Mob Madness

Core System: Mob Events

Every event is a timed period where specific mobs spawn with boosted rates, custom equipment, potion effects, attribute modifiers, and unique AI behaviors. Events are selected randomly using a weighted chance system, with stronger events gated behind a minimum day count so your world escalates naturally.

• WIP - Private Beta — fully functioning player entities that walk to the nearest player and progresses through the game while doing so. Utilizing advanced goals and AI rules, aims to add a functioning player without the use of LLMs. Avoiding LLMs will also allow more of these to run at once.
• Weighted random selection — each event has a configurable chance/weight that determines how often it rolls
• Tiered progression — events are organized into 5 tiers (Day 0 → Day 100+), gradually introducing harder encounters as your world ages
• Per-event duration — each event defines its own min/max duration in seconds
• Dimension-specific events — events can be restricted to the Overworld, Nether, End, or any combination
• Required mods — events can optionally require specific mods to be installed (e.g., addon mob packs), and are silently skipped if the mod isn't present
• Forced weather — events can force rain, thunder, or clear skies for the duration
• Custom start sounds — each event can play a unique sound when it begins (goat horns, mob ambients, music discs, etc.)
• Starter events — special low-intensity events that run on first world load to ease players in
• Persistent across restarts — active events and their remaining duration survive server restarts and world reloads

Event Mob Configuration

Each mob entry within an event supports:

• Spawn multiplier — how aggressively the mob spawns relative to vanilla
• Spawn cap — per-type population limit to prevent lag
• Spawn weight — weighted variants of the same mob (e.g., weak vs. elite zombies)
• Spawn condition — land, water, air, or default (vanilla rules)
• Potion effects — any combination of effects with custom amplifier and duration
• Equipment — weapons and armor with enchantments (e.g., weapon:bow:power:3:infinity:1, armor_chestplate:iron_chestplate:protection:4)
• Attribute modifiers — add_value, multiply_base, multiply_total on any attribute (health, speed, damage, etc.)
• Passengers — stack any entity on top of another (skeletons riding spiders, drowned riding dolphins, TNT on parrots)
• Passenger effects/attributes/NBT — passengers get their own independent effects, attributes, and NBT data
• NBT tags — arbitrary NBT data on spawned entities (powered creepers, baby villagers, custom block states for falling blocks)
• No-loot mode — prevent certain mobs from dropping loot (with configurable drop chance override)
• Passive aggro — make ANY mob aggressive, even passive ones like chickens, cows, and fish, with configurable damage, speed, range, and optional projectile type
• Per-mob AI flags — individual mobs can be flagged for horde digging, tunnel digging, ladder climbing, or bridge building

Global Event Effects

Events can also apply:

• Global potion effects — applied to all mobs in the event (e.g., all mobs get Speed during Spider Event)
• Global equipment — default equipment for all mobs in the event
• Normal spawn multiplier — controls whether vanilla mobs still spawn alongside event mobs (0 = only event mobs, 2.0 = double vanilla spawns)
• Special AI toggle — enables or disables the mod's enhanced AI behaviors per event

Custom AI Behaviors

When special_ai is enabled for an event, mobs gain access to a suite of custom AI goals that make them dramatically more dangerous:

Horde Digging

Mobs mindlessly dig through blocks to reach their target. Multiple mobs digging the same block share progress — a horde breaks walls exponentially faster than a single mob. Dig speed is affected by Haste and Mining Fatigue effects. Configurable per-mob dig speeds, block whitelist/blacklist with tag support, and optional tool requirement.

Tunnel Digging

Intelligent mobs (pillagers, vindicators, evokers, piglin brutes) dig 2-block-high horizontal tunnels toward their target, creating passable corridors for the rest of the horde.

Ladder Climbing

Any configured mob can climb ladders like spiders climb walls. Mobs detect nearby ladders, navigate to them, and climb up. If they reach the top and their target is still above, they'll extend the ladder by placing new rungs upward — breaking blocks in the way if needed. Works with vanilla's climbing mechanics via mixin.

Bridge Building & Pillaring

Mobs can pillar straight up by placing blocks beneath themselves, or bridge horizontally across gaps to reach targets. They'll break obstructing blocks, build with configurable materials (default: cobblestone + ladders), and respect max length/height limits. Inspired by Epic Siege Mod.

