Abyss
Abyss is a flexible portal system designed for players. In Abyss, a portal is a square pool of water, no smaller than two by two blocks, and no shallower than two blocks deep. Portals are linked together into networks, and travel between them is optionally limited by distance. Portals can go to other worlds, and minecarts can make use of portals.
Traveling through a portal is easy. Just jump in, and you'll be instantly ejected out of the first available destination. Momentum is preserved through portals, and minecarts will be placed on rails when at all possible.
Trailer
There are also a few older videos. If anyone would like to make a tutorial video, please contact me. I'd do it myself, but between the day job and working on features for Abyss, I'm rather busy at the moment.
Portal Features
Easy Configuration
The majority of portal configuration is performed by manipulating a set of item frames within the body of the portal, as detailed below.
Networks
Every portal in Abyss is placed on a network based on a two-part key consisting of an item and a color, making for thousands of possible networks. Damage values of items are taken into account as well, making it possible to use unique items like specific maps as keys. The network frames are always the top, center item frames of a portal.
To set an item as the network item, right click the network item frame with the item in your hand. Doing so will not consume the item. Left clicking the network item frame will reset the portal to the default network. Repeatedly left clicking the network item frame will destroy a portal. To change the portal's color, left or right click on the color item frame to cycle through the available colors.
The Human Head item creates a special, player-specific network for the owner of the portal and is the default network item, giving players a secure network of portals straight away. Of course, if this isn't desirable for your server, you can simply change the default item to something else in the configuration.
IDs and Destinations
At times, you might want to connect a portal to a specific destination, ensuring that it goes to that destination and only that destination. To that end, portals may be assigned an ID consisting of two colors, making for 288 possible IDs per network when you include IDs that leave one of the color slots empty.
Use the two item frames to the left of the network key to set a portal's ID and the two item frames to the right to set a portal's destination. Left and right click the frames to cycle through the available colors.
Modifiers
Every portal has a number of item frames devoted to Portal Modifiers, positioned below the network key frames. Modifiers are special items that add behavior to portals, both when a player is exiting from a portal and when a player is arriving at a portal. For example, using a Dispenser as a modifier will fetch items from a chest and dispense them to players, storage minecarts, and other things with storage passing through a portal. Using a pressure plate for a modifier will toggle a lever momentarily after something arrives, making it easy to start redstone contraptions when a portal is used.
A list of all the possible modifiers and other information is available at the page about Portal Modifiers.
Covers
Leaving an unguarded portal into the heart of your base open at all hours is, of course, quite silly if you're in a bad neighborhood. To that end, portals may be temporarily closed by building a protective cover over the surface of the portal. Any block within two blocks above the surface of a portal will prevent that portal from being used, in either direction, making it simple to protect yourself from invaders, or to control the flow of entities through your portal systems.
Commands
Commands in Abyss can be performed either as a normal command, or through the use of a Portal Wand. Portal Wands are unique items that can have limited uses, and that use separate permissions from the normal commands. This makes the wands ideal for use by players. A Portal Wand's configuration is stored as a combination of a custom name and item lore, making it possible to create villagers that sell such wands. When checking for a wand's custom name, Abyss requires that a color code be present in the string to ensure that a player didn't craft the item themselves using an anvil.
To create a Portal Wand, use the command: /abwand <uses> [command] <arguments>
A list of sub-commands may be found on the Commands page.
Permissions
Permission | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
abyss.use | Everyone | Allows the player to travel through and manipulate portals. |
abyss.moderate | Ops | Allows the player to manipulate portals created by other players. |
abyss.bypass_protection | Ops | Allows the player to bypass portal block protection by sneaking. Useful for modifying frames without having to destroy and recreate the portal. |
abyss.modifers.<material> | Everyone | Allows the player to use a portal modifier of the material in question. |
abyss.detail.uuid | Ops | Allows the player to see portal UUIDs with the Information command. |
abyss.detail.distance | Ops | Allows the player to see exact distances between portals. |
abyss.detail.location | Ops | Allows the player to see the precise root locations of portals. |
abyss.command.base | Ops | Gives access to the root /abyss command used to perform all sub-commands. |
abyss.command.<command> | Ops | Allows the player to use the Abyss command in question. |
abyss.wand.<command> | Everyone | Allows the player to use a Portal Wand to perform the command in question. |
Updates
As of v4, Abyss includes automatic update functionality. If you wish to disable it, set auto-update to false in your configuration file. Alternatively, you may set auto-update to check to have it merely inform you of available updates.
Statistics
As of v7, Abyss submits usage statistics to MCStats.
Source Code
The source code for Abyss is available on GitHub at https://github.com/stendec/Abyss.
