This page describes what you need to know about chunks management, more specifically for InstanceContainer
Load/Save Steps
When trying to load a chunk, the instance container does multiple checks in this order:
- Verify if the chunk is already loaded (stop here if yes)
- Try to load the chunk from the instance IChunkLoader using IChunkLoader#loadChunk (stop here if the chunk loading is successful)
- Create a new chunk and execute the instance ChunkGenerator (if any) to it to generate all of the chunk's blocks
When trying to save a chunk, IChunkLoader#saveChunk is called
Default behavior
BasicChunkLoader is the default chunk loader used by all InstanceContainer, it does make use of the storage location of the instance (WARNING: will not work if the storage location is null)
I still cannot join the instance
Even if your instance is able to load chunks it doesn't mean that it will do so automatically. However, you can configure it to do so with the following:
instanceContainer.enableAutoChunkLoad(true);
It is required because some servers could prefer to have complete control over which chunks are loaded, in order to save memory or for performance purpose.
Create your own chunk type
Chunk is an abstract class, you can simply create a new class extending it to create your own implementation.
Making your own chunk implementation allows you to customize how you want blocks to be stored, how you want chunks tick to happen, etc...
How to make my instance use my implementation
If you are using a simple InstanceContainer with the default IChunkLoader you will just need to change the instance's chunk supplier
instanceContainer.setChunkSupplier(YOUR_CHUNK_SUPPLIER);
It will be called when a chunk object needs to be provided.