IceLegends SMP
A vanilla-first Romanian Minecraft SMP built for clean 3–4 month seasons.
The Problem
Running a community SMP means balancing plugin depth against vanilla feel, managing a world-reset cycle, and keeping operations simple enough for a solo admin. IceLegends SMP solves this with 11 carefully chosen plugins, strict feature gating per a "vanilla-first" principle, and fully automated backups and world resets.
My Role
Designed, configured, and deployed solo — server architecture, 11-plugin selection and configuration, LuckPerms permission model, economy and nation design, Docker infrastructure, and Cloudflare Tunnel ingress for Dynmap.
Highlights
- PaperMC 1.21 on Docker with a hard 11-plugin cap — every plugin is justified and none are redundant
- Towny nations with seasonal quests (Quests + Citizens NPCs) and a single manually-spawned MythicMobs boss per season
- AureliumSkills passive bonuses only — active abilities disabled to preserve vanilla combat (P-01)
- DiscordSRV bridge logs every death, join, and chat event to dedicated Discord channels in real time
- Daily automated backups with 7-day retention; resource world resets every Monday at 05:00 via cron
Stack
Constraints
- Solo admin — every operation must complete in under 10 minutes (P-02).
- Vanilla-first (P-01): if any plugin disappeared tomorrow, the game must continue unchanged.
- 11-plugin hard cap — every addition must displace something or prove unique, irreplaceable value.
System Architecture
Key Trade-offs
The decisions worth defending — what I chose, what I turned down, and why.
Plugin count cap
Chose
Hard cap at 11 plugins
Rejected
Unlimited plugin stack
Each plugin is a maintenance surface and a potential conflict point. The cap forces prioritisation and keeps the dependency graph legible for a solo admin.
Public ingress for Dynmap
Chose
Cloudflare Tunnel (no open ports)
Rejected
Expose :8123 directly via UFW
No origin IP exposure, free DDoS protection, and zero firewall rule maintenance — the same pattern used by the IceLegends portfolio site.
AureliumSkills scope
Chose
Passive bonuses only, active abilities disabled
Rejected
Full AureliumSkills feature set including active combat abilities
Active abilities alter vanilla combat — a direct violation of P-01. Passive bonuses reward playtime additively without changing the combat model.
Season lifecycle
Chose
Full world reset every 3–4 months
Rejected
Incremental map expansion with no reset
Resets keep the world fresh, prevent terrain exhaustion, and give every new player an equal start — critical for community health in a small SMP.
What I'd Do Differently
An honest retrospective — the stuff I'd change with more time, more users, or a second pass.
- 1Add a staging compose stack so plugin updates can be tested before touching the live season — one bad update cost several hours of rollback work.
- 2Move backup storage off-site from day one; local-only archives are a single hardware failure away from a full season loss.
- 3Wire Dynmap as a named Docker service rather than relying on the host port, so the Cloudflare Tunnel config survives container IP reassignment on restart.
Technical Deep-Dive
Architecture, specifications, and implementation details.
04 — Towny: Nations & Territories
"Land claiming, towns, nations, wars — the social backbone of the server
#Philosophy
Towny is how players protect their home and expand with friends. It's not a complex political simulator at launch — it grows into one organically. Wars are disabled the first 2 weeks so players can establish bases before conflict starts.
#Core Config
# townyconfig.yml — key values
# Plots
min_residents_to_claim_plot: 1 # can claim land alone
max_plots_per_resident: 8 # reasonable limit
# Towns
min_residents_for_town: 1 # can found a town alone
town_default_tax: 0.0 # no taxes for first 2 weeks
town_default_upkeep: 0.0
# Nations (optional)
min_towns_for_nation: 2 # minimum 2 towns to form a nation
nation_default_tax: 0.0
# Wars — disabled at launch
war_enabled: false # Admin enables manually at week 3
#Romanian Titles
| Towny Role | Romanian Title |
|---|---|
| Resident | Locuitor |
| Mayor | Primar |
| King | Rege |
| Nation Leader | Împărat |
| Town Member | Cetățean |
#Town Progression
Player joins → claims 1 plot (home) → expands plots → invites friends
→ founds a Town → recruits residents → claims more land
→ enough towns → founds a Nation → politics & wars begin
#Wars
| Setting | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
war_enabled | false at launch | Admin enables at week 3 |
war_time_between_wars | 48h | Cooldown between wars per town |
| War notification | Discord #events | DiscordSRV alert on war declaration |
"⚡ Admin command to enable wars:
/ta toggle warRun this at the start of week 3 — announce in Discord beforehand.
#Key Towny Commands for Players
/t new <name> # Found a town
/t add <player> # Invite a player to your town
/t claim # Claim the chunk you're standing in
/t unclaim # Unclaim current chunk
/t spawn # Teleport to your town spawn
/t deposit <amount> # Deposit money into town bank
/t withdraw <amount> # Withdraw from town bank
/n new <name> # Found a nation (need 2 towns)
/n ally add <nation> # Add nation ally
#Key Towny Commands for Staff
/ta town <name> delete # Delete a town (grief cleanup)
/ta toggle war # Enable/disable wars globally
/ta town <name> bankhistory # Check town finances
/towny prices # Show current town prices
#Dynmap Integration
Towny nation borders are automatically shown on the Dynmap web map. Each nation gets a distinct color. Town plots are outlined on the map.
#Related Documents
- Economy (taxes) →
03_economy_design.md - Discord war alerts →
10_discord_integration.md - World map →
08_world_management.md