Dadâs Craft - My Core Mods
When I first started playing modded Minecraft, I started using ATLauncher in place of the stock launcher because it gave me the option of setting up multiple instances that I could play around with different things in.
I ended up having to ditch ATLauncher because I couldnât get it to work with LiteLoader, and I had a mod from that platform I desperately wanted to play around with (WorldEditCUI, more on that in a moment). In the end, it was the right decision, but I really missed the ability to manage multiple instances (primarily so I could have an instance that my daughter wouldnât play in).
Ultimately, after trying a few things,I settled on MultiMC and have been extremely happy with it as a launcher. I have another blog article on tap about MultiMC, so lets move on from the launcher portion.
Once I had a Vanilla 1.7.10 instance setup, I started looking at the mods I had installed on the instance we were playing in. All 143 of them. The mass was partially my fault, partially the fault of âDaddy, can you get this mod I saw on The Diamond Minecart todayâŠ?â It was necessary to pare that down some, so my first question was âwhat canât I live without?â
What I came up with was this list of mods that, frankly, I donât think Iâd be interested in playing Minecraft without. They add so much needed functionality, that when I play on my phone or Xbox 360, Iâm lost (both literally and figuratively).Â
For the most part, these change Minecraft game play more than anything. They donât change the âflavorâ, like adding magic or technology might. If, for example, I were to do a Thaumcraft-only instance to play through that mod, all of the mods below would be installed as well. I guess âitâs not Minecraft without âemâ is the best way to say it.
A relatively new addition to this grouping, but it earned its place very quickly. If youâve ever installed a new mod, youâve no doubt seen that sometimes you wonât be able to launch Minecraft after doing so. Sometimes, itâs code, and thereâs nothing you can do about it.Â
Since installing this mod, though, Iâve learned more often than not itâs an ID conflict. When a mod is added, it registers items, potions, biomes, etc with what we hope is a unique ID, but since thereâs not really an infinite amount of IDs, sometimes mod authors will pick the same one. If this happens, this mod will tell you, in plain English, âthis mod attempted to use biome ID XXX, which is already used by mod Y.â If one of those mods allows you to change the ID used, you can do so and now have a working mod.Â
Adding almost 90 beautiful new biomes to Minecraft and a host of new items, this really adds so much nuance to your worlds. All of the new biomes have their own features and tweaks. For example, when you walk into an Ominous Woods biome, the light levels immediately drop. Even at high noon with no weather, itâs still dark and creepy in there. The Vanilla biomes just donât have enough variation, so adding BOP is a necessity.Â
There are mods out there that are similar. BiomesXL was the one I tried first, but when I moved my worlds to a server to play around with that, it wouldnât work at all. This was early on, so most likely something I was doing, but Iâm very happy with BOP, so sticking with it.
Along with Biomes Oâ Plenty, this mod greatly increases the diversity of your world, and forces it to make more sense. For example, in the first world I ever played in, my spawn point was right close to the edge of a snowy mountain area. On the other side of that edge? A desert. On the other side of the biome from there? A rainforest. All three were at approximately the same âYâ, too. RWG will smooth that out some, so that the mountain might transition to a highland, then to a heath, THEN down to a plainsâŠor something like that. The worlds and biome placements within just make more sense with this installed.Â
If weâre to be perfectly honest, my daughters love playing Minecraft, but not necessarily to build. Enter any world theyâve been playing in, and youâll see dozens or hundreds of animals leashed to fence posts everywhere. My eldest once âchallengedâ herself to have 101 dalmatians..not much of a challenge given she was playing in Creative. :)
Their interest in virtual pets aside, I like having a diversity of mobs to go along with the diversity of biomes. Itâs really just a preference, but I just like having this mod in all of my instances.
In the category of âMinecraft physics just donât make senseâ is this mod. In a nutshell, things that emit light will always emit light with this mod installed. So, when youâre holding a torch, it lights the area itâs in, not just when itâs on a wall. Similarly with glowstone. Creepers exploding, lights. Zombies on fire, lights.Â
Aside from making items work the way they do in the real world, it makes cave exploration so much easier. Wander around with a torch in your hand, and no matter where you go youâll always have light. Love this one so much, I even added it to MCPE.