@der_Kernschatten
Sorry for the delay, I was just heading into work when you submitted your question.
In answer, it's because I made an assumption that the bukkit API does what it says it does. The method that I use for setting a player's experience points seems to be pretty much useless. It doesn't update the exp to level at all, or any of that.
I'd only really tested it with levels before, so I do know that full levels work, at least. I'll try to find a way to use actual experience points properly for the next update. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Does anyone know why charging XP isn't working for me?
I run "/abyss modifier XXX 00 arrive:1" and it updates. When arriving at that portal it states it has charged me, but I see no change. When I run "/xp" I confirm there has been no change.
@stendec365
excellent!!! thank you for both the timely and informative reply! i'm quite enjoying your mod and i hope you keep up the good work!
@stuartcampbell
Keep in mind that distances are going to change in a future version. Though, that change will result in more range rather than less.
By default, a portal has a base range of 50 blocks and each block of depth adds another 25 blocks to that range, so a 2 deep portal ends up with a range of 100 blocks. When determining if a portal is in range, both the portal's range and the destination's range are combined... giving you a total range of 200 between two 2-deep portals. Additionally, using Eye of Enders as modifiers in the portals will multiply their effective range.
You can modify those values by changing the value of
base-range
anddepth-multiplier
in the configuration file for Abyss. You can also opt to just disable distance calculations completely by settinglimit-distance
tofalse
.Finally, you can override a portal's range by using a configuration wand, or the configuration command, with the range parameter. Example:
/abwand config range: 10000
i've looked through the material provided for setting up the portals, what's the working range on a portal? is there a way to change it?
@diannetea
I've made a bit of progress, though nothing worth a release yet. Work has been keeping me fairly busy and I haven't had the time to devote to the plugin that I'd like.
To provide a general overview of what has been done, my current development version has: a few more features for portal configuration (such as hiding the frames and effect for any given portal), support for MCPC+ servers (which let you play with Forge mods like the Feed the Beast packs), Droppers as modifiers that work similarly to dispensers, but only giving out items... like a proper dropper.
The big thing holding me back at this point is the revised distance calculations for portals. I'm trying to figure out values that make it feel right and how best to let server administrators control the calculations.
Any progress on updating?
@jkcclemens
Thank you for your kind words. :D (Though, speaking of keeping it up I really need to hurry up with the next version and new 1.5 stuff...)
@Dogtag93
The big table of portal data isn't segregated by world, so I'm not sure why it would be having problems with certain worlds aside from range. The destinations aren't listed when you use a Destination wand (
/abwand dest
) on a portal?Could you paste the contents of your
portals.yml
file? Also, which plugin are you using for multiple worlds? Multiverse?I'm having difficulties making portals combinations that work between separate worlds. It works in one of my worlds but not others.I tried using the range tool but that doesn't seem to be working either.
@oOAfterShockOo
I've tested the most recent Abyss download against the first development build of CraftBukkit for 1.5, and it thus far seems to be working. I haven't done a complete test of all features, and there may be changes before the recommended build that cause it to stop working, but I assure you I'll do my best to keep up.
It will be a bit longer before the next release of Abyss, as I plan on adding support for a new modifier or two (droppers at a minimum) on top of the new configuration options and reworked distance formulas.
Hi Please Update this plugins for Craftbukkit 1.5! That will be awesome cause im running this plugin on my server and it is running so well and want to keep it update and dont want to see it die slowly! SO PLS UPDATE! :)
@diannetea
Only the portal owner, and those with the
abyss.moderate
permission which defaults to operators can modify portals made by other players. In a future update I'm planning on adding a locking system for finer control.Okay with some testing it looks like my basic rank can't alter them anyway, so that works for me.
@stendec365
Well from what I've gathered from using this is that all networks can be changed but don't go back to the original setting. I'd like to set up a network for the villages in my world (the wells are perfect for this) but if someone changes the network to something else that village will drop off of the list. If it reverts back to a default state after a period of time it will stay set.
Is that incorrect?
@diannetea
Glad you figured it out.
It's not currently possible to do what you've described, and I'm not quite sure what purpose it'd server. Can you describe to me what sort of effect you're trying to achieve? One-time use portals or something, or perhaps a single portal at your server spawn that anyone can use to go to their own networks?
I don't remember what my issue was but I figured it out.
New question: Is it possible to set a default network so it reverts back to that after a period of time?
@diannetea
Interesting. I'm not really sure how that could happen, but I'm willing to look into it. Could you please pastebin the contents of your
portals.yml
for me to check?@slimpyman
I do have a PayPal account, and I've set up the project's donate link to go to it. Though, I find it kind of silly that the button shows up in the blue header at the top of the page and not the sidebar.
@stendec365
youre a good man, you got a paypal?