[GUIDE] CronTab Spawn System — Complete Reference for LucerA2
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. What is the CronTab spawn system?
2. CronTab field anatomy
3. The randomness modifier (~)
4. Format 1 — by day of the week (bosses.properties)
5. Format 2 — by days after death (+N
6. Format 3 — XML spawn files (data/spawn)
7. Ready-to-use recipes table
8. Common mistakes
9. RespawnTimePattern vs. RespawnTimeInterval
10. Tips and best practices
11. Quick reference card
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1. WHAT IS THE CRONTAB SPAWN SYSTEM?
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Lucera's CronTab system lets you schedule Grand Boss spawns with
precise control over timing — including fixed times, specific days
of the week, random windows, and intervals relative to the boss's death.
There are two places where cron patterns are used:
- bosses.properties — Grand Boss configuration (Antharas, Valakas, Baium, etc.)
- data/spawn XML files — common bosses and NPCs
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2. CRONTAB FIELD ANATOMY
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A CronTab expression has 5 fields separated by spaces:
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3. THE RANDOMNESS MODIFIER (~)
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Prefixing the expression with ~ adds a random time window to the spawn,
making it less predictable for players.
Without it, the spawn happens at the exact anchor time.
Syntax:
⚠ WARNING: No spaces are allowed inside the spread modifier.
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4. FORMAT 1 — SPAWN BY DAY OF THE WEEK (bosses.properties)
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Use this when you want the boss to always spawn on a specific weekday,
regardless of when it was killed.
Full syntax:
Day of week reference:
Examples:
TIP: To spawn on two weekdays, separate them with a comma.
Example: * * 4,6 = Thursday and Saturday.
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5. FORMAT 2 — SPAWN BY DAYS AFTER DEATH (+N
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Use this when the boss should respawn N days after being killed,
always at a fixed hour. Useful for bosses that need a multi-day cooldown.
Full syntax:
⚠ IMPORTANT: The +N: format requires 3 asterisks at the end.
The day-of-week format only uses 2. Don't mix them up.
Examples:
⚠ NOTE on 14-day Saturday spawns: Use +10, not +14.
The system advances days until it hits the next Saturday.
Using +14 risks skipping a week if the boss dies on Sunday.
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6. FORMAT 3 — XML SPAWN FILES (data/spawn)
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For smaller bosses, Orfen, Core, Zaken, Queen Ant, and other NPCs
configured via XML, replace respawn and respawn_rand with respawn_cron.
Before (standard format):
After (with respawn_cron):
Where:
~120:0 = random window of 0 to 120 minutes
20 = anchor time: 20:00
+1:* = +1 day after death
* * = required wildcards (month and day of week)
More XML examples:
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7. READY-TO-USE RECIPES TABLE
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8. COMMON MISTAKES
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9. RESPAWNTIMEPATTERN VS. RESPAWNTIMEINTERVAL
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In bosses.properties there are two ways to schedule a respawn.
When RespawnTimePattern is set (non-empty), RespawnTimeInterval
is automatically disabled. Only use one at a time.
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10. TIPS AND BEST PRACTICES
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- Always use a random window (~) to make spawns less predictable
and keep the server dynamic.
- For events, combine a fixed weekday with a specific hour so
players know when to expect the boss.
- Restart the server or reload configs after editing bosses.properties.
- Test patterns in a dev environment before applying to production.
- Use https://crontab.guru to validate standard cron expressions
before adapting them to Lucera format.
- Add comments (#) in config files to document your changes for
easier maintenance later.
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11. QUICK REFERENCE CARD
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Based on the official guide by Deazer — lucera2.com
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. What is the CronTab spawn system?
2. CronTab field anatomy
3. The randomness modifier (~)
4. Format 1 — by day of the week (bosses.properties)
5. Format 2 — by days after death (+N
6. Format 3 — XML spawn files (data/spawn)
7. Ready-to-use recipes table
8. Common mistakes
9. RespawnTimePattern vs. RespawnTimeInterval
10. Tips and best practices
11. Quick reference card
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1. WHAT IS THE CRONTAB SPAWN SYSTEM?
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Lucera's CronTab system lets you schedule Grand Boss spawns with
precise control over timing — including fixed times, specific days
of the week, random windows, and intervals relative to the boss's death.
There are two places where cron patterns are used:
- bosses.properties — Grand Boss configuration (Antharas, Valakas, Baium, etc.)
