original spawn chunks

A place to talk to other users about the mod.
Post Reply
dyrewulf
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 3:30 pm

original spawn chunks

Post by dyrewulf »

Short version in case you don't like long-winded posts:
I want my farms (plant and mob) to work in the always loaded original spawn chunks, both for practical reasons and for in-game logic reasons.


Long-winded explanation below, with some questions for further discussion at the end:

A recent BTW change has negated the "downside" of building at original spawn, which was that items dropped on death decay in those chunks due to always being loaded, and now they decay regardless of where you died.

So that would seem to suggest there is no longer a reason not to build your base there (aside from practical concerns like what biome it's in of course). In my early game, I had in mind to build up my farms and animal pens right at the spawn location. Unfortunately after some testing and further research here in the forums I was disappointed to find out that plants don't grow in these chunks despite them staying loaded, though redstone and other features of the game continue to function when you're far away in the overworld.

I'm trying to frame this in a way that isn't precisely a suggestion, but basically I wanted to point out that the use of vanilla behavior with this spawn chunk situation has some game-logic flaws. If the unique behavior around original spawn is to be explained by suggesting it's a special (magical?) location which allows time to pass and game mechanisms to function outside of Steve's presence, then why shouldn't the activity that is able to occur here be consistent with elsewhere in the overworld? Why does Steve need to be present for plants to grow, if you accept that this location continues to exist and function without him?

From a practical standpoint I would like to see a change that enables plant growth to occur in these spawn chunks. Hemp is slow to grow and seeds difficult to come by under the best of conditions but the time it takes to get a sufficient supply to progress is worsened in the early game due to how often you're out of range of your farm while mining and hunting and doing other early game activities. I hate returning to my farm only to find no plants have matured even though it's been several days. Having the means to put my hemp farm in a place where I know it will grow as long as the conditions are right means I don't have to be so concerned about what I'm doing and how that might slow down my potential progress.

At my current early game stage I'm more concerned about plant growth than mob farms, but these too don't function in spawn chunks unless the player is in range due to how mob spawning is tied to player distance. At a later stage where mob farms come into play I could see the benefits of them being functional at all times, and in terms of the logical consistencies I don't see much difference between one type of farm and another. I suppose you could say that creatures only spawn into existence where Steve is, so that they actually only exist as a reaction to his being there, which is somewhat more logical than why a plant would only grow in his presence (while being in a place that functions normally otherwise).

That said, for game logic consistency it would be equally rational to simply do away with the way spawn chunks function, making them no different than elsewhere. If it meant fixing the logical conundrum with the least effort this would probably be the way to go, even though some people may be disappointed if they've grown accustomed to the benefits for the sake of automation.

------

If anybody has made use of spawn chunks staying loaded for their base location, how useful in the grand scheme has it proven?

Would you agree that having plant growth and mob farms functional here would be beneficial and would also be better in terms of "game logic" as compared to how it works currently?

Not having any knowledge of the technical reasons for the current behavior, is it likely that such a change would be problematic either to get it to work or in how it might affect the game's performance? Is plant growth easier/less system intensive to achieve vs. mob farms or vice versa?
Niyu
Posts: 265
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:15 pm

Re: original spawn chunks

Post by Niyu »

I kinda agree with the plants. It would add a bit more of consistency.
But I don't agree with the monster part. I like to think that monsters are not appearing just because time is passing. They are actively looking after the player. So even if time is passing when you are not arround I don't see any reason to have monsters there.
Last edited by Niyu on Thu Mar 26, 2015 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
william711
Posts: 53
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2012 7:38 pm

Re: original spawn chunks

Post by william711 »

perhaps the same thing that causes monsters to spawn also causes growth in plants. I don't really see this as being inconsistent with the rest of the game, just because the original spawn chunks are loaded does not imply that they should function as other loaded chunks, it is the presence of the player that causes loaded chunks to produce monsters and plant growth, not the fact that the chunks are simply loaded.
dyrewulf
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 3:30 pm

Re: original spawn chunks

Post by dyrewulf »

Wheat has managed to grow in villages when the player hasn't been there before, which would imply that a player isn't needed. Other plants, tall grass, mushrooms, trees, pumpkins and the like haven't required Steve's presence to have grown. Unless the stipulation is that nothing in the overworld, or all MC realms, has ever existed prior to Steve having come there, and it all simply manifests fully grown at the instant Steve sets eyes on it. I guess that's feasible, but stuff like that makes me wonder why we find it worth assigning logical consistency to any aspect of MC/BTW.

If villagers were assumed to facilitate plant growth, then it's reasonable to expect that luring some to original spawn would serve as a method for maintaining constant plant growth, though that doesn't help with my early game concerns, since villagers and the means to lure them aren't quickly obtained. Still, even at the early stage that I'm currently in, I do have a single diamond, and travel to locate an occupied village while a bit risky, isn't out of the realm of possibility. If getting some villagers in the early game gave me the capability to keep my hemp farm working all the time, that along with the potential to get wheat up and running would become a priority for sure.
RalphKastro
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2012 8:21 pm

Re: original spawn chunks

Post by RalphKastro »

I like to believe that the World's time flow was okay and equal everywhere before Steve, but had it's time flow disturbed by his presence somehow.
Post Reply