Villager Workers

 # Villager Workers *Hireable workers to automate your village!* # Workers **Workers** is a Minecraft mod that turns idle NPCs into a productive workforce for your base, town, or faction. It is built directly on top of the **[Recruits](https://www.modrinth.com/mod/recruits)** mod and is **fully compatible with every Recruits feature** — grouping, naming, ownership transfer, factions, morale, sieges, payment and upkeep all carry over and apply to workers as well. Unlike the previous generation of the mod, a Worker is now *only the labour*. **What** the work actually is gets defined by a **Work Area** that you place in the world. Assign a worker the matching job, place the matching Work Area, and the worker walks over and does the job. > **Requires:** Recruits. Workers are a content/feature extension of Recruits and will not run without it. --- ## Play with Friends! Want to play together with your friends? 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[Worker Professions](#worker-professions) 5. [Couriers](#couriers) 6. [Merchants & Trading](#merchants--trading) 7. [The Building System](#the-building-system) 8. [Core Mechanics](#core-mechanics) - [Needed Items](#needed-items) - [Upkeep & Provisioning](#upkeep--provisioning) - [Ownership & Faction Access](#ownership--faction-access) - [Morale](#morale) - [Worker Homes & Sleep](#worker-homes--sleep) - [Sieges](#sieges) 9. [Configuration](#configuration) 10. [Compatibility](#compatibility) 11. [FAQ](#faq) --- ## Core Concept A Worker on its own does nothing useful — it is workforce waiting for an assignment. The loop is always the same: 1. **Hire/obtain a worker** of the profession you need (workers are Recruits, so everything you know about hiring and commanding Recruits applies). 2. **Place a Work Area** of the matching type and configure it in its GUI. 3. The worker **walks to the nearest suitable Work Area** it has access to and starts working. 4. Workers pull the materials they need from nearby **Storage Areas** and drop their output back into storage. Because workers are Recruits under the hood, they obey the same ownership, faction, morale, payment and upkeep rules — see [Core Mechanics](#core-mechanics). --- ## Quick Start 1. Place a **Storage Area** and put a few chests inside its bounds. This is where workers stash and fetch items. 2. Place the Work Area for the job you want (e.g. a **Crop Farm**) and configure it. 3. Assign a worker of the matching profession and let it roam near the area. 4. Optionally give the worker a **Home** (bed + chest) to keep its morale and health up. That's it — the worker will find the nearest area it is allowed to use and begin. --- ## Work Areas Work Areas are placeable entities that mark *where* a job happens and hold its settings. Most areas scan for nearby chests/containers automatically and respect the access rules described under [Ownership & Faction Access](#ownership--faction-access). ### Storage Area The foundation of any workforce. Define a storage first — nearby workers will **deposit their output and fetch their needed materials** here. - Put chests (and other containers) inside the area's bounds; the area aggregates them. - You can restrict **which worker types** may access a given storage, letting you build dedicated storages (e.g. a kitchen-only storage, a building-materials storage, etc.). - Storages are also used by the [Needed Items](#needed-items) and [Upkeep](#upkeep--provisioning) systems. ### Crop Farm Defines where crops are planted and harvested. The area is **9×9**. - In the UI you choose **which seeds** the workers should use. - Place **multiple Crop Farms** to scale up production. - A **Farmer** automatically walks to the nearest free tile and works it: tilling, planting, and harvesting. - Farmers also use **bone meal** (if they have any) to speed up growth after planting; if they run out, bone meal is fetched opportunistically without blocking work. ### Lumber Area The tree-farming counterpart, worked by **Lumberjacks**. They plant and fell trees within the area. Configurable behaviour: - **Strip logs** before chopping. - **Replant saplings** after felling. - **Shear leaves** with shears before chopping. - **Bone meal** is applied to freshly planted saplings (when available) to speed regrowth. - **Dynamic Trees** support: if the Dynamic Trees mod is loaded, Lumberjacks can fell, strip and plant dynamic trees by default. ### Fishing Area Used by **Fishermen** to define where they cast their lines. - **Deeper water makes them catch fish faster.