Entity spawning

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Entities such as wolves and butterflies have fairly complex conditions for when and where to spawn.

Data

Each entity has spawn conditions detailed in a document you can access on your computer. By default, the files are installed to %AppData%\Roaming\Vintagestory\assets\survival\entities. The file type is .json and Notepad++ is one example of a free program that can read and edit this file type.

JSON

JSON is a text format for storing and transporting data. While it's not necessary to study JSON to glean useful information from .json files, it may be beneficial to outline a few basic terms to be used throughout this article.

JSON syntax is derived from JavaScript object notation syntax. The JSON syntax is a subset of the JavaScript syntax. Basic rules:

• Data is in name/value pairs
• Data is separated by commas
• Curly braces {} hold objects
• Square brackets [] hold arrays

A name/value pair consists of a field name (in double quotes), followed by a colon, followed by a value. Example: "name":"John"

The musk ox entity belongs to the same biological family as goats, and its characteristics are defined in the goat.json file.

Within goat.json we can see 11 species of "goat" defined, as distinct "types." Later, when the file assigns properties "ByType" it will be to one or more of these 11 types. Asterisks serve as wildcards: *-adult-* refers to an adult of any species, while *-muskox-* refers to an ox of any age/gender.

	"variantgroups": [
		{ "code": "type", "states": ["angora", "ibexalp", "ibexnub", "markhor", "mountain", "muskox", "nubian", "sirohi", "takingold", "turdag", "valais" ] },
		{ "code": "gender", "states": ["male", "female"] },
		{ "code": "age", "states": ["adult", "baby"] }
	],

Ctrl+F lets you search within a document for a specific word. A search within goat.json for "spawnconditions" yields a fairly lengthy entry with two main sections: "worldgen" and "runtime".

• Worldgen: creatures spawn as you explore the undiscovered areas of the map.
• Runtime: creatures spawn in your vicinity (loaded chunks) and may have a check of distance to player

If you scroll down within goat.json, there's a "spawnconditionsByType" entry that breaks down the climate preferences for each species.

"goat-muskox-*-adult": {
	"climate": {
		"minTemp": -30,
		"maxTemp": -10,
		"minRain": 0.0,
		"maxRain": 0.8,
		"minForestOrShrubs": 0.0,
		"maxForest": 0.4,
		"maxShrubs": 0.8,
		"minY": 0.9,
		"maxY": 1.2					
	},
	"worldgen": {
		"triesPerChunk": { "avg": 0.003, "var": 0 }
	},
	"runtime": {
		"maxQuantityByGroup": { "code": "goat-*", "maxQuantity": 4 }
	}
},

Notes

• Bees are particles, not entities. Their spawn details can be found elsewhere.
• Grasshoppers and cicadas are probably particles.