Minecraft

[raudorn]

Good Morning folks, I bring you a quadruple update.

1.) I can confirm that the server times out recently. Sometimes it's during connects and sometimes it takes a minute before any terrain is rendered.

2.) The Undergarden is open for visitors now, although it wasn't exactly closed beforehand. The western side tower is still mostly empty, because I don't know what to put in it. For now there's a staircase that leads to... nothing in particular.

3.) I made another update to xkcraftia tours, covering some places I ignored and some I discovered since the original trek. Here's the overview post for all updates. For example, I found the long-lost bombing range! I mean, I'm not sure how we even lost it and I was the only one looking for it, but there it is now!

4.) I updated the transportation map with the new boat travel and Whittington's Metrorail:

[Flumble]

I sent a PM to _infina_ about the server status (it's beyond my saving at this point).

Thanks for the updated purely topological transportation map, raudorn!
At this point I think it'd be a shame to overlay the world map* with transportation nodes.


*speaking of which: are any people in favour/against having one big isometric/axonometric projection of the worlds instead of the top-down view?
I'm in favour of having a non-top-down projection, because it doesn't convey building styles and terrain elevations (which is very helpful if you're looking for a landmark when you're lost and helpful when you're looking for a certain building to show someone), even though it hides part of the terrain/buildings and makes it harder to judge directions and distances.

[Peaceful Whale]

Question? I've got windows 10... I'm guessing that this server isn't windows 10...

[Mutex]

It's the original java version.

[Peaceful Whale]

Dang

[oscar_spider]

*speaking of which: are any people in favour/against having one big isometric/axonometric projection of the worlds instead of the top-down view?
I'm in favour of having a non-top-down projection, because it doesn't convey building styles and terrain elevations (which is very helpful if you're looking for a landmark when you're lost and helpful when you're looking for a certain building to show someone), even though it hides part of the terrain/buildings and makes it harder to judge directions and distances.

I dislike the top-down only view for similar reasons - it hides all the architectural features of buildings and terrain. I strongly support having a current 3d perspective view. I have no objections to also having a top-down view as there are occasions where it can be useful.

[oscar_spider]

I didn't see any creepers at all today. I don't remember if I saw any yesterday or not. Did they get nerfed again?? Mordor is not the same without them and also it impacts gunpowder collection.

I'm pretty sure they were out and about not all that long ago.

[raudorn]

I didn't see any creepers at all today. I don't remember if I saw any yesterday or not. Did they get nerfed again?? Mordor is not the same without them and also it impacts gunpowder collection.

I'm pretty sure they were out and about not all that long ago.

Oh, right, we once had a creeper-killing script in place, didn't we? Haven't seen any creeper in my session today either.

*speaking of which: are any people in favour/against having one big isometric/axonometric projection of the worlds instead of the top-down view?

I wouldn't mind. I mostly use the geographic maps to discover new places to explore. In that regard an isometric view is better for finding man-made patterns.

[oscar_spider]

I didn't see any creepers at all today. I don't remember if I saw any yesterday or not. Did they get nerfed again?? Mordor is not the same without them and also it impacts gunpowder collection.

I'm pretty sure they were out and about not all that long ago.

Creepers are back. Thank you!

[oscar_spider]

Looks like the server is down again. I see from Flumbles' XKCD Minecraft Status page that raudorn tried to log on not too long ago, so that is probably when it went down.

[Flumble]

radorn, are you in some region with too much stuff going on? It's the second (or more-th?) time the server crashed at/after your login attempt. I think I can safely offline teleport you if need be.

Also, yes, the server is back up again.

[raudorn]

radorn, are you in some region with too much stuff going on? It's the second (or more-th?) time the server crashed at/after your login attempt. I think I can safely offline teleport you if need be.

I think I was last logging out of Whittington. The most block update intensive thing there are the myriad observer blocks for the automated farms at the Arcology. I notice that FPS goes way down when they're rendered (occlusion culling helps there somehow even though it shouldn't) and they're not working correctly. However in the past I never had any trouble when logging in and out of Whittington. The only new thing is some tower I built, which doesn't have a singly dynamic block. In short, I doubt it's my position that's causing this. However it's no trouble to teleport me to some stable location (Spawn is fine?) and I'll refrain from logging in until I'm there.

[oscar_spider]

The server appears to have crashed again while I was logging on. I'm where I normally have been recently - on the Green in the center of Mordor.

