Minecraft Forums

Quote from ItsPanda

a cobblestone cross in the front.

No crosses. Minecraft is played my many people of many faiths so adding a cross on the church could lead to a backlash.

If anything make it an N as the villagers worship the god notch

Id like it if it activated a signal when the mob pulls on the lead. Great for a trap. Someone tries to steal your cow? As it walks towards the wheat it activates a trap on the thief.

Similarly functioning example: when Flint and Steel is in a dispenser and you activate it it will deploy fire from the Flint and Steal instead of the actual item of Flint and Steal.

Proposal: A Dispenser with shears inside will shear the block or animal (Currently only sheep) directly (one block) in front.

Usefulness?: Example: Sheep shearing machines maybe?

This idea is a simple one and could be implemented fairly easily. This will add on another function to dispensers expanding red stone contraption possibilities
Tell me what you think and if you think it should be added tell me your support.

Support this 100%. Just imagine if snow capped peaks and the cubic chunks terrain were mixed. That would be near perfection

I love the idea. I'll probably be sitting in my surface home in the fetal position now.

I would maybe like to see some more versions of the shade that look a little more "minecraft" like.

Also what is its rareness and spawn conditions (besides depth)? I would hate to have a home underground only to walk in and have a shade sitting there.

I like the light lowering effect but the scream should only slow you down for like 5 seconds just as an initial fright factor.

I like the idea and would make for a better docking mechanic. However you should include more info on what this dock block will look like and what materials will be needed to craft it along with its recipe.

A while back notch said that water bodies would not all be located at y=65. And they arent. They are somewhere between 64 and 66. When I heard this I thought it would be some 30 block difference between water bodies, but nope. Sometimes we get a glitched pattern when the water level does down by one but thats it.

We need waterfalls that look something like this

Picture from inHaze's custom world
http://www.planetmin...nforest-valley/



Input Needed

Fill in the poll and a comment with what size you think waterfalls should be. Do you want to see waterfalls that are as humongous as the one above or do you think they should be somewhat smaller?

According to the current poll results, it looks like roughly 22% want waterfalls that are not quite as big as the one above and almost 100% support adding waterfalls.



Support the thread

Copy this into your signature box if you support waterfalls

<a href="http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/944112-waterfalls/"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/e2dvN.png"></a>

It looks like this



Thanks ObscuryT for the banner


Current Supporters

Supporters up to 8/20/13

[represent]

Table of Content:

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-Intro
-What is a tab/How to make a tab
-Uses for tabs
-Tab-ception
-Multi-Player
-Multi-Player folder
-Other.
-Supporters
-Mod
-Banner

Media:

-Multiplayer video
-Single player video

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Unorganized Multi-Player:

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like to go on,but why have all of these fun servers when it is really hard to navigate through it? Trying to find a server in my list of junk is like trying to find a needle in the hay stack. There is one object you are searching for but many others around it, making it harder to find that one object you are looking for. For some time, my multi-player menu got more cluttered as i added a new server ever so often. Not to mention that the size that one server takes up in that menu is huge, and which it makes it even more difficult to find that one server you are looking for, but with what i am about to suggest, size doesn't matter. I just feel like navigating through it is very tedious. Constantly having to move up and down to find the right server i want to join is really tedious when were i could just be pressing a simple button to play on the server i want. Now, there is one small solution to this which click on a server, then do [shift] + [up] which moves the position of the server in the list. That is great and all but doesn't solve the problem of the actual length and the clutter of the list. It just moves things around. The length of the list doesn't change, the grouping of the list doesn't change when you just move the servers. You need to be able to virtually group them somehow. I propose a "tab system."

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in them. With the new tab system for multi-player, the system is the file cabinet and the tabs are the folders that go into the file cabinet.
A tab is also a space for your servers to be held and be grouped as how you want them to be grouped. You can group anything with tabs. If you like organizing, then you will like tabs.

prefered, but if you like the other way, do as you please. So the first way is to press on the "create tab" button which is represented by the [+] button in the photo below. After you press on that, you are prompted for a tab name. Press create, and now you got your self a blank tab.

The second way can be more understandable if you refer to here.

folder. Please press the 'here' up above for this will make a ton more sense if you do so. So, going onto how to make one in the .minecraft. In the new servers folder, you create a new file and name that file what ever you want. Open the file you just created and add a text document to it called 'ips'. In that text document, list the server ips you would like to be added to the tab you just created. Break up each individual ip with a new line. This way is not as simple as the first way on creating a tab, but it is still a way to create a tab.

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Tabs:

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in, in which it make it easier to organize your servers in a grouping fashion. Tabs can do all sorts of stuff. You can group tabs in tabs, you can group different kinds of servers in tabs, and you can group them as you please. How ever you organize, that is what the tab does.

means unlimited organization possibilities.

There are multiple servers of super craft brothers in my menu. It's really hard to handle them and find the specific one i want to go on. With tabs, i can have a separate tab for super craft brothers and put all my super craft brothers servers in there. Then, I organize my other servers by putting my survival servers in a "survival server" tab. Now i have some of my servers separated from one an other, and now it's starting to look less like a jumbled mess. I can organize how ever i want because you can put what ever server(s) you want in these tabs. There is no limit on creating tabs or what you can do with them.

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Tab-ception:

[/anchor]



have gotten is being able to put tabs in tabs,Pretty straight forward.

Small example. [T]Describes tab and [W/Se] describes worlds or servers.

