CatchTheBeacon – Cores Minigame

A Cores minigame for Paper: Red vs Blue on a sky map, every team guards two beacons (cores). Break both enemy beacons to win – but near an enemy beacon you get Mining Fatigue, so one player mines while the rest of the team keeps them alive.



Features



Gameplay

• Two beacons per team – both enemy beacons destroyed = victory. A boss bar shows everybody when a beacon is being mined.
• Mining Fatigue around beacons – breaking a beacon takes about 15 seconds, attacks need teamwork.
• Base defense – the team is warned when enemies come close, every beacon has a trap (blindness + slowness), defenders regenerate near their beacons and campers get poison.
• No generators – iron and diamond blocks of the map give armor and swords when mined. Steal the enemy's iron, guard your own.
• Fair start – a fresh kit on every respawn (16 arrows, wool, stone tools, leather armor in team colors), 3 extra hearts, spawn and respawn protection, a compass pointing to the next enemy beacon.
• Modern or 1.8 PvP – with or without attack cooldown.
• Variants – players vote in the lobby: Rush (beacons break twice as fast, events come twice as often), Bow only, No iron, One hit.
• Timed events – beacon protection ends after 10 minutes, effects after 15, the round ends after 25 (all configurable).
• The whole map can be broken – or only placed blocks, with protected blocks of your choice.
• Stats, leaderboard and achievements – kills, deaths, K/D, wins, beacons, /ctb top, 8 achievements, a round summary with MVP. SQLite or MySQL/MariaDB.
• Spectators and rejoin – watch running games, players who lose their connection get back into their team.
• Balanced teams by win rate, team chat with ! to shout, game chats don't mix with the server chat.
• Tips for new players during their first rounds.

For server owners

• Guided arena setup – /ctb arena <name> setup gives you hotbar tools for spawns and beacons and a checklist.
• Map presets – download a supported map, drop the zip into plugins/CatchTheBeacon/maps and it is set up automatically (currently: Sakura by BreadBuilds). The lobby comes with the plugin.
• Join signs and NPCs – [ctb] signs with live status, Citizens or FancyNpcs as join NPCs.
• Game manager GUI – /ctb game lists, starts, stops and creates games.
• Velocity network – one game per server, lobby server with join signs that show the state of every game server.
• VIP perks (ctb.vip) – start the game, join full lobbies, double vote, join message, kill particles and a victory firework. Cosmetic only, no advantage in the fight.
• Your world stays untouched – inventories, stats, advancements and recipes of the players are saved and given back.
• Every message can be changed in messages.yml (MiniMessage).

Supported plugins

All optional:

• PlaceholderAPI, MiniPlaceholders – Placeholders for stats, leaderboard and game state
• Parties, Party and Friends – Parties join together and play in the same team
• Citizens, FancyNpcs – Join NPCs that show the state of the game
• Vault / VaultUnlocked – Money for kills, beacons, wins and played rounds
• TAB – Tab list, name tags in team colors and sidebar during the game
• EssentialsX, SuperVanish, PremiumVanish – God mode, vanish and AFK are turned off in the game, no /back into games
• Multiverse-Core, Multiverse-Inventories – Game worlds are kept out of Multiverse
• Floodgate (Geyser) – Bedrock players get forms instead of chest menus

Requirements

• Paper 26.2 (only the current version is supported)
• Java 25

Getting started

1. Put CatchTheBeacon.jar into plugins/ and start the server.
2. Get a map:
   • Preset: download Sakura, put the zip into plugins/CatchTheBeacon/maps/ and restart (or run /ctb arena create sakura). Done – the game starts as soon as enough players join.
   • Your own map: copy the world folder to plugins/CatchTheBeacon/maps/<name> (or use /ctb arena create <name> --world <world>), set a lobby world with /ctb arena <name> lobby setworld <map or world>, then run /ctb arena <name> setup and follow the steps. Every team needs a spawn and two beacons.
3. /ctb arena <name> creategame – or place a sign with [ctb] in the first line and the arena name in the second.
4. Players join with /ctb join or the sign.

Commands

• /ctb join, /ctb quit, /ctb spectate – Join, leave or watch a game
• /ctb stats [player], /ctb achievements [player], /ctb top [stat] – Stats and leaderboard
• /ctb start – ctb.vip – Starts the game in the lobby immediately
• /ctb arena create <name> [--world <world>], /ctb arena list – ctb.admin – Create and list arenas
• /ctb arena <arena> setup / check / creategame / removegame – ctb.admin – Set up and run an arena
• /ctb game – ctb.admin – Game manager (GUI)
• /ctb npc link <arena> / unlink / list – ctb.admin – Join NPCs
• /ctb config items set – ctb.admin – Saves your inventory as the kit

/ctb help shows all commands. ctb.network.bypass: not put into the game automatically on a game server.

Placeholders

PlaceholderAPI ( %ctb_…%) and MiniPlaceholders: kills, deaths, kd, wins, games, beacons, achievements, team, arena, players_<arena>, maxplayers_<arena>, state_<arena>, top_<stat>_<place>_<name|value>.

Network (Velocity)

• Game servers: network.mode: game – one arena per server, players joining the server join the game and are sent back to the lobby afterwards.
• Lobby server: network.mode: lobby with the game servers in network.servers – join signs ([ctb] + server name) and /ctb join send players to a free game.
• Use the same MySQL database on all servers (sql.enabled: true) for shared stats.

Privacy

CatchTheBeacon sends anonymous statistics (bStats), anonymous error reports (Sentry) and checks GitHub for updates. Everything can be disabled – see PRIVACY.md.

License

Apache License 2.0