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Whane The Whip

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Everything posted by Whane The Whip

  1. I've been asked quite a few times how I managed to keep my server going without any resets and how I'm able to give players a welcome kit and stop them from losing items when they die. Most of the time these questions were asked in-game and it's a bit cumbersome to answer via the in-game chat box (that has vanishing text). My reluctance to explain how I've done certain things has led to the accusation that I'm trying to hoard "secrets". I do in fact want to help, just not when I'm on my server and looking after the welfare of other players. So in this guide I will answer the questions asked of me, and then some. I hope that it will satisfy anyone that needs a jump start on how to run a DS. Nothing in this guide is a secret, a lot of server owners know about the tips and tricks available below. I'm also not an expert and since I can only have 8 players on my server, I have no problem with anyone that wants to use this guide as a template for your own DS, and if you want to add your own tips then post them to this thread, I'm always looking for a way to improve my server. So you want to own a Dedicated Server? The first step to getting a DS is to request access to the DS beta program. You can do that by posting your request in this thread. If accepted, you will then be sent a PM with instructions. Follow those instructions and you can have a DS up and running in under 30 minutes. I'm not going to cover those instructions in this guide since they are already well documented by the Ylands team and other Ylands community members, this guide is for running a server, not installing it. For the sake of clarification, a DS is most often considered to be a 24/7 server, so if you don't have a PC that you can leave on for 24 hours a day running the DS files, with a great highspeed connection (including upload speed) or you are unwilling to rent a hosting service, then you will probably be better off just starting a MP game directly through the Ylands client, for that you don't need any additional software or beta access, just start a new multiplayer game from the Ylands menu. ► Communication: Once you are ready to publish your DS, make it clear to anyone browsing the list of games, where your server is located. Low latency is important for the user experience and if your server is 3000 miles away from the user, then that is going to be a factor. The easiest way to do this is to include location information within the name of your server. For example: Best Server Ever [U.S. East]. You can also be more specific, for example: Best Server Ever [Austin TX]. A key element to running a successful server is to give users the ability to communicate with you outside of the game. You won't always be logged in and even when you are, other players may not be able to find you. If there is an issue, there needs to be a way for them to reach you. A website is great, if you have one. If not, a Discord server works well too, and they are free. At the very least, you should be able to put up a thread for your server here on the Ylands forum, and if there are enough of them, maybe we can even persuade the Ylands team to give us a sub forum for listing and discussing servers (nudge nudge). Then all a user needs to do is search the name of the server here on the forums. You can also include a URL to be visible with the name of your server when viewed within Ylands, it can't be clicked though so try to keep it short and easy to type, perhaps use a URL shortening service like bitly Here is how I did it: Finally, I would recommend using the word "dedicated", "dedi", or "24/7" somewhere within your server listing so that potential users understand that your server will not be shutting down after you log out. Doing this will probably get you more server guests that are looking for long-term communities, though you will always get your fair share of trolls too. But regardless of whether or not to go public or private, it's a good idea to label your server as seen above. ► Explore, Creative, or Editor World? Most worlds you see on the server lists are generated automatically through the DS files. However you can also create an Explore or Creative world directly through Ylands, then copy that save file over to your Server folders, or to your host via FTP. When you choose a standard Explore or Creative world, then your server will reflect this in this list of servers. For example: You will notice that one of the servers in the screenshot above does not indicate that the world is an Explore map, instead it has a custom indicator type. This is done by generating a world using the editor. When you use this method, you can enter a name for your save file, this name will then appear in the column to the right of the server name as seen above. You can do this in the editor by navigating to Games > Settings: Note that there is also the option to store a custom screenshot and description. Both of these also appear on the list of servers when you click on one. So by using the editor, you can really make your server stand out among the others, if you wish. ► Benefits of using the editor instead of an Explore world If you're comfortable using the editor, then you may find that the benefits of hosting a DS generated with the editor are hard to deny. Decide the number of islands on your server (1 - 5) Decide how small or large the islands are (they can be HUGE) Decide how tall islands can be Decide if the islands can include rugged terrain or not Use your own seed to randomize the generation of your world (and preview the seed before generating) Choose your biome The use of Logics... Define your own spawn point (and then build something cool there) Assign welcome items for new players that join (through Roles). You can even include letters in their inventory, perhaps to list rules? Or maybe your website URL? You decide what happens when a player dies, they can keep items, or only equipped gear, or all, or none at all. And you decide where they respawn, which can be different than where they spawned when they joined the server. Create triggers, this can be used for mini-games, quests, or just handing out items. (Note that there is a list of triggers but they don't all currently work in a DS state) The editor is amazing. It gives you the ability to do lots of interesting things with your DS, things that would not ordinarily be available in an early access game, and things that you would usually