You only ever have a certain area around you loaded at any one time. That means that if you go adventuring, time stands still at your base. Farms don't grow, animals don't grow up, redstone stops, etc. My idea involves turning beds into a 'world anchor' of sorts, that could keep nearby chunks loaded even when you're away at the time. This removes some of the invisible chains tying us to our bases, and allows us to consolidate our power in a central area, without forcing ourselves to stay there to keep everything functioning properly.
The most evident problem with this is the idea of the increased demand on your machine. This could simply be fixed by scaling the anchored area in relation to one's active loaded chunk radius (so when you lower the fog settings and load less blocks around you, so will the bed). There could also be problems in multiplayer, probably most easily solved by limiting the anchor abilities to only the player's spawn bed, and only anchoring the chunks when they're actively online. This both limits each player to one anchored area (reducing server stress), and preventing players from abusing the system to keep things growing while they aren't active. Relatively speaking, even a small anchor area could be immensely helpful. By default, it appears that people load chunks in a 21x21 square around themselves in multiplayer, a whopping 441 chunks. a measly 3x3 farm area is completely reasonable in comparison to that, and that's a 48m x 48m area, by no means a small plot. Of course, there could also be a config option to disable this feature or reduce it like there was for the nether.
Thoughts?
EDIT: for clarification, the area anchored is around your SPAWN, not necessarily your bed. that means ONLY ONE PER PLAYER.
EDIT: tl;dr: The area around your spawn point would be loaded no matter your location, the total area anchored would be far less than what is already loaded around you normally, though one would probably be capable of changing settings for anchored area size, and the anchored chunks get unloaded while you're not playing.
I don't believe so. as I pointed out, the anchored area would be insignificant compared to the area already loaded around the player, and it could also be made to scale down with video settings for the chaps not playing on high-end hardware.
I don't believe so. as I pointed out, the anchored area would be insignificant compared to the area already loaded around the player, and it could also be made to scale down with video settings for the chaps not playing on high-end hardware.
Even if it scales, it's still increasing the amount that's loaded. Just one bed doubles things. A second triples, and so on. If you have multiple bases, and a bed for each, that begins to stack up. Then there's situations where beds are used for aesthetics, and so have multiple in a relatively small area, leading to larger groups of chunks loaded. Not to mention adventure maps, where not only is having multiple beds throughout a world as checkpoints a factor, but one also has to consider that this could flat-out break maps, by causing events to trigger long before the player arrives. Further, while I typically say that griefing potential is a weak argument, this is one case where it is not. Beds are easy to make, and the potential for someone to run off for the Farlands placing them until the entire server crashes is too great not to be taken into consideration. Not only would this form of griefing be worse than normal for its potential to effect the entire server, rather than just some areas, but it would also be more difficult to detect, since it would work best when done away from other players. Actually, it wouldn't even need to be griefing. A large enough server, with players spread out, all leaving multiple beds, and the collective impact of all their beds could begin to become quite significant.
All in all, I'm sorry, but I just don't see chunk loaders having a place outside of mods. On the other hand, something like the Somnia mod, where time continues to pass while you sleep, so that you wake up and crops have grown, foods cooked, etc... That I would support.
Sounds like a good idea. I play Feed the Beast and it isn't much of a problem with Chunk Loaders and such but I can see where it could annoy a vanilla player.
Support. Although some mods come with Chunk Anchors, this would be a nice edition. But there would have to be an option in "Options" for singleplayer and under the config section for servers to enable/disable bed anchors, as a griefer could just spam beds all over a large area of land to generate lag.
Even if it scales, it's still increasing the amount that's loaded. Just one bed doubles things. A second triples, and so on. If you have multiple bases, and a bed for each, that begins to stack up. Then there's situations where beds are used for aesthetics, and so have multiple in a relatively small area, leading to larger groups of chunks loaded. Not to mention adventure maps, where not only is having multiple beds throughout a world as checkpoints a factor, but one also has to consider that this could flat-out break maps, by causing events to trigger long before the player arrives. Further, while I typically say that griefing potential is a weak argument, this is one case where it is not. Beds are easy to make, and the potential for someone to run off for the Farlands placing them until the entire server crashes is too great not to be taken into consideration. Not only would this form of griefing be worse than normal for its potential to effect the entire server, rather than just some areas, but it would also be more difficult to detect, since it would work best when done away from other players. Actually, it wouldn't even need to be griefing. A large enough server, with players spread out, all leaving multiple beds, and the collective impact of all their beds could begin to become quite significant.
All in all, I'm sorry, but I just don't see chunk loaders having a place outside of mods. On the other hand, something like the Somnia mod, where time continues to pass while you sleep, so that you wake up and crops have grown, foods cooked, etc... That I would support.
couple things wrong with this post mate. First, you're not doubling with one bed, not close. I'm proposing a small anchor area: default 3x3 chunk square as opposed to the default 21x21 chunk square loaded around the player (very small percentage). Also, though I didn't clarify this, only one bed anchor per person, as it is linked to the actual player's SPAWN, not all of their beds. Ideally, the anchors would also deactivate when their owner logs out. these points effectively should seriously reduce extraneous impact on hardware, and severely reduce griefing potential.
