Postal
There is no substitute for personal service.
New
- GPS address plotting and compass navigation, Detailed item shipment.
- New WorldGuard, Towny and Dynmap support. New bulk mailing capability.
Introduction
Postal is a Craftbukkit plugin dependant on Citizens2. It is a messaging system making it possible for Minecraft players to communicate with one another using the book and quill, written book item. These written communications may span worlds. Postal is an animated postal presence that may be added to any Minecraft town, settlement or mailroom. Chests are used as residence mailboxes as well as mail storage in local post offices.
Postal Pages | ||
---|---|---|
Getting Started | Permissions | Economy Support |
Towny Support | WayPoint Editor | System Notes |
Postal Wiki |
Postal Crew
Citizen2 based NPC’s are the Postal crew. They are the postmen spawned and dispatched by Postal. These NPC postmen walk regular routes in towns serviced by Postal post offices. A central post office connects all of the local post offices by teleporting a NPC worker called the PostMaster from town to town, or world to world. This central NPC continually monitors and moves out of town mail to the appropriate destination. The local NPC postman takes it from there. Pickups and deliveries are done on foot, cheerfully. They know how to open and close doors, and they are a wonder on stairs. They are polite.
Addresses
Postal has a two part address system it uses to plot the location of the mailbox it services, as well as define the post office that services the address. A typical address looks like this:
<PostOffice [Address]>
Postal commands generally accept addresses as one word, or two words. If one word is indicated as an address, it is assumed that the subject is a post office. A two word address is a complete address indicating a specific residential mailbox.
The exceptions to this rule of thumb are commands that imply a residence but accept a two word address specifying the post office. /setaddr is an example of this. Invoked with a one word parameter implies that the one word is an address name and Postal is to choose the post office.
There is no built in limit on how many post offices a server may have. The Postal system typically traverses worlds.
New post offices and addresses are created and deleted on the fly. These addresses and post offices are part of a tightly written, hierarchically-structured database. This database is designed to meet the requirements of a dispatcher bent on getting mail delivered efficiently. The post man likes to walk around the town when there is nothing better to do, but get out of his way if there is mail to pick up or deliver.
Geo-Aware
Postal always knows what post office or address you are close to when invoking commands and will be as helpful as possible to relieve you of name details. This help is contextual in nature which makes it possible to use commands without any parameters simply based on your location. Complimenting this ease of use is a command-confirm system that makes it possible for Postal to safely attempt to complete complicated names with just a few characters. This is because you have an opportunity to confirm the completed command with a single ‘/’. If the command didn’t come out right you can simply try again without confirming.
For Towny users, Postal always knows when it is on Towny soil and will defer to Towny hierarchy. All appropriate Postal commands are Towny aware and try to accommodate what Towny players need when used
Creating Addresses
The geographic awareness built into Postal makes it easy to create new addresses. To define a new address the only parameter required is the name you would like to use since Postal will automatically find the closest post office for you. Designing the route for the postman is even easier because Postal will figure out everything based on where you are standing. On a new address you will be teleported to the servicing post office, the beginning of the route, and given a compass pointing to your address. A modern HUD display is included to provide helpful stats while clicking on waypoints. Once you double click the final waypoint the postman will automatically appear using the route you just defined to initialize your mail box.
Finding Addresses
- / TLIST Short for town-list, will present the player with a formatted, alphabetical list of towns when entered without parameters. The closest 3 towns, in order of distance, are also shown. If entered with enough characters to identify a particular town, the addresses of that town are listed.
- / ALIST Short for address-list, will list the addresses of the closest town when entered without parameters. Like /tlist, it will list the addresses of a particular town if entered with enough characters to identify it. The two commands complement each other including details that the other doesn’t.
- / PLIST Short for player-list, lists the closes 8 players, in order of distance when entered without parameters. Along with the listed player is the Postal address he/she is closest to with the compass heading required to get there. If entered with enough characters to complete a player name, Postal will list any Postal addresses or post offices owned by the player.
- / GPS Lists the closest 8 post offices or addresses with their respective compass headings when entered without parameters. /gps may also be given the name of a post office, or an address pair to set your compass to this location.
- / GO Teleports to Postal locations. The type type of location is determined by the number of parameters entered. Entered with no parameters assumes the central post office. One parameter assumes a local post office or town. Two parameters indicates a full residential address. Complicated names are automatically completed, and full named locations, as completed by Postal, are displayed for confirmation before teleportation. These location types may be secured or require owner permission to use.
- Dynmap Postal uses Dynmap if it is installed. All addresses and post offices are plotted and labeled. The active routes and post man locations are shown in real-time.
Navigation
Your compass is calibrated to line up with the standard, Minecraft coordinate system when listing headings with the above commands. These are the same compass directions shown when pressing [F3]. So, with your calibrated compass and the distance and heading combination from the list, you have what you need to navigate to it. This is the way compasses are normally used outside of Minecraft. The benefit of navigating to a destination is that you remain aware of where you are in relation to all the listed destinations, as well as other distance and heading destinations received from other plugins ie: GPS, Pplot and gpsTowny.
