ChunkLoaders and controlling there use

[Blue]

Hi there as a server admin I have always worried that my players over use chunkloaders

I try to in chickenbones limit there size per player but i felt setting those settings never work


how do you server admins control players chunkloader use across the board between all mods

I am always chasing down abandon quarries that are not in use. players leaving loaders in not used area

What i want to do in my next Direwolf20 1.7 server is limit players to only be allowed to place one chunk loader over a small area. what is my best options with the mods in that mod pack?

suggesting other mods is open also

 

[Crhymez]

Most servers that want to limit the use do the following.
1. They ban all other forms of loading, Anchors(rail craft), MFR, Steves carts...ect
or
2. Just set the Chicken chunks limit and then in the other mod configs have them NOT bypass the limits.

3. Make sure to make it so player needs to be online for the chunks to be loaded

 

[KingTriaxx]

A good way is to turn off everything but personal anchors. They only work when the player is online, but some people don't like that they require ender pearls. I'd suggest a creative barrel of pearls, perhaps linked via Extra Utilities transfer node? So that when some one sets down an anchor they can plug in a node to keep it full? It's a bit of a cheat, but it should reduce the number of always loaded chunks.

Alternately, turn off other chunk loaders, and adjust the recipe with mine tweaker to give a two or three spot loaders instead of the adjustable one.

 

[asb3pe]

Since most servers put an End Portal right at spawn for all the players to use (since there are only 3 entrance points to The End, and theoretically they could all be destroyed or controlled by a single player which is very bad), obtaining Ender Pearls is usually not an issue on SMP servers. In the rare instances where I've played SMP, this is what I've seen server admins do... and then there's no problem whatsoever with only allowing the Railcraft Personal Anchor as the only chunk loader.

I can tell you this - if a SMP server doesn't allow chunk loaders, there's no point to playing on that server because you'll never be able to get anything done without a lot of "babysitting". No thanks. Chunk loader or bust!! My experience with SMP has been very bad, which is why I only play SSP. Lonely, yes, but aggravation-free. The lesser of two evils I guess.

 

[Blue]

A good way is to turn off everything but personal anchors. They only work when the player is online, but some people don't like that they require ender pearls. I'd suggest a creative barrel of pearls, perhaps linked via Extra Utilities transfer node? So that when some one sets down an anchor they can plug in a node to keep it full? It's a bit of a cheat, but it should reduce the number of always loaded chunks.

Alternately, turn off other chunk loaders, and adjust the recipe with mine tweaker to give a two or three spot loaders instead of the adjustable one.

i think this is best option, turn off all recipes to make them, and just give 1 for free to each player.

 

[Crhymez]

i think this is best option, turn off all recipes to make them, and just give 1 for free to each player.

not when there are dupe bugs

 

[KingTriaxx]

How in a (near) infinite game are there only three end entry points?

Personally, I prefer personal anchors simply because an infinite supply of pearls makes them just as good and they're less of a problem when no one is online.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Is it really that much of an issue- technical bugs/glitches aside the loaders themselves don't put an excessive strain on a server.
[think how many chunks a player loads in comparison]

The activities in those chunks -however- is where the problem lies. If all that is kept loaded then you're basically running a server at full capacity regardless of who's online.
If you give enough to be practical for a player then there'll be very little difference to unlimited [for server load].

-though I'd personally recommend only 1 loader and keep the recipe expensive, preferably have some 'fuel' requirement to keep 'em running; that way if a player leaves his base will eventually unload. At least that way its cost prohibitive to use them excessively.

A plugin to track loaders/forced chunks might be useful too.

 

[KingTriaxx]

That's why personal anchors are good. They only work when the user that placed them is online. Which sounds silly, but used either cross dimensionally, or as a linear loading area, they're better since they turn off as soon as the player leaves the game.

Mapwriter can do that.

 

[Hoff]

Is it really that much of an issue- technical bugs/glitches aside the loaders themselves don't put an excessive strain on a server.
[think how many chunks a player loads in comparison]

The activities in those chunks -however- is where the problem lies. If all that is kept loaded then you're basically running a server at full capacity regardless of who's online.
If you give enough to be practical for a player then there'll be very little difference to unlimited [for server load].

This is 100% accurate.

Chunkloading in and of itself isn't a huge issue server performance wise. For proof every player loads 441 chunks while online. 9 or 25 from a chunkloader is nothing in comparison. However what is within the chunks being loaded by any means is usually where lag arises. The best solution to this is to force players to not build in a compact space. The more compact a base the more issues it usually has. The idea is it's usually easier on the server to deal with 100 updates from 10 chunks rather than 1000 from 1 chunk.

A plugin to track loaders/forced chunks might be useful too.

Railcraft does this last I checked.

