What would be the best way to create an event that happens in the world. Like on the push of a button in a gui, cause a system of actions to occur for the next say ten seconds? Would i be easier to do this in the same tileentity or can i do it with a separate ticking entity?

15 minutes ago, Merthew said:

Like on the push of a button in a gui, cause a system of actions to occur for the next say ten seconds?

Depends. If you do not care whether the execution finishes or not then you can do it in your TE. However if you do care then you need to do it in a different way since a TE can get unloaded. Something like this(pseudo-code):

class Gui
{
    ...
    void onButtonPress(GuiButton btn)
    {
        Network.sendMessageToServer(new MessageDoThings());
    }
    ...
}

class MessageDoThingsHandler implements IMessageHandler<MessageDoThings, IMessage>
{
    ...
    IMessage handleMessage(MessageDoThings message, IContext context)
    {
        EntityPlayerMP sender = cotext.getSender();
        World world = sender.world;
        IWorldCap worldCap = world.getCapability(YOUR_CAP, null);
        worldCap.addAction(new DoThings(YOUR_TIMER));
    }
}

class WorldCap implements IWorldCap
{
    List<IWorldAction> actions = Lists.newArrayList();
    
    @Override
    void addAction(IWorldAction action)
    {
        this.actions.add(action);
    }
    
    @Override
    void onTick()
    {
        for (int i = this.actions.size() - 1; i >= 0; --i)
        {
            IWorldAction act = this.actions.get(i);
            if (!act.run())
            {
                this.actions.remove(act);
            }
        }
    }
}

interface IWorldAction
{
    boolean run();
}

class DoThings implements IWorldAction
{
    final int timer = 0;
    
    DoThings(int i)
    {
        this.timer = i;
    }
    
    @Override
    boolean run()
    {
        if (this.timer % 20 == 0)
        {
            this.doThings();
        }
        
        return this.timer-- == 0;
    }
    
    void doThings()
    {
        ...
    }
}

@EventBusSubscriber
class WorldHandler
{
    @SubscribeEvent
    static void onWorldTick(WorldTickEvent event)
    {
        if (event.phase != Phase.END)
        {
            event.world.getCapability(YOUR_CAP, null).onTick();
        }
    }
}

 

Ah, thank you very much.