have to wait for a modder to create for a DS. We get these things already built in, through the editor, and yet there will still be modding down the road. However, there are currently a couple of draw backs to using the editor to create a DS world: 1. When you use a game world made with the editor, your players do not get a protective barrier. For many players this will be a deal breaker. However, it has been stated by BI that the inclusion of a PB within the editor makes sense and that they will "look into it". But for now, you will have to factor this in. 2. There are no caves. In reality, you can easily create caves using the terrain tool. A very complex, deep, and interesting cave can be hammered out in less than 30 minutes. However, in Explore, caves contain crystals but crystals don't naturally spawn there. This means, that if you want your players to have crystals, then you will have to come up with another way. You could manually place them in a cave you create, or anywhere for that matter, it just depends on how much leg work you want to put in. ► How to edit your DS game using the editor Shut down your DS and Ylands. Use Windows explorer to navigate to your game save* file or if you are renting a server, then FTP* to your host. Copy your save file over to your Ylands SaveGames Folder. Launch Ylands, open the editor, then choose your game save found under File > Open then choose the "Games" tab and select your DS game save file. (image below) After editing your file, save it. Copy the newly edited file from your SaveGames folder back to your DS, or FTP it back to your host and choose "Yes" when asked to overwrite it. Launch your DS. Note 1: You don't need any special software to FTP. You can use Windows explorer, just enter the FTP address in the explorer bar. If you get an error, then you may need to configure your PC to allow Windows Explorer to use FTP and you can find tutorials all over the internet, just do a search for "how to use windows explorer to FTP". Note 2: Also note that if you create a DS server using a world generated with the Editor, then you will not be able to edit or add new Logics to a game save file once it has been launched in a DS. Note 3: Your save game folder is found with all of your other primary folders under Steam\userdata\YourSteamId\298610\remote and includes the SaveGames, Compositions, Scenarios, and Share folders. ► Server performance So far, I have found what I believe to be several factors that determine how well your server runs. I'm sure there are more. This is based entirely on my own experience and while I have seen others agree, there may be some points of contention: Specifications of the host Computer The size of the game save file Stuff going on in-game 1. This one is obvious, the better the specs of the host machine, the better the server will run, fast CPU's, fast RAM and plenty of it, the speed of the Hard drive or SSD, connection speed to the internet, etc... 2. The second one I have found to be a major contribution to server performance or lag, especially connection time. Every DS is composed of lots of files, but one specific file is the file that is used to save all of the information that defines the world. This file can get quite large. As more of the world is explored by users, the file gets larger. So if you are running with an Explore map that has 16 islands, the potential for this file size is very large and the larger it is, the more you will encounter odd glitches, bugs, and freezing in-game. This is another reason why I use the editor for generating the world. Currently, my DS only has two islands, however I have made the islands large. The islands are so large that 98% of all 160+ (and counting) guests to my DS that decided to build, only built on one island and for the most part ignore the other island, I'm not even using the largest island choice. But these large twin islands are more than enough for users to find a place to build, even if they want to be off on their own. Even so, it's still far less area to explore than the Exploration map that most of us are aware of. 3. This one is more a less a laundry list of issues, many of which are probably still hidden from us. Many of these items are just a matter of lack of optimization, which often comes later when developing a game. Bugs cannot be overlooked either. The bottom line is that there are tons of factors going on in-game that could be wrecking your server during early access. Here are a few: Using the drill. The drill will rip through your server performance as much as it will through the terrain. Using the terrain tool, esp when painting large sections, like converting dirt to rock when making a cave. I suggest making small, paced edits when using this tool, unless no one else is online. Mining and chopping debri. This stuff piles up fast and users love to leave bark, woodchunks, resin, and dirt all over the place. Not only does it look ugly, but it's just more objects that have to be loaded anytime someone enters a zone that contains them. Placing boats in water. Sometimes the act of placing a boat can lag the entire server until there is a restart. A good indicator of any water related lag/issue is when you experience the water glitch, this is when the water seems to move normally then suddenly races to catch up. Unmanned boats will also be seen struggling to move with the water as apposed to moving fluidly as you would see in a single player game. The more players that are online, the more your server will lag. This isn't as much a RAM issue as it is an early access issue. I've seen some server owners intentionally keep their max player slots down to 5 or 6 to compensate. There is a noticeable difference between 2 users and 8 users logged in and every time someone logs in, you can feel it. There is also a performance conflict when someone is logging in at the same time as another, and when someone is logging in at the same time someone else is logging out. If you ever get stuck logging out, it is probably because someone else was logging in at the same time and the only way out is to force Ylands to shut down. Meanwhile, other players are usually immobile while the server works out the details. The DS does not announce when someone has logging in, but you will still get the message and the longer the server has been running, the more obvious the lag spike. ► How to manage server performance I've seen several DS owners mention that they can't run their server more than a few days without having to reset and start all over again. This is annoying for any DS