"Binding" entity

[Flemmli97]

So i have an entity, which when spawned a special way is "binded" to the player. Like a pet but the player can only have one of it. I save the reference to that entity in an capability and then i can manipulate that entity in various ways. That works fine.

The issue i have is with saving/loading. I currently save the entitys uuid and then during load search for that uuid. if found i then sets the players data to that entity. however of course if the entity is in an unloaded chunk during the nbt read progress it wont find it and so fails to "rebind" that entity to the player. 

I also do the same progress from the entity side (save player uuid and search for player) so then when the entity loads it does get rebind to the player.

however during the time when the entity is unloaded the data in the capability is of course null so i cant do anything to the entity.

is there ways to manipulate unloaded entitys (like tp them to you)? is it smart to save the chunk, the entity is saved and temporarily load that chunk to do stuff?

[Flemmli97]

in theory i should be able to edit the players data file when the entity is saved to disk. that way i can save the chunk, where the entity is saved even after the player is gone

[Animefan8888]

11 minutes ago, Flemmli97 said:

in theory i should be able to edit the players data file when the entity is saved to disk. that way i can save the chunk, where the entity is saved even after the player is gone

It would probably be better to save this to the World instead of to the Player. And just map it to the players uuid.