[T]Minigame servers:
-[T]Super craft brothers
--[Se]Super craft brothers 1
--[Se]Super craft brothers 2
--[Se]Super craft brothers ect.
-[T]ShotBow
--[Se]ShotBow US
--[Se]ShotBow EU
-[T]Minecade
--[Se]Ect.

seeing how tab-ception can help even more, i suggest that the tabs can now be made infinatly inside of each other for how ever you want to organize things.

[T]
-[T]
--[T]
---[T]
ect.

There is no limit in what you can do with tabs.

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Why exclusive to Multi-Player?

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suggestions for this to be a feature of single player and basically anything that can be listed. It would be cool to see this for organizing your multi-player, your single player worlds, and possibly resource packs. I guess it;s not just the multi-player world that is unorganized, but more of everything is unorganized. I never realized anything about the single player worlds until i was actually told that this feature would help a ton with organizing the single player worlds. I have never noticed it because i don't have a ton of worlds that i play on, but since i realize this now, i think mostly the multi-player and the single player menus should get an over haul. (maybe resource packs too).

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Organized Single Player:

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servers, it stores your single player worlds. Basically, you create a tab and now you can put single player worlds in these tabs, but i already see a flaw in this type of system.

"What if my single player world is accidentally in the wrong tab?"


in the wrong section and drag and drop it to the right section (This will also be a thing for anything that uses the tab system).


manage is really hard and can get quite annoying for having a huge list of worlds. I can already see what alot of people would make with these tabs. [T] describes tab and [W] describes world.


[T]Survival Worlds:
-[W]World A
-[W]World B
-[W]Ect.
[T]Red stone lab:
-[W]Lab A
-[W]Lab B
-[W]Ect.
[T]Vech's Adventure maps:
-[W]Vech map A
-[W]Vech map B
-[W]ect.
[T]Other adventure maps:
-[W]Map A
-[W]Map B
-[W]ect
[T]creative worlds:
-[W]Ect.
[T]Hardcore serise:
-[W]Ect.

And so on. What ever you want is what you can have.

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How it works in single player:


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Organized Resource Packs:

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How it will work:

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Of course with a little bit of coding but what really matters is the placement of the folders in the .minecraft. i made this special video to get my point out.



Sorry if the commentary isn't the best. I tried my best because i really want this to be added. If you are tired of crappy looking, unorganized multiplayer menus, like this and post.

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IMPORTANT NOTE!

DO NOT SKIM THIS THREAD! YOU WILL LOSE INFORMATION!
Check Us Out On Reddit! V
Reddit Post Was terminated. Currently working on getting it back

Good Morning MineCrafters! Welcome to Day... 1625+ of the suggestion
(Name Changed From: OFFICIAL GOLD GOLEM THREAD)

Quote from Sacheverell

.Surprisingly solid idea you have there. Not sure how much work it would be for Mojang to program it, but definitely interesting.

--------------------START-HERE--------------------

When I found a pyramid it was just too easy to get my 11 gold, 2 emeralds, 3 diamonds, 12 iron, and 9 TNT. there needs to be something more to protect it. Such as "Desert Guardians" AKA "Gold Golems".

Health Points
200 (x100) (Debatable)

Armor 4 ()

-Includes Boss Health Bar

-They do not: Take fall damage, Drown in Water or Burn in fire/Lava
-Slow healing factor so that you can't attack then wait a long time then attack again

-High resistance to ranged attacks
Attack Strength
Melee Strike:

Easy 4 () Medium 6 () Hard 8 ()
Charge Attack:

Easy 7 () Medium 9 () Hard 11 ()
Laser Attack:

Easy 4 ()+ Medium 6 ()+ Hard 9 ()+

(see info below)
Spawn
-In Desert Temples
-Only ONE Gold Golem will spawn in the temple

-If a Gold Guardian generated as part of a Pyramid is killed, another will NOT spawn to take its place.
-The Golem WILL spawn in peaceful, but will stay inactive.
Drops
(5-10)(Why Gold? Because Ancient Egypt used Gold Plating on it's statues))
(3-6)(Why Lapis? EXCELLENT QUESTION! The golem has blue glyphs on it and i like Lapis)

( 1 )( Mob Head. Trophy/Used to create Inanimate Statues) (more info below)

( 1 )("Power Core". An Item Used To Revive The Fallen Boss) (more info below)

(Not so strange to think about now-a-days since the dragon can be re-summoned with a single purpose item)
Experience
50 EXP
(Iron Golems Drop 0)

(Wither Drops 50)

(Dragon Drops 1,200)

Movement
Rather slow unless charging

(more info below)
Does not need to jump to move up 1 block

Behavior
-The golem will stand dormant in the Pyramid like a statue until a player gets within it's line of sight

(10 Blocks), then it will "Wake Up" and attack the player.
(It will also awake if any chests within a 20 block radius are interacted with. Eyes are dark while Inactive)

Once awake, it's awareness of the player will extend 32? blocks.
If the player manages to escape, the Gold Golem will give up the chase and go back to its spawn point (or if target is killed).

It moves slowly, but when it gets close (5-8 blocks Ish?), it will begin its attack pattern:
-Attempting to Melee the player three times, raising it's arms for a moment then brings them down, giving about half a second to react and move away.

-After that, Its jaw will drop, the Eyes Glow Red and it will charge the player, making a low Roar as it attacks. This sprint can only be stopped by a wall (of at LEAST 2m tall) OR if the golem has charged for a distance of 10 blocks, causing a sort of bull fighter effect.
(Anything weaker than blast resistance 30 EXCEPT for sandstone/sandstone variants will be broken on impact. stones/sandstone will show damage cracks but never break from impact.)
-Finally, After it has come to a stop, It will look at the player, after a few seconds will shoot a beam from its mouth in a horizontal line with the player in the midpoint, causing a sort of sweep attack from left to right. (This laser will be able to break the same blockset as the charge attack, igniting any Mob/Player in its path as well as any blocks it comes in contact with. The point of this is to clear out possible barricades the player has built around it, or used to hide.)
-If the player cannot be reached for Melee attacks (Like, being stuck in a hole or a small doorway) The Golem will go strait to using its Charge (To break a wall that's possibly blocking it), Then continue with the Laser.

