Nethrar
Nethrar
Unrestrictive Nether / multiworld portals, with ridden and riderless minecart and boat support, multiworld, and many options for the power server admin.
Version: v2.3.1 (Dev v3.0-alpha1)
General
Nethrar is a Nether portal plugin that aims for simplicity and easy usage. Portals behave like SSP portals, except that you control them. There are no requirements to start. Just drop it in and you get portals essentially identical to SSP, but with smarter placement and linking. You can also configure practically any part of Nethrar, even adding multiple worlds or changing what worlds are linked together.
Features
- Drop-and-go: defaults provide full, basic SSP-like functionality for most servers. Just drop the .jar file into your plugins directory. Nethrar should now be able to guess most parameters, but if there is any doubt, check the generated worlds.yml file.
- Total multiworld support. Whatever arbitrary world configurations you wanted, now you can have them.
- Portals 'remember' their destination, so world loops are possible. For example, if I have it set up that portals from world A go to world B, and portals in world B go to world C, and then finally portals in C go to A, what would happen if I build a portal in A, which leads to B, and then step back through it? I will go back to A, not to C. This 'memory' is preserved with clean server shutdowns.
- Facing, orientation, and, when applicable, velocity, are preserved going through the portal, for the smoothest transition possible for players. Minecarts carrying players function seamlessly. Minecart tracks should lead to and from the portal on both sides, on the same elevation, for minecarts to work properly.
- Minecarts can now go through portals riderless! Powered minecarts are not supported, but empty minecarts and storage carts both go in and out unassisted. For best results, use with the force-chunk-loading feature.
- Boats can be driven through portals too! If you are linking between two water worlds, or a water and normal world, you can now paddle through between the two.
- Chunk keep-alive: For servers strapped on disk IO, or lower-performance servers, teleporting can be a real bummer for everyone on the server. Nethrar can be configured to keep chunks loaded in a radius around portals, increasing RAM usage, but decreasing the amount of resulting lag from teleporting through portals.
- Custom world generator support.
- World blocks: Each world can have a 'world block' assigned to it, like wool or a gold block or stone. If you create a portal with a particular world's world blocks in the top two corners, then that portal will link to that particular world. This lets you make permanent 'special' portals that go places regular ones won't.
- It works.
Configurable settings
- whether to use Permissions or not.
- whether to redirect respawns or not.
- how many chunks around a portal to keep loaded.
- whether to allow riderless vehicles.
- how much debug logging to print (currently there is very little even at the most verbose setting, this is more for helping me with debugging).
- relative scale of each world.
- what worlds get linked together, and in what manner.
Important Note: You should turn off the default Nether functionality if you are going to use Nethrar. Failing to do so can cause random and unpredictable double teleports, teleport loops, or worse. Set "allow-nether=false" in server.properties, or add it at the end. This will not delete your existing Nether, it will just prevent the portals from teleporting you if you stand too close for too long.
Downloads
Nethrar (.jar, config.yml, worlds.yml) (.zip, .tar.gz)
Other downloads also available direct from the files section.
Dev build: (http://dev.bukkit.org/media/files/658/189/Nethrar-3.0-alpha1.jar)
Source (github) (LGPL licensed)
Configuration / Installation, most people
Download Nethrar.jar. Put it in your plugins/ directory. For most people, this is enough. Have problems? Check out the Help section below labeled "read me first".
Configuration / Installation, fewer people
If you had trouble with worlds not being what you expect, or if you want more power, then do the following. The plugin will put a config.yml inside a directory called "Nethrar" in the plugins/ directory. Set the following parameters in config.yml for your particular server. Also, edit worlds.yml to describe the world setup YOU want for your server. Assign the relevant Permissions nodes as you see fit.
