TerraformGenerator is currently marked as an alpha project. That doesn't mean that there are major bugs present all the time, it just means that the plugin is currently under active development for core features, so it will be changing relatively frequently.
Many server owners currently run TerraformGenerator with no major problems. The plugin has generally been stable, so there shouldn't be major bugs that persist for too long. However, because the plugin is in alpha, it is still the server owner's responsibility to fully pre-generate, then check through the world.
Different servers have different requirements, so if you want to deploy TerraformGenerator on a live server, be very prepared to ensure that every requirement that you have is met by the plugin before releasing your server to your player base.
I test the plugin on bare metal, with 3GB ram and an Intel i7 (i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz 2.30 GHz). However, this isn't listed on the spigot page because the plugin is not specially optimised to work on low specs. Additionally, many servers tend to be cloud-hosted, and sometimes server hosts share resources, so their stated resources are not always what you're using. This is especially bad for this plugin as its world generation can be much slower than vanilla's. Solve server load issues regarding world generation by pregenerating.
Q: I installed TerraformGenerator, why is my server crashing/why is my world still vanilla?
A: If you've followed the Getting Started tutorials (1 or 2) and it still isn't working, you should find the startup log of TerraformGenerator, and the reason why it's disabled/not working should be there. You can always join our discord server for further support
Q: Can I use TerraformGenerator with an existing world? Can I update TerraformGenerator/edit config without deleting my world?
A: No, you absolutely cannot. If you deploy TerraformGenerator on an existing world (be it generated with an older version, or by vanilla, or by another generator), new chunks generated in that world risk being out of place. You will see stuff like this:
Note that TerraformGenerator cannot undo generated chunks. This is a mistake that cannot be undone without a backup.
Don't do it.
Q: What is pre-generation and when should I do it?
A: When using terraformgenerator, it is heavily recommended to always pre-generate. The plugin was not designed with live generation in mind.
Pre-generation is pre-emptively generating your world's chunks up to a certain world border that you set, so players don't trigger chunk generation when they play. This is so the plugin will never cause lag in your server's live environment where players are trying to play the game.
Q: How do I pre-generate the world?
A: There are a lot of plugins that can do this, I'll list some of them:
-
Fast Chunk Pregenerator -
/fcp start <radius> [worldName] -
Chunkmaster -
/chm generate [worldName] <radius> -
Chunky -
/chunky shape <shape>,/chunky center <x> <z>,/chunky radius <radius>and lastly,/chunky start
The commands listed can be used. However, we recommend taking a look at their respective wiki/spigot page for more information. Pre-generating the world may take some time and a bit of resources. Don't pre-generate while players are online.
Q: I got an error in the console. What should I do?
A: Depends on the error.
[14:03:15] [Paper Watchdog Thread/ERROR]: --- DO NOT REPORT THIS TO PAPER - THIS IS NOT A BUG OR A CRASH - git-Paper-344 (MC: 1.16.4) ---
[14:03:15] [Paper Watchdog Thread/ERROR]: The server has not responded for 10 seconds! Creating thread dump
[14:03:15] [Paper Watchdog Thread/ERROR]: ------------------------------
[14:03:15] [Paper Watchdog Thread/ERROR]: Server thread dump (Look for plugins here before reporting to Paper!):
If you get this message during pre-generation, you can apply the fix below if it's too spammy.
If you didn't pre-generate, and you're getting this error, go pre-generate. If you did not pre-generate, do not apply the fix below, it will not fix your lag. Pregeneration is the only way to fix lag caused by TerraformGenerator.
You can suppress this stack trace by making the following changes in paper.yml:
watchdog:
early-warning-every: 5000000
early-warning-delay: 10000000
This will effectively disable watchdog. After you're done with all the world generation, turn those settings back to their originals.
The watchdog is meant to detect sources of lag and to stop the server if it detects a long freeze. World generation is already known to be a laggy process, so we don't want watchdog warning us that world generation is laggy. So while pre-generating, it may be a good idea to suppress watchdog, especially if your machine has very little memory or a slow cpu.
If the errors result in players being kicked out because the server is shutting down, or you get an internal error of some sort, you have probably encountered a bug. You can get support and report bugs in discord.
If it looks like paper's watchdog terminated the server and you happened to be pre-generating, you can apply the fix above in server freezes.
If an error is thrown, and it isn't due to paper's watchdog, report it in the discord server for the fastest response.
A note on CraftBukkit
Using TerraformGenerator on a Server running CraftBukkit may not work and could crash the server.
We recommend you use Paper as it improves performance compared to CraftBukkit and Spigot.
Q: I want to make a feature request
A: Use the discord server for it. If one of the devs like the idea, it may be added. Note that there's no guarantee that any requests will be definitively accepted.
Q: What determines the priority of a feature request?
A: Features that are present in vanilla will generally get a higher priority, along with features that are hardwired into vanilla gameplay.
Apart from that, it depends on developer discretion.
Q: Is there an ETA for X feature?
A: TerraformGenerator isn't a full time project by any means, and all the developers working on it are doing it in their own (possibly volatile) free time. As a result, there will not be an official ETA for anything, and any ETAs given are not guarantees or promises.
Q: How can I increase Biome size?
A: Increase biome.biomesection-bitshifts in config. By default (with a value of 7), one biome section is 128 (2 pow 7) blocks wide.
Q: How can I make all structures more frequent?
A: Decrease structures.technical.megachunk.numbiomesections. The default is 4 biome sections wide (1 structure every 512x512 blocks)
Q: Can I remove the plugin after I've pregenerated the world?
A: Structure locating (including eye of enders and cartographers) will break, and biomes that use custom colours will revert back to vanilla colours. If that's fine, you can remove the plugin. Monuments and Pillager watchtowers will continue to spawn their respective monsters even without the plugin.
