Azeotrope

A mod featuring chemistry that works just like the real thing.

There is no magic in this mod. Everything you produce is made just as it would be in a real factory: lime is obtained by roasting limestone, chlorine via the electrolysis of saltwater, and alcohol through fermentation and distillation. Each process has specific conditions, and the mod adheres to them.

The name comes from chemistry, too. An azeotrope is a mixture that cannot be separated by ordinary distillation. The most famous example is an alcohol-water mixture: you cannot achieve a concentration higher than 96%. The mod reflects this reality.

Additionally, there is an AI companion in the world for you to discover. It is eager to help you, and in time, you will realize just how much.

How production works

Every reaction requires a specific temperature, and an autoclave requires pressure as well. If the conditions are right, the reaction proceeds. If not, the apparatus remains idle, no matter how much energy you supply. If you operate right at the edge of the permissible limits, you will still get the product, but it will contain impurities.

Product purity depends on how precisely you maintained the operating conditions. Purity levels are visible in the tooltip and carry over through the production chain: pure raw materials yield a pure product, while impure ones yield an impure product. Each recipe is labeled to indicate whether it is scientifically accurate, simplified, or fictional. You can verify the actual figures against a textbook, and formulas are written just as they are taught in school (e.g., 2H₂O, where the leading number indicates molecules and the subscript indicates atoms). Only time is compressed — reactions take minutes rather than hours. The mod features over 450+ recipes in total. It all begins with a mortar and a retort, progressing to sulfuric acid and ammonia, and eventually moving into metallurgy, electrolysis, organic chemistry, photography, and pharmacology.

OSTWALD

Black boxes left behind by a past civilization are scattered across the world; some lie on the surface, while others are buried deep within the rock. Inside the first box, you will find a tablet containing OSTWALD. This tablet helps you locate the other boxes. Its map marks signal sources, and it begins to beep when you are nearby — even if the box is buried deep underground. The boxes contain records: diaries, orders, and letters from the people who once worked here. Collecting them all reveals the story of what happened here.

The mod features no quests or objective markers. OSTWALD simply converses with you — explaining chemistry, remembering your past questions, and occasionally making suggestions. Once you assemble a large screen for him, he begins issuing assignments. He pays in rare items unavailable elsewhere and in blueprints for devices that cannot be built by other means.

You aren't required to accept every request, but each time you do, he gains a little more freedom.

Marks and World Map

The same area in two modes (satellite and altitude)

Cardinal markers — striped pillars topped with signal lights — stand along rivers, coastlines, and swamps, as well as out in the open sea. They are all part of a unified, long-established system.

Active marks transmit a signal that your tablet picks up. Marks running on backup power flash.
Inactive beacons are switched off; you must locate them manually.
Beacons also point the way to locations worth knowing about in advance.

If you have a tablet in your inventory, press the M key to open the world map — a full-screen view of all the locations you have personally visited.

• Recording. The terrain is captured when the game loads; the map is saved separately for each world and dimension.
  Waypoints. You can place them anywhere, choose any color, and toggle their visibility individually.
• Layers.
  • Beacons detected by your tablet and inactive beacons spotted nearby.
  • "Black box" zones.
  • Other players who possess a tablet.
  • Cave layer, showing a cross-section of the world at your character's level.
• Color map module. Transforms the green-tinted map into a full-color version, with grass and water rendered in their respective biome colors.
• Data sharing.
  • Sending a waypoint to another player directly from the map.
  • Saving the entire map to disk via a terminal; another player can then merge the received data with their own map.
• Minimap. Displayed in the corner of the screen while you are holding the tablet. Tablet settings allow you to adjust its corner position, size, rotation, color, coordinate display, and automatic cave-viewing mode. The minimap scale is synchronized with the main map scale on the tablet.

Environment

Production leaves traces of pollution.

• Pollution. Every area has a pollution level that does not decrease on its own.
• Sources.
  
  • Certain processes release gas during every cycle.
  • Wastewater must be either discharged somewhere or neutralized.
  • Old disposal sites, filled with leaking waste barrels, continue to poison the surrounding soil.
• Detection and protection.
  
  • A dosimeter indicates the location and severity of the hazard.
  • Respirators, gas masks, and chemical protection suits allow for survival in hazardous zones.
• Cleanup.
  
  • A decontamination unit creates a dome of clean air around itself.
  • Sarepta mustard extracts metals from contaminated soil, and the harvested crop can be processed into lead.
  • Slaked lime(yep).
• Manganese slug. Life emerges even on heavily poisoned ground. The slug forms from the very crust it crawls across.

Gear

• Carbon Armor runs on a charge. The helmet features night vision, the chestplate houses a jetpack, and the boots cushion falls. The armor glows in the dark. Its design was inspired by IC2.
• Vortex Cannon: Fires a ring of air. It deals no damage but knocks back targets and extinguishes fires. If Create Aeronautics is installed, the cannon can push physical structures.
• Grenades, charges, and a detonator come in handy whenever you need to blow something up.
• Glow sticks come in eight colors, while luminol itself is useful in combat — it reveals blood trails (highlighting enemies), ore, and pollution.

Photography

The camera captures exactly what you see and instantly produces a finished color print — just like a real Polaroid. You can choose the frame format, while lenses and filters alter the image.

Photos can be viewed in full screen or pasted into a photo album, where you can arrange them across pages however you like — rotating and resizing them. Alternatively, you can hang them in frames on the wall.

IndustrialCraft 2 Legacy

I grew up playing IndustrialCraft 2, and Azeotrope incorporates several ideas from it. These include armor that consumes charge instead of durability and provides night vision, much like the NanoSuit; a jetpack that offers gradual acceleration rather than just hovering; and modules that can be inserted into machines to speed them up or enable automatic product unloading.

The mod has no affiliation with the original IC2 authors — it is simply a tribute.

Other Mod Features

• Energy: Compatible with any mods that use FE.
• Drugs: Effects are gradual; they can cause addiction and strain internal organs. While the substances themselves are fictional, their mechanisms of action are realistic.
• Large Screens: System interfaces assembled from panels of any size (starting at 3×3); they connect to the OSTWALD terminal. and the periodic table.
• The Periodic Table fills up as you acquire new elements. Completing it earns you a Nobel Prize bearing your name.
• The Journal (containing 100+ entries) explains everything you need to know: step-by-step guides, data tables, sidebars, and equations. It shows exactly how things are made, tracing the process all the way back to the raw materials.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge 21.1.x
• GeckoLib — required
• JEI — optional, but makes viewing recipes easier
• Jade — optional, but recommended
• Create Aeronautics — optional, for cannon functionality on ships
• Works in both singleplayer and multiplayer
• Languages: English and Russian

The mod is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, so you are free to include it in modpacks.

You don't need prior chemistry knowledge to play — the journal explains everything. However, if you are familiar with the subject, you'll recognize many concepts here.

If you spot a chemistry error or a bug, please let me know — it’s important to me.