Customers Minecraft Mod

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This has been a big passion project. If you enjoy this mod, think about buying me a coffee to fuel me adding more features:

Overview

This mod provides Customer Villagers that will spawn, decide they want to buy some items from you, and go to where they think they can buy them from you. Once you sell the items to them they will pay you, say thank you, and go on their merry way. It provides the basic villager AI, spawning blocks, and controls to crafter and customer type gameplay experiences like a fast-paced diner or a cozy rode-side farm stand.

Supported Minecraft Versions and Loaders

For now we support Minecraft versions:

• 1.20.1 - Forge
• 1.21.1 - NeoForge & Forge
• 1.21.11 - NeoForge (out of date)

Customer Spawner Blocks

A customer spawner block is the starting point for this mod. Where you place it is where your customers will spawn and what you place inside of it determines what your customers will want to buy from you.

Customers only spawn where they have enough vertical clearance and a 2x2 surface made from solid blocks, slabs, carpet, or stairs.

Open the Customer Spawner interface and change its Max setting to control the maximum number of customers for that individual spawner. Customers that are done buying and are leaving do not count toward this maximum.

During timed shifts, the customer maximum starts low, ramps up to the spawner's configured maximum, and ramps down over the final portion of the shift. The longer Day and Night Shifts ramp up more gradually than the shorter meal shifts.

Crafting Customer Spawner Blocks

You can craft a customer spawner block from a bed surrounded by 8 emeralds.

Spawning Modes

The customer spawning modes are mostly around time or shifts, do you configure the spawning mode with a Clock. Hold a Clock and right-click the customer spawner block to cycle through the spawning modes. Each spawning mode change will show a message with the change and change the block texture.

• Continuous / Default - The default mode will try to continuously keep 4 customers spawned.
• Day Shift - This mode will keep spawning customers, but only when it's daytime from 5am - 7pm.
• Night Shift - This mode will keep spawning customers, but only when it's nighttime from 7pm to 5am.
• Breakfast Shift - This mode will keep spawning customers from 5:30am - 10:30am - A little over 4 minutes.
• Lunch Shift - This mode will keep spawning customers from 11:30am - 3:30pm - Just under 3 1/2 minutes.
• Dinner Shift - This mode will keep spawning customers from 4:30pm - 9:00pm - Just under 4 minutes.
• Manual - This mode only spawns manually with a redstone pulse.

For the time restricted shift modes, the players within 64 blocks of the spawner will get shift messages, progress bars, and a results screen showing the final score, customer totals, total items crafted and served, and each participating player's crafted and served item counts. The star beside a player is their served item count, while the spoon is their crafted item count. The progress bar shows every item currently requested, grouped by customer with yellow for normal customers, red for impatient customers, and green for casual customers.

Redstone and Customer Spawner

Similar to a hopper, if the Customer Spawner block is in any mode other than Manual and is receiving power, it will turn off spawning. This will allow you to turn off getting new customers when you don't want to deal with them or if you want to use redstone to control when the shifts are on.

If a Customer Spawner is in Manual mode, a redstone pulse like with a button will spawn a customer. This will let you completely customize the spawning with your redstone contraption.

Controlling Items For Purchase

To control the items the customers can purchase the customer spawner block also acts like a container like a chest. The items or stacks of items you put in the spawner are what the customers can randomly decide to purchase.

The size of the stack is the limit to how many of that item a customer can ask to buy. For example if you have put a single apple in the customer spawner the customer will only ask to buy a single apple. However, if you put a stack of 5 apples in the customer spawner, the customer will decide to randomly buy 1 to 5 apples.

The separate 6 rows in the spawner container are used to define how many different items a customer can decide to buy and what each of those items can be. Each of the 6 container rows is a "slot" for a customer to decide to buy from. The first 8 columns on each row define the items a customer can ask to buy from that row. A customer will only ask for one item per slot, and it will randomly decide how many slots to buy from from 1 to the number of rows you have items in.