because the idea behind a 24/7 server is that you can continue to grow the server over time. My DS has had its ups and downs, but over time, I've found that through daily maintenance, the server has managed to last. I'm not necessarily claiming that these are the keys to a better performing server, I'm just saying that this is what I've done, and the server still runs pretty well with most lag being felt near spawn because most people have built there, community style. For this reason I recommend that you place spawn away from where you think players will build, you can decide where to place a spawn point with the editor, but once you launch the server, you can no longer change the spawn location. So in my case, I'm stuck with too much lag at the spawn point so in many cases, new guests have a bad initial experience with lag. This is what I do... 1. I don't use an explore world. The explore world is too large, there is too much to explore and that contributes to lag and the size of the game save file. It's also very difficult to perform clean up of discarded tree and mining debri when the debri could be spread out over the space of 16 islands. If you recall during the early days of Minecraft servers, there was a similar problem and this is why lots of server admins limited the size of their world with a world border. Perhaps in time Ylands will improve with this regard and be able to handle larger worlds. And perhaps in time we will get some convenient commands like /removeall <item> to remove discarded and non placed items like bark and dirt. 2. I restart the server twice a day, every 12 hours. This seems to help a lot. Especially after a busy period in which there were a few hours of max character online at once. My restarts are automated but if it seems like it needs it, I'll do another manual restart here and there. 3. Every two days I perform a corpse cleanup. This seems to help a lot, especially if there are a lot of dead players at spawn. The more players (dead or alive) at server spawn the longer it takes for new users to login and the longer it takes to login, the longer other players are frozen and immobile. BI even mentioned that the dead players situation is an interesting situation and in my view, it's far more complicated than what I'm summarizing here. Currently, the only way to move or delete a corpse, or a player that is still alive, is to use the editor. This means that you have to shut down your server and Ylands, then pull your DS game save file into your Ylands Game Save folder, then open the editor and go to work. This could take 15 minutes, or it could take hours. In my case, my two islands are near each other so I can usually do this in 15 to 30 minutes. I read in another thread that another DS admin spends 2 hours every day to do this on an explore world. Corpse Removal However, it is important to note that if you delete a corpse, then you are also deleting player data on your server. In my case, players don't drop inventory when they die, however, if I delete a player, and they return on another day, then all of their inventory is gone and they don't get a "respawn" choice, they have to restart. However, most servers are setup so that players lose items when they die so for them, this will not be an issue, you will be able to delete the corpse without any interruption to the player. Without death drops, I will typically only delete people still in their whitey tighties. Otherwise I move them to a graveyard that is reserved for corpse cleanup days. I will also move inactive players that are still alive, but have logged out near spawn, or on someones base, assuming I know the people that are building that base (I wonder what they think when the login and see themselves alone in a mass grave of dead players). Live players and corpses alike get in the way of other players that are constructing buildings, so this not only helps with performance, but it helps out your core/active members too. Some players intentionally log out on a doorstep just to troll the owner of the house with their body getting in the way, offline player characters (OPC) are an interesting game mechanic, but it can also be very annoying. 4. I also clean up debri, daily. And yes, I login daily. Even on days I don't feel like playing I will still login during the morning, at around noon, late afternoon, and once in the evening just to make sure there are no issues, that the server does not need a restart, and say hi to the regulars and make sure they don't have any issues. I clean up debri both in-game using the annihilator and also in the editor. And it's more than just mining and tree debri, people do odd things and leave messes sometimes, intentionally and unintentionally, I clean it all up. It not only helps the world to run better, but it makes it look nicer too. 5. I communicate to the core group of players the fact that I perform daily maintenance. This will be encouraging to your core group of players and in turn they will be more careful about leaving debri. Mention specifics to them too, let them know for example that the drill causes lag so that when they use it, they will use it only when needed. 6. Kick and Ban. Lots of players will intentionally troll your server and your members, it's nice to be patient and give warnings, but when you encounter people that clearly play to do nothing more than create problems, then don't be afraid to ban them. These types of people offer nothing of value and contribute to lag and will also do things to intentionally create lag. You may also need to consider handing over admin rights to another trusted user or 2 for the purpose of handling anti-social behavior when you're not around to help. 7. Fix grief. Part of keeping the good ones and getting rid of the bad ones involves repairing grief. You will want the usual set of in-game tools for this and to be able to replace broken blocks. You can give yourself the cube by dropping it next to your character in the editor, then logging in to equip it. You can even go as far as to create compositions for user builds to restore if need be without doing a server wide roll back. No matter how much maintenance you do, you will still get lag and performance issues at varying degrees. The bottom line is how much work you put into creating the world, and maintaining the world. If you just want to let the DS generate the world while you do nothing more, then you can count on your server having a very short life span. Maybe later the DS system will be more forgiving, but for now, attention is your best tool.
  2. Whane The Whip

