Limited Number of Biome ID's problem

[MohawkyMagoo]

Running 1.6.4 at the moment for our regular games, but setting up 1.7.2 for transition, when more of the mods we use eventually update.

 

The problem I'm hitting is the Minecraft 255 Biome ID number limit.

 

It seems that every other mod I try to add to the mix has doubled the number of biomes it wants to add, as has Mojang themselves. I'm not talking about a huge number of mods here - just six and I'm already 40+ over the 255 limit.

 

For the first time I'm faced with having to drop several mods I really want to use, simply because of this limit number. A lot of the biomes these mods add I don't use in world gen, the biomes that remain, give, for me, a satisfying mix of great biomes.

 

Obviously an increase in biomes from 255 would be ideal, but I've seen the comments here by some that its not possible? But didn't TheWeatherPony come up with a fix for this that actually worked and increased the biome availability to 4000+ ?  Was there a reason this couldn't be implemented?

 

If it cant be implemented and 255 has to remain - how about an alternative solution? Would it be possible, if a biome is set to false in a mods config for generation, that it does not actually claim one of the 255 ID's? 

 

Or, could there be some way that Dimension mod biomes are separated from the 255 overworld?

 

I have no idea if any of this is possible, I'm not a coder of any kind, but as the issue gets worse, would appreciate some sort of solution.

[LexManos]

The problem is, amung other things, this section of code right here:

As you can see, the biome data is sent as a byte array to the client, bytes can only hold 256 values {0-255}

If we were to increase this limit anything that stored biomes as byte arrays would need to be modified which would break compatibility with the network, with world saves, and the like.

Biome IDs are something that I want to address and have been talking to Mojang on and off about, But nothing has come out of it and I don't want to break compatibility with things just for this.

[MohawkyMagoo]

Ah I see your problem.

 

Is there any merit then in excluding biomes by config method from taking an ID number? Something like if user sets biome to -1 instead of false, it simply isn't assigned a number. That way the user could determine the mix of his 255 biomes. Is this also impossible?

[LexManos]

Yes, but that's all on the modder's end, not ours.

[MohawkyMagoo]

Thanks for the fast response. That's very interesting.

 

Please bear with me if I'm asking stupid questions, I'm not a coder. But let me understand this correctly - are you saying the facility already exists in Forge that the modders could use to set their biomes not to demand an ID if the user sets that particular biome to false in config?

 

Is it a easy thing to do? Is it something that they've just missed or are unaware exists?

 

Better yet, is it a neat section of code that you can point me at that I can post on each mods thread and ask them to include and revise how their mod operates?