PSA: MCPC+ and Modded Minecraft

[AlienKnitter]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'll admit to only a partial understanding here), but doesn't OpenPeripherals have a way to monitor inventories for changes? I know it can do things that I would assume require that functionality (or black magic), but maybe I am wrong.

 

[dariusc93]

The MCPC+ guys are doing an amazing job and I am absolutely appalled how the FTB has treated them. I actually saw someone, who has posted on this thread jump into the MCPC+ IRC tonight and abuse Blood for a "broken server where 99% of all issues come from MCPC+" even though the issue that this person was talking about existing in vanilla forge (Not just MCPC+) and had not even been reported to MCPC+.

I was the one who posted the link in IRC but never have I abused blood or had an issue unless someone else referred the linked after me during the night.

To any mod developer, Forge has implemented the block break event long ago which does log down to the NBT level. All they need to do is implement the blockbreak event into their mods (e.g ComputerCraft, BuildCraft, etc) and any mods (or plugin if using mcpc) that add protection will do the rest.

MCPC does break things, but it also expose bugs that isnt MCPC related (e.g mods calling client classes on a server which causes a crash on MCPC). MCPC also add performance to any server using it since its using spigot patches. There are pros and cons to using MCPC, but all are fixable if you know how to do it. Some mod developers are now working with MCPC to fix bugs that could be in MCPC or in their mods. Some added support for MCPC. Not just mod developers but also plugin developers.

To topic:
There are mods out there that do item/block restrictions, changing of recipes, permissions, and protection. Recipe Remover allows you to remove/ban recipes. You can also use minetweaker to change it around. ForgePerms can be use for permissions, and protection you can use numerous of mods out there now. If your on 1.6.4, MyTown might be the best option. If anyone have the time, you can port PowerTool Chunk Protection, Fighu Mod, or any other out-of-date mod that is open source to 1.6.4. World Edit developers have ported WE into forge but its in alpha and currently unsupported. Powertools Devs made his/her mod opensource now and so all one needs todo is port it to 1.6.4 and have a "world border". As for World Guard, FE (Forge Essentials) may be a good choice but they dont support FE1. I am willingly to help port any mods thats from 1.4.7 or 1.5.2 to 1.6.4 to make sure its stable for production use, but that about it. The only one I will not assist with is Forge Essentials since there is a unstable/unofficial/not supported build for 1.6.4 around. All you have todo is look for it.

For performance, tickthreading is being worked on (it is not usable yet) but also know it does break mods too (dont know if the FTB Team will support this but many mod dev like TT and Nallar since it does patching so some mod developers do support TT but some dont).
Also, adjusting your java startup params to add Permgen, enable GC,etc., can help with performance, including how minecraft work in memory. Fiddle around with your params and see what works best. A good example would be

java  -Xms1G -Xmx1G -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseCMSCompactAtFullCollection -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui

.
Also using RAMDisk or an SSD can help alot with I/O. Checking your system and make sure the CPU can handle the load, and try to have 2GB of ram or more to have (4GB recommended for modded servers using FTB for best performance).

For server admins who see corruption, Minecraft Region Fixer is good to fix chunk corruption (NBT related) or restore a chunk from backup. MCEdit, NBTExplorer, or maybe coding your own using nbt libraries can assist in corruption. Look at Minecraft Wiki for libraries listed that any developer could use. For the corruption that isnt region/chunk related, you might want to investigate in seeing what mod is causing what. For example, ChickenChunks can cause crashes due the data file becoming corrupted (it happens on both mcpc and non-mcpc/vanilla servers). It is not ChickenBone fault, but mainly how it is written to file. Best way to fix this is to delete the chickenchunk file and maybe the forgechunks.dat. Some corruption with the TileEntity itself can be resolved by removing the mod for a short time. If you have a block location, you can use a mod to delete that block without loading the chunk up (if you dont want to remove the mod).

