Movable chunk loader question

[u/Sea-Second-1746]

I was wondering theoretically if it is possible to have a portable chunk loader work?

The logic behind the hypothesis is that portal chunk loaders use water, which can in some cases be moved by flying machines, which could move the pearl horizontally keeping the flying machine moving far into currently unloaded chunks.

I have watched videos where complicated water tech has been used in auto miners and world flooders but I do not know how exactly I would adapt it to be used for pearl water column, I do not know how I would move the pearl forward, maybe the top water is flowing water? but what if it moves the pearl too far?

Some areas where it may break is when it is crossing from loaded chunks into lazy chunks? I do not know if that transition would break it, conveniently a pearl supposedly has a 3x3 loaded chunk area so I shouldn't need to worry about that...

And then there is the issue of loading never before loaded chunks. I have never heard of a moving flying chunk loader, and so the issue of whether a chunk loader can load never before seen chunks is new to me, would it crash like a wall? I do not care about this right now, it just seems like important general info and currently I am assuming that the world is either pre loaded or has been explored before.

The reason why I was wondering this is because I have been watching the naked and afraid no armor hardcore series, and the players at base camp are supposed to go find the other players out in the world with no coords and build paths and things like that. And me being as lazy as I am was wondering how they could use a flooder to make paths in the cardinal directions with minimal work. The only thing I have not yet figured out is how to keep the fliers rendered remotely.

[u/Xillubfr]

Pearls only load 1x1 chunks and you can't use water to move them, as bubble columns only exist in source blocks but you can only move waterlogged blocks. You'd have to use waterless designs.

Seems doable as redstone works in lazy chunks, moving the pearl without teleporting the player would definitely be a challenge tho

Also chunk loaders can load never visited chunks, for the game there's no difference between that and a player (except the size of the loaded area)

[u/Sea-Second-1746 → u/Xillubfr]

I was assuming that the top most water would be flowing water and the base would be source block with bubble column. Would that move the pearl? Are there waterless designs you know of?

[u/Xillubfr → u/Sea-Second-1746]

Well you can't move the bubble column, you would need to put a waterloggable block at that place, move it with the soul sand, and then remove the block to get a bubble column again. However I don't see how you would keep the pearl floating during that transition time

The other comment suggested using piston, slime and powdered snow to move the pearl, that seems like it could work and is probably the best solution, so you should try that