Configuration

Configuration

Four options, all server-side. Everything else about the mod — which effects exist, what they cost, what augments do — is datapack territory, deliberately not config.

Where the file lives

config/portablebeacons-server.toml

That is the default for every world. To override it for one world only, copy the file to:

<world>/serverconfig/portablebeacons-server.toml

On a client that is saves/<world>/serverconfig/, on a dedicated server <level-name>/serverconfig/. A per-world copy wins over the global one.

Being a server config, it is synced to clients on join. Players connecting to your server get your rules, not their local file, and the beacon screen adapts to them — see require_fuel below.

The options

All four live under a [gameplay] section.

require_fuel — default true

Whether beacons consume fuel at all.

Turn it off for a purely craft-gated mod: you earn the beacon once, and it works forever. This is not a cosmetic switch — with fuel off, the fuel slot, the gauge and every runtime figure disappear from the screen entirely. A gauge that never moves and a slot that accepts nothing are worse than no gauge and no slot.

Consider turning it off if your beacon already gates progression hard elsewhere, or if your players find resource upkeep tedious. Leave it on if you want carrying a beacon to remain a running cost — which is what makes the Efficiency and Capacity augments worth slotting.

aura_affects_non_team_players — default true

Whether an effect set to the allies aura mode reaches players who are not on your scoreboard team.

Servers with PvP usually want this off. With it on, allies means "everyone nearby", so standing near an enemy buffs them too. With it off, allies behaves like team unless a player is actually on your team.

Note this does not affect the team mode, which always requires an actual scoreboard team regardless of this setting.

free_while_near_beacon — default true

Whether an effect a real beacon is already providing stops costing fuel.

This exists so a beacon does not punish you for standing in your own base. With it on, the beacon skips those effects entirely rather than reapplying them, so it neither charges you nor fights the beacon.

Turn it off if you want the beacon to be a strictly separate system with no interaction with placed beacons.

require_beacon_to_configure — default false

Whether changing a beacon's effects requires standing within 16 blocks of a lit beacon.

Off by default, because the beacon block is already on the crafting path of every tier — you cannot have a beacon without having built a beacon first. Turn it on for a beacon that wants stricter progression, where reconfiguring is a trip home rather than something done in a cave.

What this gates is only reconfiguration: switching the beacon or an individual effect off always works, wherever you are. A player caught out in the field has to be able to stop the drain.