I'm thinking the crashes are not related to where someone is but probably something else that goes bad in the server over time. It was recently mentioned that it might be possible to set the server to auto-restart after a crash. That feature would have been valuable over the years past and would be into the future as well.

[Flumble]

I'm thinking the crashes are not related to where someone is but probably something else that goes bad in the server over time.

Agreed
@raudorn, you're free to log in.

It was recently mentioned that it might be possible to set the server to auto-restart after a crash. That feature would have been valuable over the years past and would be into the future as well.

I've hacked together something now. I'm not familiar with rc and probably don't have the right permissions to install a daemon, so it's just an infinite loop in a shell script that runs the server.

[EdgarJPublius]

radorn, are you in some region with too much stuff going on? It's the second (or more-th?) time the server crashed at/after your login attempt. I think I can safely offline teleport you if need be.

I think I was last logging out of Whittington. The most block update intensive thing there are the myriad observer blocks for the automated farms at the Arcology. I notice that FPS goes way down when they're rendered (occlusion culling helps there somehow even though it shouldn't) and they're not working correctly. However in the past I never had any trouble when logging in and out of Whittington. The only new thing is some tower I built, which doesn't have a singly dynamic block. In short, I doubt it's my position that's causing this. However it's no trouble to teleport me to some stable location (Spawn is fine?) and I'll refrain from logging in until I'm there.

The laggy-ness of the Arcology is actually something I've put some effort into understanding and minimizing.
I've cut down on a lot of the redstone circuits that were causing the most problems back when I first started the thing operating. I don't think the observers should be causing too much of an issue, if you've got any info on the lagginess of observers I'd be interested in reading to see if there are ways I can minimize their impact. I know there's another way to do the sugarcane farm with old-style quasi-connectivity BUDs, but I suspect that would be a lot laggier than the current observer-based version. I think the only other way to do the melon farm is just with a clock circuit, which I don't like for a number of reasons. Though I need to figure out what's wrong with the current melon farm anyway and try to fix or reset it, should have time to investigate in the next week or so.

From what I've gleaned reading various minecraft associated forums and wikis, the laggiest part of the Arcology tower is probably the long chains of hoppers, especially the wheat farm which contains more hoppers than the entire rest of the tower. I think the best solution there is just to reduce the footprint of that farm and thus the number of hoppers required.

Entities may also be accumulating where the crop farms output to the main item bus, and in the gold farm. The gold farm should be easy to fix, the crop farm chokepoint not so much, though I do have some thoughts if modifications are necessary.

Also, I should probably cull the villager breeding and sorting area. I know some of y'all use some the trades in the sorting area, if there are any up there y'all use and want to save, mark them somehow or let me know so I can spare them. I do want to run a few more generations through sorting to get a good selection of trades, but I just haven't had the time or motivation to actually do it. next time I get the chance I'll mothball the breeder until I get the time/motivation to sort more villager trades, as long as I leave at least two villagers in the breeder chamber, I can build a good sized breeding population pretty quickly, but in the meantime they won't be putting strain on the server.


Also, the blinking lights on the runway of the Whittington airport look rad as hell, but that redstone causes more lag than anything on the current iteration of the Arcology. If you're experiencing a noticeable increase in lag in the vicinity of the Tower, the first thing I'd check is whether those lights are blinking and if stopping them solves the problem.

All that said, the last couple of times I've experienced lag issue on the server, it has not seemed to be localized near the Arcology, so I suspect there's some other issue.

[oscar_spider]

Entities may also be accumulating where the crop farms output to the main item bus, and in the gold farm. The gold farm should be easy to fix, the crop farm chokepoint not so much, though I do have some thoughts if modifications are necessary.

Quite a while back I helped identify a lagging issue near Zephyr's Moon. He had set up an Elytra launcher than consisted of a several hundred boats that had all been forced into 1 square, not all that different from the epic Chicken Farm lag described in the history of this server a number of years ago.

One way to help locate such high density entity areas is to use the entity count field that shows up on the F3 screen. It includes the total entities near you, but more important for the location task is that it also shows the count in your field of view. Using that info from various vantage points can quickly locate the high density areas to focus on.

Another more recent related issue was when Creepers were being killed in place and their Gunpowder drops ended up on the ground. Zombies that would pick up the gunpowder would not only no longer despawn due to holding an item - they no longer counted against the mob cap allowing more mobs to spawn. This lead to a cycle of more and more Zombies walking around carrying gunpowder.

