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Comment by lalos | Hacker News Reader

Might as well add forest fires, in theory forests should get dryer (longer time under packed ice, hotter summers). Don't know if this mechanism exists on the game.

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There are no concepts of seasons in MC, just day/night cycles. There is weather and some relationship of weather to biomes. I think that's it.

I wonder how it handles unloaded chunks.

It will be a challenge to efficiently implement all of the in-game mechanics, especially to unloaded chunks. My ideas so far are to apply most of the effects once a chunk is reloaded, but I could also queue some changes to be applied later - even reloading the chunk to make some changes.

Could you keep some running score of the entire carbon footprint of the current chunk? Then if the player moved into a new chunk, you would use the old chunk's last score as having some effect on the current chunk?

I guess that wouldn't account for continued tree growth or burning in the chunk you just left though...

It's been a while, but my recollection is that forest fires can get started by exposed lava flows/pits or by lightning strikes. What's missing is variation in how easily fires are ignited and spread, ie. there's no biome-dependent dryness factor being applied to the fire mechanics.

Forest fires would spread forever for a while back in Alpha:

https://twitter.com/notch/status/72582596294483969

We all burned at least one house down.

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