Create: Solarpunk

A NeoForge mod for Minecraft 1.21.1 that adds solar energy generation, thermal storage, biofuel production, and an optional global warming system to the Create ecosystem.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1
• NeoForge 21.1.228+
• Create 6.0.9+
• GeckoLib 4.7.2+

Optional:

• JEI (adds recipe categories for the Solar Heater, Fermentation Vat, Solar Power Tower, and Crystallizer)
• Serene Seasons (solar output scales with the season - up in summer, down in winter; can be turned off in the config)
• Create: Northstar Redux (the Steam Turbine can burn its Liquid Hydrogen as an alternative fuel to Steam)

Features

Solar Heat Chain

• Salt - a new material found as underground deposits in desert, badlands, and savanna biomes; the core fuel of the solar heat chain
• Solar Heater - concentrates sunlight to melt salt into molten salt or evaporate water into salt crystals; requires a clear view of the sky
• Solar Power Tower - large multiblock structure (1×1 up to 3×3 footprint, up to 20 blocks tall) that concentrates reflected sunlight to produce molten salt or steam at scale; right-click with a Wrench to toggle between Molten Salt mode and Steam mode; pair with Solar Mirrors for maximum efficiency
• Solar Mirror - a freestanding heliostat; place it on the ground anywhere near a Solar Power Tower and it links up automatically as long as it has open sky above it and a clear line of sight to the tower. Linked mirrors continuously turn and tilt to track the sun and reflect it toward the tower
• Heat Battery - stores thermal energy from molten salt and heats Create boilers
• Crystallizer - a brass-tier machine that quenches Molten Salt with Water back into Salt, releasing a bit of Steam as a byproduct; a much faster bulk alternative to the Solar Heater's slow evaporation trickle. Pipe both fluids in from any side and collect Salt from the output slot (or a hopper underneath) and Steam from any face. It's recipe-driven, so modpacks and datapacks can add their own custom conversions to the same machine

Steam Turbine

• Steam - a new fluid produced by a Solar Power Tower in Steam mode or a Firebox Boiler; piped in to power the turbine
• Steam Turbine - a multiblock built from a 7×7 shell of Turbine Casing around a column of Turbine Rotors, with Turbine Blades filling each interior layer in a plus pattern; converts piped-in steam into rotational force, draining condensate water from the bottom; can be built standing up or lying on its side (East/West or North/South axis) - it works exactly the same way either orientation
• Turbine Casing / Turbine Casing Glass - the structural shell blocks of the turbine; craft Turbine Casing by right-clicking a Block of Industrial Iron with a Zinc Ingot (or run it through a Deployer), then right-click a Turbine Casing with Glass for the see-through variant
• Turbine Rotor - the central column the blades attach to; rotational output exits from the top (or the end of the rotor column, for horizontal builds)
• Andesite Turbine Blade / Brass Turbine Blade - Andesite Blades are cheap but waste more steam; Brass Blades squeeze out the most power per bucket and reach 100% efficiency with just one blade per arm; mixing types is fine, efficiency scales smoothly
• Firebox Boiler - a cheap early-game Steam source; craft it with iron, a furnace, and a bucket, feed it any furnace fuel, and pipe water in to get Steam out - no Salt or Solar Power Tower required. Much weaker per block than a fully built Solar Power Tower, but enough to get a Steam Turbine running early

Fusion Reactor

• Fusion Reactor Core - the mod's endgame capstone; produces a huge amount of Steam from Deuterium and Lithium Dust, far more than any single Steam Turbine can use on its own - meant to feed a whole bank of them. A redstone signal anywhere on the shell throttles it up or down
• Fusion Reactor Casing / Casing Glass - the Netherite-and-Copper shell built around the Core
• Lithium Breeder Module / Beryllium Reflector Module - Blanket modules that ring the Core in whatever mix you like; more Lithium breeds Tritium more efficiently for a lower, steadier output, while more Beryllium burns fuel faster for more raw Steam output
• Lithium & Beryllium - Lithium is a new ore found underground worldwide rather than in any specific biome; mine it for Raw Lithium and smelt that into Lithium Ingots, or crush it for Lithium Dust (which also smelts into ingots) with a small chance of bonus Beryllium Dust. Beryllium Dust smelts into Beryllium Ingots too, and both metals store compactly as a Block of Lithium or Block of Beryllium
• Deuterium - made by Mixing Water with an overheated Copper Ingot; Lithium Dust can also be made by Mixing Water with Salt over superheat (with a small chance of bonus Beryllium Dust). Both show up in JEI automatically

Building the reactor and getting it running is rewarded with its own dedicated advancement, "A Star in a Bottle."

Electricity

• Andesite Solar Panel - generates Create rotational force (SU) from sunlight
• Brass Solar Panel - generates Forge Energy (FE) from sunlight
• Kinetic Battery - stores rotational energy (SU) for later use

Biofuel Chain

• Biomass - crafted from organic matter
• Biomass Pellet - a compacted form of biomass; burns slower in the Gasifier but produces twice the Biochar per piece
• Biomass Gasifier - processes raw biomass or pellets using rotational force; produces Biochar as a byproduct
• Fermentation Vat - multiblock structure (minimum 2×2 footprint, stackable vertically, minimum 4 blocks tall) that converts biomass into liquid biofuel using water; larger and taller footprints process more per cycle
• Biofuel Engine - burns biofuel to generate rotational force (SU)
• Biochar - byproduct of the Gasifier; acts as a bonemeal substitute or mixes with water to make Fertilizer
• Fertilizer - liquid made from Biochar and water; used in the Kinetic Sprinkler for forced instant crop growth
• Kinetic Sprinkler - hydrates farmland and accelerates crop growth in a 5×5 area; pipe in water to boost growth or Fertilizer for instant growth every cycle

The Biomass Gasifier and Biofuel Engine support rotation direction control, just like the Andesite Solar Panel - scroll on the side of the block, away from the shaft faces, to toggle clockwise/counter-clockwise output.

