Better Baby Pets

Collect and raise baby animal companions that follow you around and give scaling stat bonuses. 22 pets across 5 rarity tiers, egg hatching via a custom Pet Incubator, time-based leveling, a mood system, pet storage, and a full advancement tree — start with a single command /pets.

---

How it works

Get a pet egg — either from any vanilla structure chest loot, or via /pets give as an admin. Craft a Pet Incubator and right-click it with the egg to start incubation. After 20 minutes, your egg hatches into a random pet of that rarity.

Open your collection with /pets, click a pet to select it, and it'll spawn at your side. Feed it, pet it, level it up — its stat bonus scales with level up to level 10.

---

Features

Pets and rarities

• 22 pet types across 5 rarity tiers: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary
• Every stat-boosting pet provides a unique player attribute bonus that scales linearly with level
• Storage pets (Horse, Donkey, Mule, Llama, Camel, Trader Llama) unlock inventory slots that scale with level instead

Pet leveling

• Time-based XP — pets gain XP passively while active, every 60 seconds
• Scaling XP curve up to level 10
• Attribute bonuses and storage slots increase every level

Mood and care

• 5 mood states: Ecstatic → Happy → Content → Hungry → Sad
• Mood drifts down over time; recover it by feeding or petting
• Food type depends on the pet's movement category (ground / flying / water)

Egg and incubation system

• Custom craftable Pet Incubator block
• Loot injection into vanilla structure chests (togglable, per-rarity thresholds configurable)

Pet storage

• Storage pets open a personal inventory GUI that scales slot count with pet level
• Separate storage groups: horse-tier (5 slots), llama (9), camel (14), trader llama (18)

GUIs

• Pet Collection: all owned pets with their level, rarity, mood, and stat info
• Pet Detail: per-pet stats, rename via name tag, delete
• Pet Settings: per-player toggles (follow/stay, hide others' pets, sounds, notifications)
• Pet Storage: inventory GUI for storage-ability pets

Advancement tree

• 12 advancements tracking the full progression arc — from first incubation to legendary hatch to completing the full collection

Everything else

• Follow and Stay modes
• Cross-dimension teleport when the player switches worlds
• Respawn on join — active pet re-appears when the player logs back in
• Hover name displayed above the pet entity
• Idle emote sounds
• Per-player toggles: hide other players' pets, pet sounds, chat notifications
• Rename pets with a name tag in-hand while right-clicking
• SQLite-backed persistence

Nearly everything is tunable in the YAML configs

---

Pet Roster

Rarity	Pets	Bonus
Common	Chicken, Pig, Cow, Sheep, Squid	Fall resistance, Max health, Max absorption, Safe fall distance, Oxygen bonus
Uncommon	Bee, Bunny, Horse, Donkey, Mule	Knockback resistance, Jump height, Storage (5 slots) ×3
Rare	Dolphin, Armadillo, Mooshroom, Turtle, Llama	Oxygen bonus, Armor, Gravity reduction, Water movement, Storage (9 slots)
Epic	Fox, Ocelot, Polar Bear, Camel	Movement speed, Block break speed, Sweep damage, Storage (14 slots)
Legendary	Goat, Panda, Trader Llama	Attack damage, Block reach, Storage (18 slots)

---

Requirements

Server software	Paper 26.1+
Java	25
Hard dependencies	None

---

Installation

1. Drop the jar into your /plugins folder
2. Start the server once to generate configs
3. Tune config.yml and pets.yml to your liking

---

Commands

Command	What it does
/pets	Open your pet collection
/pets info	Show active pet stats
/pets settings	Open per-player settings GUI
/pets follow	Set active pet to follow mode
/pets stay	Set active pet to stay mode
/pets hideothers [on|off|toggle]	Hide other players' pets
/pets sounds [on|off|toggle]	Toggle pet sounds
/pets notifications [on|off|toggle]	Toggle pet chat notifications
/pets select <id>	Select a pet by DB ID
/pets deselect	Deselect current pet
/pets help	Full command list

Admin commands (requires pets.admin):

Command	What it does
/pets give <player> <rarity>	Give a pet egg of a specific rarity
/pets givepet <pet_type>	Add a pet directly to a player's collection
/pets setlevel <level>	Set the active pet's level
/pets incubator	Give yourself a Pet Incubator item
/pets hatch	Instantly hatch all incubating eggs
/pets reload	Reload config without restart

---

Configuration

Two main config files:

• config.yml — incubation time, leveling curve, XP intervals, follow/teleport distances, mood food lists, messages, loot injection settings
• pets.yml — full pet roster definitions: entity type, rarity, description, player attribute, storage size, and more

Individual systems (advancements, abilities, loot injection) can each be toggled independently.

---

Balance disclaimer

This plugin has not been heavily playtested. If something feels off, I'd genuinely like to know.

---

Feedback and support

Bug reports, balance feedback, and suggestions are all welcome.

Discord

Wiki