This plugin will allow the players on the server to create factions/guilds. The factions can claim territory that will be protected from non-members. Factions can forge alliances and declare themselves enemies with others. Land may be taken from other factions through war.
The goals of this plugin:
F.A.Q.
Q. I don’t want all players to have the permissions which are currently granted by default. How can I change that?
A. See our permissions further down the current page. Factions grants thefactions.kit.fullplayer permission kit by default. You will likely need to deny the individual permissions already granted which you don’t want those players to have. Your permission plugin of choice should provide a method to deny permissions, such as adding a “-” to the start of the permission (like “-factions.create”). Most permission plugins at this time don’t seem to allow denying parent->child / kit permissions (some don’t even allow granting them), so you may need to handle them individually.
Q. I modified the configuration file conf.json manually and the configuration either reset to default or it ignored and overwrote my changes. What happened?
A. This is why we recommend people not edit the file manually. You should normally be using /f config to change any configuration, as outlined in the configuration guide. If it simply ignored your changes, you probably edited the file while the server was running which doesn’t work. If the configuration reset, something you changed corrupted the file, which caused Factions to revert back to default values since it could not read it. If you look at your server log from when your server started up after you edited the file, you’ll see an error logged from when Factions tried to load the file. You should also see a backup copy of your invalid file made as “conf.json_bad” alongside the newly defaulted conf.json (if you don’t, you’re using an old release of Factions and need to update).
Q. Chat looks messed up, with odd letters and numbers added to it, and the chat isn’t colored properly. Why is this happening?
A. At the least, you’ll need to modify the chatTagInsertIndex setting to fix that (i.e. /f config chatTagInsertIndex <value>, where <value> is 0/1/2/3/etc.), but better methods are covered in our configuration guide.
Q. Does Factions have multiworld support?
A. Various features of Factions can be disabled in specified worlds. See here. That is currently the extent of our multiworld support.
Q. How can I get my economy plugin of choice (iConomy, BOSEconomy, EssentialsEco, whatever) working with Factions?
A. First, you will need to install the Vault plugin on your server to interface between Factions and your economy plugin of choice. Next, you’ll need to make sure economy is enabled in Factions by running the command /f config econEnabled true. You can see more information about economy integration further down the current page.
Q. As a server owner, administrator, and/or moderator, I want to be able to bypass all faction claim protections. Is this possible?
A. Assuming you have the factions.bypass permission, you can enable and disable admin bypass mode using the command /f bypass.
The Chat Commands
The chat console command is /f
This command has sub commands like this:
/f alias,alias,alias [parameter] *[optional parameter]
You may use any of the aliases. They point to the same command.
These are the commands for the normal players:
And these are the commands for the server admins, most of which work from the server console as well:
Relations, Territory and War
The factions on the server have relations to each other. They can be ally, neutral or enemy. You choose your wished relation to another faction through a chat command.
You can not hurt neutrals in their own territory.
You can always hurt enemies and players without faction.
Damage from enemies is reduced by a certain percentage in your own territory.
Only faction members can build and destroy in their own territory. Interaction with the following items is also restricted by default: Wooden Door, Trapdoor, Chest, Furnace, Dispenser, and Diode. Make sure to put pressure plates in front of doors for your guest visitors. Otherwise they can’t get through. You can also use this to create member only areas. As dispensers are protected you can create traps without worrying about those arrows getting stolen.
Every player has “power”. The power can at most be 10 and at least be -10. If you die you lose 2 power. Note that it doesn’t matter at all how you die. You can be killed by an enemy or drown in sand. In either case you will lose 2 power. The power will be restored over time, but only while the player is online; while offline, their power will not regenerate. It takes 5 min for 1 power to be restored while online. You will also lose 1 power for every 24 hours offline. Note that these values are all just the defaults, and can be changed as desired.
The power of a faction is the sum of all member power. Every power grants the faction right to claim one land/chunk. You can claim land from a faction if it has to low power.
