Hiring and wages

These rules apply to every worker.

Numbers

All numbers in this wiki (wage, distances, speeds, limits) are the defaults. They can be changed in the configuration.

Hiring

• Lumberjack, sawyer, stone sawyer, carpenter, farmer, shepherd, butcher, fisher, fletcher, guard, apothecary, tanner, weaponsmith, librarian, smith, pit digger, kiln operator, shop assistant: right-click an adult villager with a work contract. An unemployed one then looks for a free workstation by itself.
• Carrier: right-click an unemployed adult villager with a wicker basket. The basket is contract and workstation at once, no work contract needed.

A villager that already has a job stays at its block and becomes the worker of this mod there:

Vanilla job	Block	Becomes
Farmer	Composter	Farmer
Mason	Stonecutter	Stone sawyer
Shepherd	Loom	Shepherd
Butcher	Smoker	Butcher
Fisherman	Barrel	Fisher
Fletcher	Fletching table	Fletcher
Cleric	Brewing stand	Apothecary
Leatherworker	Cauldron	Tanner
Weaponsmith	Grindstone	Weaponsmith
Librarian	Lectern	Librarian
Armorer, toolsmith	Blast furnace, smithing table	Smith

Not hired are nitwits, babies and villagers whose job has no work in this mod yet (the cartographer). Hired villagers get no name, just like vanilla villagers. Use a name tag to tell them apart. (The config option randomNames gives them a random name like Anton or Berta.)

Trading with workers

The workers in the table above trade like their vanilla counterparts: the farmer like a farmer, the stone sawyer like a mason, the shepherd, the butcher, the fisher and the fletcher like theirs, the apothecary like a cleric, the tanner like a leatherworker, the weaponsmith like a weaponsmith, the librarian like a librarian, the smith like an armorer (at a blast furnace) or a toolsmith (at a smithing table). A villager you traded with keeps its trades and its level when you hire it. They level up by trading like vanilla villagers and restock their trades at their workstation during work hours.

Right-click a worker with an empty hand to trade (the trading screen takes the emeralds from your inventory). With emeralds or its tools in your hand you give them to it instead; sneak and right-click to trade anyway. The other workers (lumberjack, sawyer, carpenter, ...) do not trade.

A worker that loses its job keeps its trades for when it gets a job of the same kind again.

Hired villagers never take a vanilla job (lectern, cartography table, ...). They do take part in normal village life: they sleep in beds, meet at the village bell and flee from zombies and raids.

Finding a workstation

A hired villager without a job looks for a free workstation of this mod within 48 blocks that it can walk to: a chopping block, woodcutter, stonecutter, carpenter's bench, composter, loom, smoker, barrel, fletching table, target, blast furnace, smithing table, pit stake, kiln, trading counter or mining bench. It walks there and takes the job (green particles), just like vanilla villagers claim their job sites.

At a stonecutter, composter, loom, smoker, barrel, blast furnace or smithing table a hired villager becomes the stone sawyer, farmer, shepherd, butcher, fisher or smith of this mod. Unhired villagers still become vanilla masons, farmers, shepherds, butchers, fishermen, armorers and toolsmiths there, but not at one you have set up (linked chests or set an order): that one is kept for a hired worker. Assign at a station where an ordinary villager already works gives it to your worker, as long as that villager has never traded; one that has traded keeps its job.

Assigning and removing

To pick a specific worker yourself, open the workstation's overview (at the woodcutter, stonecutter, carpenter's bench, loom, smoker, barrel, blast furnace, smithing table and kiln: the worker tab above its screen; at the composter: right-click it with an empty hand) and click Assign. The menu closes; right-click a hired villager. It becomes the worker of this station. A villager that already works somewhere else moves to the new station.

Remove takes the worker away again. It stays hired and keeps its name. It does not go back to that same station by itself for one day, but it may take another free one.

The menu of every workstation shows its worker, or Free if nobody works there.

The overview

The overview of a workstation has tabs at the top, like the creative inventory. The same tabs stand above the screen of the block itself (woodcutter, furnace, loom, ...): click one to get to that part of the overview, and the block's tab to get back.

• The block itself, if it has a screen of its own (woodcutter, furnace, ...).
• The worker's face: who works here, Assign / Remove, what it is doing, what it did today and what it carries.
• Wage: the station's wage box and your inventory.
• Chests: the linked chests with + Input / + Output (or + Chest).
• Order (woodcutter, stonecutter, carpenter's bench, kiln, fletching table) or Settings (chopping block, pit stake, mining bench, loom, smoker, barrel, target).

A red dot on a tab means something is missing there: no worker, no wage or tool, no chest, no order.

A vanilla block nobody has set up yet (stonecutter, loom, smoker, barrel, blast furnace, smithing table) shows only its own tab and the worker tab, so players who do not use the mod there see little of it. Once a worker or a chest is added, all tabs appear.

