[SBW] NPC Squads

[SBW] NPC Squads

An NPC squad addon for SuperbWarfare — recruit, deploy, and command your own AI-driven infantry, mortar, tank, drone, and helicopter squads.

The project hasn’t been abandoned. Right now, I’m working on version 1.0.0, which will include a huge number of features. In particular, I’m fine‑tuning the tactics for both a single squad and several squads. Even though the code is mostly written by AI, it still takes a lot of time.

What is this

[SBW] NPC Squads lets you recruit NPCs with a single tool, form them into squads, and command them like a small AI-controlled army: riflemen, medics, snipers, machine gunners, grenadiers, mortar crews, tank and helicopter crews, and kamikaze-drone operators. Squads take cover, dig in under fire, avoid shooting their own side, relay spotted enemies to the rest of their faction, ride and crew vehicles, and follow orders — Attack, Defend, Patrol, Move — from a quick-command HUD or by pointing and clicking. Supply points keep them equipped, boats carry them across water, and radio reports tell you when they make contact, lose men, need ammunition, or reach their objective.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1 + NeoForge
• Kotlin for Forge (NeoForge build) — this mod is written in Kotlin and loads through it
• SuperbWarfare — this addon builds directly on its weapons, vehicles, and combat systems and won't do anything without it
• SmartBrainLib — the behavior-tree AI framework every NPC's combat/movement logic runs on
• Optional: the SBW Drone Warfare addon, for the drone operator class to use its FPV drone model
• Optional: GeckolibBetterFPS — noticeably better frame rate when a lot of NPCs are on screen.
• Optional: JourneyMap 6.x — your squads, their objectives and the enemies your side has spotted on the map, and orders given from it
• Optional: Physics Mod — not needed by this addon at all, but ragdolls, debris and shattering blocks make a firefight feel a lot more real

Installation

1. Install NeoForge, Kotlin for Forge, SuperbWarfare, and SmartBrainLib first.
2. Grab the latest jar from the Releases page.
3. Drop it into your mods/ folder.

Key conflicts

A few mods often installed alongside bind the same keys as SuperbWarfare, and both actions fire on one press. Rebind the other mod's key under Options → Controls → Key Binds: click the binding and press the new combination, Ctrl included.

How this mod was made

This is a hobby project, built purely for fun. The entire codebase was written by an AI (Claude Code and Codex) — architecture, features, bug fixes, all of it — while the meatbags did the actual playtesting, including multiplayer sessions, and sent back bug reports on whatever broke.

Pull requests and issues are welcome and will be looked at whenever there's free time — no guaranteed response time.

Features

• 8 factions with distinct uniforms and colours; deploy friendly or hostile squads.
• Combat AI that takes cover, reacts to suppression, avoids friendly fire and shares contacts.
• Ground and water transport — squads drive, crew mounted guns, plan routes around terrain and cross water by boat. Amphibious vehicles travel between land and water.
• Drone operators attack with kamikaze drones; other NPCs shoot down or take cover from them.
• Helicopters — Mi-28 gunships and AH-6 transports with NPC pilots and gunners. Aircraft remain visible out to 512 blocks. Surviving crew can take over if the pilot is killed.
• Logistics and reports — Barracks replace losses, Supply replenishes equipment, and squads report contacts, casualties and ammunition shortages to their owner.

Where everything is

On first use the tool asks you to pick a faction once. That is only your own default — you can still deploy any of the eight afterwards, including hostile ones to fight against.

Using the tool

Two modes, switched with Ctrl + right-click on air. The current one is on the item tooltip.

Recruit mode — what gets deployed

• Right-click air opens the deploy config: preset, class (Single only), rank, faction, and the vehicle or airframe where the preset has one.
• Right-click a block deploys it there, lined up abreast and facing you.
• Presets: Single, 5: Riflemen, 7: Standard, 16: Large, 32: Company, Mortar Crew, Tank Crew (ZTZ-99A / T-90A / M1A2), Drone Team, Heli Crew — Mi-28 gunship or AH-6 transport, and the airframe decides which crew comes with it. 5 and 7 can bring a LAV-25 / LAV-150 / BMP-2.
• Ranks go RECRUIT → REGULAR → VETERAN → ELITE: more health, tighter spread, quicker reactions.
• Anything bigger than a single NPC is formed into a squad automatically, holding where it landed.

Command mode — what they do

• Right-click an NPC selects it; particles above individually selected NPCs mark the selection. One that is already in a squad selects the whole squad. Shift + right-click clears the selection.
• Right-click air opens the squad screen.
• Right-click a block with a squad selected sets that squad's objective.
• Right-click a hostile focuses the selected squad on it — hunted under Attack, guarded against under Defend.

