T
ToeiRei
Guest
Hi guys,
First of all: Why an own modpack? - "Because I can" might fit in here as an answer, but everybody got it's own opinions here. In my case it's trying to find something that feels like 1.7.10/Infinity evolved, plus a few mods I discovered during my search for a proper (official) modpack to dabble around with. Disregarding motivations and 'whys', let's have a look at creating a pack. For the sake of simplicity, I broke it down to 7 phases:
Phase 1: Planning
Planning will save you a lot of problems as you have a rough idea of where to go. Taking me as an example here by analyzing my gameplay. Reasons given here were my own opinion - so please don't judge.
Phase 2: Slapping it together
Now as we have a rough list of mods we would like to use, I smacked them together using the shiny and new (*chuckles*) Twitch loader, which pulls in some dependencies. That way I ended up with a list of mods the pack consists of. No matter what you do, it's too many - in my case I was sitting there with 200 mods and more.
Phase 3: Debugging phase
Now the interesting phase is the first launch. Your best friend is the debug console and plenty of ram. 'plenty' is about 8 GB and (much) more for the client to run. Make sure to throw a lot at it. But don't be too excited yet: things will most likely crash and go up in flames. Now it's time to debug.
Most crashes are caused by incompatible mods or settings. One popular crash reason is the MFR milk bucket replacement which causes havoc. Ironing those startup errors out will give you at least something playable.
Phase 4: Looking for memory savings
As of Minecraft 1.10 memory usage exploded - so it's good to look at the mods and sub-mods (sometimes mods are a huge collection where you can disable parts of them). Rethinking your requirements might also help...
Phase 5: Balance the modpack
Now you have something you could play. Now watch the gameplay. It's not fun if you get things way too easy. In my case I modified chickens that you need 8x dye for 1 egg instead of 1. But that's just one of the tweaks. In other hands, that's where you'll be sitting in minecraft a lot playing, seeing if things work.
A good hint is some kind of bug tracking: write down the stuff you like to fix and do it in a while. Tools like git are a great help for versioning the configuration so you can revert in case you broke something
Phase 6: Server install
Playing all alone is no fun. That's where you may want to start your server. "Get the forge binary and grab your configs along with the mods from your client directory and smack them together.", you might say - which is only half way true.
There are some mods which are client-only. Be sure to exclude them on your server. Popular ones would be sound filters or some graphical overhaul. Also here: Your best friend is the console and the crash log.
Phase 7: Get out testing
Once you have the server ready, invite your friends to start testing. Be assured, they will find things you overlooked and/or confront you with their opinions about mods. Now it's up to you to listen to them and talk things out about new mod additions or changes. Balance the modpack again with your friends input.
Last words:
Keep in mind, that's now mostly 'rinse and repeat' stuff here: Mod additions or deletions always force you to re-evaluate things. Consider testing them locally before pushing updates to the server. If you plan to make the modpack public, be sure to check the licensing for every modpack.
Feel free to giving feedback on improving this howto.
First of all: Why an own modpack? - "Because I can" might fit in here as an answer, but everybody got it's own opinions here. In my case it's trying to find something that feels like 1.7.10/Infinity evolved, plus a few mods I discovered during my search for a proper (official) modpack to dabble around with. Disregarding motivations and 'whys', let's have a look at creating a pack. For the sake of simplicity, I broke it down to 7 phases:
Phase 1: Planning
Planning will save you a lot of problems as you have a rough idea of where to go. Taking me as an example here by analyzing my gameplay. Reasons given here were my own opinion - so please don't judge.
I mostly use (hard dependencies):
- AE2
- Thermal Expansion
- EnderIO
- Botania
- MineFactory Reloaded
- Decocraft
- Pam's
- Tinkers' (+ tool leveling)
- Simply Jetpacks
- OpenGliders
- OpenComputers
- Chickens / Hatchery - it's more rewarding than plain farming or bees
- Roots - Staffs are fun
- Spice of Life - food search was quite grinding for me
- Refined Storage - No crafting buffers (recipes directly pulled from inventory)
Phase 2: Slapping it together
Now as we have a rough list of mods we would like to use, I smacked them together using the shiny and new (*chuckles*) Twitch loader, which pulls in some dependencies. That way I ended up with a list of mods the pack consists of. No matter what you do, it's too many - in my case I was sitting there with 200 mods and more.
Phase 3: Debugging phase
Now the interesting phase is the first launch. Your best friend is the debug console and plenty of ram. 'plenty' is about 8 GB and (much) more for the client to run. Make sure to throw a lot at it. But don't be too excited yet: things will most likely crash and go up in flames. Now it's time to debug.
Most crashes are caused by incompatible mods or settings. One popular crash reason is the MFR milk bucket replacement which causes havoc. Ironing those startup errors out will give you at least something playable.
Phase 4: Looking for memory savings
As of Minecraft 1.10 memory usage exploded - so it's good to look at the mods and sub-mods (sometimes mods are a huge collection where you can disable parts of them). Rethinking your requirements might also help...
Phase 5: Balance the modpack
Now you have something you could play. Now watch the gameplay. It's not fun if you get things way too easy. In my case I modified chickens that you need 8x dye for 1 egg instead of 1. But that's just one of the tweaks. In other hands, that's where you'll be sitting in minecraft a lot playing, seeing if things work.
A good hint is some kind of bug tracking: write down the stuff you like to fix and do it in a while. Tools like git are a great help for versioning the configuration so you can revert in case you broke something
Phase 6: Server install
Playing all alone is no fun. That's where you may want to start your server. "Get the forge binary and grab your configs along with the mods from your client directory and smack them together.", you might say - which is only half way true.
There are some mods which are client-only. Be sure to exclude them on your server. Popular ones would be sound filters or some graphical overhaul. Also here: Your best friend is the console and the crash log.
Phase 7: Get out testing
Once you have the server ready, invite your friends to start testing. Be assured, they will find things you overlooked and/or confront you with their opinions about mods. Now it's up to you to listen to them and talk things out about new mod additions or changes. Balance the modpack again with your friends input.
Last words:
Keep in mind, that's now mostly 'rinse and repeat' stuff here: Mod additions or deletions always force you to re-evaluate things. Consider testing them locally before pushing updates to the server. If you plan to make the modpack public, be sure to check the licensing for every modpack.
Feel free to giving feedback on improving this howto.
Last edited:
