What is your opinion on Chunkloaders?

1st Official Post

    In trying to make more balanced and slower game play, it seems i keep coming back to chunk loaders. they really seem to be the elephant in the room that no one talks about, more than any other item, they remove resource scarcity. Auto mining that runs while you log off, tree farms that run while you are at work, etc. In our last world a guy used golems and ore berries, which seemed benign at first, but then he started filling up the public ender chest with essence berries, etc. (DW20 standard pack, what a disaster)


    It just seems to come back to the chunkloader. i was thinking of removing world anchors (got rid of all chickenbones mods, i keep getting told that they are a major cause of world corruption) and only allowing personal anchors. IMO this really makes people have to build multiple machines to process things, vs just letting one single machine run overnight, which then increases your need for more resources for machines, while decreasing your output at the same time. So the added resource scarcity is even more than just removing production from your offline time, you need to build more to compensate.


    Any opinions here on this?

    Honestly Chunk Loaders have corrupt a few of my worlds. Back on 1.2.5 I was using the dimensional Anchors by Immibis, but I had too many of them. Thing is though, they won't if you don't use a lot of them. In other terms, here's the (+)s and (--)s of the Chunk Loader.
    (+) They keep a 16x16 area loaded (SMP/Possibly SSP).
    (--) They corrupt chunks after 20-40 chunk loaders (SMP/ Possibly SSP).
    (++) Makes playing easier.
    (--) Floods MCMyAdmin/MConsole with [SEVERE]: Errors (Shuts down server if setting set).
    (+) They Require fuel (unless you are using Admin Anchors or Dimensional Anchors on Infinite Config setting) so they won't always be on for too long.
    (+) They also keep mods from bugging out for not being loaded.
    OVERALL: It depends highly on what you expect on your server. If you want it 24/7 with no crashes. I highly recommend blacklisting them unless you plan on having a whitelisted server.

    Interesting thanks for the reply. So far we are leaving them as 'use them if you want' with 3 of us just opting not to use them. Other than personal anchors and anchor carts from railcraft, etc.


    What really got me thinking though, is how much using chunkloaders really increase your resources and ramp up game progression quickly.

    Chunkloaders kinda make sense. Minecrafts Open World Nature is just not permitting the whole world to be loaded(Not that the whole world would be already generated). Using special blocks to keep important chunks loaded is therefore normal. Of course, that is not applying to Multiplayer, though it should not be an issue with the chunkloader if there is any automation that is just outputting masses of valueable resources. Basically, if you can just place a Turtle and paste a code into it to get infinite materials, the Turtleis overpowered, and the chunkloading is just making it even more overpowered.

    • Official Post

    I definitely use them, but I usually use RC's ones which require a fuel, simply so that It doesn't turn into a overnight keep-game-loaded deal.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Nonotan

    lol go to the end and smack endermen for 5 minutes, get enough ender pearls to load 9 chunks for a year.

    A. I don't use mobfarms
    B. I have a mod that makes endermen in the end not drop enderpearls :P

    Quote from SirusKing

    A. I don't use mobfarms
    B. I have a mod that makes endermen in the end not drop enderpearls :P


    But that makes the End entirely useless! Except for the Ores, the High Energy Eggs and...well, I still say it is underpowered. Enderman in the Overworld are too rare to really use them to power chunkloaders, especially if you also have other uses for their pearls.

    Quote from Sinnaj63


    But that makes the End entirely useless! Except for the Ores, the High Energy Eggs and...well, I still say it is underpowered. Enderman in the Overworld are too rare to really use them to power chunkloaders, especially if you also have other uses for their pearls.


    Agreed, and seeing that I normally don't go seeking the End Portal anyway, I find that the Ender Pearl is a highly rare commodity in my worlds...


    (Plus, I'm not exactly a fan of being depending on such resources anyhow, lol)...

    Would anyone like to try a Slowpoke Tail?! Only 1 Million Yen!


    Quote

    this isn't about arrogance or ego, I have a block that I put a lot of freaking work into


    Every Mod Author, in existence. And yet, you STILL say otherwise.

    Quote from Nonotan

    Disabling chunkloaders just causes your players to afk instead, causing greater server load.


    whew, took me awhile to check back here.


    I dont even know what mod it is, i think its hungeroverhaul, but one mod I have makes people disconnect after being idle for 20 minutes. So we wont have people going AFK.


    So far removing chunkloaders has made the game more challenging than any other change I have made. it makes sense because its how SSP worlds run. A chunkloader really increases the speed at which I progress through a world by 10-20x. I cant think of any other item that speeds up the game as much.


    Take a solar panel for example. I have 1 solar panel and an MFE. 1 eu/t going into a battery. I log on without chunkloaders and start to mine, the solar panel starts filling the MFE. After 20 minutes (one minecraft day, for simplicity sake) I come back and want to process the stuff I mined. the MFE has 24,000 EU in it, and that is all the power i have to run my stuff with. I am on another 40 minutes for the day, I sleep each night, so I get 72K eu for one real life day's worth of playing.


    now add teh chunkloader.


    Now one solar panel will put out 48K eu per real life hour. So overnight and the next day while I work, that one solar panel gives me 1,104,000 Eu.


    So the chunkloader made it so I could go from 72K eu per day up to 1million eu per day. Not using the chunkloader means I need to make more solar panels, which now uses up my resources. For example, i needed water in my base at the moment and am not using any infinite sources, so i made a railcraft water tank. Without a chunkloader, I had to build 4 of them to keep up with demand. With a chunkloader 1 would have easily sufficed. Now I have to struggle more to keep up, which is more fun.


