Heyhey! Sorry if this is an obvious question, but I've done a lot of searching and haven't found anything specifically about this.

 

I'm attempting to create a block (torch) that removes itself after a set amount of time. I'm trying to do it with a block instead of a tile entity for performance reasons (but feel free to let me know if I'm just doing it wrong)

 

The whole world.scheduleBlockUpdate seems like the perfect solution, except this example use case:

 

1) place a torch that will expire in 1 hour

2) in 59 minutues, break the torch

3) place a new torch, hoping you've just bought yourself another hour of light

4) torch goes out in 1 minute, because the scheduled update from the first torch fires on the second one, as it has the same blockID, and it destroys itself.

 

intuitively, I'd like to just remove any scheduled updates for the coordinates of the block when I place a torch, but that doesn't seem possible. Is it possible? Am I crazy?

I have not seen any way to "unschedule" an update tick.

 

You might be better off scheduling a 5 minute update tick and using metadata (so after 5 minutes, you increment by 1, if it's now 16, break the torch, if not schedule another update).  At worst someone will lose 4 minutes and 59 seconds worth of torch by popping it off the wall and replacing it.

Yeah, except torches already use metadata values 0-4 to record their placement orientation relative to the walls around them (placed on north, east, west, south walls and floor, not necessarily in that order) which doesn't leave much room for anything else

Yeah, except torches already use metadata values 0-4 to record their placement orientation relative to the walls around them (placed on north, east, west, south walls and floor, not necessarily in that order) which doesn't leave much room for anything else

 

Derp, you're right.  Stupid metadata. :V

Would still leave you 11 values to work with; about 5 and a half minutes per.  You'd just have to make sure that mucking around with those higher bits doesn't do odd things to its placement (use bitwise operators).

 

You can use reflection to access pendingTickListEntriesHashSet and pendingTickListEntriesTreeSet in WorldServer. If you remove a TickListEntry from both, it is canceled.

 

Or you can reflect the sh*t out of things.  Fair warning: if you're not familiar with reflection, this method is likely going to take you a very long time to implement correctly.  Reflection is the library that lets Javacode modify itself, so it gets complicated and weird quickly.

REFLECTION HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

 

(I love reflection)

 

I'm going to give this a shot tonight! Thanks!