The Tactical Fluff & Tree Heist Update

The hamsters were too squishy. This update introduces enchantable armor, a new accessory, and configurable bed respawning. I may have also added a questionable, overengineered method of deforestation, configurable loot injection, farming mechanics, and quality-of-life features while I was at it... and TONS of other stuff. It’s a big one. Brace yourself.

Added

• Hamster Armor System
  • Acorn Armor: The biodegradable base tier. Crafted from Acorn Shards and an Acorn Hat. It works like Wolf Armor— completely negating damage until it breaks.
  • Tiered Upgrades: Use the Smithing Table to plate your Acorn Armor with Iron, Gold, Diamond, or Netherite using new Smithing Templates found in places where normal smithing templates are usually found.
  • Tactical Perks (Configurable):
    • Iron: Reduces wind resistance, granting extra flight velocity.
    • Gold: Lightweight; grants extra movement speed.
    • Diamond: Shiny; cures kleptomania. Hamsters wearing diamond armor will fetch valuables instead of stealing them.
    • Netherite: Dense; grants increased throw inertia and knockback resistance.
  • Enchantment Support
    • Hamster Armor can accept Frost Walker, Fire Protection, Soul Speed, Mending, and Unbreaking.
    • Note: Protection, Thorns and Feather Falling are intentionally excluded because hamsters don't take fall damage and Hamster Armor negates 100% of incoming damage until it breaks.
    • Got any ideas for other enchantments that should be supported? Let me know on Discord.
• Tree Heist Mechanic
  • The Trigger: Throw your hamster at an Oak Tree (or dismount them while staring at Oak Leaves) to initiate a heist.
  • The Simulation Architecture:
    • Intelligent Canopy Mapping Algorithm: Upon impact, a Gradient Descent Scan locates the trunk anchor. Then a Breadth-First Search utilizes leaf distance gradients to intelligently segment overlapping foliage, allowing the system to isolate and map the specific 3D shape of a single tree, even within a dense forest where the leaves are all touching.
    • Proxy Entity: Your physical hamster is temporarily swapped for an invisible, weightless TreeSearcher entity. This proxy physically navigates the mapped leaf volume for that specific tree in real-time, randomizing its path to "rummage" for acorns.
    • Spatial Integrity: The system verifies the tree's structural integrity every second. If you chop the tree down while a heist is active, the proxy detects the destruction, forces an emergency eject, and your hamster exits.
  • Visual & Audio Fidelity:
    • Reactive Foliage: A deterministically randomized physics simulation makes the leaves physically jiggle and shudder as the proxy moves through them. Each block has a unique oscillation pattern derived from its coordinates, further selling the "scurrying" effect.
    • Dynamic Audio: Sound sources track the invisible proxy's position, meaning you can hear exactly where your hamster is inside the canopy.
  • The Economy: Trees possess persistent "profitability" memory. Over-farming the same coordinates depletes yields until your hamster finds nothing and pouts.
• Lost Hamster Rescue Protocol
  • Added a new quality-of-life feature for wander mode. If a hamster is unable to find a path back to its bed while wandering, simply go to sleep in your own bed.
  • When you wake up, any of your stuck hamsters will have "found their way" (teleported) back to their beds and will be sound asleep.
  • Requires the hamster to be loaded and the bed to be unoccupied.
• Configurable Action Bar Duration
  • Added a new setting in "UI & Quality of Life" to adjust how long action bar messages stay on screen so now you can actually read them. I couldn't find a mod that did this so I just added it myself. Defaults to 5 seconds (vanilla is 3 seconds), adjustable up to 15 seconds.
• Hamster Tips Guide Book to Custom Creative Tab
  • Registered the guide book item in the Adorable Hamster Pets creative menu group.
  • Linked my custom Advancements tree to the Guidebook with a star-shaped button on the landing page.
• Hamster Tips Guidebook Chapters
  • New "Acorn Armor" Entry: Explains how to throw your pet at a tree for profit, and how to forge nuts into armor.
  • New Category/Chapter: "Loot & Scavenging" – detailing the new loot locations and configurability.
• Acorn Hat Accessory
  • Increases Tree Heist profitability by 2x, yielding more acorns. Fashionable and functional.
• Acorn Shards Ingredient
  • Processed Acorns used to construct the base armor.
