EnTro

Everyone that was accepted received a message with the server IP. Welcome to the server !

Server news:

We finished the TerracrocoCrack competition in which we started in teams from nothing and build up to a final battle with a very explosive end. Some screenshots can be found on the community website.

Volheim started a Let's play

And we moved from Enjin to a new community website.

Okay, I finally caught up with the applications! Thank you for the large interest and see you soon! I have added geoantonio13, Codey1, EaiteSuper, Kroisos222, xXKiller_KoalaXx, hdavidso, tnoy23, asuoSneb and _The_Smile_!

EnTro, I know you want your server unmodded, but shoudn't it be a good idea to include Extra Firma in the server?

A warm welcome to chocmerc, Ghiojo, Snarpips and noobsrtoast! You all recieved the IP in a PM and the whitelist has been reloaded!

Welcome Foxrider1792, Jeeser, pixels3, Ninjabilly4, koozs and Deklan_2001! See you soon on the server

Thanks for your support I like the falling through ice suggestion, maybe if you walk on ice that borders water.

The Ice growth may actually make ice formation a lot less resource intensive. Since it needs to check whether it is next to a shore and/or ice to form, and it is not a whole water body check.

 

In the server I frequent, they actually raised the water freezing temperature to 2C so that the whole freezing and unfreezing wouldn't happen too often and dragging resources with it. 

[End of quote]

Yeah indeed, freezing / thawing is server intensive. In TFC during winter the server's effective capacity halves if everyone is in areas with snow and ice around. Some optimizations there would help a bunch!

I guess that my proposed snowfall pattern would increase server load, but I'm not sure if that would be noticeable or not.

One more thing I was thinking about: life in the colder regions is much more difficult than living near the equator. Food grows more slowly/barely grows, snow slows you down, you need more fuel to run your fires. To balance this out, the north could have some advantages. Anyone has ideas?

Indeed, 1 Gb RAM is minimum for starting the server. 2 Gb would be enough for a few friends, but 4 Gb or more would be required for a large server.

Notice that RAM is not by definition the limiting factor for a server. The maximum number of players does not scale simply with the amount of RAM. RAM helps because it 1: allows more game data to be loaded in the memory and 2: allows the server to compile and keep more of the java code compiled. But, at the end of the day the processor will just not keep up and problems will start no matter how much RAM you throw at it.

About hosting: a dedicated server is ideal, but relatively expensive. A good VPS is an alternative that can work well. Note the good part, there are many shitty ones.

Like InsaneJ said, you can play with the java options to optimize how java deals with the code and the memory. Be aware though: there are many guides out there with java options and some just don't make sense. It is hard to determine how effective each setting is.

One final note, the TFC player base is already spread quite thin as it is. This is something I didn't realize myself, but is something to consider if you want to start a public server. It might be better for the TFC community as a whole, to join an existing server and help make that one a better / more active server than to create a new server and spread out the players even more.

The TerraCrocoCraft server's town of Aventum is pretty far north (15k) and winter is clearly present for about 5 out of 12 months. I personally like snow and it makes me smile every time the winter sets in in TFC and it starts snowing . But nothing is perfect, so here are some of my suggestions for the winter mechanics.

Bug: Snow on removed leaves: after cutting a tree with snow on top, the snow still floats in the air and can trap sticks, logs and sapling on top. The snow should obviously disappear with the leaves.

Snow decimates long grass: I believe that snow removes all traces of grass (except from under trees) by replacing it and not regenerating fast enough. After living in an area for a while, it looks really barren and makes it difficult to find straw (especially on servers). Maybe snowy long grass can be implemented, or snow doesn't collect where long grass is.

Snow collect on everything not solid: Right now snow collects on signs, stairs, plank constructions, open trapdoors, fences (you can jump them with snow on top), carpets and a lot more creating unrealistic structures that are difficult to navigate. Snow should only collect on blocks/items with a solid top side.

Snow fall pattern: snow layers in TFC spawn randomly during snowy weather. This creates a very jagged pattern while in real life snow usually smooths out the landscape. I would suggest to add a small rule to the addition of snow layers:

A new snow layer will only be added if the surrounding blocks have at least the same number of snow layers, or are blocks/tiles

This will make the snow less jagged, keep the snow on the hills thin and you get snowbanks growing from hill sides and walls .

Snow shoes: traveling through snow slows you down. This is very realistic, but can get really frustrating if you try to do something outside of your house. I suggest to add snowshoes to the game, made out of sticks and string/leather. Wearing these will improve your snow traveling rate, but the shoes provide no protection.

Snow melting: melting happens layer by layer.

