Pre-release protocol

This page documents the changes from the last stable Minecraft release (currently 1.3.2) to the current pre-release (or weekly release).

New packets

-None-

Changed packets

Time Update (0x04)

Server to Client

Time is based on ticks, where 20 ticks happen every second. There are 24000 ticks in a day, making Minecraft days exactly 20 minutes long.

The time of day is based on the timestamp modulo 24000. 0 is sunrise, 6000 is noon, 12000 is sunset, and 18000 is midnight.

The default SMP server increments both by 20 every second.

The 'Time' is the Age of the world. It is not changing on server commands and will increased by 20 every second.

Packet ID	Field Name	Field Type	Example	Notes
0x04	Time	long	45464654	The 'Age of the world', in ticks
	Day Time	long	21321	The world (or region) time, in ticks
Total Size:	17 Bytes

Spawn Named Entity (0x14)

New rule for Metadata.

Spawn Dropped Item (0x15)

TODO

Spawn Mob (0x18)

New rule for Metadata.

Entity Metadata (0x28)

New rule for Metadata.

Changed data types

Metadata

When sending a entity, and its metadata, if the entity type is 5 (presumed to be item drop?) and the metadata does not exist, then its "id" field is -1, and the "count" and "damage" fields are skipped.

Removed packets

-None-

Protocol History

2012-09-06

• 12w36a
• Protocol version is now 42

2012-08-24

• 12w34b
• Protocol version is now 41

• In Entity metadata the slot type (5) can now be empty. Instead of (short, byte, short), only -1 as a short is sent. This affects 0x14 Spawn Named Entity, 0x18 Spawn Mob and 0x28 Entity Metadata

2012-08-09

• 12w32a
• Protocol version is now 40

• Changed Time Update packet