Aluna's Chunk Loaders

Place a chunk loader, right-click it, and pick exactly which chunks stay active from an in-world map grid. Your farms, furnaces, mob grinders, and redstone keep running even when you're on the other side of the world (or logged off). Four tiers, a clean visual picker, per-player limits, and it survives server restarts.

✨ Features

Pick chunks visually. Right-click a loader to open an in-world grid centered on it. Each cell shows a live map preview of that chunk's terrain, so you always know what you're keeping loaded. Click to toggle — green = loaded.
Real ticking, not just loading. Loaded chunks fully simulate: block entities, crop growth, redstone, and (optionally) mob spawning — exactly as if a player were standing there.
Four tiers, from a single chunk up to a 7×7 area.
Shared access. Any player can open and manage any loader — great for team bases and SMPs.
Per-player limits. A configurable cap (default 256 chunks per owner) keeps performance in check.
Survives restarts. Loaders and their selections persist and re-activate when the world loads.
Polished art. Animated pulsing cores, emissive glow (with Continuity/OptiFine), and full LabPBR materials (normal + specular) so they shine under shaders.
No client required for the loading itself — but install on clients too for the configuration GUI.

🧱 The Tiers

Tier	Area	Chunks	Crafted from
Chunk Anchor	1×1	1	8× Iron Ingot + 1 Ender Pearl
Chunk Beacon	3×3	9	8× Gold Ingot + 1 Chunk Anchor
Chunk Pylon	5×5	25	8× Diamond + 1 Chunk Beacon
Chunk Nexus	7×7	49	8× Netherite Ingot + 1 Chunk Pylon

Each tier is crafted by surrounding the previous tier with its material (a ring of 8). The grid is the maximum area — you choose which chunks inside it are actually loaded.

🎮 How to use

Craft & place a chunk loader.
Right-click it to open the chunk picker. The center cell (gold border) is the loader's own chunk.
Click cells to toggle which chunks stay loaded. The map preview shows the terrain in each.
Walk away or log off — the green chunks keep loading and ticking.
Break the loader to release its chunks.

⚙️ Configuration

config/alunas-chunk-loaders.json (auto-generated):

Option	Default	Description
`anchorGridSize` / `beaconGridSize` / `pylonGridSize` / `nexusGridSize`	1 / 3 / 5 / 7	Grid size per tier (odd numbers)
`maxChunksPerPlayer`	256	Max force-loaded chunks attributed to one player
`spawnMobsInLoadedChunks`	true	Whether mobs spawn in force-loaded chunks

🖥️ Compatibility

Loader: Fabric. Requires Fabric API.
Minecraft: separate builds for 26.1.2 and 26.2. Use the file that matches your game version.
Shaders / resource packs: ships LabPBR _n/_s maps (Iris/OptiFine) and _e emissive overlays (Continuity/OptiFine) — entirely optional, ignored in vanilla.
Performance: force-loading chunks always costs CPU/RAM. The per-player cap is your safety valve; lower it on busy servers.

🌐 Multiplayer

Server-authoritative: the client only ever requests changes, and the server validates ownership, range, and the per-player cap before applying. Install on both the server and clients (clients need it for the picker GUI).

📜 License & credits

Released under the MIT License — free to use in modpacks (public or private), no permission needed.