Gold Golems do not attack random monsters because random monsters don't want to steal treasure. A Gold Golem's primary purpose is to defend Pyramids from raiding players

(But using one as a guard in your prison/gladiatorial battle/boss for your dungeon, is also GREAT!)
(And Because they only target players they cant be used to make mob grinders to get items easier.)

WHY ATTACK PLAYERS?:
Gold Guardians are meant to protect Pyramids from THIEVES (Players) As Iron Golems protect Villagers from zombies.

(And YES, Players are thieving from the pyramid, there is no way to sugar coat it. You tomb raiding player you......)

Gold Guardians do not attack random monsters because random monsters don't want to steal treasure.A Gold Guardian's primary purpose is to defend Pyramids from raiding players (But using one as a guard in your prison/gladiatorial battle/boss for your dungeon, is also GREAT!)
And Because they target players they cant be used to make mob grinders to get items easier.
They do not; Take fall damage, Drown in Water or Burn in fire/Lava

The Guardian Can NOT Be Tamed!
(The Purpose of the Golem is to attack players. NOT RANDOM MONSTERS! If you want that then make IronGolems. Not Going To Debate It.)

Crafting A Statue/Reviving the Boss.

To craft An Inanimate statue place the dropped boss's head onto a T of gold blocks.

To revive, use the "Power Core" on the statue to bring it back to life with a mighty roar and a short "Boot up" time

Here is a Concept model done by

____________________Frequent Comments/Questions____________________________

If you have been to one of these temples. you will see THIS BLOCK all over. It is the reason for the creeper faces and the Lapis bands. There ya have it.

I will not make a poll. This thread has had a number of polls, each having up to a thousand "yes" votes, so I don't find much of a reason to make one.

____________________________!DISCLAIMER!:___________________________
THESE MODELS AND TEXTURES ARE JUST EXAMPLES, GIVEN BY THE COMMUNITY AND MAY NOT BE HOW IT ACTUALLY LOOKS IN VANILLA GAME!
________________________________________________________

Thank you for your time and patience!

This topic has grown a lot from the suggestions of the people. and i thank each criticism because it gives me a way to let the idea grow.
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!

(Copy This Into Your Signature To Show Your Support!^)

POSSIBLE CHANGES?
-A Larger/Alternate Temple Just for the boss? Up To Mojang.
(Open to Suggestions)
Found an error? Something I forgot to change? Tell me! I'll fix the problem!

COMMENTS? QUESTIONS? CONCERNS? POST BELOW!

-Dingo_Winterwolf
(vvv I Did This First vvv)

CHECK OUT THE REDDIT POST!
Don't Forget To Come Back Later!

In Other News
Found A Modder!

Facebook:Dingo Winterwolf Skype:DingoWinterwolf Or HERE On The Forum

**IF YOU LIKE REDSTONE CIRCUITS, YOU NEED TO KEEP READING.**

I posted a suggestion a while back involving bluestone dust. Now, it seems as though a few other people are using the word bluestone in their suggestions. I just want to be clear that this is based on the FIRST topic to involve bluestone in the manner that I suggested. I wanted to summarize the entire idea so far into a single, well-written (to the best of my ability) and clear post. This idea needs attention from Notch.

Here's a few points I'd like to make very clear right now.
- This is NOT one of the 5,000+ daily attempts at turning redstone circuits into real electricity. If you start shouting out electricity jargon and ridiculously complex ideas, I am going to yell at you.
- The purpose of this idea is to make minecraft circuits smaller and more manageable in ways that a redstone 'computer chip' CAN NOT accomplish.
- This idea is very easy to understand. I don't expect everyone to have a degree in electrical engineering. If you understand redstone circuits, you'll understand this.
- I'm no computer programmer, and I may be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this would be easy as hell to implement.

I : The Essential Idea
Redstone is one of the most fun and stimulating aspects of Minecraft, in my opinion, but so often, you run into problems like the following:
= redstone dust
= bluestone dust
= A fusion of redstone in bluestone, that will interact with both. aka 'purple dust'
EDIT: This has caused a lot of confusion, so will now be used to represent a redstone wire crossing over a bluestone wire. THERE IS NO BLACKSTONE DUST. A black tile in my diagrams represents either diagram 6 or diagram 7 (scroll down to see these), and I hope that this update isn't too late to stop confusion.

[] [] [] []


[] [] [] [] (diagram 1)

You only want the top left to communicate to the top right, and you only want the bottom left to communicate to the bottom right. With the above configuration, you now have a jumbled mess that won't work that way, because the top half of the diagram (circuit 1, let's say) and the bottom half (circuit 2) are interacting. So what do you have to do? You have do change it to this:

[] [] [] []

[] [] [] [] [] []

[] [] [] [] (diagram 2)

To keep your wiring from interacting, you separate each circuit with empty tiles. The tiles in between these two circuits are now what I'll call 'dead space'. You can't put any dust on the dead tiles. It's just taking up space. That's why I propose bluestone dust. Bluestone dust is a simple and easy way to eliminate this problem. Bluestone has the exact same properties as redstone, but doesn't interact with redstone in any way. With bluestone dust, you can turn that cumbersome diagram above into this:
[] [] [] []


[] [] [] [] (diagram 3)

or even this:

[] [] [] []

[] [] [] [] (diagram 4)

Notice how tiny diagram 4 is compared to 2? Think about it. It's the exact same function as diagram 2, but uses nearly half as many tiles. Here's another example of bluestone's ability to tighten circuits.
[] [] [] []
[] [] [] []

[] [] [] []
[] [] [] [] (diagram 5)

Instead of having to make an unsightly bridge to carry the circuit over the top of the perpendicular circuit, you can make it work in 2 dimensions. Bluestone dust and redstone dust would be laid next to and across each other without screwing up circuits.

