Gateway of Doom 2.1.0

This is the largest Gateway of Doom update so far!

Version 2.1.0 introduces automatic server events, a public API, configurable Hell Wards, newly animated Devil Eyes, custom sound packages, advanced mob equipment rules, a completely redesigned operator menu, and extensive server-side safeguards.

✦ Highlights

Added automatic Gateways that can start during exploration or after a random timer.
Added a public server-side API for quests, structures, scripts, and other mods.
Added five craftable Hell Wards that protect areas from 1 × 1 up to 5 × 5 chunks against Gateways.
Added a new animated and colorable Portal Eye design.
Added three selectable Gateway sound modes.
Added configurable mob equipment pools with percentage chances.
Completely rebuilt the operator menu with a responsive Doom-red design.

✦ Automatic Gateway Events

Gateways can now open automatically without requiring a Devil Eye to be thrown.

Every automation rule can use one of two trigger modes:

Exploration

Requires the player to travel a randomly selected configurable distance.
Only chunks that are new to the respective player count toward progress.
Separate minimum and maximum exploration distances can be configured.
Pre-generated chunks still count when the player personally enters them for the first time.
Logging out does not reset exploration progress.
Teleports and dimension changes do not count as exploration movement.

Random Timer

Selects a new random delay after every event.
Separate minimum and maximum times can be configured.
Timers are persisted for each world.

Event Types

Every automatic rule can operate in one of the following ways:

Server Event: One shared trigger selects a random eligible player.
Per-Player Event: Every eligible player has their own independent progress or timer.

Rules can additionally configure:

Eye profile
One or more dimensions
Minimum number of eligible players
Gateway spawn distance
Maximum number of simultaneously active events
Chat announcement behavior
Creative player participation

Spectators always remain excluded.

Automatic events use the same portal lifecycle, sounds, limits, protection checks, and rewards as manually opened Gateways.

Default Automatic Events

New installations include the following enabled server-event defaults:

Overworld: Easy blue Gateway after 100–300 blocks of exploration.
Nether: Medium red Gateway after a random 30–60 minutes.
End: Hard violet Gateway after a random 30–60 minutes.

✦ Player and Server Limits

Server owners can configure how many player-owned Gateways one player may have active at the same time.

The default limit is one active Gateway per player.
The limit can be configured between 1 and 4.
The same limit applies to thrown Eyes, automatic events, commands, and player-owned API requests.
Players who have already reached their limit are skipped during automatic target selection.
Ownerless Gateways created by quests, structures, scripts, or mod integrations do not consume a player's allowance.

Additional global, per-dimension, per-rule, owner, and source checks prevent duplicate or uncontrolled Gateway spawning.

All Gateway opening methods now use one centralized and validated safe-placement service.

Hell Wards and safe-position checks are enforced for:

Thrown Devil Eyes
Automatic events
Commands
API requests

✦ New Devil Eye Design

Added the new Portal Eye design, which is now used by default.

The inner vortex inherits the configured Eye color.
The original Eye design remains available as Classic.
Every Eye profile can select its own Eye design independently.
A live Eye preview is now displayed beside the portal preview in the color and appearance editor.

✦ Difficulty and Default Profile Balance

The default Nether and End profiles have been rebalanced to remain challenging without overwhelming solo players.

Changes include:

Reduced several default mob counts.
Increased the time available for difficult waves.
Reduced the default Medium and Hard attribute bonuses.
Rebalanced the Medium and Hard bosses.
Added automatic migration for untouched legacy defaults.

Existing custom profiles and deliberately edited combat values are preserved.

✦ Gateway Sound Packages

Added three server-wide Gateway sound modes:

Infernal Echoes: The new default custom sound package.
Vanilla Minecraft Sounds: The previous sound behavior using Minecraft sounds.
No Gateway Sounds: Completely disables Gateway sounds.

Infernal Echoes Includes

Portal explosion and opening sound
Three random boss summoning voice lines
Boss defeat sound
Portal closing sound

Gateway sounds are position-based and can only be heard by nearby players.

✦ Hell Wards

Added five craftable and placeable Hell Wards:

1 × 1 chunk protection
2 × 2 chunk protection
3 × 3 chunk protection
4 × 4 chunk protection
5 × 5 chunk protection

Gateways cannot appear inside protected chunks.

Hell Ward Map

Right-clicking a Hell Ward opens a compact terrain map of the protected area.

Protected chunks are highlighted in yellow.
The Hell Ward is marked in red.
North, South, East, and West are displayed.
The coordinates of the chunk under the cursor are shown.

Ownership and Protection

Breaking a Hell Ward returns the item.
Only the owner or an operator may break and recover a Ward.
Explosions cannot bypass ownership protection.
Pistons cannot bypass ownership protection.
Wards belonging to players who have been offline for 30 days expire automatically.
Expiration never force-loads unloaded chunks.
Overlapping Wards remain safe.

Removing one Hell Ward does not remove protection that is still provided by another Ward.

✦ Mob Equipment and Mod Compatibility

Vanilla and modded mobs once again receive their normal:

Weapons
Armor
Enchantments
Variants
Standard AI initialization

Disabling additional equipment now always preserves the mob's normal and fully initialized equipment.

Custom Equipment Rules

Optional equipment rules can now be configured for every Eye profile.