** - Fishermen are far more skilled than the player, so their **rods break much more slowly**. ### Animal Farm A pen where selected animals are bred and managed. - Set the **maximum number of animals** allowed in the pen. Surplus animals beyond the limit are **slaughtered**. - Many species are supported, including **rabbits, camels, horses, wolves/dogs, and goats**. - Species-specific options: **shearing sheep**, **collecting eggs from chickens**, **milking cows**, and more. - **Animal Farmers breed and grow animals much faster** than a player can. ### Mining Area Defines a volume for **Miners** to excavate. Adjustable **height, width and depth**. - Optionally **fill the floor** where holes exist or appear, to stop Miners from falling. - Water and lava sources are **plugged** automatically. - Ores exposed in the walls are mined. - When it gets too dark, Miners **place torches**. - Miners fetch the right tools (pickaxe, and a shovel for shovel-mineable blocks) from storage when needed. ### Building Area The most advanced feature in the mod, worked by the **Builder**. - Build pre-saved or self-scanned structures. The Builder **gathers the required blocks from nearby Storage Areas** and constructs the building. - You can **scan your own structures** and save them as **NBT files**. Maximum size is **32×32×32**. - Saved structures **can include other Work Areas** in the NBT, so a building can come pre-fitted with farms, storages, etc. - A bundle of **default vanilla buildings** (some modified) ships as presets. - Building availability is governed by the **[BuildMode](#the-building-system)** setting. ### Kitchen The work area for the **Chef** (Cook). A Kitchen needs at least **1 Furnace and 1 Chest**. - Chefs **produce food**, smelting/cooking using the furnaces and the kitchen's containers. - Cooked food can be **given to villagers to boost breeding** (see below). - If configured in the kitchen, the Chef will hand out items that supply the saturation value villagers need. **Villager breeding change:** breeding is now based on the **nutrition (saturation) value** of food items rather than only vanilla bread/carrots/etc. A villager combines the saturation of its food items until it reaches the threshold (default **15**) and then breeds. This can be turned off in the config (`VillagerBreedMixinEnabled`), and the threshold is configurable (`VillagerBreedSaturationThreshold`). ### Market The work area for the **Merchant**. A Market needs chests. A nearby Merchant will **move in**, after which it can trade long-term using the market's stock and store its earnings there. See [Merchants & Trading](#merchants--trading). ### Worker Home Not a job, but essential for upkeep of morale and health — see [Worker Homes & Sleep](#worker-homes--sleep). --- ## Worker Professions Every profession is a Recruit specialised for one Work Area type. | Profession | Work Area | What it does | |---|---|---| | **Farmer** | Crop Farm | Tills, plants and harvests crops; uses bone meal | | **Lumberjack** | Lumber Area | Plants, strips and fells trees (incl. dynamic trees); shears leaves | | **Fisherman** | Fishing Area | Fishes from the defined water; durable rods | | **Animal Farmer** | Animal Farm | Breeds, grows, shears, milks, collects eggs, culls surplus | | **Miner** | Mining Area | Excavates a volume; plugs liquids, fills floors, places torches | | **Builder** | Building Area | Constructs saved/scanned structures from stored blocks | | **Chef (Cook)** | Kitchen | Cooks food; supports villager breeding | | **Merchant** | Market | Trades with players and villagers | | **Courier** | (Recruits route) | Moves items between waypoints (see below) | --- ## Couriers *(New in this version.)* Couriers **deliver items to and from waypoints** defined in a **Recruits route**. A dedicated GUI lets you edit the route with **actions** — each waypoint can hold **up to 8 actions**, executed in order. Each action is a **task** plus a nearby **location** (and, where relevant, an **item + amount**). At a waypoint the courier searches roughly **8 blocks** around the waypoint for a matching location. > Example — *Take · Chest · 3× Apple*: at that waypoint the courier looks for a nearby chest holding apples and takes 3 out. ### Tasks | Task | Behaviour | |---|---| | **Take** | Take up to the defined amount of the selected item from the location | | **Put** | Put up to the defined amount of the selected item from the courier's inventory into the location | | **Take Any** | Take *all* of the selected item type from the location | | **Put Any** | Put *all* of the selected item the courier carries into the location | | **Take All** | Take everything from the location until the courier's inventory is full | | **Put All** | Empty the courier's entire inventory into the location | | **Put Fill** | Top the **location/target** up to the defined amount of the selected item (measured against what the target already holds) | | **Take Fill** | Top