Frequently Asked Questions

#### Q: What is this game's theme?

A: 17th- to 18th-centruy nautical, with a couple exceptions. I've introduced an "advanced" race to "explain" why players have to use special blocks (etc) to make their ships go, essentially explaining that ships are powered by esoteric technology. There is also an ordinary race/faction that exists that's about 50-100 years ahead of the rest of the world (i.e., late 18th to 19th century).

#### Q: What is the age-appropriateness of this server?

A: Expect some swearing, maybe SOME graphic language, but it's expected that players keep it to a minimum. Hate speech is right out, and site admin(s) determine what that means and what it doesn't. Hopefully most things are common-sense (i.e. don't use the N word, other racial slurs, no homophobic/transphobic slurs or behavior, etc). We would prefer players to keep the outside world out of Oceanica, though we generally understand how topics can crop up, so this is more a guideline than a rule. Generally, expect this server to be geared for 18+.

#### Q: What's the game's difficulty setting?

A: Technically, it's set to "Normal;" but there are some features on this server that make the "Normal" setting kind of moot. There are tiers of mobs (based on difficulty) that spawn depending on how "difficult" the biome is that you're in. If I were to really say what the equivalent difficulty is, I'd say it's "Hard." But, only for areas away from spawn.

#### Q: How many bugs are there in the game?

A: Not sure yet. The game is still technically in beta. I know of a few bugs. Being that it's just me right now building/coding/testing, there are a lot of multi-player features that are untested, namely boss encounters and some PvP stuff. Also, since a lot of stuff is just in its testing phase, players may end up getting extra messages on their screen they may not understand. As I pick apart each feature and ensure it's working properly, those "debug" messages will go away. As I discover bugs, I've been putting them on the To-Do list page.

#### Q: Why so many mods (game modifications)?

A: To give this world as full and rich an experience as possible. A lot of the RPG features would not be possible without these mods. There is also a couple "custom" mods I put together that add special items to the game; namely, certain foods (and their effects), minerals, and other decorative items.

I understand that SOME people create mods/files/etc as phishing bait. You are welcome to test both 'soupamod' (yes I know the name sucks) and 'beermod' at virustotal.com. I think you may find that site useful for many things (if you're as big a nerd as I am).

#### Q: I found a bug. Wat do?

A: Use the #bug command. It will help you report the problem. Usage: Enter chat (default key 't') and type #bug <problem>. Please be as detailed as possible. The #bug command will log who issued the command and that player's location as of the time of reporting.

#### Q: How stable is the server?

A: So far, so good. It hasn't crashed yet. Clients may crash out or get disconnected, but I guess that's not terribly unusual. But the server itself has been rock-solid. SO FAR

#### Q: How many players can be online at once?

A: The hardware isn't amazing, but it's decent. If the server is idle, it uses 1-3% CPU. One player brings the average up to 8%. Two brings it up to 12% usage. I suspect the server can handle up to 20 players (the current configured maximum), but I'm sure there will be some server lag at that point. With 2 players (so far), the game still runs very close to 20 ticks per second, unless I have a big script running, such as the Autospleef board resetting script. Autospleef!, when resetting, can cause HUGE lag spikes and some disconnects.

#### Q: Just from reading this wiki, your server doesn't look like it's geared towards builders... is it?

A: Yes and no. You're welcome to build \*almost\* anywhere. Just read the rules, don't try to interfere with anyone else's stuff (or structures, etc, used by the game), and keep to the theme. The extra elements are for when you get bored of building. Hell, if you build something that really meshes with the server, it might be incorporated into it (i.e., questlines leading there, special shops or items, etc). I plan on incorporating a voting system for players to use to determine whether another player's build should be the main part of the game.

#### Q: What about 'machines' or farms (i.e., automated fish farms, iron farms, etc)?

A: Well..... I'm not going to stop anyone from doing that. It doesn't really affect the game economy since (a) the commodity exchange wouldn't be affected and (b) the higher-tier items--value-wise in pennies--can't be farmed, at least easily (i.e., platinum and etherium for example). As long as the farms don't stick out and are built to mesh with the theme of the server, and don't cause too much lag, it shouldn't be a problem.

#### Q: Do you need builders/help building?

A: Yup, but I want to keep to the theme. To be quite honest, a lot of my builds are pretty generic; so if you're into building 17th-century nautical-themed stuff, let me know.

