VanillaGuard A lightweight, vanilla-respecting anti-cheat for Paper 1.21.x. Catches cheaters without false-flagging your friends. Most anti-cheats are either too aggressive (banning players for sprint-jumping or playing on ice) or too complex to configure. VanillaGuard takes a different approach: it knows what's actually possible in vanilla Minecraft and only flags what physically isn't. ✨ Features
🏃 Speed detection — state-aware, accounts for Speed potions, Soul Speed, ice, swimming, and more 🪽 Fly detection — catches hovering and unnatural ascending without flagging legit falls ⚔️ Reach detection — flags attacks beyond vanilla's 3-block range (with latency buffer) ⛵ BoatFly detection — closes the boat-flying bypass that most anti-cheats miss 📊 Violation buffer system — sustained cheating accumulates evidence; brief lag spikes don't false-flag 🚫 Auto-ban — configurable temp ban after threshold reached (default: 5 flags = 1-day ban) 👮 Live staff alerts — see violations in chat as they happen
🎯 Why VanillaGuard? No false positives on legitimate play. VanillaGuard knows that:
Sprint-jumping briefly hits ~8.5 bps from momentum impulses Speed II + sprint-jumping reaches ~10.5 bps Soul Speed III + Speed II on soul sand hits ~12.7 bps Boats on blue ice can reach 70+ bps Riptide tridents create huge velocity bursts Knockback, teleports, and elytra all break normal movement rules
All of this is exempt automatically. Your friends can play without getting banned for the game's actual mechanics. 🛡️ Checks in detail Speed Calculates the maximum legitimate speed for the player's current state every tick (potions, blocks underfoot, swimming, ice, etc.) with a 30% latency buffer. Uses a violation buffer that decays over time — sustained cheating accumulates faster than it can decay, but brief network spikes don't false-trigger. Fly Tracks airborne Y-accumulation. Only flags hovering and ascending patterns — falls of any speed are never evaluated, eliminating false positives from packet jitter. Catches even slow levitation cheats (0.04 dy/tick) by accumulating evidence over time. Exemptions: elytra, riptide, levitation, slow-falling, water, ladders, vines, scaffolding, cobweb, powder snow, bubble columns, vehicles, knockback, teleports, recent join. Reach Measures distance from attacker eye to nearest point on victim's hitbox (same math vanilla uses). Vanilla survival is 3.0 blocks; VanillaGuard flags at >4.0 to allow ~150ms latency. BoatFly Detects boats that aren't falling when they physically must. Tracks consecutive ticks where the boat is unsupported (no water/ice/lily pad/solid block beneath); flags after 5 such ticks with vertical motion >-0.12. ⚙️ Configuration plugins/VanillaGuard/config.yml: yamlflag-threshold: 5 # flags before temp ban ban-days: 1 # ban duration 🔑 Permissions PermissionDefaultDescriptionvanillaguard.bypassopFully exempt from all checksvanillaguard.alertsopReceive in-game violation alerts Server operators, creative/spectator players, and anyone with vanillaguard.bypass are fully exempt automatically. 📋 Requirements
Paper 1.21.x (other forks like Purpur/Pufferfish should work too) Java 21+
📦 Installation
Download VanillaGuard-1.0.0.jar Drop it in your server's plugins/ folder Restart your server Done — check console for VanillaGuard v1 enabled.
⚠️ Scope VanillaGuard is a lightweight anti-cheat for small to medium servers. It focuses on common cheats (fly, speed, reach, boatfly) with zero false positives on legitimate vanilla play. It does not include:
KillAura / hit detection NoFall / NoSlow Packet-level analysis Phase / NoClip detection Auto-clicker detection
For larger servers running competitive PvP, consider Vulcan, Grim, or Matrix. For smaller SMPs and friend servers where you just want to stop the obvious cheaters without breaking gameplay — that's where VanillaGuard shines. 💬 Feedback Found a bug? Got a false positive? Drop a comment or open an issue. The plugin is actively improved based on real-world testing.
