Minions

Overview

A minion is a small figure placed on the island. Every dozen or so seconds it performs an action in the 5x5 field around itself: it places a block, plants a crop, or summons a mob, and then harvests it. The loot goes into the minion's storage, from where the player collects it.

• Obtaining: a level I minion is crafted from a blueprint. Higher levels come only from upgrading in the minion window.
• Work: a minion works as long as it has room in its storage, even when nobody is on the island. For the time the island is closed, production is added when it opens, for at most 7 days.
• Loot comes from the type's drop table, not from the broken block or killed mob. The world around the minion is only a show.
• No skills: a minion's work gives no skill progress and no pet XP.
• Boosts: fuel speeds up the work, and upgrades in two slots smelt and compress the loot.

Where to get a minion

A level I minion is crafted from a blueprint at the crafting station. Rules for attempts, success chance, and blueprint quality: Blueprints and crafting. Minion blueprints are in the Machines category.

• The quality of the product does not matter: a minion from a blueprint is always level I and has no quality. The 100% quality mode only lowers the chance of success.
• The first successful craft of a minion of a given type unlocks the (type, level I) pair in the player's collection (section Island slots and collection).
• Levels II–XI come only from upgrading a placed minion.
• Admins can issue a minion of any type and level. Such an issue does not count toward the collection.

The wooden tool in the recipe is a plain Minecraft item without quality. Regular crafting does not produce it (see Regular crafting), so it has to be obtained another way. The pickaxe and axe are in the island's starter chest, and the sword is given by the starter quest (see To be decided).

The minion item

• It looks like the target block (cobblestone, ore, log, mob head), but it is not a block. It cannot be placed like a block, smelted, or used as a recipe ingredient.
• Name: "Cobblestone Minion III". Description: the category ("Mining minion"), the time between actions without fuel, the storage capacity, and "Place it on your island."
• Minions of the same type and level stack. The item can be given away or sold like any other.

Placing, the window, and picking up

Placing

1. The player holds the minion item in the main hand and right-clicks a block on the island. The minion appears in the spot adjacent to the clicked block face.
2. Conditions:
   • the spot is on an island where the player may place minions (permissions table below);
   • the spot is empty (air) and the block beneath it is solid;
   • the island has fewer minions than its limit (section Island slots and collection);
   • no other minion is already standing in that spot.
3. One item disappears from the hand. When placing fails (e.g. someone else took the last slot on the island at the same moment), the item returns to the inventory.
4. The minion starts with empty storage, no fuel, no upgrades, and no skin. It performs its first action after a random time from 0 to one interval.

A minion is a small figure with a head shaped like the target block, a leather chestplate, and a wooden tool in hand. Above it hangs a label with its name, level, and status. On every action the minion turns toward the target and swings its arm, and the block emits particles and a sound. The figure cannot be hurt, dressed up, moved, or pushed by a piston. A block cannot be placed in its spot.

The minion window

Right-clicking a minion opens the window (6 rows). The window refreshes every second. Items cannot be moved in it: everything works by clicking.

M1–M15: storage slots, filled in order. Slots above the level's capacity are locked ("Locked – Unlocks at a higher tier.").

Every operation in the window is saved before the player receives the items. If the minion changed in the meantime (e.g. another island member just emptied it), the operation is rolled back: ingredients, fuel, upgrade, or skin return, and the player sees "The minion changed in the meantime - try again."

Picking up

• The player receives the minion item with its current level, the inserted upgrades, the skin, and the entire storage contents. Whatever does not fit drops at their feet.
• Fuel is lost.
• Target blocks in the field disappear (cobblestone, ores, crops, logs), and the minion's mobs disappear. The farmland stays.
• Picking up unlocks nothing in the collection. Placing it again is free.

Permissions

On regular islands admins have the same rights as members. On a society island only the rank permissions decide. By default the Leader and Officer have both permissions, the Member only "Use minions", and the Recruit none. Details: Society and party. A guest on the island sees "This is not a minion of your island."

Minion types

Each type has a category, a target in the world, a tool in hand, a base time between actions (level I, without fuel), and a drop table. One harvest is one roll of the table: each row is rolled separately, with its own chance and from-to amount.

The upgrade ingredient is usually the main drop. Exceptions: Iron and Gold Minions require ingots, even though they harvest raw iron and gold. Smelting is a separate path (a furnace or the Auto Smelter).

Work field and actions

The field is a 5x5 square around the minion without its own spot, that is 24 spots (2 in each direction). The height and conditions depend on the category:

Spots occupied by other blocks are skipped. A minion does not destroy other people's blocks.