For example:
A faction with two healthy players, MrApe and MrCow, had a faction named SuperAnimals. The faction SuperAnimals had 20 power. This was because the members had 10 power each and 10+10 is 20. They claimed as much territory as they could (20 minecraft chunks that is). Then MrApe went and drowned in lava. As MrApe died he lost 2 power. After that he had only 8 / 10 power and the faction SuperAnimals had 18 power as 8 + 10 = 18. At this time SuperAnimals had more land than they could handle (20/18). Then their enemy Bulldozer took the chance to claim some of their land. He managed to claim 2 chunks at the border of their territory. Then he could not claim more as SuperAnimals now had (18/18) land.
Note that if you claim land from another faction you must start at the border of their territory.
Safe Zones
The server admins can create safe zones. These zones can not be claimed by other factions. PVP is turned off and monsters may not spawn or hurt players there.
War Zones
Server admins can also create war zones, somewhat similar to safe zones. These zones however are not safe from PVP and monsters. Further, they can be configured to have friendly fire enabled (PVP between allies and faction members) and can be configured to have power loss disabled in them.
Individual Ownership of Territory
For territory that has been claimed by a faction, the faction admin (and possibly faction moderators) can further specify ownership of any claimed territory to anyone within the faction using the /f owner *[player name] command. This ownership will limit access to the territory to only those in the owner list, along with the faction admin and faction moderators. In general, these owned areas will extend the same protections which faction territory provides against those not in the faction to also protect against normal members of your own faction.
This can be used to provide private ownership of particular areas, or to provide a storage area for the faction admin and moderators which is safe against in-faction griefers.
Peaceful Factions
There is a special “peaceful” status which can be set for any faction by server admins / moderators using /f peaceful [faction tag]. Members of peaceful factions cannot deal or receive PvP damage (unless in a war zone which has friendly fire enabled), cannot claim land from another faction and likewise can’t have their land claimed, and cannot be considered as ally or enemy of any other faction. Faction admins and moderators of peaceful factions can enable/disable all explosions inside their faction’s territory at will using /f noboom. The main purpose of this “peaceful factions” is to provide a way for more peaceful players who don’t want to take part in faction wars (or just want to take a break from them) to still have fun on the server. It is also meant to allow groups of players to make protected buildings, monuments, grand constructions, and so forth without having to worry about another faction destroying them.
Economy
If you use iConomy, EssentialsEco, or any economy plugin compatible with Vault to provide an economy for your server, this is for you. Most Factions commands can be set to cost money in conf.json. For claiming land, there are some extra features. Each additional land claimed by default costs more than the last, with the multiplier being configurable. For example, the first claim might cost $30, the second $45, the third $60, and so forth. When land is claimed from a weakened faction, there is a configurable bonus amount of money deducted from the cost of claiming the land, as an incentive; this number can be changed to a negative value to instead make it cost more to claim such land. When land is unclaimed, a configurable percentage of the cost of claiming the land can be refunded (defaults to 70% of the cost). The total value of a faction’s claimed land will be shown in the info given by /f who [faction tag], along with the depreciated (refund) value.
Spout Features
This plugin has a couple of extra features which are only enabled if you are using the Spout plugin and your players are using the Spoutcraft client, since they are otherwise not possible to implement. More features requiring Spout may be added in the future.
If you don’t use Spout, no worries. Everything else will work fine, you just won’t have these particular features. For any of your players not running the Spoutcraft client, everything will likewise work fine for them except for the lack of these features.
Tips and Trix
For the superperms permission system, kits are also provided with sets of specific permissions you might want to grant to various user groups.
Note that for the “superperms” system, the factions.kit.fullplayer permission kit below will be granted to all users by default. If you don’t want those permissions to be granted to specific users or groups, you will need to remove/disable the permission for that group. As an example, if you wanted to disable a permission for specific users with the bPermissions plugin, you would add a “^” to the start to indicate it should be disabled; thus, for example, “^factions.kit.fullplayer”.
These are the permission kits (only available through superperms):
These are the individual permissions:
The goals of this plugin:
- The players should be able to take care of anti-griefing themselves.
- Inspire politics and intrigue on your server.
- Guilding and team spirit!
F.A.Q.