The 9th column is the Cost column for its row. By default, each requested item costs one emerald. Placing any item stack in a row's Cost slot overrides that default with the item and count in the slot. The cost is per requested item, so if a customer asks for more than one item, the cost is multiplied by the number requested.

The maximum number of customers is not controlled by an inventory item. Use the Max setting in the Customer Spawner interface to set a value from 1 through 99 for that spawner.

Examples:

• Row 1 contains just a single apple - Customer will always ask for a single apple and pay a single emerald
• Row 1 contains a stack of 5 apples - Customer will always ask for from 1 to 5 apples and pay one emerald for each
• Row 1 contains a stack of 5 applies and a stack of 5 carrots - Customer will always decide to buy either apples or carrots and buy from 1 to 5 of them paying one emerald for each.
• Row 1 contains a stack of 3 chocolate chip cookies and a single pumpkin pie in its first 8 columns, with a stack of 2 emeralds in its 9th-column Cost slot - Customer will always decide to buy chocolate chip cookies or a pumpkin pie. If it decides to buy chocolate chip cookies it will buy from 1 to 3 and pay 2 emeralds for each cookie. If it decides to buy a pumpkin pie it will only buy 1 and pay 2 emeralds for it.
• Row 1 contains a single apple. Row 2 contains a single pumpkin pie in its first 8 columns and a stack of 2 emeralds in its Cost slot - Customer will decide to buy from 1 to 2 items. If it decides to only buy 1, it will randomly pick which row to buy from. If it decides to buy 2, it will buy one item from each row.

The Customer Spawner UI is also where you can chnge the spawner mode, set the max customers, and enable different customer appearances.

Counter or Table-Top Blocks

Once a customer spawns, it needs to know where to go to buy the items it picked. This is where the counter or table-top blocks come in. Whatever item you place on top of the spawner will be treated as the counter or table-top block to find. A good approach would be to use colored carpet blocks that you are not using on the floor or other parts of your build and put that same carpet color on the tables or counters where you want the customers to go. You can also use a sign with custom text that you match on the sign next to your counter where you want customers to gather.

• Carpet or wool blocks - Matches the type and color
• Signs - Matches the wood type and text
• Containers or banners named with an anvil - Matches the block type and name
• Lecterns with a named book on them - Matches the book name
• Other items - Exact block match

Customers search for all blocks of this type within 64 blocks by default and go to a random one, trying to avoid one that already has a customer next to it. The search distance can be changed with the maxCounterDistance configuration option.

Avoid Block

When a Customer looks for a spot to go to next to your counter or table-top blocks it will look at all the spaces around it as options unless that block matches the block directly under the customer spawner block. This can be used to set of builds like a counter where you only want the customers to go to one side of it because the other side if the kitchen. On the other side of the counter use a different block for the kitchen tiles and put that same kitchen floor block under the customer spawner.

Customer Pickup Counter Blocks

Customer Pickup Counter Blocks let players split up the work of preparing and serving customer orders. One player can prepare food or other requested items and place them on a pickup counter while another player serves the waiting customers, or customers stationed at pickup counters can collect their prepared items directly.

Placing or dropping a requested item on a pickup counter gives crafting credit to the player who prepared. Items added by a hopper or without a known player are credited to Automated.

Each pickup counter holds up to 9 item stacks. The stored items are displayed on top of the block, so players can see what is ready without opening an inventory screen. Items are handled in first-in, first-out order: the item that has been waiting the longest is the first one taken from the counter.

Crafting Customer Pickup Counter Blocks

Craft a pickup counter with a horizontal row containing one iron ingot followed by two matching variant ingredients:

Iron Ingot | Variant Ingredient | Variant Ingredient

The following variants are available:

• Iron, made with two additional iron ingots
• Copper, made with two copper ingots
• Gold, made with two gold ingots
• Oak, spruce, birch, jungle, acacia, dark oak, mangrove, and cherry, made with two matching stripped logs
• Crimson and warped, made with two matching stripped stems
• Bamboo and stripped bamboo, made with two matching full bamboo blocks

Each variant uses the matching block texture, so pickup counters can be coordinated with the materials and decoration used in a kitchen, restaurant, shop, or market stand.