Linking chests

Workers take their material from chests and put their products into chests. Chests and barrels can be linked, and every other block a hopper can put items into (also from other mods):

• up to 8 chests per station
• within 16 blocks of the station

Click + Chest (lumberjack, farmer, shepherd and pit digger) or + Input / + Output (the others). The menu closes; right-click the chests you want to link. Right-click a linked chest again to unlink it. Right-click the workstation to finish; its menu opens again. A double chest counts as one chest, whichever half you click.

The menu lists the linked chests with a bar showing how full each one is. The × unlinks a chest. At the stations with input and output chests, one click on Input / Output switches a chest's role.

Naming chests

The menus list chests by name. To name one, open the chest (or barrel), click ✎ at the top right, type the name (up to 24 characters) and press Enter. The name is the same as one given with an anvil: it also shows as the chest's title. A chest without a name is listed by its kind (Chest, Barrel) in gray.

Several products

The sawyers, the carpenter, the kiln operator, the fletcher, the tanner and the weaponsmith take up to 8 products in one order. In the Order tab a click on a product adds it, another click takes it out; the label above the grid shows how many are picked.

A click on a product of the order selects it (white frame); the row below the grid shows how many of it the worker makes. Click the selected product again to take it out. For each product you choose, with the button left of − / +:

• Order: a fixed amount, once, e.g. "64 chests". The cell shows how many are left. When all of them are in the output chests, the order is done: the worker shows a green ✔ above its head and the product leaves the order. (The kiln keeps its last done order, as without one it fires everything.)
• Stock: keep that many in the output chests, "keep 8" means 8 chests and 8 barrels. The worker goes on when some are taken out. Without a limit it works as long as there is material.

Ordered products come first, then the stocks (the emptiest first), then the ones without a limit (the one it made the fewest of first). One batch at a time, always the most needed product it has material for; a product without material does not hold up the others.

The worker takes its material from the input chests and from the village chests in reach, so a village chest full of planks is enough for the carpenter. If material is missing, it makes what it still can and then shows a red ! above its head; its status says what is missing, at the carpenter with how many ("Missing 18× Oak Planks"). An ingredient its own station makes, it makes itself first: the carpenter the chest and the boat for a boat with chest, the fletcher arrows for spectral arrows.

The order box below the result slot of the carpenter's bench and the cutters shows the products one after another, with their number in the corner.

The wage box

Every workstation has a wage box for up to 64 emeralds. The worker takes its wage from there each day with its first piece of work. Fill it in three ways:

• open the workstation, tab Wage, and put emeralds into its slot (or shift-click them in), like into a chest,
• right-click the workstation with emeralds in your hand,
• give them to the worker (right-click it with emeralds, or throw them to it): it puts them into the box.

The emeralds belong to the station, not to the worker. Nothing is lost when the worker dies, turns into a zombie villager or moves to another station; the next worker there is paid from the same box. When the workstation is broken (or blown up), the emeralds drop like the contents of a chest. Take them out again in the Wage tab.

A carrier has no workstation: it carries its emeralds itself.

Wage and tools

Give a worker its tools directly, like you give a villager food: right-click the worker with emeralds, its tool or what it plants, or throw the items next to it. It walks over, picks them up and keeps them in its own inventory. Happy villager particles show that it took them. If it already has enough, it shakes its head and takes nothing.

The limits in the table count for both ways: a worker only picks up what it still wants and leaves the rest on the ground. Throwing needs the mob_griefing game rule (like vanilla mobs picking up items); right-clicking always works.

Worker	Needs	Carries up to
every worker	emeralds	64, in the wage box of its workstation
lumberjack	an axe, optionally saplings	2 axes, 16 saplings of each kind
farmer	a hoe, seeds to start with	2 hoes, 16 seeds of each kind
shepherd	shears, optionally wheat for breeding	2 shears, 16 wheat
guard	a bow, arrows	2 bows, 64 arrows
fisher	a fishing rod, optionally a boat	2 rods, 1 boat
butcher	a sword or an axe, optionally feed and coal	2 weapons, 16 feed of each kind, 16 coal
pit digger	a shovel, a pickaxe, ladders, optionally torches	2 of each tool, 64 ladders, 16 torches

• Wage: each day the worker takes 1 emerald from the wage box (then from its pockets, if it still carries emeralds from an older version of the mod) with its first piece of work: the first log, the first crafted item, the first load carried; a guard when it takes up its post. A worker that gets nothing done all day, because material is missing for example, costs nothing that day. The emerald has to be there before it starts. 64 emeralds pay for 64 work days. Without an emerald it does not work. It waits next to its workstation ("Waiting for wages") and checks again every few seconds, so you can pay it late.
• Tools: the lumberjack needs an axe, the farmer a hoe, the shepherd shears, the butcher a sword or an axe, the fisher a fishing rod, the guard a bow and arrows, the pit digger a shovel, a pickaxe and ladders. The sawyer, stone sawyer, carpenter, smith, kiln operator, shop assistant and carrier only need emeralds.
• Workers never hand in their emeralds or their tool to the output chests.
• A hired worker that dies drops everything it carries: tools and material. Its wage stays in the wage box.