Passive Mob Combat

Normally peaceful mobs like chickens, cows, fish, ocelots, frogs, dolphins, and armadillos can be given full combat AI:

• Melee attacks with configurable damage, speed, and range
• Ranged attacks with configurable projectile type (arrows, fireballs, small fireballs), damage, speed, and range
• Aggressive following — passive mobs actively pursue targets instead of wandering aimlessly
• Flying mob attacks — bats, parrots, and other non-pathfinder entities get velocity-based flight combat AI

Enhanced Enderman AI

Endermen receive a complete AI overhaul:

• Instant aggro — no 5-tick delay; endermen aggro the moment they enter your center vision cone (configurable fraction of screen)
• Stare teleport — stare at an aggroed enderman for a configurable number of seconds and it teleports directly behind you
• Aggro teleport — while chasing you, endermen have a chance to teleport directly to your position at configurable intervals
• Clear path — when an enderman can't reach you, it picks up blocking blocks, teleports away to place them, then returns instantly, tunneling toward you over time
• Faster block handling — configurable speed multiplier for pick-up and placement (up to 10x vanilla)
• Custom block whitelist/blacklist — fine-grained control over what endermen can pick up, with block tag support
• No fall/water damage — endermen can survive falls and water during events

Enhanced Creeper AI

• Instant detonation — no fuse timer; creepers explode the moment they're within range (configurable distance)
• Always charged — all event creepers spawn as charged creepers
• Sky Strike — if both the creeper and its target have no blocks above them, the creeper launches into the air, teleports 100 blocks above the target (with random X/Z offset), and detonates on impact. Configurable chance, cooldown, and offset.

Shulker Teleport

Shulkers teleport away when a player gets within a configurable radius, making them extremely difficult to melee.

Enhanced Skeleton AI

• Long-range shooting — skeletons can shoot up to 64 blocks (configurable up to 500), far beyond vanilla range
• Ignore line of sight — configurable mobs can path through walls and continue attacking without direct line of sight

Pumpkin Head Protection

Wearing a carved pumpkin provides limited protection: event mobs won't aggro on you initially. However, once aggro is triggered (by attacking them or removing the pumpkin), they stay aggressive. Endermen still aggro if you stare at them while wearing a pumpkin, just like vanilla.

Potion Effects on Hit

Configurable mobs apply potion effects when they hit you (melee or projectile):

• Phantoms — apply Levitation (launch you into the air)
• Shulkers — apply enhanced Levitation
• Glow Squids — apply Glowing (reveal your position)
• Fully configurable: any mob can apply any effect with custom duration and amplifier

Dismount on Hit

Configurable mobs knock you off your mount when they hit you. Default: Phantoms and Shulkers.

TNT Passenger Behavior

TNT riding any mob detonates instantly when a player enters the configured proximity radius. This makes mobs carrying TNT into devastating suicide bombers.

50+ Default Events

Tier 0 — Starter Events (Day 0+)

Tier 1 — Early Game (Day 10+)

Tier 2 — Mid Game (Day 20+)

Tier 3 — Late Game (Day 35+)

Tier 4 — Endgame (Day 50+)

Tier 5 — Apocalypse (Day 100+)

Nether Events

End Events

Commands

Configuration

Everything is configurable through a single TOML config file (mobmadness-common.toml). The config is hot-reloadable.

Global Settings

• Default event duration (min/max seconds)
• Default event chance
• Maximum pack size per spawn attempt
• Maximum spawn multiplier
• Maximum mobs alive during events
• Event start/end sounds with volume and pitch
• Dimensions where events can occur

AI & Behavior Settings

• Horde Digging — enable/disable, block whitelist/blacklist with tag support, per-mob dig speeds, tool requirement
• Tunnel Digging — enable/disable, per-mob configuration
• Ladder Climbing — enable/disable, per-mob configuration
• Bridge Building — enable/disable, per-mob configuration, block type, max length/height, placement cooldown
• Enderman — instant aggro toggle, aggro distance, vision cone fraction, stare teleport delay, clear path behavior, block pickup/place radius/delay, whitelist/blacklist, aggro teleport chance/interval, no-damage toggle, block speed multiplier
• Creeper — instant explode toggle, explode distance, charged toggle, sky strike toggle/chance/cooldown/offset
• Shulker — teleport radius
• Skeleton — long-range shooting toggle, max shoot distance
• Follow Range — per-mob custom detection ranges
• Line of Sight — mobs that ignore walls for targeting
• Potion Effects on Hit — per-mob configurable effects applied on melee/projectile hit
• Dismount on Hit — mobs that knock riders off mounts
• TNT Passengers — instant explode toggle, proximity distance

Event Definition Format

Events are defined as pipe-delimited strings in the config, making them easy to add, remove, or modify without writing any code:

Event Name | duration_min:300 | duration_max:600 | chance:0.5 | min_days:10 | allow_normal:0 | special_ai:true | dimensions:minecraft:overworld | weather:thunder | sound:minecraft:entity.wither.spawn | required_mods:modid ; minecraft:zombie | 2.0 | cap:30 | speed:2:6000 | weapon:iron_sword:sharpness:5

Technical Details

• Server-side only — no client mod required. Works on dedicated servers and singleplayer.
• NeoForge 21.11+ for Minecraft 1.21.11
• Performance optimized — throttled AI checks, cached pathfinding, shared dig progress, level-scoped entity caches
• Mixin-based — integrates deeply with vanilla spawning (NaturalSpawner), mob categories, creeper behavior, enderman targeting, ladder climbing, and flying speed