Each rule selects:

A mob that appears in the respective profile's waves
A compatible item
A valid visible equipment slot
A percentage chance

Multiple items can form a weighted equipment pool for the same mob and equipment slot.

The combined chance for one mob and equipment slot cannot exceed 100%.
Any remaining percentage keeps the mob's normal equipment.
Weapons can only be assigned to supported visible hand slots.
Armor can only be assigned to supported visible armor slots.
Modded equipment is supported when it uses normal Minecraft equipment behavior.

Extensible tags allow modpack creators to enable compatible modded mobs for visible hand or armor equipment.

✦ Redesigned Operator Menu

The entire operator interface has been rebuilt with a wide, framed, Doom-red design.

Added separate tabs for:

General Settings
Eye Profiles
Automation
Help & Integration

Additional improvements include:

Replaced profile cycling with searchable selection lists.
Added proper lists for dimensions, mobs, items, effects, loot tables, and Eye profiles.
Added clearer validation messages.
Added minimum-value hints.
Added additional tooltips.
Added confirmation dialogs.
Added safer deletion dialogs for profiles, rules, waves, and list entries.
Completely rewrote the Help & Integration section.
Added explanations, command block examples, and API guidance.

Configuration screens and commands remain operator-only.

✦ Public API and Commands

Added a loader-neutral, server-side Gateway API for modpack creators and integrations.

Integrations can now:

Open a Gateway safely near a position
Request an exact position
Select an Eye profile
Assign an optional player owner
Assign a stable source ID
List and inspect active Gateways
Find Gateways by owner
Find Gateways by source ID
Close one Gateway
Close every Gateway belonging to a source
Receive opened lifecycle events
Receive completed lifecycle events
Receive failed lifecycle events
Receive closed lifecycle events

Asynchronous helpers are available for integrations that are not already running on the server thread.

Commands

Added operator-only commands for opening, listing, and closing Gateways.

Command blocks can now open configured Gateway encounters without requiring a Devil Eye.

Ownerless API and command requests are suitable for:

Quests
Structures
Scripts
Boss encounters
Mod integrations

API requests still respect Hell Wards and all server-side safety validation.

✦ Large-Server and Performance Improvements

Automatic exploration tracking was designed for servers with thousands of concurrent players.

Exploration Tracking

Supports up to 8,192 tracked exploration profiles with strict record limits.
Uses one deduplicated recent-chunk history per player.
Does not duplicate chunk history for every automatic rule.
Stores compact counters for each rule.
Stores up to 128 recently visited chunks per player.
Automatically reduces the history to 64 chunks when more than 2,048 explorers are active.
Inactive exploration data expires after 30 days.
Sorting, expiration, and record trimming use a periodic maintenance pass.

Saving and Persistence

Automation data is compressed on a dedicated I/O thread.
State files use atomic writes.
A final save is performed during a clean server shutdown.
Automation cooldowns are persisted for each world.
Legacy automation states are automatically migrated.

Hell Ward Performance

Hell Ward protection uses constant-time chunk lookups.
Supports up to 8,192 Hell Wards per dimension with strict safety limits.
The terrain map uses limited and cached samples.
The terrain map never scans or loads additional chunks.

Strict limits have also been added for:

Profiles
Waves
Mobs
Rewards
Equipment rules
Automatic rules
Serialized state size

✦ Configuration Safety

The configuration system has received extensive safety improvements.

Updated the configuration schema.
Added automatic migration from older releases.
Added transactional configuration loading and saving.
Added atomic writes.
Added configuration backups.
Added recovery from invalid files.
Added server-side validation for identifiers.
Added server-side validation for configuration values.
Added server-side validation for list sizes.
Added validation for percentage pools.
Configuration changes are synchronized with connected clients.
Loot table integrations reload immediately after relevant changes.

Active Gateways now retain a persisted snapshot of their profile. Later configuration changes therefore cannot corrupt encounters that are already running.

Additional improvements include:

Reference-counted chunk forcing for overlapping Gateways
Persisted runtime state for thrown Devil Eyes
More reliable Devil Eye item refunds

✦ Diagnostic Test Mode

Added an optional and extensive technical test suite for operators.

The diagnostic system validates:

Configuration round-trips
Configuration migrations
Resources
Recipes
Translations
Sounds
Eye data
Portal styles
Attribute scaling
Waves
Bosses
Equipment
Loot
Debuffs
Automation
Player and server limits
API behavior
Lifecycle events
Gateway cleanup

The test creates isolated temporary Gateways without permanent rewards or progression.

A detailed JSON report is written to the server diagnostics folder.

Permissions and Availability

Diagnostic commands require permission level 4.
Diagnostic commands are disabled by default in production builds.
They can only be enabled through the text configuration.
They are intentionally not available as an operator-menu toggle.

Available Diagnostic Commands

/gateway test
/gateway test stop

✦ Languages

Gateway of Doom now includes the following languages:

English
German
Spanish
French
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Simplified Chinese

✦ Upgrade Notes

Back up your world and configuration before installing any large mod update.

Existing custom profiles are preserved.
Untouched legacy Medium and Hard defaults may be migrated to the newly balanced defaults.
Existing automatic-event settings are preserved when present.
Diagnostic commands are disabled by default in release builds.
The new Portal Eye is now the default Eye design.
The new Infernal Echoes package is now the default Gateway sound mode.

Thank you for all your suggestions, testing, and bug reports! ❤️

Gateway of Doom