Why HeadsPlus? Full feature list and Summaries
firstly because I couldn't find any damn good heads plugins so I made my own
Okay, the first point there was kind of a joke, but it was quite literally the reason I made this plugin - my server used to use a different plugin that used head drops, however over time the performance of this plugin degraded as Minecraft churned up more and more new updates, eventually making it useless. Another problem was that the textures of the heads never seemed to apply, leading me to search for a different solution... which I did, three bloody years later.
So, what actually sets the different heads plugins apart within the Spigot community, and would HeadsPlus be the right one for you?
This is where I do describe the features in extreme amounts of details so feel free to skip to the bits you're interested in.
- Mob Drops
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Head Retrievals
- [/head](
One of the very first features of HeadsPlus was the ability to get head drops from mobs, which has grown in multiple ways to become more extensive and configurable, far more compared to other plugins.
Unlike many heads plugins, HeadsPlus takes into account the conditions of an entity itself and does this for all entities. For example, you have several genes of pandas including the playful, lazy and worried gene, where each panda has a separate texture for those genes. With this example, HeadsPlus takes in the panda's gene and returns the head which is used for this gene. Other examples include parrots, cats, llamas and many more!
In addition to this, HeadsPlus also has a double-condition system for bees and villagers, meaning it can take in multiple conditions - for bees, this is whether the bee is angry or not, and also whether the bee has pollen. For villagers in versions 1.14 and above, this considers the profession of the villager and also the biome they're in. However, to cut down config size, this is not in the configuration by default and will be made available in the future on Github.
Another important feature in HeadsPlus's mob drops is also that they use a mixture of MHF heads (officially created by Mojang to cater towards map creators) but also custom textures which are uploaded onto Minecraft as skins originally. Because Mojang allows these textures to be added onto player heads, you're not just restricted to MHF heads and other player heads which are hard to find and also prone to changing; custom textures stay with you forever, no matter what. Unless Mojang removes them, which I doubt happens on a regular basis.
HeadsPlus also supports the looting enchantment, meaning that either head drop chances are increased or head drop numbers are increased.
Whilst mob drops are clearly highlighted quite a lot, I would also like to note that players are able to drop their heads as well when they die. However, it is often recommended to make it so that a killer is required for the head to drop, otherwise, you open yourself to potential exploits whilst the selling feature is enabled.
Does all of this sound fairly daunting? Don't worry; a lot of this is automatically set up for you, including all the textures, chances, prices and looting enchantment support (which is enabled by default). So just install the plugin, let it set itself up, and unless you want to make some changes to parts of the configuration, you're good to go!
In the future, I am looking to provide MythicMobs support. In HeadsPlus's future premium spin-off, HeadsPlusCREATION, head drops are expected to have a lot more decoration such as particles, animation and coloured glow, where some of these features may also appear in HeadsPlus.
➤ HeadsPlus uses a special system where it keeps track of an entity's conditions and can thus drop heads for a specific mob texture.
➤ The looting enchantment is supported when retrieving heads and can either increase the chance of the heads dropping or increase the number of heads that drop.
➤ HeadsPlus uses a mixture of player heads but also custom textures to create more opportunities for head drops. In the future, head drops will all rely on custom textures by default but will still allow
The configuration file that handles the majority of this is called heads.yml, which is renamed to mobs.yml in v6.10.
And even older than mob drops is the wonderful /head command, which I even believe may have been the very first feature of the plugin, according to one of the earliest commits on HP's archived Github page. It's a fairly basic feature, sure, but what even sets it apart from other plugins?
I mentioned earlier on that I had a fairly troubling problem with head commands, where you can just enter a player head and bam, you get the head - but the texture never loads properly and only appears when you place the head, or when you drop it and pick it up again!
If you've had a similar problem in the past, HeadsPlus produces an entirely different result and loads the head instantaneously. Most heads plugins will simply set the owner of the skull and leave it there, but instead, HeadsPlus uses a modified variation of that method so that the UUID of the head is set properly, which is the common reason why the heads struggle to load in the first place.
In other words, player heads load fast with HeadsPlus.
Using the blacklist and whitelist feature, you can also restrict what player heads people type in. In the future, I am also considering allowing the retrieval of heads through textures and UUIDs.
A previously requested feature for those who want players to have access to their own head, but not other's - /myhead easily grabs the sender's head and hands it over to them. Like magic. Hey presto.
So far, I've praised a lot of HP's features, however, this is where I get fairly serious and honest.
The heads command being addressed is not connected to a database of any kind, and I do not have any future plans to connect it to any database. It is purely built-in, meaning the heads are retrieved directly from the plugin configuration in customheads.yml. From this, there are only roughly 250, maybe 300, custom heads within the plugin.
What are the benefits of this, and what does it mean compared to other plugins?
A lot of the time, HeadsPlus is compared to database plugins such as HeadDatabase and EpicHeads, of which are both paid plugins and very different to HeadsPlus. Both plugins provide a further range of heads, up to thousands, whilst HP sits at its very tiny number of 300, which is not very good at all if you want a creative server with access to a large number of heads and is thus a very big con.
However, there are plenty of pros against this - whilst database plugins require external connections, HeadsPlus doesn't rely on them, meaning it is entirely self-dependent to function correctly and won't break if a database goes down or fails due to attacks. I do also need to mention, the number 300 is not a static number, as there are occasions where I decide to add in new heads. The heads are also stored in customheads.yml, where you can freely edit and add in new heads, whether it is through modifying the config or using the /addhead command, which lets you easily add in new heads using their texture.
You can also select which heads are your favourite in the GUI (achieved through right-clicking them) and you can search heads as well through an anvil GUI or chat, making heads easily accessible.
In similarity to the paid plugin EpicHeads, the plugin also allows you to collect players' heads in one section when they first join, although this is disabled by default due to trouble caused by it, which will be addressed in the near future. This was not even a feature written by myself, but by a Songoda plugin developer (publisher of EpicHeads), jascotty2.
And in relation to HeadDatabase? It's fairly simple - for those complaining about the plugin being premium, HeadsPlus is redirected to as the best free alternative, likely due to its limited heads and providing an insight into whether server owners do require such a feature and need more. So if you're considering HeadDatabase, feel free to give HeadsPlus a try first, and if you need more, go ahead and give Arcy some love!
There are no planned new features for HeadsPlus's /heads system right now, with head bundles being moved onto HeadsPlusCREATION instead.
Before and even during the HeadsPlus era, I was always super confused as to how my boyfriend was able to pick up heads in his client and even have the texture on those heads. Like, what the hell, was that witchery or just plain hacks? Although to be honest, I never really bothered to ask, so I'll just assume both.
Then a pull request was made so you can middle-click heads and it'll set the texture of those heads when you pick them up in your inventory, all with the power of HeadsPlus.
What the hell.
The autograb feature is a feature I mentioned above, added into the plugin by jascotty2.
When it is enabled, the plugin will listen for whenever a player joins,
