Pull Request

Essentials is now a dependency.
Added integration with Essentials Economy: you now gain chunk credits by spending Essentials money. The command is /chunk buy. Prices are calculated per-player according to a complex formula, devised by myself and msoulworrier. Implementation is in ChunkClaim.onCommand(). For reference, here is the formula in its current form:



let x be the total chunks a player owns, including unclaimed ones
let m be the price index
let f(x) be the price of the next chunk
f(x)=me^{.753(.6542x)}+4



Notice the "+4" at the end of the formula. We* decided that the starting amount of chunk credits will and should not be sufficient for most players, forcing the majority of players to use the Essentials economy to achieve normal gameplay. By definition this means low barriers to entry, so I recommend you leave the starting credits at a low number. By default it is 4.

As you can see, the formula is exponential in nature. The point is, we assume the player's income will compound as he/she acquires in-game capital. Given that assumption, it would be unreasonable to offer chunk credits at a flat rate (even adjusted for inflation). The point here is that if you want more chunks, you need to make a lot more money. The current formula will become unreasonably difficult to live with after about 30 chunks. It is my opinion that a player deserving more than 30 chunks can work out a settlement with the administration**, and will be "an exception to the rule". The default maximum is 27.

You may be wondering what a price index is. Like real life price indexes, it is a modifier in the formula that adjusts for inflation in the economy. The price index is publicly viewable to players, much like real life. This is accomplished by the command /chunk index. It is designed to be set on a regular basis by the administration: monthly, weekly, daily, or even every few hours. This is accomplished with the command /chunk index [new number]. I would imagine an administrator doing so after looking at the global stocks (many people check stocks daily), and modeling the day's price index after that. The index could technically be negative or zero, but it was not designed to do so and may have undesired consequences. Changing the index does not require a /reload. There is also a file to manually change the index (which would require a reload).

As for tests, I tested the plugin and it works flawlessly on craftbukkit, have not tested on FTB or MCPC+ whatever.

Anything else? Not that I can think of... -Reloque

*when I say we, I mean I might have consulted someone else about it, but the decision was ultimately at my discretion (until now, where it is your discretion)
**I don't... think there is a way at the moment for an administrator to actually give a player another chunk credit. TODO.

NOTE: currently the only way of knowing how much the next chunk costs is by doing /chunk buy. also TODO.