Q. I don’t want all players to have the permissions which are currently granted by default. How can I change that?
A. See our permissions further down the current page. Factions grants thefactions.kit.fullplayer permission kit by default. You will likely need to deny the individual permissions already granted which you don’t want those players to have. Your permission plugin of choice should provide a method to deny permissions, such as adding a “-” to the start of the permission (like “-factions.create”). Most permission plugins at this time don’t seem to allow denying parent->child / kit permissions (some don’t even allow granting them), so you may need to handle them individually.
Q. I modified the configuration file conf.json manually and the configuration either reset to default or it ignored and overwrote my changes. What happened?
A. This is why we recommend people not edit the file manually. You should normally be using /f config to change any configuration, as outlined in the configuration guide. If it simply ignored your changes, you probably edited the file while the server was running which doesn’t work. If the configuration reset, something you changed corrupted the file, which caused Factions to revert back to default values since it could not read it. If you look at your server log from when your server started up after you edited the file, you’ll see an error logged from when Factions tried to load the file. You should also see a backup copy of your invalid file made as “conf.json_bad” alongside the newly defaulted conf.json (if you don’t, you’re using an old release of Factions and need to update).
Q. Chat looks messed up, with odd letters and numbers added to it, and the chat isn’t colored properly. Why is this happening?
A. At the least, you’ll need to modify the chatTagInsertIndex setting to fix that (i.e. /f config chatTagInsertIndex <value>, where <value> is 0/1/2/3/etc.), but better methods are covered in our configuration guide.
Q. Does Factions have multiworld support?
A. Various features of Factions can be disabled in specified worlds. See here. That is currently the extent of our multiworld support.
Q. How can I get my economy plugin of choice (iConomy, BOSEconomy, EssentialsEco, whatever) working with Factions?
A. First, you will need to install the Vault plugin on your server to interface between Factions and your economy plugin of choice. Next, you’ll need to make sure economy is enabled in Factions by running the command /f config econEnabled true. You can see more information about economy integration further down the current page.
Q. As a server owner, administrator, and/or moderator, I want to be able to bypass all faction claim protections. Is this possible?
A. Assuming you have the factions.bypass permission, you can enable and disable admin bypass mode using the command /f bypass.
The Chat Commands
The chat console command is /f
This command has sub commands like this:
/f alias,alias,alias [parameter] *[optional parameter]
You may use any of the aliases. They point to the same command.
These are the commands for the normal players:
- /f help,h,? [page] – Display a help page
- /f list,ls *[page] – Show a list of the factions
- /f show,who *[faction tag] – Show detailed information on a certain faction
- /f map *[on|off] – Show an ascii-art map of the nearby territory. Per default it will render only when you use the command. If you specify on or off you will toggle if the map should render every once in a while.
- /f power *[player name] – Show either your own power (if no name is specified) or another player’s power (if a player name is specified, and permission node factions.viewAnyPower is granted)
- /f join [faction name] – Join a faction
- /f leave – Leave your faction
- /f chat,c – Switch faction only chat on and off
- /f home – Teleport to the faction homef
- /f create [faction tag] – Create a new faction with you as admin
- /f desc [desc] – Change the faction description
- /f tag [faction tag] – Change the faction tag
- /f open – Switch if invitation is required to join
- /f invite,inv [player name] – Invite a player
- /f deinvite,inv [player name] – Remove a pending invitation
If your faction is closed invitations are required to join the faction. - /f sethome *[faction tag] – Set the faction home (faction tag can only be specified by those with admin bypass permission; otherwise, it’s for your own faction)
- /f claim – Claim the land where you are standing
- /f claim [faction=your] [radius=1] – Claim the land in a radius around where you are standing
- /f autoclaim [faction=your] – Start auto-claiming land as you walk around
- /f unclaim, declaim – Unclaim the land where you are standing
The area claimed is a minecraft “chunk”. It is an 16×16 area all the way from bedrock to the sky. If you are claiming territory from another faction you must start at the border. Only faction moderators and admin can do this. - /f owner *[player name] – Set/remove ownership of a 16×16 claimed territory. If a player name is specified, that player will be added or removed from the owner list for the territory. If no player name is specified, it will either set ownership to the player running the command (if no owners are currently set) or completely clear ownership of the territory.