A single action

1. If the storage is full, the action is lost and the status is "Storage full".
2. If there is an empty valid spot, the minion picks a random one and fills it: it places a block, plants a fully ripe crop (turning dirt into watered farmland), places a log, or summons a mob. This is not a harvest.
3. Otherwise the minion harvests a random ready target: the block disappears, and the mob disappears with a death sound. One roll of the drop table goes into the storage.
4. When there is neither an empty nor a ready spot, the status is "Bad location".

Statuses on the label

The label above the minion is always in English, the window is in the player's language.

Work speed

A minion checks its actions every 0.5 s. In the world the gap between actions is therefore the interval rounded up to 0.5 s (e.g. 12.6 s -> 13.0 s). Production for the time the island is closed uses the exact interval.

Time between actions (s, without fuel)

Production (without fuel, after the filling phase)

Average values from the drop table. The time to fill the storage is given only for types with a single drop. With several drops each item takes its own stacks, and drops without room are lost (see Storage).

Storage

The storage has as many slots as the minion's level gives (from 1 to 15). A slot holds one stack. Each item takes its own stacks, as in a chest. All current drops stack to 64, so the capacity is slots x 64.

• A drop is added to the last incomplete stack of that item, and then to free slots.
• The part of a drop that does not fit is lost.
• The "Storage full" status appears only when no item in the storage has any room left. Until then the minion keeps working, and drops without room are lost.
• Collecting even part of the loot or upgrading the level clears the "Storage full" status.

Level I and several drops

Level I has one slot. It is taken by the item that reaches the storage first, and the second drop is then lost on every harvest until the contents are collected. Items from one roll reach the storage in a fixed order, independent of the drop table:

The chance applies to the first harvest into an empty storage. From level II (3 slots) both drops fit.

Levels and upgrading

Upgrading is done in the window with the "Upgrade to tier N" button. The cost is paid with the type's upgrade ingredient (table Minion types), taken from the inventory. The ingredient must be a plain item without quality or a crafted item with 100% quality.

• The level rises by 1. The storage contents, fuel, upgrades, and skin stay.
• Upgrading to level N unlocks the (type, N) pair in the collection of the player who upgraded.
• Missing ingredients, e.g. at I -> II: "Missing items: 16x Cobblestone." Level XI: "This minion is already at the highest tier."

The full path from level I to XI costs 8,688 pieces of the upgrade ingredient, that is 135.75 stacks. Together with the blueprint (64 pieces of the same item) that is 8,752 pieces.

Faster work comes from levels III, V, VII, IX, XI. A larger storage comes from levels II, IV, VI, VIII, X.

Fuel

Fuel is inserted by clicking in your own inventory while the minion window is open. One click uses one item.

• The bonus shortens the interval: interval x (1 - bonus). "+25% speed" means a 25% shorter gap, that is about 33% more harvests.
• Time runs in real time from the moment of insertion, also while the island is closed.
• New fuel replaces the old, even the same kind. The remaining time of the previous one is lost, and the new one counts from the moment of insertion. Two pieces of coal one after another give 30 minutes, not 60.
• An empty fuel slot: "No fuel. Click coal, a coal block or a lava bucket in your inventory." After insertion: "Fuel: +25% speed for 1h 00m."
• Fuel is lost when the minion is picked up.

Upgrades in slots

A minion has 2 upgrade slots. An upgrade is not consumed and can be taken out at any time. Two identical upgrades in one minion are not allowed ("This upgrade is already in the minion.").

Order on every harvest

1. A roll of the drop table.
2. Smelting (Auto Smelter).
3. Adding to the storage, up to the capacity limit.
4. Compression (Compactor): as many blocks as fit in the storage after the conversion.

The same order applies to production for the time the island is closed. Inserting a Compactor immediately compresses the entire current stock. Furnace recipes give no experience.

What reaches the storage

Logs are not smelted into charcoal, because the furnace recipe accepts any kind of log, not a single one.

Compactor and capacity

Compression reduces the number of pieces, so the storage holds more. The last slot, however, is taken by the remainder of pieces before conversion. When blocks fill all the slots, new pieces have nowhere to go and are lost. For an item with a single drop, a storage with N slots holds at most (N - 1) x 64 + 1 blocks.

Skins

A skin changes the minion's looks: the head and the color of the leather chestplate. The tool in hand stays from the type. A skin does not change how the minion works and returns to the player when the minion is picked up.

Crate chances: Crates and keys. A skin that no longer exists in the game cannot be equipped ("This skin is no longer available.").