Mail and Shipping
Postal letters are based on the written book item. This book will handle up to 50 pages of written correspondence. Item shipping is done with single chests. The two commands used for this have the built-in address finding and completing capabilities described above. Indicating desired addresses is done with the minimum amount of typing. The two commands are: /addr <PO [Address]> and /package <PO [Address]>
On servers that have economy turned on, both of these commands tell you the price of the postage or shipping and give you a chance to confirm it.
Once addressed, letters may be put in any accessible Postal mailbox, and Postal will take it from there. Shipments involve the creation of a shipping label which may be mailed like any letter. Once packaged, the shipment is sign-sealed and indestructible until the post man picks up the shipping label. The post man removes the chest at that point for transport to the recipient.
The recipient of a shipment may refuse the shipment. If refused, the shipment is returned to the sender.
Mass mailings sent to entire towns, even worlds are available to administrators, Towny mayors and post office owners. The /distr command facilitates this.
Capacity Management
Full mail boxes are managed. If the chest is full, the postman will delete the oldest junk mail if he finds one. If that doesn't create the room he needs, he will look for a non-book to delete. If unable to find room in a mailbox, the postman will continue trying to deliver until successful. Mail is otherwise held at the local post office.
Bulk distributions available to post office owners, Towny mayors, and administrators are sent with an expiration date. Regular information mailings therefore do not back up and become undesired clutter
Dispatcher
The NPC dispatcher provides regular coverage and route-walking, oldest next. This dispatcher is also preemptive in that it recognizes mail waiting to be delivered or picked up. The dispatcher manages the route walking schedule to favor actual mail movement over route-walking, or postal presence. Both the post men and the PostMaster are preemptively dispatched to keep the mail moving efficiently.
Chunk Manager
Postal has a chunk manager that monitors chunks required for postal routes. These chunks are automatically loaded and kept loaded. This makes it possible for NPC's to continue doing their job when there is no player in sight. NPC's have a tendency to go to sleep when no player is around. This chunk manager also facilitates the control of spawning monsters on Postal routes. There is a switch in the config file that controls this. By default, Postal routes are kept monster free.
WatchDog
Postal has an evolved watchdog, monitoring system. The Postal workers are vigilantly monitored. It is capable of respawning a NPC worker if something happens to it. It can restart itself if needed. Mail is always backed up. A Server crash or NPC griefing should not result in lost mail. The Citizens NPC’s are pretty reliable on their own.
General Notes
The Bukkit versioning that started early December 2012, applies to all plugins that go outside the Bukkit api to reach the Minecraft api. This started with 145.R1, the first recommended build for 145.
Coincidently, and the cause for much confusion here, The Bukkit api was expanded to include dealing with Book and Quill items. Pre 145.R1 Postal does go beyond the Bukkit api to deal with written books because it has to. Post 145.Ri uses the Bukkit api instead and is therefore exempt from the Bukkit versioning restrictions.
There are only two versions of Postal, delineated by an api improvement not a versioning requirement.
Citizens2 Note: At Citizens build 762 the NPCs underwent navigational, speed refinement. As this relates to Postal there is a modest speed change. It causes the NPCs to move a little slower. It can trigger watchdog activity by Postal since the NPCs don't seem to be on schedule. The fix is simple. Just change the Speed setting in 'Config.yml' from 1.0 to 1.2
Videos
YouTube Getting Started by Hmmcrunchy
it appears that every time i type /postal start the server crashes and i am running the newest version of postal:edit: i appear to have solved that problem but now whenever i setaddr it simply assigns the closest chest to the post office that addr not the closest one to the addrHow does the package work? I put stuff in the chest and then did /package and created the shipping label but the postman never picks it up
@mcfacilitator
Yeh i was looking for the same kind of thing because my players never read what i say/what i tell them through most methods but they always read their mail
@eightman8
Ha!, you are already looking for junk mail capabilities... It took me a while, but I'm there too. I got there thinking about the economy implementation. There seems to be no end to where Postal can or should fit in, in a Minecraft economy. There is pre-stamped letters that may be purchased at the post office, or from the postman doing his rounds. Post offices may be owned and operated privately to carve out little niche' Fedex, or UPS services that perform better than the big, old central.
Then there are the merchants. They need their products shipped, which Postal will gladly do for a theoritical fee. But Postal, in it's need to organize items for shipment, began doing statements, statements that will probably support the billing for the merchandise itself. So, Postal could become some sort of currency handler (banker). To get back to where I began... Two Words: Mail Order. Merchants are going to want to create catalogues, and do mass mailings....
Now that we are back to your idea; I think that is a good idea, and will work it in as an admin tool. I would actually like to, optionally, do it from the console.