- /f ownerlist – View a list of owners for the current area. Only works inside your own faction’s territory.
- /f kick [player name] – Kick a player from the faction.
Faction moderators can kick normal players but not eachother. The faction admin can kick moderators though. - /f mod [player name] – Give or revoke moderator rights to one of the members of the faction. You must be faction admin to do this.
- /f admin [player name] – Hand over your admin rights to another member. Note that you are really handing it over. You will not be admin for the faction any longer. You will be turned into a moderator, but the new admin could kick you any time.
- /f title [player name] *[title] – Set or remove a players title. This serves special meaning. It’s just fun and allows you to “promote” players.
- /f noboom – enable/disable explosions inside your faction’s territory; only available to faction admin and faction moderators for peaceful factions (explained further down)
- /f ally [faction name]
- /f neutral [faction name]
- /f enemy [faction name]
- /f money b,balance [faction=yours] - show faction bank balance
- /f money d,deposit <amount> [faction=yours] - deposit money into faction bank
- /f money w,withdraw <amount> [faction=yours] - withdraw money from faction bank
- /f money ff <amount> <faction> <faction> - transfer money from faction to faction
- /f money fp <amount> <faction> <player> - transfer money from faction to player
- /f money pf <amount> <player> <faction> - transfer money from player to faction
And these are the commands for the server admins, most of which work from the server console as well:
- /f bypass – Enable admin bypass mode: build/destroy anywhere, bypass other normal restrictions
- /f chatspy [on/off=flip] - toggle chat spying on/off, where you can see all faction chat messages
- /f disband [faction tag] – Disband a faction
- /f claim safezone [radius=1] – Unclaim all safezone land
- /f claim warzone [radius=1] – Claim land for the warzone
- /f claim [faction tag] [radius=1] – Allows admin to claim land for any faction
- /f unclaim – Allows admin to unclaim any faction’s land, if they have admin bypass mode enabled (through /f bypass)
- /f autoclaim safezone - Auto-claim land for safezone
- /f autoclaim warzone – Auto-claim land for the warzone
- /f safeunclaimall,safedeclaimall - Unclaim all safezone land
- /f warunclaimall,wardeclaimall – Unclaim all warzone land
- /f peaceful [faction tag] – Toggle the indicated faction’s “peaceful” status
- /f permanent [faction tag] – Set a faction as permanent. Permanent factions are not deleted when they have no members.
- /f permanentpower [faction tag] - Sets a factions power to a permanent state.
- /f lock *[on|off] – Lock all write stuff
- /f saveall,save – Save factions to disk
- /f reload *[file] – Reload all data from disk, or only data in specific files (available files: board, conf, factions, players)
- /f config [setting] [value] – Change any setting in conf.json directly and immediately. See the Configuration page for more info.
- /f version – Which version of this plugin are you using?
Relations, Territory and War
The factions on the server have relations to each other. They can be ally, neutral or enemy. You choose your wished relation to another faction through a chat command.
- If both factions wishes ally you will be allies.
- If one faction wishes enemy you will be enemies.
You can not hurt neutrals in their own territory.
You can always hurt enemies and players without faction.
Damage from enemies is reduced by a certain percentage in your own territory.
Only faction members can build and destroy in their own territory. Interaction with the following items is also restricted by default: Wooden Door, Trapdoor, Chest, Furnace, Dispenser, and Diode. Make sure to put pressure plates in front of doors for your guest visitors. Otherwise they can’t get through. You can also use this to create member only areas. As dispensers are protected you can create traps without worrying about those arrows getting stolen.
Every player has “power”. The power can at most be 10 and at least be -10. If you die you lose 2 power. Note that it doesn’t matter at all how you die. You can be killed by an enemy or drown in sand. In either case you will lose 2 power. The power will be restored over time, but only while the player is online; while offline, their power will not regenerate. It takes 5 min for 1 power to be restored while online. You will also lose 1 power for every 24 hours offline. Note that these values are all just the defaults, and can be changed as desired.
The power of a faction is the sum of all member power. Every power grants the faction right to claim one land/chunk. You can claim land from a faction if it has to low power.