config.yml
# Set to true to use Permissions, otherwise everyone gets all permissions. usePermissions: false # Set to false to use builtin vanilla respawning behavior. listen: respawn: true # Set to some number > 0 if you experience server-wide lag when anyone # teleports. forceLoadRadius: 0 # Set to true to allow minecarts / boats to pass through a portal without # a Player passenger. TrainCarts users should set this to 'true' to allow # TrainCarts to teleport correctly. riderlessVehicles: false # Set to 1 or 2 to increase the amount of console messages Nethrar will # show. debugLevel: 0
worlds.yml
world: environment: normal destination: world_nether scale: 8 world_nether: environment: nether destination: world scale: 1 peaceful: false respawnTo: world # Add more worlds here, or edit the ones above as you see fit. # For example, to make a loop of normal -> Nether -> skylands -> normal, # do the following: # world: # environment: normal # destination: world_nether # scale: 8 # worldBlock: 57 # ^ Any portal made with diamond blocks in the corners will link to 'world'. # world_nether: # environment: nether # destination: world_skylands # scale: 1 # peaceful: false # worldBlock: 42 # ^ Any portal made with iron blocks in the corners will link to 'world_nether' # world_end: # environment: normal # destination: world # worldGenerator: # name: SkylandsPlus # args: if there were any args to pass to your world generator, they would go here # scale: 8 # worldBlock: 41 # ^ Any portal made with gold blocks in the corners will link to the 'world_skylands'
Note that to make a SkylandsPlus world, you'll first need the SkylandsPlus mod, which you can get here.
New Permissions nodes
# Allows usage of Nethrar portals. nethrar.use # Allows usage of Nethrar teleportation. nethrar.tp
New Commands
# Teleports the invoking player to the destination world. # Places a single block of glass at the destination under the feet. /nethrar tp worldname
Help (read this first)
Not issues
- "I'm using MinecartMania and when I go through a portal I don't keep moving!" Obsidian is the default "minecart stopper" block in MinecartMania. Either power the obsidian block on both sides of the portal with redstone, or change the stopper block to be something other than obsidian.
- Transitioning between worlds can be a little laggy. I am trying to mitigate this, the Bukkit devs and community are making great progress making teleports suck less, but there is nothing we know of that we haven't done to make things better. Sorry.
- "Help I fall and sometimes die when I teleport between worlds!" Best thing I can say is: make sure you're running an up-to-date build of CraftBukkit, and it's lag-related, but it's nothing I believe I can solve any more than I have already tried.
- "Why didn't I respawn at my bed?" Recent versions of CB should fix this, and Nethrar will support this soon as well even with respawn redirects.
- "Help I am always respawning in the default world." Unless you are using Nethrar respawn redirects to keep people who die in one world to respawn in the same world, this is working as the Bukkit devs seem to want it to work.
Known issues
- New in recent versions of CB You can experience random teleportation 'loops' where if you step into a portal you'll get spontaneously re-teleported after stepping out, or teleported back and forth really fast. Setting "allow-nether=false" seems to prevent this. This is an issue with vanilla Nether by Notch et. al., or the new client, or both. Unfortunately, this also causes CB to send some false move events, and Nethrar doesn't play well with those.
- Chunks can sometimes, but less commonly with newer (860+) builds of CB, fail to load when transitioning between worlds, and only load on relog. Portals can also stop functioning when this occurs. Set "forceLoadRadius" in config.yml to something greater than 0 (reports say that 4 tends to work, I would recommend something between 2 and 4).
- Camera orientation is not preserved when travelling through a portal in a minecart. I suspect some deeper issue with the server when putting a player into a minecart.
Potential future development
- Pre-emptively generate or load chunks in the Nether which are 'known to be needed.'
- Allow minecarts with any passengers to teleport between worlds. Works best with force-loaded chunks to enable physics with no players present.
- Enable teleportation of *any* entity - animals, mobs, mobiles, etc.
- Per-world teleportation permission (eg. if player has permission for world, can take portal to that world).
- Auto-link / generate nether for new normal worlds, as option.
- Teleport delay. Obviously incompatible with vehicles.
A note about future development: This is a side project first and foremost. Development was primarily driven by my and my friend's needs on our personal server, and future development will be heavily influenced by that. If there is sufficient demand by the general public and users, then I can implement other features, but I am not compelled or otherwise forced to do so. Just FYI.