 

[asb3pe]

That's why personal anchors are good. They only work when the user that placed them is online. Which sounds silly, but used either cross dimensionally, or as a linear loading area, they're better since they turn off as soon as the player leaves the game.

I agree, the whole idea of chunk loading is so you can "be two places at once" - such as trying to pump oil from a distant geyser back to a Railcraft tank at base. There's no way to do this by yourself without a chunk loader! I really don't think anyone would (or should) expect their stuff to remain chunk loaded after they log off - people want them so they can go off exploring and still have their base keep producing stuff.

You'd think the whole idea of SMP is that you never ARE by yourself, doing stuff alone, but it does happen. I think this is the biggest asset of something like "Towny", when you force people to group together and live in proximity, they all act as chunk loaders for each other. If at least one of the townsfolk is online around the clock (in shifts, like an American and a Euro and an Asian all in different time zones), your machines don't ever stop working! I've played on a server like that and it was really cool... but they aren't easy to find.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Mechanics such as that are inherently difficult to do as it requires players to be in different timezones, which in turn makes building together and running a town somewhat harder as your online time doesn't sync as well.
Likewise players tend to move about- so you could end up with your machines running, but not your engine room/fuel farms. [in terms of adjacent town chunkloading.]

What we could use is 'networked' loaders that pull each other online when one is player loaded.

 

[Hoff]

Towny is also inherently anti-lag prevention in modded mc as it usually forces a number of players to build in the same area which usually ends up with tons of stuff in a small number of chunks causing more lag.

 

[asb3pe]

Towny is also inherently anti-lag prevention in modded mc as it usually forces a number of players to build in the same area which usually ends up with tons of stuff in a small number of chunks causing more lag.

Hmm yeah, didn't think of that, but then again I'm looking at everything from a player's perspective. What works for players often doesn't work well for server operators, and vice-versa, which is part of the problem with this game, or at least with SMP.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Yeah. Co-operative servers work great when they work, but when they don't... it's often not pretty.

 

[Zarkov]

I try to in chickenbones limit there size per player but i felt setting those settings never work

You could try Dimensional Anchors which also has a quota system (and then disabling other loaders / removing recipes with MineTweaker).
I haven't tried the quotas myself, but the chunk loading seems to work fine. The recipe is cheaper than ChickenChunks by default, but given that chunk loading basically is a workaround for a limitation in Minecraft, I think that's ok.

 

[GreenZombie]

It was my, perhaps niave understanding that since MC 1.5.x or so, all (forge) mods that offer chunkloaders do so via a forge api. As such, there is a forge config that should apply to all chunkloaders from all mods.

Next, many mods, including but not limited to Buildcraft, Rotarycraft, Railcraft, Flaxbeards steam power, and pneumaticcraft all allow the construction of "things" that will blow up if not entirely loaded. Chunkloaders are a requirement in advanced builds to prevent bad things happening.

An additional consideration is that a chunkloader can be constructed using just two hoppers, and mods that add item pipes (buildcraft) typically force load any chunk items flow "into", allowing pipe networks to force load many chunks over and above any allocation as long as the chunk injecting items is kept loaded.

All things considered, loaded chunks is not the issue. Its whats in them. Create a clear policy detailing what is considered abuse, track down abuse using tools like opis, and deal with the problem at the human, not technical level. Dealing with problems at a technical level invites players to attack the technical controls.

 

[Tankh]

After checking /chunkloaders I dispelled my notion that chunkloading "big" areas would cause lag. Like earlier mentioned; each player loads a huge amount of chunks around them by just being online, so a few extra chunks from a chunkloader really isn't a big deal.

The difference between the loaded chunks around a player and the chunks forced by a chunkloader however, is that chunkloaders are usually targetted on rather complex chunks.
So even if each player just load a single chunk each, they usually target it on a complex chunk, so the server has to always run 10 very complex chunks. The chunkloaders mean nothing if a lot of players is online however since those areas would be chunkloaded anyway.

I don't think quarries are that hard on the server. Usually only the dug chunk and the quarry itself is chunkloaded, and there's not much simulated there.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

I think buildcraft quarries still load the entire area.
[They used to anyway- I can remember building my base on top of a quarry that 'accidently' had lava and water in it]

I think a lot of the quarry 'load' was to do with flooding- all the flowing water causing block updates.

 

[GreenZombie]

I think buildcraft quarries still load the entire area.
[They used to anyway- I can remember building my base on top of a quarry that 'accidently' had lava and water in it]

I think a lot of the quarry 'load' was to do with flooding- all the flowing water causing block updates.

Why I always build my BC quarries over the ocean. No problems with lava, or draining the quarry after use, and no ugly hole in the landscape.
The drawback being that you only get resources that spawn below y=48 or whatever the ocean floor average is. Anyway, BC quarries deal quite stupidly with lava and consequently absolutely have to be run flooded.