Smarter hostile mobs — without destroying your server's tick rate.

SmartAI makes hostile mobs genuinely think: they break blocks to reach you, climb walls, jump gaps, pillar up to elevated targets, swim after you, dodge arrows, flee explosions, and remember who hit them. Unlike other advanced-AI mods, it's built from the ground up around a tick budget, so it stays cheap even with hundreds of mobs loaded.

Built for NeoForge 1.21.1. No dependencies. Fully server-side.

Why it's different

Most advanced-AI mods register a separate AI goal per feature, on every mob, evaluated every single tick. Hundreds of mobs × dozens of goals = a tick-rate disaster.

SmartAI works the opposite way:

Tick budget — a per-dimension manager processes a fixed number of mobs per tick in round-robin. Nearby mobs update more often; distant ones cost nothing. Per-tick cost stays constant no matter how many mobs are loaded.
Distance layers — close mobs run full logic, mid-range mobs run only cheap behaviors with cached pathfinding, far mobs sleep entirely.
Disabled means gone — a behavior you turn off isn't "an if per tick," it's never registered. It costs literally zero.
Path caching, zero hot-path allocations, packet throttling — the details that keep it light.

What mobs can do

Movement & reaching you

Break blocks to reach you — but only when a block actually blocks their path, with hardness limits and a configurable blacklist so they won't tear through your base.
Climb walls up to 3 blocks high.
Jump gaps, with landing validation so they don't fling themselves off cliffs.
Pillar up — place blocks to build a tower toward elevated targets. Placed blocks decay over time so your world doesn't fill with dirt pillars.
Swim after you with dolphin-like grace, pushing against currents instead of floating uselessly.
Vertical awareness — they dig up toward you when you're above, instead of sideways into a wall.

Combat & survival

Sprint while chasing.
Flee at low health.
Frenzy — the lower their health, the faster and more erratically they move, making them harder to finish off.
Group anger — hurt one mob and nearby mobs join in, spreading in waves like zombified piglins, with strict caps to prevent farm-induced chaos.
Grudge — a mob you hit remembers you and won't be fooled by hiding behind a wall.
Dodge projectiles — step aside from incoming arrows.
Avoid explosions — flee swelling creepers and lit TNT, even when far from a player.
Extended targeting — spot you from farther away.
Gaze alert — looking directly at a mob wakes it up.

Fully configurable, with presets

Every behavior has its own toggle and fine-tuning options. Four performance presets:

Preset	Use case
CHEAP	Busy servers, many players
NORMAL	Default, balanced
HEAVY	Singleplayer, powerful PC
CUSTOM	Your exact values

Presets only touch performance — your behavior toggles are always respected.

Works with modded mobs

SmartAI detects hostility through vanilla's Monster class, the Enemy interface, and active targeting — so most modded hostile mobs work out of the box. For unusual mobs, just add them by ID to any behavior's whitelist.

In-game commands

/smartai status — tracked mobs, active layers, budget, and config warnings
/smartai reload — reload config without restarting
/smartai debug — dump a nearby mob's decision-making to the console

Compatibility

Designed to coexist with Lithium, FerriteCore, ModernFix, and other performance and AI mods. Everything runs server-side — clients don't pay for it.

SmartAI is an original mod. It is not a fork or port of any existing AI mod.