A few ideas here: Sizing, Resource Hungry and Redstone Control

[Guinaro]

1. Sizing options:
   Height and width seperately; Keeping it a maximum of number of chunks (configured in config file, 25 max). This way you could load 1 x 25 chunks in a long line or a 5x5 in a square.

2. Resource hungry (config option): it needs upkeep, configurable with config options
   Could be items: several with different upkeep times. Configured via config options (think coal, blaze powder, ender pearls, nether stars, ...)
   Also configurable if it needs to be provided manually or can be automated.
   Liquid Based or FE/RF Based.
   Resourcecost is per chunk loaded. (Multiple chunkloaders loading the same chunk, should only count once)
   If manually: restricted feeding/fueling to players that are tied to the chunkloader or making it public (so that anyone can fuel it for the duration of the persons that control it are absent)
   Resource hungry state for items could be that it remembers how much time remains to be chunkloaded before needing a new item, when deactivated.

3. Redstone control:
   Fixed signal (continuous signal for on/off)/Inverted Fixed (Redstone signal disables)
   Pulse signal (switching between on/off after each pulse)
   Pulsed with time delay: when on, and getting a pulse to switch off, you can keep it on for a configurable amount of ticks and only then switch it off.
   Possible usage: Automating railways with detector rails. You put a series of chunkloaders next to your railway and interconnect them with redstone signal. Since Railcarts Chunkloading cart still is not available.
   Whenever a cart passes a detector rail the necessary pulses are send out to switch the various chunkloaders alone the track to load or unload. Think Maglev trains where only the necessary track parts receive power. A time delayed pulse could allow enough time for a cart to travel into the next chunk, before the chunkloader disables again.

Ofcourse all of this still respect the fixed countdown timer!

[AtomicBlom]

Hi Guinaro,

When we were designing it, Rorax and I were pretty keen on going GUI-less for this mod, the solution we came up with for the concept of managing the size of chunk-loaded areas is to introduce a 1x1 chunk loader, and introduce the concept of "Chained loading"

The idea behind chained loading is that all of the chunk loaders will work as one cohesive block, activating one will activate all of the chunk loaders that are adjacent and so on.

The Resource Hungry stuff you mentioned which is already implemented, we opted to not implement FE for powering it, but we do have items that are configurable, and it works well with the chained loading because you only have to feed a single chunk loader and the effect is divided evenly between the chunk loaders.

Keeping in mind the GUI-less approach to the mod, the only way I could really see redstone working would be "If any of the chunk loaders in a group have a redstone signal, the entire set is loaded"

The one thing that has prevented me from releasing what I've done so far is that I've been too short on time to implement the Weirding Gadget Hat (aka, you wear a gadget on your head, and it allows you to see which chunks are loaded/at least have a weirding gadget in them). Based on my own play testing, I feel this is neccessary.