in my previous mod i had a large structure - a village on a plateau. parts of the plateau that were generated on to already loaded chunks had trees buried in it and was undecorated.

 

i'd like to try something different in my current project so that i can better control structures spawning apart from each other while ensuring that the duplication of a world produces the exact same set of buildings in the exact same spot.

 

vanilla seems to generate a hashmap of structure starts and structure component coordinates. what happens then i'm just guessing at but i'm assuming each new chunk that loads checks the hashmap and if it finds matching coordinates generates whatever building is specified. i'm not clear on when/how the map is created. what happens if the player teleports 10km away??

 

i'd like to at least emulate this. a predetermined set of spawn points that a  iworldgenerator class can search when it recieves a new chunk and spawn any associated structures.

I apologize that I can't give a full answer. What I do know is that much of chunk "decoration" is delayed until a chunk's SOUTH and EAST (+, +) neighbors have been created. That's when ores can be created -- and the vanilla ores are all offset +8, +8.

 

Because large constructs like strongholds and villages will span many chunks, they need to defer decoration even further (and it appears that you've analyzed part of that deferral). Look at how each large-scale construct (Stronghold, mine, fortress) is implemented. Imitate what you find.