New spawn area thread

#1

to minimize lag on 1.9 in spawn im proposing the following idea

spawn chunks have one tower in the center

with a train station and roads at ground level 4 lines and roads going directly north, south, east, and west in a completely straight line, with an elevated 3 line rail above them, if we make the roads 5 wide with columns in the center that gives us enough space to put 3 lines with a 1 block separation an incoming, an outgoing, and an express

with a portal to the original world on the 2nd floor

with a nether portal in the basement for new netherhub

surrounding this tower in all the loaded spawn chunks (chunks that stay loaded 24/7 wether or not someones in them) a natural park filling the entire spawn chunks, lit so no agressive mobs spawn

building any spawn city buildings, homes, embassies, public storage, post office, in a city surrounding the spawn park

with a complete ban on building or mining in the spawn chunks aside from the spawn building and the rail system

once the 4 rails get outside the spawn chunks put in a station on each rail where the rail splits into 3 at the north
and south station, so that we end up with 8 rails going in all directions covering the whole area

make nether highway follow the same map as the rail lines, with a nether portal at each rail station

people can connect portals to the nether highway but they must go in a straight line to the nearest main line for the nether highway, less turns and twists with easier navigation

im open to suggestions for modifications for this plan, but i think it will minimize lag for all of us, as well as making travel easier both by foot, by rail, and by nether highway

#2

I’m all for minimizing lag at spawn. However, I’m struggling to see what this would look like.

#3

The plan will completely depend on the seed we will use. If the seed calls for some ocean near the spawn, there might be some modification.

In addition, I am struggling to visualize your proposal from the words as well. We’ll try to organize a lag-free spawn together. There’s no doubt in that.

#4

heres a quick ms paint example, i think ill be the next rembrandt

ozEzuVg.png1152x648

the blue star is the spawn point,the red box the spawn chunks, the brown lines roads and rails

everything inside the red box is always loaded 100% of the time
anything that can cause lag in that area will be running full time, redstone, minecarts, signs, chests
portals, auto farms, flowing water, flowing lava, passive mobs, or zombies that have picked up something.
the more of those things we have active in that area the more overall lag there is for the server

the spawn chunks are a 16x16 chunk square around the spawn point, if the spawn point is in the center of a chunk its
17x17, about 275 blocks.

what im proposing is we make the red box 300 blocks to a side (to make sure everythings out of the spawn chunks)
build one tower there for spawn, and the rails and roads out of it, with as few chests, signs, and redstone as possible

part of the reason that the current server is so laggy is that there are hundreds of buildings, chests, signs, redstone
mobs, etc. inside the spawn chunks. its too late to tear all that down, but if we limit whats in the new world spawn chunks itll limit how much lag we have, we light up the whole area and make it “spawn park” with the city surrounding the red box where people can build their embassies, houses, rocket ships, etc.

we’ll still end up with an awesome city, just not as much lag.

#5

Mytos, we’ll be on a new host. We don’t have to worry about lag that much anymore. If you are talking about framerate drop (aka fps lag), then we definitely have to watch out for that. You seem to be confusing client framerate drop with server lag.

[quote=“Mytos232”]anything that can cause lag in that area will be running full time, redstone, minecarts, signs, chests
portals, auto farms, flowing water, flowing lava, passive mobs, or zombies that have picked up something.
the more of those things we have active in that area the more overall lag there is for the server[/quote]
Most of these does not cause the server to lag. In large quantity, maybe. But not really in current configuration. Maybe fps drop for lower-end computers.

Also, I think it’ll be best to let the roads and rails just come up on its own after a few weeks of playing.

Those aside, I like the idea, but I believe there can be more building within the spawn area.

#6

I think " let the roads and rails just come up on its own" is how we ended up with the issue that is the current infrastructure on the map.

The highway is jagged.
The roads wind and switchback.
The rails zigzag.

I’m going to make some ideas for roads and post pics

#7

The nether highway should be straight. The over world roads should be curved whichever way, but the rails need to follow a straight path. Having everything straight would be a little strange.

#8

[quote=“bontrose”]I think " let the roads and rails just come up on its own" is how we ended up with the issue that is the current infrastructure on the map.

The highway is jagged.
The roads wind and switchback.
The rails zigzag.

I’m going to make some ideas for roads and post pics[/quote]

The nether highway is jagged due to some oversight. The highway was originally supposed to be stone floor, so getting to a destination in the most direct path was important. Now, it’s all ice, and the earlier method makes running in the highway problematic. O_O

We’ll definitely have straight highway paths on the new server. Just straight in four or eight coordinate directions from the hub until some stop is near…

I don’t really see any problems with the rails zigzag-ing, at least in the most direct route (e.g. no u-turns).

I agree. We do have to watch out about making everything straight. Some winding roads is part of the beauty of nature.

#9

AaWGMob.png1366x706

Walk path

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Rail path

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overview

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pillars from below

#10

This is why people don’t know half of what is at spawn. the roads wind and switchback so they can follow the terrain, but stuff is hidden behind hills or buildings. how many people that play on a daily basis know that the ravine market exists?