the **courier's own inventory** up to the defined amount of the selected item (measured against what the courier already carries) | | **Wait** | Wait at the waypoint for a defined number of seconds | > **Put Fill vs. Take Fill** — the difference is *what gets measured*. *Put Fill* fills the **target** up to the amount; *Take Fill* fills the **courier** up to the amount. If the goal is already met, the action is skipped. ### Locations | Location | Notes | |---|---| | **Chest** | Any nearby chests/containers at the waypoint | | **Storage** | A nearby Storage Area (couriers count as a worker type with storage access) | | **Market** | A nearby Market | | **Kitchen** | A nearby Kitchen | ### Extras - **Vehicle inventory option:** when mounted on a mule/donkey (and, in future, siege-weapon horse carts), the courier can be told to use **only the vehicle's inventory**. - **Chunk loading:** Couriers load chunks along their route, so deliveries keep running even where no player is present. - **In-GUI tooltips:** hovering an action or location in the dropdowns shows a short description of what it does — even while the dropdown is open. --- ## Merchants & Trading Merchants can trade with both **players** and **villagers**. The owner creates the trades in the Merchant's GUI. - A **player trade** has a **currency item** and a **trade item**. - A **villager trade** has only a **trade item** — the currency is dictated by the villager. - Trades can be **limited, disabled, or deleted**. **Long-term trading needs a Market.** Place a Market (with chests); a nearby Merchant moves in. The Market holds the Merchant's stock and stores earnings. ### Selling to Villagers *(new)* You can define trades the Merchant will offer to **nearby villagers**. These trades are only visible to the owner and must be flagged as **"Villager Trade."** With a Market placed and the Merchant moved in, when a nearby villager has a matching want, the Merchant **invites it over to trade**. > Example: the Merchant sells clay. A nearby Mason buys *10× Clay → 1 Emerald*. If the Merchant has 10× clay in the Market's containers, it invites the Mason; the villager walks over and trades until the stock runs out or the villager stops buying. The emeralds end up in the Market. --- ## The Building System ### Saving structures Scan your own builds and save them as **NBT files** (max **32×32×32**). Other Work Areas placed inside the scanned region are saved into the NBT too. ### BuildMode *(new)* For servers it's often important to control which buildings players may place. Three modes: | Mode | Who can build what | |---|---| | **Free** | Each player uses their own set of buildings | | **Preset** | Players can only use buildings available on the server (synced when selected in the GUI) | | **Faction-Preset** | Like Preset, but filtered by a faction-id folder — each faction can only build what is in its own folder | Set the mode with the `BuildMode` config option. A set of **default buildings** (vanilla structures, some modified) is included as presets. --- ## Core Mechanics ### Needed Items While working, a worker tracks every item it needs. Each need is flagged as **blocking or non-blocking**: - **Blocking** (most cases): the worker **pauses** and goes to fetch the missing item from the **nearest Storage Area**. If it isn't there, it checks the next storage, and the next — until all reachable storages have been searched. - **Non-blocking** (e.g. bone meal): the worker grabs it opportunistically but never stops working for it. If a blocking item can't be found anywhere, the **owner gets a message**. ### Upkeep & Provisioning Because workers are Recruits, they share the Recruits **upkeep** system (food, equipment/tools, payment). Workers integrate this with their storage system: - A **Storage Area can be assigned as a recruit's/worker's upkeep source.** - When upkeep is due, the worker walks the storage and **only visits chests that actually contain something relevant** — food, the payment currency, equippable gear (weapons/armor/tools), or ammunition for ranged units. Chests with nothing useful are skipped. - It opens each relevant chest, takes what it needs, and moves on — the same items the Recruits upkeep system normally handles, gathered across multiple chests. This lets a whole workforce feed and re-equip itself from a central storage instead of from a single container. ### Ownership & Faction Access All Recruits ownership features apply: create/name/edit **groups**, hand **workers** to other players, hand **Work Areas** to other players, and set **faction access per Work Area**. **Faction Access on Work Areas** *(new)* controls whether **faction workers** (workers that don't belong to you) and **faction players** may interact with a