Minecraft! (single player dwarf fortress)

Release 1.17, or Caves and Cliffs Part 1, is out today. Looks like mainly it includes goats and axolotls, though they may have a rather dramatic effect on the world.

Caves & Cliffs part 2 isn’t even out yet, but Mojang announced the next update.

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/minecraft-live-2021-the-recap

The great outdoors still called to us, which is why 2022 will bring you The Wild Update!

Cory Scheviak, Agnes Larsson and Brandon Pearce from the Vanilla team showed us some of the beautiful concept art, and as you can see the The Wild Update will bring new gameplay, more depth, and lots of fun stuff to the game. Like mud and mangrove swamps . MORE SWAMPS! My natural habitat is slowly taking over the Overworld. Along with different types of frogs and tadpoles , we’re also getting boats with chests ! This is something that a lot of people have been requesting for a long time, and we understand why. Is there anything better than an aquatic picnic? Or maybe you just want to bring your dirt blocks with you when you take to the lake. I know I do.

We also learned that the Deep Dark and warden will be included in The Wild Update , which means we need to wait until 2022 to jump out of our real and player skins in fear. On one hand, yes. Waiting is boring and delays are never fun. Trust me, if my cat’s food bowl is empty for one second too long, I can kiss all my leggings goodbye. But on the other hand, this delay happened because the Deep Dark is not only very deep and very, very dark – but it is also really big. And we want to make it as big, dark, deep, and absolutely terrifying as possible. So while we wait, let’s all grab a needle and thread, and get to work at fixing my poor leggings, because this reasoning did not translate when I was explaining the empty bowl to Lilla Blå.

Also, this news:

Launching exclusively with Game Pass for PC on November 2 2021, the Minecraft PC Bundle brings Minecraft: Java Edition and Minecraft: Bedrock Edition for Windows together in the same launcher . Having both editions means that you can cross-play to your heart’s content, even with consoles and mobile! Your days of picking and choosing are over, except when it comes to snacks. Now all you have to do is launch the same edition as the Minecrafter you want to play with, and start working on your sweet, sweet gravel block builds!

Factorio.

@HRose How is GregTech New Horizons going for you?

I’m in Steam Power, kind of blocked until I find more diamonds for my first macerator. The search/grind for ore is kind of a slog, but it’s something I can do while I listen to calls.

I’ve done absolutely nothing, playing-wise, beside “researching” stuff. My MultiMC folder is 30Gb of Minecraft.

I’m following the crazier stuff. There’s a pack that has support planned for theoretical physics and one of the last “recipes” is a Supracausal Mainframe (it takes 6.500 hours to craft, after it was nerfed down from 15.000), that right now is only used as a meme. But one of the devs is at CERN and knows his physics.

This pack is called Supersymmetry and is for 1.12.2. It contains GregTech CE and Gregicality. Gregicality is where things go nuts (plus NuclearCraft Overhaul + QMD). There are a few relatively playable packs with Gregicality, but at the moment they are developing a new version of GregTech that redoes everything and is known at GTCEu… and it should come out early next year. So a lot of the packs develop slowly because they will move to this mod once it’s out.

GTCEu changelog: GregTech/CHANGELOG-GTCEU.md at master · Gregicality/GregTech · GitHub

This can be seen to have an idea of the stuff actually implemented in Gregicality, by the CERN guy: Suggestions for the next tier of circuits · Issue #182 · Gregicality/gregicality · GitHub

Supersymmetry alpha can be found here: GitHub - Zalgo239/Supersymmetry (you have to delve into Discord to find out the craziest)

These guys also suggest to avoid GTNH and play “Impact” instead.
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/impact-gt-edition

But I don’t think it has the same excellent support with quests. It’s probably considered good by those who already know GTNH pretty well.

For the most part I read about stuff and watch someone else play on Twitch and Youtube… And find out about new games in the “genre”. They are legion. Yesterday I spent 6 hours playing Mindustry. A Java free game that plays similar to Creeper World. It’s pretty good (both this one and Songs of Syx, both Java, and both consume almost zero CPU, they seem made of magic. I’ve tried shapez.io, the Steam version, that I think has a vulkan render and it lagged with just an handful of belts).

Mindustry is an excellent game deserving of it’s own thread.

Why lookie here! Mindustry - Tower Defense meets Factorio ? - Games - Quarter To Three Forums

I’m getting lost among the Greg references…

GregTech (GT) is a thing.
GregTech Community Edition (GTCE) is a better thing.
GregTech Community Edition Unofficial (GTCEu) is a better thing yet.
Gregicality is some sort of “addon” to GT, but only really shows up in packs not listed above.

My confusion is where GregTech NH fits into the above. If I was going to try this out, I’d want to make sure I’m using the “right” one (I’m discounting Supersymmetry and Impact for now as my draw to these is the quests being present more-so than 6500 hour craft time items).