• New Inventory Slots
  • Added dedicated "Bling" and "Armor" slots with interactive UI sounds.
• 10 Advancements
  • "Tree Heist" (Start a Tree Heist)
  • "Return on Investnut" (Obtain an Acorn)
  • "Ecological Menace" (Exaust a tree's supply)
  • "Industrial Nutcracking" (Obtain Acorn Shards).
  • "Hardened Salad" (Craft Acorn Armor)
  • "Squirrel Cosplay" (Equip Acorn Hat)
  • "Expensive Therapy" (Craft Diamond-Plated Acorn Armor)
  • "The Immovable Object" (Craft Netherite-Plated Acorn Armor)
  • "MURDERER" (Kill a hamster)
  • "Rodent Reckoning" (Be killed by a hamster)
• Hamster Bed Respawning
  • Added a configuration toggle (enableRespawnInBed) to allow hamsters linked to a bed to respawn there upon death. Disabled by default so fit the mod's vanilla-friendly theme.
  • Respawning hamsters retain their inventory, name, and owner. They may not retain other attributes added by external mods.
  • Added tooltips to the Hamster Bed item and Jade overlay indicating if respawn is active.
  • Added a new page to the Hamster Bed entry in the Hamster Tips guidebook explaining the feature.
• Dynamic Aerodynamics
  • Hamsters now react to gravity with appropriate drama. The "Flying" animation and dynamic nose-dive rotation logic are no longer exclusive to the Hamster Yeet.
  • Any significant fall— whether it's jumping off a ledge or popping out of a tree— will now automatically trigger the flight pose and dynamic pitch rotation (uses smooth cosine interpolation), ensuring they always look like they are falling.
• Global Loot Table Injection
  • Common Loot
    • Items: Cucumber, Green Bean, and Sunflower Seeds.
    • Locations: Villages (Houses, Butchers, Shepherds), Dungeons, Mineshafts, Shipwrecks, Outposts, Small Underwater Ruins, Trial Chamber Supply chests.
  • Uncommon Loot
    • Items: Standard Armor (Acorn, Iron, Gold).
    • Locations: Desert Pyramids, Jungle Temples, Igloos, Ruined Portals, Village Blacksmiths, Large Underwater Ruins.
  • High-Tier Loot
    • Items: Diamond Armor and Basic Upgrade Templates (Iron, Gold). (Also Netherite Armor, if enabled in config).
    • Locations: Nether Fortresses, Bastions, Stronghold Corridors, End Cities, Ancient Cities, Trial Chamber Reward chests.
  • Legendary Loot
    • Items: Accessories (just the Acorn Hat for now) and Advanced Upgrade Templates (Diamond, Netherite).
    • Locations: Woodland Mansions, Buried Treasure, Stronghold Libraries, Ominous Trial Spawners.
  • Configuration:
    • Check the World Gen & Loot config to adjust the drop chance for every single category listed above, or disable them entirely. Requires a restart to take effect, which is why I put it in the World Gen & Loot config so you can modify it before loading into the world.
• Wild Cheek Pouch Loot
  • Wild hamsters now have a chance (Default 50%, Configurable) to spawn with scavenged items (seeds, nuggets, etc.) in their cheek pouches.
  • Context-Aware Scavenging: Hamsters found in caves have a unique loot pool containing raw ores, glowing berries, and other subterranean treasures. I did not add Diamonds to the list, but you can certainly do that yourself in the config.
  • Lopsided Cheeks: There is a 60% chance the loot will spawn in only one cheek, creating a cute, asymmetrical look.
  • Logic: These items drop on death (also configurable), or persist when tamed— meaning if you tame a wild hamster with full cheeks, you get to keep the loot once you unlock the pouch.
  • Configuration
    • The World Gen & Loot config includes an "Extra Loot" list. You can define exactly what items wild hamsters spawn with (even items from other mods) and tweak their rarity separately from the default loot list, which is also configurable. Requires a restart to take effect.
• Sunflower Farming
  • Plantable Seeds: Sunflower Seeds can now be planted to grow the custom 2-block tall Sunflower.
  • Bonemeal Duplication: Right-clicking a fully grown custom Sunflower with Bonemeal now drops a vanilla Sunflower item, matching vanilla tall-flower behavior.
• Head Mount Priority
  • Added a "Mount Priority" setting (Shoulders First vs Head First).