    Do people here play SSP at all? Other than going afk, this is how ssp would run, i honestly think that chunkloaders might be the biggest culprit for ruining the fun for a lot ofpeople.


    The railcraft world anchors are definitely better, unless you have an easy way to get ender pearls. Sirus do you know you can change the item ID of what the fuel is for the world anchors? So i assume that means you could make it cost... diamonds? Or energy circuits? :)

    Quote from zorn

    Do people here play SSP at all? Other than going afk, this is how ssp would run, i honestly think that chunkloaders might be the biggest culprit for ruining the fun for a lot ofpeople.

    I'm the kind of guy who plays only in SSP :)


    While I occasionally "cheat" and afk while working/browse internet/play with cellphone I just keep expanding my automation/energy system to cope with my needs so that I wouldn't need to wait for stuff to be processed. Also I pretty much always have something to do. At start I'm spending a LOT of time just gathering resources, later it gradually goes over to building stuff and automating things. Though as I'm not all that great at automating everything I always have some manual labor to do to keep the stuff running.


    By mid game (around when I have GT electric blast furnace up&running) I usually have 2-3 quarries running in parallel with overall energy production of around 10k EU/t of what is barely enough to process the stuff I need plus additional 1-2 36LP boilers for quarries.


    I do use chunk loaders to keep my base and pumps further from the base loaded. As I generally end up just sitting inside my base building stuff I haven't turned on fuel usage on them (cba to chase after endermen). In my latest just-to-be-started world I'm going to be using the network anchor that uses EU so this time I'll be paying for the luxury of chunk loading :)

    • Official Post
    Quote from hoho

    I'm the kind of guy who plays only in SSP

    Same. I would play on servers but it is too much effort and no one wants to play my superhard client :p


    Thing is, when I use chunk loaders, I use it for things that simply need to be chunkloaded. I don't make grinders, or OP super farms, I spend most of the time actually building.


    My main use for modded is it gives me more REASON to build (A large nuclear power plant, shaped like IRL, A Giant mushroom farm to make methane, a large powerstation with overhead wires, a large pumping station in the ocean to get finite-water ect), since in vanilla, after bases and portals and farms, you just build for the sake of building and I hate that :P

    • Official Post
    Quote from SirusKing

    Same. I would play on servers but it is too much effort and no one wants to play my superhard client :p

    Hey, what about invultri's server?
    You could always bug him to add hunger overhaul and that difficulty thingies when 1.7 update comes around. I would like it by the way, i've always loved UHC, what about modded UHC :3 {Which also gives canned food a very important reason to make, and nether farming (reg pots).}

    Quote

    "My main use for modded is it gives me more REASON to build (A large nuclear power plant, shaped like IRL, A Giant mushroom farm to make methane, a large powerstation with overhead wires, a large pumping station in the ocean to get finite-water ect), since in vanilla, after bases and portals and farms, you just build for the sake of building and I hate that "


    This is my issue with modded minecraft. If MPS suits are available on my server and use easy (non gregtech) recipes, i have no *reason* to build a rail line to a friends area so we can travel easier. People always tell me 'if you want to build a rail system, just do it.' but my issue is, i want to build things that solve problems, something I have a reason to build, like you said.


    Actually your comment really sums up all my issues with the game, and why balance is important. Most people, i would bet, use te3 for ore processing, but factorization for barrels mostly. Few use factorization's ore processing because, as you said, there is no reason to. Its also why i really dislike mods that, IMO, add power creep intentionally to attract players. (Looking squarely at Thermal Expansion here).

    • Official Post
    Quote from SpwnX

    Hey, what about invultri's server?
    You could always bug him to add hunger overhaul and that difficulty thingies when 1.7 update comes around. I would like it by the way, i've always loved UHC, what about modded UHC :3 {Which also gives canned food a very important reason to make, and nether farming (reg pots).}

    I turned regen off originally but with Zombie awareness cranked to 10 and with harderstone enabled, caving was impossible xD
    Luckily though, Hungeroverhaul allows you to set regeneration rate to very very low, so it makes it just a little easier :p
    I wonder if Invultri would accept my configs...

    Does canned food act differently than normal food? Hunger overhaul makes regeneration so slow, im looking for ways to heal. Funny, in 1 year of playing modded minecraft, I have never made a potion or a golden apple (I think these heal your health bar?) because with quantum armor or mps, i never needed to worry about dying.

    • Official Post
    Quote from zorn

    Does canned food act differently than normal food? Hunger overhaul makes regeneration so slow, im looking for ways to heal. Funny, in 1 year of playing modded minecraft, I have never made a potion or a golden apple (I think these heal your health bar?) because with quantum armor or mps, i never needed to worry about dying.

    Canned food restores 1 heart when eaten.
    Golden apple restores 2 hearts and adds 2 extra hearts (does not regenerate) for 2 minutes.
    Regeneration/heal potions information can be found on minecraft wiki (idk them).

    Quote from SpwnX

    Canned food restores 1 heart when eaten.
    Golden apple restores 2 hearts and adds 2 extra hearts (does not regenerate) for 2 minutes.
    Regeneration/heal potions information can be found on minecraft wiki (idk them).


    Canned food restores hearts too?? Holy awesome batman. i guess in my MPS suit I never lost more than a half of a heart at a time, so I never noticed. :) Now with gregtech recipes on mps suits, im tooling around in iron and diamond armor heh. Thanks for the reply, this is handy info and explains why canned food exists. I always thought it was just for auto feeding with a quantum suit.