Metal Arrows: Beyond Flint

Why limit yourself to flint? You've smelted iron, mined diamonds, and braved the Nether. Your arrows should keep up. Metal Arrows: Beyond Flint adds metal-headed arrows (Iron, Copper, Gold, Diamond, and Netherite), each with its own damage and personality. Enter the metal ages, one arrowhead at a time.

Vanilla Tipped Arrows (minecraft:tipped_arrow) and Spectral Arrows (minecraft:spectral_arrow) stay unchanged; those items and their default recipes work as in vanilla.

This mod adds separate metal arrow items. The installed mod ID and JAR name are mabf, while saved and synchronized gameplay IDs intentionally remain under the established asbf namespace for compatibility with existing worlds and servers.

You can also tip them with a lingering potion (same 3×3 layout as vanilla tipped arrows); recipe type asbf:tipped_metal_arrow. Spectral metal arrows use glowstone dust with a metal arrow to produce arrows that apply the Glowing effect on hit; recipe type asbf:spectral_metal_arrow.

Fletcher villagers can now sell these metal arrows, and vanilla skeletons and pillagers can fire them back at you.

Arrow Stats

Vanilla arrow damage is 2.0 for comparison. Piercing is a crossbow enchantment: a Piercing crossbow applies extra pierce to any arrow it fires, including all mabf metal arrows.

Hostile mob ammunition

Exact vanilla skeletons and pillagers each have a stable 30% chance to fire plain metal arrows: copper 12%, iron 12%, gold 5.2%, diamond 0.6%, and netherite 0.2% of eligible mobs. A mob's UUID fixes its result, so it keeps the same material across shots and chunk reloads.

The substitution happens only while a vanilla arrow projectile is created. Mobs keep vanilla equipment, pillager crossbows keep vanilla charged ammunition, and uninstalling the mod does not leave metal-arrow items stored on these mobs or their crossbows. Mob-fired metal arrows retain their material damage. Strays, bogged, and wither skeletons remain excluded.

Crafting Recipes

All shaped metal-arrow JSON files live under data/asbf/recipe/. Recipes yield 4 arrows with stick middle-center and feather bottom-center.

Iron Arrow

Uses 3 iron nuggets across the top row (like flint in the vanilla recipe):

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ Iron Nugget│ Iron Nugget│ Iron Nugget│
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │   Stick    │            │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │  Feather   │            │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
→ 4× Iron Arrow

Copper Arrow

Same grid as iron (stick center, feather bottom), but the top row depends on your game version:

• 1.21.9+: 3× copper nuggets (minecraft:copper_nugget exists).
• 1.21 through 1.21.8: 3× copper ingots on the top row (same shape; higher cost, because copper nuggets do not exist on those versions). Use the JAR built for that patch.

Diagram shows the 1.21.9+ nugget layout; on 1.21–1.21.8 jars, put copper ingots in those three top slots instead.

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ Copper Nug.│ Copper Nug.│ Copper Nug.│
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │   Stick    │            │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │  Feather   │            │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
→ 4× Copper Arrow

Gold Arrow

3× gold nuggets across the top row (same layout as iron):

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│ Gold Nugget│ Gold Nugget│ Gold Nugget│
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │   Stick    │            │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │  Feather   │            │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
→ 4× Gold Arrow

Diamond Arrow

1× diamond in the top-center slot:

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│            │  Diamond   │            │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │   Stick    │            │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │  Feather   │            │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
→ 4× Diamond Arrow

Netherite Arrow

Uses 3× Netherite Scrap across the top row (netherite ingots are not used; vanilla has no netherite nuggets):

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│Neth. Scrap │Neth. Scrap │Neth. Scrap │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │   Stick    │            │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │  Feather   │            │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
→ 4× Netherite Arrow

Spectral metal arrows (glowstone dust)

Mirrors vanilla spectral arrow crafting: 4 glowstone dust in a cross around 1 metal arrow in the center. Output: 2 spectral arrows of that metal. On hit, applies the Glowing effect for 10 seconds (200 ticks), same as vanilla spectral arrows. The spectral arrow retains its metal's base damage. Recipe type: asbf:spectral_metal_arrow (datapack: data/asbf/recipe/spectral_metal_arrow.json).

┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
│            │ Glowstone  │            │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│ Glowstone  │Metal Arrow │ Glowstone  │
├────────────┼────────────┼────────────┤
│            │ Glowstone  │            │
└────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
→ 2× Spectral [Metal] Arrow

All spectral metal arrows share the same yellow spectral texture (item and entity) regardless of metal type, matching vanilla spectral arrow visuals.

Fletcher trades

Fletchers have entered the metal ages too. As they level up, they can sell plain metal arrows alongside their vanilla wares:

Metal trades join the normal random offer pools; they do not replace vanilla definitions or become guaranteed bonus slots. Each percentage applies when the offers for that profession level are generated. Reaching a new level creates a new tier of offers, while restocking only replenishes the offers already chosen—it does not reroll them. If yours refuses to stock the arrow you wanted, that is probably the free market and definitely not personal. Tipped and spectral metal arrows are not sold.

Compatibility & installation

Use a JAR built for your exact Minecraft patch (1.21, 1.21.1, 1.21.4–1.21.11, 26.1.2, or 26.2). Which versions exist and how they are validated: docs/VERSION_MATRIX.md.

Requirements: Fabric Loader 0.18.6+ on 1.21.x (0.19.2+ recommended; matches this repo's Gradle pin), Fabric API for that game version, Java 21 (1.21.x) or Java 25 (26.x).

The 26.1.2 line (:mc26.1) is validated in-game. The 26.2 line (:mc26.2) builds and produces a JAR; treat it as preview until marked validated in the version matrix.

Install the matching filename: mabf-4.0.1+26.1.2.jar for Minecraft 26.1.2 (or mabf-4.0.1+26.2.jar for 26.2), from the matching mc26.*/build/libs/ or release/ after ./scripts/build-release-jars.sh. Do not use a +1.21.x JAR on 26.x; Fabric will report incompatible Minecraft / missing Fabric API.

Build or grab a JAR: docs/BUILD.md. Maintainer-facing versioning, layout, and backlog: docs/DEV_NOTES.md.

Compatibility has been playtested with Trading Post, Shifting Wares, Visible Traders, and Infinite Trading. This is a point-in-time check, not a guarantee of long-term compatibility with future releases.

Removing the mod (uninstall)

Hard cut: there is no migration datapack and no remapping of leftover asbf (or historical jtt) items and entities to vanilla. Remove the JAR from the server and from every client that used it. The first boot without the JAR may log Missing data pack mabf (or jtt / asbf on older worlds); that warning is cosmetic and is expected to clear after the world saves once, but dedicated-server verification is still pending. Joining a still-modded server with a vanilla client is unsupported and can show black arrow silhouettes; that is a missing-mod mismatch, not an uninstall leftover.

Planned Improvements

• Metal bows/crossbows with damage scaling
• Drawn/nocked arrow animation texture work

A LOREal Mod