Keep chunks active Block / Feature

[Moldiworp2]

I thought it would be great to have some sort of block or feature that would keep the chunks loaded and active around it, like the World Anchor in Railcraft (http://railcraft.wikispaces.com/World+A ... 8Device%29) This could mean you having your automatic farm however many billion blocks away and still run the damn thing :) Perhaps the Lens block can be used to this end, place a soulforge steel block next to it so that any chunk the beam ends in and the 9 chunks around it stay active.

[SterlingRed]

Hello and welcome to the forums! Unlike most 1st or 2nd posters posting topics in suggestions, this one isn't blantantly against the rules, however it's still not the kind of suggestion FC is looking for. I suggest you read the suggestion forum rules, post in any other subforum of the forums to get to know the community, and read some of the previous suggestions that have been accepted or discussed in detail to learn what FC is looking for and what the mod is trying to do. Also use the search feature, obvious suggestions have almost always been made before. Your idea is considered an obvious suggestion, it is by far not a new concept and a very well known idea by most of the mod community.

The problem with this feature suggestion at this time is why? Why can't you build your base in a central location? Why do you need two places a billion blocks apart to be loaded at once? This mod has no feature as of yet that would require this.

[Mason11987]

The problem with this feature suggestion at this time is why? Why can't you build your base in a central location? Why do you need two places a billion blocks apart to be loaded at once? This mod has no feature as of yet that would require this.

I don't know, I disagree, good water sources, desserts, spawners (mossy cobble gens), NPC villages all could be in disparate locations and all offer value and all cannot be moved (when using HCB).

There may not be a lot of demands for this, but there are some, and this could allow the player to harvest iron golems or allow NPCs to breed even if you need to be near your base or spawner trap. It may not be within the "theme" of BTW via magic chunk loading, but it does offer value to automation, which BTW sort of revolves around.

[Moldiworp2]

That's fair enough, didn't really consider how it would suit the mods direction so much as how it would suit function(?) ie. having two working bases, you could run working item transports between long distance locations, automation could continue while you go in search of The Far Lands so you don't inevitably die and return home to find your cupboards empty ;) And if it could work in the Nether / End then... wow! It would seem like this sort of thing requires fair amounts of effort, and I can't particularly imagine a block, added or in the mod, that this feature would suit. But I figure I'd make my voice heard.

And the only reason I went with the whole light from the Lens thing is because I couldn't figure out any greater logic for the feature other than the spotlight is on that area :P

[Elevatator]

One Problem I see is the performance.

[Moldiworp2]

Yes I can imagine it would be rather resource demanding, but if that's the case people just won't be able to utilize the feature.

[Mason11987]

One Problem I see is the performance.

I'm skeptical of this as a concern, in SSP there are hundreds of chunks loaded at any given time, adding 9 more a thousand blocks away wouldn't make a huge difference.

[rhacer]

I would be a proponent of this, though I would worry about performance on my MBP.

[morvelaira]

One Problem I see is the performance.

I'm skeptical of this as a concern, in SSP there are hundreds of chunks loaded at any given time, adding 9 more a thousand blocks away wouldn't make a huge difference.

It's hard to say that will remain the case. A lot of it will have to do with the way Mojang rewrites the code to merge SSP and SMP which seems to be happening right now by the latest snapshot. Probably best if this suggestion is tabled at the kindest.

[Kazuya Mishima]

What if ender-magic could be processed or transformed in such a way that instead of teleporting you or enderman it could be use to anchor a location in 3 dimensions. For any area you wanted to keep active you would surround it with 8 anchor points with some ender-construct you get from harvesting a lot of ender pearls and then doing something to make the anchor.

You could then assemble a receiving point where this distant location, which is now framed by the new anchor, is then teleported. This is to say all blocks or block information that is framed within the cube (which could be 40x40x40) of these ender anchors is teleported to a receiving point and the matter or blocks at the receiving location is displaced to the other location. This might allow you to move systems around and optimize space allowing you to keep all your systems in some general area even if for previous reasons you had to separate them.

I'm not advocating this work between dimensions however.

[Mason11987]

What if ender-magic could be processed or transformed in such a way that instead of telephoning you or enderman it could be use to anchor a location in 3 dimensions. For any area you wanted to keep active you would surround it with 4 anchor points with some ender-construct you get from harvesting a lot of ender pearls and then doing something to make the anchor.

You could then assemble a receiving point where that area you want to be active, which is now framed by the new anchor, is then teleported to where you want it. This is to say all blocks or block information that is framed within the cube of these ender anchors is teleported to a receiving point and the matter or blocks there is displaced to the other location. This might allow you to move systems around and optimize space.