The squad screen

One row per squad, scrollable, with the footer buttons under the list:

• Order cycles through the orders that squad can actually carry out.
• Objective arms a click: the next block you right-click is where the squad works from.
• Focus arms the same thing on an entity instead.
• R renames · X disbands (the NPCs stay, the squad doesn't) · DEL deletes the squad and everything in it, vehicles included.
• Routes opens patrol routes: add one, right-click blocks to drop waypoints, finish, then assign it to a squad. A squad with a route walks it under Patrol.
• Reports switches your squads' chat radio reports on or off; the setting is saved per world.

There is no limit on how many squads you run. The HUD's number keys reach the first nine; disbanding one moves the rest up into the freed numbers.

Orders

Tank crews take Move and Retreat — they fight from the tank by themselves. A Mi-28 gunship takes Attack / Defend / Move / Retreat and attacks from a standoff hover. An AH-6 uses Defend to patrol low with its door gunners, Move and Retreat to carry the squad and land, and Attack to circle the objective with its gunners facing inward. AH-6 Attack stays active until another order or a forced withdrawal. JourneyMap menus offer the orders available to the selected squad types.

In enemy contact, defenders and patrols keep a useful firing position while the target is within twice their class's normal combat range. A target farther away can prompt an approach of at most 24 blocks from the original post, then they stop and fire. They do not chase a target merely to restore their preferred distance. Snipers, medics and machine gunners use rear positions during combat; without an enemy present they travel to the ordered objective with everyone else.

The Barracks

Right-click a Barracks you placed to configure it the same way the tool is configured, then press Deploy garrison. It builds the configured squad one NPC at a time, at most once every 10 seconds, then replaces losses at the same rate. Support vehicles deploy once the complete crew is ready. Drone operators standing near it get their drones back. Re-deploying replaces the old garrison; only the player who placed the Barracks can configure it.

An assigned Barracks keeps ticking away from players. Deleting or disbanding its garrison from the squad screen stops production until you configure it again.

Destroying the Barracks leaves the squad alive but stops reinforcement.

Supply points

A Supply serves the faction of the player who placed it and that faction's allies. Friendly NPCs within 8 blocks automatically receive their issued ammunition, grenades, medical kit, mortar shells and drones. Between fights, NPCs low on ammunition return to the nearest friendly Supply; when nearly empty, they can withdraw there while fighting. Mortar loaders carry 30 shells and fetch more from Supply when they run out.

Right-click a friendly Supply to choose a class kit and one of that class's weapons. Kits provide the gun, ammunition, class equipment and your side's helmet and vest, topping up what you are missing. The machine gunner kit includes an RPG with TBG rockets. With Drone Warfare installed, the drone operator kit uses its FPV drones and goggles, plus a monitor; otherwise it uses SBW drones.

Respawn here makes it your spawn point while the block remains friendly and has room above it. A bed or respawn anchor replaces that choice. If the Supply is destroyed, inaccessible or no longer friendly, you return to world spawn. Supply stock is currently unlimited. A Supply placed before it had logistics support may need to be broken and placed again.

Worth knowing

• Squads take cover, dig in when badly hurt, and won't fire through a squadmate — or through a parked vehicle.
• A squad with a distant objective commandeers a vehicle nearby and drives. You can ride along in a free seat without bumping the NPC driver out.
• They only see what is in front of them, so they can be flanked — but a shot at them, or a contact their own side calls in, turns them around.
• NPCs can see through glass but will not fire through it. Three blocks of grass or fern along the sightline hide a target. Enemy footsteps are heard within 4 blocks when walking, 8 when running and 3 when landing; crouching is silent.
• Every NPC has one medical kit and uses it on itself when wounded in cover; Supply replenishes it.
• Machine gunners carry a launcher on the side for anything riding a vehicle; infantry stays the machine gun's job.
• NPCs throw grenades at covered enemies or when pinned, checking reach, obstacles and nearby allies.
• Mortar crews only shell what their own side has actually seen. Out of reach of the target, they break the mortar down, carry it closer and set it back up.
• A killed NPC drops the weapon in its hands with a 3.75% chance (with only its loaded magazine), each piece of armour with a 1.25% chance, a box of ammunition for its gun with an 18.75% chance, and one of the grenades it had left with a 1.25% chance, whoever killed it. Ammunition without a box item, such as heavy rounds and rockets, drops as individual items.