EDIT: Answering my own question, but please confirm - GTNH is what is actually providing the quest system and “story” elements on top of GregTech as far as I can tell (ie., it is GT plus a ton of other mods). So GTCEu/Supersymmetry/Impact are all more modern(?) versions of GT, but all would be lacking the quest stuff that GTNH provides.

EDIT 2: This is a stupid rabbit hole to go down. I now know of Omnifactory, FTB Interactions, and Gregicality Skyblock (and learned that Gregicality does have a questbook, just not fully complete yet).

There are at least 10 versions of GT. All with their own quirks and reasons.

Just the other day a new pack came out, 1.7.10, with tons of quests. I look at the mods it contains, and it has a version of GT I’ve never seen before, a port of GT4 to 1.7.10:
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/the-lost-era-modpack

I’m planning to gather all infos on a blog post or something, but the incomplete summary is:

  • The last, up to date, version of GT is 6. For 1.7.10. The one currently developed by Greg and so expansive that it’s almost a total conversion. This is rarely found in modpacks. It’s still ongoing but it hasn’t been in heavy development for a while. There were rumors that Greg was planning to make a brand new game separate from Minecraft, based on GT.
  • It often happens that big mods change significantly between version. Not always the most up to date is the best, or most complete. A famous example is another of the biggest and best mods in Minecraft: Thaumcraft. The most recent version is 6, but development stalled and it’s not the most complete. Many players prefer 4 (the one used in GTNH) or 5. Or even earlier versions.
  • For similar reasons, the more popular version of GregTech is 5. Also for 1.7.10. But while Greg has abandoned 5 to work on the 6th, the community is carrying the torch. This leads to the very popular GTNH, and a significant expansion of GT5.
  • GT6 is also being expanded, with a “GT6 Unofficial”. It’s GT6 plus some other stuff. But it doesn’t seem to have lots of activity. I’ve seen Greg complaining that stuff into the pack could have worked better as an add on, rather than a different mod. And he’s also thinking of including some of the stuff right into GT6.
  • As I was saying before, lots of work is instead going into a port of GT5 to 1.12.2, leading first to GTCE, expanded through Gregicality, and now to GTCE-Unofficial, that is done by the Gregicality guys. 1.12.2 itself was generally considered an incomplete work in progress otherwise, so the big two GTs were 5u and 6 only.
  • There are a few attempts to port GT to 1.16.5. One is Tech Reborn, but it’s only a mod loosely inspired by GT. There’s another mod that is porting GT3 or 4. Some people simply like earlier versions of GT better, even under 5. I suppose both 5 & 6 are way too big and complex to be updated to new versions of Minecraft, so if you want those you are stuck with 1.7.10.

In general:

  • Minecraft 1.7.10 has 5-Unoffical, found in GTNH pack, and GT6. There’s only an handful of packs that have GT6, and a light one can be found here:
    Bears Den
    (I’ve used this one to add a huge amount of mods, including all Reika’s mods)
  • Minecraft 1.12.2 has GTCE, Gegicality is an add-on to GTCE. Those who work on Gregicality are now doing a total rewrite of GTCE, called GTCE Unofficial. Until then, this is a good pack based on GTCE + Gregicality (you mention the skyblock, which is fine if you want the skyblock gameplay):
    https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/technologicaljourney

P.S.
GregTech was originally an addon to a larger mod called IndustrialCraft 2. It started in the IC2 forums and the mod depended on it. GTNH still uses the integration between IC2 and GT5. With time GT grew more and more ambitious. Only with GT6 the mod became standalone.

To answer your questions:
GT is a mod, not a modpack. People usually download and play modpacks, because configuring and setting up mods together is very complex. Modpacks modify recipes to blend mods together, provide some meaningful progression, and usually add quests to better guide this progress.
GTNH is a large modpack, where GT is only one component. It includes for example magic stuff like Thaumcraft, but all generally integrated into a sort of linear progression. It does a pretty excellent job to guide the player through the quests.

GTCE stuff is relevant because it moves to Minecraft 1.12.2. Packs like Supersymmetry already have quests. But they are not complete (not complete = there’s still a few hundreds hours of content). Lots of packs have quests, it depends how many, and how much handholding.

I still haven’t played a lot, myself. I think GTNH is good as a guide, but it’s also a grindy pack that demands a lot. Omnifactory should have a very good quest book BUT. This is GTCE (no Gregicality), on 1.12.2. Omnifactory focuses on later stages, and loads you with resources at the start (you spawn with diamond tools, just to give an idea). So it skips most of the survival/exploratory nature of Minecraft. It basically boosts you to an advanced state. FTB Interactions is an excellent pack but also on 1.12.2, and also very different. It get praised because it blends mods together (as the name says), but it also warps them and creates a much different experience from the slow burn Minecraft progression.

Beside FTB Interactions & Omnifactory, as tutorials (but without GregTech) there are FTB Academy and FTB University. Both great packs that tech you stuff through excellent quest guidance (but seek the 1.12 versions, avoid 1.16).

There are lots of great packs that do not have GregTech. Sevtech Ages, Enigmatica 2 Expert. Yesterday I also found this:
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/tnp-limitless-3
It seems to have a great quest book, almost 2000 quests divided by mods. It’s on 1.16.5.

