Decisions and Impulses 1.9.7

DAI 1.9.7 significantly expands the framework's ability to act as a complete game-development layer for Minecraft.

This update focuses heavily on native Minecraft integration, reusable world generation, custom experience presentation, future-proof JSON systems, and improved support for MAIN experiences and addon datapacks.

Experience Branding

• Added MAIN experience application branding.
• Added custom Minecraft window titles.
• Added custom application/taskbar icons using the companion resource pack.
• Added custom startup/loading backgrounds.
• Added custom loading logos.
• Added configurable loading-screen accent colors and progress bars.
• Added automatic companion resource-pack branding integration.
• Added FancyModLoader early-startup theme synchronization.
• MAIN experiences can now replace the visible NeoForge/FML startup presentation.
• Added support for hiding/replacing Mojang/FML startup branding.
• Added custom world-generation loading screens.
• Added custom world-entry/loading presentation.
• Added lifecycle-safe loading-screen rendering so Minecraft's underlying loading logic remains intact.

Open Mojang Registry Bridge

• Added a generalized DAI → Minecraft registry bridge.
• DAI can now compile JSON directly into additional native Minecraft registries.
• Added support for native registry-driven content such as:
  • Dialogs
  • Enchantments
  • Paintings
  • Songs
  • Instruments
  • Trades
  • Entity/registry variants
  • Sound variants
  • World clocks
  • World-generation registries
• Added generic support for GameTest test instances and test environments.
• Added native passthrough support for:
  • Recipes
  • Loot tables
  • Advancements
  • Predicates
  • Item modifiers

Future-Proof JSON Data

• Added dai_registry support for writing arbitrary Minecraft registry entries.
• Added dai_data support for writing arbitrary server-data JSON paths.
• New or future Mojang registries can now often be exposed without adding dedicated Java systems to DAI.
• Expanded DAI's role as a JSON abstraction layer over Minecraft's native data systems.

Native Data Components

• Added runtime discovery of Minecraft Data Components.
• Added generic JSON-driven native item component support.
• Components are resolved through Minecraft's registered DataComponentType codecs.
• Added delayed component initialization for content that must wait for registries to become available.
• Custom items can now make significantly greater use of Minecraft's native item behavior without hardcoded DAI implementations.

Runtime Capability Discovery

• Added automatic runtime capability catalog generation.

• DAI now detects:

  • Minecraft registry keys
  • Built-in Data Components
  • Direct DAI → Mojang bridge folders

• Capability information is written to:

  config/decisions_and_impulses/capabilities.json

• This gives creators and tools a machine-readable description of what the current Minecraft/DAI runtime can expose.

World Generation

• Added reusable natural structure generation.
• Added reusable natural feature generation.
• Added deterministic world-seed/chunk placement.
• Added configurable:
  • Spacing
  • Separation
  • Frequency
  • Dimensions
  • Biomes
  • Biome tags
  • Height ranges
  • Rotation
  • Mirroring
• Added surface, cave, ocean, fixed-Y and randomized-Y placement modes.
• Natural placements can be persisted to DAI save data.

Natural Entity Spawning

• Added generalized natural spawning for custom DAI entities.
• Added configurable:
  • Dimension filters
  • Spawn attempts
  • Player radius
  • Entity caps
  • Group sizes
  • Spawn intervals
  • Y ranges
  • Light requirements
  • Skylight requirements
• Added surface, cave, air and water spawning modes.
• Natural spawning now supports actual registered custom DAI entity IDs.

Biomes and Dimensions

• dai_biomes can now compile into native Minecraft biome registry data.
• dai_dimension_types can now compile into native Minecraft dimension types.
• Added native custom dimension generation.
• Added multi-noise biome-source support.
• Added timeline/world-clock integration.
• Added support for Minecraft environment attributes.

Environment Presentation

• Expanded environment configuration with support for:
  • Sky behavior
  • Fog
  • Cloud height
  • Lighting
  • Celestial presentation
  • Star brightness
  • Sun angle
  • Moon angle
• dai_render_profiles and dai_environments can now act as reusable environment templates.
• Added raw/native passthrough for advanced environment definitions.
• DAI increasingly uses Minecraft's native Environment Attributes instead of requiring custom render implementations.

MAIN Experiences and Addons

• Continued expansion of the MAIN + ADDON architecture.
• One MAIN experience can coexist with unlimited addon datapacks.
• Older datapacks that do not explicitly declare their role remain compatible.
• Improved MAIN experience discovery and selection.
• Improved compatibility between global datapacks and save-local managed datapacks.

Registry and Pack Reliability

• Improved handling of stale versioned MAIN datapack copies.
• DAI now prefers newer/current global MAIN packs during early registry preparation.
• Reduced situations where an older save-local managed datapack could override updated registry definitions.
• Improved companion resource-pack identity tracking independently of versioned ZIP filenames.
• Existing unrelated user-selected resource packs remain untouched.

Entity AI

• Expanded the validator to recognize DAI's existing entity AI/runtime vocabulary.
• Added validation support for reusable AI actions including:
  • Target player
  • Chase target
  • Melee attack
  • Wander
  • Flee player
  • Look at target
  • Clear target
• Added validation support for entity conditions including:
  • Entity has target
  • Target distance
  • Nearest player distance
  • Random chance
• Reduced false validation failures for entity behavior definitions already supported by the runtime.

Creator-Focused Architecture

DAI's internal architecture has been expanded around a simpler rule:

1. If Minecraft already provides a capability, DAI exposes or compiles it.
2. If NeoForge provides the necessary hook, DAI bridges it.
3. If a reusable primitive is required, DAI implements it generically.
4. Game-specific behavior stays inside the game's datapack.

This allows DAI to continue growing as a reusable game-development framework rather than accumulating systems tied to individual packs.

Fixes

• Fixed startup loading overlays interfering with Minecraft's loading lifecycle.
• Fixed resource-reload loading screens becoming permanently stuck.
• Removed unsafe text rendering during shader/resource reload.
• Fixed custom world-loading presentation interfering with live-world renderer initialization.
• Improved handoff between loading screens and first-person world rendering.
• Improved compatibility with Minecraft 26.2 render pipelines.
• Fixed malformed generated FancyModLoader theme definitions.
• Improved save/quit and title-screen transition safety after custom world-loading screens.
• Various validation, registry, resource-pack and experience-loading reliability improvements.