Right-click a pickup counter while holding an item stack to place the entire held stack onto the counter. Sneak-right-click while holding a stack to place only one item. Right-click with an empty hand to take the entire oldest stack. The counter does not open an inventory screen; all item handling happens directly through these interactions.

Pickup counters accept only items currently wanted by active customers. Existing matching items anywhere in the connected counter network count toward that demand. If customers want only part of a held stack, that portion is placed on the counter and the rest remains in the player's hand. If no active customer wants the held item, the pickup counter allows the item's normal block interaction instead. This lets players hoppers and other blocks against a pickup counter.

Dropped items resting on top of a pickup counter are accepted using the same rules. If the item was dropped by a player, that player receives the crafting and serving credit. Items without a known player are credited to Automated.

Hoppers, ownerless dropped items, and compatible automation accept demand only from Customer Spawners assigned to that kind of pickup counter. They can insert wanted items into a pickup counter but cannot extract prepared customer orders. Unwanted items and portions that do not fit remain outside the counter.

Customers spawned from a Customer Spawner that is assigned a Pickup Counter as the counter/table block will try to pick up the items they want from the Pickup Counter.

Empty containers such as bottles, buckets, and bowls are returned to the player credited for each consumed portion. If that player is unavailable or the item was supplied by automation, the containers are dropped on top of the pickup counter.

Payments for player-prepared orders are added to that player's inventory or dropped when their inventory is full. For Automated orders or when the credited player is unavailable, the customer tries nearby Customer Payment Boxes from nearest to farthest. A payment box is used only when it can hold the entire payment. If no payment box within a 64x64x64 area can hold it, the customer drops the payment.

If all 9 spaces are occupied, the item remains in the player's hand and a message explains that the pickup counter is full.

Once each second, one pickup counter validates the entire connected network against all nearby active customer demand. Excess items are returned to the player who placed them. If that player's inventory is full, the remaining items are dropped on top of the pickup counter and the player receives a message. Automated items and items whose player is unavailable are dropped on top of the pickup counter instead. The original player or Automated crafting credit is kept when items are first accepted.

Connecting Pickup Counters

Pickup counters that touch on their north, south, east, or west sides work together as one larger pickup area. Diagonally placed counters and counters above or below each other are not connected.

When a player places an item on a full counter, the item is passed to an available connected counter. This continues through an entire connected row or group of counters until a space is found. Customer demand and stored quantities are also calculated across the complete network. If every connected counter is full, the item stays in the player's hand.

When a player tries to take an item from an empty counter, it searches its connected neighbors and returns the oldest available item it finds. This lets players add and collect prepared items from a convenient end of a long pickup counter without interacting with each individual block.

Customer Payment Boxes

Customer Payment Boxes are compact containers for collecting and storing payments. Each box has 27 inventory slots and opens with a right-click regardless of which item the player is holding. The box faces the player when placed on a floor or ceiling. When placed against the side of another block, its front faces away from that block.

Payment boxes work as standard containers. Hoppers, droppers, comparators, and compatible automation from other mods can insert, extract, or measure their contents. Breaking a payment box drops both the box and every item stored inside it.

Crafting Customer Payment Boxes

Craft a payment box with a gold ingot at the top center, an emerald at the center, and matching variant ingredients in every other crafting-grid position:

Variant Ingredient	Gold Ingot	Variant Ingredient
Variant Ingredient	Emerald	Variant Ingredient
Variant Ingredient	Variant Ingredient	Variant Ingredient

The following variants are available:

• Iron, made with iron ingots
• Copper, made with copper ingots
• Gold, made with gold ingots
• Oak, spruce, birch, jungle, acacia, dark oak, mangrove, and cherry, made with matching stripped logs
• Crimson and warped, made with matching stripped stems
• Bamboo and stripped bamboo, made with matching full bamboo blocks

Each payment box uses the matching block texture beneath its payment-box detailing.

