Suggested name: LivingForest What I want: I'd like a plugin that would totally change the way trees are grown and chopped down in minecraft. Basically forests would have a life of their own, they would regrow and die on their own; you would no longer need to or be able to plant saplings manually. Trees will grow from a small "fern" into a tall mature tree. In the rest of this description, I will use square brackets [like this] to represent values that I'd like admins to customize in the plugin. They could be fixed values like "5" or a range of values with different probabilities like "25% 4, 50% 5, 25% 6" Tree Growth: Every once in a while, a tall mature tree would spawn [some number] of little "baby saplings" (re-textured ferns) randomly within a radius of [some number] around the mother tree on grass and dirt blocks only, which would eventually grow into large mature trees. Details: Ferns would need to receive rain within [some number] of days, or they would despawn. Ferns would also have to be in direct sunlight (no leaf blocks over them), and have at-least [some number] of their surrounding 8 blocks be directly exposed to the sky; otherwise they would despawn (die). If the ferns were exposed to rain, then [some number] of days later they would grow into spruce saplings (re-textured as a smaller version of normal saplings). Once again the saplings would need to receive rain within [some number] of days, or they would dry up and be replaced with a dead shrub. The dead shrub would despawn after [some number] of days. If the saplings received rain, then [some number] of days later they would grow into normal saplings. Again they must receive rain within [some number] of days or they would dry into a dead bush. If they got that rain, they would finally grow into a small tree (EDIT: I'd like small trees to be made of fence blocks instead of wood blocks). Once they are at this phase, they can no longer dry out and die. The tree would now grow every [some growth rate] until it becomes a full sized mature tree and spawns new saplings of its own! After rain, the growth rate would be multiplied by [some number]. Designing the trees at different "ages" would be a difficult task. There could be many different versions of an "age 4" tree, etc. I propose "age 1" would just be 1 wood log block with 1 leaf block on top. But ideally you could customize this. *also, ferns should have a chance of dying if they are stepped or jumped on by a mob or player (customizable). *I would like to be able to customize the age at which a tree changes from skinny (fence posts) to normal wood. *EDIT: I would like saplings to be able to be collected in their small stage (after ferns) using a shovel. They would still require water "twice as soon" if they were stored in the inventory. After that, they would disappear. Tree Death: Trees would have to eventually die! There could be different causes of death, including: lightning, logging, old age, etc. That's all that comes to mind now. Dead trees would fall down and decay... Details: I'd like the admin to control which things could cause tree death. Old age could mean how many times a mature tree spawns new baby trees around it. For logging, I'd like the tree to be "dead" once the very bottom log is broken. Only an axe could do this (customizable). Other parts of the tree could not be logged; only the very bottom log. Once a tree is "dead" by whatever means, it would fall over. If it was mined by a player, it should fall either in their direction, or opposite of their direction (customizable). The fall direction could be limited to one of the 4 directions (North, South, East, West) or on any of the 360 degrees (cuztomizable, allowing degrees would make it lok more zig zaggedy, but more natural). Making a tree fall would be difficult, so I'm not exactly sure how it would happen. Maybe have a tnt effect happen 1 or 2 blocks below where the tree falls, so there would be some "dust" from the fall? After the fancy part, you would be left with the fallen logs (sideways now) and the leaves. Then it gets interesting. Tree Decay: Fallen trees and leaves would decay. If there was no rain, they would dry up becoming a slightly lighter color (re textured birch tree logs). As the leaves dried, they would turn into a smaller number of darker leaf block that looked like sticks. If the fallen tree got rained on, it would turn wet (a darker, re-textured spruce log). The leaves would also turn a darker more dirty color (re-textured leaf block). If the fallen tree went through [some number] of rains, it would begin to decay. Details: Decaying leaves would quickly disappear. Some of the blocks would disappear and have sponge (this would be pretty rare) replace the block under them, which would be re-textured as rotting decayed wood. Some logs would be replaced by spider webs, and brown mushrooms could grow nearby. Some vines could cover the remaining logs. If the sponge was mined, it would drop as a obtainable item 1 block above where it was, and its old location would return to be whatever block it was before it was replaced by the sponge. The sponge could then be crafted into fertilizer/ bone meal. After all the wood disappears, then the spider webs would be the first to disappear. Then the sponge would disappear, and create lots of tall grass around where it was (similar to how right clicking bone meal on grass does now). Lastly the mushrooms would disappear if there wasn't any sponge remaining near them. Normal, dried, and wet logs can all be collected once they are on the floor. Only dried logs could be crafted into wooden planks, as well as be placed vertically/ horizontally on demand. The other logs would only be placed horizontally, and would only dry if exposed to direct light for [some number of time]. Normal leaf blocks could be mined, but would have a low chance to drop sticks. Dried leaf blocks would give much higher chances of dropping sticks (more economical). Wet leaf blocks would not give anything when broken. It would be rare to find them, as they would be very quick to disappear anyways. Tall Grass: Tall grass would spread on dirt and grass blocks, similar to how the old mushroom spreading worked. Details: It would have a pretty far range to grow new grass spontaneously (customizable). There would be a limit to the number of tall grass that can be in an area (customizable), so as to prevent too much growth in one area. Note: In order for this plugin to work, and make the wood have the different colors, we would have to have a world with only one type of tree. So no jungle trees or oak trees or birch trees growing in the natural world. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to take to have my forests grow on their own though. Ideas for commands: I'm not really sure about commands. Maybe have some so an admin can change in-game many of the different variables that I discussed, to get an ideal rate of tree regrowth for their server. Ideas for permissions: I don't even know what permissions are. When I'd like it by: No rush, but I have plans to make a server and I would love to have this plugin on my server. Other: Even from my very limited understanding of Bukkit, this seems like a daunting task. There would be lots of work, and this plugin could be very resource intensive. That is why I think this plugin needs to be written with maximum efficiency in mind. I'd really appreciate if someone could get this to work with the least possible amount of resources. From what I know, this plugin seems like it could be doing stuff over time, not all at once. So maybe it wouldn't cause too much lag if done correctly. Good luck and thanks to anyone who supports this idea or takes the plunge to try it out!
The owner of the server I play on has a mod that makes dropped saplings turn into real blocks after sitting there for a minute. Forests regrew pretty consistently.
