Open pit quarries cause excessive lag - fact or fiction?

[Haruchai]

I have read differing opinions on whether open pit quarries cause excessive lag. As an admin of a hosted server, I'd like to keep things running as smoothly as possible. So, I would like opinion, or better yet--fact, as to what causes more lag. Open pit (eg, BuildCraft quarries 32x32 or 64x64, in water or out) vs using mining turtles with programs such as Ore Quarry (mining every third level for ores).

It seems to me that Ore Quarry/turtle mining would cause more problems as dozens of openings are made that can spawn mobs. Plus, in an open pit, there is nothing to draw/render. But after seeing someone run three 32x32 Buildcraft quarries today and how it ballooned CPU/RAM use, I'm not sure my reasoning is correct.

Thanks for the input.

 

[NooBxGockeL]

So i (as an server admin too) can just tell some fact:
Every quarry isnt that resource intense as you think it is, on its own.
The Lag comes from chunkupdates/chunkloading, so dont use water in your quarry (use mystcraft world with no lava instead, maybe obsi totems for the lack of lava).
Expecially dewatering a watered quarry is very resource intense, it causes lots of chunk updates and water flow calculations.
If you have a very low tier server i'd recommend limiting the quarry use to one maybe two full sized quarry.
Cant tell you much about that turtle programm though, its unknown to me.

And keep in mind, FTB is damn resource intense on its own, the source of the high CPU/RAM usage doesn't have to be the quarrys.
Also you can try some diffrent performance plugins/mods like TickThreading...

 

[Haruchai]

Thanks for the reply. I hadn't even thought of the water issue. That alone would be the cause for a lot of CPU cycles. I think I will prohibit any mining over water. I also think the Mystcraft idea has merit. I'll look into installing that within the next day or two.

 

[Baron]

If you have a very low tier server i'd recommend limiting the quarry use to one maybe two full sized quarry.

How do you limit the amount of Quarries people can build?

 

[Scaffolding]

If I need to dig out an area I use a group of turtles with a script that runs the escape program followed by a quarryfill program. It takes care of massive amounts of cobble and fills in those nasty looking holes.

Also I think NoobxGockeL meant something along the lines of communicating with your users so that everyone knows there should be X amount of quarries on the server.

 

[ronan75]

How do you limit the amount of Quarries people can build?

As far as I've seen you can't yet. No mods have that level of control. I'm sure one will come along soon. You could always ban them being made and have a mod spawn them.

 

[Haruchai]

@Baron The server admin(s) would have to make inspections, I suppose. I don't really want to put too many limits on quarries, per se, but the ones built over water seem to be particularly bothersome in regards to causing increased load on the server.

@Scaffolding...do you mind pointing me in the direction of those turtle scripts? I've used OreQuarry and OreFinder. Both have their strengths and weaknesses (I wish I could splice parts of the two programs together), but neither backfills.

@NooBxGockeL After spending some time investigating Mystcraft, I don't know that I will install that afterall. Besides, we have barely touched the Twilight Forest, so I am going to try to push guys that way for now.

Regardless, I suspect there will always be a bit of tension on a Mindcrack server. Some of the recipes require huge resources and that means a ton of mining.

Thanks for the input, gang.

 

[Jaybob32]

Might need some more testing. I play on Haruchai's server and one of the guys with the quarry. As far as I know, the quarries were off at the time off the spike. Not sure if the extra water blocks cause the problem? Does it matter if the quarry is running? Just a few questions to look in to.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2

 

[WitherSauce]

Some tips.

Build quarries over ocean which as no flowing water. As the quarry hits the ocean bed and mines, water will not flow. This reduces the lag from flowing water calculations.

Quarries chunkload, which in itself is not bad, unless you have many other chunkloaders, and/ or players exploring the map generating new chunks.

For performance, try either MCPC+ and/ or TickThreading mod. MCPC+ also allows for practically any bukkit plugin support. So if you do get lots of flowing water, you can simply get worldedit and use its water smoothing option.

Restricting quarries is also relatively easy. Using MCPC+ or BukkitForge, get any plugin that restricts crafting and/ or placement of blocks. There is quite a few that will limit crafting and placement per player to a specific amount. Tekkit Restrict or Tekkit Customizer works quite well.

If you want to inspect quarries, the easiest way i know of is using ChickenChunks inbuilt loaded chunk explorer. This in game tool gives you a grid with coordinates. Any yellow squares on the grid are loaded chunks. Tp to the coords and check it out.

 

[Haruchai]

Some tips.

Build quarries over ocean which as no flowing water. As the quarry hits the ocean bed and mines, water will not flow. This reduces the lag from flowing water calculations.

Ok, so building a Buildcraft quarry over water (I assume not have it come close to a shore line to prevent water flow problems) is ok.

For performance, try either MCPC+ and/ or TickThreading mod. MCPC+ also allows for practically any bukkit plugin support. So if you do get lots of flowing water, you can simply get worldedit and use its water smoothing option.

Will definitely use WorldEdit as we have some water problems at the moment.

Restricting quarries is also relatively easy. Using MCPC+ or BukkitForge, get any plugin that restricts crafting and/ or placement of blocks. There is quite a few that will limit crafting and placement per player to a specific amount. Tekkit Restrict or Tekkit Customizer works quite well.

If you want to inspect quarries, the easiest way i know of is using ChickenChunks inbuilt loaded chunk explorer. This in game tool gives you a grid with coordinates. Any yellow squares on the grid are loaded chunks. Tp to the coords and check it out.

How do I access the 'chunk explorer? I've done a google search and come up empty on that one.

Thanks for the reply and expertise. I've got some work to do....

 

[WitherSauce]

Ok, so building a Buildcraft quarry over water (I assume not have it come close to a shore line to prevent water flow problems) is ok.

Will definitely use WorldEdit as we have some water problems at the moment.

How do I access the 'chunk explorer? I've done a google search and come up empty on that one.

Thanks for the reply and expertise. I've got some work to do....

No problem, glad to help!

Yeah, quarry should not be too close to the shore.

Sorry, i used the wrong terminology for the 'chunk explorer' Its called ChunkViewer, and can be accessed by the /chunkloaders command (in OP).