There are alts to MCPC, but MCPC came along way to make mods work with bukkit plugins. To me, honestly, its best to try to add some support in bridging that gap that splits the modding community apart. Whether if its mod development with Minecraft Forge, or plugin developments with Bukkit, they all alter how minecraft works, but in two different ways. Thats just my opinion.

I'm currently helping a whitelist server that has 200+ players on without MCPC and TPS is around 20. I know its possible. With MCPC, things are stable as well.

 

[Bunsan]

Even if it does, that isn't a viable solution for a server. We need server side, automatic, adaptable, customizable tools not dependent on anyone mod. They need to be standalone.

Edit: directed at openperipherals comment.

 

[Bigdog]

And if anyone has any suggestions, send me a PM, I would be glad to hear them!

Ty for posting that hehe though that site is broken I think by posting it on these forums you got to many people clicking and going to it so i can't even look at it at the moment.
____________


I am also looking at some of the other mods people have posted here like Mytown got to look at that.

I was also going to reply to allot of Cozza's topics but someone else kind of already told him some of the mods I use like Recipear works real good for taking out blocks just list the IDs or ID with meta data. I would like a logging mod though I do see peoples reasons for wanting that I don't really need it to bad though I quite good at tracking things down my self not everyone is though.

There are real good build options though Cozza you said there is nothing that can make a circle there is with open blocks it can build it with 1 click after you get the dimensions you want. I also find that extra utility's creative wand is super for building large structures what would of taken me like like 24h or so to rebuild my spawnpoint it took me 3h to fully build it with the help of that wand I will be using it allot more for any rebuilds.

For protecting I been using MFFS for that though its why I need to look into Mytown if people say its got that as MFFS is a pain to set up as it is + its not fully safe there are ways to get round it mostly if there is no forcefield just protected area. A forcefield is real bad so I don't use them mostly when players can't log into the forcefield areas when they logout of it I don't know if that's been fixed I did get that problem a wile back when testing it on the server I had to TP my self out of the forcefield through the console that was a pain. I had to do it super fast I got it though I tested it quite good to so I know it was the MFFS. Without the console I would of had to reset the world lucky I have a dedicated as with my old server though a mc server host there was no console to use I could of had someone log on and give them permissions though then again they might not of been able to log in ether as the field was over spawn in a test server.

 

[Aroma1997]

I also made a mod that enabes automated backups.
Take a look at it here.

 

[OniBait]

Please post any MCPC+ issues to our GitHub issue list. That is the primary one that Blood and I work off of:
https://github.com/MinecraftPortCentral/MCPC-Plus/issues

We have and continue to provide tech support for FTB as well as many other mod packs running on MCPC+. Additionally, we are both very active on IRC and quite a lot of mod devs chat with us and work with us there.
The more devs who don't take the hostile stance toward us, the better. There are very few cases where a mod would need to make any changes to run properly with MCPC+ (the only instance I can think of was Morph, and that was because iChun was doing weird stuff with NBT data that would have broken with any Forge mod that added their own NBT data to entities)

While it may be frustrating for a mod dev who gets an MCPC+ related bug report, we get probably somewhere near 100x the number of issues reported that end up being an issue with the particular mod -- and I personally have always made the attempt to report that bug back to the developer of the mod.
Quite often, what may at first *appear* to be an MCPC+ specific bug turns out to be an issue with the mod and we just happen to provide some better reporting on it. A prime example of this are the thread deadlocks in Computer Craft -- We have the Spigot watchdog thread which will do a thread dump if the server thread stops responding for too long. This provides quite valuable information on the root cause -- on a vanilla forge server, all you would see is that the server stopped responding... not as useful. I have also submitted several pull requests to mod devs helping them fix a bug that has been occurring in Forge as well as MCPC+ -- heck, I spent 40+ hours alone on tracking down Pixelmon issues that seemed to occur regularly on servers with 100+ concurrent players (I'm pretty sure a Forge server couldn't even come close to handling that many users).