This feels a lot like a recipe suggestion in disguise. Probably want to avoid that. The main goal here is to identify problems that exist that if solved would allow us to do more fun and interesting things in the game, the "how" on how these problems are solved (in terms of game design) is generally something FC doesn't request input on (hence the no-recipe-suggestions rule).

[Kazuya Mishima]

This feels a lot like a recipe suggestion in disguise. Probably want to avoid that. The main goal here is to identify problems that exist that if solved would allow us to do more in the game, the "how" on how these problems are solved (in terms of game design) is generally something FC doesn't request input on (hence the no-recipe-suggestions rule).

Also sorry i had to go back and edit my initial post as it was unclear 4 shoudl = 8

if you mean the crafting table is involved no. I mean you frame a 3 dimensional area(in the world as if your build the corners 8 corners of a simple house) with some sort of block and that 3 dimensional area serves as the boundary for the modified code to look at as a reference to swap blocks between locations in the minecraft world. The area within the house (which has special corners constructed from ender harvestings) is then teleported to a destination location. The blocks at teh destination location are swapped with the blocks from the receiving location.

Considering the intensity of the process the teleportation would consume the corner blocks making it a one time thing. And if you wanted to teleport a large 3 dimensional segment again you would need to reconstract a frame with new ender materials.

Other then enderpearls i'm not proposing a recipe.

I would say the problem is that you might want to move a system around( like a mob trap or a series of mob spawners) and with this method you could teleport blocks from distant locations.

Think of it like bulk matter transport, your moving land or buildings or systems. Instead of keeping remote locations active your transporting them to you and your objective is to make sure they arrive and are integrated into your base in a efficient enough way that they remain in the memory.

[SterlingRed]

@ above, implementation details as to how a suggested feature ingame should work and be laid out is generally viewed by the same logic that created the 'no receipe' rule. As in, avoid it as Mason said.

Also what you are talking about is entirely different than the OP. 1 suggestion per topic please. You can create your own topic for your idea if you like.

[SterlingRed]

One Problem I see is the performance.

I'm skeptical of this as a concern, in SSP there are hundreds of chunks loaded at any given time, adding 9 more a thousand blocks away wouldn't make a huge difference.

It's hard to say that will remain the case. A lot of it will have to do with the way Mojang rewrites the code to merge SSP and SMP which seems to be happening right now by the latest snapshot. Probably best if this suggestion is tabled at the kindest.

(sry for dp, on mobile so editing/quoting is a pain)
For the record I'm not opposed to the idea, I think in certain situations it could be useful. I just think that this concept has more than likely already occurred to FC as it's fairly common and that if he wanted to add it he either already would have done so or has plans to in the future. But I may be assuming too much.
Laria has a good point that since the codebase is changing, this may be bad timing.

[embirrim]

I am actually 100% in favor of this feature, mossy spawners benefit imensely from this, and I am not a fan of AFKing (like many others probably).
I am not in need of this feature because I have BTB, and the additional pipes mod provides a "chunkloader block" that, simply, loads 5 chunks or so around it. This isn't a "use this mod" question, it's just in case you're not sure how it works (or how I think it should work in BTW)

There is no issue with resource consuming because, as stated in the OP, it is a block you place down that loads chunks. That way you are not forced to place it down. If it impacts your performance too much, don't use it. However, for those of us that can afford those few extra loaded chunks at all times, this is a great benefit to production in a less cheaty way than AFKing. Not that afking is really cheating but you get the point. Also, it's less boring.
I would also like to point out that the one in additional pipes for BTB only loads the chunks, you can't put it, say next to spawner and expect it to function in same way as if you were there, regarding mobs spawning (it does work for mossy cobble spreading).

[FlowerChild]

This is way too "gamey" for me guys. Giving the player the ability to manipulate the load/save system of a game from within the game is a big immersion killer IMO.

It's not something I would feel comfortable using as a player, and thus not something I would build into the mod. I think I'd also have to revoke my game-designer-club membership-badge if I did something like this ;)

For those that are so inclined though, I'm sure there are mods out there to do this, or a motivated individual could build one.

[rhacer]

This is way too "gamey" for me guys. Giving the player the ability to manipulate the load/save system of a game from within the game is a big immersion killer IMO.

It's not something I would feel comfortable using as a player, and thus not something I would build into the mod. I think I'd also have to revoke my game-designer-club membership-badge if I did something like this ;)

For those that are so inclined though, I'm sure there are mods out there to do this, or a motivated individual could build one.

