Utility Data Packs
Technical data packs for server management, coordinates, timers, and admin tools.
AFK DisplaySimpleVanilla Tweaks
Automatically grays out player names in the tab list when they go AFK. Shows who is active and who is away.
Armor StatuesModerateVanilla Tweaks
Gives you a book to customize armor stands with various poses, sizes, and options. Essential for decorating builds.
Coordinates HUDSimpleVanilla Tweaks
Displays your current coordinates on the action bar without needing to open the debug screen. Toggle on and off with a trigger.
Nether Portal CoordsSimpleVanilla Tweaks
Calculates and displays the corresponding Nether coordinates for your current Overworld position. Helps with portal linking.
Track Raw StatisticsSimpleVanilla Tweaks
Tracks and displays various player statistics on a scoreboard. Monitor playtime, deaths, mob kills, and more.
How utility packs run
A utility pack is mostly functions. Everything in the #minecraft:tick function tag runs at the start of every tick, and #minecraft:load runs when the world loads and again after each /reload. Personal on and off switches use /trigger, the one scoreboard command any player can run without operator rights, and only on objectives the pack has enabled for that player.
- Coordinates HUD
- Writes your position to the action bar above the hotbar. That line holds one message at a time, so two packs that both use it keep overwriting each other.
- Nether Portal Coords
- Divides your Overworld X and Z by 8. That is the whole trick behind linking portals: one block in the Nether equals eight in the Overworld, and Y does not change.
- Armor Statues
- Edits entity data you could also set by hand. In Java an armor stand only shows arms with
ShowArms:1b, andNoBasePlate:1bremoves the base, so the book mostly saves you typing/data mergecommands. - Track Raw Statistics
- Ties scoreboard objectives to statistics the game already counts, such as deaths and play time. The sidebar shows one objective at a time, so it competes with any other pack that uses it.
- AFK Display
- Colors the names of idle players with a team. Other packs color names the same way, and a player can only be on one team, so two of these can fight over the same name.
Switching one off
/datapack disable with the pack name stops its functions, but scoreboard objectives and entity data it created stay in the world. Many packs include an uninstall function for exactly that, so run it before you delete the file.
Where a pack can show things
A scoreboard objective can sit in the player list, below player names or in the sidebar, and each of those slots shows one objective at a time. Java also has 16 team sidebars, sidebar.team.<color>, each seen only by players on a team of that color, so different groups can each get their own sidebar.
/trigger works once per enable. After a player runs it, the objective is switched off for that player again, so a pack has to enable it before the same player can use it a second time.
Keeping tick functions light
A function in #minecraft:tick runs 20 times a second, whether there is work to do or not. Work that can wait belongs in /schedule function, which runs a function once after a delay instead of every tick. To see what your packs cost, /tick query reports the average time per tick; at the normal rate of 20 ticks a second the game has 50 milliseconds for each one. The game rules max_command_sequence_length and max_command_forks cap what one source can run in a single tick, both at 65,536 by default.