if you run a large public server, you get a lot of benefit by running it with MCPC+ and some plugins like Hawkeye, Essentials and WorldEdit -- unfortunately, a Forge equivalent to those mods is either not quite as good (yet), or just does not or can not exist -- a plugin like Hawkeye is an example of a plugin that just could not be ported to Forge (yet) due to the lack of BlockPlace/Break events (we recently got BlockBreak put into Forge, BlockPlace will most likely be re-submitted once the dust from 1.7 settles -- we love Forge and I personally would be happy if the need for Bukkit plugins went away -- that just isn't the case (yet).

tl;tr -- The more peace and love in the modded Minecraft world, the better


edited: reworded some stuff

 

[lyme]

I wrote it because people keep asking why are the bugs from MCPC+ servers being ignored? Why do we not offer tech support for them? Why are there no alternatives? What are the known issues that only seem to occur on MCPC+ servers? I answered them.

Thank you Jadedcat for bringing visibility to this, I agree that it be difficult as the time that is put in on these things by: you, the FTB team, the MCPC+ team (blood, Onibait), the Forge team, Bukkit team, Spigot team, all the mod and plugin developers, is all volunteer and also directly due to the fact that Minecraft does not support mods/plugins out of the box. I also really appreciate your private message to me, of which I replied, that explains a lot of things in quite a bit more depth.

In efforts to produce positive outcomes, and to parrot what Onibait said, and to clear a few minor misconceptions up (I also to do epidemiological analysis, as such I'm somewhat pedantic at times).

What is MCPC+?

• It is a drop in replacement Minecraft server jar file, in 99% of the cases you can simply replace the minecraft.jar on your server with it and off you go. *I'll address the 1% further down*
• It is not a mod, nor a plugin.
• It includes not only support for: Forge and mods, Bukkit and plugins, it also includes the high performance work done by Spigot, and additional bugfixes + corrections + logging code produced by the MCPC+ team.
• What about the 1%? The 1% is the number pulled out of the air to say that, yes MCPC+ at times will reveal interactions between all those parts that were never expected. As a simple example of this, and as Onibait pointed out, mods running on a server should not try to do 'client' side things, and MCPC+ will reveal that (it is running on a server after all). All software has built in unexpected consequences and bugs, sometimes not directly in that tiny bit of code (see hello world) however a bug can live in the compiler, operating system, hardware, etc.. It all counts in the end.

Links:

MCPC+ bug tracker and source - https://github.com/MinecraftPortCentral/MCPC-Plus
IRC - irc.esper.net #mcportcentral
Forums - http://www.MCPortCentral.co.za
MCPC+ builds and change logs - http://ci.md-5.net/job/MCPC-Plus/
Pastebin - www.pastebin.com
Wiki - https://github.com/MinecraftPortCentral/MCPC-Plus/wiki
​

Reporting 'potential' MCPC+ issues?

Server owners:

• I am running MCPC+ and ran into a reproducible issue!
  • Try to reproduce it in vanilla forge.
    • If you can't reproduce it report it using the MCPC+ bug tracker.
    • If you can reproduce it, feel free to raise it in irc for assistance on where the bug/issue should be reported. (please use pastebin to provide your crash log/ console output).
• I am running MCPC+ and ran into a random/non-reproducible issue!
  • Report it on the MCPC+ bug tracker.

Mod developers:

• My mod runs fine in forge and breaks MCPC+!
  • Report it on the MCPC+ bug tracker and/or in IRC.

Suggested IRC usage:

• Please do not join IRC and ask to ask a question, just ask the question (with detail). Trust me, this is polite.
• Depending on the time of day, people may simply be idling in channel and not actively there. Once you have asked your question, if you don't get a immediate response, expect to idle for a couple of hours until someone is actively there and will likely respond.
• Any information that you need to provide that is longer than a single line (like a crash dump) use pastebin.
• Bug reports should be also posted on the MCPC+ bug tracker, and then referenced in IRC.