given area. With access off, faction players and faction workers cannot use that storage, market, etc. ### Morale As in Recruits, **morale** matters. It does **not** slow workers down directly under normal conditions, but: - Low-morale workers **work less efficiently and take longer** on tasks. - Inside claims, low morale can trigger **unwanted resignation**. - See [Sieges](#sieges) for how morale decides a worker's behaviour under attack. Keeping workers **homed** (and paid/fed) keeps morale healthy. ### Worker Homes & Sleep Workers need a **home** to restore **health and morale** by sleeping; without one, morale drifts down and efficiency suffers. A worker home requires, at minimum, a **bed** and a **chest**, in an enclosed space (roughly **3×3**, walled with a roof and a door). Once valid, a worker can move in. A worker without a home loses morale over time. ### Sieges When a **siege starts** (or the village bell is rung), workers head to their **assigned homes and take cover**. They stay until the siege is repelled or the player orders them to follow/wander. If a siege **succeeds**, Work Areas **immediately shift ownership** to the claim's new owner. Worker behaviour under siege is **morale-dependent**: - **High/normal morale:** the worker **flees the claim** and holds position until the player picks it up — fighting back only if attacked. - **Low morale (< 20):** the worker **disbands and switches to the claim's faction.** --- ## Configuration Server-side options (names as they appear in the config file): | Option | Purpose | |---|---| | `FarmerCost`, `LumberjackCost`, `MinerCost`, `BuilderCost`, `MerchantCost`, `CourierCost`, `CookCost` | Hire cost per profession | | `VillagerBreedMixinEnabled` | Toggle the saturation-based villager breeding change (default on) | | `VillagerBreedSaturationThreshold` | Total saturation a villager must gather to breed (default 15) | | `ShouldWorkAreaOnlyBeInFactionClaim` | Restrict Work-Area placement to faction claims | | `ShouldOnlyPlacingBuildingsBePossible` | Limit building to placement only | | `AnimalPenMaxAnimals` | Default/maximum animals per Animal Farm | | `BuildMode` | `Free`, `Preset`, or `Faction-Preset` (see [BuildMode](#buildmode-new)) | | `WorkersReplaceAllay` | Whether workers replace Allay-based behaviour | | `MinerPickup`, `MinerIgnore` | Miner pickup behaviour / ignored blocks | | `AnimalFarmerPickup`, `FarmerPickup`, `LumberjackPickup`, `FishermanPickup` | Per-profession pickup behaviour | --- ## Compatibility - **Recruits** — required. Workers inherit and remain compatible with all Recruits features (groups, ownership, factions, morale, sieges, payment, upkeep). - **Dynamic Trees** — optional. When present, Lumberjacks handle dynamic trees (fell, strip, plant) automatically. --- ## FAQ **My worker isn't doing anything.** Check that (1) a matching Work Area is placed and within range, (2) the worker has **access** to it (ownership/faction settings), and (3) there is a **Storage Area** nearby with the materials it needs. **My worker keeps stopping and walking off.** It is probably fetching a [Needed Item](#needed-items) from storage. If it can't find the item, you'll get an owner message — restock the storage. **Why is my worker slow?** Low [morale](#morale). Give it a [home](#worker-homes--sleep), keep it fed/paid, and morale will recover. **Can workers feed/re-equip themselves?** Yes — assign a Storage Area as their [upkeep](#upkeep--provisioning) source and they will restock food, tools and payment from the relevant chests. --- ## Coming Soon - Smith Update - Leveling Update --- ## Installation 1. Install [Minecraft Forge](https://files.minecraftforge.net/net/minecraftforge/forge/) 2. Install Villager Recruits Mod 2. Drop the mod into your `mods/` folder 3. Launch the game and hire your first worker! --- ## Feedback & Issues Join the community on [**Discord**](https://discord.gg/NG8vuDekTT) for support, bug reports, and suggestions. --- ## My Other Mods ### [](https://modrinth.com/mod/villager-recruits) [**Villager Recruits**](https://modrinth.com/mod/villager-recruits): Command your own **Villager Army** into war! Now with **Diplomacy and Factions**! --- ### [](https://modrinth.com/mod/villager-workers) [**Villager Workers**](https://modrinth.com/mod/villager-workers): Hire Villagers and let them **work for you**! --- ### [](https://modrinth.com/mod/small-ships) [**Small Ships**](https://modrinth.com/mod/small-ships): Explore the oceans in your **own sailable ships**! --- ### [](https://modrinth.com/mod/siegeweapons) [**Siege Weapons**](https://modrinth.com/mod/siegeweapons): Prepare for war. Build your siege weapon. Dominate the battlefield.**! --- **Hire your villagers. Automate your village. Dominate your economy.**