SporeWithin

🦠 SporeWithin: The Enemy Within

🧱 **Platform:** Minecraft 1.20.1 (Forge) | 🦠 **Dependency:** Requires Spore Mod | 🌐 **Multiplayer:** Dedicated Server Ready

> *"The danger is no longer creeping from distant caves... It walks among your villagers, dies in your fields, and burrows directly beneath your feet."*

**SporeWithin** is a deep tactical biological horror expansion and ecosystem overhaul for the **Spore** mod on Minecraft 1.20.1 (Forge).

In vanilla Spore, infection often begins with chaotic entity spawns in deep underground caverns where players rarely tread. **SporeWithin completely redesigns this progression into an insidious, stealth-driven biological invasion.** The parasite infiltrates surface humanoids, secretes embryonic organoids right beneath the surface soil, and challenges players to actively track, excavate, and eradicate nests before the hive mind awakens on **Day 7**.

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⚙️ Development & Transparency Note

> **Code Assistance:** Parts of this mod's code and mathematical systems were developed with the assistance of AI tools.
> **Quality Assurance:** Every single mechanic, event hook, and tick loop has been extensively playtested in real in-game survival scenarios, profiled for performance (no TPS drops / memory leaks), and manually debugged.
>
> If you encounter any bugs or edge cases, please report them on the Issues page — they will be investigated and fixed promptly!

🧬 Core Features & Mechanics

💀 1. The Parasitic Vessel Outbreak

* **Stealth Infection**: Starting on the first night, living humanoids (Zombies, Villagers, Pillagers, Players) have a daily scaling chance (**1.0%** on Day 0, increasing by **+0.2%** each in-game day up to a hard cap of **5.0%**) to spawn as hidden carriers of the **Spore Infection**.
* **Aggressive Vessel AI**: Infected vessels become hyper-aggressive, hunting down players, villagers, and monsters.
* **Persistent Hostiles**: Infected mobs never naturally despawn — they will live out the infection until their vital organs fail.
* **The Death Event**: When a vessel perishes, its corpse collapses into a **Human Remains** block while the embryonic parasite burrows underground.

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🔨 2. Destroy or Burn the Remains!

* **Race Against the Clock**: Upon a vessel's death, players have a brief window (**30 to 180 seconds**) to locate and destroy the **Human Remains**.
* **Flexible Neutralization**: You can **break the remains with any tool or bare hands, burn them with Flint & Steel, or destroy them with lava/explosives** to permanently neutralize the parasite before it establishes a nest.
* **Dynamic Relief Period**: Neutralizing the remains pacifies the local territory for **10–15 minutes** (this cooldown decreases by 1 minute for every elapsed game day, with a minimum 2-minute safety floor).

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🕳️ 3. Subterranean Mounds & Acoustic Surface Tracking

* **Buried Organoids**: If remains are not destroyed in time, the parasite establishes a sealed 3x2x3 subterranean burrow **just 2–3 blocks directly beneath the surface terrain**.
* **Sound Tracking (Madness Heartbeat)**: You don't need X-Ray or cave expeditions. Walking across the ground above a buried Mound produces an ominous, muffled **heartbeat of Madness** (ambient.madness), alerting players to start digging!
* **Surface Vegetation**: By Stage 2, the soil directly above the mound begins rotting into fungal mycelium and parasitic growths.

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🛡️ 4. Tiered Defensive Squads & Boss Waves

Mounds accumulate **Bio-Points** (1 pt/sec) to fuel their evolution and actively defend themselves if players approach their detection perimeter or attack them.
*Defenders burst out **strictly on the surface above the mound** with dirt explosions, spore geysers, and shrieking alarms!*

Mound Stage	Detection Area	Full Squad Defense (Bulk Discount)	Single Defender (Fallback)
**Stage 1** (Day 0–1)	**3x3 / 5x5 blocks**	**3 Basic Infected** (*100 pts*)	1 Basic (*35 pts*)
**Stage 2** (Day 1–2.5)	**3x3 / 5x5 blocks**	**4 Parasites** (2 Evolved + 2 Basic) (*200 pts*)	1 Evolved (*70 pts*)
**Stage 3** (Day 2.5–5)	**10x10 blocks**	**5 Parasites** (1 Hyper + 2 Evolved + 2 Basic) (*380 pts*)	1 Hyper (*150 pts*)
**Stage 4** (Day 5–7)	**20x20 blocks**	**Boss Wave**: 8 Parasites in **2 timed waves** (*650 pts*)	1 Hyper (*150 pts*)

> [!TIP]
> **Evolution Penalties**: Attacking a mound directly drains its Bio-Points, and eliminating its defenders inflicts an additional **-25 Bio-Point penalty**, physically knocking the hive's evolution backward!

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⏳ 5. The 7-Day Evolution Timeline (Proto-Brain Metamorphosis)

* **Threshold**: Accumulating **8400 Bio-Points** (~7 in-game days of undisturbed growth) causes the Stage 4 Mound to undergo violent metamorphosis into the **Proto-Brain**.
* **The Global Awakening**: When the Proto-Brain awakens, the global containment is broken, unlocking unrestricted natural Spore spawns worldwide and unleashing the full planetary apocalypse.

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⚙️ Configuration & Customization

Every aspect of **SporeWithin** is fully balanced out of the box but completely configurable in config/sporewithin-common.toml:
* Starting & daily scaling infection chances (and max caps).
* Bio-Point thresholds for stages and 7-day evolution timer.
* Defense squad compositions, costs, and cooldowns.
* Territory relief/calm cooldown durations and daily reductions.

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📦 Requirements & Installation

1. Install **Minecraft Forge 1.20.1** (Recommended 47.3.0+).
2. Download and install the **Spore** mod for 1.20.1.
3. Place sporewithin-1.0.0.jar into your .minecraft/mods folder.
4. Fully compatible with Singleplayer, LAN, and Dedicated Multiplayer Servers!

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👁️ What Lies Ahead... (Upcoming Updates)

> *"You may have survived the first outbreaks, but do not be fooled: the Hivemind is watching, learning, and adapting to your presence."*

**SporeWithin** is actively evolving. Here is a glimpse of what is currently in development:

* 🧠 **Adaptive Hive Intelligence**: The parasite will soon begin recognizing human resistance. The more nests you burn, the more aggressively and strategically the Hive will retaliate.
* 🧪 **Decontamination & Medical Tech**: Specialized field serums, chemical containment devices, and experimental vaccines to cleanse infected territories.
* 🌪️ **Atmospheric & World Anomalies**: Unpredictable biological climate events when regional infection levels reach critical mass.
* 🕳️ **Subterranean Research Relics**: Abandoned bio-laboratories with forgotten lore, blueprints, and high-risk extraction zones.

💬 *Leave your feedback in the comments and stay tuned — the infection has only begun to evolve!*