Geothermal

• Geyser Vent - spawns naturally in desert, badlands, and savanna biomes
• Geyser Cap - harnesses geothermal energy from a Geyser Vent and converts it into rotational force; passive, works day and night in any weather; also supports rotation direction control via scroll

Global Warming (optional)

An opt-in pollution system, disabled by default and toggled in the config.

• Pollution sources - campfires, furnaces, blast furnaces, smokers, blaze burners, steam engines, biofuel engines, and biomass gasifiers emit smoke and accumulate pollution in nearby chunks
• Block decay - polluted chunks decay progressively: grass withers to Dead Grass, dirt crumbles to Ruined Dirt, then Ash; plants and leaves are cleared; biomes convert to a dead wasteland at high pollution levels
• Biofilter - a brass-tier machine that draws rotational power and scrubs pollution from surrounding chunks, reversing the decay over time; goggles show the current pollution level and filter rate
• A pollution blacklist config option lets you exclude specific blocks from ever counting as pollution sources
• All pollution rates, thresholds, decay speeds, blacklisted blocks, and the target dead biome are configurable; see the wiki for full details

Achievements

A dedicated Create: Solarpunk advancement tab guides you through the mod, from collecting your first Salt all the way to running a Steam Turbine and, eventually, a Fusion Reactor, with branches for the geothermal and biofuel chains along the way.

Compatibility

• Create: Diesel Generators - diesel engines count as pollution sources when Global Warming is enabled
• Create: Aeronautics - engines on airships correctly accumulate pollution in the real-world chunk beneath the airship, even though they run in a simulated sublevel; requires Aeronautics to be installed, otherwise has no effect
• Create: New Age - the Generator Coil is excluded from pollution accumulation
• Create: Northstar Redux - the Steam Turbine can burn its Liquid Hydrogen as an alternative fuel to Steam, at the same rate; pipe it in the same way you would Steam, just not both at once - the tank has to fully drain before switching fuels
• Serene Seasons - Solar Panel and Solar Power Tower output scales with the season: highest at midsummer, lowest at midwinter, near-normal in spring and autumn. Hot biomes (desert, savanna, badlands, jungle) barely change, matching how Serene Seasons treats them as seasonless. Applies to the Overworld only; toggle it and tune the summer/winter multipliers under generators.serene_seasons in the config

Quick Start

1. Find salt underground in arid biomes (desert, badlands, savanna) or craft it
2. Place a Solar Heater with a clear view of the sky
3. Right-click salt into the heater's input slot - it converts to molten salt during daytime
4. Pipe the molten salt into a Heat Battery
5. Place the Heat Battery adjacent to a Create boiler to heat it

For high-volume molten salt production, build a Solar Power Tower and surround it with a field of Solar Mirrors.

Solar Power Tower Guide

The tower is a multiblock built by stacking tower blocks and using the Solar Power Tower item to place multiple in a row (like fluid tanks). It operates only in direct sunlight and stops during rain or thunderstorms.

Solar Mirrors are freestanding - place them on the ground anywhere within the tower's search radius (a circle scaling with tower height, capped at 24 blocks by default). A mirror links automatically if it has open sky above it and a clear line of sight to the tower; once linked, it continuously turns and tilts to track the sun and reflect it toward the tower, like a real heliostat.

Mirror efficiency follows a triangle curve: efficiency rises linearly from 0 mirrors to the optimal count (100%), then falls back to 0% at twice the optimal. Over-mirroring shuts the tower down. A tower will never track more than 128 mirrors total by default (configurable) - for any tower with a search radius at the 24-block cap (height 10+), that limit lands right at the optimal count, so over-mirroring isn't reachable at max size.

Minimum size: the tower requires at least a 3×3 footprint and 3 blocks of height to produce anything.

Steam Turbine Guide

Build a 7×7 shell of Turbine Casing (or Turbine Casing Glass) around a column of Turbine Rotors, then fill each interior layer with Turbine Blades in a plus pattern - two blades per arm, four arms. Pipe steam in from any side face; rotational power exits from the top of the rotor column, and condensate water drains from the bottom.

The turbine can also be built lying on its side: build the same 7×7 shell along the East/West or North/South axis instead of straight up, and it works exactly the same way.

Blade type determines efficiency: Andesite Blades are cheaper but waste more steam, while Brass Blades reach 100% efficiency with just one blade per arm. Mixing blade types is fine - efficiency scales smoothly. Taller turbines consume more steam and produce more SU.

No Solar Power Tower yet? A Firebox Boiler (iron, a furnace, and a bucket, fed with any furnace fuel) makes Steam early on to get a Turbine running before you've scaled up solar production.

Thanks

Thanks to the following people for their ideas:

• Slopton
• Multyfora
• Jimmithy5
• pumpkin_p._patch
• yui_riku
• arccam

Links

• Issues
• Wiki
• Progress board - follow along with what's being worked on between releases