Essential knowledge for setting up a sponge server?

Disclaimer: I come from a bukkit background, and even that, from like 5-1 year ago. For about a year I haven’t really meddled with Minecraft at all, so I’m fairly fresh.

I was thinking of setting up a small server to start with, then eventually replace the old server I used to co-run.

I would just like a general consensus on a few things, this is a bit overwhelming for me.

Here’s a few plugins I used to run:

  • bPermissions
  • WorldEdit
  • Essentials
  • WorldGuard
  • Some other stuff that I don’t really need for now.

In addition, I will also need:

  • an economy plugin
  • an NPC plugin
  • a shop plugin (can be an NPC based one)
  • an NBT editor

Any suggestions for replacements for the above would be highly appreciated.

I don’t see a ‘Sponge’ option download in sk’s WorldEdit website… does that mean he doesn’t support it for Sponge?

Also, I want users to be able to connect to the server with vanilla MC client. Does the SpongeForge support that, or just SpongeVanilla?

Does sponge allow you to use plugins that were made for previous versions of sponge?

Does sponge allow you to use plugins that were made for previous versions of Minecraft?

I know… a lot of (probably dumb) questions, but any answers, or links to obvious articles that answer my questions that I may have missed (I’ll admit I am new to the discourse forum software as well, and the structure is a bit confusing to me) will be super appreciated.

“I don’t see a ‘Sponge’ option download in sk’s WorldEdit website… does that mean he doesn’t support it for Sponge?”

you want to look for the Forge version of world edit. I’m currently running the world edit plugin on my sponge server

The only limitation on clients able to connect is they need to be running the same version of MC as you are running sponge/Forge (so for example, my server is running forge/sponge 1.10.2. that means that if someone is running 1,9.4 they couldn’t connect to the server. they dont HAVE to be running forge to connect to a sponge server

Its always best to have the most current versions of plugins, as many of them are made for the API 4.0/MC 1.9.4. Dynmap is a good example. its not been made for the newer minecraft versions (still stuck at 1.9.4) but it works flawlessly on my 1.10.2 server. Try them…if they kick up a lot of error then they aren’t compatible.

Everything goes in the MODS folder in your server directory.

ON MY server, I run:

Forge/Sponge 1.10.2

Plugins: PermissionsEX 2.0 (API 5), DynmapForge, Worldedit FORGE, RedProtect, EssentialCmds 8.1.4 ProjectWorlds, ProjectPortals

and it performs like a champ!

world edit FORGE: https://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/worldedit

As long as the sponge API didn’t receive a major update, you can use a plugin for different minecraft versions. If the API did change, then it might work. If you are running SpongeForge then you can also use server side mods (as long as they are server side they won’t stupid vanilla players from joining). However forge mods do need to be updated each minecraft version.

For your plugin list:

  • PEX has a sponge port.
  • WorldEdit has a Forge version.
  • The equivalent of Essentials is either Nucleus or Nexus.
  • The equivalent of WorldGuard is FoxGuard or RedProtect.
  • For all the stuff you don’t need, check out the Ore plugin repository as well as the Plugin Releases section.
  • There are many economy plugins, TotalEconomy and FedoraEconomy being a couple. I myself have a few in the works. Important bit is you don’t need anything like Vault. Sponge has its own economy API.
  • I don’t know of any NPC plugins, but they shouldn’t be very hard. In Sponge you can just directly spawn a Human from the API, no complicated messing with internals.
  • There’s a few shop plugins, depends on what you’re after. For admin-owned infinite shops, check out ServerShops. For chest shops, check out Player Shops (it even supports modded chests!).
  • I didn’t know there was a plugin for NBT editing in Bukkit. Regardless, you can always use the free program NBTExplorer. Additionally, you can always use the /blockdata or /entitydata commands to modify blocks or entities.

SpongeForge is a Forge mod. Whatever connection rules are defined by the other Forge mods are the ones that apply. For example, if you only have server-side Forge mods like Morpheus, vanilla clients can still connect. However, if you have dual-sided mods on the server, such as Thermal Expansion or Tinkers’ Construct, they’ll need the mods to connect.

Sponge doesn’t go by Minecraft versions, it goes by API versions. The versioning system is major.minor.bugfix . Major versions are by and large incompatible with each other. Minor versions are forwards compatible - a plugin for 4.1.0 works in 4.2.0, but not necessarily the other way around. Bugfix versions are just bug fixes, and you can ignore those when checking compatibility. Currently the official 5.0.0 lifecycle has brought it to 1.10.2, skipping over an API version for 1.9 entirely. Meanwhile, the current beta (read: release) is 4.1.0, for Minecraft 1.8.9.

A good link to an article is the well-maintained Sponge Docs. Read them, they’re good. They describe pretty much every question about Sponge itself, and where to ask the questions about other things like plugins.

Info about discourse: BBCode works, but Markdown is much better. for instance [link text](link url) or *bold text*. Important thing is that every post is a reply to another post, without Xenforo’s ‘quote everything in your reply’ system. @'ing users is rarely needed.

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Some of this information is inaccurate. 1.9 has been skipped and the current release is 1.8.9. EssentialCmds will be discontinued as soon as Nucleus is out of beta.

thanks for the heads up!

didnt know about essentialcmds…I’ll have to look at switching over to Nucleus

I would like to point out, that a WorldEdit for SpongeAPI does indeed exist, as well as the forge version.

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That mean that we can use WE on a spongevanilla server, ryantheleach?

That’s very much correct

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For sure. The Sponge Community Server has been running a SpongeVanilla instance, and WorldEdit is amongst it’s many fully-functional plugins. VoxelSniper for Sponge is also available now as well :wink:

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Thanks so much everyone. You’ve completely answered all of my questions.

This is great! I’m super excited to get a sponge server up and running and get the old squad on it!

Thanks again!

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