Permitting custom protocols

[Protonull]

This is a suggestion for a new API that would permit setting a custom protocol: the middle-man between the TCP stack and the game state. The problem comes from modpacks and other use cases which need more comprehensive control over the protocol than what plugin-message packets can provide, such as a custom login/auth/config process.

Solution

Handling received-packets would likely require minimal changes given how Minestom already permits you to set custom packet handlers. However, there is currently no way to register custom packets. Sending packets however will be much more difficult given their occurrence and optimisations, such as packet caching and reuse. There's also only so far the API can be abstracted given the minimal assumptions necessary from the Minecraft protocol, such as entity metadata (like health), which likely precludes an API which allows individual packets for such things (like a single packet for entity health).

[TheMeinerLP]

One idea how to implement this would be to transfer the registry logic of biomes or other things for packets. Then you could register your own. But we should make sure to set a different ID range