II : Concerns / Potential Questions addressed!

There's enough ore underground already, adding a new block that's essentially just like redstone is a waste of space.
That's why there doesn't necessarily have to be a new ore added just to add bluestone dust. In fact, I'd rather there not be a new ore updated, because then we'd all need to start new maps. My idea for this would be to have some sort of device (similar to a crafting bench or a furnace) that works to turn redstone dust into bluestone dust and vice versa. Would it be instant, like the crafting bench? Would it take fuel and time like a furnace? Any of them sound good to me.
Randomman159 contributed this idea: all redstone blocks are turned into red/bluestone ore that drops some redstone dust and some bluestone dust when destroyed. The texture would be changed to red and blue spots, instead of just red spots.

Let's say I have 5 redstone dust and 5 bluestone dust, but I need to make a circuit that's ten dust long. What could solve this?
I have two solutions for this. One is the pretty much described in the first question; you'd just turn redstone dust into bluestone dust and you'd have ten of the same kind. My second solution would be to have a redstone and bluestone fusion kind of thing that you'd create. It would probably be purple or something, and would be hard-ish to make (like requiring coal or something to fuse the red dust and blue dust). This would be the only way to connect a redstone and bluestone circuit.

All of this red and blue lying on the floor, won't it be hard to recognize your circuits when it's all on the ground?
Not at all! In diagrams 4 and 5, the purple color is only meant to represent red dust and blue dust on the same tile. It would hopefully look something like this:
diagram 6 is a representation of a single tile.
[] [] []
[] [] []
[] [] []
[] [] []
[] [] [] (diagram 6)

or,

also, a representation of a single tile.
[] [] [] []
[] [] [] []

[] [] [] []
[] [] [] [] (diagram 7)
The redstone dust and bluestone dust, while on the same tile, are next to each other. All of the tile textures would show clearly where redstone dust and bluestone dust are.

This is a great idea! You know what else they should add? Yellowstone dust! And greenstone dust!
No. At a certain point (as in, 2 different kinds of dust) it just gets stupid and annoying to look at. Your circuits will look like puke, and just try to imagine what diagram 6 would look like with 5 parallel colors instead of just 2. Two kinds of dust are enough.

What about redstone and bluestone torches?
As you probably figured, bluestone torches would work in the same way as bluestone dust; exactly the same functionality as redstone, but not interacting. Redstone torches could be converted to bluestone torches, or they could be permenant. That detail isn't very important.

Doesn't the redstone 'computer chip' idea solve this problem?
Yes and no. The computer chip idea will help with making circuits smaller, but you would still have a lot of dead space.

III : Closing
Thanks for reading all the way through, or at least scrolling all the way to the bottom! If you support this thread at all, PLEASE post in it, even if it's just the word "support". The more replies this topic gets, the more noticed it will get. If you don't support, please reply with a reason to not support it.

Any questions that a lot of people are asking, I'll put in section II with my best solution.

-Starfrish

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Table of Contents:

Overview
Changes in how things work
Frequently Asked Questions
[WIP] The Cubic Chunks Mod!
Gallery
Supporting this suggestion
Special thanks

[spoiler=Tl:dr]Q: Won't this increase lag?
A: Absolutely not. The title of this suggestion and big red letters at the top of this post aren't lying. If you want to know how, then I suggest you actually read this post.

Q: Will this change terrain? Will this break existing worlds?
A: No. Terrain change is not necessary. Existing worlds can be converted fairly easily with a process described later in this post.

Q: How can sunlight or rain work with infinite vertical space?
A: I suggest you read Coping with sunlight, because it's too complex for a tl;dr.

Q: I have a different question but still don't feel like reading this post. What do I do?
A: Too bad, read the FAQ. I put way too much work into this for the entirety of it to be ignored.[/spoiler]

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Overview:

In Minecraft, the sky is the limit - literally. It doesn't matter how many thousands of blocks a player has traveled, or what dimension they're in, or even if they're playing in creative or survival, the highest they can ever build is up to a height of 256. Why is that? If Minecraft can have a world that's infinite in the north, in the south, in the east, and in the west, why can't that world be infinite up and down too?

In Minecraft's earliest days, in Classic and Indev, the world was not infinite in any direction. This was because the entire world needed to be generated at the same time, and the entire world needed to be simulated at the same time as well. This led to a conundrum - the bigger the world, the more it lagged.
Notch didn't like this. He knew his players liked to explore and build large creations, so he found a way to make the world truly infinite. When the Minecraft '' class='bbc'>Infdev came out, it brought with it truly infinite worlds. Suddenly, players could travel hundreds of thousands of blocks in any direction, and never encounter a barrier, or become too laggy.
The Infdev update brought about a very large change to Minecraft worlds to accomplish this feat. For the first time, instead every world being just a single huge piece, they were broken up into a two-dimensional grid of pieces, called chunks. Through breaking the world up into pieces, this 'chunk system' enabled infinite worlds by letting Minecraft create new pieces and simulate them only when it needs to.