Nitty gritty details
A somewhat conservative heuristic is used to link portals in the smaller world to portals in the larger world (the Nether is the 'smaller' world, usually), to avoid portal spamming the larger world. Additionally, portals will never destroy a pre-existing portal; rather, they will simply link to that portal. Stepping into a portal in one world will first try to find a portal to link to in the destination world, then build a new one if none is found. The tl;dr version of this search is "Is there a portal in the destination world, that, if newly created and stepped into, would link to this portal in this world?" If so, link to that portal, otherwise build a new one. What determines whether a portal in one world links to one in the destination world? Essentially, if the hypothetical 'perfectly positioned' counterpart, in the destination world, to the first world's portal would conflict / intersect with an existing portal in the destination world, then the already-present portal is chosen as the destination. Note that this overall strategy is to prevent creating portals unless absolutely necessary, but can make generating distinct unique portal pairs in close proximity difficult. If you really want to know what the name comes from, you can ask, but it's really not important.
Changelog
- Version 2.3.1
- 1.2.4-R1.0 support.
- No major changes besides updating to remove dep
- Version 2.3
- 1.1-R3 API support.
- Added support for custom world generators. Environment is still required, add key values worldGenerator.name to specify a world generator plugin, worldGenerator.args for additional args for the generator.
- Version 2.2.1
- Removed 'physics!' spam.
- Version 2.2
- 1.0.1-R1 update. Supporting portals to The End. If the portal gets extinguished, no guarantees it'll be possible to re-light!
- Version 2.1
- Implemented world blocks. World can have an optional "worldBlock" property, an integer, defining a block ID for that world's "worldBlock." Any portal made with that block in the top two corners will link to that world.
- Updated to use Bukkit builtin permissions. You must use a compatible permissions plugin to use this. Read http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/permissions-faq.25080/ for more information.
- Still uses sync threads to do teleportation.
- Version 2.0
- Added easier drop-and-go installation code and support.
- Added true multiworld support. See worlds.yml for syntax and examples.
- Added per-world custom destination world.
- Added per-world custom destination world for respawns.
- Added command "/nethrar tp world"; Use it as a server admin to get between worlds to set up portals for people.
- Added portal destination persistence to help with more complicated world setups.
- Version 1.5.1
- Fixed teleporting when riding a minecart so that everything happens in a thread, instead of half in a thread and half synchronously (it's not okay to be a passenger of a vehicle in another world, eh?).
- Version 1.5
- Fixed "moved too fast" issue causing disconnects. Unfortunate side effect: teleports exhibit just a wee bit of lag before actually occuring once you hit a portal. Depends on the server's load at the time. This will have to wait for if/when the Bukkit team fixes the checks around that disconnect.
- Riderless minecart teleportation! Hidden Netherworld logic, long-distance unassisted storage cart teleportation, possibilities abound! Supposedly will work great with Evercart.
- Boats! Now you can enable your crazy multiworld water coaster. Not tested as thoroughly as it should have been, buyer beware...
- Various refactoring to help prepare for Nethrar v2.0.
More changelog available at the Changelog page.
@akrieger:
hi, just tryed what you said:
but i still dont end correctly connected :(
ill go trough the original overworld gate i made, i get portet to the right gate in the nether, but if im going to use the train-port-gate from the overworld, im ending also in the original gate in the nether.
witch happens because minecraft needs/wants a certain distance between gates..
if i want to go back trough whats supposed to be the nether-train-portal i end up somewhere way off in a new gate.
tried it a few times with killing all gates beside the original ones and putting them up.
thats where it would be nice if i could say what portals are connected, no matter what minecraft want...
@thief001
Hm, I'm not exactly sure what is happening here. When you say 'rather than those connected' what do you mean? Do you mean you built a portal in the Nether, went through it, and you came out in a new portal, not the one you wanted?
If that's the case, what you should do is break the bad portal, then save and restart the server. After restarting, go into the Overworld portal that wasn't working. It should link to the Nether portal now, and the Nether portal should link back to the Overworld one.
I know that's not a great answer, but I think that's just how the way I link portals works. They 'remember' the portal they were linked to before, so if the first portal you go in is in the Nether, it'll always try to link to the 'best' portal it can make, not necessarily the one *you* want it to link to. If you go in through the Overworld first, things will link up more easily.