Villager Customers

The Customer Spawner will spawn Customer Villagers that are just normal villagers with custom AI and a custom profession. The Customer profession give them a unique skin and hat so you can tell they are customers. There are 3 types of customers:

• Normal - ~50% of spawned - Will give up at the configured max seconds.
• Impatient - ~ 20% of spawned - Will give up at half of the configured seconds.
• Casual - ~30% of spawned - Will never give up.

Each wears a different hat:

Normal	Impatient	Casual

If you want your customers to have names, think about using the Villager Names mod.

Picking Items to Buy

The first thing a customer will do it look at it's spawner to pick what items it wants to buy. See [Controlling Items For Purchase](#Controlling Items For Purchase).

Going to the Counter or Table

Once it has picked items to buy, it needs to find where to buy them. See [Counter or Table-Top Blocks](#Counter or Table-Top Blocks). Once the customer has found all the matching blocks, it will shuffle the list and then sort it ascending by the number of customers within 2 blocks of it. It will then pick the first one which should be a random block with the fewest number of other customers near it. This should give a nice pattern of filling our a counter or restaurant full of tables. Customers prioritize available stairs and seat-like blocks near counters and will sit while waiting to be served.

If there are more customers than there are counters, the customers will line up and wait their turn:

Serving and Selling to the Customer

You will serve the customer what they want or sell them what they want to buy just like any other villager trader. Right click on them to open up the trade and sell them one of the items. After being sold one of the items they want, that item will be removed from the trades.

Quick selling can be enabled with the enableQuickSell configuration option. When enabled, right-clicking a customer while holding enough of a wanted item in your main hand immediately completes one matching sale instead of opening the trading screen.

Thank You and Goodbye

Once the customer's trade list is empty they will say thank you and goodbye to you in chat and walk back to the spawner that created them. Once they reach the spawner they will pick a random block to walk to 32 blocks away that has 2 air blocks above it and that they can actually path to. They will then walk to this block and once they get there despawn.

Appearances

The appearance of Customers and Suppliers is extensible. An appearance controls how those villagers are rendered and which ambient, hurt, death, and step sounds they use. Each spawner can enable the appearances its villagers may use. Open the spawner UI to enable or disable differences.

Default Appearance

The Default appearance uses vanilla Villager rendering and sounds with custom textures that distinguish Suppliers, normal Customers, impatient Customers, and casual Customers. The Default appearance is enabled initially.

Monsters Appearance

The Monsters appearance makes Customers look and sound like friendly monsters while preserving their normal customer behavior, including sitting while waiting. It uses the customer's saved appearance variation to consistently select a zombie, skeleton, witch, husk, drowned, or stray. Enable Monsters in a Customer Spawner's appearance list to make it available in any spawning mode.

Skins

Skin packs are data-driven appearances that use standard Minecraft player skins. Each skin-pack JSON becomes a separately selectable appearance in Customer and Supplier Spawner interfaces. When a skin-pack appearance is selected for a villager, its saved appearance variation consistently selects one of the skins in that pack.

The mod includes an MC Skins appearance containing Alex, Ari, Efe, Herobrine, Makena, Steve, and Zuri.

A skin pack uses synchronized data-pack definitions together with client resource-pack textures and optional sounds:

When distributing a skin pack as one combined ZIP, install it in the world's datapacks folder for the skin definitions and in the client's resourcepacks folder for its textures and sounds. Enable the resource-pack copy from Minecraft's Resource Packs menu.

data/{namespace}/customers/skin_packs/{pack}.json
data/{namespace}/customers/skins/{skin}.json

assets/{namespace}/textures/customers/skins/{texture}.png
assets/{namespace}/textures/customers/skins/{texture}.png.mcmeta

assets/{namespace}/sounds/customers/skins/{sound}.ogg
assets/{namespace}/sounds.json

For example, this file defines an appearance named Example Skins:

data/example/customers/skin_packs/example.json:

{
  "name": "Example Skins",
  "skins": [
    "example:steve",
    "example:alex"
  ]
}

