Villager Brain Config

A lightweight, highly optimized mod that makes villager pathfinding behavior fully configurable

Features

Per-block malus control

Customize how villagers treat different blocks in pathfinding. Blocks are configurable to any malus, block and item tags supported
Profession-based malus

Configure different path preferences per villager profession.
Global block penalty caching

Pathfinding results are cached for maximum efficiency across multiple villagers
Native modded support

The config file supports any modded blocks or professions

Example Use Cases

Prevent villagers from walking into trap blocks like campfires or magma
Make water paths viable for fishermen only
Design custom village layouts with optimized navigation paths
Prevent villagers from wandering off paths
Add personality to each profession type

Pathfinding Visualizations

Smart villager takes the short path to get to his job site

Stupid villager walks off the screen to get to his job site

Planned features

Per-villager-type rules (eg. plains villagers, taiga villagers)

Performance

Villager Brain Config is designed to be almost invisible in impact or even faster than vanilla

Test case

250 villagers
Each pathing to a unique workstation in a grid
Compared vanilla to modded using Spark profiler

Results

Vanilla Logic

Vanilla: VillagerEntity.tick(): 7.42

Modded Logic

Modded: VillagerEntity.tick(): 5.68

Mod total

villager-bran-config: 1.75ms

Configuration

All settings are in a villager-brain-config.json file in the config folder.

{
  "walk_on_block_penalties": {
    "minecraft:grass_block": 4.0,
    "minecraft:dirt_path": 0.0,
    "default": 5.0
  },
  "walk_through_block_penalties": {
    "minecraft:lava": -1.0,
    "minecraft:tall_grass": 20,
    "default": 0.0
  },
  "actions_penalties": {
    "jump": 10.0
  },
  "professions": {
    "minecraft:farmer": {
      "walk_on_block_penalties": {
        "minecraft:farmland": 0.0,
        "minecraft:grass_block": 2.0
      }
    },
    "minecraft:fisherman": {
      "walk_on_block_penalties": {
        "minecraft:water": 0.0
      },
      "walk_through_block_penalties": {
        "minecraft:water": 0.0
      }
    }
  },
  "avoids": [
    {
      "block": "minecraft:lava",
      "radius": 3,
      "penalty": -1.0
    }
  ]
}

Villager Brain Configuration