The original idea for this mod was to simply add zebras to Minecraft because I always thought it would be a neat addition and would be easy to do thanks to using the same horse model. Eventually it expanded to include the quagga (a unique and now extinct subspecies of zebra) and eventually wild forms of the existing equines: the wild horse and wild ass. At this point it had become an equine mod but the nagging feeling that this didn't fit well enough with the other animals came up: why don't other Minecraft animals have wild ancestors? Why are all the pigs pink and hairless, instead of being wild boar? This led to what became the Fauna and Ecology Mod, a mod that's first goal is adding more realistic versions of existing Minecraft animals and their wild ancestors (or domestic descendant, as is the case with wolves), and eventually entirely new animals. Flora and fungus will also be worked on, but the focus is the fauna, at least for now.
Currently this mod adds the new horse, donkey, and cow along with their ancestors, and some horse relatives. All animals have needs based off of the Fossils and Archeology Mod, primarily hunger and happiness. Animals also have sexes and will naturally breed on their own, leading to dynamic populations in the wild. They will need to be tamed and are otherwise feral or wild, and after a few tame generations the newest offspring will be domesticated and become more useful and compliant. Animals also drop their own meat, skins, bones, and fat which will tie into the Fossil and Archeology Mod DNA system when they update to 1.10 (which they're currently attempting to do).
This mod, thanks to my partner AnarchCassius (who is the coder), is highly configurable and all (and I do mean all) features can be enabled and disabled at will, meaning basically any aspect can be taken out if you so desire. Features including enabling vanilla hand breeding or disabling hunger.
Species:
Horses, Donkeys, and Zebras:
Horse
Biomes: None, domesticated
Spawning: Domesticated from wild horses
Variations: 7 vanilla coat colors, plus other markings
Diet: Grasses, wheat, apples, carrots, and sugar
Description: Horses are a staple livestock and are commonly used for transportation over long distances. They can also be equipped with horse armor for combat.
Donkey
Biomes: None, domesticated
Spawning: Domesticated from wild asses
Variations: None
Diet: Grasses, wheat, apples, carrots, and sugar
Description: Donkeys are used as a slower but more hardy form of transportation, capable of being equipped with chests for storage.
Quagga
Biomes: Savanna
Spawning: Found in herds
Variations: None
Diet: Grasses, wheat, apples, carrots, and sugar
Description: A rare subspecies of zebra usually hunted for its unique hide. In real life, the subspecies was hunted to extinction in the 19th century.
Wild Horse
Biomes: Forests, Taiga (Forest Variant), Plains, Ice Plains (Steppe Variant)
Spawning: Found in herds
Variations: Forest (pictured above) and Steppe Variants
Diet: Grasses, wheat, apples, carrots, and sugar
Description: Wild horses are usually domesticated into the more useful horse, which is bigger and can be given horse armor. Steppe horses are a dun color while forest horses are a gray color (seen above) and both have striping known from cave paintings and are based on the "tarpan" or ice age horse, which are also recently extinct.
Wild Ass
Biomes: Deserts
Spawning: Found in small herds
Variations: None
Diet: Grasses, dead bushes, wheat, apples, carrots, and sugar
Description: Wild asses (insert joke about name) are stubborn and will even attack the player or predators if angered, but if calmed down enough to tame can be very handy for making donkeys. They're based off the African wild ass.
Zebra
Biomes: Savanna
Spawning: Found in herds
Variations: None
Diet: Grasses, wheat, apples, carrots, and sugar
Description: Zebras are hard to tame but can be very fast, making them a fun challenge to tame. They're based off the plains zebra.
Cows and Aurochs:
Cow
Biomes: None, domesticated
Spawning: Domesticated from aurochs
Variations: Males lack an udder and have larger horns
Diet: Grasses and wheat
Description: Cows are usually raised for meat, hide, and milk, but can also make for transportation while holding wheat on a stick. If untamed, they can be angered by being attacked.
Aurochs
Biomes: Forests and Taiga
Spawning: Found in herds
Variations: Males are darker and larger
Diet: Grasses and wheat
Description: Aurochs are a large and aggressive species of bovine found in forests, unlike the plains dwelling bison. If you can get passed the horns, domesticating cows is a considerable reward. They're based off the real ancestor of cows that went extinct during the 17th century due to habitat loss and hunting.
Discord Link (Download on Server):
Notes (Please Read 1):
1. The current models shown under Species are not publicly in game, instead the older models are being used. We're currently working to implant the newest models and textures, but I though I'd show how they're planned to be.
2. Yes we're updating the vanilla models to be more realistic but still feel like Minecraft. We're tired of overly detailed animal mods that feel so out of place in Minecraft, especially Mo' Creatures which started out pretty standard. The horses are purposefully made to be what we would have wanted the new models to be like because we agreed that the vanilla one was too detailed but didn't like the new official ones.
3. Why are many of the animals extinct but yet still alive in this mod? Well we kinda placed the mod in the early Holocene time-wise, so after the Ice Age but before modern times, which also explains why animals are being domesticated now. This means other recently extinct animals will be seen too, but that's not the focus. It just so happens that horses and cows have extinct ancestors and were done first.
This mod is just getting started, although we are busy from time-to-time so please have patients. The next thing on the list of animals is pigs and chickens, so stay tuned and leave comments below!
Thank you and enjoy!
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Hey, Sargeant_789575 will be away for a bit so I'm letting everyone know we have a 1.12 version up on CurseForge at https://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/fauna-and-ecology
and a Wiki at https://fauna-and-ecology-mod.wikia.com/wiki/Fauna_and_Ecology_Mod_Wiki
You can find screenshots and info there and at the Discord.
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If makes you feel any better I was surprised. I was like bug fixes, cool, look at changelog, that's not a bugfix! Then I realized the screenshot showed a Parasaurolophus and felt silly. Also as excited as I am about the Therizinosaurus the Parasaurolophus and Dryosaurus definitely round out the line up since we didn't have anything in their niche.
The new updates have been great. I think my favorite feature in 7.3 is the item tweaks (eggs are food!) and the new tar but I voted for AI since that wasn't in the poll.
I am actually a tad mixed on the AI, when some prehistoric creatures like dodos still used vanilla AI patterns things seemed to work well. Now my dodos are using totally different mechanics than their chicken cousins and it's weird. Are there any plans to extend the AI to vanilla animals, at least an option, now that pretty much everything uses it?
To start a different dino argument, wasn't Therizinosaurus possibly an insectivore or omnivore?
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What do you mean it's not quadrupedal? Just look at this...
Seriously though this animal is nearly unrecognizable from the one in my books as a toddler. I am not going to be too surprised if it turns out the current model is still wrong.
That said it certainly seems more likely it was semi-quadrupedal and not an obligate quadruped. It hardly has the massive legs of the JP3 version by most reconstructions. Ibrahim's revision is likely flawed but it could very well be a step in the right direction. http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/theres-something-fishy-about-spinosaurus9112014
As for the plants. There was a screenshot of a bunch of new ones just before everyone started suggesting more if you back up thread a bit.
As for the avian dinos. Microraptor and Therizinosaurs are among my favorites so I'd be down. Though how much more bird like is Therizinosaurs than Velociraptor or some of the others in mod already?
The new animations aren't going with new skeletons or models from what I understand. This is still the blocky-est dino mod. If you want animation in general turned off this seems like a feature for a generic base mod. I mean if F&A turned off animations for everything it would be weird and not having animations on ONLY the F&A stuff seems even weirder.