Why does that not apply to the vertical axis? Because the type of 'chunk system' Minecraft uses right now is a linear one, which, by using only a two-dimensional grid to map out chunks, means that it is impossible for chunks to stack on top of one another, and by extension, meaning that a single chunk must cover the entire vertical space. This brings back the problem that the Infdev update was supposed to eradicate, now only with chunks, instead of an entire world; the bigger a chunk is, the more laggy it is. You can't just increase the height limit and make chunks taller, because it will become laggier, and laggier, and laggier to do it.
That's why, to fix this, Minecraft must change over to a cubic chunk system. Under this system, 16³ block chunks are aligned on a three-dimensional grid, completely eliminating maximum height as an aspect of lag.

The immediate benefits:
•Minecraft worlds become as virtually infinite vertically as they are horizontally: The absolute limit being Y = ±30,000,000.
•A large FPS increase: Alpha testers report an FPS increase of 100~200%.
•Increase in running capability: Computers running Minecraft on Tiny render distance will handle only 30% the blocks they do now.

The possible features:
•Spherical render/load distance: Reduce handled blocks by up to 30% by cutting corners made of unneeded chunks.
•Server chunk occlusion/exclusion: Reduce bandwidth usage and defeat hackers by only sending data for visible chunks.
•Three-dimensional biomes: Save biome data per chunk rather than per block column, create volcanoes with magma chambers, underground rivers, tropical skylands floating over icy taigas, and more.

The disadvantages:
•Unloaded gravity-pause: Falling non-player entities and fluids will be forced to pause their fall if they reach unloaded chunks, but will resume falling when those chunks are loaded.
•Slow falling-pause: Players with slower computers and smaller render distances will have falling occasionally paused as they fall into unloaded chunks, until new chunks can be loaded.

The problems:
•Current sunlight and rain calculation methods cannot work with infinite vertical space: The solution to this is described here.
•Current BiomeDecorator cannot work with multiple vertical chunks simultaneously: The BiomeDecorator code must be altered to function correctly with this, or removed.
•Current cave generation method is executed an extra time for each vertical chunk created simultaneously, leading to lag spikes on world generation: Cave generation's method must be altered to suit this system more.
•Current grass/dirt generation algorithm forces additional chunk requests when chunks are loaded, causing chunks to load slower than they should: This algorithm must be replaced with something else.

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Changes in how things work:

Obviously, the implementation of this new chunk system will change quite a few things. These changes are mostly either necessary or in the interest of increased efficiency. Such changes are categorized and explained below.

How worlds will be stored:
[spoiler]How the current storage works, and what changes:
Interestingly enough, the current method of storage, the Anvil format, is derived from the storage method that the original Cubic Chunks mod used. The Anvil format stores individual chunk as a series of 16³ quasi-cubic chunks. These 'fake' cubic chunks allow for easier reference of specific data, but they still can't be separated from each other, meaning that it fails to reap the full benefits of this system. Even so, the change allowed Mojang to double the maximum height with no performance hit. Chunks are stored in groups of 32², inside 'MCRegion' files, for a total of 1024 chunks.
By nature, cubic chunks does away with the 'quasi-cubic' nonsense. In terms of chunk grouping, instead of using groups of 32³ chunks, new "3DRegion" files would contain groups of 16³. This means each 3DRegion file contains 4096 chunks, four times as many as MCRegion files. However, each 3DRegion contains only one fourth the amount of blocks. For per-chunk positional metadata, 3DRegion files would use the same number of bits as MCRegion files, after compression. Calculations show that the same area encompassed by a single MCRegion file would consume 64 kilobytes of extra space with 4 3DRegion files, which is nothing.

Converting existing worlds:
Most people are probably wondering something like "But won't this totally destroy all existing worlds?". Absolutely not; conversion could not be simpler. When a non-cubic world is loaded after the implementation of this system, a conversion process will begin and convert the entire world at once(To avoid making chunk loading take longer during play). First, all existing MCRegion files will be divided into quarters to create 3DRegion files. Then, all existing chunks are divided into sixteenths using the quasi-cubic properties to identify boundaries. After that, conversion is done.

The "isEmpty" flag optimization:
A 1-bit flag is added to each chunk, named "isEmpty". If the chunk consists of 100% air blocks, this bit is 1, any other case makes it 0. When the bit is 1, all data for the chunk besides the isEmpty flag is deleted and ignored, which reduces filesize. Empty chunks are never loaded, and locations where they occur are merely simulated as entities reside in them. The chunk will only load when something requires saving inside it.[/spoiler]

Changes to terrain, ores, etcetera:
[spoiler]Terrain:
By default, nothing will change. Small bits of terrain generation code need to be reconfigured to work properly with Cubic Chunks.

Biomes:
By default, nothing will change.

Ore generation:
By default, nothing will change.

Structures:
By default, nothing will change.

The Void:
After conversion to Cubic Chunks, the void and bedrock layer will still exist and generate as they always have. However, the void(Not the bedrock layer!) will not exist as a hard limit and is able to be moved, but not removed, by editing an associated NBT data tag inside a world's level.dat. This feature, that allows for increasing the maximum depth, is intentionally disabled without external programs, to prevent terrain change of any sort. It is intended to be used by experienced mapmakers and world generation mods only.

