Terminology¶
As Luanti differs technically from Minecraft, both Java and Bedrock Edition, so differs its terminology (technical vocabulary), and so differs the internal vocabulary that Mineclonia uses. Normally, this would go straight to the nerrrds, but it’s important for regular players too to be aware of the speak.
A node is a typically cubic unit of terrain, referred to as a block in Minecraft and similar games. The term comes from latin for “knot” and is used in graph theory; why Luanti picked that word for blocks early on is unknown. When Luanti can’t find certain content that was once placed in the world but is no longer available (e.g. when its mod gets disabled), it represents it with an unknown node, the closest Minecraft alternative to which is the infamous black-and-magenta checkerboard pattern representing missing textures/models (when that happens to Luanti content, the texture is replaced by a red checkerboard texture with the text “no texture” written on it).
An item is anything that can be stored in an inventory in the form of item stacks, including said nodes (blocks), tools, weapons, crafting materials and so on. Inventories are assigned to players and can be assigned to nodes placed within the world. There are also detached inventories, meaning that they aren’t internally linked to a node or a player.
A tool is any item that can be used to interact with the world. By this definition, weapons are also classified as tools, and so are hands, even[1].
An itemstring is a technical name for an item in the form "<modname>:<itemname>". They are similar to Minecraft IDs after the 1.13 flattening, difference being that <modname> isn’t minecraft or mineclonia, but is instead the internal mod (module) that is responsible for that specific item (e.g. mcl_core for basic terrain nodes like "mcl_core:stone" and "mcl_core:dirt_with_grass").
A liquid is a special kind of node that can appear as a source and as flowing and have varying viscosity (move resistance) and range (flow distance), all similar to Minecraft. Interestingly, cobwebs were for a long time technically registered as liquids so that they could carry a viscosity value to slow the player down.
An object is anything that can move smoothly in the world, which includes players and entities. An entity may be anything from a dropped item to a hostile or passive mob, all either defined in Lua scripts or overrideable within them.
Light in Luanti games is entirely based on nodes (blocks), meaning that only nodes can emit light (be a light source). The only “natural” source of light is sunlight itself, which has a light level of 15; every other light source will range from light level 1-14. Transparent nodes like air and glass will let light through with no loss, semi-transparent nodes like water and stairs will dim it a bit, and opaque nodes like stone and wood will stop any light from passing through[2].
A mod, modification, module all refer to the same thing in Luanti: a group of Lua scripts responsible for adding/altering game behavior/content. A Luanti modpack is a group of mods which can even contain other modpacks within itself. A game in Luanti is a collection of different mods and (optionally) modpacks with attached metadata, which combine to form a cohesive gaming experience.
Metadata is a collection of dynamic properties assigned to specific nodes, item stacks and players, used by both Luanti and various mods. The closest Minecraft analog to that are the NBT tags. A definition is a collection of static properties assigned to registered kinds of items and entities. Items in Luanti are categorized by group ratings, which can dictate how they’re used in crafting, (in case of nodes) what tools can break them, or (in case of tools) what nodes they can break. All of these are used and assigned in code, both by Luanti and via Lua scripts.
A world is an environment linked to an installed game together with its save data, not all too different from Minecraft worlds/maps. What is unique is that Luanti worlds can have different external mods enabled on them on a per-world basis, as opposed to enabling them per-game or even per Luanti install.
A texture pack is a collection of files that alter the visuals of Luanti and the games/mods it covers. Coming from the name, Luanti texture packs can only change textures, but not models, sounds or anything else that the Minecraft resource packs can do; those changes are only possible within mods. Texture packs also can’t be enabled together or in a specific order. They are also applied globally per Luanti install, unlike mods.
A server is “the program that manages and distributes mod, texture and sound data to the players.” This is where Mineclonia runs, and where almost all mods run; the server handles the world, records and processes all the node and object interactions within it, etc. A client is “The program that the player uses to connect to singleplayer or multiplayer games.” The mods that run on the client are called client-side mods, or CSMs for short. Mineclonia has its own official CSM to enhance gameplay, but it requires a modified client to install in the first place; see halon’s CSM.