating...using NBTedit

Yes.

Actually, depending on the point of play where the spawn is moved, I don't condisder it a cheat.
I decide which world I want to play based on the terrain of my initial spawn.

If I spawn and see something utterly beautiful, just the right spot only a couple of blocks away from the original spawn, I move it to that position.

After all, you can generate new worlds as much as you like, so I see this rather as a feature of convience than a cheat.... as long as it is done before you actually start playing the world.

[JakeZKAM]

It's an out of game method to deal with an in game issue. In other words cheating.

[woeuntoyou]

as long as it is done before you actually start playing the world.

Yeah, I was planning on doing it before starting, not in the middle of playing in the world. There's really nothing there that gives me an advantage there. Actually, I lose some advantages. There's an abandoned village near original spawn where I can settle the first few nights. It just looks nice where I want the new spawn to be.

[Restless]

Unless FC changed it from vanilla, plants still don't grow and mob farms still won't work even in spawn chunks.

http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Spawn_chunk

[FlowerChild]

Time only passing around Steve is part of the back story in BTW actually. If you have immersion problems with it, I suggest thinking more about why the world is operating the way it is, in in-game terms.

I will admit I have a similar issue - it's one of the aspects of MineCraft's design that always bothered me.

Sigh. There's always one.

[Dorugami]

Sigh. There's always one.

To be fair, it's an issue with Minecraft. :)

As for chunks being loaded, you can just do manual activities in the vicinity of your crops. The sizeable radius of active chunks is quite large you know, and nothing says immersion like manually doing mundane humdrum day-to-days.

A little tip, dig for iron underneath your main base. It's still the same chunk, hence it'll be loaded.

I personally like to think the game runs in steve's head, so what he can't perceive doesn't exist.

[FlowerChild]

To be fair, it's an issue with Minecraft. :)

It's not an issue. It's what makes the game possible.

[Dorugami]

No no, of course not. I'm just replaying his words back, as if to say, it's not an issue with BTW. I already had a taste of too many chunks loaded at one time that lost me a fairly good world, I'm not about to challenge the necessary limitations the game runs on.

[MaxAstro]

To clarify: I understand that it would be physically impossible to keep every chunk you've interacted with loaded at once because it would destroy your computer.

I do lament that there is no gameplay way to keep chunks that are particularly important to you loaded other than physically being there.

Ever since I figured out how active chunks work in MineCraft I've wished for the ability to construct some kind of "scarecrow"-type thing that would keep a small radius of chunks around it loaded as long as you were in the same dimension. Ideally an expensive device to prevent people from building them everywhere and inadvertently frying their computer.

But as far as I know that sort of thing could be just as technically unfeasible as keeping all the chunks loaded; I'm no code expert. Or game design expert either, so if FC says it's a bad idea I believe him. :)

[BorisTheCat]

Time only passing around Steve is part of the back story in BTW actually. If you have immersion problems with it, I suggest thinking more about why the world is operating the way it is, in in-game terms.

So if I understand correctly, having only Steve's immediate surroundings animate should push the player towards a deeper appreciation of the challenge of surviving in the wilderness with pre-industrial tools... A way of slowing down the action, akin to what Proteus and Dear Esther do by not including a sprint button. While I can't say I relish trading realism for that, I don't have any say in it, so I guess I'll learn to make do :)

As for chunks being loaded, you can just do manual activities in the vicinity of your crops. The sizeable radius of active chunks is quite large you know, and nothing says immersion like manually doing mundane humdrum day-to-days.

Yes, I do think this will become less of an issue once I get the tools and resources to, for example, deck out my home with microblocks. For now, hemp and the jump to mechanical power will just have to take a back seat to getting enough iron and coal to branch mine under my base. I don't seem to have decent caves in my vicinity, so that might be a contributing factor to my eagerness to explore further afield.

---

I've researched the chunk issue a bit more, and by default Minecraft loads 10 chunks in each direction from the player location, for a total of 21x21 chunks loaded (here and here). On multiplayer, you can increase this to a maximum of 15 by editing the server.properties file. Alas, this file is not available in SSP.

Still, this corresponds to approximately 2/3 of the area of the zoom step 2 map, so should be pretty easy to eyeball that way.

So how many chunks in total could you theoretically keep loaded at a time? I think your system resources would be the main limiting factor, especially RAM (and hence my note about it in the OP). Here 2.5MB/chunk in vanilla MC is suggested (though no data is provided to support this assertion). You'd also have to consider I/O speed (esp. for those without an SSD drive) and CPU usage. Still, I think the 21x21 default of Minecraft is very conservative, probably to cater to all the people with minimal spec computers.

Lastly, if someone did want to try keeping extra chunks loaded in game, sans chunk loaders/mods, there's this method: Can I use a hopper loop as a chunk loader?
It would even be fairly doable thanks to BTW's cheaper hopper recipe. I've not tried it though, and I'm not sure whether it would work cause fully loaded chunks, or chunks with limitations akin to the spawn chunks. I also wonder if there would be massive lag caused by items being moved through them (I heard BuildCraft transport pipes have had this problem). But if someone wanted to try it, I'd love to hear about your results!

