I started coding something a while ago and totally forgot that - while Blocks have metadata that holds 16 states, item's metadata is actually whole damn Integer.

 

I am currently saving few values (short and booleans) that can be packed into one int.

 

I've never in my life used itemDamage (metadata) outside "the current durability of tool idea", question is - is it safe to use itemDamage for something that is not the durability (like, totally)?

 

Up to this point I don't really see anything that might cause errors later, but just asking.

 

Yes/No will suffice.

Yup, thanks.

 

int itemDamage;
...
public NBTTagCompound writeToNBT(NBTTagCompound nbt)
{
     ...
     nbt.setShort("Damage", (short)this.itemDamage);
     ...
}

 

And this is why I have trust issues with Vanilla ;_;

A short still gives you a max value in the neighborhood of 32000, which should be enough for anyone.

-32k ... +32k, so twice as much. As far as I know, negative metadata works fine

Yes/No will suffice.

 

Next thing you know - everyone argues about short's size.