Each referenced skin has its own definition. Steve uses the standard wide-arm player model:

data/example/customers/skins/steve.json:

{
  "texture": "example:steve",
  "model": "wide"
}

Alex uses the slim-arm player model and demonstrates the optional rendering and sound settings:

data/example/customers/skins/alex.json:

{
  "texture": "example:alex",
  "model": "slim",
  "scale": 0.9375,
  "shadow_radius": 0.5,
  "name_tag_offset": 0.0,
  "sounds": {
    "ambient": "example:alex_ambient",
    "hurt": "example:alex_hurt",
    "death": "example:alex_death",
    "step": "example:alex_step"
  }
}

The texture IDs in those definitions resolve to:

assets/example/textures/customers/skins/steve.png
assets/example/textures/customers/skins/alex.png

Standard .png.mcmeta files can animate modern 64×64 skins. A legacy 64×32 skin can set "legacy": true; legacy skins are converted at runtime and cannot be animated.

Every sound is optional. A missing sound uses the normal Villager sound for that action. Custom sounds use Minecraft's standard sounds.json system. For example:

assets/example/sounds.json:

{
  "alex_ambient": {
    "sounds": [
      "example:customers/skins/alex_ambient"
    ]
  },
  "alex_hurt": {
    "sounds": [
      "example:customers/skins/alex_hurt"
    ]
  },
  "alex_death": {
    "sounds": [
      "example:customers/skins/alex_death"
    ]
  },
  "alex_step": {
    "sounds": [
      "example:customers/skins/alex_step"
    ]
  }
}

Those entries load OGG files from:

assets/example/sounds/customers/skins/alex_ambient.ogg
assets/example/sounds/customers/skins/alex_hurt.ogg
assets/example/sounds/customers/skins/alex_death.ogg
assets/example/sounds/customers/skins/alex_step.ogg

Sound definitions may use normal Minecraft sounds.json features such as multiple weighted variants, volume, pitch, subtitles, streaming, and replacement. Skin packs with IDs that conflict with code-defined appearances are ignored in favor of the code-defined appearance.

Minecraft Comes Alive Appearance

When Minecraft Comes Alive Reborn is installed, the Minecraft Comes Alive appearance becomes available in Customer and Supplier Spawners. It uses MCA's human villager models, genetics, skin layers, clothing, hairstyles, and configured villager voices while preserving normal Customer and Supplier behavior, including sitting while waiting. The saved appearance variation keeps each villager's MCA appearance consistent. Customers and Suppliers using this appearance are always rendered as adults.

The MCA Appearance is only supported in Minecraft 1.21.1+.

Creating a Custom Appearance

The Customers Appearance system is extensible by other mods creating and registering their own appearance which will show up as a new option in the Customer or Supplier Spawner UI.

Check out this example and tutorial.

Gameplay and Shifts

If your Customer Spawner Block is ser to a mode other than Continuous and Manual, you and other players will be working within shifts that have a start and end. You will get a progress bar that shows the shift, a progress bar that ticks down to the end, and a heads up view of what all active customers want for that shift.

At the end of a shift where at least one player crafted or served an item, you and the other players will get a scoreboard showing how well you did:

Levels and Leaderboards

Customer Spawner Blocks support a progression of levels, with each level configured in the Customer Spawner UI. Each level has a required number of stars, and the Customer Leaderboard stores players' previous shift scores to determine which level a spawner should use.

Configuring Levels

You can configure up to eight levels in the Customer Spawner UI. Each level has its own inventory of items customers want to buy, maximum number of customers, enabled appearances, and number of stars required to pass the level.

Use earlier levels for simpler shifts with fewer item options, easier items to craft, and fewer customers. Later levels can increase the variety and complexity of requested items and raise the maximum number of customers. When a shift starts, the Customer Spawner reviews all players in the area against the closest Customer Leaderboard and their saved scores. It finds the lowest level those players should be on and uses that level for the shift.