Also, while I would argue that breaking pre-existing maps is not a good reason to avoid progress, this is also probably not an issue. Granted that the anchor is caused by the player's spawn, not beds everywhere, they still have to actually get to the bed to anchor the area around it. If something were gonna happen, it would probably happen while they were getting to the bed in the first place to set their spawn there.
there are few, minimized down sides, and this also allows miners to expand from their base without packing up and moving. It only makes sense that after a great journey, you'll find your crops ready to harvest, and your baby animals fully matured.
The problem with the command block is that it can only be placed by admins. It's fine in single player, but in multiplayer it would become a huge hassle for the server admins, and also would require the players to divulge their bases' locations. Invariably, this is not a task for which the command block is optimal.
Why not just make so chunks are saved with time stamps and then when they are loaded it checks the time difference in ticks, and forces things that would have changed over time to execute that many ticks, of course imposing some limitations:
Only affects things that would be affected by the ticks. So a Log would not be affected, but Saplings would. Crops would, but only to their final stage. Once it finds that something is no longer affected by ticks, it removes it from the list
It checks if things that can be affected by ticks can grow anyways. So a Sapling that cannot grow into a tree is removed from the list.
Particle effects based on ticks such as torch smoke are not generated. Neither is fire spread.
Item decay (dropped items despawning), or item generation (chickens laying eggs) is not affected.
To optimize things, instead of just executing thousands of ticks, it checks the growth chance against the default average random update (82 seconds). So if Wheat had a 5% chance of growing every 82 seconds, it would take the total number of seconds passed, divide it by 82, and then multiply it by .05. That number (rounded to the nearest integer) is the amount of times the crop grows)
Animals growing and being able to breed would still occur, but based on minutes passed, rather than ticks. This is because babies take 20 minutes to grow, and animals can only breed every 5 minutes
If optimized properly, it could replace this idea entirely, and work everywhere, rather than just by the bed or spawn.
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Why not just make so chunks are saved with time stamps and then when they are loaded it checks the time difference in ticks, and forces things that would have changed over time to execute that many ticks, of course imposing some limitations:
Only affects things that would be affected by the ticks. So a Log would not be affected, but Saplings would. Crops would, but only to their final stage. Once it finds that something is no longer affected by ticks, it removes it from the list
It checks if things that can be affected by ticks can grow anyways. So a Sapling that cannot grow into a tree is removed from the list.
Particle effects based on ticks such as torch smoke are not generated. Neither is fire spread.
Item decay (dropped items despawning), or item generation (chickens laying eggs) is not affected.
To optimize things, instead of just executing thousands of ticks, it checks the growth chance against the default average random update (82 seconds). So if Wheat had a 5% chance of growing every 82 seconds, it would take the total number of seconds passed, divide it by 82, and then multiply it by .05. That number (rounded to the nearest integer) is the amount of times the crop grows)
Animals growing and being able to breed would still occur, but based on minutes passed, rather than ticks. This is because babies take 20 minutes to grow, and animals can only breed every 5 minutes
If optimized properly, it could replace this idea entirely, and work everywhere, rather than just by the bed or spawn.
Sounds wonderful. the only possible problem i can foresee is that with all the optimization in the world, you'll still end up loading 21 chunks at once, and trying to calculate all of that for all of those chunks could cause a sudden lag spike whenever you move 16m. if it's optimized sufficiently to prevent these sudden changes, i would gladly welcome this as an alternative.
However, if it does create large sudden lag spikes, it could very well become more a detriment than a boon.
The maths is wrong. You have a chance of 1-(1-pgrowth)(t/82 seconds) for wheat to grow at least once, and if it did, you can substract 82 seconds from t to get the chance of a second growth event (and so on).
I'm not a programmer or by any means very good at math, But regardless, the theory is sound. The only real problem is optimizing it enough, which is why the only things that would apply to it should be crops, animal growth and breeding, and furnace/brewing times.
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I don't believe this would cause any noticeable lag at all. The loaded area would not be rendered graphically, so there would be no fps drop. Since singleplayer is already essentially a server, another 'player' in the form of a bed would not cause anymore issues than are already present. World anchors in Technic/Tekkit are proof that they can work with minimal lag increase, and those add a bunch of laggy machines, redstone devices, and tubes. Also, to address the issue of using beds as decoration, having several of them in the same spot would not cause additional problems; each chunk can only be loaded once and any additional beds would not load it again.
There should still probably be an option for disabling this function, and it should be limited on servers, just to prevent abuse.
I don't believe this would cause any noticeable lag at all. The loaded area would not be rendered graphically, so there would be no fps drop. Since singleplayer is already essentially a server, another 'player' in the form of a bed would not cause anymore issues than are already present. World anchors in Technic/Tekkit are proof that they can work with minimal lag increase, and those add a bunch of laggy machines, redstone devices, and tubes. Also, to address the issue of using beds as decoration, having several of them in the same spot would not cause additional problems; each chunk can only be loaded once and any additional beds would not load it again.
There should still probably be an option for disabling this function, and it should be limited on servers, just to prevent abuse.
