Caravans & Convoys - Automatic Trade

Caravans & Convoys - Automatic Trade Version 1.0.4 - Minecraft 1.20.1, Forge

This release brings the 1.20.1 Forge build up to full parity with the 1.21.1 NeoForge build. Everything below was previously NeoForge only.

NEW: Creative Dock (server shops)

• An admin/creative variant of the Caravan Dock that sells from endless stock, so a server can run a permanent shop that never needs restocking and never runs dry.
• Trades with everyone, no mutual whitelist needed.
• Buyers choose their own order size; the shop enforces its RATE rather than a fixed bundle, so you set "8 iron for 1 diamond" once and any multiple of it is accepted. Underpaying is refused, overpaying is allowed.
• Orders are capped to what one wagon can carry and are refused outright rather than part shipped, keeping the "full bundle or nothing" guarantee intact.
• Needs no wagon item and no guard scrolls: it deploys and escorts endlessly.
• Placed by creative mode or op level 2, and is blast proof.

NEW: Caravan Checkpoint

• A block you bury under your road to tell caravans "come this way".
• Checkpoints only apply when they genuinely sit along the route: anything outside the corridor between the two docks, or behind either end, is ignored, so a caravan never detours to one that is nowhere near where it is going.
• A long chain is sampled evenly along the route, so a road paved end to end with checkpoints keeps its shape instead of stopping at every single one.
• Works while buried and in unloaded chunks. Crafted from stone bricks and a compass, yields 2.

NEW: Bandit mode and the Creative Endplate (chase minigame)

• A Creative Dock can be switched to bandit mode: it ships on a timer to a paired Endplate with no partner and no payment, escorted by hostile mobs.
• The wagon is deliberately robbable, so players can intercept the convoy and take the cargo. Getting the shipment through is the escort's job, not a formality.
• Escorts spawn automatically (pillagers and vindicators by default); drop spawn eggs in the dock's chest to override the band per dock.
• Escorts spawn properly armed and each convoy rolls its own gear quality, so you can size up a shipment by how much of the escort is enchanted. Their equipment never drops, so an endless route is not a free gear farm.
• Docks and Endplates are linked by a six character pairing code with a copy button; a mistyped code is reported immediately rather than failing silently.
• A convoy that reaches its Endplate vanishes: the shipment escaped.

NEW: Sea crossings

• Caravans that must cross deep water now do it in style instead of trudging along the seabed. The draft team is swapped for skeleton horses, the driver changes to a drowned skin, and the escort is stowed for the crossing and restored on dry land with health, gear and identity intact.
• Detection uses water above and at the wagon, so fords and puddles never trigger it, and it is smoothed so a rig bobbing at the waterline does not flicker.
• The driver no longer drowns.

Wagon compatibility

• Armoured wagon supported. It is the one wagon type with no cargo bed of its own, so it now carries freight in a sealed hold: the load cannot be viewed or taken in transit, and getting at it means destroying the wagon. Previously an armoured wagon silently destroyed the shipment it was loaded with.
• The royal wagon is barred by default as a passenger coach rather than a freight cart. It is accepted into the slot and refused at Start Operation with a clear message, so the slot never appears broken. Configurable via "bannedWagons".

Pathfinding

• Fixed caravans taking a different route home than the one they drove out on. The cost model charged for climbing but not for descending, so a hill a caravan paid to detour around on the way out was a free drop on the way back and the return leg abandoned the road. Descent is now charged too, symmetrically by default.
• Fixed the wagon jerking off course and snapping back. Obstacle avoidance was recomputed from scratch every tick with no memory, so a single borderline reading flipped the rig back and forth. Avoidance is now a committed manoeuvre: it takes repeated readings to engage, holds its line, and needs repeated clear readings before straightening up.
• Water routing: crossing water now costs more than going around, so a caravan takes a bridge or follows the shore whenever either exists and only wades when there is genuinely no dry route. Water is never made impassable, so an island dock stays reachable.
• Road preference costs rescaled against the game's own path search, and the search given a larger budget so long routes are not abandoned early.
• New "debugRoutes" option (off by default) logs what each caravan planned and how much of it runs on road. Useful if you are reporting a routing problem.

Localisation

• Around 30 new strings, in English and Russian.

New config keys, all picked up automatically by existing worlds: [pathfinding] descentPenalty, waterPenalty, debugRoutes [checkpoints] checkpointCorridor, checkpointMaxPerRoute, checkpointArriveRadius [guards] banditSlots, banditDefaultMobs, announceShipmentEscaped [wagon] bannedWagons

Note for existing worlds: changing a config DEFAULT does not reach a world that has already written its config file. Brand new keys are added automatically, but if you want a changed default you will need to edit the toml directly.

No protocol or world format changes. Drop in replacement for 1.0.3: swap the jar on the server and have clients update to match.