New Rank Colours!

The new rank colours are now setup and are:

Newbie
Member
Member+
Donator
VIP
Helper
Moderator
Admin

The new Donator rank is not actually available at the moment but the reason for adding it as well as VIP will become clear very soon!

Helpers & Moderators: A new version of the handbooks (v1.68) containing all the permission changes today is now ready for download.

Enjoy!

Scheduled Maintenance

The server is down for scheduled maintenance as follows:

1. Take a full backup/clone - Done
2. Update TekkitRestrict - Done
3. Update 3 mod patches - Done
4. Test updates - Done
5. Switch to new rank colours and add new ranks (more details coming soon) - Done
6. Permissions cleanup - Done
7. Test colours are applied correctly and ranks promote in correct order - Done
8. Tweak auto-promote plugin - Done
9. Make around 30 changes to permissions, specifically relating to Staff ranks - Done
10. Test permission changes - Done
11. Clear out some old and redundant data - Done

The work is complete and the server is now available again!

Crashes & Build Backups

Ok so I'm guessing most people have noticed that the downtimes because of chunk errors have suddenly got a lot more frequent, particularly the ones that shut down the server until I can fix them manually. Please bear with me, we just need to put up with it long enough to transfer over to the new world, time seems to be running out faster than I'd hoped though.

If you are Member or above then please get a room in the The Vault asap if you haven't done so already!

We are now ready to start creating schematics of buildings for players, if you'd like a building moved just place a gold block at opposite corners of what you want copied (think of them as opposite corners of an imaginary box)  and open a Modreq request, or ask a Helper to open one for you.

Tatankore has built an example at Spawn if you're unsure about where to place the gold blocks.

If you need something copied that extends below ground then place the gold block for the bottom corner at ground level and  put a sign on one the blocks telling us how many blocks to expand down from that. 

Please be aware that;

1. Computer programs are not copied with the computer, however you can back them up to disk, disk contents should copy over successfully if stored in The Vault.
2. Alloy wire is likely to need replacing after pasting your build into the new world.
3. Buildings containing mini-blocks cannot be rotated or moved after the initial paste without issues.
4. Builds containing non-vanilla chests, condensers & filters etc still containing items cannot be rotated or moved after the initial paste due to the possibility of major lag spikes.
5. Vanilla chest contents will be copied over with the build successfully in most cases, although some Tekkit specific charge data etc may be lost. 
6. Alchemy bags may transfer, no guarantees but it wouldn't hurt to put less valuable items in them if you don't have anywhere else to put them etc.
7. There is a possible transfer limit of 1 build (max 71x71, or 101x101 for Member+)  per player if  time becomes more of an issue, so please assume for now that you can only take 1 build or get your request in early if you'd like to transfer more than 1.
8. The bigger and more complex the build (especially factories) the less chance of successful transfer.

The world switch will happen by 16th December.

But if the chunk issues get any more frequent it could be several days earlier!

I'll post updates here so watch this space!

World Switch - Please Read Carefully!

There's a lot of misinformation going around regarding the impending world switch so as things are coming together now I thought I'd clarify things.

Yes we are switching to a new world very soon, this is currently planned to happen no later than December 16th to avoid having to do it over the main Christmas holiday dates. With Tekkit Classic in particular it's inevitable that this will have to happen eventually and under the circumstances ours has actually lasted much longer than your average server. The problem is that two 'full sized' worlds would push us beyond our maximum backup size and so create storage and performance issues (our backup size would inflate to almost 10GB) so unfortunately it will not be possible to run the old and new worlds at the same time.

I'm trying to look at this as an opportunity, for the server to survive past January many changes are required, specifically when it comes to automation, so I'm using this switch as a chance to make fundamental changes to that end, I'll post a full list once all the details are worked out. 

In the long term this switch could actually be a blessing in disguise as it makes some other necessary changes easier to implement.

It's a lot to take in but please go over this information carefully and ask a Member of staff for clarification if you are not sure about anything!

What should I do now?

Carry on as usual!

If you're Member rank or above get a room in The Vault asap and store items you want to transfer to the new world, the suggested way to transfer maximum EMC is to condense any 'extra' items into RM Furnaces and store those.

Don't dismantle your builds just yet! You may have heard of WorldEdit Schematics, this tool enables us to save players builds as a small file, effectively letting us copy and paste builds between the old and new world. I will personally be doing this for VIP's asap and will announce details shortly of other staff that will be able to do this for Member & Member+ players very soon. 

What can I keep and what will I loose?

Any items can be stored in The Vault, no new items will be added to the banned item list (in fact some are coming off) so you don't need to worry about that.

Alchemy Bag contents may or may not be successfully transferred, they can be flakey at the best of times so I can't guarantee anything in this regard. By all means store items you can't fit in the vault in Alchemy Bags but don't be surprised if you loose some or all of those items when we switch. Storing an Alchemy Bag in The Vault is doing just that, storing the Alchemy Bag, not it's contents!

Player data will have to be reset. Because of the way locations are stored in player data this will have to be sacrificed, including economy balances, however with the economy still being relatively young I think we should look at the last couple of months as a trial run, the economy will have more uses after the switch which will give players new goals to aim for, I think everyone will enjoy the changes.

All players will be given a cash bonus (amount yet to be decided) when we switch to kickstart the economy, you can also transfer money to the new world by storing Industrial Diamonds.

Finally, if you know of any players that are unlikely to make it on over the next couple of weeks but are likely to want to transfer items or a build etc, then please get them to take a look at this post asap so they have time to try and get something sorted out.

Old Promotion System Removed

The old promotion system has been completely removed as the new one is working out fine and catching everyone that had been missed, please be aware that the requirements for Member rank have changed slightly and is now configured as:

A minimum of 15 minutes play time on 7 different days.

From Monday all players will be able to check progress towards Member rank accurately themselves, all staff will also be able check the progress of individuals or all players online with a simple command.

Scheduled Downtime On Monday

There will be another another scheduled downtime  on Monday for what are hopefully the last of the major technical changes in preparation for January.

1. Take a full backup/clone.
2. Update TekkitRestrict.
3. Update 3 mod patches.
4. Test updates.
5. Switch to new rank colours and add new ranks (more details coming soon).
6. Permissions cleanup.
7. Test colours are applied correctly and ranks promote in correct order.
8. Tweak auto-promote plugin.
9. Make around 30 changes to permissions, specifically relating to Staff ranks.
10. Test permission changes.
11. Clear out some old and redundant data.

Downtime Monday;
Start:    9:00am (UK)
Finish:  10:30am? (UK)