#11

nether maps:


Box option


Spoked option

#12

[quote=“bontrose”]nether maps:


Box option


Spoked option[/quote]

I think the 8 spoke option would be best, spacing the circular connecting rings around 250 blocks apart. It would give some semblance of order to the nether highway along with a way for people to connect easily instead of having overly complex and twisty nether highways. One long gradual curve vs near right turns or sharp wavy lines seems to be preferred from what i’ve seen.

#13

as the map expands we can add more spokes every 250 blocks(1km overworld)


spoked option with a several km diameter map

#14

This is why people don’t know half of what is at spawn. the roads wind and switchback so they can follow the terrain, but stuff is hidden behind hills or buildings. how many people that play on a daily basis know that the ravine market exists?[/quote]

Ravine market is pretty straightforward. It’s straight down the south road. ._.

Winding road should allow for better navigational, visual memory once you get to the place. People don’t know there is a ravine market due to the lack of clear navigational signs. Making roads straight wouldn’t change as much imo.

#15

I think the roads closest to spawn should be straight. Bontrose is right that new people struggle with finding their way around because the roads are quite windy. That being said, the further from spawn, the more curvy and more natural they should be, just like IRL. I’m down for a grid-like structure near spawn for farms, small houses etc, but the more you go into the outlying country, they should get more windy.

#16

One of the things I like the most about our current spawn is how good it looks, it’s like a natural town. A lot of that comes from the fact that it is not a grid. I don’t think we need to make roads completely straight to make it easier to get around. I do think we can do a much better job than in the current spawn, and I think it should come from two design decisions:

  1. Minimally branching roads near spawn
  2. Thoughtful layout of spawn basics - farms, storage, 1st night inns, etc - by putting them down first.

One of the biggest problems that our current spawn faces is that as soon as you leave the building down one road, you are faced with many branching paths and road splits, so that it is very unclear what the main road is. As long as it is clear what the main path is (and we can further enforce it with fencing), whether it is straight or not won’t matter. It should however, have fairly long stretches that you can see unobstructed.

In summary, I think straight roads are not the best solution to the problem. While they do make it easier to navigate, they sacrifice the aesthetic of Arcane. Furthermore, they don’t address the core problem of giving the new players too many ways to get lost. Instead, I think we should have around 4 main roads that are well defined (i.e. fences/hedges), that have well marked and significantly smaller alleys/paths, and only when necessary. They should not be straight, but they should consist of long unobstructed views and gradual curves, where nature permits. They may wind if necessary, since they are well marked they should be easy to follow. They should not split until they are outside of a certain spawn radius where all of the main spawn things are (exception could be if it leads to a non functional district, like housing or a park).

Sorry for the wall of text. I’ll post something in a little bit about rails, but I just wanted to know real quick if we are settled on elevated rails or if it could be an underground system?

#17

The entire spawn chunk should be a park, totally agree with this. Four quadrant circle, 4 straight roads leading away from centre.

The surrounding chunks can have the buildings and such, with natural-looking windy roads. I agree the main road should be more clearly marker, with wool or something. We need to do this in Old Arcane as well, drives me bonkers.

Straight clean nether highways for sure.

Rail? Station under the spawn point, only building in spawn chunk. Goes off in the cardinal directions (E,W,N,S), underground until out of spawn park.

We should make these all extend to the limits of the spawn chunk at least, then extend as needed, to farms and new towns/bases/whatever. Nether Highways should be made as long as possible tho.

#18

to clarify a little bit, im not saying these should be the ONLY roads

i think that these should be the MAIN roads
if the city that pops up around the central spawn park has twisting winding roads in it i think thats fine, i think it should be an organic city as well, if people add in auxilariy rails to other towns and builds, or side roads thats good

but for main transportation i think planning it ahead of time now on what we want for a layout of the main roads, rails, and highways for people to get places quickly and easily when they need to is best.

#19

One of the good things about the original Arcane spawn was how genuine, vanilla and natural it looks, and not super planned… I’m not sure planning that much is a good idea…

#20

I don’t think it should be super planned, I just think the main roads should be well defined and not have to many branches off of them. For instance, the south road is nice, but small. There is one decently clear main path, with smaller branches off of it at 90 degree angles. East road and west roads, on the other hand, branch almost immediately and it becomes very unclear which (if any) is the main road. The main roads (three, four, five, however many) can curve and flow with the land (and should, I think straight roads are a bad idea in general), but it should be clear that they ARE the main roads. In my opinion the biggest thing that makes it hard for new people to navigate is not the fact that there are many side paths, or that the roads are winding, but that when you say ‘The ice farm is down the east road’, and they try to follow it, they pretty much immediately have to figure out which of two almost identical branches is the correct east road, and which is an off shoot. The main roads shouldn’t have ‘Y’ intersections in them, all intersections should come off of it at a very close to 90 degree angle so that it is clear which is the main road, or if they do, one branch should be significantly smaller or visually different from the main road.