[oscar_spider]

Yesterday Ganalef logged on a handful of minutes after I did. I got knocked off the server but was able to log back on. We manage to exchange a few messages, but he was experiencing extreme lag. Initially it didn't effect me, but then eventually it was pretty bad for me as well. Eventually he gave up and after he logged off there was no lag for me anymore. I had asked him where he was located, but I never got a reply so I suspect he never got my message since he mentioned how long his own messages took to show up on his screen. I was out in Mordor fixing light glitches at the time and my total entity count was only around 50. I don't think Ganalef was in his area directly above the Green, since I was up there a few days ago without issues. The server log should show his logon coordinates, and of course, he may chime in here as well.


EDIT: The server just timed me out trying to logon, but then it let me back on easily. If the server crashed in between then it looks like the restart script is functioning - thank you very much!

[oscar_spider]

Tomorrows eclipse that will cross the U.S from coast to coast was preceded by a similar occurrence here on the XKCD minecarft server!! To witness this event I traveled to the thin strip of land from which this phenomenon of semi-occultish occultation could be viewed. Ours is perhaps the only server from which this event of, literally astronomical proportions, can be seen, and we are fortunate that it can be seen daily.

[Feylias]

Tomorrows eclipse...

You are a hero. : )

I logged on just now and the lag/rubberbanding was better, but still prohibitive; I couldn't make it to the green to look for creepers and probably would have died if I'd attempted the descent.

I am not entirely sure it's not a local problem, as my singleplayer worlds have had some lag/freeze trouble too; I'll back up my PC and maybe try out this "Sierra" 'update' I've been avoiding. If that fails, I dunno. Heroic measures, probably.

[oscar_spider]

Here's a look at the eclipse that has a little more detail. If you look you can also see bright Mercury down to the left, and faint Mars at the upper right, and quite a number of stars throughout with a dense group at the upper left and left edge.

[Peaceful Whale]

Messed with your phot, you're welcome.

[oscar_spider]

I am not entirely sure it's not a local problem, as my singleplayer worlds have had some lag/freeze trouble too; I'll back up my PC and maybe try out this "Sierra" 'update' I've been avoiding. If that fails, I dunno. Heroic measures, probably.

I agree that it sounds like a client side issue. I was back up on top the other day and all was well. I hope you are able to figure things out without too much hassle.

I've made great progress fixing light glitches over land areas. I've worked extensively north of the Pirate Ship in a wide swath all the way to the northern border. I also did a large stint south of the Barn over through the Snow Village and down past Mount Doom. I've found lots of grass hiding down in ponds as well. Oh, and cleaned up the few light glitches that were near the south end of the Outpost.

Today I took a break from light glitches and brought 2 more colors of Llamas back to civilization. Only Grey ones left to find and bring back sometime in the future. Next few sessions I'll go back to clearing light glitches along the northern border continuing to work my way east from the center line toward the Barn.

[Mutex]

I remember it being a problem that creepers exploded and kept damaging things on the xkcd server, and people wanted a solution that didn't stop other things like mob farms working. In case that's still an issue, this tutorial might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CXJwJ2X-5M

It involves setting up a command block to constantly set the explosion radius to zero for any creepers that spawn.

[oscar_spider]

I've made great progress fixing light glitches over land areas.

Next few sessions I'll go back to clearing light glitches along the northern border continuing to work my way east from the center line toward the Barn.

I've finished removing light glitches all the way to and in the vicinity of the NE corner now. I purposely left some at the Snow Village for effect.

The only place left in Mordor with light glitches is in the NW section!!

[oscar_spider]

The only place left in Mordor with light glitches is in the NW section!!

NW section of Mordor is now dark! Not only that - ALL of the Mordor light glitches are now gone!! (I did leave a 2 on purpose - at the Snow Village and another one I plan on incorporating into a mini-project, but if it doesn't work out I'll clear that one as well.)

I also cleared out many more stray patches and isolated blocks of grass, but Enderman will always be a source of more being brought in.

[Flumble]

Today I noticed the server was constantly outputting (more than 5 times per second)

Code: Select all

[{time}] [Server thread/INFO]: [@: Found ganalef]

I don't know if you were (idly) doing anything important (or were even on the server), but I restarted the server anyway to stop that message stream.

[Feylias]

Today I noticed the server was constantly outputting (more than 5 times per second)

Code: Select all

[{time}] [Server thread/INFO]: [@: Found ganalef]

I don't know if you were (idly) doing anything important (or were even on the server), but I restarted the server anyway to stop that message stream.