Ice growth: this has been suggested by someone else before (can't remember who it was). With the exception of small lakes, ice usually starts growing from the shore inward. Maybe if the temperature is low enough (below - 5C or so) ice starts freezing also in the middle of the lake.

Snow shoveling: removing snow is now a tedious task and using a shovel doesn't help. If used on snow, the shovel could clear a 3x3 area of snow, much like the scythe does. And maybe it could give some snowballs, we still need something to throw to our friends .

I agree for the most part with what aeroc wrote earlier.Some technical insights in running a Terrafirmacraft server:TFC is surprisingly stable. I believe the TerraCrocoCraft server has not even once crashed due to the sequoia bug and the total number of crashes can be counted on my left hand (or right one, for that matter). Most problems I experience are due to vanilla minecraft bugs (zombie pathfinding lag bug and the chunks not unloading bug).Running TFC is server resource intensive. I believe this is largely inherent to forge, but things like snow and ice appearing and melting in tfc contribute significantly to the server load. Chunk generation is deadly slow, which is why I pregenerated my map. With 4Gb RAM and 3.0Ghz Xeon my server can support 12 people (under normal circumstances) without issues. Above that it is mainly the CPU that has trouble keeping up. I suppose the game would remain playable up to 20 players or so, but that is it. Even with the best CPU available the limit in the number of players would increase with only a handful (and would be unaffordable).I hope that the server code performance improvements in minecraft 1.6, 1.7 and in some time 1.8 will translate to Terrafirmacraft, and perhaps that Terrafirmacraft itself can be optimized further by the devs.The player cap also limits the maximum active playerbase to somewhere between 30 and 50, which is rather small for a stable community. In the non-peak hours the number of players is rather low. This can discourage players, because no-one really likes to join a server with 0 players online.At the moment big servers are just not an option and I suppose they will not be any time soon. Plus, you can never really combine all playstyles (PvE, PvP, survival building) on a single server.Then some gameplay related insights:TFC has large multiplayer potential because of the long and intensive progression arc, but it doesn't promote teaming up. On TerraCrocoCrack I see many people living semi-independent. They trade, keep in touch and do things together, but almost everyone still has a personal house, charcoal pit, anvil and such. I would say that at the moment TFC multiplayer is most suited for a group of friends playing together.

My forum mailbox very quickly fills up with messages, so that could have been the case.

First about the delay: I run the server in my spare time and the Christmas period has been extremely busy, giving me only time to do the basic server admin stuff. Sending you the message about the application rejection was delayed, as for which you have already received my apology.

I do indeed judge you and your application when you send one in. That is actually the whole point of an application. I assess if you would fit into the server and check for any past shenanigans using google. This is much like applying for a job. I am very strict, as the server has no chest/grief protection. And do realize that joining a server is a privilege, no right!

As for a bad name: this is the precise reason why I send you a personal message and do not, like you do to yourself now, post an accusation on the forum. Realize that I do not accuse you, I just inform you that your application was denied with the reason why.

Further, I am not going to find you on teamspeak to discuss this as I do not consider it my task to do so in any way. If you still want some more info you can reply to my PM.

EnTro

New on the whitelist are Bjarke, Lord_Franzo and Clay2014. See you soon!

In server news: MasterOfTrollz is organizing a large PvP event much like the Terrafirmacrack® competition (youtube to see the awesomeness). More info is on enjin and applying can be done on the server in the community center in Aventum!

A warm welcome to rex2013, Steven_H, Economooo, MadDoctor5813, DamianKr, Creccerr, Kristaps97, Tzumish and Apiek! See you soon.

Please confirm if you are back on the longer year or the standard 96 day year. Thanks.

Yes, we still run with a yearlength of 360 days. This is important for everyone: if you do not set this properly your client might crash when you log in.

Welcome on board Kerlot

First of all: Merry Christmas to all!

My apologies for the slight delay for the last 4 applications, I didn't receive the usual e-mail notifications and with Christmas going on, I haven't been on the forum.

Anyway, a warm welcome to Volheim, Luigifan13, PaoloEmilio, death2045 and ARock82! You have been whitelisted and the IP has been send to you

I have added 4km more generated terrain in the far North for the arctic explorers on the server ! The new map limits are: X from -10000 to 10000 and Z from -22000 to 18000.

why can't we use the radar it's easier to find the players you play with

It is not really necessary to have it on, right? Esp. when I am thinking about possible PvP situations, where it would be simply unfair. Actually, the mob radar is a bigger issue, as it makes dealing with them a lot easier and takes out the surprise.

Voxstream, I have send you the IP some time ago already, but still: welcome on the server !