Superflat settings:
Existing superflat worlds will not change. However, new superflat worlds will gain a new decoration parameter, 'void'. Inclusion of this parameter will cause the void to form below the lowest defined layer. Exclusion of it will cause all layers below the lowest defined layer to copy the settings of that layer.[/spoiler]

Coping with sunlight:
[spoiler]There used to be a solution here, but it wasn't deemed good enough by Jeb. Suggest solutions in this thread.[/spoiler]

Changes to servers:
[spoiler]Settings:
There's a setting inside the Server.properties file called 'max-build-height'. The setting makes it impossible for any player to place or remove blocks above that height.
With the implementation of Cubic Chunks, a new setting named "maximum-generation-depth" would be added. The void, bedrock layers, and magma layers will generate normally at and above the Y level designated by the value of this setting.

Chunk occlusion/exclusion:
Using the raytracing methods already available in the code and used for explosion calculations, servers can identify which chunks are visible to a player, within safe assumptions, and only send the data for those chunks. This both reduces bandwidth usage, and cripples the usefulness of X-Ray cheats.[/spoiler]

Render/Load distance alterations:
[spoiler]After the implementation of Cubic Chunks, view distances' radii will apply to the vertical axis too. This reduces handled blocks in the cases of tiny and short render distances, and increases them in the cases of normal and far render distances. This can be optimized by utilizing a spherical render distance instead of a cubic one, which would reduce handled blocks in all distances except Far.[/spoiler]

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Frequently Asked Questions:

[spoiler=FAQ]Q: This is impossible.
A: No it's not. See below.

Q: Is this available as a mod?
A: Not yet! But it will be!

Q: I like X-ray! What if I don't want it to be broken?
A: First of all, breaking X-ray hacks will only be possible to do in multiplayer. That said, the system that would break X-ray would be possible to disable by the server owner. If the owner doesn't disable the system, then they don't want you using X-ray, and you should not be doing what the server owner doesn't want in the first place.

Q: I play on a PvP/Anarchy/Raid/Faction server. Won't this system let people pillar up into the sky and create a base thousands of blocks in the air and never be found?
A: No.

Q: I like Minecraft's current height limits. What if I don't want to have an infinite sky or infinite underground?
A: If this system is added, all worlds will not automatically gain an infinite underground. As stated below, the Void will remain in all worlds, even after the conversion to Cubic Chunks. The ability to remove the Void will simply be there. As for infinite space in the sky, the current build limit is over one hundred blocks above any terrain that vanilla Minecraft can possibly generate. It is ENTIRELY your decision on whether or not you take advantage of this height. If you play on a server, like stated above, the server owner can set a maximum build height. If s/he doesn't, then don't play on their server - you don't play on servers where the server owners allow things you don't like. Why would you play on an anarchy server if you hate being stolen from and killed?

Q: Will this affect Redstone at all?
A: No. This system will simply make it possible to make larger redstone circuitry than before.

Q: Won't this break existing worlds?
A: No. Existing worlds can be easily converted by dividing each MCRegion file into 4 pieces, then slicing the existing 256 block-high chunks inside them into 16 individual chunks.

Q: Won't this affect mods? Won't mod authors have a hard time updating their mods?
A: The answer to this question depends solely on the answer to the following two questions: Do parts of the modification code rely on chunk data/metadata? Does the mod author want to take advantage of the features of the new chunk system? If the answers to the first and second question are both "No", then updating a mod to this system should be very easy and quick. If the answer to the first question is "Yes", then those parts of the code will need to be rewritten somewhat, but in most cases, the changes should be fairly quick and easy. The only time that it should be hard to update a mod to this system, is if the answer to the second question is "Yes".

Q: Won't this require a total rewrite of the mod API if that's released first?
A: No. Whether or not even a small part of the mod API needs to be rewritten depends on the way that it is implemented and whether or not there are API inclusions for chunk handling and other chunk-related behavior.

Q: Could a player fall into unloaded chunks if chunks aren't loaded fast enough?
A: No, they could not, and for several reasons. Minecraft has a terminal velocity, though it might not seem like it. This velocity is slower than it should take to load new chunks below the player. In cases with exceptionally slow computers, even if the player did manage to reach an unloaded chunk, their fall would be paused until that chunk can be loaded.

Q: What would happen when water, sand, or a mob falls into an unloaded chunk?
A: Nothing. The water/sand/mob would freeze in place until the chunk is loaded and it can continue moving. You can already see this same thing happening on the horizontal axis.

Q: What will happen to the Void?
A: It will still exist, along with all its effects. The only difference is that the Void is no longer a hard limit and it can be moved. After the conversion to Cubic Chunks, the Void's location will be stored in a world's ' class='bbc'>level.dat, and this location can be changed with NBT editing tools. When and where the Void exists, chunks will cease to generate.

Q: Will this affect terrain?
A: No. However, terrain generators will gain the ability to use infinite height.

Q: Will this affect ore generation?
A: No. Ore is a part of terrain generation. As stated above, terrain will not be changed.

Q: Won't all current terrain generators be incompatible with this system and need to be rewritten?
A: No. Terrain generators work independently of chunks. When a chunk is generated for the first time, it calls the terrain generator and receives a specific section of the resultant terrain to save inside itself. Because of this, some custom terrain generators can generate steep terrain all the way to Y256, where you can experience a large, flat cut-off. Since there are no chunks above Y256 to call the terrain generator for terrain, no terrain exists there.

Q: What would happen if there's a huge solid ceiling so far above you that it is unloaded? Wouldn't you just see the sky, just with everything being completely dark?
A: Yes. This already happens on the horizontal axis, and it is an issue with sky rendering, not this chunk system. As such, this has nothing to do with this suggestion. Please do not post about this.

