[MC-164009] Piston bases have tile entities when extending/retracting despite not needing them

When pistons extend or retract, their bases have tile entities, even though those are not needed. I was told that the extension progress is saved in a float, but this is not required, because there are a limited amount of ticks that an extension or retraction lasts (to my understanding at most three), so it could be saved in a block state. This would improve performance.

(split off of MC-159902)

Linked issues

clones 1

MC-159902 Multiple blocks have tile entities despite not needing them, creating unnecessary lag Resolved

relates to 2

MC-164011 Comparators might not need to have tile entities Open

MC-271243 Lodestone do not have a tile entity to store the tracking, unlike Bedrock Edition Resolved

Comments 5

RedCMD 2019-10-17T21:13:15Z

The amount of ticks for extension maxes at 2gt (the extra +1gt comes from b36 converting to a normal block is outisde of the piston phase)

Pistons having block entities causes unneeded lag, as loading and unloading block entities is very very laggy

NeunEinser 2019-10-18T00:48:03Z

This one might be needed, because there is a special renderer envolved to animate the block movement smoothly.

Iosiv Visokogorskiy 2020-07-02T15:23:16Z

This still happens in 20w27a?

kelianor 2024-04-27T10:11:54Z

Affects 1.20.5

4ebugger 2024-04-30T08:16:40Z

Both moving piston and moving blocks are needs to use the tile entity special renderer to rendering the smoothly block movement animation, so this is not a bug. If this got "fixed", the piston movement action will become lagging.