Island slots and collection

An island can hold at most 5 minions plus a bonus from the collection. The collection is the unique (type, level) pairs that the player has unlocked. A pair is unlocked by:

• a successful minion craft from a blueprint: the (type, I) pair;
• upgrading a minion to level N: the (type, N) pair, for the player who clicked the upgrade.

Each pair counts once. A new pair gives the message "New unique minion: Coal Minion III. Check /minion slots." There are 14 x 11 = 154 pairs in total.

• On a regular island the pairs of the owner and members count. On a society island the pairs of all society members count. The same pair held by two people counts once.
• The limit is checked on placing. When a member leaves and the limit drops, placed minions stay, but new ones cannot be placed.
• An unlock on another server reaches the island limit within 60 s at the latest.
• /minion slots shows the number of the player's unique pairs and how many are missing to the next threshold: "Unique minions: 12 (each type + tier pair).", "Your island limit: 6 - next slot in 3 unique minions.", "On an island, the unique minions of all members count together."

When a minion works

An island is served by one game server at a time: the one where it is open. Minions work only there. On another server the window answers "This minion is run by another server right now - join your island again."

Production for the time the island is closed

1. Added only to a minion that had the "Working" status at the last save. "Storage full" and "Bad location" get nothing.
2. Time is counted from the minion's last save to the island opening, at most 7 days back.
3. The time is split into a part with fuel (until it runs out) and a part without fuel.
4. Number of harvests = floor(actions / 2). Each harvest is a roll of the drop table with upgrades, until the storage fills up.

• The state is saved every 30 s, when the island closes, and when the server shuts down. A server crash can lose up to 30 s of production.
• Production for the closed time ignores the field filling phase and rounding to 0.5 s, so it can be slightly higher than in the world.

Field protection

A minion's loot comes only from the drop table. The world around it cannot be an extra source of items.

• A target block from the field broken by a player disappears with no drop, no experience, no skills, and no pet XP. For a crop the same applies to breaking the farmland beneath it. Non-target blocks work normally.
• The block under the minion cannot be broken while the minion stands: "A minion stands on this block."
• Pistons do not move field targets or the block under the minion. Explosions do not destroy them. Water and lava do not wash targets away.
• Farmland in the minion's field cannot be trampled, by players or by mobs.
• Minion mobs have no artificial intelligence: they do not walk, attack, or make sounds. They take no damage from players, pets, or the environment, do not burn in the sun, and do not react to interactions (milking, leash, trading). They die only in the void or by an admin command, and then with no drop and no experience. They disappear when the island closes.

Messages

To be decided

• Wooden tools for blueprints. Every minion blueprint requires a wooden pickaxe, hoe, axe, or sword. Regular crafting does not make them and there are no blueprints for them. The pickaxe and axe are one each in the island's starter chest, and the sword is given by the starter quest. There is no source of a wooden hoe, so farming minions are currently unobtainable without admins.
• Fuel does not stack. New fuel, even the same kind, wipes the remaining time of the previous one. When the minion is picked up, the fuel is lost. To be decided: adding time, a refund, blocking the swap of lava for coal.
• "Working" with no production. The "Storage full" status appears only when no item has room. A minion with several drops or with a Compactor can show "Working" for a long time even though everything it collects is lost. At level I, the Compactor loses all further production after a single block.
• The second drop at level I. With 1 slot, one of the two drops is lost. Wheat Minion I collects only seeds half of the time, and Cow and Skeleton Minion I collect only leather or only arrows two thirds of the time. To be decided whether the main drop should have priority.
• The world vs. production for the closed time. In the world the minion first fills the field (24 actions without a harvest) and the gap is rounded up to 0.5 s. Production for the closed time ignores this, so a closed island produces slightly more than an open one.
• Society island. An open society island without a player with "Use minions" pauses minions, but after it closes, production is added normally. The rules for an open and a closed island differ.
• Island information. The island information shows an old minion limit (1 by default), different from the real limit (5 + bonus). The "Minions" button in the island menu only displays "Opening minion management..." and opens nothing.
• /minion slots gives "Your island limit" from the player's own pairs only, while the island counts the pairs of all members together. The number can differ from the limit in the minion window.
• The label above the minion ("Working", "Storage full", "Bad location") and the minion item description are in English only.
• The Dragon skin has weight 2 in the Gold Crate, while the assumptions said weight 3 for all skins.
• Auto Smelter and logs. Logs are not smelted into charcoal. To be decided whether wood minions should get smelting.
• Admins on a society island have no access to minions unless they have the right rank.