  • You can now configure hamsters to prioritize the Head slot before filling the shoulders, allowing a single hamster to be mounted on the head. It's kind of my new favorite thing to do. I'm even considering making it the default lol. Let me know your thoughts in the Discord server!
• Gust Volume
  • Added a volume slider for the "Gentle Breeze" sound effect used by Hamster Bedding particles. In some modded environments with mods like Sound Physics Remastered, the gust SFX was not loud enough to be audible.
• Configurable Ore Seeking
  • Added new celebrationOres (Desirable Ores) and sulkingOres (Disappointing Ores) lists to the config.
  • You can now define exactly which blocks your hamster gets excited about (or disappointed by) using Block IDs or Tags.
  • This affects both the Shoulder Hamster Alert and the Independent Seeking behavior.
• Sitting Headshake
  • Added anim_hamster_sitting_headshake for when a hamster refuses food while sitting.
  • The food refusal logic now intelligently selects between sitting, standing, and moving headshake animations.
• Missing Guidebook Warning
  • Added a client-side check that runs 3 minutes after joining a world (configurable).
  • If the player is missing the guidebook, a dramatic, clickable chat message appears, offering to open the config screen to reclaim it.
  • Includes a solemn oath to read the manual before asking questions in Discord.
  • It cannot be disabled. Too many players have come to the Discord asking questions that are answered directly in the guidebook. Upon further investigation, I find they did not get the guidebook and didn't know about it, because the creator of their modpack turned off auto-delivery.
  • This warning persists across servers/worlds so it only triggers once per person on single player, and once per person per server on multiplayer (unless reset in config).
• Configurable Wander Interval
  • Added a slider to the Config to control the probability of a hamster deciding to wander.
  • Setting this to 0 completely disables idle wandering, useful for keeping them stationary for photos or specific builds.
  • For now, this will affect all hamsters. I'll add a specific photo shoot feature later.
• Configurable Look At Player Duration
  • Added a "Look-At Duration" slider to the config.
  • Controls how long hamsters stare at you before getting distracted.
  • The Math: Actual duration = Config Value + Random(0 to 4 seconds).
  • Example: If set to 60 ticks (3s), they will look for anywhere between 3 and 7 seconds.
• Hamster Riding (Commissioned by @Saint_Victus)
  • Added a new configuration option: "Enable Hamster Riding" under a new "Commissioned Features" category.
  • Adds a keybind (Ride Hamster, unbound by default) that allows you to mount a hamster.
  • Dynamic Rider Visuals
    • I hooked into the Geckolib rendering pipeline so players riding a hamster physically attach to the body_child bone.
    • This means riders will bob, sway, and rotate in perfect sync with the hamster's running animations instead of floating statically on top.
  • Mechanics
    • You can ride any hamster (even wild ones), but you can only control hamsters you own (includes jumping!)
    • Riding an unowned hamster results in an uncontrolled ride (like a pig without a carrot).
    • Riding your own hamster disables its Wander Mode to give you full control.
  • Unofficial capacity
    • This commissioned feature doesn't fit the theme of the mod, so this changelog is the only place you'll find it mentioned.
• Legacy Forge Support (Thanks to @Konkeeztador!)
  • Added data structures and loading conditions to ensure the mod tags/recipes load correctly on the legacy Forge loader.
• Mod Compatibility Improvements (Thanks to @CasualAnimalEnjoyer!)
  • Added conventional c tags for Cheese to improve cross-mod compatibility.
• Supplementaries Compatibility
  • Hamsters can now be caught in Cages from the Supplementaries mod. (Thanks to @just_a_cricket for the built-in datapack!)
  • To enable catching of wild hamsters, go to config > supplementaries-common.json > functional > cage > require_taming and turn it off.
• Botany Pots Compatibility
  • Added support for Botany Pots. You can now grow Cucumbers, Green Beans, Sunflowers, and the Wild Bushes in pots! (Thanks to @CasualAnimalEnjoyer for the built-in datapack!)
  • Hamster Bedding can also be used as a fertilizer in the pots.
• Configurable Biome Tag Exclusion:
  • Added a new Exclude Biome Tags list to the World Gen config. By default, this now excludes #minecraft:is_ocean and #minecraft:is_river to prevent spawns in those biomes regardless of other settings.
