Beginner's Delight

Added

• Allow data packs to extend the starter-house pool. Modpacks can add, remove, replace, and weight structure templates for both the world-spawn house and Village Mode player houses. Each entry can preserve the template's containers or opt into the normal starter loot. See docs/datapack-structure-pools.md for the versioned schema and examples
• In-game settings screen for Village Mode on Fabric and NeoForge (MC 1.21.1 and later; Forge support is planned), reachable from NeoForge's mod list, ModMenu on Fabric (if installed), or an unbound keybinding on either loader — no external config-mod dependency required

Fixed

• Keep paintings in their intended orientation on Minecraft 1.16.5 through 1.18.2 so they stay attached to the house walls after generation
• Stop starter houses and Village Mode decorations from containing gaps on older Minecraft versions. Structures now generate only when every block in their NBT palette is supported by the target version
• Stop the Forge 1.20.1 starter house from generating underwater on ocean spawns. The generator now uses nearby loaded dry land when available, or builds a reclaimed foundation at sea level without loading distant chunks during world creation
• Stop the 1.16.5 starter house from generating in water or floating above it. The placement search now moves to nearby dry land, and terrain blending skips water, lily pads, trees, and vines so it does not leave isolated grass blocks on them
• Connect the first Village Mode house to the starter house when Village Mode is enabled after the player reaches the starter house. The starter house is now registered immediately, so the first path is generated without requiring a reconnect
• Let Village Mode paths pave podzol in old growth taiga biomes instead of leaving the route unpaved
• Build a house for every player in Village Mode. Players teleported to the starter house were bound to it instead, so no player house, path or decoration was ever generated. Affected worlds are repaired on the next server start, moving those players into their own house when they rejoin
• Stop a brand-new player from taking over the starter house before a returning resident who lived there earlier gets a chance to rejoin. The join handlers ran in an order that made a first-time joiner look like a returning resident
• Stop village paths from plunging to the bottom of a ravine or cave mouth they cross. Each column was paved at whatever ground it found scanning straight down from the world top, so an opening to the sky sent the path dozens of blocks below its neighbors; it now bridges across at the surrounding path height instead
• Connect village paths to the actual front door of a house instead of a fixed point that assumed every house faced the same direction. The path target is now detected from the placed structure's own door and walks clear of its porch, so paths reach the door on every house layout instead of running onto the roof or stopping short in mid-air near it
• Let village paths pave over sand and terracotta, and clear a potted plant or lantern standing in the way, instead of only replacing grass and dirt. Paths in a desert or badlands (mesa) biome went almost entirely unpaved, and a path could stop one column short of a door decorated with either block
• Stop the first village house from getting a path to nowhere when the starter house is turned off via game rule. The path always targeted the village center on the assumption a starter house stood there; it now only does so when one actually does
• Stop the starter house from carving a large flattened pad into a hillside. Placement now levels up to the footprint's highest point and fills in the low side instead of digging down to the lowest, so a sloped build site keeps its shape instead of being excavated flat
• Stop the starter house from appearing to float above the ground in a snowy biome or on grass with flowers. Foundation filling mistook a leftover snow layer, grass or flower for solid ground and stopped one block short, leaving that thin cover standing in as the floor instead of being built over
• Remove an entire tree that intersects starter-house placement or terrain blending, including its connected leaves, vines, and snow resting on its canopy. The old block-by-block clearing left cut trunks, hanging vines, or unsupported snow around the generated house
• Stop starter-house tree clearing from removing the canopy of neighboring trees or leaving detached leaf remnants behind. Leaves are now assigned to the nearest matching tree trunk, so only the canopy belonging to trees in the terrain-shaping area is removed
• Stop the starter house from towering over the surrounding terrain on top of a narrow natural spire. Site suitability only checked the footprint's own unevenness, not the margin foundation filling also reshapes around it, so a flat-topped spire passed the check and got filled straight down into an unnaturally tall pillar; that margin is now checked too, and such sites are avoided like existing cliffs and caves
• Stop cactus and cactus flower items from being left around newly generated houses. Cactus columns in the terrain-shaping area, including those that could lose support through an adjacent block update, are now cleared before the terrain changes
• Apply the same terrain fixes to Village Mode's houses and decorations as the starter house: entire intersecting trees are now cleared instead of leaving cut trunks or floating leaves, site suitability also checks the margin that terrain filling reshapes (not just the footprint corners), and foundation filling no longer stops a block short on leftover snow, grass or flowers below the floor
• Stop Village Mode's houses and decorations from carving a large flattened pad into a hillside. Placement now levels up to the footprint's highest point and fills in the low side instead of digging down to the lowest, so a sloped build site keeps its shape instead of being excavated flat
• Stop starter-house and Village Mode tree clearing from removing far more jungle trees than necessary. Jungle trees grow larger and denser than other species, so the same trunk-sweep radius that suits other biomes swept up disproportionately many trunks; jungle wood now uses a smaller radius so nearby trees are still cleared but distant ones are left standing
• Stop tree removal near a starter house or village house from cascading into distant, unrelated trees through touching leaves or vines, wiping out tree cover far beyond the structure. Removal is now driven by trunk ownership and leaf-support distance instead of an unbounded flood fill across connected canopy
• Stop a felled tree's own canopy from being left floating in the air near a starter house or village house. A jungle tree's canopy can reach further from its trunk than other species, and the removal search used a shorter jungle-specific reach that could stop before covering all of it; the search now always reaches vanilla's full leaf-support distance so a removed tree's canopy comes down completely