Once a packet has been added to the network, it can be called to send a message to the side it refers to. Usually there are four different directions a packet can be sent:

Direction Description
PLAY_TO_CLIENT A packet is sent from the server to the client during gameplay.
PLAY_TO_SERVER A packet is sent from the client to the server during gameplay.
LOGIN_TO_CLIENT A packet is sent to the client on initial login.
LOGIN_TO_SERVER A packet is sent to the server on initial login.

The two login packets are handled internally by forge itself. However, the other two need to be sent using SimpleChannel#send for SimpleChannel#sendToServer. Each method takes a new instance of the message to send.

Client Packet Locations

  • It might not always be necessary to update every single client with a packet if they are not viewing the entity or are not affected by it. To specify which clients to send a packet from the server to, a PacketDistributor$PacketTarget must also be passed in as a parameter. There are many helpful fields that hold simple implementations of where to send which packet within PacketDistributor. However, they must be supplied with the required input either via PacketDistributor#with or PacketDistributor#noArg if it is going to all players.

Here is a list of distributors available:


  • PLAYER:Send to the specified Player.
  • DIMENSION:Send to everyone in the specified dimension.
  • NEAR:Send to everyone near the specified PacketDistributor$TargetPoint
  • ALL:Send to everyone
  • SERVER:Send to the server(from client)
  • TRACKING_ENTITY:Send to all tracking the specified Entity
  • TRACKING_ENTITY_AND_SELF:Send to all tracking the specified Entity and Player
  • TRACKING_CHUNK:Send to all tracking the specified Chunk
  • NMLIST:Send to each NetworkManager instance in the specified List