Agricraft for MC 1.16 for Newbies
A Reference for the Rest Of Us!
A Reference for the Rest Of Us!
Well, where do I begin? This was a mod originally inspired by an even older mod, Industrialcraft 2. Not the machines, or the power system, but a little known and niche mechanic that involved crossbreeding plants to create either more productive versions or versions which produced different crops. Unfortunately, being a little known and niche mechanic of a larger mod, it was not really a high priority for the devs, and the implementation was... well, it sucked. Sorry, there's no way to sugarcoat it, the crossbreeding in IC2 was abysmal. This mod, however, sought to take the concept of crossbreeding plants, a concept with real-world applications, and make it into its own mod which is somewhat... better implemented. The result, was Agricraft for 1.7.10.
The mod gained some popularity, and was included in several packs that gained some fame (or in some cases, notoriety), but time and Minecraft versions march on. The mod has gone through several major revisions, a complete overhaul in 1.10 fundamentally changed how the mod works from the ground up, which was continued into 1.12 era. But perhaps the largest change has come recently for Minecraft 1.16, and it is that version which is the focus of this guide. Because just about everything about the mod has changed, and everything you once took for granted has been turned upon its head.
A Seedy Place
The first thing you'll want to do is to make a Seed Analyzer and an Agricultural Journal. These will be key tools going forward, and crucial using the default config settings. You'll also need to get some seeds. So raid your local village, and let's get started!
The first massive change is in the User Interface and becomes immediately apparent as there is no GUI window opening up anymore. Instead, right-clicking on the Analyzer seems to zoom in. This is functioning as intended. Let's go over how to use it.
First, shift+ right click the journal onto the Analyzer. This will let you store data about the seeds in your Journal, including potential crossbreeds between two different plants. The more seeds you analyze, the more information the journal will possess. This also, by default, unlocks the crossbreeding in JEI for known pairings. There's a config option to change this if you don't like this idea.
Shift+ Right Clicking the seed onto the Seed Analyzer with a journal in it will place the seed into the Analyzer. Right clicking now brings up a more useful and immersive user interface. You're presented with a DNA helix and you can use mousewheel to scroll through the various alleles, five in total.
Growth: Still determines how rapidly a crop will grow
Gain: Still determines how much yield a crop has when harvested at maturity
Strength: No longer judges resistance from accursed weeds, but now determines the flexibility it has in growing conditions
Resistance: This is the stat which now determines how resistant the crop is to weeds
Mutativity: This covers how likely you are to get increments and crossbreeds from your crossbreeding.
The config file is much more in depth now, you can set min and max values, hide values, and much more. If you want something that feels closer to previous iterations, set Mutativity and Strength to 10, and hide the stats. However, I wouldn't suggest it, as you lose out on some of the fun that way.
And yes, there are config options to disable weeds if that is your thing, never fear.
Punnett on the Thymes
So, you put two crops one tile apart from each other, on crop sticks, then place a cross-cropsticks between them. What happens next? Well, that's what this section is about: mutation, and genes. Making better crops through technology!
Specifically, whenever this happens with two (or more, but you no longer get better results from more than two) parent crops, you have a chance for mutation, based on the Mutativity score of said crops. This can change one (or more) of the stats, or it can crossbreed into a totally different crop if the combination is valid! However, unlike the previous versions, there's more going on here than meets the eye.
You see, a plant will inherit part from one parent and part from another parent. That's right folks, we've got Dominant and Recessive genes now, so break out your Punnett Squares! Dominant genes will be expressed as the crop's actual stats, but the recessives still exist, and can affect future crossbreeds. For example, if I were to breed a crop with a Gain of 6 to another crop with a gain of 6, and it got a mutation to increase to a gain of 7, it would still have that 6 as a recessive trait. If I duplicated the crop, and crossbred it with itself, I would have (barring further mutations) a 25% chance of losing the recessive, a 7-7 on Gain, a 50% chance of remaining a Gain 7 with a Recessive 6, and a 25% chance of having it revert back to a gain of 6-6.
For purposes of documentation, I'll be writing these in Dominant-Recessive format. So a Gain: 7-6 would be a plant with a Gain of 7 with a recessive trait of only 6.
Therefore, while a plaint with a trait of 10-7 would behave in every way as a 10 in that stat, there's always a chance that 7 recessive will come out during crossbreeding. As such, it may be wise to breed out reduced recessives until you come up with a 10-10 to ensure maximum quality.
There's another thing about this new system: Crops don't lose some or all of their stats when they crossbreed, they inherit the stat traits from their parents. Therefore, if you plan on a substantial crossbreeding program, it would be wise to start off with your 'base' crops maximized at 10-10's across the board before beginning the crossbreeding process.
Also keep in mind that you can have recessive crop traits as well. So you can have, say, a Kelp-Grass crop, which is a Kelp crop, but has a recessive Grass crop that might express itself if it is crossbred.
Optimizing Growth Conditions
You'll note earlier I said that Strength no longer determines how resistant a crops is to weeds, but how flexible it is with regards to growth conditions? Here's where we get into that concept a bit deeper.
Each crop has ideal conditions for it to grow in, and at Strength 1, that's going to be fairly strict. Once you have analyzed a crop, you can see what growth conditions are required in JEI. You'll notice such things as Humidity, Acidity, and Nutrients. But an easier and more practical way is to look at which soil is under the crop. For example, for a Potato, at Strength 1, you need tilled Farmland, as you'd expect. But with a high enough Strength, it can also grow on Podzol. This gives you more options to plant with, and can make a larger greenhouse easier to prepare if you can get the crops you want on the same soil type.
Some aquatic plants do require the cropsticks to be flooded to grow. This water will not carry over to other cropsticks nearby, but WILL spill out into empty adjacent squares if you aren't careful.
One additional difference in this version of Agricraft is that crops may spread to growing conditions to which they are unsuited. For example, if you crossbred two crops on Farmland, but the result would prefer to grow in Sand, then it will still show up on Farmland... it will simply die off in short order if you don't rescue it. For this reason, you can no longer 'force' a mutation by putting specific soils down. This also means you need to take some care when crossbreeding crops, lest you lose your hybrid to poor soil conditions.
In Conclusion
This mod has gone through a number of changes over the years, but has always been a staple for my playstyle. The current iteration is quite different from the previous version, particularly the changes to the user interface of the analyzer and the mechanics of crossbreeding. Therefore, I felt it was time to write a new guide for the new mechanics, as many people seem to be lost.