- data/spawn XML files — common bosses and NPCs
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2. CRONTAB FIELD ANATOMY
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A CronTab expression has 5 fields separated by spaces:
Code:
minute hour day_of_month month day_of_week| Field | Position | Valid values | Example |
| Minute | 1st | 0 – 59 | 0 = on the hour |
| Hour | 2nd | 0 – 23 | 20 = 8:00 PM |
| Day of month | 3rd | 1 – 31 or +N:* | * or +5:* |
| Month | 4th | 1 – 12 or * | * = any month |
| Day of week | 5th | 0=Sun 1=Mon...6=Sat or * | 4 = Thursday |
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3. THE RANDOMNESS MODIFIER (~)
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Prefixing the expression with ~ adds a random time window to the spawn,
making it less predictable for players.
Without it, the spawn happens at the exact anchor time.
Syntax:
Code:
~MINUTES:START_MINUTE hour ...| Value | Meaning |
| ~180:0 | Random window of 0 to 180 min before anchor time |
| ~60:0 | Random window of 0 to 60 min before anchor time |
| ~30:0 | Random window of 0 to 30 min before anchor time |
| (no ~) | Fixed spawn, exactly at the defined time |
⚠ WARNING: No spaces are allowed inside the spread modifier.
| CORRECT: | ~180:0 |
| WRONG: | ~180: 0 |
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4. FORMAT 1 — SPAWN BY DAY OF THE WEEK (bosses.properties)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Use this when you want the boss to always spawn on a specific weekday,
regardless of when it was killed.
Full syntax:
Code:
BossNameRespawnTimePattern = ~SPREAD:0 HOUR * * DAY_OF_WEEKDay of week reference:
| 0 = Sunday | 4 = Thursday |
| 1 = Monday | 5 = Friday |
| 2 = Tuesday | 6 = Saturday |
| 3 = Wednesday | * = Every day |
Examples:
Code:
# Antharas — every Thursday at 21:00 (fixed)
AntharasRespawnTimePattern = 0 21 * * 4
# Antharas — every Thursday at 21:00 (up to 3h random window)
AntharasRespawnTimePattern = ~180:0 21 * * 4
# Valakas — every Friday at 20:00 (up to 3h random)
ValakasRespawnTimePattern = ~180:0 20 * * 5
# Baium — every Saturday at 18:00 (up to 2h random)
BaiumRespawnTimePattern = ~120:0 18 * * 6
# Queen Ant — every day at 20:00 (fixed)
QueenAntRespawnTimePattern = 0 20 * * *
# Antharas — Thursday AND Saturday at 21:00 (up to 3h random)
AntharasRespawnTimePattern = ~180:0 21 * * 4,6TIP: To spawn on two weekdays, separate them with a comma.
Example: * * 4,6 = Thursday and Saturday.
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5. FORMAT 2 — SPAWN BY DAYS AFTER DEATH (+N
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Use this when the boss should respawn N days after being killed,
always at a fixed hour. Useful for bosses that need a multi-day cooldown.
Full syntax:
Code:
BossNameRespawnTimePattern = ~SPREAD:0 HOUR +DAYS:* * *⚠ IMPORTANT: The +N: format requires 3 asterisks at the end.
The day-of-week format only uses 2. Don't mix them up.
Examples:
Code:
# Valakas — +5 days after death at 20:00 (up to 3h random)
ValakasRespawnTimePattern = ~180:0 20 +5:* * *
# Antharas — +7 days (1 week) after death at 21:00
AntharasRespawnTimePattern = ~60:0 21 +7:* * *
# Boss every 6 days at 20:00 (60 min random window)
BossRespawnTimePattern = ~60:0 20 +6:* * *
# Boss every 14 days at 20:00, always on Saturday
BossRespawnTimePattern = 0 20 +10:* * 6⚠ NOTE on 14-day Saturday spawns: Use +10, not +14.
The system advances days until it hits the next Saturday.
Using +14 risks skipping a week if the boss dies on Sunday.
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6. FORMAT 3 — XML SPAWN FILES (data/spawn)
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For smaller bosses, Orfen, Core, Zaken, Queen Ant, and other NPCs
configured via XML, replace respawn and respawn_rand with respawn_cron.