• Glowing Sunflowers (Easter Egg)
  • Added a rare event where my custom sunflowers will emit light at night, accompanied by magical particles. Rare enough that it is highly unlikely for it to affect multiple sunflowers simultaneously.
  • Includes a hidden advancement ("It Can't Be True!") for players who witness the phenomenon up close.
  • Configurable via the 'Sunflower Settings' in the World Gen config.
  • This is a reference to the Kikoriki cartoon, 'It Can't Be True' episode, around the 3:22 mark. This feature wasn't really on my agenda, but @CasualAnimalEnjoyer requested it and I added it as a personal thank-you to them for their massive help with mod compatibility and bug fixing.

Changed

• Animations
  • Updated the crash animation to make it cuter. Now instead of landing flat, the hamster bounces multiple times on its face. Includes sound effects!
• Geckolib Version ← UPDATE OR YOUR GAME WILL NOT LAUNCH
  • Updated required Geckolib version from 4.7.3 to 4.8.3 (it was way out of date) to fix animation flickering issues. It may also fix other issues that I had not come across yet— it was literally 10 versions behind lol
• Diamond Stealing AI
  • Refactored the diamond stealing behavior system. Hamsters now intelligently switch between "Theft Mode" (Taunting) and "Delivery Mode" (Presenting) based on the item type and their current equipment. (Configurable)
• Refusal Interactions
  • Attempting to open a locked cheek pouch now triggers the same new intelligent headshake animations (sitting/standing/moving) used for food refusal.
• Item Stealing
  • Hamsters now use their sprinting animation/speed (1.5D) when running towards a diamond to steal it, matching their flee speed. Originally I had them walking at normal speed so as not to alert the player that they were about to steal the diamond, but I changed my mind and I think it's a lot cuter if they sprint over to it.
• Yeet Physics
  • Thrown hamsters now apply Knockback to the entities they hit. The force is calculated based on the hamster's velocity, so faster throws = harder hits.
• Pink Petal Accessories
  • Updated rendering to use 3D models instead of flat texture overlays.
  • Petals now have depth and similar positioning on the hamster's head, side, and back.
• Audio Effects
  • Added support for the hamster_thump_sound keyframe in the crash animation, triggering ModSounds.HAMSTER_THUMP for extra dramatic effect.
• Wild Bush Textures
  • Thanks to @jimcerberus for giving the textures for Wild Green Bean and Wild Cucumber bushes a fresh new look!
• Dynamic Bed Tooltips
  • The Hamster Bed item and Jade tooltips now dynamically display the names of the configured Lure and Repellent items, ensuring the text matches your config settings.
• Hamster Spawning:
  • Black hamsters now spawn in Lush Caves and Dripstone Caves.
• Update Notifications
  • Migrated the update notification system to pull from the primary source repository, deprecating the legacy public asset repo.

Fixed

• Biome Spawning Logic
  • Refactored the internal configuration to use custom union tags instead of raw convention tags (e.g., adorablehamsterpets:is_cave instead of c:is_cave). I had already made my own internal union tags months ago (which point to the Fabric's convention tags for 1.21.1 and Forge tags for 1.20.1), but forgotten to actually point to them in the config.
  • This fixes a long-standing issue where some hamster variants were not spawning correctly in certain biomes, despite the config saying otherwise. I discovered this when I noticed black hamsters were not spawning in caves, but there were probably other spawn variant issues as well which will now be resolved.
• Guidebook Entry Index Overflow
  • Refactored my custom text-wrapping and pagination mixin logic in the Hamster Tips guidebook index.
  • Entry titles in the Entry Index now correctly flow into new pages instead of overflowing off the bottom of the book interface.
• Ore Seeking Logic
  • Fixed a bug where hamsters ignored buried "Disappointing Ores" (Gold) even when configured to make mistakes, due to checking for exposed blocks instead of hidden ones.
• Shoulder Hamster "Mutant" Splitting Glitch
  • Fixed a visual bug on Forge/NeoForge (caused by Oculus/Iris) where shoulder hamsters would visually "split" into two overlapping models causing a z-fighting flicker effect.
  • This was caused by the animation controller randomly switching between the two idle animations every frame. They now deterministically pick one based on their personality ID.
