Project Setup

To use Bestium, you need to start with a working Paper plugin setup. Your build must use either Gradle Kotlin DSL or Gradle Groovy DSL. Maven cannot be used, because paperweight-userdev does not support Maven.

Add dependencies

To use Bestium in your plugin project, you’ll need two dependencies:

• paperweight-userdev for access to Minecraft internals (also known as NMS).
• Bestium API for using Bestium’s entity injection tools.

Your Gradle build configuration should look something like this:

Kotlin

Gradle Kotlin DSL

build.gradle.kts

plugins {
    id("io.papermc.paperweight.userdev") version "2.0.0-beta.18"
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    compileOnly("cz.jeme:bestium:3.0.1")
    paperweight.paperDevBundle("1.21.8-R0.1-SNAPSHOT")
}

kotlin {
    jvmToolchain(21)
}

Gradle Groovy DSL

build.gradle

plugins {
    id 'io.papermc.paperweight.userdev' version '2.0.0-beta.18'
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    compileOnly 'cz.jeme:bestium:3.0.1'
    paperweight.paperDevBundle('1.21.8-R0.1-SNAPSHOT')
}

Java

Gradle Kotlin DSL

build.gradle.kts

plugins {
    id("io.papermc.paperweight.userdev") version "2.0.0-beta.18"
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    compileOnly("cz.jeme:bestium:3.0.1")
    paperweight.paperDevBundle("1.21.8-R0.1-SNAPSHOT")
}

java {
    toolchain.languageVersion.set(JavaLanguageVersion.of(21))
}

Gradle Groovy DSL

build.gradle

plugins {
    id 'io.papermc.paperweight.userdev' version '2.0.0-beta.18'
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    compileOnly 'cz.jeme:bestium:3.0.1'
    paperweight.paperDevBundle('1.21.8-R0.1-SNAPSHOT')
}

Verify your setup

Once your build is synced, you should be able to import main Bestium class:

Kotlin

import cz.jeme.bestium.api.Bestium

Java

import cz.jeme.bestium.api.Bestium;

Converting to a Paper plugin

To use Bestium, your plugin must be a Paper plugin.

This means replacing your plugin.yml with a paper-plugin.yml.

Why switch?

Paper plugins support additional features like bootstrappers, which let you run code early in the server initialization process.

Follow this guide to migrate from Bukkit to Paper plugin format.

Creating a Bootstrapper

Bootstrappers allow you to run code very early in the Minecraft server’s startup sequence. This is essential for registering custom entities with Bestium.

To use a bootstrapper:

1. Implement the PluginBootstrap interface:
   Kotlin

   MyPluginBootstrapper.kt

   package com.example.myplugin
   
   import io.papermc.paper.plugin.bootstrap.BootstrapContext
   import io.papermc.paper.plugin.bootstrap.PluginBootstrap
   
   @Suppress("UnstableApiUsage")
   internal class MyPluginBootstrapper : PluginBootstrap {
       override fun bootstrap(context: BootstrapContext) {
           // Here the injection will happen
       }
   }

   Java

   MyPluginBootstrapper.java

   package com.example.myplugin;
   
   import io.papermc.paper.plugin.bootstrap.BootstrapContext;
   import io.papermc.paper.plugin.bootstrap.PluginBootstrap;
   
   @SuppressWarnings("UnstableApiUsage")
   public class MyPluginBootstrapper implements PluginBootstrap {
       @Override
       public void bootstrap(BootstrapContext context) {
           // Here the injection will happen
       }
   }

2. Register your bootstrapper class in paper-plugin.yml:

   paper-plugin.yml

   bootstrapper: com.example.myplugin.MyPluginBootstrapper

Adding Bestium plugin dependency

To access Bestium’s API during runtime, you need to add it as a plugin dependency. This can be achieved by adding the following lines to your paper-plugin.yml:

paper-plugin.yml

dependencies:
  bootstrap:
    Bestium:
      load: BEFORE
      required: true
      join-classpath: true
  server:
    Bestium:
      join-classpath: true