Thanks!

Lyme

 

[Cloudy]

Apparently I still have an account here. Woo!

Anyway, down to business. Well written posts, although I think there is some misunderstanding on both ends, from what I've read. Forgive me if I've missed comments that have already been made.

As people who know me know, I historically haven't been a great supporter of MCPC+ - and I'm still not. However, I do see the use of it, and in my opinion there is nothing better right now to protect your server if it gets large (sorry Abrar, but I don't think ForgeEssentials has enough hooks to give enough control right now) - regardless of the issues it causes. However, that doesn't mean that I think that MCPC+ is an environment modders/pack makers should support, and here is why - and more importantly, why you shouldn't care if pack modders/pack makers aren't supporting it (I'll also provide an honourable mention for TT - as it falls into the same basket as MCPC+ - a major structure changing server mod).

As has been stated in the first post - MCPC+ changes how the server runs. I'm not going to say it does it badly - it doesn't, and it keeps getting better in time. As such the developers haven't developed mods on that platform, and are not aware of how the platform works internally. Something that may work well under forge, may not work, or even crash on MCPC+ due to the underlying systems handling it differently. Now this works for Bukkit plugins - because they control the environment. But forge mods are used to a forge environment - and there will be unavoidable differences.

Now this is a FACT - there is no debating this, and people agree on all sides. Because of this, it is difficult for a mod author to support MCPC+ at the same time - and the first reaction, should be, as many people have stated - "it is an MCPC+ issue, no support here". Doing anything else would be a support nightmare - and may require special casing for two separate environments - which would be a nightmare to maintain, and double the testing workload.

If you run a server with MCPC+, or TickThreading, you need to be prepared for any issues you may encounter. Luckily, even if modders don't support these platforms, the platforms themselves are great at supporting the server owners who use mods in conjunction with the platform.

The rule of thumb should be:
1. Bug occurs
2. Re-creatable on forge only? If so, report to mod author.
3. Not re-creatable on forge only? Report to MCPC+/TickThreading.

Now I do understand that it is a lot of work - and sometimes, it isn't clear what the cause is. That is fine, that is the nature of some bugs. But by you using an alternate platform, you have taken that responsibility upon yourself.

Blood/Onibait do an amazing job on MCPC+ and are really approachable guys about - well, just about everything. So you are not alone, but please do some leg work yourself - to save all parties issues. If a bug can be reproduced on forge only, if a mod author doesn't accept it, they're being stupid IMO.

Now I will come to my experience with MCPC+ - MCPC+ is a lot better since its inception, and we have Blood and Onibait to thank for that. I am a server admin of a popular server running Magic Farm myself - and I have found it to be a very able platform - but you do have to accept that it is doing things many mods weren't designed around. And that is fine, it is good at what it does - but please don't hate people for not supporting it. It is the only sensible option for mod authors and pack authors.

Again, like usual, I've ended up rambling - but I hope that I've made my point clear. MCPC+ is great - but a support nightmare - but it is ok, because you have people who can help you, even if we (modders) don't want to touch it with a barge pole from a modding perspective

 

[Luke_H]

I'll make a quick comment and say that most "novice" server users bread and butter is MCPC+

Whilst I completely understand that you do not support it because it is not part of your pack, you should just redirect the person complaining to the MCPC+ forums/support lines even if you have no affiliation with them (common courtesy). Cloudy has a perfect way of dealing with this situation.

To people that complain that the FTB team will not support you with MCPC+. MCPC+ is not part of ANY FTB modpack and therefore it will not be supported as it is a custom addition that was made by you alone. It just makes no sense, you would not walk into a shoe store asking for your shirt to be ironed.

 

[wolfenstein19]

@Cloudy the reproduction on forge only environments is impossible to do if you run a server with 40+ people on it. You cant just have them all change to a forge only server for a while.

