I have been playing this modpack for more than half a year now, keeping up with the updates and having fun all the way through!
I love how heavily this modpack leans on automation, and there is nothing more satisfying than seeing your work come to fruition with automated production of some of the hardest things

I've played this mod for the first time in Antimatter Chemistry, one of al123's modpacks. I was delighted since the very beginning, for the mod's abyssal amount of real-life compounds and the integration with other mods such as the Thermal series.

i've been waiting for the major 2.1 update for months, and ngl it was worth the waiting time

I really liked this pack. The only reason I'm leaving this review is to warn others that Age 4, the final chapter is impossible to do within a reasonable time-frame. To unlock Projecte (philosopher's stone), you require 8 insanium dust to craft it. Seems pretty reasonable until you realize that crafting each tier of MA dust requires antimatter. The recipe uses an 8:1 ratio for every antimatter and using a calculator it takes 37.45k antimatter!? Even with 2 fission reactors running 24/7, it would minimum take a week of waiting to get enough antimatter. That doesn't even mention the sheer amount machines you need to supply it with fissile fuel. Idk if the modpack creator has finished the modpack herself, but I personally would not find it fun to do normal mekanism and then wait hours upon hours for antimatter.
Although I am a bit salty about that recipe, this pack was pretty fun. I liked that the primitive early game didn't go on for too long
I just wished there was a better way to obtain the antimatter or increase amount of MA dust to 8:2

This is pretty unique pack. It's a modern UA that also contains some lesser known/used mods (examples: Assembly Line Machines, Futurepack, Crossroads). It should not take that much time to complete too. And biggest plus it doesn't contain Create (I dont hate Create, but there is too much of it with unoriginal ideas)
Overall fun small pack (67 mods) with unique recipes.

So far so kinda good

from what i can see the modpack is still in development, there's so much more to get to and to achieve in it still, from the player side and the Modder side as well.

an almost perfectly balanced Expert questing Modpack, that actually has custom recipes, and fairly good challenges, and a vast enjoyable world PLUS so much satisfying progression that gives a self-fulfillment sense when you actually do or achieve something without it being ridiculously hard .

1- Questing
Quest are actually well made, rewards are balanced, the progression is satisfying
Explanations on the quests is thoughtful, well written, Actually Helpful

**2- Is it actually "Expert?", and "Custom Made?" **
Yes!!, and no?.....
The modpack is a genuine Expert modpack with a lot of really good custom stuff from recipes to items to even world progression.

Wait world progression?
Yes mobs get stronger as you progress! .
Items/Tools actually make a difference as you go to different tiers!.
Materials have STATS? and PERKS? so everything is highly customizable? Definitely!.
Loot is actually appropriate to dimension and structure!

So...is it hard? not the RLCRAFT hard, nope,
even better difficulty balancing than DDSS?, Almost.

DDSS? is it a copy of DDSS?, NOPE, even tho it's heavily inspired, it still has it's unique picture and feel to it, is it better than it? not yet but it really has a huge potential to be! it's still in dev i assume.

to clarify the modpack is a Medium-Sized Expert pack not an Extra Large one so keep in mind!.

3- World gen/Exploration
honestly my review would be longer than it already is if im gonna dive into details but just to give a fair general idea

World gen/Exploration is really cool and full of stuff, bioms are nice and mobs/entities are everywhere each biome/dimension has it's kinda own mobs/entities AND THERE'S a lot of hidden stuff like Mythcal creatures! and Realms!!

to make it short you will never get bored exploring the world!.

4- Mods....
it has a whopping 288 almost finely tuned and optimized mods
SO A LOT THEN.
there's some pretty good quality of life mods in it and as always Quality of life mods are always a huge deference.
are these mods Better?
EXACTLY !, Better Mods!
Better animations! Better brightness! Better FPS Better Treasure maps!
better Combat! Better Smithing tables! Better advancments!
AND BETTER LILY PADS! ?
aside from word play yep there's much more quality of life mods other than the better mods like FTB, JE mods/ Just enough items/professions/recources clomps and the easy mods, curios ect.

So then optimization?.... ummm

5-Optimization
not much to talk about, so there isn't? No there IS but that's how modpacks work they're always under optimization/bug fixing

but overall it's fairly optimized and fully playable with a bug every dimension or so?
yes there's bugs and stuff to fix but that's expected since it's not done yet why?
because mods are constantly updating and there's a lot of work for the modder to do behind the scene!

ALSO IT'S ON THE LATEST RELEASE?
umm YEP almost? it's on 1.20.1! so yeah

**so in conclusion? LOVED IT! **
there's a lot to work on but i'm satisfied with it my only regret which i'm hoping to see in the future is shaders support as integrated in-modpack shaders .

you can just manually do it btw it's really easy
but it would be really cool if it's there automatically.

I've barely started this modpack, only in chapter two but I'm having a fantastic time, this is the only modpack so far that has grabbed me like this.

This mod pack is actually the best, Its balanced and fun. Yes I did add more mods to the pack but that's because me and my friends like having guns. But overall this mod pack is something else entirely, Its like a complete overhaul of scape and run parasites, From custom structures that generate after certain phases to balanced parasites, you could actually beat the parasites in this mod pack! I would recommend to anyone that likes scape and run to play this. I played this with 2 other friends and we managed to get easily to phase 6 without our base being annihilated, well that was until the parasite horde came and swarmed us, But we almost beat them like the last horde we beat. Of course the mod pack does have some downsides, that being mekanism being locked behind immersive engineering, One mod I absolutely recommend adding is Tiny Progressions. The tiered cobblestone generator blocks it adds makes building your base in early game way faster.

stunning terrain gen, its like super amplified Minecraft.

I'm currently on the borderline of becoming a semi official developer of this pack as I've been attempting to make some contributions to it (if you see Tide get added to the pack- that was me!) And I'll likely be forking tbe project soon to match my personal vision.

The pack has a massive amount of changes recipes and unique mod choices, with a full questbook and unique content such as custom structures and more. I particularly love the secret w/ legendary weapons content.

My grandest complaint is that there isn't enough content. You can easily complete all this pack has to offer in a few sittings- and many big staple mods for RPG themed modpacks are missing. (Ie: Cataclysm, which Is one of the things I'd like to integrate in my fork or in this pack)

Also feels really close to vanilla even though most mods picked are nowhere near such. Ice and Fire? Ars Nouveau? Creare? All really intrusive mods thatve been seemlessly blended into the vanilla+ core in a very unique way.

Try this pack if you're looking for something a little vanilla, a little difficult, and overall unique and very well polished.

Do not try this pack if you're someone looking for handheld goals and massive overarching progression Arcs.

Overall, should be great fun whether you're new or seasoned to modded minecraft.