The best plugins for a hardcore SMP: voice chat, revive and anti-grief
The temptation with a new server is to throw twenty plugins on it. On a hardcore SMP that backfires: the format lives on tension and simplicity, not on menus and kits. This overview is based on what groups running a hardcore season with us actually use. Six plugins that make the game better, three that are handy for admin, and a short list of things you're better off leaving out.
At a glance
| Plugin | What for | Needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Simple Voice Chat | Talking to players nearby | Yes, this is half the experience |
| CoreProtect | Rolling back griefing and accidents | Yes |
| Revive or deathban plugin | Rules for players who die | Yes, unless dead really means dead |
| BlueMap or Dynmap | Map of the world in the browser | Nice, not needed |
| DiscordSRV | Chat and death messages to Discord | Nice for the viewers at home |
| Chunky | Pre-generating the world against lag | Yes with 10+ players |
| LuckPerms | Ranks and permissions | Only with admins besides yourself |
| Geyser + Floodgate | Letting Bedrock players join | Only if you have those friends |
| spark | Tracking down lag | When there are problems |
1. Simple Voice Chat
Proximity voice chat: you only hear whoever is close by, quieter the further away someone is. In hardcore that changes everything. Exploring a cave with someone twenty blocks away whispering that they can hear a creeper is exactly the tension the format is all about. Players need to add the mod to their own client too, and the server needs one extra UDP port. How to sort that out is in installing Simple Voice Chat. Groups for team conversations are included as standard.
2. CoreProtect
CoreProtect logs every block placed and broken, every chest and every bucket. If someone has "accidentally" emptied a base, /co inspect shows you who it was and /co rollback u:name t:2h r:30 rolls it back without restoring a backup. On a hardcore SMP this matters more than on a regular server, because a lost base in hardcore often means a lost life too. Installation and the key commands: installing CoreProtect and rolling back griefing.
3. A revive or deathban plugin
Vanilla hardcore has only one outcome: dead means spectator. For a three-week season that's fine, but a group that wants to play longer needs a rule. Two flavours:
- Revive: a living player can bring a dead one back, usually by sacrificing rare items at an altar or totem. That's the mechanic the creators used in several seasons.
- Deathban: after you die you're a spectator for a fixed number of hours or days, and then you come back automatically.
Search your panel's plugin library for "hardcore revive" or "deathban" and pick a plugin that's been updated for your Minecraft version. It works without a plugin too: an op puts a player back with /gamemode survival. See reviving a dead player.
4. BlueMap or Dynmap
A map in the browser lets spectators follow the world and helps the group build roads and borders. BlueMap renders the world in 3D and is the more modern choice; Dynmap is lighter and has been stable for years. Both run their own web page on a separate port. Be warned: the first render of a large world costs CPU and time; do it at a quiet moment. Guides: installing BlueMap and setting up Dynmap.
5. DiscordSRV
DiscordSRV mirrors the server chat to a Discord channel and back, and announces joins, leaves and, importantly for hardcore, every death. That way the whole group follows the season even when they're not online, and you automatically get a timeline of who died when. You'll need your own Discord bot for it; that's five minutes of work and is described in setting up DiscordSRV.
6. Chunky
Exploring is a big part of the game in hardcore, and generating new chunks is the heaviest thing a server does. With Chunky you pre-generate the world within your world border, so players never run into a creeper on a stuttering server. Combine it with /worldborder set 4000 and let Chunky run overnight. More on lag and the numbers behind it: TPS, MSPT and lag: what the numbers really mean.
Handy for admin
- LuckPerms gives you ranks and permissions, for example a mod who's allowed to revive players without full op rights. For a group of ten friends with one admin it's overkill. See installing and setting up LuckPerms.
- Geyser and Floodgate let friends on phone, tablet or console play along. Only needed if you have those friends; read Java and Bedrock together on one server.
- spark shows you what's slowing your server down. Not needed until you have a problem, and then indispensable. Guide: fixing lag with spark.
What you're better off leaving out
- Kits, shops and economy plugins. Free gear takes the tension out of hardcore. What you scrape together is what you have.
- Teleport and home commands.
/homeand/tpamake the world small and death less of a big deal. If you do want something, limit it to a single spawn teleport for new players. - Keep-inventory or extra lives via commands. Handle that through one agreed revive mechanism, not through one-off exceptions. Otherwise every season ends in an argument.
- Heavy world-management plugins you don't understand. Every plugin is a potential source of lag and bugs; on a hardcore server a bug costs someone their life.
How much server do these plugins need?
Simple Voice Chat, CoreProtect and a revive plugin cost next to nothing between them. BlueMap or Dynmap need extra CPU and memory while rendering, and a large pre-generated world needs storage. For a group of ten players with this set, 5 GB of RAM is enough; with a map and twenty players go for 8 GB. At MC-Node that's €5.50 or €8.80 per month, and you install plugins from the panel in a few clicks: installing a plugin.