Q: If you go deep underground, will your plants grow/ores smelt/animals grow?
A: No, because those chunks would be unloaded, just as if you had walked far away. This is a flaw with any chunk system, regardless of shape. It is a necessary evil that allows Minecraft to have infinite worlds. The only way to fix this would be to introduce a separate new system that works with chunks as they are loaded and unloaded. This suggestion deals with the chunk system itself, and not sister processes. Because of that, that is outside of the scope of this suggestion. Please do not post about this.[/spoiler]

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[WIP] The Cubic Chunks Mod! (Tall Worlds Mod):

Cuchaz has taken it upon himself to bring us the glorious Cubic Chunks, since Mojang refuses to do so.

Cuchaz is using a API of his own creation to help assist in the making of this mod, and he's quite far along, as seen in these two tech demo videos:
[spoiler=T-Demo 1: Vertical chunk loading][/spoiler]
[spoiler=T-Demo 2: Broken height cap and no lag!][/spoiler]
With the basic functionality in place - a complete overhaul of the basic chunk system, and height limit removed - this whole concept can already be considered proven. What remains is making sure everything else functions correctly under the new chunk system. In any case, stay tuned for future updates if it interests you(If it doesn't, then you are the weakest link - goodbye!).

You can follow the mod's development in much more depth in its very own topic!

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Gallery:

[spoiler=A mountainside with an experimental engine using Cubic Chunks designed by Nocte. 960 block view radius, and 30 FPS.][/spoiler]
[spoiler=A different view of the mountainside with the same engine by Nocte. This time, with 1600 block view radius and 15 FPS.][/spoiler]
[spoiler="A video demonstrating Nocte's engine."]

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Support & Submission to Mojang:

If you support this, hit the rep button in the bottom-left corner of this post. It is the only good way of accurately measuring support here.

If you wish, you can put the following banner, courtesy of laz2727, into your signature. It helps to attract support from all parts of the forum!

 [url=http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1707097-cubic-chunks-infinite-height-elimination-of-x-ray-and-more-60-supporters/page__st__0][img]http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/443/hov.png[/img][/url]

Please help us get word out of this suggestion! Share this with your friends, with Minecraft celebrities if you're familiar with them, or even with Mojangsters like Jeb or Dinnerbone! (Do not share this with Notch. Notch doesn't work with Minecraft anymore.)

The purpose of this suggestion is to have Cubic Chunks implemented in Vanilla. Being available as a modification does not fulfill that purpose. The modification featured in this suggestion is to act as a proof-of-concept only(Note: Its being featured here is to act as a proof-of-concept. The modification itself is on its way to becoming a fully fledged modification).

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Special thanks:
Cuchaz, for taking Barteks' proof and running with it, to give us a truly functional Cubic Chunks mod.
Barteks2x, for updating the Cubic Chunks mod to 1.6.2, proving that it is possible.
Azraile, for posting the original suggestion and allowing me to take ownership of it.
Nocte, for helping resolve flaws and designing Hexahedra.
MineCrak, for a large amount of valuable insight and enthusiasm into the topic of Cubic Chunks.
aaronfranke, for helping resolve flaws.
PanJouda, for creating the original banner.
Flexico, for creating the predecessor to the current banner.
laz2727, for creating the current banner.
Robinton, for creating the original Cubic Chunks mod.
The_Watchman13, for answering all those stupid questions so I don't have to.

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Note: Many calculations and information can be found among the many posts of this topic. There are too many for me to cite here, but if you wish, you can search for them yourself.

So this is a very,very small suggestion.

I suggest that when minecarts travel at a high speed and then slow down immediately and drastically, sparks appear behind them. The sparks would be particles not entities or others.

The sound of this would be like this:

I'm sorry to say but the sound was recently terminated by youtube for some unknown reasons. I'm sorry. But if you have ever heard the sound of trains slowing down or the screeching of metal against metal, that's basically it. Again sorry for any inconvenience.

On top of that, here is what the particles would look like:



The sound wouldn't be as high pitched though to prevent the continuous murdering of people's ears. (Pictures and videos provided by Badprenup and DmgVol. Thanks guys!)

Now if you really support this suggestion, please use the banner made by PoisonDagger273.



It is a very small suggestion I know, but sometimes realism just fits.

EDIT: After two years, this thread is no longer an entirely accurate reflection of the current state of Minecraft. The basic problem I describe here, however, still very much persists. For more current and relevant discussion of this issue, you can skip directly to page 18.

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The basic ideas of this thread are as follows:

• Leather armor is not easy enough to acquire to balance out it's inferior statistics. Leather itself should be a commonplace early-game resource.

• Cows are unbalanced, in that they make pigs redundant and irrelevant by producing the same amount of identical food that pigs do in addition to other items that they don't.

• Both of these problems can be solved by a simple tweak to the cow's item drop rates.

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I don't know about all of you, but I've never used leather armor. I always found it to be easier to go right to iron armor; taking the time to pen in cows and breed them for leather would set me back quite a bit in game progression, and you rarely find nearby the 12-24 cows necessary to craft a full set of leather armor early enough in the game for it to be relevant for you to do so. I could better spend that time setting up a mining operation.

In relatively short order you can have enough iron for not only armor, but other essential items as well. Going directly for iron armor serves multiple goals simultaneously, whereas obtaining enough leather for armor is a task you have to go out of your way to accomplish and serves only that single goal to the exclusion of all others. Therefore, skipping over leather and going immediately for iron instead is the more efficient path to take, and the one most players will be most likely to follow. I have seen this first-hand in at least 90% of cases on all servers I've played on. This clearly doesn't make sense, as it puts the lowest tier armor in an unfortunate crossroads of being simultaneously less effective and more time-consuming to acquire.