Divine Journey 2 also is a huge progress and quest based mod.
Less quests, but huge tech modpack is Multiblock Madness (one of the few, along with Supersymmetry, to include complex advanced stuff like NuclearCraft Overhaul and QMD).

Crucial 2 should have excellent documentation, for a lightweight pack based on 1.16.5, but not progress based.

MC Eternal is a giant pack, with quests, on 1.12.2 frequently mentioned.
Same for “Dungeons, Dragons and Space Shuttles” and Age of Fate, almost 2000 quests in each, but more focused on “adventure”, rather than tech.

…There are tons more. Greedycraft. MC Odyssey, Ragnamod V, packs based on TerraFirmaCraft…

As someone who has hand-installed Neovalen’s/Lexi’s skyrim pack along with all the script merging and nonsense that went with it back in the pre-wabbajack days… this is a whole other level of insanity.

And just like Skyrim… this is going to be something I muck around with for hours on end out of sheer curiosity and never actually play. I’m definitely leaning towards the quest-heavier ones (need my hand-holding), but other than ‘make it about automation’ I’m not sure my criteria. And there are way more that meet that than I would have ever imagined.

So, um… thanks - I think.

Imo, for progress/automation:

GTNH (1.7.10, GT), Divine Journey 2 (1.12.2, no GT), Sevtech Ages (1.12.2, no GT, its own thing), Enigmatica 2 Expert (1.12.2, no GT).

On the side you can try the newer stuff on 1.16.5, like Crucial 2, the Create pack linked above, or the TNP Limitless.

An important knowledge is the difference between expert and kitchen sink packs. “Expert” packs are those that change recipes to be “harder” (and grindier). It means for example that to make a simple chest you need some iron rather than just wood. By making the recipes harder the pack can force more automation and more complex chains, to make you work harder toward some goals. On the other hand this can be criticized because it can feel like an artificial extension, making you simply need lots of resources if not well designed.

“Kitchen sink” packs instead have a collection of mods, sometime still guided by quests, but where you decide what to do and when. Progress based packs “stage” your progression. So for example you need to get something from one mod, gating you the progress in a different one. Instead in kitchen sink packs you more or less create your non-linear progression. But it also means that without a planned progression you can stumble on something extremely powerful, and break the progression that makes some mods fun.

Okay, last question and I’ll stop hogging the thread:
How important is the base version of minecraft? You mention 1.7/1.12/1.16 - does that make something built on 1.16 “better” than something on 1.7, or is that rather immaterial to choosing based on modpacks desired?

Oh, I don’t really know.

Some people really dislike Minecraft past 1.12 so it’s also a choice to stay in earlier versions, but I don’t really know what exactly are the motivations and what’s different between these versions. Mods that grew complex and mature like GT6 ended up staying on 1.7.10 because it became a standard, and they’d require a radical rewrite. Same for the “best” version of Thaumcraft (there was a project to update Thaumcraft to 1.16, but it’s in limbo, and Thaumcraft is one of those mods without source code, they are known as “ARR”, standing for All Rights Reserved).

Basically every Minecraft version radically breaks mods, it’s not easy to update. So most of the classics stay on 1.7.10, and those that got updated are at 1.12.

1.16 is more like a fresh start. There are new modern mods that didn’t exist for previous versions, as well many mods that won’t be updated. Whereas most mods in 1.12 already exist in 1.7, they are just slightly different.

Now things are even more confused because up to this point all mods were based on “Forge”, the API that makes mods possible. Now there’s Forge and Fabric. And of course they aren’t compatible.

For example 1.16 has important mods that hugely improve performance, on Fabric: Sodium/Phosphor/Lithium.

So someone tried to port them on Forge, and we have: Magnesium/Sulfuric/RoadRunner (and Helium).

It’s a bit unclear the path things will take…

Clear as mud, but thanks for the info. Down the rabbit hole we go!

Complete Minecraft noob here. It appeared on Gamepass PC so I decided to try it, pretty addicting for sure. I’ve done some investigation as resource packs vs data packs vs mods get very confusing at first. I think I understand the difference between Java and Bedrock editions too. Should I just enjoy the base game and not concern myself with that other stuff or is it better to add some things in right at the beginning? I see things like Biomes O’Plenty and wonder if things like that I should get right away. I am mostly interested in survival/exploration type of gameplay. Is Forge still the way to mod the game even om Gamepass PC?

I couldn’t get Forge to work in the Gamepass launcher. Is it supposed to?

Hopefully someone here knows that answer.

I would, the base game has a certain charm to it, and I think it would be good to get a hang on the fundamentals of the game before you go down the rabbit hole. MC mods can be very drastic, so I think there is some value to enjoying the base game.

Hanacker you need the java version in order to play modded. I believe the Gamepass version is the Win10 executable

Didn’t they just add a new launcher for that to choose the version you want to play?

Just going from hazy recollection since I don’t have Gamepass.