# Custom Mobs

## Custom mobs

TCP-WildSpawners works with vanilla mobs out of the box, but the real value shows up when you wire it into a custom-mob plugin.

This page covers each supported provider — how to set it up, how mob ids work, and the gotchas to expect.

### Vanilla

```yaml
provider: vanilla
normal-mobs:
  - minecraft:zombie
  - minecraft:skeleton
ominous-mobs:
  - minecraft:wither_skeleton
```

**Always include the `minecraft:` prefix.** `minecraft:cow`, not `cow`. The plugin uses Bukkit's `Material.matchMaterial`-equivalent for entity types and the prefix matches Minecraft's namespaced-id format.

Vanilla provider is the only one that supports cage cycling — the spawner cage's mini-entity display will cycle through your configured mobs. Set `cycle-cage-mobs: true` (default for vanilla) to enable.

#### What works

Any non-boss living entity with a spawn egg. The full list is the same as vanilla's spawn-egg picker — the GUI's vanilla mob picker shows you exactly what's available.

#### What doesn't work

* Bosses (Ender Dragon, Wither, Warden) — vanilla refuses to spawn them via the trial-spawner mechanism.
* Non-living entities (item frames, paintings, projectiles).
* Custom-textured vanilla mobs (e.g. armour-stand-based "custom models") — those need a non-vanilla provider.

### MythicMobs

```yaml
provider: mythicmobs
normal-mobs:
  - Goblin
  - GoblinArcher
ominous-mobs:
  - GoblinChief
```

Mob ids are MythicMobs' own ids — the keys under `Mobs:` in your MythicMobs config. **Do not** prefix them with `minecraft:` or `mythic:` — bare ids only.

#### Setup

1. Install MythicMobs alongside this plugin.
2. Define your mobs in MythicMobs as usual (any modern version compatible with Paper 1.21.x).
3. Reference the mob ids in your `wild-presets.yml`.

#### Cage cycling

Falls back to a zombie placeholder for the cage display. MythicMobs' custom entities can't be rendered in the vanilla cage without a hard dependency on MythicMobs' bukkit-side rendering pipeline.

#### Failure modes

If a mob id doesn't exist in MythicMobs, the spawn is logged as a warning and skipped. The wave continues, just with one less mob.

If MythicMobs isn't loaded but a preset references it, the preset loads but every spawn attempt logs a warning. The console will be loud — fix it by either installing MythicMobs or removing the preset.

### EliteMobs

```yaml
provider: elitemobs
normal-mobs:
  - Boss_DesertGuard
ominous-mobs:
  - Boss_LegendaryDragon
```

Mob ids are EliteMobs' custom-boss ids — the filename of each custom-boss YAML under `plugins/EliteMobs/customBosses/` (without the `.yml` extension).

EliteMobs procedurally levels mobs by difficulty zone — placed spawners use the spawner's location for level calculation, so a spawner placed deep in a wilderness biome will spawn higher-level mobs than one placed near spawn.

### EcoMobs

```yaml
provider: ecomobs
normal-mobs:
  - GiantSpider
  - VenomSnake
```

Mob ids are EcoMobs' config ids — defined in `plugins/EcoMobs/mobs/*.yml`.

EcoMobs is more lightweight than MythicMobs — most servers run both or neither, depending on their custom-mob preference.

### LevelledMobs

```yaml
provider: levelledmobs
normal-mobs:
  - minecraft:zombie
  - minecraft:skeleton
```

LevelledMobs **modifies vanilla mobs in place** — it doesn't introduce new entity types. The mob ids you reference are still vanilla `minecraft:` namespaced ids; LevelledMobs intercepts the spawn and applies its level-based scaling.

Use this provider when you want vanilla mobs but with LevelledMobs' XP-based difficulty curves applied to spawner-spawned mobs.

### InfernalMobs

```yaml
provider: infernalmobs
normal-mobs:
  - minecraft:zombie
  - minecraft:skeleton
```

Same pattern as LevelledMobs — vanilla mob ids, with InfernalMobs' "infernal" elite-mob mechanics applied at spawn time. The mob has a configurable chance to be promoted to an Infernal Mob with the plugin's standard ability suite.

### Citizens

```yaml
provider: citizens
normal-mobs:
  - shopkeeper_npc
  - quest_giver
```

Mob ids are **NPC names or ids** from your Citizens database. Citizens NPCs aren't really "mobs" in the wave-combat sense — this provider exists for **decorative spawners** where the spawner cycles through NPC characters as wave participants.

Almost always paired with `allow-empty: true` and used for visual flair in adventure servers, not actual combat content.

### Mixing providers

Each preset has **one** provider — you can't mix vanilla mobs with MythicMobs in the same preset's mob list. To get a mixed wave, create one preset per provider and either:

* Issue both spawners as a "matched pair" gift.
* Or place them adjacent to each other so their activation ranges overlap.

### What the GUI does for non-vanilla providers

The admin GUI's "+ Add Mob" button has two behaviours:

* **Vanilla provider** → opens a paginated spawn-egg picker. Click any egg to add the corresponding mob to the list. No typing.
* **Non-vanilla provider** → opens a chat-input prompt. Type the mob id (or `cancel`); it's added to the list as you typed it.

The GUI doesn't enumerate non-vanilla providers' registries — that would require hard dependencies on each one. Chat-input is the universal fallback.

### Server load

Each spawner runs on the region thread that owns its block (under Folia) or the main thread (under Paper). The mob spawn itself is exactly as expensive as a vanilla trial spawner — the plugin doesn't add per-tick work beyond the existing scan loop.

A server with 100+ wild spawners placed simultaneously will see the same TPS impact as 100 vanilla trial chambers (which is to say, negligible — trial spawners are very cheap).

***

Next: **Distributing spawners →** · **The admin GUI →**


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