Confusion as to how often I need to specify a "side" in code

[MrChoke]

I get the concept of sides, a server thread (or separate JVM if dedicated) versus a client thread.  What confuses me is when should we specify a side in our code?  I know if its rendering stuff it should be client only.  But how about other things, like entity movement, AI, process mouse clicks, etc??  Is there someplace I can check or read up on to help with this?  I fear I am not specifying the side enough (I barely have it at all) and does that mean I have the client loading and/or doing too much stuff that it doesn't need to.

 

 

[V0idWa1k3r]

22 minutes ago, MrChoke said:

entity movement

Depends. Players move on the client and just send the server their new position.

 

22 minutes ago, MrChoke said:

AI

Entirely server sided.

 

22 minutes ago, MrChoke said:

mouse clicks

How would a server even handle mouse clicks if it may not even have a mouse? This is entirely client-side.

 

In general everything rendering or input related is client side only, and pretty much everything else is either common or server sided. Note that when I say server sided I mean the logical server, not the physical server.

 

Every time you need to do something think about it. Could a dedicated server perform it? It has no controlling player, no mouse input, no keyboard input and may not even have any display at all. If it can't - then the thing you are trying to do is client based. Otherwise the server is likely the entity that needs to do it.

 

22 minutes ago, MrChoke said:

does that mean I have the client loading and/or doing too much stuff that it doesn't need to.

In general the client doesn't do much at all anyway, it mostly displays stuff. Most logic runs on the server and if you have any custom logic you should run it on a server aswell.

 

22 minutes ago, MrChoke said:

I am not specifying the side enough (I barely have it at all)

Define "not specifying the side". 

[MrChoke]

By sides, I mean specifying a side, with world.isRemote() or @Side.

 

I guess I will just follow the common sense approach when I add sides.  Right now I am running in any integrated server sop I know my code is going need work when I move to dedicated.

 

[V0idWa1k3r]

3 hours ago, MrChoke said:

specifying a side, with world.isRemote() or @Side.

These are completely different things. World.isRemote checks whether you are on a logical client or not. @SideOnly removes the method completely from the class on the physical side opposite to the one specified.

[Cadiboo]

https://mcforge.readthedocs.io/en/latest/concepts/sides/

Physical Side - Client software application or Server software application

Logical Side - Where logic like keystrokes (client) and mob spawning (server) is done. It can be either Server Thread or Client Thread (the Integrated (Physical) Client has both a server and client thread so you can play single player. The Physical Server does not have a client thread.)