Caravans & Convoys - Automatic Trade

Caravans & Convoys - Automatic Trade Version 1.0.8 | Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge

Three requests from the comments and a better Creative Dock. There is no 1.0.7 for NeoForge: that number was a fix that only 1.20.1 needed, and both versions carry the same number again from here.

NEW: the Freight Dock, for hauling with no trade attached

A new dock that just moves goods. A mining outpost tips its output into a chest and sends it home; home sends food back out to a colony. No offers, no payment, no partner to agree terms with.

It crafts like the Caravan Dock with a Barrel in the middle instead of a Chest. Every Freight Dock has its own freight code, shown in its settings tab with a copy button. Type another Freight Dock's code into "Send to" and its wagon carries whatever lands in its chest over to that dock's chest, round after round, and drives home empty. Leave "Send to" blank and the dock is a receiving depot.

A dock that sends never receives. Otherwise two bases feeding each other through the same pair of chests would bounce one load back and forth for ever, so for a two-way supply line put a sending dock and a receiving dock at each end. If you type the code of a dock that sends, the settings and the matchmaking tab tell you so.

The two slots on the terminal become a haul filter: put an item in either and only those are hauled, leave both empty and everything goes. Soldier scrolls are never hauled, because they are the escort's reserve. The wagon sets off once 64 items are waiting (freightMinItems in the config), never loads more stacks than the destination chest has empty slots for, so nothing spills on the ground at the far end, and the Send now button sends it straight away. It is the same wagon, escort, roads and theft protection as a trade caravan.

Asked for by casualjag75683.

NEW: Villager Recruits can escort your caravans

Stand your recruits near the dock and press Start Operation, and up to ten of them join the escort. Press Start Operation again while the wagon waits at home to add more. They are told to protect the wagon driver, so they stay with the caravan and fight whatever attacks it, alongside any Hundred Years War soldiers. A recruit that falls too far behind is brought back up to the wagon, the convoy points idle recruits at hostiles on the road, and friendly fire between your recruits and your own caravan is cancelled. When a caravan is lost, its recruits stand down where they are and wait for you instead of wandering off. Give one a different order yourself and it simply leaves the escort. Nothing happens if Recruits is not installed. Recruits itself is only released for 1.20.1 Forge at the moment, so on 1.21.1 this waits quietly for a NeoForge build of it.

Asked for by user_qj7mvre8klrgtup0 and viching_666.

NEW: Via Romana roads count as roads

With Via Romana installed, every block it counts as a path block (it builds that list from its own config) also counts as road for your wagons, so they prefer the roads you charted and drive them at road speed. Like paving, a Via Romana block only counts once it forms a run of road, so a single block in a field is still a field. Turn it off with viaRomanaRoads. Wagons do not use Via Romana's fast travel; they still drive the whole way.

Asked for by small_galileo83.

IMPROVED: the Creative Dock as a sink

A Creative Dock with no chest beside it now swallows what it is paid instead of dropping it on the ground around the shop, and its code works as a freight destination, so a server can run a collection point. Put a chest next to it to bank the takings instead. The other two things asked for are already in place: a Creative Dock replaces a lost convoy on its own with no wagon item needed, and the soldier scrolls in its chest are templates that re-post its escort after every run without a scroll ever being used up.

Asked for by JLDAGH.

Existing worlds Nothing to reset and no world data changes. New config keys (freightMinItems, recruitEscortMax, recruitEnlistRadius, viaRomanaRoads) are added to your config with their defaults. The network protocol changed, so the server and every client must update together.