Minecraft Forums

Quote from KevinABC96

Additional Chunk-loading system(adjustable;separated from rendering distance):
I read the FAQ,and i know you don't want people to post about this,because you think it has nothing to do with this suggestion.
That doesn't matter.You made a suggestion,and I know how to fix 2 big Minecraft problems(ceiling rendering and farms/... in unloaded chunks) with the aid of your idea.
We would have an option next to the render distance,which would allow us to add "additional loaded chunks".It could look like this:
[-10][-1] 20 [+1][+10]
numbers in [] are buttons,and 20 is the amount of add. load. chunks.
First for the ceiling-problem:
Your height-map(to render the light)doesn't only know where the light goes,but also what's blocking it.Sadly most of the things blocking the light would be too far away(too high) to render.But the additional loaded chunk system would allow them to be rendered.(the chunks between them would not be rendered at all,because they're empty,and if not,...this system only renders the nearest "sun-blocking" chunks,everything else would make no sense)The number in the settings (here:20) is the amount of chunks that can be rendered even if they are out of range.This can for example be used to render ceilings which are too far away to see with your system.Of course if the whole sky is covered by a giant island,20 chunks won't be enough to render it.But the more chunks you allow to render(dependent on your computers specs) the better it looks...

And for the growing plants/moving animals/working redstone machines/falling sand block...exactly the same.
Whenever you leave a chunk,the game should memorize/save how important things are going on in this chunk.
For example:You (normal SP survival) have set the number of add. chunks to render to 5(probably because you have a slow computer or whatever) and build a farm at your home,covering 4 chunks.Now you think its time to leave and build a new base. And so you travel far away.(the farm still stays loaded,even though it's out of the render distance)
On your way you find a big cave,with lots of coal and iron.You immediately build a furnace and start to melt.You put a whole stack of iron ore in it...that will take some time.Now you realize you forgot some important stuff at home(written books,diamonds, maps,...),and go back.
But since you have no compass you go the wrong way,and end up lots of chunks away...lost.(but luckily your furnace is still loaded + your farm =5 chunks).all of them are still producing,and those 5 chunks are full of life and action,even thought you are far away.
If we would have another new chunk(with important stuff going on) loaded while we go away(for example redstone circuit),one of the four farm chunks would get unloaded....
You get the idea,right ?

There would be a "simple" priority system (configurable?) which would handle the additional loaded chunks.
For example :Redstone circuit chunks would have top priority,but only till up to 10 redstone chunks are loaded,then the priority of them drops a little(they won't get unloaded immediately,but keeping redstone chunks wouldn't have highest priority)
Next could be furnaces and so on...till all set chunks are taken.Then the unloading would begin,(the real priority of a chunk is calculated with its base-priority(varies:because as said above if too many of them are loaded,it drops) and it's age(the "younger"(newer) a chunk is,the more important is it)).The least important additional loaded chunk will get replaced by a more important chunk,as soon as it gets out of render distance(talking about the newer one)...
And if you go,for example, under a giant flying island,the(or probably most of them;depends on priority) active chunks get saved and unloaded,and those chunks are used to render the island.As soon as you go away from the island the unloaded chunks will get loaded again,so nothing is lost.

And it's even easier on servers.
As a player you don't have much to do with additional loaded chunks on servers.
The server would(if he wants to) send the players flying islands,if they are under them.
And there could be settings to adjust this system;mobs have highest priority,next falling sand,....Imagine the amount of awesome bukkit plugins where you could configure anything.For example permanent loaded chunks:to allow loading of warps far away very fast...
Hopefully all of this is possible to code,and I hope you(and everyone else) likes this idea,as i do.