I AFK a lot. I was almost certainly AFK then. : )

Spoiler:

Whatever was going on, my log only shows this:

> [00:00:05] [Client thread/ERROR]: ########## GL ERROR ##########
> [00:00:05] [Client thread/ERROR]: @ Post render
> [00:00:05] [Client thread/ERROR]: 1286: Invalid framebuffer operation

...and I haven't seen that in any other logs so it's probably an isolated incident. Will ignore for now.

Looking through my other recent logs while on the server, I see a LOT of this error on multiple days:

> [Client thread/WARN]: Received passengers for unknown entity

That's not something I was expecting. Websearching suggests it's a current and common bug that has to do with client machines getting confused by chicken jockeys.

I was expecting something I've seen a lot before:

> [Server thread/WARN]: Can't keep up! Did the system time change, or is the server overloaded? Running 2989ms behind, skipping 59 tick(s)

...but apparently that only comes up when I'm in singleplayer, and just means my computer's getting old. (SSD notwithstanding) Or maybe that I need to slick this system and reinstall. ...which is a pain, so I'll do it later.

::Shrug::. It'll work out.

[oscar_spider]

Looking through my other recent logs while on the server, I see a LOT of this error on multiple days:

> [Client thread/WARN]: Received passengers for unknown entity

I've seen that in my logs as well.

[_infina_]

So, the issue with crashes appears to be that a single tick is taking upwards of a minute. Not sure what is causing that lag, but it exists. And for some reason, I was not getting any emails from the fora about PMs or thread updates.

[Flumble]

So, the issue with crashes appears to be that a single tick is taking upwards of a minute. Not sure what is causing that lag, but it exists. And for some reason, I was not getting any emails from the fora about PMs or thread updates.

Ah, yes, you didn't get notified because the forum email system has been down for over a month. Now you actually have to visit the forums regularly to not miss out.

Perhaps the server runs better with a different set of JVM arguments.

[oscar_spider]

Mariners have reported sighting a ghostly ship in Mordor off the western coast of the Green. They claim the apparition was none other than the infamous Flying Dutchman! Sharp eyed lookouts spotted sunken faced crewmen on deck, but attempts to close quarters were rebuffed with broadsides from the glowing menace. As the seas whipped up into a frenzy, the frightened mariners beat a hasty retreat from the Flying Dutchman and its' thundering cannons. After barely escaping with their lives they warned that others may not be so fortunate.


While rumors of the famed ship abound, some who claim to have witnessed it let more details slip their lips after being plied with a few tankards of ale.

"The Flying Dutchman boasts 14 cannons on the main deck which can be fired as port or starboard broadsides as well as individually."

"A pair of cannons aft greet those who give chase."

"A well stocked powder magazine is located in the cargo hold."

"The cursed souls in residence relax by throwing knives in the forward beth on the crew deck."

"Inbound travellers will find themselves in the Brig."

"Escaping from the Flying Dutchman is possible by either jumping over the side or making your way to the forward cabin on the main deck."

"Sailors who find themselves in danger of drowning in the stormy seas may be able to scramble aboard, but all things considered, is that any better?"

One mariner claims to have sketched this image of the Flying Dutchman:

Admin: Please link the Flying Dutchman into the Harbor Transportation system as follows:

The forward cabin on the Main Deck of the Flying Dutchman has a setup for telports out to the following destinations:
1) Teleport to the Asgerd Asketill: on the dock at coordinates -16530,64.5,-7600.
2) Teleport to the ship at Whittington https://xkcd.flumble.nl/map/index.html# ... 87&zoom=10
(Sorry, I don't know the exact inbound coordinates.) (Edit: The teleport in coordinates are: 14752.5, 63.5, 30.5)

The teleport in coordinates to the Flying Dutchman are 200.5,62.0,-2995.0
Please link the 2 ships above to teleport to the Flying Dutchman. On the Asgerd Asketill I setup a sign and button there near the existing one.

[SecondTalon]

Admin: Please link the Flying Dutchman into the Harbor Transportation system as follows:

The forward cabin on the Main Deck of the Flying Dutchman has a setup for telports out to the following destinations:
1) Teleport to the Asgerd Asketill: on the dock at coordinates -16530,64.5,-7600.
2) Teleport to the ship at Whittington https://xkcd.flumble.nl/map/index.html# ... 87&zoom=10
(Sorry, I don't know the exact inbound coordinates.) (Edit: The teleport in coordinates are: 14752.5, 63.5, 30.5)

The teleport in coordinates to the Flying Dutchman are 200.5,62.0,-2995.0
Please link the 2 ships above to teleport to the Flying Dutchman. On the Asgerd Asketill I setup a sign and button there near the existing one.

