Cave spider uses the spider loot table

There is no need to create a separate loot table file for mobs that drop the same loot.

You misunderstand. A loot table for cave spiders already exists. There is one for every mob in the game. The issue is that the cave spider’s entity data points to the loot table for the regular spider mob, not the cave spider.

I know in vanilla play that it is not a noticeable issue. But it is still an error and affects addon pack creators (such as myself). I created an addon that specifically tweaks the cave spider loot table, but doing so has no effect since no mob is actually linked to the existing cave spider loot table.

You misunderstand. A loot table for cave spiders already exists. There is one for every mob in the game. The issue is that the cave spider’s entity data points to the loot table for the regular spider mob, not the cave spider.

I know in vanilla play that it is not a noticeable issue. But it is still an error and affects addon pack creators (such as myself). I created an addon that specifically tweaks the cave spider loot table, but doing so has no effect since no mob is actually linked to the existing cave spider loot table.

I see what you mean and have confirmed the issue.
You can make your addon working by including a cave_spider.json behavior file that points to the cave_spider.json loot table, or any loot table you like. The component you need to change is

"minecraft:loot": {
"table": "loot_tables/entities/spider.json"
},

Thanks for the suggestion. I have implemented this workaround and it works🙂 Though I do hope the vanilla behaviour file gets officially corrected in a future update so that creators won’t need to include our own fixed versions. Thanks for your quick and useful response!

Thanks for the suggestion. I have implemented this workaround and it works🙂 Though I do hope the vanilla behaviour file gets officially corrected in a future update so that creators won’t need to include our own fixed versions. Thanks for your quick and useful response!