What is HearthFolk?

Hearthfolk is a mod that was made to make mobs feel responsive to the actions caused by the player. This is achieved by a newly implemented trust system where mobs can gain and lose trust toward the player. Hurting a mob will make them grow unwary of you, continue to hurt them and they will learn that players are hostile. They will run away if they are passive and attack if they are hostile. However, feed and care for a mob and it will learn to trust you. You can then give it a home and even have it follow you.

How the mod works.

This mod implements a system called the trust system, understanding how it works is important for using the features provided in this mod.

Trust system
Trust applies to all animals included in the animal tier, the full list is provided under “Important information about the beta.” Trust is determined by a range of -15 to 15 which is a direct translation to the opinion an animal will hold about the player.
-15 to -10 is the Feared opinion. With this opinion the mob will run away from the player if the mob is passive or attack the player if the mob is hostile. The mob will also refuse vanilla interactions in this state. For example: riding, milking, shearing, and luring with food.
-9 to -5 is the Avoidant opinion. With this opinion the mob will refuse vanilla interactions but not distrust the player enough to run away from them.
-4 to 0 is the Apprehensive opinion. With this opinion the mob will essentially be in its vanilla state. The player can interact with it exactly as it is in the base game. When a mob spawns into the world it will always be within this opinion. The exception is mobs that are born through breeding.
1 to 5 is the Curious opinion. With this opinion the mob will be able to interact and be assigned to the Feeding trough. If the mob is hostile it will beocme neutral to the player.
6 to 10 is the Familiar opinion. With this opinion the mob will be able to follow the player even without a lead or food lure. Also mobs that die in this opinion bracket have a 50% chance for an extra item drop. If the mob is hostile it will become passive to the player.
11 to 15 is the Trusted opinion. With this opinion the mob will have all the functions of the previous opinions while dropping one extra item on death and 50% chance to drop 2 items instead.

If you want a way to check trust, the trust checker item is essential. It will also show the current opinion as well. You can right click a mob with the checker to have the trust be pinned above the mob. It will also update to show the current trust as well.

Feeding trough
The feeding trough provides functions for mobs that are curious and above. When opening the troughs ui there will be many options available to the player. This display is called the settings page and contains all toggles for how the trough interacts with the animals assigned to it. To assign an animal to a trough shift right click the trough with a command whistle. This will link the whistle to the trough. Then right click an animal with a linked whistle for the animal to be assigned to the trough. You only have to assign a whistle to a trough once, it can then be used on any animal with curious and above to assign it to the trough. Once assigned to a Feeding trough an animal will not leave its bounds, allowing you to create a pen without fencing. You can customize how large the pen area is by adjusting how many blocks out the bounds extend from each face of the block. You can do that using the - and + buttons under each cardinal direction.
Preview toggle. When toggled on this button shows the walls of the pen area. Each color corresponds to a cardinal direction.
Breed toggle. When toggled on this button will find two of the same species assigned to the trough and use valid food for that animal to breed them. When this button is toggled off it will only trust feed animals given that it has valid food in its inventory for that animal.
Growth toggle. When toggled on this button will feed any babies assigned to the tough in order to accelerate their vanilla growth timer. This also raises their trust as well. Babies will inherit the trust from their parents given as bounds to a range. For example parent A and parent B have 5 and 9 respectively. The baby they produce will inherit a trust value between 5 and 9. This allows trust to be grown through generations. Providing benefits to well maintained ranches.
Limit toggle. When toggled on this button will limit the max amount of mobs that can be bred in each species. For example, If you were to have both cows and sheep assigned to the same trough with a limit of 9 then the tough will breed the animals until there were 9 cows and 9 sheep. It will prevent any breeding that would raise the population of that mob past 9. Once all animal types assigned to the trough reach its limit it will toggle off the breeding button and turn to trust only feeding until breeding is toggled back on by the player. To change the limit use the box underneath the button. It can only accept numbers in a range of 1-64.
In the upper left corner of the Feeding trough ui will be a chest icon. Click it to access the trough inventory page. Here you can store food that the trough will use in the ways described above.

Custom breeding.
This mod adds two custom breeding methods for both slimes and spiders as well as magma cubes and cave spiders.

Slimes. Slimes do not breed in the typical sense instead they divide. You can shift right click a curious or above slime to perform a “safe division” this will not hurt the slime so you will not lose trust. Safe division splits the slime into smaller versions of itself inheriting exact trust from the original slime. Sometimes a slime ball is rewarded during safe division or a magma creme if performed on a magma cube. To then grow these slimes you must feed them water. It takes one water bucket to grow a small slime into medium slime and 3 water buckets to grow a medium slime into a large slime. From there it takes 2 water buckets for a large slime to produce a medium slime child. Magma cubes use the exact same rules but with lava buckets instead of water buckets. Slimes and magma cubes are like the bottom feeders of the minecraft world; they can eat any food item in order to raise their trust including things like rotten flesh, spider eyes, and pufferfish.

Spiders. Spiders have feeding mechanics very similar to base vanilla mechanics. They accept any meat as food, including raw and cooked kinds. Once two are bred together one will eat the other and the survivor will produce a litter of 3-6 spiderlings. Baby spiders can be told apart from adult spiders based on their smaller size and juvenile colorpallet. Like vanilla babies their growth timer can be sped up using valid food items. After this timer they will turn into adults. These rules apply to cave spiders as well.

Important imformation about the beta.

This mod is in early beta. Many of the current features, items, and designs are subject to change. Beta is only a representation for the foundations of the mod. A lot more is planned for the mod to reach its intended scope.

What the mod currently achieves.

Currently the tier one trust line has been implemented for select mobs. Those mobs being:
Cows
Pigs
Sheeps
Chickens
Bees
Rabbits
Mooshrooms
Hoglins
Goats
Slimes
Magma cubes
Spiders
And cave spiders
All the mobs listed above can interact in the systems that the Beta implements. The heart of the Beta is the feeding trough, it can act like a pen for your animals without the fencing. Animals that trust you will stay in its bounds and breed without input from the player. To go with this system Spiders and Slimes, as well as, Cave spiders and magma cubes. Have been given custom breeding mechanics to provide a cozier alternative to mass spider and slime farms within the vanilla game. Instead, you can raise and ranch spiders, as well as slimes, to get their drops in a friendlier way. If you are curious on how to use the mod, look at the “How the mod works.” section on the mod page.

What the mod will hope to achieve in future.

In the future I'd love for every mob to be able to form opinions and interact with the player based on how they view the player. At the moment the Beta is simple, but the goal of this mod would be something that should make the sandbox of minecraft feel more responsive to the player without openly interacting with the player in a way that skews their experience. Much like an outward observer that would be able to respond to the actions and choices the player makes when playing the game. Essentially I want this mod to stick close to minecraft’s design and style while making the experience feel more alive and responsive. Eventually this mod would allow you to form communities with the mobs that you form bonds with. However, in it’s Beta state Ranching is the only system fully implemented.