EcoExpo

A datapack-driven animal catalog and market for Minecraft. Browse, unlock, and buy animals from all your favorite animal mods, gathered together in one place.

WHAT IS ECOEXPO?

If you run a handful of animal mods, you already know the headache. Their spawns overlap, animals end up scattered across biomes, and half the time the only realistic way to get the one you want is to spawn it in. EcoExpo was built to fix exactly that.

At the center of the mod is the Expo Tablet, a searchable catalog that pulls animals from every supported mod into a single, organized market. Open it up, find the animal you're after, unlock the license for it, and buy it. No more digging through wikis or wandering biomes hoping the right one shows up.

And because the whole catalog is datapack-driven, nothing is locked down. You can add animals, change prices, retune the tiers, or build support for a brand new animal mod, all without ever touching the mod's code.

GETTING STARTED

1. Craft the Expo Tablet to open the catalog any time.
2. Craft a Licensing Stand and place it down. A nearby unemployed villager will take it on as their job site and become a License Dealer.
3. Trade emeralds with the dealer for your first license. Each of the six categories has its own dealer and its own license.
4. Open the Tablet and start buying. You'll have access to that category's first tier right away.

EARNING HIGHER LICENSES

You don't unlock everything at once. Each category has four license tiers, and you climb them by actually using the system. The more animals you buy from a category's dealer, the closer you get to unlocking its next license tier and the rarer animals it brings. Your progress is tracked per category and shown right in the catalog, so you always know how close the next unlock is. When you're ready, trade the dealer for the next license to open up the higher tiers.

FEATURES

- Six categories: Aquarist, Rancher, Aviarist, Herpetologist, Entomologist, and Exotic
- Hundreds of animals out of the box, plus a vanilla baseline so the catalog is never empty
- Four license tiers per category, earned through play
- Dealer villagers with their own profession and workstation
- Built for big packs: instant search, a scrollbar, and live in-game previews
- Add, replace, or remove entries through datapacks; uninstalled mods are skipped safely

SUPPORTED MODS

EcoExpo ships with built-in catalog support for a wide range of animal mods, so they work the moment you install them. Animals from mods you don't have are simply skipped, so you only ever see what's actually in your pack. Currently supported:

- Zoo and Wild Animals (ZAWA)
- ZAWA Essentials
- Hybrid Aquatic
- North American Fishes
- A Zoological Project (and the Little Wings add-on)
- Frikinzi's Fauna
- DragN's Livestock
- DragN's Pets
- DragN's Bettas & Aquatics
- Tide
- Wonders of the World
- EcoRegions
- Lil Critters
- Biological Wonders
- Exhibit Additions

THANK YOU

EcoExpo only exists because of the incredible animal mods it builds on. This mod is meant to celebrate and showcase the work of these creators, not replace it, so please go support them and their projects.

A special thank you to the teams and modders behind Zoo and Wild Animals, ZAWA Essentials, North American Fishes, Hybrid Aquatic, A Zoological Project, Frikinzi's Fauna, the DragN series (Livestock, Pets, and Bettas & Aquatics by DragN0007), Tide, Wonders of the World, EcoRegions, Lil Critters, Biological Wonders, and Exhibit Additions. Your animals are what fill these catalogs.

SELL SYSTEM (WIP)

The buy side is complete. A sell system is in development, and it's being designed with thoughtfulness rather than being rushed out. It won't just be "breed a hundred animals and dump them for emeralds." The aim is to reward how you play: habitat-respecting capture methods, capture quality that actually matters, conservation mechanics like releasing animals back into the wild, and rewards for keeping a varied collection rather than mass-breeding one thing. Whatever method you use, the exact animal you caught is preserved, traits and all.

REQUIREMENTS

- Minecraft 1.20.1
- Forge (loader 47+)

FOR PACK MAKERS AND ADD-ON AUTHORS

EcoExpo is meant to be extended. The catalog format is fully documented, covering every field, the add / replace / remove operations, and how entries resolve when the game loads. If you make an animal mod or curate a pack, you can ship your own EcoExpo catalog as a datapack and have it merge in automatically.

NOTES

I'm still fairly new to coding, and I'm balancing this around work and school, so I leaned on AI tooling to help write and debug along the way. The design, the direction, and the testing are all mine.

A few mod models may look a little rough in the catalog previews. It's purely cosmetic and never gets in the way of anything. If you come across one, let me know the mod and the animal, and I'll do my best to clean it up.

Suggestions and feedback are always welcome. This is my first mod and I'm committed to growing it thoughtful ideas help it get there.

Eco Expo