Unattended Stations

Unattended Stations

A cart arriving at an unattended station is held just long enough to settle and let a detector rail fire. That is arrival-hold-ticks, three seconds by default. It is not held long enough for hoppers to empty it, and in STRICT mode it cannot be.

This is a design position rather than an oversight.

The hopper arithmetic

One hopper moves about 2.5 items a second, and only one hopper fits under a stationary cart. A full chest cart is 27 stacks, so draining it takes roughly eleven minutes.

Holding a station chunk loaded for eleven minutes, on repeat, is chunk loading. It is the exact thing STRICT exists to prevent. There is no value for arrival-hold-ticks that is both long enough to be useful and still safe, which is why raising it is not offered as the answer.

Two honest options

Use vanilla /forceload add

Run it on the station chunk. One chunk, permanently, entirely under your control and visible in /forceload query. It does not touch ChunkCarts' guarantees, and for most servers it is simply the better tool: the station is a fixed location that you chose, which is precisely the case vanilla forceloading already handles well.

Or use PERMISSIVE with unload-hold

Set enforcement: PERMISSIVE together with unload-hold, and accept everything else permissive mode brings. unload-hold defaults to 0s, and it is only useful in permissive mode because STRICT clamps it. Both settings are on Configuration.

Be clear about what this trades away. Permissive mode is not scoped to your station: it removes the guarantee server wide, for every cart and every player who can build a loop of powered rail.

Why this is worth stating up front

Automatic unloading at an unattended station is the most likely feature request, and the answer is not a setting that has been overlooked. The reason it does not exist is the same reason the mod is worth installing.