For example:
A faction with two healthy players, MrApe and MrCow, had a faction named SuperAnimals. The faction SuperAnimals had 20 power. This was because the members had 10 power each and 10+10 is 20. They claimed as much territory as they could (20 minecraft chunks that is). Then MrApe went and drowned in lava. As MrApe died he lost 2 power. After that he had only 8 / 10 power and the faction SuperAnimals had 18 power as 8 + 10 = 18. At this time SuperAnimals had more land than they could handle (20/18). Then their enemy Bulldozer took the chance to claim some of their land. He managed to claim 2 chunks at the border of their territory. Then he could not claim more as SuperAnimals now had (18/18) land.
Note that if you claim land from another faction you must start at the border of their territory.
Safe Zones
The server admins can create safe zones. These zones can not be claimed by other factions. PVP is turned off and monsters may not spawn or hurt players there.
War Zones
Server admins can also create war zones, somewhat similar to safe zones. These zones however are not safe from PVP and monsters. Further, they can be configured to have friendly fire enabled (PVP between allies and faction members) and can be configured to have power loss disabled in them.
Individual Ownership of Territory
For territory that has been claimed by a faction, the faction admin (and possibly faction moderators) can further specify ownership of any claimed territory to anyone within the faction using the /f owner *[player name] command. This ownership will limit access to the territory to only those in the owner list, along with the faction admin and faction moderators. In general, these owned areas will extend the same protections which faction territory provides against those not in the faction to also protect against normal members of your own faction.
This can be used to provide private ownership of particular areas, or to provide a storage area for the faction admin and moderators which is safe against in-faction griefers.
Peaceful Factions
There is a special “peaceful” status which can be set for any faction by server admins / moderators using /f peaceful [faction tag]. Members of peaceful factions cannot deal or receive PvP damage (unless in a war zone which has friendly fire enabled), cannot claim land from another faction and likewise can’t have their land claimed, and cannot be considered as ally or enemy of any other faction. Faction admins and moderators of peaceful factions can enable/disable all explosions inside their faction’s territory at will using /f noboom. The main purpose of this “peaceful factions” is to provide a way for more peaceful players who don’t want to take part in faction wars (or just want to take a break from them) to still have fun on the server. It is also meant to allow groups of players to make protected buildings, monuments, grand constructions, and so forth without having to worry about another faction destroying them.
Economy
If you use iConomy, EssentialsEco, or any economy plugin compatible with Vault to provide an economy for your server, this is for you. Most Factions commands can be set to cost money in conf.json. For claiming land, there are some extra features. Each additional land claimed by default costs more than the last, with the multiplier being configurable. For example, the first claim might cost $30, the second $45, the third $60, and so forth. When land is claimed from a weakened faction, there is a configurable bonus amount of money deducted from the cost of claiming the land, as an incentive; this number can be changed to a negative value to instead make it cost more to claim such land. When land is unclaimed, a configurable percentage of the cost of claiming the land can be refunded (defaults to 70% of the cost). The total value of a faction’s claimed land will be shown in the info given by /f who [faction tag], along with the depreciated (refund) value.
Spout Features
This plugin has a couple of extra features which are only enabled if you are using the Spout plugin and your players are using the Spoutcraft client, since they are otherwise not possible to implement. More features requiring Spout may be added in the future.
If you don’t use Spout, no worries. Everything else will work fine, you just won’t have these particular features. For any of your players not running the Spoutcraft client, everything will likewise work fine for them except for the lack of these features.
- Relation-colored faction tags will be displayed over each player’s head, along with their faction title if they have one. This way you can easily identify a user’s faction at a glance, along with whether they’re enemy, ally, member, neutral, or peaceful.
- Relation-colored capes will be shown on faction admins and optionally faction moderators as well.
Tips and Trix
- There are certain colors for certain relations in the chat messages:
Members are green, Allies are purple, Neutrals are white and Enemies are red. - Write f instead of /f. You can skip the slash when using console commands.
- Faction admins should promote trusted members in the guild to moderators. This way the guild will have a leader even when the admin isn’t there.
