Mekanism

I can only speak for the 1.20 and 1.21 versions of Mekanism, but I can say with certainty that this mod is awesome! Has a ton of machines that allow for all kinds of automation and ore processing. Gregtech tends to be a little more in-depth, but I think Mekanism hits the casual base perfectly and the mod is approachable with guides! Being able to process ores and multiply the outputs using automation and piping is incredible! Getting into this mod is a treat and I enjoy playing with it! There are times where I get tired of it, but I think that is more related to the "Mekanism: Generators" addon that adds complex reactors!

All in all, it's a fair mod to play with and while I don't think it's necessary, I'm happy to see it when I do!

From a design and workflow standpoint, is very straightforward in how the base mod flows. Setting up ore doubling is not hard, but in my experience it's generally something that takes maybe 1-2 hours in most modern packs.

And while most other mods work with the other machines in mekanism. The ore doubling is where that compatibility ends. The mod doesn't auto generate compatibility for the ore stuff, meaning you usually need an addon or use KubeJS to make everything fit. Makes doubling in some packs logistically harder than others as well.

If you've ever played modded once, you'll just know about this mod. It's literally the one plug of almost any modpack that wants a very little bit of tech to it, without much effort of integrating. With that being said though, it doesn't mean that this mod is bad at all, it's really good, but it sure does gets bland after a while too many times seeing it in kitchen sinks...

Do note that this review by all means, applies to the entire mekanism module, it is not a sole review of just plain mekanism and nothing else, this is simply due to the fact that mekanism without those, does feel a bit lackluster... those modules will get their specific reviews, and this one here will be the general experience review of mekanism

So what's the deal?

The Good

1. It's pretty straightforward in it's progression, mine iron, osmium, redstone, and some other thingies, make machine, make that. And you'll get a way of way of increasing your efficiency at first, like instead of crafting logs, you can sawmill it and get more planks and sawdusts, very convenient. The longer you play, you get more choices and machines, you get pipes, you get generators, you get tanks to hold chemicals and so on and so on. You go from making more efficient methods of processing your items, to automation, to basically a whole working factory for your whole needs, very convenient, atleast until the nuclear spam... yeah

2. It actually integrates very well with a lot of mods, making it pretty compatible with anything, by default it does energy conversion (RF, FE, AE, etc), it automatically sees into the item tags to make it compatible for processing... say, woods from Twilight Forest, Regions Unexplored, etc etc. And if it isn't, you got tons of community addons already because the mod...

3. The mod is mature, it's no longer in big development hell where the devs simply doesn't know what to do, it's tested and thrown into many packs that doesn't sound fitting (RLCraft, etc) and it still kinda works in respect to the pack's progression.

4. It's intuitive... yeah, technically an overlap with point 1 and 3, but pretty much that's exactly what the mod should be, Mekanism just makes sense to be used. It has logistics, energy generation, storage, and the machines itself, which made it pretty much a really intuitive "path of least resistance" way before you experience more of teching your gregs

Now, what's actually wrong with the Mekanism experience?

The Bad

1. Believe it or not, when a mod adds more types of ores than your usual ingots, etc, the amount of bloat just skyrockets... i've never seen someone really enjoyed pure Mekanism, or just any other tech mods that added more types of ores, unless they themselves got a backpack mod or bundles or something. Regardless this is a very common issue that came from design decisions, so, yeah

2. Performance can sometimes drop, i don't need to explain this as i feel like a lot of you would already know of how heavy tech mods usually are, but is it really our fault of making 9000 wind generators cause we don't wanna risk a Nuclear fallout that just nukes your frames faster than anything else

I feel like that's all i can say, uh, Mekanism is honestly good, the bloat did distill fear on people that's gonna play the mod, and there's certainly balancing issues, but Mekanism is still very cool! very very solid mod... would recommend this over Create for new players, especially for those who wanna start on experiencing older Minecraft modpacks, good mod~

First off, Mekanism is mature and well made, the textures are very good compared to similar mods such as GregTech and Immersive Engineering and systems feel refined and modern. Unlike many tech mods of a similar age or older, Mekanism still feels like it fits in with the modern game, albeit not in a vanilla-plus way, textures don't clash and mechanics feel polished like players have come to expect from modern mods.

My only complaints are mostly shared by other reviewers here in that sometimes the sheer amount of materials can make logistics frustrating or cause performance issues. Server owners should be careful about the destruction potential of nuclear reactors as well, as radioactive fallout can be incredibly detrimental especially in multiplayer.

Unforunately, the scale of the mod means it often doesn't play well alongside other tech mods for balance reasons without being highly tweaked, however I would still recommend anyone who likes tech mods to check it out in a proper pack or standalone.

Not the best, in my opinion. Ive played it with a group of friends and I got bored reeeally fast. Magic box tech is not my thing and I cant enjoy it as much as I do Create or Ars Noveau or Thrmal Series.

My biggest problem with this mod is the amount of different gases and/or fluids needed to create one thing. That is just overwhelms me reeally fast.

I would recommend this mod , but that`s just not my cup of tea.

I don't have many hours in other tech mods so take this with a grain of salt, but every time I play a modpack with tech, I've found myself gravitating towards Mekanism. I really enjoy its aesthetics, intuitiveness, and the progression. It's super simple to get into, but also challenges you in plenty of ways. It all feels very seamless and polished with plenty of risk and reward. Making a fission and fusion reactors was super challenging for me but lots of fun!