• Cheek Pouch Refusal Animation
  • Fixed a bug where the "No" headshake animation wouldn't play when trying to open a locked cheek pouch. (Caused by a mismatch between the animation controller name stationary_headshake and the code calling standing_headshake).
  • The refusal logic now intelligently selects between sitting, standing, and moving headshakes.
• World Gen Config
  • Some of the groups had "collapsedByDefault" set to "false" which was making it messy.
• Config Issues
  • Fixed a few mistakes in the "Falling Leaf Settings > Static Drift Angle" config tooltip. It now correctly assigns degrees to angles.
  • Fixed a bug where configuration options (like "Top Left", "Near", "Single-Press") appeared untranslated in the config screen.
• Sunflower Regrowth
  • Drastically reduced the default time it takes for sunflowers to regrow seeds (Was ~2.8 hours, now ~10 minutes). My original idea was for it to feel like each sunflower gives you one set of seeds, and that's definitely how it felt until now. This change will put it more in line with the rest of Minecraft farming.
• Inventory Label Alignment
  • Updated the Hamster Inventory screen to dynamically center text labels ("Left/Right Cheek", "Bling", "Armor") over their respective slots.
  • This ensures proper alignment for languages with text widths different from English.
• Missing Localization
  • Updated Jade HUD tooltips for Hamster Beds to use translatable text for the various boolean states, removing hardcoded English "ENABLED" and "DISABLED" strings.
• Pale Oak Bed Particles
  • Fixed the Pale Oak Hamster Bed missing its block model, which caused missing texture (purple/black) particles when breaking the block. This ensures full visual compatibility if you are using a Pale Garden backport mod on 1.21.1 or 1.20.1.
  • Note: there is no Pale Oak Hamster Bed recipe unless you add one with a datapack. I'm running my Data Generator in a 1.21.1 development environment, and the class Items.PALE_OAK_PLANKS does not exist in the code yet, so I cannot reference it in the Java generator to create the recipe.
• Fixed Water/Void Spawning:
  • Resolved an issue where hamsters could spawn floating in oceans/rivers or over the void in Skyblock worlds. This was caused by the spawn restriction rules not being registered at the correct time in the mod loading lifecycle, effectively disabling the "valid ground block" check.
• Data Structure & Recipes (Thanks again @CasualAnimalEnjoyer!)
  • Duplicated tag folders to resolve structural differences between 1.20.1 (plural directories) and 1.21.1 (singular directories).
  • Corrected the Cloche and Insolator compatibility recipe paths for 1.20.1.
  • Fixed load conditions for Thermal Expansion integration to ensure recipes only load when the mod is present.
• Suffocation:
  • Hamsters now automatically trigger their "self-rescue" teleport logic whenever they start taking suffocation damage, regardless of the cause.
  • This resolves issues where hamsters would occasionally take suffocation damage while pouncing on an item. It became more of a problem once the retrieval feature was added since the hamster does not run away from the player.
• Sleeping Hamster Pushability
  • Fixed an issue where hamsters sleeping in beds would become pushable after closing and reopening the world.
• Texture Mipmapping Issue
  • Resized Hamster Bed textures from 35x69 to 64x128 while maintaining their original look. This resolves a rendering issue where non-power-of-two textures forced Minecraft to disable mipmapping, causing all blocks in the game to appear grainy.
• Safe Dismounting
  • Hamsters will no longer agree to dismount directly into lava or water, even if there is a solid block underneath. The safety check now correctly verifies that the space the hamster will occupy is free of hazards.
• Fixed Biome Detection (1.20.1)
  • Updated internal biome tags to match Minecraft 1.20.1 standards (e.g., c:plains instead of c:is_plains).
  • This resolves issues where hamsters spawned in incorrect biomes (e.g., Gray hamsters in Deserts, Chocolate hamsters in Sunflower Plains) because the game didn't recognize those biomes correctly.
• Invisible Shoulder Hamsters (1.20.1)
  • Fixed an issue where shoulder-mounted hamsters would vanish after traveling to another dimension. (They still existed but only became visible after re-logging).
  • Added a forced data sync (only necessary on 1.20.1) to ensure the client immediately recognizes your shoulder hamsters after your player is re-created.
• Item Rendering Visual Glitch (1.20.1)
  • Fixed a visual glitch on 1.20.1 where the hamster's body would turn black when holding an item (e.g., fetching an acorn) by moving item rendering to the post-render phase.