EntityControl

Track and manage entities.

In its current incarnation, EntityControl does the following in a simple manner:

• Count all entities in a specified world, either from in-game or from the console. (/ec count)
• Groups entities by type within chunk-aligned 16x16x16 boxes and list all such groups in descending order by the number of entities. (/ec list)
• Allow teleportation to groups. (/ec tp #)

Entities are counted when /ec count is run, and information about entity groups is retained for use by /ec list and /ec tp until the next count is run.

Commands

Note that when running /ec from the console, the world defaults to "world" (if a world of that name does not exist, you must explicitly specify the name of the world to operate in).

• /ec help - Show usage help.
• /ec reload - Reload the configuration. Requires permission entitycontrol.admin.
• /ec debug - Toggle debug logging.
• /ec count [<world>] - Count entities in the specified world, or the player's current world if not specified.
• /ec list [<world>] - List entity groups in the specified world or the player's current world.
• /ec tp [<world>] id - Teleport to a group by its 1-based ID, in an optionally specified world.

Permissions

• entitycontrol.admin - Permission to administer the plugin (e.g. /ec reload).
• entitycontrol.user - Permission to use entity-related commands.

Planned Enhancements

The current implementation of EntityControl is very simple. The entire world is counted in the same tick that the command is run. With around 4000 chunks loaded, this takes between 15 and 25 milliseconds, with the server stalled for the duration. In order to avoid this pause, in a future version, /ec count will start a task that counts entities over several ticks (e.g. at most 1ms of counting per tick) rather than all at once.

Other desirable features include:

• Better command line syntax for specifying worlds: use -w world to simplify the code for handling these arguments.
• ITEM_FRAME and ARMOR_STAND filtered from /ec list by default. These could be re-included by the -a (all) flag.
• Per-user-session /ec list results (currently the count and list information is shared by all users. When different users can elect to filter the list differently, it becomes necessary to remember how each user filtered it in order to implement numbering of groups for /ec tp correctly.
• The ability to remove entities by type either within a local area, or with a box centred on specified coordinates. The latter facility would be used to remove excessive entities (possibly even from the console) in situations where it is not possible to get near them due to client lag.
• Find named entities by name and tamed mobs by owner, map-wide.