Note

With dailyWage set to 0 in the configuration workers work for free. They still need their tools.

The station menu (and the carrier menu) shows a row of slots with what the worker carries: its emeralds, its tools with the durability bar and its saplings, seeds, ladders or torches. Empty slots are faded, a missing wage or tool is tinted red. Next to them it says Paid for 5 more days, Works for free or what is missing, e.g. Needs an emerald!. The tooltip shows the details, e.g. whether today's wage has been paid, and how many village chests the worker has nearby.

Village chests

Instead of giving every worker its wage and tools, put them into a village chest. Every worker whose workstation is within 48 blocks of it (and 24 blocks up or down) takes what it needs from there by itself. A carrier counts from the source chest of its first route. Place as many village chests as you like; a worker walks to the closest one that has what it wants ("Fetching supplies from a village chest").

• Before its first work of the day it fetches whatever runs low. During the day it only goes when it cannot go on otherwise: no wage, its tool is worn, no ladders left.
• Emeralds: once its wage box holds less than a day's wage, it takes the wage for 3 days and puts it into the wage box.
• Tools: once it has none, or only one that is about to break, it takes one. It takes the most worn one first, so half used tools get used up and the new ones wait. It never takes one that is worn.
• Saplings, seeds, ladders, torches: once it has less than a quarter of what it keeps, it fills up to that amount, kinds it already carries first.
• It never takes enchanted or renamed tools: give those directly.
• Workers put nothing into a village chest except their worn tools. Hoppers and carriers can fill it like any chest, e.g. with the saplings from the lumberjack's chest.
• If no village chest has what it needs, it waits as before.

Right-click the village chest to open it. It has two tabs on its left: the chest itself, and the workers it serves, each with the face of its job and its name. That tab marks the ones that lack something no village chest has (Needs an axe!) and says for how many days the emeralds (in their village chests and wage boxes) pay all their wages. If workers gave back worn tools, it says how many lie in the chest. A red dot on the tab means some worker lacks something. More workers than fit are shown page by page.

Worn tools

Workers do not break their tools. Once a tool has only 10 % of its durability left (at least 2 uses), the worker stops using it and, before its next piece of work, gives it back ("Giving back a worn tool"):

1. into the closest village chest with a free slot where a smith or weaponsmith repairs it, taking a new tool from it on the same walk if it needs one,
2. otherwise into an output chest of its workstation, so you see there that it needs a new tool,
3. otherwise into any village chest with a free slot,
4. otherwise it keeps the tool and tries again a minute later.

Then it works on with its spare tool, or waits for a new one ("needs an axe"). A smith at a smithing table repairs the worn tools in the village chests (bows, fishing rods and shears, which have no repair material, and enchanted tools with bottles o' enchanting); or repair them yourself at an anvil and put them back. Workers never take a worn tool, and you cannot give them one.

How to set it all up, with the guards' experience for the repairs, is in the guide Tools that never break.

Wooden and stone tools, shears and fishing rods are cheap: they are used until they break, unless they are enchanted or renamed. The tooltip of the worker's supplies says when it carries a worn tool to give back. Both limits can be changed in the config.

Complaining

A worker that cannot work (no wage, no tool, no seeds, chests full, a chest or the station out of reach, no material, no ore or fuel, no chest linked, stuck) shakes its head with the "no" sound now and then while a player is within 8 blocks. The menu tells you why; see Worker does not work?.

Work hours

Workers work during the normal villager work hours, from the morning to the afternoon. The rest of the day they live like other villagers. In the station menu you can always see what the worker is doing right now:

• during work: the current step, e.g. Looking for a tree, Chopping a tree (40 %), Cutting Oak Stairs, Carrying items: Mill, Waiting: chests are full, Done for today
• otherwise: Sleeping, Going to bed, Chatting at the village square, Free time, Fleeing!, Hiding (raid)

If a worker does not work, the status tells you why. See Worker does not work?.

How workers move items

Workers walk to the front of a chest, open it (you see and hear the lid), move the items and close it again. At the woodcutter and stonecutter they stand in front of the station. So make sure the front of every linked chest can be reached.

Experience

Workers that trade like a vanilla villager (see above) keep their level and rise by trading. All others stay novices for now. Levels through work, which make workers faster or let them carry more, are planned; the pit digger already digs bigger and deeper pits with a higher level.