[FlowerChild]

So if I understand correctly, having only Steve's immediate surroundings animate should push the player towards a deeper appreciation of the challenge of surviving in the wilderness with pre-industrial tools... A way of slowing down the action, akin to what Proteus and Dear Esther do by not including a sprint button. While I can't say I relish trading realism for that, I don't have any say in it, so I guess I'll learn to make do :)

On the contrary, it's perfectly realistic. You just aren't thinking in terms of the reality which Steve occupies.

It would even be fairly doable thanks to BTW's cheaper hopper recipe. I've not tried it though, and I'm not sure whether it would work cause fully loaded chunks, or chunks with limitations akin to the spawn chunks. I also wonder if there would be massive lag caused by items being moved through them (I heard BuildCraft transport pipes have had this problem). But if someone wanted to try it, I'd love to hear about your results!

BTW Hoppers aren't related to the vanilla one (other than where the idea originated :P ), so it's unlikely they suffer from the same bugs.

[TheGatesofLogic]

explore the ravines and gather iron while my hemp and wheat grow.

ummm.... so, you have wheat and no techand you are mining for IRON (not diamond).... it seems to me cheating isn't a problem for you... unless you spent 40 IRL hours going nomad.... did anyone else notice this?

also: BTW is NO s realism mod, its a mod about gameplay for the sake of gameplay regardless of how it is implemented.

[FlowerChild]

IRON (not diamond).... it seems to me cheating isn't a problem for you... unless you spent 40 IRL hours going nomad.... did anyone else notice this?

Hmmm...I didn't and you're absolutely right.

[woeuntoyou]

When I was a newb, I went nomad for an occupied village before settling. It took about ~8 hours (I don't remember how long exactly, but it definitely didn't take more than 24 hours), so it's possible that he did that.

[FlowerChild]

When I was a newb, I went nomad for an occupied village before settling. It took about ~8 hours (I don't remember how long exactly, but it definitely didn't take more than 24 hours), so it's possible that he did that.

I think you may have gotten rather lucky. With a nether portal network to take me out of the exclusion zone, it probably took me about that long.

[woeuntoyou]

When I was a newb, I went nomad for an occupied village before settling. It took about ~8 hours (I don't remember how long exactly, but it definitely didn't take more than 24 hours), so it's possible that he did that.

I think you may have gotten rather lucky. With a nether portal network to take me out of the exclusion zone, it probably took me about that long.

Yeah, probably luck + huge oceans allowing me to travel long distances at night and without much food... but that was before squids could kill you... hmmm...

[ylogaj]

.Or perhaps a typo? He could have meant pumpkins.

Although, I do agree with flower. The solution to this is just to build either:
A. Bigger farms
B. More farms, at various mining posts

Makes things more interesting.

[BorisTheCat]

That's right, I got plenty wheat but no iron. You guys are making me appreciate how lucky I am. I didn't realise that wheat is so much higher in the tech tree.

Early on, I found a jungle temple within sight of coast. I made a compass thanks to the redstone and went looking for a village as soon as I had a full stack of stone and wood. I travelled mainly by boat in the direction opposite to spawn for 6 in-game days when I got frustrated by the lack of any village-friendly biomes. It was all mainly tundra, with parts jungle and swamp. Then I started trying to make a massive circle around spawn, and several days into it, I finally ran into a tiny desert biome with a populated village! Still, 10-20 in-game days compared to 8 IRL hours travelling via the nether seems wrong… Sheer luck I guess?

That was my first nomadic experience, and it actually turned out a lot easier than starting off was. The beginner's guide on the wiki made it seem best to build a base asap and then go off looking for renewable food (aka chicken). As a result, I was on the edge of starvation up until then. But as a nomad, there was food aplenty. I could spend the nights comfortably mining stone while my mutton cooked.

also: BTW is NO s realism mod, its a mod about gameplay for the sake of gameplay regardless of how it is implemented.

Well that’s not what I would have inferred, judging by HC movement, buoyancy, not being able to place water source blocks, and most of the rest of the list of changes. When it comes to realism, BTW walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, so I’ll use it for my ducking needs even if it’s only supposed to be about gameplay :)

I used to think TerraFirmaCraft would be the perfect realism mod for me. Unfortunately, after all the nice touches at the beginning, the endgame basically degenerated into crafting more powerful anvils in order to work more powerful alloys, with tons and tons of mindless mining in between. It’s better in SMP I hear…

It did have a very nice touch in making you get out and explore the world to find the right rock types for creating alloys. It took hours sometimes to find what you were looking for, then hours more to find the actual ore veins in the stone. Quite similar to the village mechanic in BTW, albeit a lot less dangerous.

[Anavros]

Sheer luck I guess?

I didn't know they were so rare. I walked/boated for about three days directly north from spawn, found a desert with two villages and one temple, and came back absolutely stacked. It never occured to me that I was lucky. At that point, though, I did already have a very big, developed base, so I was hardly nomadic.

There was also the temple right on the edge of a jungle near my base that I (stupidly) raided, and then the witch hut in the swamp adjacent to my base that I (stupidly) raided. Thinking about it, my whole world is luck and terrible decisions.

[BorisTheCat]

Why stupidly? Is there any benefit to keeping everything as-is?

And now that you remind me, on the way back I hit on a desert temple too and netted 2 diamonds. I invested them into a diamond hoe (thanks for the tip DaveYanakov!) which is how I managed to get all my hemp, too.