'- The balance is alright for an expert pack.

• The progression well thought out without letting you easily tier skip between ages due to locked recipes.
• The performance is not very good, but for a hefty mod pack like this this is to be expected.
• The aesthetic is not bad, having a pretty... let's just say rustic, older minecraft modpack vibe.
• The quest book... There is a reason kitchen sinks do not usually come with a linear quest book and if they do, it is usually to make an amalgamation of the big mods end game items. The quest book is the main problem I have with this pack. It is good in telling you what you can do, but as a kitchen sink it has a ton of content and every main quest opens up ~6 side quests while also having other questlines for supporting the main one. While I like the concept and understand that it is hard to do, the quest book just does not do it for me.

Initially a friend and I landed on MeatballCraft because we were looking for a mod pack that would match our very different playstyles. I am a very tech/automation-focused player and he is a more adventure/combat/RPG-focused player. MeatballCraft is, to date, the only pack we've ever found has ever kept both of us interested throughout the time we both put into the pack and we only made it to roughly Chapter 3 or 4 during our approximately 1,500 (combined) hours of playtime (1,000 for me, 500 for him).

The Early Game

The mod pack starts of very in a very kitchen sink style with unlocks coming pretty quickly, mostly focused on cosmetic blocks and quality of life features. Things like ProjectE's Transmutation Tablet and Philosopher Stone are available near the very beginning of the pack to aid in building beautiful bases and almost all cosmetic blocks have EMC values. EMC loops are easy to build and, in fact, are not only encouraged but an intended feature highlighted by the quest book. Many useful features like /dank/null storage, ProjectE's Alchemical Satchel's, and other early storage options are relatively easy to access in the early game.

The Mid-Game

This is where my friend and I spent the bulk of our time with the pack. This was split between questing through the many, many, many dimensions on offer and automating various items, materials, and other things to unlock the next dimensions in the pack. The automation was, usually, not too onerous if you had done due diligence, followed the quest books early recommendations, and automated or even passived the items from the previous set of quests. This pack rewards taking your time and doing your automation right the first time. Slap-dashing your builds together to rush through the pack will bite you down the road, no if's, and's, or but's.

The difficulty curve is maintained by certain hidden recipes which are unlocked via special items that must be crafted to reveal them. Using these items increases mod difficulty in various ways (more health, armor, damage, and more). This keeps combat interesting, at least up to the point my friend and I made it into the pack.

The number of dimensions on offer also helps keep enemy variety up as well as keeps special bosses and other fun mechanics in play for the more adventure-focused players. Many custom set pieces are also present, summoned in or warped to via special items that are crafted throughout the pack. A very fun and unique mechanic and I wish more packs did.

Tying all this together is an overarching plot line that, while a bit arbitrary, does a decent job at providing a reason for all the shenanigans, arbitrary crafting recipes, and random dimensions to exist together in this one pack. It's a bit of a shallow plot line, admittedly, but to paraphrase from a certain early days id Software developer, "Story in a video game is like story in certain kinds of 'films', it's expected to be there but it's not all that important". The story is simply a vehicle to give the mod pack a reason to exist and, in that regard, it's perfectly serviceable.

Minor Criticisms

I really only have a few small criticisms to hand out to this mod pack.

1. Some recipes were, at the time my friend and I were playing, quite simply unreasonable. These recipes could stand to be toned back. A good example of this is the Extreme/Bigger Reactor's Turbine Casings. It's a BIG investment to stand your first one up for where it is in the pack.
2. The placement of certain quality of life options feels... Off at times. For example, the placement of the Angel Ring in the progression tree feels far too late in my personal opinion. You can get creative flight earlier, though with a time limit, but anyone who can put in a bit of time can easily grind out essentially unlimited creative flight time with a hint of early automation. So why not just make the Angel Ring an earlier unlock? It's just a bit odd.
3. Thaumcraft, while integrated, does not have enough early options to manage Taint. This is more of a Thaumcraft problem, to be a bit fair, but the mod pack does try to adjust things to deal with this. I feel more could be done in this regard as it's far too easy to cause Warp-related problems and corrupt your entire world with no way to stop it. I realize that's kind of the point of Taint but it's also just flat out not fun to deal with after pouring so many hours into the pack to simply get to that stage.

As an aside, the pack, while developed on GitHub, is not developed in manner that feels welcoming to outside contribution. Not strictly a mark against the pack but it's worth mentioning as I feel the pack could be so much more amazing with a more active community of developers than the one man show it currently is.

Overall Thoughts

I cannot recommend this mod pack enough. It's well balanced and just flat out fun for pretty much all play styles, but particularly when differing play styles come together to cooperate to complete it!

Meatballcraft is one of, if not the best modpack I have ever stumbled upon.

After 580hrs of gameplay and having reached nearly the end of chapter 6 of the quests, I am confident that this modpack is an all-time favourite for me.