    Ship+Protected Barrier

    Yes, as stated in my reply, the PB does not protect ships.
  3. Whane The Whip

    0.7: Cheerful Characters (14/02/2018)

    Ref: [Editor] Added "Despawn" action to remove an entity Has anyone figured out how to call this action into play? I can't seem to find it.
  4. Whane The Whip

    Ship+Protected Barrier

    Unless they fixed it, the ship is not protected by the barrier. The barrier will however let you use fast deconstruct when using a hammer, so if you placed blocks on your ship, then pull your ship within the PB boundary, at least that will work... or at least it did in 0.63, have not yet tested with 0.7. Also it's very easy to steal a ship by just breaking the helm and putting your own on it. On MP this is an issue because many players will spend more time and effort on a ship than they will on a base that is protected by a PB. I am very happy though that PB's disallow terrain grief though, this is a big jump in the right direction and that means that a ship parked within a PB border can't be griefed (turned upside down etc) by griefing the terrain... now if we can only protect ships.
  5. Whane The Whip

    0.7: Cheerful Characters (14/02/2018)

    Thanks for clarifying that, I've been curious myself if this would be a future feature or not. I've been working with triggers and paranoid about getting them all right before I launch my 0.7 DS because I know any error with a trigger will mean a wipe when I go back to fix it. Also, thanks for adding the warning in the editor when generating a new world over a current save. In fact there are quite a few improvements and fixes that I've been looking forward to, except for one (pb in the editor) but it's a very good update and I see that I'm going to need to edit my list of issues and wishlist. I am curious if anyone else is experiencing a much longer load up time for Ylands... I get a black screen for a very long time before the Ylands menu pops up. I don't see it as a bug, just curious if anyone else is getting that or not.
  6. Whane The Whip