#### Q: I built something out in the Wild but don't want to lose it. Wat do?

A: There are no guarantees to players keeping anything they've built (with a few exceptions...land claims are generally permanent as they are tracked on a database separately outside of Minecraft proper). Backups are kept, and incremental backups are done every 30 minutes or so. If your stuff gets griefed AND it's determined to NOT be "role-played" (i.e., someone finds a flaw and exploits it to do a lava cast, or something like that), AND you report it within 5 or 6 days, I \*should\* be able to restore whatever region it's in. That does mean that anyone else who has stuff near your location will have their work rolled back, as well. So, keep that in mind.

#### Q: How do you make all these "special features" work? I.e., custom commands, skills, etc

A: They are all possible thanks to the CustomNPCs API. Essentially, any features/capabilities/etc you see that aren't directly attributed to a Forge mod or vanilla Minecraft are all written in a scripting language that the API interprets and handles. The coding is primarily done in javascript/ECMAscript, though there is some legacy code done in Python. There are also offline scripts (not running in Minecraft but on the host itself) that do some maintenance, namely the script that calculates new commodity prices for the exchanges.

#### Q: Are these scripts available to the public?

A: Sure, once I have them ironed out well enough. I usually post some of them on CustomNPC's scripting Discord server (just look for xanadian9001...there are also plenty of other amazing scripts to be found). If/when I release scripts, they come *without warranty*. These scripts are geared to specific things (events/objects/variables) to Oceanica. Anyone who gets their hands on them would have to tweak them for their own servers. I won't have the time to help. So you would have to really *really* know ECMAscript (and probably Python).

#### Q: Why do you have so many locations (towns, etc) spread so far apart?

A: The very original intent of the game was for people to come online, build ships, and race them. That meant that the first 2 towns (Cartisport to the east, Alpion to the west) would have to be far enough apart to keep it interesting (about 8,800 meters, or 550 chunks). By ship (if constructed using Valkyrien Skies items), the trip takes about 10-12 minutes. At any rate, then I figured, well, one race course wasn't enough...and it was pretty much a straight shot. The first race course also had shoal water (shallow areas) to make it a little more interesting. I added 2 or 3 more courses to distant towns that had their own themes. One was an Oriental theme, the other was a dwarven city where the contestants had to navigate their ships into an underground canal to reach the finish line. From there, things kind of snowballed.

#### Q: What do you mean by "snowballed"?

A: Instead of a Minecraft world where you just raced ships, I added questlines, a story line, a combat system, a commodity exchange system, different cultures with their own backstories, a skill system, etc. So, yeah. Snowballed. I went a little hog-wild with the world.

#### Q: Speaking of racing ships, are there any awards for winning a race?

A: It's pretty limited right now. So far, you win in-game prizes, such as coin and maybe special items. Same with the PvP arenas.

#### Q: Do you plan on ever updating to a Minecraft version greater than 1.12.2?

A: As soon as all the critical mods are updated. Both these mods need to be the same version...ideally up to 1.16, of course (both of these mods are currently in development for 1.16.x, so once there are working versions of both, you bet your \*%# we'll update to 1.16!!):

* Custom NPCs: latest version 1.13 (**working on 1.16.x!!!)**
* Valkyrien Skies: latest version 1.12.2 (**working on 1.16.x!!!)**

The following mods aren't critical, but would be nice to have at a later version:

* Biomes-O-Plenty: latest version 1.16.4 (so, this one's good to go)
* Coros Weather2: latest version 1.12.2
* AutoPlant (or equivalent): latest version 1.12.2
* Villager Trades (or equivalent - to customize villager trades uniformly): latest version 1.12.2

#### Q: Can I "win the game"?

A: Right now, no, not really. Ultimately, there is a reward for when you kill the final boss and finish the main quest line (i.e., "win the game"), but I'm nowhere near completing that part of the server yet. The reward consists of a special vendor vendor (a vendor that sells vendors that you can put in your town) and a special land claim item that allows you to build either a large town or city somewhere outside of the Known Realms (20k blocks from the center of the game) with **you** as its sole owner (I'll have to figure out a way to allow multiple people to build in someone's land claim if they have permission). You can build to your heart's content; and as mentioned in the "can I build on this server" question, if it's good enough and thematic enough it could be integrated into the game. Again, the rules still apply: it must keep with the overall theme of the game unless you can make a really good pitch to the site owner. For example, there is a civilization far to the north that is integrated with the theme of the game, but its level of technology is closer to the 19th century. And, of course, there are beings in the world that come from "elsewhere" that have advanced technology. I use them, though, to "explain" why you need special blocks (from Valkyrien Skies) just to build a sailboat. Again, if it can be integrated into the theme, it's game.