Clearly, leather armor needs to be easier to obtain in order to balance it out and make it worthwhile for the player to spend time in the early game on it. So here is what I propose: make cows drop more leather, and less steak. When you think about it, cows and pigs are currently equal in terms of food value, but cows have an additional leather drop and are capable of producing milk. This makes them the clear choice for breeding, and makes pigs redundant and irrelevant. Why breed pigs when you can breed cows for the same resource cost and get much more payback for your efforts?

If, however, cows dropped primarily leather and only dropped a small amount of steak, it would give each animal clearly-defined roles and make both important to breed. And it would make the acquisition of leather for armor easier and give leather armor back it's rightful place as the cheap and commonplace first armor set players make.

Current Drop Rate:
0-2 leather and 1-3 steak
Even with the most improbable good fortune, under these rates you will need to kill a minimum of 12 cows to obtain a full set of leather armor, and potentially as many as 24 if you get only the minimum amount of leather from each cow you kill. But cows are capable of dropping no leather at all, which means that you might even need to kill more than 24 cows to obtain the leather needed for a full set of armor, with no theoretical maximum. This is absolutely ridiculous.

Conservative Suggested Rate:
2-4 leather and 0-1 steak
Under this rate, you would need to kill a minimum of 6 cows to craft a full set of leather armor, and as many as 12 maximum. These numbers are improved, but not quite as much as I would hope.

My Ideal Suggested Rate:
3-5 leather and either remove steak, or alter it or porkchops
With this rate the number of cows killed is now as low as 5 and as high as 8. This seems much more reasonable to me, as leather armor is primarily only relevant for a fairly small window of time in the early game, so you should obtain it as soon as possible. Either the steaks or the porkchops would be altered in terms of hunger value or saturation to make them no longer redundant and give each it's own place and use.

Pig item drop rates would remain unchanged in all scenarios.

An idea from a thread contributor that I very much support:

Quote from PatDay

4) Give leather new benefits - Make leather mechanically desirable Certainly not as much as diamond, but something people would consider using. I think the best option might be to include special non-combat enchantments only leather can get such as a Speed boost or Sneaking option (players are invisible to mobs past a certain distance while crouching). It would give people a reason to make a "work" outfit out of leather. This would seem to be only a benefit in my opinion and can't think of any drawbacks.

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Copy and paste this code into your signature to support this rebalancing effort:

[url=http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1448912-cows-pigs-and-the-problem-with-leather-armor/][img]http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t116/Ric_Adbur/LeatherArmorBanner2-1.png[/img][/url]

Although the terrain in minecraft is far from perfect, one thing about it has always bothered me more than anything else: Everything just seems so small. The rivers and ponds seem tiny, the islands in ocean biomes are tiny. Even the mountains in the Extreme Hill biomes seem tiny.

My proposed solution to the problem is a new world type in the options when creating a new world. This new world type would be similar to the current one, aside from 1 difference: the terrain is expanded by 2x, 3x, or even 4x larger than what would normally generate in Minecraft. (The pictures below are 4x bigger, but the amount the terrain is enlarged could be an option)

• This would not affect current terrain generation because it would be a new world type.

• This would not make trees or villages bigger, it would only affect terrain.

• This would not construct the terrain, then enlarge it. (That would most likley cause severe lag) It would generate the terrain based on how the current generator works, only larger.

• This would not affect the size of each chunk, it would still generate with 16 x 16 chunks.

• The height of Minecraft would not be increased, and the world would not get deeper. This suggestion would only affect the surface of the world.
• Biomes would still generate normally, not enlarged. Though it would be great if there could be an option for either Large Biomes or Default Biomes when starting a new "Larger Terrain" World.
• This would not make villages and mushroom biomes more rare, they would spawn normally, just with different terrain.
• (Some have suggested that this idea should replace the "Large Biomes" world type. If this was implemented, biomes would spawn like they do in the "Large Biomes" world type.)

Example:


Example of larger hills/mountains:


Current rivers compared to larger ones:


Larger Beaches:


Larger lake:


Larger ponds:


Larger Ravines:


Larger islands:


(The rest of these examples are Extreme Hills oriented. I used the same type of terrain that spawns in ravines for the rocks of the mountains, meaning that random waterfalls and lavafalls would spawn. I got rid of most of them by hand, but some of them escaped my grasp. I wouldn't mind seeing occasional waterfalls in mountains though, because I think these look really cool!)









(The above example images were made by expanding a normal Minecraft map 4x in World Painter.)

Pros:
- Could possibly make Minecraft terrain interesting again.
- Epic ravines.
- Naturally generated layered snow.
- Longer, thicker rivers.
- Actual mountains and hills.
- Bigger beaches. (though still ugly)
- Bigger islands in oceans.
- Ponds that aren't eyesores. (sorry)
- Horses are even more useful
- Horse travel might be more interesting because of the terrain, and length of the journey.
- Takes more than five minutes to cross entire continents.
- It would be a completely different world type, meaning it would be optional.

Cons:
- It may take ages to get places. (though I'd imagine exploring would feel more rewarding)
- All that flat land might get boring. (but ideally the new terrain would generate with "noise" over the large terrain to make it more interesting and less smooth.)
- Oceans would be massive, unless they weren't made larger along with the terrain.
- Mountains may lag slower computers. (though they wouldn't be that much higher than mountains are right now. The mountains in my examples are much larger horizontally, but not that much larger vertically.
- People who can only play on the tiny render distance would have trouble seeing the terrain.

And that's all I can think of!

I made a signature banner for this suggestion! Feel free to submit your own.




Full size: (worthless for signatures)


Thanks for taking the time to read this suggestion! And thanks for the support everyone! Please criticize this if necessary!