    Dedicated Server FAQ

    The problem with an early development game and untested/unknown host is that it can be difficult to determine if the issue is the DS or the host. For this reason I recommend always having a local DS for testing purposes too. I.E. if your local host using the same game save file as your rented also crashes, then you may have found a DS bug. If the problem is with your host, then you will have to hammer that out with them.
  7. THE CROW'S NEST (TCN) (Down while updating to 0.7) More Information available on the TCN Website The Crow's Nest is a public Ylands dedicated server (DS) hosted in Los Angeles California. TCN began as a private test server for providing feedback and went public on Sunday Jan 15th. I'm attentive to the server and do all that I can to keep lag and issues to a minimum, but this is still early access so you can definitely expect bugs and performance/optimization issues. TCN is not a default Explore world, it is a custom map generated through the editor. TCN1 (the current map) consists of two islands that are side by side, and much larger than the standard Explore islands. Most of the active players have grouped together near spawn. Since this is a generated world using the editor, the protective barriers (PB or "orb") are not included, this is due to the fact that the PB's are not available in the editor. I'm hopeful that the PB will eventually become available in the editor, but there are benefits to using a custom map that outweigh the orb, and the orb is not currently protecting as well as it could anyway. Here are a few key features of TCN: ► Features: Keep items on death. When you die, be sure to choose the "respawn" option. Your personal inventory is the most secure container you have. Craft the additional inventory containers as soon as you can to get the most out of this feature and to expand your inventory capacity. Welcome kit included in your inventory when you start. This includes clay, iron ore, and a seedbox packed with seeds. There's no need to worry about someone depleting the island of key materials, and no one can take your items through PvP. Automated daily restarts at 4:15am and 4:15pm to help keep the lag beast away. Automated backups every 4 hours. Corpse removal every few(ish) 2 days. Note: Server down time during removal. ► Rules: Regardless of the rules below, if I conclude that you're just here to disrupt other players, then I will ban you for however long I think is appropriate. If I want to talk to you, then that is me giving you a chance to explain your position, and give my position as well, so don't avoid that conversation. Ideally, I prefer for the list of rules to be as small as possible, so this is what we have at the moment: PvP is permitted except for OPC (offline player character) killing and AFK killing. If you go AFK, please sit down on the ground (F4) or in a chair. Anyone logged in but sitting on the ground is assumed to be AFK, even if they are chatting (it's hardly fair to start a fight with someone sitting down). Don't destroy/place blocks on bases that don't belong to you without permission. (Exceptions: gifts, team builds, and open community builds). Don't grief the terrain on or near other player bases. You'll get no warnings with this one. Every player knows this rule because it is included in the letter you get in your welcome kit and anyone doing this knows exactly what they're doing. Do it once, you're banned. No exploits, cheats, or hacks. I realize their are some soft exploits, like infinite iron, but I'm primarily against exploits that disrupt other players or the server. If you're not sure whether or not something is allowable, just ask an admin. Keep things civil. No hateful or racial slurs, or personal insults. When in doubt, treat others as you would have them treat you. If you've been banned, you can request an appeal by sending me a PM here on the Ylands forum, or here. ► Server Wipes: Unscheduled server wipes will only occur if and when extreme performance related circumstances require it. Whenever their is a scheduled or unscheduled server wipe, a copy of the DS save file will be made available for anyone that wants to keep a copy of their work or copy their builds as a composition. The first scheduled server wipe is planned for the release of Ylands 0.7. ► Roll Backs: Any roll backs (due to correcting various issues) are usually only a few minutes back. In a worse case scenario, a roll back could be as far back as 4 hours (unless the issue was older and we didn't catch it sooner). Though automatic backups happen every 4 hours, I also I perform backups before performing any maintenance or testing server content. ► Known Issues: There is intermittent character freezing in which you cannot move your character for several seconds. This seems to happen when someone logs in, or has a failed login attempt. This was supposed to be fixed for the 0.63 release and at first it seemed fixed but for whatever reason, it is back.
  8. Whane The Whip

    The Crow's Nest: [Public Server] [US West Coast] [Dedicated]

    TCN is down while I fiddle with new options in the DS and generate a new world for 0.7. Anything you had on the old map will be wiped. If you want a copy of the old map and you have a build there then PM me here or message me on Discord and I'll give you a copy of the game save.
  9. Whane The Whip

    MischTO, any stuff.

