CompanionRM

0.3.3: Into the fray

The companion learns to fight like it means it. It moves in a brawl instead of trading blows on the spot, takes up a bow when a foe is out of reach, and draws the right weapon the moment trouble starts. Stamina finally behaves, the old accessory system is gone for good, and a fresh handbook explains it all. Saves from 0.2.x through 0.3.2 stay compatible.

Moving in a fight

Melee combat is no longer a staring contest. The companion charges in and circles its target between swings instead of standing still, and its reach was widened a touch so it stops parking one step short of an enemy and actually lands the hit. A timid companion that used to hang back now joins in when you are already swinging at the same foe. It comes to a clean stop when the fight ends, and it will not strafe itself off a cliff.

Taking up the bow

Give a companion a bow and some arrows and it becomes an archer. It looses arrows while closing the distance rather than rooting in place, and it will shoot a foe it simply cannot reach, one perched on a pillar or across a gap, instead of watching while something else chews on it. It gathers spent arrows off the ground to keep itself supplied, and the bow wears down from real combat while idle target practice stays free. Its aim sharpens the more it shoots, an accuracy that carries through a Reborn.

Drawing the right tool

The instant a companion locks onto a hostile it drops whatever work tool it was holding and draws its weapon, instead of carrying a pickaxe halfway across the field and only swapping after the first clumsy hit. Mining and chopping give way at once when a fight starts.

Stamina that rests

Stamina was reworked so it makes sense. Fighting, working and travelling tire a companion out, while standing idle, sitting, or holding a guard post lets it recover, and it bounces back quickly while you sleep. It mends slowly and steadily, never while it is busy, so the way to refill it is simply to let it rest. Gone is the old quirk where a companion drained energy just by standing around.

Staying put

When you send a companion to a spot it now holds that ground for a couple of seconds before drifting back to whatever it was doing, so a placed companion stays placed.

The accessory system is gone

The Curios that the Runes replaced are now removed root and branch: their recipes, their items, and the whole system behind them. The Backpack became an item in its own right. Current companions, their runes and their backpacks carry over untouched.

A proper handbook

The welcome book handed to a new player was rewritten from scratch and expanded. It reads in English for everyone now, walks through taming, controls, leveling, stamina, combat and the Portable Station, gives a short preview of all seven classes, and describes the Rune sockets and the Backpack. Nothing about the old accessories remains.

Tweaks and fixes

The Villager's composter now scales how far it looks for a composter with the companion's level, instead of a fixed reach.

0.3.2: Side by side

A big step in standing beside the companion through the day. A clean place for the things it says, companions that talk to each other, a word of warning before trouble, downtime worth watching, real alchemy that you and it can both work, a shield in the warrior's hand, a totem that cheats death, an aim that sharpens with practice, and more control over the work. Saves from 0.2.x, 0.3.0 and 0.3.1 stay compatible.

Choosing what to mine

A new entry in the Behaviors panel opens a screen listing every ore the game knows about, vanilla and modded alike, gathered from the common ore tag. Each one can be switched on or off, so you decide exactly what the miner brings home and what it leaves in the ground. Searching by name and turning the whole list on or off at once are there too. With nothing chosen it mines everything, as before.

A backpack that gets used

The backpack rune stopped being a passive box and became a working part of the companion. When its own pockets fill up, what would have dropped on the floor goes into the backpack instead, and it draws from there as readily as from its inventory: it eats from the backpack, crafts tools and gear from what is stored there, and shares that food with allies. The contents travel with the backpack when you take it off, and ride along on death, just as before. Its screen was redone to match the rest of the interface.

Finding it together

When you break a rare ore, diamond, emerald or ancient debris, the nearest companion of yours turns to look at the find, says a few warm words and gives a small sign of delight. The first time the two of you turn up each kind of rare ore is written into its diary. It is not about the loot, it is about the road you are walking together. Modded ores of the same kinds count too.

Along for the ride

Board a boat and the companion that is following you climbs into the second seat and sails along while you steer. It rides with you across the water, with a line or two for the voyage, and it stays put instead of leaping off to chase distant animals or monsters, though it will still get off to defend you or itself if attacked. Step out of the boat and it steps out too.

A clearer voice

The things a companion says no longer fight with the chat. They gather in a tidy place in the bottom right corner, newest at the bottom, fading after a few seconds, so a quiet remark in the middle of a busy fight is easy to catch and never buries the rest of your chat. Everything it says still reaches the chat as well, so nothing is lost.

Words between companions

Two of your companions that cross paths now trade a line and a reply, in a tone that follows how they feel about each other: warm between friends, sharp between rivals, plain otherwise. A small back and forth that makes the pack feel like people who know one another.

A word before the cupboard is bare

When its food is running low, the companion now says so on its own, with time to spare, instead of going quiet until it is starving and you find out the hard way.

Keeping busy

Left idle or sitting for a while, the companion no longer stands frozen like a statue. It does something worth watching: shadow drills with swings in the air, archery against a target it sets up a few blocks ahead, or a quiet bite to eat with an animation of its own. It says what it is about to do first, so a sudden swing or a loosed arrow never startles you. Archery happens only with a real bow it actually owns: hand it one and it practices, otherwise it works its strikes and every now and then asks you for a bow, never conjuring one from thin air. Downtime like this is occasional rather than constant, minutes apart, and a young companion below level six does not drill yet. It grows into the habit.

An aim that grows

Archery gained a second measure, apart from level, in the spirit of getting better by doing: an accuracy that climbs the more the companion shoots. An untrained archer scatters its arrows wide, a practiced one groups them tight on the mark. It improves shot by shot and, like muscle memory, it survives a Reborn. The current tier reads on the Who They Are tab.

Alchemy

The Portable Station learned a new trade. A companion can brew potions on its own from a list you decide, the same way you choose ores: an allow list of which potions it may make, with a master switch to turn the whole craft on or off. You can also brew by hand. Clicking the Alchemy service opens a brewing stand of its own, with three bottle slots, an ingredient slot and a progress bar, so you load water bottles and an ingredient and watch the potion take shape, just like a vanilla stand. What you load stays with the companion and keeps brewing even with the screen closed.

A shield raised

A warrior trained for it now lifts a real shield when a foe closes in, taking the blow head on the way you would, and lowers it to strike back. It pulls a shield from its inventory on its own, ahead of a torch, and the shield wears down and can break under heavy hits.

Cheating death

A companion carrying a Totem of Undying now spends it to cheat death, with the same burst of healing and glow a player gets. It reaches for the totem only after its own free safety nets are used up, and the habit carries through a Reborn.

Tweaks and fixes

The Fortune a companion knows by heart now applies to what it mines, not only to an enchanted pickaxe it happens to hold. The Station's Furnace no longer shows as locked after a Reborn while it is in fact still smelting. Finding a wild companion now reads in each player's own language. The owner can no longer wound their own companion by accident, a stray swing at a mob pressed against it or a misaimed arrow no longer lands. Companions can now fight wild and rival companions: a wild one is no longer treated as an untouchable ally, so yours will join in when you strike one and obey an order to attack it, while your own companions still never turn on each other. The weather forecast no longer warns of rain that never comes when the sky is locked clear, and a freshly tamed companion no longer blurts the current weather as if it had just changed, remarking only on real shifts. And a companion drilling in place now drops everything the instant you send it somewhere, instead of holding its ground for a breath.