Done.

Sorry about the damage.

I need a new mouse.

[oscar_spider]

Done.

Sorry about the damage.

I need a new mouse.

Many thanks for doing this! I have effected the minor repairs that were needed.

[Feylias]

Is there a way to make nametagged creepers exempt from death-by-arbitrary-commandblock-god?

Spoiler:

A new thing I have nearly going: A mob head farm.

Concept: I trap some creepers in a large outdoor pen and nametag them all. Then I wait until they're struck by lightning, lure them into a large pool, and cause them to explode near something that drops a mob head.

Alas; even nametagged, all the creepers vanished. I just found their empty pen and the piles of gunpowder where they used to be. I didn't think that nerf was still in place (haven't seen gunpowder-toting zombies in a while) but what the heck.

Well, I didn't really need those mobheads.

...but it'd be nice. I understand that creeper damage is a problem (though I prefer creepers to Endermen; at least skilled play can prevent creepers from damaging landscape. Endermen I eventually nerfed in some of my more casual SSPs by using a command block to tag the untagged ones and then hand them a piston extension.)

My mate is sick; time to log off of games for a bit and be attentive. Especially since it's my sickness she caught, but worse.

[SecondTalon]

I'd prefer to just destroy that script at this point. Night fell, and suddenly I couldn't see anything oscar was saying because my chat window was full up on creepers being teleported to invalid locations.

Which was wild as I don't think either of us were close enough to the UFO to trigger it, and yet.....

[Mutex]

I posted a possible solution to the creeper problem a while back:

I remember it being a problem that creepers exploded and kept damaging things on the xkcd server, and people wanted a solution that didn't stop other things like mob farms working. In case that's still an issue, this tutorial might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CXJwJ2X-5M

It involves setting up a command block to constantly set the explosion radius to zero for any creepers that spawn.

[Feylias]

I'd prefer to just destroy that script at this point.

I'm in favor of deletion, but I understand those who want the green griefers nerfed.

You can use the "/gamerule commandBlockOutput false" to turn off command block spam, if that works in the "invalid location" thing.
If it doesn't, perhaps a small bedrock bedrock-level room with no floor could be their teleport location in addition.

Command blocks have changed so much I can't come close to keeping up, and it looks like they're about to change significantly further--something about block data being stored separately, so that it's possible to put down a single corner stair with nothing near it, for example.

[SecondTalon]

Like, when a command block that runs a command goes - I do like seeing the output. Especially when I'm testing something.

I literally just want to suppress a single block's output.

[oscar_spider]

Is there a way to make nametagged creepers exempt from death-by-arbitrary-commandblock-god?

In this particular case they weren't killed by a command block script. Even I died due to the mis-typed admin command. I got all my stuff back and I don't fault ST for it as it's an easy thing to do.

The UFO script only works in a limited radius to protect Plains City. Like you, I understand the rational but would prefer Creepers not be nerfed by killing them with a script or removing their blast damage. A while back when there were NO Creepers anywhere on the server it just wasn't the same - I want them around. If the script can be changed to avoid flooding the console then protecting designated "heritage sites" could still be a thing without hindering admins. It makes no sense at all to nerf Creepers in any way, shape, or form out in the wilds.

[Feylias]

Is there a way to make nametagged creepers exempt from death-by-arbitrary-commandblock-god?

In this particular case they weren't killed by a command block script. Even I died due to the mis-typed admin command. I got all my stuff back and I don't fault ST for it as it's an easy thing to do.

The UFO script only works in a limited radius to protect Plains City.

Oh shoots; if it was just a mistyped command (something I've done oodles of times) then it's unrelated.

I do have nametagged creepers vanish sometimes. I've been testing a bit and haven't got conclusive patterns, but here's my working hypothesis thus far (after about a dozen vanished creeps

Spoiler:

Only Creepers vanish. This seems unlikely, but my witches and spiders lasted until I killed them. I'll test this one more vigorously, but it requires putting pumpkin helmets on my undead.

They vanish when I'm not looking, and whether I'm online or offline.

They are more likely to vanish if they are clustered together. I've started building them little pens that limit them to one per seven meter square.

More science later. Right now, I'm avoiding AFKs

In any case, I got my charged creeper and now am a proud owner of a creeper head to decorate the tavern!