Wildwestusmc: I checked your location and you were in a block that froze over with you in it. This is normal and not caused by lag (you'd need to break the ice). I moved your character a few blocks up, so that you are out of the water/ice and can continue your journey.

New on the whitelist are Slasher20 and ShichiNoBushi! Welcome and see you soon

I am fine with a standard minimap mod and optifine, but do turn of the mob and player radar.

Thanks for the support Terex!

Build 78 has already implemented your first two suggestions. As for the third, rich ore is currently a random drop when mining an ore block. Whenever you mine an ore block, there is a percentage chance of it dropping rich, regular or poor ore. Just because one block drops rich ore, it doesn't mean the other nearby blocks will drop it too.

Cool that the first two are already implemented .

For the random drop of rich, regular and poor ore, I tend to agree with SionoiS that it will effectively not change the amount of metal you get, as stochastic statistics tends to average out processes like this rather quickly. For example if you gather 10 ores of sizes 10/25/40 for poor/regular/rich with equal chances you end up with 250 ± 38.8 ore units (25 ± 3.88 per ore). For 100 ores this becomes 2500 ± 122 ore units (25 ± 1.22).

Having different ore sizes can make alloy mixing a bit more tricky and involve more of the players skill. I like that . That and equal sized ores are not very believable.

In addition to that I think the regions more rich in a certain ore, like I described in the first post, would add some interesting aspects to especially SMP.

Can this be included in a 77 hotfix as 78 is still far away? I have changed the yearlength on my server, and rhodance's server also has a custom/longer year length. I would very much like to keep the longer year length setting.

I would like to welcome Imnafoy, drakfyr13 and wildwestusmc!

WastedWario: make sure to mention your IGN username. Also this is a mature server, make sure to have your application reflect that, especially because you are only 15.

Important notice:

I have changed the server's yearlength from 96 to 360. A complete year will take 120 hours = 5 days. Due to a minor bug in TFC, this setting is not properly communicated from the server to the client, so you will have to change the yearlength manually in the TFCOptions.cfg file.

Go to the place where minecraft is installed (not the launcher). For me that could be: "C:UsersEnTroAppDataRoaming.minecraft" and go into the "config" folder. Can't find the proper folder? It might be hidden because AppData is a hidden folder. Solution. Open the file "TFCOptions.cfg" with notepad or a similar simple text editor. In there, find the line that says:

 # This is how many days are in a year. Keep this to multiples of 12. I:yearLength=96

And change it into:

 # This is how many days are in a year. Keep this to multiples of 12. I:yearLength=360

and then save the file. After restarting minecraft the change will take effect and your client-seasons will be in sync with the server.

Keep in mind that this setting will affect playing in single player and on other servers as well! You might need to change the setting every time you switch worlds.

This is just a quick post with a few ideas for the new ore and mineral generation system. If this has been discussed/suggested before, let me know, didn't find it in a quick search query.

Random ore spawn heights: just stating the obvious, I know . Removes y=60 as the place to be and adds skill to finding ores. Would make cave exploring worthwhile again.

Use surface height as a reference for the depth to determine which ores can spawn: this allows ores to spawn deep inside mountains, and would open the option to mine horizontally into a mountain, instead of digging straight down.

Some ores spawn more in a certain region: certain regions (like 250x250 blocks) have a specific higher deposition of a certain metal (deposited by some geological process). So there are iron/copper/gold rich regions. In such a region you can find several veins/clusters instead of an isolated single one, possibly including some of the rich ores that exist in creative. The single isolated clusters and veins still exist like they do now. Sluicing could help locating these regions by finding occasional rich ores of that type.

This is intended to work different from the current biome system, as in those regions the ore density is much higher and localized than in the rest of the biome. This shouldn't affect SSP much, as most veins are generally large enough to last a long time anyway. In SMP it would promote exploring and actual proper iron/copper mines to be set up as an alternative to random hole-digging.

What do you think of these ideas?

Hello senoc, CambleC, bdogblue, Adam80027 and bruce779! You have been added to the whitelist.

I'm curious to see how your PvP plan works out Adam80027. I think several people might be into something like that . I suggest you use terracrococraft.enjin.com to set it up and communicate. Do set clear some rules so everyone knows what they are getting into.

The server is updated to version 77 hotfix 22, update your client to be able to join

A warm welcome to you, ICanHazBrainz and Sh0d0w . I have added you both to the whitelist!

Lorokia, you have been added to the whitelist and received the IP. See you around .

I had it, but restarting my client helped. I will restart the server and hope it gets solved.

Edit: seems to be solved