tomevault-io Latitude — Player-Facing Invariants (Authoritative)
This skill encodes the promise of Latitude to players. Any change that violates these invariants is a regression, even if it compiles.
Core promise
Latitude turns Minecraft’s overworld into a planet-like climate experience:
- climate changes meaningfully with north/south travel
- bands feel continuous and intentional
- exploration “makes sense” without reading a wiki
Non-negotiable invariants
1) Warm-band snow must be impossible
In warm bands (equator/tropical/subtropical as defined by the mod):
- No
snow_block - No
snowlayers - No
powder_snow - No “frozen top layer” behavior
If any of these appear, it is a bug. Fix must use write-path guards or feature cancels, not biome reassignment.
2) Climate continuity over patchiness
- Bands should feel continuous across distance.
- “Islands” of totally wrong climate should be treated as bugs unless explicitly designed (and documented).
3) Distance must correlate with temperature
- Moving north/south changes temperature/biomes in a predictable direction.
- Any system that causes temperature to decorrelate from latitude needs strong justification.
4) All vanilla biomes still exist
- Unless explicitly excluded by the biome authority table, every vanilla biome must remain obtainable somewhere.
- Fixing a bug by effectively deleting a biome is forbidden.
5) The mod must be playable without debug knowledge
- Default gameplay should not require JVM flags.
- Debug features must not leak into normal play (no auto-open screens, no actionbar spam).
6) “Surprises” require communication
If the mod introduces hazards/effects (storms, polar danger, etc.):
- players must receive clear in-game feedback (HUD text, warning, particles, etc.)
- avoid silent punishment
Required assistant behavior
When proposing changes, the assistant must state:
- which invariants are affected
- whether the change preserves them
- how to test the invariants quickly (minimal proof steps)
Forbidden changes
- Adjusting biome bands to hide symptoms
- Shipping with debug toggles enabled by default
- Removing access to vanilla biomes because they are “problematic”
- Making climate feel random/patchy to “increase variety”
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