    I love it. And I'm a fan of raised platforms in water too. One day I'd like to do an entire fishing village along a coastline, something similar to what you hinted at in your last image, though imo I think the larger buildings would be further back away from the shore so that the view from the water would show the smaller buildings in the foreground. [EDIT] Like the boat corrales too.
  10. Whane The Whip

    RESOLVED Bug: Underwater fauna on land

    The issue with land sharks has been greatly improved. In the past it was so bad that the number of land sharks would pollute and lag the island. But they still manage to get ashore from time to time. What I find interesting in your case is that you've found a sign that the world may be treating the land as ocean, given that fauna.
  11. Whane The Whip

    Server frustrations

    @handofthesly Nice work. That must have been tedious to determine. If I could give you more than one upvote I would. The fact that the PB is off center is a bit annoying. But I know of at least one additional off center item, the helm control when placed in grid format.
  12. Whane The Whip

    My Catamaran MK III

    These are screenshots from my scenario called "Water World" available at the Ylands workshop. This is the MK III version of a Catamaran that I completed as part of the scenario in which there are no islands and you have to find a way to build an island. Technically it's a Trimaran but most people are familiar with the "Catamaran" so that's what I called it. There is no noticeable decrease in speed and plenty of room to store stuff, I'm only using a fraction of the space available. Give it a test drive or better yet, see if you can build a nice sustainable home made island with what little you have in the boat: https://ylands.net/asset/142 I know everyone is focused on the ships, but I see a lot of potential for this boat. What do you think?
  13. Whane The Whip

    My Catamaran MK III

    The first rendering of that boat was in survival mode: For that I parked the boat along side one of the natural xy lines so that it was perfectly lined up with a set of blocks I had placed on the shoreline. From there I went into first person view to place the windows on the side of the boat using the slight corners of the boat where the curves meet as a marker so that I could be sure to have both sides as even as possible. I also made sure to have the windows going into the boat just slightly. For the opposite side, I literally drove the boat out and then backed it in to the same spot (because my blocks were only on one side) with the same alignment. In survival mode this can still come out quite nice but the real tricky part is clicking to place at the magic moment between the ups and downs of the boat as the waves come in... obviously clear weather is needed. For the Waterworld Scenario I used the editor and it was much easier. With the editor I was able to use grid placement so everything was much more perfect looking than in survival. However I will add that when saving it as a composition I had to save it twice due to that weird color bug that happens when placing compositions. The fix was to correct the color after placement then save another copy of the composition. The lantern on the stick in the editor can be a bit precarious too if that is getting included in your version, in that case I found that it was actually easier to place that lantern on the stick in the game. In the editor the problem seems to be when changing the tilt of the stick... I wanted it to tilt higher so that the lantern was raised up a bit more but for whatever reason, the lantern did not want to attach to the stick when doing that so I ended up with a slightly flat placement of the stick and therefore lower position for the lantern than what I wanted. I'll add one more thing. If you are planning to fly colors attached to the mast, you will find that it wont work as-is because the mast does not register as a solid object. To fix this, you can place sticks inside the mast reaching up to the top and then attach a flag to that top stick. As a side note, this makes the mast appear to be solid and there may be a way to use this to hook it to a ship to pull it in transit, though I have not yet experimented with this. That boat, as simple as it looks, took a surprising amount of time to build lol, both in the editor and in survival mode. But I've always been a slower builder in games like this anyway.
  14. Whane The Whip

