Planet Clock and Weather

From 2.0 every Nerospace world keeps its own time and has its own weather. Both are decided by the server, saved with the world and sent to every player on that planet, so everyone sees the same sky. They keep running on loaded planets with nobody there, so unattended machines see the same day and storms as visitors.

Planet clocks#

What a clock drives: the sky (sun, moons, stars, colours), the HUD clock dial, solar panel output, when weather may start (Glacira's diamond dust only forms at night or in twilight; Cindara's ash fall never starts near the eclipse), Aurora Stone (it glows only during Glacira's night), the Star Guide's lunar-night step and when you can sleep.

What it never changes: block light and sky light. It is as bright underfoot at a planet's "night" as it was in 1.x, and mobs spawn by light exactly as before. Greenxertz is the exception only because it runs on the real Overworld day, as it always has.

The HUD clock dial#

On every world with a day cycle a small dial sits above the oxygen gauge: sunrise is on the right, noon at the top, and the face is lit by how bright that planet's day is at the moment. Special stretches of the day are marked on the rim: Cindara's eclipse as a dotted red window, Luna's Earthrise and Glacira's two twilights as solid windows. When the phase changes the dial shows its name for two seconds: Sunrise, Day, Sunset or Night, or the name of the window you are in: Eclipse (Cindara), Earthrise (Luna) or Twilight (Glacira, in place of Sunrise and Sunset). Nyxara and the orbital station have fixed clocks, so they show no dial. Client options: hud.clockDial (on/off), hud.clockDialScale (1 = 16 px, 2 = 32 px).

Solar panels#

A panel on a planet peaks at that planet's noon, dips at night and in a Mars dust storm (down to a fifth of its output at the height of the storm), and over a full day gives at least the old constant double rate on every planet: the peaks are higher to make up for the nights. The orbital station stays at a constant double rate. Set solar.clockDriven=false to restore the 1.x constant output everywhere.

Sleeping#

Vanilla time stands still on the worlds with their own clock, so a bed there follows the planet's clock instead:

• Every bed on every world sets your respawn point, even where you cannot sleep, and no bed explodes.
• "Enough players" is the players_sleeping_percentage game rule, counted per world: players asleep on Luna skip Luna's night only, and a planet's night never moves the Overworld's time.
• Cindara's eclipse is not night: the window opens after sunset. Glacira's night ends part-way through the dawn twilight.
• Sleeping never ends planet weather: a dust storm, an ash fall or diamond dust keeps running.
• While an operator has frozen a clock (/nerospace clock <planet> freeze, or a /nerospace gallery sky state) you can still lie down at night and get up rested, but the night does not pass. With clock.enabled=false every clock reads noon, so beds on Luna, Mars, Cindara and Glacira only set your spawn point.
• The vanilla advance_time rule (doDaylightCycle before 1.21.11) does not stop a planet's clock or its night skip; only /nerospace clock <planet> freeze does.
• Open water freezes under the sky on the cold worlds (Luna, Mars, Glacira, the Nyxara Nightside and the orbital station), as in a snowy Overworld biome, unless the block light at the water is 10 or more. Sugar cane planted by frozen water breaks, so light the water or farm under a roof.

Weather#

Each world has one weather event (none on Luna or the station). An event builds up over up to about 50 seconds, holds at its peak for the time below, then fades. Each event rolls its own strength, from 40 % to full.

"Outdoors" means at or above the surface of the ground below you and not inside a breathable zone (an oxygen field, a launch pad's safe zone or terraformed ground). A roof over your head or an oxygen field keeps weather radiation off. Spore nausea reaches anyone, indoors or out, who is neither wearing a full suit nor standing in a breathable zone. The Star Guide's Worlds chapters ask you to last two minutes under the open sky through each world's weather (on Luna, its night).

Particles (dust, ash, spores, diamond dust, embers near lava, Nyxara's nebula motes) drift only around you, only under open sky, and thicken with the weather. Each world has its own ambient sound, with weather loops for every event and a chime as a flare begins. With hud.weatherLine on, the HUD shows the current weather with a four-step intensity bar.

Commands (operators)#

Greenxertz follows the normal day, so use /time there. Nyxara and the station have fixed clocks that cannot be set or frozen. The commands need operator permission (level 2).

Sky gallery#

/nerospace gallery sky holds a world's sky in one of its showcase states, for screenshots and for checking how a world looks. It needs operator permission (level 2), like the clock and weather commands, and is run by a player.

Tab completion only offers the states the chosen world has:

• Weather states (spore_bloom, ash_fall, diamond_dust, dust_storm, flare) start the event at its peak; it then lasts its normal time and fades. Run the state again to restart it. If a world's weather is switched off in the server settings, the clock still changes but no weather starts.
• Nyxara's sun never moves, so its states are places: without here the command tells you roughly which X to stand at.
• Greenxertz shares the Overworld's day, so its states set the Overworld's time too and the day keeps running.
• The full set pieces are drawn on NeoForge for Minecraft 26.3; on other versions a state shows that world's colours at the matching time, and the world fog still follows it.
• A held sky keeps its aurora, shooting stars and star twinkle moving; the sun, moons and colours stay put.

Configuration#

Server settings (in config/nerospace.properties, see Configuration):

Client settings (each player's own, never forced by the server):

Skies#

The star fields mix many faint points with a few brighter stars. Galaxies have branching dust lanes and fine star clusters; their light fades with the stars during storms. Mars adds orange and violet dust filaments, Greenxertz has emerald and blue wisps, and Glacira has cyan and lilac clouds and two individually cratered ice moons. These faint structures brighten at night. Nyxara's galaxy combines magenta, violet and turquoise light. Earth has spherical coastlines, cloud swirls, polar ice and night lights, with its phase still following the sun.

The sky stays steady while walking, even with view bobbing enabled. Your normal world view keeps its bobbing setting. The horizon gradients blend smoothly into the lower sky, without a speckled strip below the horizon.

Each world has its own sky: Earth hanging over Luna, the butterscotch Martian day with Phobos racing across it, Cindara's red giant and its eclipse, Glacira's pale sun, two moons and auroras, Greenxertz's twin suns, Nyxara's pinned sunset on one side and a galaxy on the other, and the homeworld turning below your station. The full skies are drawn on NeoForge for Minecraft 26.3. On every other loader and version each world still shows its own sky, fog and sunrise colours with the vanilla sky shapes.