I'm proposing a small anchor area: default 3x3 chunk square as opposed to the default 21x21 chunk square loaded around the player (very small percentage). Also, though I didn't clarify this, only one bed anchor per person, as it is linked to the actual player's SPAWN, not all of their beds. Ideally, the anchors would also deactivate when their owner logs out. these points effectively should seriously reduce extraneous impact on hardware, and severely reduce griefing potential.
The most evident problem with this is the idea of the increased demand on your machine. This could simply be fixed by scaling the anchored area in relation to one's active loaded chunk radius (so when you lower the fog settings and load less blocks around you, so will the bed). There could also be problems in multiplayer, probably most easily solved by limiting the anchor abilities to only the player's spawn bed, and only anchoring the chunks when they're actively online. This both limits each player to one anchored area (reducing server stress), and preventing players from abusing the system to keep things growing while they aren't active. Relatively speaking, even a small anchor area could be immensely helpful. By default, it appears that people load chunks in a 21x21 square around themselves in multiplayer, a whopping 441 chunks. a measly 3x3 farm area is completely reasonable in comparison to that, and that's a 48m x 48m area, by no means a small plot. Of course, there could also be a config option to disable this feature or reduce it like there was for the nether.
Thoughts?
EDIT: for clarification, the area anchored is around your SPAWN, not necessarily your bed. that means ONLY ONE PER PLAYER.
EDIT: tl;dr: The area around your spawn point would be loaded no matter your location, the total area anchored would be far less than what is already loaded around you normally, though one would probably be capable of changing settings for anchored area size, and the anchored chunks get unloaded while you're not playing.
*Now I can be a successful farmer!*
Actually... This wont cause as much lagg as thought. Unless you still use a typewriter plugged into a TV.
OT: I like this, sure a pain in the butt to code, but this could be quite useful.
I don't believe so. as I pointed out, the anchored area would be insignificant compared to the area already loaded around the player, and it could also be made to scale down with video settings for the chaps not playing on high-end hardware.
Even if it scales, it's still increasing the amount that's loaded. Just one bed doubles things. A second triples, and so on. If you have multiple bases, and a bed for each, that begins to stack up. Then there's situations where beds are used for aesthetics, and so have multiple in a relatively small area, leading to larger groups of chunks loaded. Not to mention adventure maps, where not only is having multiple beds throughout a world as checkpoints a factor, but one also has to consider that this could flat-out break maps, by causing events to trigger long before the player arrives. Further, while I typically say that griefing potential is a weak argument, this is one case where it is not. Beds are easy to make, and the potential for someone to run off for the Farlands placing them until the entire server crashes is too great not to be taken into consideration. Not only would this form of griefing be worse than normal for its potential to effect the entire server, rather than just some areas, but it would also be more difficult to detect, since it would work best when done away from other players. Actually, it wouldn't even need to be griefing. A large enough server, with players spread out, all leaving multiple beds, and the collective impact of all their beds could begin to become quite significant.
All in all, I'm sorry, but I just don't see chunk loaders having a place outside of mods. On the other hand, something like the Somnia mod, where time continues to pass while you sleep, so that you wake up and crops have grown, foods cooked, etc... That I would support.
+SUPPORT
couple things wrong with this post mate. First, you're not doubling with one bed, not close. I'm proposing a small anchor area: default 3x3 chunk square as opposed to the default 21x21 chunk square loaded around the player (very small percentage). Also, though I didn't clarify this, only one bed anchor per person, as it is linked to the actual player's SPAWN, not all of their beds. Ideally, the anchors would also deactivate when their owner logs out. these points effectively should seriously reduce extraneous impact on hardware, and severely reduce griefing potential.
Also, while I would argue that breaking pre-existing maps is not a good reason to avoid progress, this is also probably not an issue. Granted that the anchor is caused by the player's spawn, not beds everywhere, they still have to actually get to the bed to anchor the area around it. If something were gonna happen, it would probably happen while they were getting to the bed in the first place to set their spawn there.
there are few, minimized down sides, and this also allows miners to expand from their base without packing up and moving. It only makes sense that after a great journey, you'll find your crops ready to harvest, and your baby animals fully matured.
The problem with the command block is that it can only be placed by admins. It's fine in single player, but in multiplayer it would become a huge hassle for the server admins, and also would require the players to divulge their bases' locations. Invariably, this is not a task for which the command block is optimal.
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Sounds wonderful. the only possible problem i can foresee is that with all the optimization in the world, you'll still end up loading 21 chunks at once, and trying to calculate all of that for all of those chunks could cause a sudden lag spike whenever you move 16m. if it's optimized sufficiently to prevent these sudden changes, i would gladly welcome this as an alternative.
However, if it does create large sudden lag spikes, it could very well become more a detriment than a boon.
http://www.minecraft...orld-version-3/
I'm not a programmer or by any means very good at math, But regardless, the theory is sound. The only real problem is optimizing it enough, which is why the only things that would apply to it should be crops, animal growth and breeding, and furnace/brewing times.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
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There should still probably be an option for disabling this function, and it should be limited on servers, just to prevent abuse.