Awesome. Everybody loves this. I thought I read this thoroughly...but is there an option to do a mass mailings? Sometimes I want to get a message to all the players and they don't always check our notice board. But they love to check their mail. Some command option for an op'd player to mail every address in a chosen town could be useful. thanks.
Notice Anyone running the pre-releases: Starting with version 2773 a few days ago, a minor bug causing excessive watchdog activity was introduced. Not a biggie, but please update to 2.78 when you get a chance. Both 146 and 145 are there in the pre-release link (bottom of notes secion, above)
@DarkKingXD123
Postal will create the postmen for you. You just need to define the basic infrastructure, and start Postal. Or, Postal can be configured to start automatically when the server starts in config.yml.
Go through the steps in 'Getting Started' above and create the minimum, then start Postal. Pay close attention to the versions of Citizens2, the links are right there at the top of 'Getting Started' The most recent cuts of Postal are at the bottom of the 'Notes' section which I believe is 2.773, or 2.774.
@Hmmcrunchy
Glad to hear it. Btw, pointing out bugs is the greatest service any user can be to the devoloper. Certainly nothing to be sorry or shy about. We try to do reasonable testing, but when a project reaches a certain size we have to depend on the users.
One thing I would like to hear feeback on from anyone is evidence of memory leaks. I switched to a asynchronous heartbeat recently and my big server is showing some symtoms. Ironically, My little laptop test server w/20 postoffices plugs along for days with no problems.
I may have to make this low-level scheduling method selectable in config.yml. I switched back to async because I noticed Bukkit made some fairly recent fixes to this scheduler.
How do I create a postman and why does it say [Address]
null- and Needs more letters. please helpMany thanks Mr facilitator, my players and i are having great fun with this plugin :)
@Hmmcrunchy
Right you are. It would have taken postal.admin to get to that alternate /accept command. It is fixed now. Node postal.accept, the same as /accept should do it. There is a version 2.774 for 1.4.6 in the pre-release section. This will eventualy merge with a 1.4.5 version, but if anyone needs it now just let me know.
I've had almost the same villager issue XD scarey stuff - they will conquer the world at somepoint. sorry just another query ive popping the /postal accept for parcels, but no perms i cant seem to add a /postal accept perm in either this isnt too important but if you have a chance to updte the docs it would be cool so i can look for proper perm of command cheers
@mcfacilitator
Thank you so much!
It's all working now :D
This plugin rocks!
@nick331999
No, you are actually lined up with what I develope to. I have to do extra work to keep 1.4.5 current. The 1.4.6 versions are there if you look down the column to the right. It is confusing because I also have 1.4.5 R1 as part of the description. And that is because the version split for Postal starts right at 1.4.5 RB - recommended build going forward. Everything else is 1.4.5 R02, and back. I have to explain this a lot. I think I need a clearer system.
Anyway, I would suggest downloading the latest 146 Postal pre-release. I think it is 2.773. It is in the 'Notes' section above, at the very bottom. You should also be running the very latest Citizens2 build. Look at the top of 'Getting Started' Have fun!
@nick331999
Oh, just noticed that the latest postal version is for build 1.4.5, sorry for wasting your time. Do you guys know around when the version for 1.4.6 is going to come out?
Thanks
First of all this looks like a great plugin! Good work!
I installed it and it was working fine, I set up an office a few adresses and then I typed /postal start The postman spawned but about 10 seconds later my server crashed and I got a huge error log here it is: http://pastebin.com/NWhpWPQR
It says a lot of stuff about citizens, but I have the 1.4.6 dev build and the latest version of postal so I don't really know what's going on. Please help me, I really want to use this plugin!
@Etsija
That is correct. Would you mind trying 2.773 in the pre-release section? There were a few glitches like that corrected. Let me know....
@mcfacilitator
Pre-release 2.773
Heartbeat scheduler off the Minecraft thread.
New config.yml option to prevent all player type Citizen2 NPC's from despawning. Defaults to true because I think most admins want this.
Someone might get a kick out of this... The last few days I have been working through an issue where players were being dropped from my private server for buffer overflows. I went through all the software searching for a culprit. Nothing. I almost came to the conclusion that a standard dsl connection was not adaquate to host Minecraft. This concept gave me pause because of the real-world implications. Dsl is kind of basic, and for an application that requires low latency, there is nothing better.
I do port forwarding in my sleep. My router facilitates setting highr priorities to specified ports, such as Minecraft ports. My server, let's just say it is an animal with co-proccessed ethernet ports that shows about two or three percent activity with a loaded Bukkit server going. Yet I was having players dumped with buffer overflow messages. It was depressing and I had to wonder about the overall practicality of this client/server Minecraft model.
On one of my tests from the internet, I could swear I saw faces staring at me as the world fell into view. I just started digging. I found huge caverns jam packed with Villagers. It was a science fiction horror movie. It was also the complete and total cause of all the connection troubles. I always wondered what those villagers do when no one is around....