 

[Cloudy]

@Cloudy the reproduction on forge only environments is impossible to do if you run a server with 40+ people on it. You cant just have them all change to a forge only server for a while.

No, but there is single player. If you cannot recreate it, go to MCPC+ and they'll be able to help you. As I covered in my post.

 

[Ashzification]

As much as I'd love to say "woo MCPC+" I can't - It causes numerous issues, especially on frontline tech support. The reason for the terse "not supported because MCPC+" is because people never read their logs before pestering us.

Us too.
I've tried asking FTB server owners to replicate their bugs without MCPC+. Many of the server owners I've tried to help report the issue and refuse to replicate it without MCPC+. That's why I try to stick with just launcher support.

To people that complain that the FTB team will not support you with MCPC+. MCPC+ is not part of ANY FTB modpack and therefore it will not be supported as it is a custom addition that was made by you alone. It just makes no sense, you would not walk into a shoe store asking for your shirt to be ironed.

This. Pretty much covers all of my redirects from the Tech Support section.

Lots of walls of text here. Very helpful too, since I'm still trying to understand MCPC+ and various plugins.
Though I have found many plugin requests can be replicated with the use of many mods already in the packs.

 

[dariusc93]

@Cloudy I would suggest stating to test in SMP over SSP when trying to reproduce a bug. MCPC con

No, but there is single player. If you cannot recreate it, go to MCPC+ and they'll be able to help you. As I covered in my post.

Some but all bugs cant be produce in SSP. It may be best to test in SMP if bugs are reproducible in SSP.

 

[Cloudy]

@Cloudy I would suggest stating to test in SMP over SSP when trying to reproduce a bug. MCPC con


Some but all bugs cant be produce in SSP. It may be best to test in SMP if bugs are reproducible in SSP.

True. However, SSP runs a server inside it nowadays - so that will work for most.

 

[Bunsan]

Basic plugin set we run. We've swapped to forge where we could.

-Permissions. This key plugin taps into all plugins to assign rights to groups/players based on rank. Needs to have groups with inheritance, world/dimension variable, multiple rank ladders, MySQL functionality. Yes this is partly what FE will do, but it isn't stable yet.

- Essentials functionality (someday forgessentials) provides so many things hard to list all.

- Logging software. Must log large number of events, both by player and environment. Chat, commands, block-place/break, inventory transactions, item-drop/pickup, set fire, pour water, explosion (indicate type: creeper, TNT, etc.), grow, decay, kill and more. Needs to log NBT data such that rollback function works perfectly. I consider Prism as the gold standard atm. As it is only one that is compatible with forge mods thanks in large part to Blood of MCPC+ team.

- Item locking mod. The ability for players to lock blocks to control access, use and breakage. Allows any block to be locked to private, restricted to certain individuals or group, public (access but not breakage). Needs to be able to toggle on and off flags that control whether block responds to redstone or can be accessed with pipes/hoppers/machine in general. Needs command that outputs it's information (ie owner, restriction type). Would be great if localised to block and not just coordinates. So LWC/lockette, but better.

- Invisibility/Player inventory access. Allows mod to be invisible to players and mobs, allows silent access to inventories. Command to see and edit another players inventory and vanilla enderchest. Such a valuable staff tool.

- Cooldowns/cost for commands. A mod that introduces cool downs and costs to essential teleport commands. Needs to have ability to provide different times and costs to different groups.

- help ticket/issue reporting. A mod that allows players to submit ticket for staff about an issue at sight of issue. So valuable for prompt staff action and prevents issues from slipping through cracks.

- Border mod. Allows server owners to physically limit size of maps for all dimensions. Needs to be able to generate world to border with a buffer for render distance beyond border. So WorldBorder plugin functionality.

- WorldEdit. Not just a building tool. Valuable tool for removing problem blocks, regenerating chunks and so much more, in-game.