The progression is almost perfectly paced with a fascinating story alongside it. Combat remains a challenge the whole way while giving a plethora of options to choose from that is actively being expanded upon. Of course, if you prefer one-shotting even early-end-game bosses, you can always use a shuriken! It also doesn't leave you as a glass cannon, and has many armours to choose from wherever you are in the progression.

You unlock powerful technology that helps automation and generating resources and power.
Among them is AE2 is not too far into the questline and is a cornerstone for any and all automation in the pack, which is necessary unless you plan on actively hurting yourself. It also forces you to learn decent cable management as it can get pretty messy.
You also unlock EMC pretty early on but it is far from overpowered. Only base resources found in vanilla dimensions are included, with some exceptions.

There is also a lot of QoL mods and features included, so you can really make your life easy, or you can make it a living hell by giving yourself challenges. One such challenge is playing it without EMC, which is doable but requires a lot of automation and planning.

Above all, the discord community is one of the best there is out there, hands down. Everyone is welcomed and there are no stupid questions. The developer (the great Sainagh) is very active in it and frequently asks for feedback on upcoming features or changes.

Also, thanks to some shady magicians posing as 'programmers', this pack can run on java 22!
It will however need a lot of ram (I allocate ~8Gb and have host a local server on my pc for myself) and will take a lot storage space because of all the exploration. However, there are some dimensions you will never visit again and so you can probabledelete those dimensions outright.

A modpack that just keeps on giving, this project shows what high quality can be achieved with years of meticulous work from an inspired creator. Nearly every single aspect of the mods in this modpack has been tweaked to fit the balance and progression of the chapters. There is such an immense amount of content here, that one never has to think long about what to do next. Thats not even mentioning the variety of tasks: The modpack is heavily automation-focused, but if you are tired of it, go out and explore one of the dimensions included in the pack, or solve puzzles that give you useful goodies for later progression.

But I must also say that this modpack will not be for everyone: It can be very overwhelming. Do not play it as your first modpack, please. Even though the in-game documentation of all those mods is stellar, it still may be a lot to learn at once. Be prepared to completely relearn how you think about base building and logistics :).

One of the single most well thought-out modpacks I have ever had the privilege to play. Performance is excellent with the Java 21 mod, which you can find a link to on their CurseForge page.

I've been playing off and on for over a year, and STILL am finding new content to do. The immense changes needed in how I think about infrastructure have catalyzed a new era of base design for me. I've been playing Minecraft vanilla and modded since Beta 1.3, and I have never seen such a mammoth mass of excellence before, or since.

I've actually taken time to learn how to improve so I can give this pack my all. It's that fun that I am studying how to play better.

From the very beginning you are greeted by balanced mobs, great world generation (with some bugs but oh well), elaborate quest line, lore and invite to discord where people will help you to get going. I enojoyed every second of it, although I played for 50h+ and cannot judge optimization/performance of this modpack, but I can share my happiness instead. MAN THAT PACK PACK A HELL OF A PUNCH. Resourses are easy to get, everything can be automated, there are a lot of bees (biggest fan) and they are made easier. There are tons of dimensions where you can loose yourlsef. Its regularly updated, dev makes reports on what he is working on and so on. Enjoy your time

This stands out as one of my favorite modpacks. Here are three reasons why:

1. Well-thought in terms of game design. The pack's author Sainagh puts thought and effort into designing a modpack that provides for different types of players from very hardcore automation enthusiasts to more casual pack players like myself who enjoy a sandboxy experience.
2. Choice between sandbox gameplay (ch. 1-3) and more gated exploration and automation focused gameplay (ch 4-10). I have played the first few chapters of this modpack several times and I find them to be incredibly fun. I can create as many interesting builds as I want and small automated systems until I get exhausted or otherwise arrive at a nice stopping point. I know there is an abundance of content ahead of me should I desire to continue.
3. Extensive customization. The pack is tweaked to remove pointless items and very structured in the sense that the author's questbook gives tier lists for solutions to engineering problems. There is not "one right way" to solve Meatballcraft automation challenges. The modpack encourages experimentation.

Honestly, one of the greatest packs of all time. Ever played Divine Journey 2? Well this pack is DJ2 on crack and even better. So much more content, so much mire progression, and I honestly like how it makes you tap into the most obscure and unused features of every mod (albeit being tedious by times).

I highly recommend for anyone who's into expert packs to play it, with a friend preferably, and take the progression at your pace (Don't speedrun quests! Trust me, if you think "I feel like I should automate this", just do it! I am now in Chapter 8 going back on tons of resources I thought I could just batch craft a ton of).

All in all, great pack, such a fun time for anyone fond of both exploration and automation!

Definitely my favorite modpack, very grindy but you get out what you put into the pack

Fun and long pack, works well with friends and has a ton of quests