    Server frustrations

    Thanks for that. I was fairly certain that 30x30 was off too as I had counted 83 (with the smallest block) in the past but I was planning to do a recount first. I still have not done the recount but on my first (about a month back) I counted 83 with 41 on each side of the PB block.
  15. Whane The Whip

    Co-operation, is it becoming contagious? We hope so

    I'm often surprised at the general approach towards a MP game. It seems that a fair % of people only think to use it to grief other players 100% of the time with most players being neutral and waiting to see how others act. On other occasions, someone approaches MP with the idea of helping other people, that is the rarest approach. It's an interesting mindset because IRL I often hear people say "if I had the power to help everyone in the world I would"... a MP game like Ylands is an opportunity to do just that, but for some reason "helping" suddenly gets changed to "how many people can I screw over". This sounds care-bear, I know. But I do like PvP games a lot, primarily in MMO's with warfare being the objective, but even there one can be supportive of guild-mates.
  16. Whane The Whip

    RESOLVED Map eaten

    Yup, I ate both my map and my pickaxe. And it didn't even help with my hunger issue.
  17. Whane The Whip

    While they were sleeping...

    Try this some time on a 24/7 MP. Plant a tree seed, sit on it, logout long enough for the tree to grow then log back in.
  18. I know it's a low priority but I'm tired of looking like Mark Twain.
  19. Whane The Whip

    Pets

    Those bears are tricksters. Have you learned that if you leave fish on the ground, that bears and boars both will eat them? I learned this by accident in creative when I was working on a fish rack, turned around after hearing an odd sound, to see a bear eating the fish. They will eat both raw and cooked.
  20. Whane The Whip

    Pets

    I put a fence around my house and then spawned a bear inside. But some people would kill them from outside the fence. I'm thinking about building a zoo when 0.7 is out. [EDIT] Bears make great alarms though. They wont give me a second thought with the cube, but when I was nearby, if I heard him growl, then I knew another player was nearby too.
  21. Whane The Whip

    RESOLVED cant start ylands code 500 ? server down ?

    Cool thanks. Populations dipped to 289 but are back up to 349 now. Too bad about the burnout, hopefully nothing too expensive.
  22. When working with triggers in the editor to spawn an entity, defining the position for the entity seems a bit tedious. There is a coordinate system that allows me to express the x,y,z position relative to the trigger, or absolute. Perhaps I'm doing this wrong but I've been placing a copy of the entity as a marker at the location(s) I wish for them to spawn and then clicking that item to get the coords, it looks like this: Then I copy each individual coordinate one at a time and paste into the trigger options. Also, this means I'm using absolute positioning and when you are spawning 4 stacks of items at various nearby locations, there is noticable in-game lag compared when the trigger is hit compared to if I spawned the items in relative to the trigger. To do this, I need to not only copy each individual XYZ coord of my marker one at a time, but I also need to do some math to get the offset from the trigger, which is even more time consuming. And looking at the screenshot above, there appears to be a copy/paste icon to the right of the coords which tells me that I should be able to copy all 3 coords at once but nothing I do to interact with that icon seems to do anything. Am I doing this right or did I miss the efficient way? It seems like I should be able to use the default 0,0,0 coord then drag a spawn indicator to the location I want the item to spawn with a line connecting the entity and the trigger point. At the very least it would be nice if I could get those clipboard icons to work somehow. Any help is appreciated.
  23. Whane The Whip

    The Editor: Coordinate system when spawning entities

    Thank you! That's going to be a huge time saver.
  24. Whane The Whip

    RESOLVED cant start ylands code 500 ? server down ?

    Getting the same. It's like Saturday all over again. But it looks like it just hit within the hour as the steam chart still looks okay, the next tick is in 5 minutes. [EDIT] Oh yeah this is in the middle of an up trend but went from 380 users to 319 disrupting the trend.
  25. Whane The Whip

    I call it: Life... and death.

    Living and dead art? Okay, not necessarily a "creation". These are some of the players from my DS that I made into a composition and then planted near a mountain. It may seem macabre, but I think it would make a nice painting to display in-game. [EDIT] Can't wait for new avatars.
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