- Faction moderators can set a home for the faction. You will spawn there on death. Teleport there using /f home
- When using chat commands that takes a parameter faction name you can actually specify a player name instead. That players faction will then be used.
- When you enable admin bypass mode using /f bypass, you will be able to bypass quite a lot of restrictions. Primarily, you will be able to build, destroy, interact, and use items in any territory. You will be able to unclaim any land, no matter which faction owns it.
For the superperms permission system, kits are also provided with sets of specific permissions you might want to grant to various user groups.
Note that for the “superperms” system, the factions.kit.fullplayer permission kit below will be granted to all users by default. If you don’t want those permissions to be granted to specific users or groups, you will need to remove/disable the permission for that group. As an example, if you wanted to disable a permission for specific users with the bPermissions plugin, you would add a “^” to the start to indicate it should be disabled; thus, for example, “^factions.kit.fullplayer”.
These are the permission kits (only available through superperms):
- factions.kit.admin- All faction permissions.
- factions.* - This is just an alias for factions.kit.admin
- factions.kit.mod – All faction permissions but configuration and persistance.
- factions.kit.halfmod – Zones, bypassing, and kicking
- factions.kit.fullplayer (granted by default) – Can also create new factions.
- factions.kit.halfplayer – Can do all but create factions.
- factions.money.kit.standard – Basic faction bank interaction.
- factions.money.* - Admin-level interaction with all faction banks.
These are the individual permissions:
- factions.admin – hand over your admin rights
- factions.autoclaim – auto-claim land as you walk around
- factions.bypass – enable admin bypass mode
- factions.chat – change chat mode
- factions.claim – claim the land where you are standing
- factions.config – change a conf.json setting
- factions.create – create a new faction
- factions.deinvite – remove a pending invitation
- factions.description – change the faction description
- factions.disband – disband a faction
- factions.disband.any – disband an other faction
- factions.help – display a help page
- factions.home – teleport to the faction home
- factions.invite – invite a player to your faction
- factions.join – join a faction
- factions.kick – kick a player from the faction
- factions.kick.any – kick anyone from any faction
- factions.leave – leave your faction
- factions.list – see a list of the factions
- factions.lock – lock all write stuff
- factions.managesafezone – claim land as a safe zone and build/destroy within safe zones
- factions.managewarzone – claim land as a war zone and build/destroy within war zones
- factions.map – show the territory map, and set optional auto update
- factions.mod – give or revoke moderator rights
- factions.money.balance – show your factions current money balance
- factions.money.balance.any – show money balance for factions other than your own
- factions.money.deposit – deposit money into a faction bank
- factions.money.withdraw – withdraw money from your faction bank
- factions.money.withdraw.any – withdraw money from your factions other than your own
- factions.money.f2f – transfer money from faction to faction
- factions.money.f2p – transfer money from faction to player
- factions.money.p2f – transfer money from player to faction
- factions.noboom – toggle explosions (peaceful factions only)
- factions.open – switch if invitation is required to join
- factions.owner – set ownership of claimed land
- factions.ownerlist – list owner(s) of this claimed land
- factions.ownershipbypass – bypass ownership restrictions within own faction’s territory
- factions.setpeaceful – designate a faction as peaceful
- factions.setpermanent – designate a faction as permanent
- factions.setpermanentpower – set permanent power level for a faction
- factions.power – show player power info
- factions.power.any – view an other players power level
- factions.relation – set relation wish to another faction
- factions.reload – reload data file(s) from disk
- factions.save – save all data to disk
- factions.sethome – set the faction home
- factions.sethome.any – set faction home for another faction
- factions.show – show faction information
- factions.tag – change the faction tag
- factions.title – set or remove a players title
- factions.version – see the version of the plugin
- factions.unclaim – unclaim the land where you are standing
- factions.unclaimall – unclaim all of your factions land
- factions.chatspy - allows use of the /f chatspy command; granted by default to factions.kit.halfmod and above
- factions.admin.any - allows use of /f admin on any player in any faction
- factions mod.any - allows use of /f mod on any player in any faction
- factions.join.any - allows player to join any faction, bypassing invitation process for closed factions