Leaderboards

The Customer Leaderboard stores each Customer Spawner shift score by spawner, mode, level, and player. Place a Customer Leaderboard in your build so players can see how they and others are doing. It shows the stars each player earned for a level and a green checkmark when that player has passed the level.

Craft a Customer Leaderboard with stripped logs around an iron ingot, paper, emerald, and ink sac.

Automation

Using Customer Pickup Counters and Customer Payment Boxes combined with some hoppers you can automate a shop that customers can buy from.

• Setup your spawner with a Customer Pickup Counter above it as the counter/table block.
• Create your show and add at least one of the same Customer Pickup Counter block.
• In your shop add a Customer Payment Box. This is where customers will drop their payments after they pickup their items.
• Add a hopper directed into your Customer Pickup counter block(s).
• Feed the items your customers want into that hopper like adding a barrel above it and filling it up.

As your customers spawn and head to your counter, the Customer Pickup Counter will recognize what customers it is serving, get what items the customers want, and extract those items from the hopper placing those items on the counter ready to pick up. When the customer gets there it will see the items it wants, take them, and drop the payment in the Customer Payment Box.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-kVmZe9fNIY

Then you can break out your redstone skills or even work in the Create mod to automate the crafting of the items before feeding them into the hopper, and maybe even using a comparator on the hopper to know when it's empty to signal crafting more.

Supplier Spawner Block

A Supplier Spawner Block can be used to setup a Supplier that will show up at the beginning of the day will new supplies to buy for your restaurant or stand when you can't or don't want to gather them your self. Lets say your Customers want steaks, but you don't want to harvest a bunch of cows. That's where a Supplier can help you out.

Crafting Supplier Spawner Blocks

You can craft a supplier spawner block from a barrel surrounded by 8 emeralds.

Specifying What the Supplier Will Sell

The supplier spawner inventory has four pairs of slots on each row. Put the stack the Supplier will sell in the first slot of a pair and its cost in the second slot. The full stacks are used as entered, so a stack of 32 raw steaks followed by 5 emeralds makes an offer of 32 raw steaks for 5 emeralds. The cost can be any item, not only emeralds.

The Appearance checkboxes select which appearances Suppliers from that spawner may use. At least one appearance is always enabled.

Supplier Spawning

The Supplier will spawn each morning up to 64 blocks away from the spawner at a position from which it can walk back to the spawner. Once the Supplier is there you can start buying items.

Suppliers only spawn where they have enough vertical clearance and a 24x24 surface made from solid blocks, slabs, carpet, or stairs.

Once it is dark the Supplier will walk away and despawn.

Build Commands

Build commands provide information about customer and supplier spawners near the player. They are disabled by default and can be enabled with the enableBuildCommands configuration option.

• /suppliers spawners lists supplier spawners in a 64x64 area centered on the player and shows whether each spawner is enabled.
• /customers spawners lists customer spawners in a 64x64 area centered on the player and shows whether each spawner is enabled and its spawning mode.
• /customers spawners counters also lists the matching counter blocks found for each customer spawner and displays a rotating mode icon above each counter for 90 seconds.

Configuration

Name	Config property	Description	Default
Customer Spawner Recipe	enableCustomerSpawnerBlockRecipe	Enables the crafting recipe for the Customer Spawner Block.	true
Supplier Spawner Recipe	enableSupplierSpawnerBlockRecipe	Enables the crafting recipe for the Supplier Spawner Block.	true
Maximum Counter Distance	maxCounterDistance	Sets the maximum distance in blocks between a Customer Spawner and the counters its customers can find.	64
Maximum Customers	maxCustomers	Sets the maximum number of customers that each Customer Spawner tries to keep spawned.	4
Customer Give Up Seconds	customerGiveUpSeconds	Sets how many seconds a customer waits without completing a trade before giving up and leaving.	120
Enable Build Commands	enableBuildCommands	Enables the customer and supplier build inspection commands.	false
Enable Quick Sell	enableQuickSell	Enables selling directly to a customer by right-clicking while holding enough of a wanted item in the main hand.	false