Step Erosion

StepErosion

StepErosion is a lightweight Paper plugin that makes your Minecraft world feel alive - paths form naturally wherever players walk most often.

How it works

Every step a player takes is tracked using a sliding time window. Once a block accumulates enough footsteps within that window, it erodes to the next stage:

GRASS_BLOCK ──[20 steps]──► DIRT ──[50 steps]──► DIRT_PATH

Paths are not permanent - if a DIRT_PATH block goes unwalked for long enough, it slowly reverts back to DIRT, simulating natural recovery.

Features

• Gradual erosion — blocks degrade step-by-step based on real player activity
• Natural recovery — dirt paths revert to dirt after inactivity
• Sliding window — only recent footsteps count; old traffic fades away
• Persistent — erosion state is saved to disk and survives server restarts
• Explosion-aware — TNT and creeper blasts clear erosion data for destroyed blocks
• Spread-aware — grass naturally overgrowing dirt resets its erosion progress
• Fully configurable — thresholds and time windows are all adjustable in config.yml
• Debug command — /se lets admins inspect, simulate, and reset erosion data

Configuration

erosion:
  dirt-threshold: 20        # steps to erode GRASS → DIRT
  path-threshold: 50        # steps to erode DIRT → DIRT_PATH
  step-window-ticks: 1728000    # 1 day — sliding window size
  recovery-window-ticks: 5184000  # 3 days — idle time before path reverts

Commands & Permissions

Permission: steperosion.admin (default: op)

Requirements

• Paper 26.1.2+ (2026 build series)
• Java 25+

⚠️ Region Plugin Compatibility

Currently, StepErosion does not integrate with region protection plugins such as Towny, WorldGuard, GriefPrevention, PlotSquared, or similar plot-based solutions.

This means erosion can occur in protected areas if players are allowed to walk there.

Full region plugin support is planned for a future update.