Before (standard format):
Code:
<spawn name="[queenant_room]">
<npc id="29001" count="1" respawn="129600" respawn_rand="61200"
pos="-21610 181594 -5720 0" />
</spawn>After (with respawn_cron):
Code:
<spawn name="[queenant_room]">
<npc id="29001" count="1"
respawn_cron="~120:0 20 +1:* * *"
pos="-21610 181594 -5720 0" />
</spawn>Where:
~120:0 = random window of 0 to 120 minutes
20 = anchor time: 20:00
+1:* = +1 day after death
* * = required wildcards (month and day of week)
More XML examples:
Code:
<!-- Core — every day at 20:30 with 1h random -->
<npc id="29006" count="1" respawn_cron="~60:30 20 +1:* * *" pos="..." />
<!-- Orfen — every Monday at 21:00 (fixed) -->
<npc id="29014" count="1" respawn_cron="0 21 * * 1" pos="..." />
<!-- Zaken — every day at midnight (fixed) -->
<npc id="29022" count="1" respawn_cron="0 0 * * *" pos="..." />━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
7. READY-TO-USE RECIPES TABLE
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| Goal | Pattern |
| Every day at 21:00 (fixed) | 0 21 * * * |
| Every day at 21:00 (±30 min random) | ~30:0 21 * * * |
| Every day at 20:00 (±3h random) | ~180:0 20 * * * |
| Every Thursday at 21:00 | 0 21 * * 4 |
| Every Friday at 20:00 (±3h) | ~180:0 20 * * 5 |
| Thursday and Saturday at 21:00 (±3h) | ~180:0 21 * * 4,6 |
| +5 days after death at 20:00 (±3h) | ~180:0 20 +5:* * * |
| +7 days after death at 21:00 (±1h) | ~60:0 21 +7:* * * |
| Every 14 days at 20:00 on Saturday | 0 20 +10:* * 6 |
| Every 6 days at 20:00 (±1h) | ~60:0 20 +6:* * * |
| Every Sunday at 18:00 (fixed) | 0 18 * * 0 |
| Mon, Wed, Fri at 20:00 (fixed) | 0 20 * * 1,3,5 |
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8. COMMON MISTAKES
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| Wrong | Correct | Problem |
| ~180: 0 20 * * * | ~180:0 20 * * * | Space after colon in spread |
| +5: * * * | +5:* * * | Space after colon in +N |
| ~180:0 20 +5: * * | ~180:0 20 +5:* * * | Missing wildcard (needs 3) |
| 0 21 * * 7 | 0 21 * * 0 | Sunday is 0, not 7 |
| ~60:0 20 +14:* * 6 | 0 20 +10:* * 6 | +14 can skip a week |
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9. RESPAWNTIMEPATTERN VS. RESPAWNTIMEINTERVAL
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In bosses.properties there are two ways to schedule a respawn.
When RespawnTimePattern is set (non-empty), RespawnTimeInterval
is automatically disabled. Only use one at a time.
Code:
# Using INTERVAL (disabled when Pattern is active):
AntharasRespawnTimeInterval = 264
# Using PATTERN (takes priority — the interval above is ignored):
AntharasRespawnTimePattern = ~180:0 21 * * 4
# To disable Pattern and go back to Interval, leave it empty:
AntharasRespawnTimePattern =━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
10. TIPS AND BEST PRACTICES
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- Always use a random window (~) to make spawns less predictable
and keep the server dynamic.
- For events, combine a fixed weekday with a specific hour so
players know when to expect the boss.
- Restart the server or reload configs after editing bosses.properties.
- Test patterns in a dev environment before applying to production.
- Use https://crontab.guru to validate standard cron expressions
before adapting them to Lucera format.
- Add comments (#) in config files to document your changes for
easier maintenance later.
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11. QUICK REFERENCE CARD
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Code:
GENERAL FORMAT:
~SPREAD:0 HOUR DAY_OF_WEEK * * (by weekday)
~SPREAD:0 HOUR +DAYS:* * * (by days after death)
~SPREAD:0 HOUR * * * (every day)
DAYS OF WEEK:
0=Sun 1=Mon 2=Tue 3=Wed 4=Thu 5=Fri 6=Sat
QUICK EXAMPLES:
0 21 * * * → every day at 21:00 (fixed)
~180:0 20 * * 5 → every Friday at 20:00 (±3h)
~60:0 21 +7:* * * → +7 days after death at 21:00 (±1h)
0 20 +10:* * 6 → every 14 days at 20:00 on Saturday━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Based on the official guide by Deazer — lucera2.com
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