True Instincts — Vanilla+ Mob AI & Living Ecology Overhaul

True Instincts awakens the natural intelligence of every vanilla mob in Minecraft 1.20.1 while staying 100% faithful to vanilla mechanics. No fake inventories, no out-of-place items, and no particle clutter—just genuinely smart, reactive, and believable creatures.

Key Features

1. Realistic Senses: Vision, Stealth & Sound Occlusion

• 3-Zone Field of View (FOV): Mobs possess sharp central vision, peripheral awareness, and a rear blind spot. Sneaking in low light behind a mob genuinely works—while sprinting in heavy armor gives your position away.
• Acoustic Propagation & Wall Muffling: Mobs hear footsteps, block breaking, chest openings, explosions, and combat. Sounds behind solid walls are muffled, prompting mobs to pause, listen, and cautiously investigate the general area.

2. Smart Equipment Scavenging & Dual-Hand Combat

• Sun-Survival Headwear Rescue: Sun-sensitive undead (Zombie, Skeleton, Stray, Drowned, Zombie Villager) sheltering in the shade or burning in daylight actively spot helmets, carved pumpkins, or skulls on the ground, run to equip them, and immediately charge into the sunlight!
• Tactical Ground Scavenging: Humanoid mobs recognize better weapons and armor on the ground and equip Totem of Undying or Shields into an empty offhand.
• Situational Dual-Hand Swapping (MAINHAND <-> OFFHAND):
  • Axe vs. Shield: Mobs holding both a Sword and an Axe automatically swap to their Axe when you block with a shield to disable it, then swap back to their Sword!
  • Ranged vs. Melee: Skeletons and Pillagers holding a scavenged melee blade in their offhand switch to their blade when cornered at close range (<= 2.5m) or underwater, and switch back to their bow/crossbow at distance.
• 100% Loot Integrity: Any item picked up from the ground is guaranteed (100% drop chance) to drop when the mob dies.

3. Coordinated Squad Tactics & Species Mastery

• Undead & Daylight Mastery: Zombies and Skeletons use a smart daylight state machine—lurking under trees, sniping from the shade, extinguishing fire in water, and committing to sorties only when you step close.
• Skeleton Ballistics: Predictive lead aiming against moving and mounted targets, cover-aware aim adjustment over 1-block barricades, friendly-fire lane clearing, and vantage holding.
• Creeper Intelligence: Blast-radius ally preservation (including Charged Creepers), 1x1 barricade breaching with warning alerts for nearby allies, and air-drop ledge ambushes.
• Spiders & Arthropods: True daytime neutrality, ceiling/wall arrow evasion in tunnels, 1x1 window climb-through for Cave Spiders, and coordinated Spider Jockey skirmishing.
• Raids, Nether & Bosses: Vindicator pincer brackets and Evoker bodyguarding, smart Piglin gold claiming (only the closest free Piglin claims a single gold ingot while the pack keeps fighting), Witch & Wandering Trader cover-seeking while drinking potions, and refined combat AI for the Warden, Wither, Elder Guardian, and Ender Dragon.

4. Living Wildlife, Villagers & Companions

• Iron & Snow Golems: Iron Golems actively intercept threats along the line between monsters and villagers; Snow Golems kite and prioritize Blazes.
• Villagers & Allays: Flee toward protecting Iron Golems and refuse to walk into zombies, explosions, or lava just to pick up dropped items.
• Foxes, Cats, Parrots, Wolves & Dolphins: Foxes protect high-value items (Totems/Swords) in their mouth and seek berries when hurt; tamed Cats step out to intimidate Creepers; Parrots act as early-warning sentinels; Dolphins turn and bring floating items toward friendly players.

5. Built for Server Performance (4-Tier LOD & Zero-Allocation Hot Paths)

• Powered by a spatial grid, tick-budgeted scheduler, adaptive herd-density idle scaling, and 4-tier Level of Detail (ACTIVE, NEAR, FAR, DORMANT) so server TPS, vanilla mob caps, and mob farms remain completely unaffected.
• Commands: /instincts stats, /instincts inspect, /instincts config, /instincts resetpeak (alias: /trueinstincts).