I'm interested in that analysis FC. particularly the bit about immersion. For me it would increase immersion. Right now I'm sitting in my office. About 9 miles away, is my house. I can't see it, but I'm quite certain things are going on there: our fish are swimming in a darkened tank (last week one even died :( ), our dog is sleeping in her crate in the garage, etc.

I've always found it jarring within the Minecraft world that things are NOT happening unless I'm nearby. I understand it from a practicality standpoint but it's still jarring. With BTW's ability to give us amazing creative control and fantastic machines, using resources from all over the map means that it is even more jarring to realize that the parts of the world where those machines are stop working when I am far enough away from them.

[FlowerChild]

I've always found it jarring within the Minecraft world that things are NOT happening unless I'm nearby. I understand it from a practicality standpoint but it's still jarring. With BTW's ability to give us amazing creative control and fantastic machines, using resources from all over the map means that it is even more jarring to realize that the parts of the world where those machines are stop working when I am far enough away from them.

Agreed, but to me giving Steve an artificial block to bypass that limitation is even more jarring. It's providing an in-game object that makes no sense whatsoever except within the context of bypassing a technical limitation, and puts the player in the weird position of playing some kind of meta-game within the game that involves balancing chunk load vs performance, and whose proper usage requires the player become somewhat of an expert in the way the chunk-loading system works behind the scenes.

To me, I'd much rather just leave it at "when you're far away, stuff stops working", than make something like that part of "proper" game-play. To me, it's no real solution, just a band-aid that places the onus on the player to manage chunk-loading themselves.

I'd challenge you to find one commercial game that does something like that man, whereas I can think of many where stuff stops working at a distance. Generally, as a professional game-designer, I aspire to always provide commercial-quality features that feel like a natural part of the game. This isn't such a feature.

[rhacer]

I've always found it jarring within the Minecraft world that things are NOT happening unless I'm nearby. I understand it from a practicality standpoint but it's still jarring. With BTW's ability to give us amazing creative control and fantastic machines, using resources from all over the map means that it is even more jarring to realize that the parts of the world where those machines are stop working when I am far enough away from them.

Agreed, but to me giving Steve an artificial block to bypass that limitation is even more jarring. It's providing an in-game object that makes no sense whatsoever except within the context of bypassing a technical limitation, and puts the player in the weird position of playing some kind of meta-game within the game that involves balancing chunk load vs performance, and whose proper usage requires the player become somewhat of an expert in the way the chunk-loading system works behind the scenes.

To me, I'd much rather just leave it at "when you're far away, stuff stops working", than make something like that part of "proper" game-play. To me, it's no real solution, just a band-aid that places the onus on the player to manage chunk-loading themselves.

I'd challenge you to find one commercial game that does something like that man, whereas I can think of many where stuff stops working at a distance. Generally, as a professional game-designer, I aspire to always provide commercial-quality features that feel like a natural part of the game. This isn't such a feature.

I see what you mean about the artificial block. I also see what you mean about the other games where loading is handled this way. I would counter with the fact that in Skyrim I won't notice that a wolf doesn't spawn across the map, but I also had no part in creating that wolf. Using BTW, however, I will notice that one of the machines I built stopped working. If I leave three stacks of Netherack in a millstone and then go wandering off away from it and return to find two stacks of Netherack remaining the first thing I wonder is "what did I do wrong?"

There is one "simple" solution to eliminate your reservations about the issue!

[FlowerChild]

There is one "simple" solution to eliminate your reservations about the issue!

And what is that? This one?

No man. I'd fully expect to be laughed out of a design meeting at any professional studio where I'd propose such a "feature". This is simply not going to happen in this mod.

[rhacer]

There is one "simple" solution to eliminate your reservations about the issue!

And what is that? This one?

No man. I'd fully expect to be laughed out of a design meeting at any professional studio where I'd propose such a "feature". This is simply not going to happen in this mod.

The "simple" solution would be for any BTW block that can perform "work" keeps the chunk loaded.

[FlowerChild]

The "simple" solution would be for any BTW block that can perform "work" keeps the chunk loaded.

Welcome to BTW: the most performance killing mod on the planet.

[rhacer]

The "simple" solution would be for any BTW block that can perform "work" keeps the chunk loaded.

Welcome to BTW: the most performance killing mod on the planet.

Well I suppose that could be refined to any BTW block that is performing "work" at the time the chunk goes to be unloaded. Once it is no longer performing work it's free to be unloaded. Though the more I think about it the more problems I have defining "performing work."

And hey, it's already the most incompatible mod on the planet, what's one more "most!"

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, in the immortal (paraphrased) words of HAL:

"I can not see this conversation serving any purpose any longer".

;)