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Minecart chunk loading for long travels

Whenever I play with minecarts I always need to think about their travel distance since if they travel too far they might get stuck in unloaded chunks and not do their job.

So i was wondering, what if minecarts could load chunks? Like it could load a 3x3 chunk grid around itself (so to prevent not loading chunks fast enough while traversing chunk borders). But only minecarts in movement, so to prevent lag caused by minecarts with chests found in mineshafts.

This could allow minecart networks that stretch for very long distances and a new player will not be confused on why their minecart stopped for no reason.

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  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    I had the same thought! I think this would make mining more fun and interesting. When branch mining, your inventory gets full quickly and you have to travel all the back to your storage system to deposit all the cobble and resources you've gathered, or leave the cobblestone on the floor to despawn. Even if you bring empty shulker boxes you're bound to run out of inventory space eventually.

    On my survival world, I was going to set up a minecart rail to carry minecart-chests back to a storage system so I can keep mining uninterrupted. Imagine how cool that would be! Unfortunately, I'm hesitant to continue building this system because I know eventually my storage will be outside the chunks I'm loading and the minecart won't get all the way back.

    If minecarts could load chunks I could see people using minecarts for actual mining with a system similar to what I described.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    maybe there could be a minecart chunk loading limit to further reduce lag
    you also would want to stop people from using this as just a way to load chunks so maybe in the minecarts travel it cant be in a small loop.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    Since there is already the dynamic of chunkloading via commands (/tickingarea), you could simply latch on to this concept and implement a sort of dynamic ticking area.

    Since there already exists a maximum cap of 10 permanently loaded areas (4 chunks radius maximum each) via the tickkingarea command, giving minecarts the permission to occupy one of these slots would be the way to go. By doing so, a maximum of 10 loaded minecarts would be possible, therefore limiting the possibility of abuse, while at the same time having the ability to send stuff along the rail tracks. Skilled players could get very creative with this dynamic, as this would enable the possibility for sending long range redstone signals as well.

    I am currently building a project with friends of mine, outside render/simulation distance of our main base. Sending building supllies from A to B is very exhausting since you need to hitch a ride every time you want to send stuff. Therefore the mechanic is already useable, but with a player character as "dynamic chunk loader", taking away the fun it could provide.

    I imagine a scenario where you are able to build a sort of redstone databus, which gives the command to auto load predefined items into a storage cart and have it return to the building site. Since this would surely require advanced expertise i do not see any balance issues. (at least none that are as op as the iron farm lol)

    All of the above is based on experience made on minecraft bedrock realms.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    Have active furnace minecarts load chunks. This would limit how much chunk loading was going on as well as giving furnace minecarts more of a use.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    In general there needs to be an overhaul of how events in unloaded chunks are handled. The current model of "anywhere too far from the player is totally frozen" really limits our creativity in making automated builds that are actually useful. At least for me, this is a major hurdle to playing Minecraft to my best enjoyment, since my playstyle consists in going on adventures far away and returning to my base.

    Ideally, this would be some kind of generalized solution that doesn't require hacky chunk loader blocks (like in mods) or just simulating everything, which would obviously be too slow. As a starting point, it could be made so that blocks that have been seen by the player from up close which would reasonably be expected to do something while far away (EG crops that grow, minecarts that move) are added to a separate simulation list and simulated individually (rather than with their entire chunk, to save on resources). When the chunk the block is in is re-entered, its state is updated to whatever it is supposed to be. This would also apply across dimensions.

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Here after they made ender pearls load chunks. They should definitely do the same for minecarts. It would be amazing for servers. We could make mail systems!

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    They could add a new minecart. A copper minecart, a trap chest Minecraft whatever and only those load chunks. Obviously minecarts shouldn't generally do that since that would load so many farms all the time.

    They could have a different speed limit too to improve performance. I dont mind waiting - knowing it works reliably and the minecarts arrive would be cool enough