Steadfast Villagers

Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UDe0v2ct0s

I built this because villager lag was killing my server.

Every survival server hits the same wall - players build trading halls with 50+ villagers and suddenly TPS tanks. Villagers are constantly pathfinding to workstations, calculating routes to beds, bumping into each other. It's a mess.

So I made them into blocks instead.

How it works: Trade with a villager until they hit Master level, then right-click them with an Emerald Block. They turn into a head block you can place anywhere. All their trades are preserved. Connect hoppers for automation - items go in the top, products come out the bottom.

The performance difference is wild. We tested 100 villager blocks against 20 actual villagers. The blocks won. No contest. Zero pathfinding, zero entity collision, zero AI ticking.

The stuff players care about:

Cure discounts are permanent. If you cure a zombie villager five times and then convert them, that 80% discount is locked in forever. Doesn't decay. And here's the fun part - whoever places the block gets the discount. So players started selling their best villagers to each other. Accidentally created a whole economy around it.

You can pick them up with Silk Touch and move them anywhere. Eye color changes based on status - green means trading, red means output is full, blue means it needs materials.

Setup:

Vanilla by default. Trades lock after use and need a workstation to restock, just like normal villagers. But you can configure it however you want - infinite trades, different conversion items, custom cooldowns. We run vanilla settings on our server but I know skyblock servers that use infinite mode.

Supports MySQL/MariaDB or SQLite for storage - just set type: sqlite in the config for a simple file-based setup. Works with GriefPrevention if you have it. Bedrock players see armor stands instead of display entities (Bedrock limitation, not mine).

Commands: /sv for info, /svadmin for admin tools like inspecting blocks, forcing restocks, or transferring ownership.

Permissions:

• steadfastvillagers.convert - Convert villagers to blocks (default: true)
• steadfastvillagers.use - Trade with villager blocks (default: true)
• steadfastvillagers.pickup - Pick up blocks with Silk Touch (default: true)
• steadfastvillagers.admin - Admin commands (default: op)

Docs at steadfastsmp.com/docs/steadfast-villagers/

Built this for SteadfastSMP but figured other servers might want it too. Free to use, let me know if you run into issues.