Biology Dictionary
Introduction
Biology Dictionary is a utility Minecraft mod for viewing detailed information about mobs and modifying certain mob properties. This mod does not add any new blocks/entities, and can be safely uninstalled/reinstalled at any time, or when upgrading Minecraft versions.
Strictly speaking, this mod adds a book item. However, the book is implemented using a writable book + NBT (now called "components"). After uninstalling the mod, it becomes a regular writable book. Reinstalling the mod will restore its functionality.
This mod was originally designed to enhance the experience for technical survival players, for example:
- Highlight entities within 100 meters to easily find rare mobs like parrots and pandas
- View horse jump/speed stats to quickly find high-performance horses
- View items that can attract/feed mobs for easier taming and breeding
- View villager work sites to help locate trading halls
- Block mobs from/force instant teleport through nether portals for easier mob transport
- Mute entities to avoid revealing decoration builds (e.g., chicken swings made with leads)
- Prevent baby animals from growing up to keep them cute (conveniently,
26.1 Snapshot 2 implemented better baby animals, making this feature even more useful!)
- Modify villager inventory items (presented as "stealing") for automatic farm designs
- Remove mob AI and make invincible for NPCs or decoration builds
- View honey and bee information in bee hives
- And much more
However, technical survival players sometimes don't care about mod aesthetics. I still hope this mod can be as immersive as possible and blend into vanilla game mechanics, so I added some lightweight settings and created a relatively immersive UI. Players need to pay a reasonable cost to modify entity properties.
But my pixel art skills aren't great. Contributions to improve Biology Dictionary's UI are welcome!
This mod currently only supports Fabric and requires Fabric API and Cloth Config API. As development progressed, this mod seems to have drifted quite far from its original intention (enhancing technical survival experience), so some might ask why I didn't develop it for Forge, as many Forge mods add new mobs, and this mod seems useful for viewing attributes of those mobs.
- First, yes, this mod supports third-party mobs. If there's enough demand, I'll consider opening APIs for third-party mob entity widgets.
- Second, the mod's original intent was to enhance vanilla survival experience + keep up with latest Minecraft versions. When I started development, Forge was slow to update and didn't support optimizations like Sodium, so I didn't consider it. However, NeoForge has developed well recently, so I'm currently waiting to see how things progress.
I'm becoming increasingly busy with work, but I'll still try my best to keep up with official Minecraft updates. However, I won't be adding too many complex features going forward.
Detailed Features and Settings
This mod is a complete restructure of Bole, as I wasn't satisfied with the previous implementation. Biology Dictionary is essentially a full rewrite of Bole without adding too many new features.
Obtaining and Using Biology Dictionary
How to Obtain Biology Dictionary Item
- In Creative mode, find it at the end of the "Tools & Utilities" category
- In Survival mode, buy it from Wandering Traders. As game time progresses, the sale probability gradually decreases from 100% to a stable 20%
This design means you can find it everywhere when you start without emeralds, but once you're rich enough, it becomes rare hehe
How to Open Biology Dictionary Screen
- In Creative mode, simply use the hotkey (default
~) to open the Biology Dictionary screen
- In Survival mode:
- If you don't have Biology Dictionary in your inventory, you cannot open the screen
- If you have the book:
- Right-click the book to open
- You can also use the hotkey to open
Screens for Different Targets
- Aiming at an entity opens that entity's detail page
- Aiming at a bee hive opens the bee hive page
- Aiming at other blocks or air opens the main menu
All Supported Properties Display/Modification
The following lists all supported property display and modification features by entity class hierarchy:
- Entity
- Entity model display (rotatable)
- Air/oxygen value display
- Bounding box size display
- Invulnerable state toggle (Creative mode only)
- Leashable status display
- Portal cooldown lock (prevent/allow teleportation)
- Mute toggle
- LivingEntity
- Health value display
- Status effects display
- Movement speed display (m/s)
- Jump strength display (m)
- Inventory viewing/stealing
- Mob
- AI toggle
- Persistence display/modify (prevent natural despawning)
- Tempt items display
- AgeableMob
- Growth progress display/lock as baby
- Breeding cooldown display/prevent breeding
- Animal
- Breedable food items display
- In-love status display
- Bee
- Hive location display/locate
- Clear hive memory
- Dolphin
- Goat
- Screaming goat status display
- Panda
- Main gene display/modify
- Hidden gene display/modify
- Sheep
- Force eat grass (shearing)
- Villager
- Job site location display/locate
- Daily restock count display/force restock
- Schedule display
- Villager type display/modify
- WanderingTrader
- Despawn delay display/retain
- Horse
- Color and markings display/modify
- OwnableEntity (tamable mobs like wolves, cats, parrots, etc.)
- Owner info display/gift pet
