Core Ecosystem (Infection Mod)

- Four Guardians, each its own creature. Guardian I spits acid and hides on a web you cannot see until you are on it: one orb web anchored to trees and walls, shown for 10 seconds when something touches it. Guardian II, the Stalker, bites twice as hard with a heavy knockback, shoves things aside, breaks weak blocks in its way and cannot be pushed; it lives in the caves under the Core or digs a lair, with a pit trap under a silk lid at the mouth - step on it and you drop in. Guardian III, the Tree Warden, lives among the Ascended Trees and spits healing sap on the colony's creatures and trees. Guardian IV, the Heartwood, lives by the heart; its bite freezes you for one second.
- Guardian I rebuilt: a painted spider that steps, climbs walls, is fed up to its level by Gardeners (the chrysalis), spins Sap Webs in a wide ring with its large web nearer the Core, curls up when it dies and can be revived.
- The Wrapping Vine's hold works like a lead: drawn in smoothly, you hang if there is no ground under you, your view is guided away from the vine, and four quick hits from inside break you free. A hold kept for a Guardian lasts 45 seconds at most.
- Killing it: the heart has 60 health plus 30 for each standing SubCore Tree (doubled at the Tree Stage); a Core rebuild costs double each time; a difficulty setting (Easy / Normal / Hard); the colony scales with players online (a solo world is weaker).
- New drops and tools: Mite Husk, Vine Fibre, Worm Sap, Guardian Silk, Ascended Bark and Pod Alloy; the Herbicide Sprayer (living veins go grey), the Sap Torch (fire the colony cannot smother for 10 seconds), the Sap Smoker (burns the seeds out of you). The Core Detector is redrawn as the aliens' instrument.
- Gas Mask: a sponge makes 4 filters; an empty mask takes 2; used filters wash and dry. With Spore installed the worn mask uses Spore's look.
- Fire: living veins are damp and the colony smothers fire on them within 5 seconds; grey dead veins burn. Breaking or burning 3 living veins brings the nearby units; 20 brings everyone.
- Pacing: the Core digests what it earns over time (60 a minute, +30 per SubCore Tree, +5 per joined tree); worm blocks pay less; the tree cap is 45; the Seedpod Launcher stops shooting animals from Phase 3; feeding the Core is a Gardener job.
- Worms spread out and never share a block; a log a worm drinks becomes a pale Drained Log; eaten leaves drop saplings, sticks and apples at half the chance.
- Looks: grown Ascended Trees (thick flared trunks, buttress roots, the chrysalis in the trunk), the SubCore tree's root cage, a drag rope with physics.
- Performance: the units' checks are spread out (about 18% less server time at Phase 8) and the colony drops nothing when no player is near.
- Thralls leave Creative and Spectator players alone, and only sometimes (1 in 10) set out on the long walk toward a player.
- Jade and the Colony Lens show what a Guardian or a Wrapping Vine is and what it is doing.
- A player hanging from a vine is never kicked for flying on servers. Infested Ground takes a block with 3 of its 6 faces on it. The Miasma blocks Spore's infection. Old config files get the new defaults (numbers you changed yourself are kept).