- WorldGuard/residence mod. What MyTown is trying to do. Basically control who can do what where and links into permissionand economy mods to modify who can do what where.

- Automatic World Backups (one posted by Aroma1997)

- Announcements - needs easy in-game access to add/remove alerts. For a big server this can be valuable tool to keep players informed or give reminders.

- Inventory save on Death. (Cenotaph and deathchest are well known) tiered perks within mod from planting chest with your inv/armor in it on death, to transferring to delineated chest. Nice bonus for donors and by linking into lock mod (see below) prevents headache of items being stolen by others.

- Chat mod. Multiple channels (trade, local, staff etc). Command to allow staff to ease drop on private messages, ability to be logged by logging mod.

- Ban aggregator. One that taps into the major lists. A la fishbans. Makes staff job so much easier and increases approval time for whitelisting.

- Economy mod. Gives a currency (could be physical, but virtual better IMHO) that can automatically given for voting on server list sites, killing mobs, etc. Shops that use that currency.

- Titles mod. Ability to give players titles for chat. Not only important to delineate who is staff, but can honour donors or valuable members. Colours a nice bonus.

 

[lyme]

True. However, SSP runs a server inside it nowadays - so that will work for most.

The point that Cloudy is trying to get at, is that when in doubt, report it to MCPC+, they will look into it. If that isn't more than fair of them, I don't know what is.

 

[dariusc93]

The point that Cloudy is trying to get at, is that when in doubt, report it to MCPC+, they will look into it. If that isn't more than fair of them, I don't know what is.

I agree.

 

[Sunstrike]

-Item locking mod. The ability for players to lock blocks to control access, use and breakage. Allows any block to be locked to private, restricted to certain individuals or group, public (access but not breakage). Needs to be able to toggle on and off flags that control whether block responds to redstone or can be accessed with pipes/hoppers/machine in general. Needs command that outputs it's information (ie owner, restriction type). Would be great if localised to block and not just coordinates. So LWC/lockette, but better.

This simply can't be done in Forge -- Mod blocks work in a way that is worlds apart from vanillas primitive item movement, and enforcing pipe restrictions is trouble waiting to happen.

As for death chests-like things, already done - Gravestones or Openblocks.

 

[wolfenstein19]

This simply can't be done in Forge -- Mod blocks work in a way that is worlds apart from vanillas primitive item movement, and enforcing pipe restrictions is trouble waiting to happen.

As for death chests-like things, already done - Gravestones or Openblocks.

On a serious server you need all of these - though. You need reliable protection that really disables people from griefing. You need a vote listener. You need a working rank management and permissions plugin. You need block logging. You need admin commands that make it feasible to detect and fix bugs. If you run a reasonably big server you have to have all of these admin tools - there simply is no way around that. Thats why we all use mcpc+, because not having it makes a good server impossible. So if most of this can't be done in forge we will have to continue using it - if we can't - well, most people play modpacks on a server, already. Loosing that is probably going to hurt modded mc in general.

 

[Sunstrike]

On a serious server you need all of these - though. You need reliable protection that really disables people from griefing. You need a vote listener. You need a working rank management and permissions plugin. You need block logging. You need admin commands that make it feasible to detect and fix bugs. If you run a reasonably big server you have to have all of these admin tools - there simply is no way around that. Thats why we all use mcpc+, because not having it makes a good server impossible. So if most of this can't be done in forge we will have to continue using it - if we can't - well, most people play modpacks on a server, already. Loosing that is probably going to hurt modded mc in general.

MCPC+ can't do what the person was asking either way - It'd need a rewrite of the basic inventory/sided handling which, frankly, Forge won't do because of the amount of work and amount of anger it would cause amongst modders - We'd be doing it just for server admins, it doesn't add anything for what we do. I don't see pipe restriction happening except if mods themselves enforce it (e.g. Thermal Expansion's sidedness).