<<reply 1960356>>
hi,
well, my footway and my traintracks are far more than 16 blocks apart, at least in the overworld.
in the nether its closer to it, but still above, yet still i get new portals, rather than those connected i would like..
main problem here is, the portals dont connect as i would like.
i started of with the walkway, witch of course all the time works fine.
but if i put up just 1 portal before the trainlink, i end up at a random destination in the overworld or the nether,but not there, where the tracks are.
if i put up portals at both train track ends, i just having at both ends random portals, but no connection from train/train :(
@thief001
That's an interesting idea. I'm not sure I can make it happen though, unless I change the way portal positioning works to scan 'near enough' portals. Unfortunately, yeah, you just can't have two portals that close to eachother in the overworld (at least 16 apart).
hi,
any chance to expand that worldblock thing, so its possible to "mark" portals as connected together?
i have a little nether base, witch can be teleportet via a standart gate that one walks trough, but also want to get a railway to there, but the portals are to close, it always puts a new portal up somewhere, if we use on of them.
so it would be nice, if it would be possible to use like wool to force portals to be connected, even if its straight next to other portals (gates are force connected based on the color of it?)
@PhanaticD
Portal validity checking would have to be updated. Not a huge deal, just annoying to get everything right. I'm currently working on hammering out an MCPC+ port, cause my friends are using MCPC+, but I think I can back-port to regular Bukkit, which *actually* may make things super-baller. I'll need more time to test, don't expect anything before the end of the year. I also can't work on my laptop anymore because :work: removed Java from all our machines.
hey can you update to support any size portals?
https://github.com/akrieger/Nethrar/blob/master/src/org/akrieger/Nethrar/Portal.java#L242
At that line, I calculate the offset from where you hit the portal to the bottom left corner of the portal. I then use that same offset to reposition you/the minecart on the other side of the portal, after teleporting. Nothing about that code is specific to the 2x3 oldstyle portal.
To be fair, Nethrar will only *generate* new portals that are 2x3, this is true. I'm sorry about that.
And it's possible the portal validation code will fail the newly resized portals. Grump grump.
This would all be much easier if they just folded Nethrar's code into vanilla Minecraft, don't ya think?
@poiNt3D
Not to toot my own horn, but as it turns out, Nethrar should *just work* regardless of the size of the portal, as long as it is built in a plane and the portal has a distinct 'bottom left' corner.
New versions of Minecraft now support portals of any size.
@greg2725d
Hi, thanks for asking! Unfortunately, I haven't looked at the code since my last comment in July. As I wrote, there are several issues that have prevented me from making Nethrar work with all the features I would need to update. The old versions should continue to work, I think. If this isn't the case, I can't guarantee that I will fix it. I also haven't even played Mine craft in almost as many months :(
I am happy to help with code review and pull requests, though!
Hello. Just wanted to see if you were still actively developing this plugin and when a build comes out of 1.7, if you will support it? We use this plugin and its great! Would be very sad to see it go away. :(
@glguy
I also added an 'experimental' branch where I've included my bleeding edge changes, those which I ended up at when I encountered the bug I filed at https://bukkit.atlassian.net/browse/BUKKIT-4139.
@glguy
Yeah, I can do that. It should be up now. I held off on my more experimental updates until I can devote another good chunk of time like I did last time.
akrieger, could you please push your v3.0-alpha1 code to github so that we can make changes to that latest version? Perhaps push to a different branch? The github code seems out of date.
@PhanaticD
It's not any new features, it's *the only* feature. I'm trying to update Nethrar to use some newer APIs and the code dealing with vehicle movement (especially with passengers) just seems broken. I don't want to have to continue using old code while at the same time trying to write new code and making the two dance like Frankenstein and the Little Mermaid.
maybe do a update without features that rely on that code? I am still using 2.3.2b because of the wolf bug, unless that was fixed
@glguy
There are *horses* now? Phewy...
Unfortunately, the Bukkit team never got back to me about the bug I filed (https://bukkit.atlassian.net/browse/BUKKIT-4139). If I want to get things working swell, I'll need them to deal with it, and honestly it doesn't look like they care to. But I'll try to do my best, if I get the time.
Could you please update your code on github.com? I'd love to be able to do the patching to get horses able to go through Nethrar portals.
akrieger, come back, please. We miss you. ;-;