Again going back to the first time I played, what turned me off immediately was the place Iâd found to turn into a home was a long way off from my spawn point. I didnât know at the time that I should build close to spawn, and every time I died, Iâd spent 10-15 minutes just trying to find my way back to the house. I think having an on-screen map is just an absolute necessity, and Iâve tried a few.
Initially, my reason for even looking at Journey Map was the ability to watch my map on a web browser as I played, thus allowing me to always know where I am. That has significant performance impact, so Iâve stopped doing it, but I still stick with this mod for the way points. Find something interesting to check out later? Ctrl-B, name it, move on. Other mods provide this functionality, I just like how easy it is with Journey Map. I also like how I can disable easily way point markers so my screen doesnât become crowded.
Honestly, not the most critical component, but I keep it in my core so I donât forget about it. Eventually, my daughter and I will be doing a show, and when I watch whatâs out there now, it looks less ugly if the names arenât there. Preference only.
Since paring down to a small number of mods, this oneâs only recently started working for me, so I donât have a ton to say about it. My favorite feature: youâre digging, your pick breaks, and it automatically puts a new one in your hand from your inventory. Awesome. Iâve also got ADHD, so the automatic sorting of the inventoryâs a must-have, too.
Ever watched a Minecraft video on YouTube and seen someone search their inventory and a whole slew of items show up on the side? Thatâs NEI. Hover over one of those items, hit âRâ, and itâll tell you the recipe to make it. Hit the â?â on the recipe, and itâll pre-populate the crafting table interface for you. Simplicity in mod form.
Doesnât add much value on its own, it simply adds some additional features depending on other mods you have installed.Â
My current desktop computer is actually older than my 7-year-old. When we first started playing Minecraft, I upgraded the video card, but the machine was a monster when it came out so with the new card it runs Minecraft fairly well. OptiFine is a mod that took it from Fairly Well to VERY DAMN GOOD!Â
On the tin, it says itâll double your FPS without any other tweaks, but I didnât find that to be true. However, it does add a ton more video performance tweaks in the Options menu, with the supremely important benefit of providing an explanation for each one as you hover over them!Â
After tweaking, Iâve gone from about 60 FPS to about 250 on average. Nice!
What Am I Looking At & What Are We Looking At
Again going back to those videos youâve seen on YouTube, most have a little blue box somewhere that shows the name of the block where the cursor currently is. Thatâs Waila. And, again going back to my first game where I found a mob spawner, but it flashed on the screen for half a second so I had no idea what it actually said. With Waila, not an issue. Vanilla can be bad enough, but add in dozens of new items via mods, and youâll find yourself scratching your head a lot without this.Â
Wawla is an add-on to Waila that adds additional information like if a crop is harvestable or how many more hits itâll take before you break a block. It also adds in information specific to a couple of other mods like Thaumcraft.
On the Xbox 360 version, where we first started playing, it will save your game every 30 minutes so you donât lose a lot. The PC version, however, doesnât do that. So, when you have a half-second power outage, the thing youâve spent the last two hours working on is now gone (Iâm not bitter). YABM allows you to configure regular backups of your world/instance while you play. Iâve found it adds very little lag when itâs running, and itâs already saved my butt a few times when I wasnât paying attention.
Remember those âbigâ things you built when you first started playing? Remember how interminably long it took? Remember laying down thousands and thousands of blocks, one by one, just to build a wall? Wouldnât it be nice to just type a command and get that wall built in a second or two?Â
Well, thatâs just a tiny example of the power of WorldEdit. The picture of the dome I built in a previous post..the one with the pig? That dome took as long to make as:
Create a cylinder, one high, 50 blocks in radius. Then, a hollow sphere, 50 blocks in radius. A few more commands and youâve trimmed off the bottom half of the sphere you donât need and youâre done. Of all the mods, this is the one I use the most!
Remember how I mentioned way back in the beginning my need to have LiteLoader? This (and itâs companion mod WorldEditWrapper) is why. WECUI adds a GUI to WorldEdit. The hardest part of using WorldEdit without it is knowing for certain that what youâve selected is what will change. When you select an area after installing WECUI, it puts a wire frame around that area so you can see exactly what will be modified. Itâs magnificent!
The last few in this list are mods that are needed by others. For example, NEI requires you install CodeChickenCore as well. Iâm just adding these to this list for completeness and links.
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