Minecraft Mod & Modpack Reviews

I LOVE Observable! It's extremely easy to use and gives a comprehensive benchmark of every single block entity in any of your Minecraft worlds and dimensions! There have been many many times where I was struggling to find out what machine in my complex automation setup was causing TPS lag on my server.

I tried using Spark, and while Spark is VERY powerful, it can be overwhelming to look at and confusing to dissect! Observable gives players the "stress" values they need and a .txt file outlining all loaded entities causing lag! You'll be surprised to see how much lag your character itself can create!

I docked half a star from performance because the GUI overlay showing the stress info can lag your client, but it's still completely usable and can be disabled!

Here's a mod that resolves an issue that has been present in Minecraft since the beginning. A player joins a popular server, leaves spawn and goes hunting for dungeons and villages. However, said player finds that everything has already been extensively looted and picked clean! Lootr comes in to resolve this and executes this job perfectly! I've never had an issue with this mod that wasn't just user error! I always bring this mod into any modpack I play with friends!

This mod brings a large variety of cooking recipes and foods to create. The meals always looks delicious and is fun to make too! Minecraft doesn't have many options when it comes to this area, so having the opportunity to expand upon the vanilla choices is always welcome! Live your cooking dreams and become the chef of your group!

I would say the only problem I find with this mod is that automation is fairly hard to do with the base mod. The pot you use for cooking doesn't like formatted recipes and prefers to have players place things manually.

This review will be decently in-depth and cover some of my user experience and experience as a modpack developer.

Core Mechanic

The mechanic of mixing and matching food items within categories to make food items is excellent, its a system where you get what you give meaning you can't really game it by putting in cheaper items like you can do with many other food mods, you simply just get a somewhat worse result since its all dynamic.

Lots of variety in the food items, you can make soups and stir-fry. Some items can give potion effects and you can experiment a bit similarly to have suspicious stew works. (yes you can put in a spider eye and troll your friends)

Misc

The mod has various themed blocks like counters, pillars, etc, which while sticking out a bit too much to see use everywhere, still should be versatile and have some use somewhere, this is Minecraft after all you can find a way.

The textures of the mod are nice, they don't stray from the Minecraft style.

There a few world-gen additions, like the fig and walnut trees that you will get used to, they spawn commonly. Stuff like the fissures I have no experience with, they could have issues with modded biomes or have been broken in a port.

Some Dev insights.

The mod uses item tags for the food categories, so items can be added simply with datapacks or KJS. These tags don't seem to inherit from common tags, meaning modded items are usually missing from them

Mods such as Quark and TFC inspect recipes in some ways, and do spam the log a little with how Caupona implements some of theirs. Only matters if you as a pack developer want to keep the logs as squeaky clean as you can.

At the time of this review, i've completed the first four chapters.

Pros

The Crafting Recipes are really unique and fun to automate.
Every Chapter introduces 1-2 unique Crafting Methods, because of that every chapter offers a new unique way to automate that chapter.

Cons

In Chapter 3: where you totally do not have to build a Oil Processing Line. One of the first step is distilling Crude in to three different Fluid, which you then distill even farther.
I feel like the Ratios for the Fluids this Outputs should be adjusted, most recipes at the end of the line are really slow, because you always have to wait for one Fluid, while the other Buffer is basicall instantly full.

Talk about an absolutely stunning showcase of AE2 potential! Adding Quantum Computers, Assembler Matrix, Quantum Armor, and more just keeps AE2 fresher than ever! If anyone felt like they were getting tired of AE2 (impossible, I know!) or finished AE2 progression, this mod adds an additional layer that refreshes the progression and allows for even more optimization and complex recipe handling! Plus the armor is arguably some of the best ever! Not a must have, but certainly a HUGE positive to have in any modpack!

I've never had a playthrough with AE2 that didn't have this complimenting it! Perfect QoL and additional machinery to enhance the already wonderful and perfect AE2! I love this mod so much, especially all the extended pattern providers and wireless connectors. Saves a lot of headache where the original AE2 would make players go the extra mile with using the basic, non-extended machinery. This should all be in regular AE2 already, it's just that good!

I always use this mod whenever I can for viewing my player's saturation values. Works perfectly as advertised, been using it for years and never had an issue once. Honestly surprised it isn't incorporated into vanilla because it's just that good!

Project Expansion adds additional ProjectE QoL, items, functionality, and tech compatibility! It's a fantastic addition to ProjectE for anyone who wants to integrate it more into their automated setups and wants more features and progression out of ProjectE! I find that it's a must have! The performance could be better under heavy load, but if you aren't sending through tens of thousands of items through a transmutation interface!

ProjectE, a fork of Equivalent Exchange 2, perfectly captures the energy, no pun intended, of Alchemy and equivalent exchange. This mod is incredibly fun to play with, albeit a bit too OP to add into modpacks. Want to feel like a real Alchemist? You'll be set with this! Adds a ton of classic items as well, such as dark and red matter armor, weapons, and tools, and rings that enable various abilities! Live like a god with this mod!