Minecraft Mod & Modpack Reviews

If there is one mod that defined how we design an advanced base, it’s AE2 (Applied Energistics 2). The first version was already great, but AE2 blew everything away by introducing a brilliant mechanic: channel management.

Gone were the days of plugging everything into a single magic cable. With AE2, you have to think like a true network architect. Standard cables handle 8 channels, dense ones handle 32. But where I really pushed the mod to its absolute limits, using every single mechanic imaginable, was with the P2P (Peer-to-Peer) tunnels. Figuring out how to route an insane amount of channels through one single basic cable to power entire walls of ME Drives (the storage racks) was the ultimate optimization trick. It’s an absolutely thrilling puzzle for anyone who loves deep, clean infrastructure.

Ultimately, the true power of AE2 is that it literally becomes the central brain of your playthrough. Everything interfaces with it. The auto-crafting system is flawless and lets you automate almost any other mod. Throw in the add-ons for wireless remote access, or the legendary bridges to ComputerCraft and Logistics Pipes, and you have an unbeatable logistics setup.

ComputerCraft in 1.7.10 is much more than just a mod to me; it's a massive toolkit that completely changed how I play. When you're used to writing code, configuring servers, and managing complex systems, being able to bring that exact logic into Minecraft using Lua is simply brilliant.

The absolute strength of ComputerCraft is its ecosystem and endless expandability. Back in the day, thanks to an incredible Socket.io add-on made by a French developer named Richie (famous during the golden era of the "Feed The Patrick" series), I was able to hook my base up to actual websockets. It opened up unimaginable possibilities for bridging systems together and pushing the game's limits.

And the peripheral integration just made things even crazier. Setting up RFID card readers for secure access, scanning exact inventory contents, or seamlessly interfacing with Logistics Pipes and the original Applied Energistics networks... ComputerCraft acted as the true central brain of my entire base.

Anyone who played during the golden age of tech mods remembers the early days of Buildcraft, Industrial Craft 2, and Logistics Pipes. It was awesome. But right in the middle of that whole ecosystem of cables and machines, there was Better Than Wolves. It was a complete UFO. A standalone mod that shook things up with a totally different take on survival and engineering.

What made BTW so incredible was how raw and grounded it felt. No more "magic blocks" doing the work for you. Here, you had to mess with actual rotational power. You used raw mechanical force to spin pulleys, pull ropes, and build elevators that actually moved. It gave the game this super physical vibe that no other mod had back then. Whenever you finally got a mechanism working, you felt a genuine sense of pride.

And aside from the massive setups, the mod was packed with awesome little additions. Having to grow hemp just to weave fabric for your windmills or make ropes for your pulleys, messing around with the iconic Cauldron to process materials, or figuring out the Block Dispenser... All these little details just clicked together and made the whole experience feel incredibly alive.

But where this mod truly became an all-time favorite for me was when multiplayer finally dropped. If it was crazy in single-player, playing co-op was just an unbelievable adventure. I spent countless hours with a buddy designing our factories, trying to sync up our pulley systems so everything ran smoothly, and just trying to survive in this super demanding world.

Alright so BetterF3 is basically what the default f3 menu should've been from the start

no cap the vanilla debug screen is mid as hell, this mod fixes that instantly

been running it with cloth config so i can actually do f3+m and rearrange stuff how i want, module system is cracked ngl.

Honestly, my history with BuildCraft goes way back. I played the hell out of the very first versions back when Forge didn't even exist yet (the good old ModLoader days). And I gotta say: this mod completely changed the way I look at Minecraft.

In the very beginning, there were pretty much only the pipes. But just that alone was insane. Seeing your items physically traveling through glass tubes and being able to automate your chest sorting... you could already do so much. It turned a simple block building game into actual logistics.

And man, how can I not mention the Quarry? That machine was just incredible. Placing it down, powering it up, and watching the lasers map out the area before the mechanical arm mined out entire chunks down to bedrock... it was just so satisfying.

For me, the mod really peaked in 1.7.10. Honestly, that was THE best era of Minecraft modding, period, and BuildCraft was the undisputed king at the time.

Anyway, even though there are more modern and complex tech mods out there today, BuildCraft is one of those historic mods that literally changed Minecraft forever. An absolute classic.

First thing you see upon launching the pack is a simplistic main menu screen featuring the logo of the pack.
Now, I gotta say, I personally liked the layout of the main menu, and I also liked the logo, as simplistic as it may be.
Launching into the world, first thing you realize is that, despite the inclusion of FTB Quests in the pack, it does NOT have any quests yet. This was a major turn-off for me, but I didn't let it get in the way of my experience, as I do play questless modpacks of my own making frequently.
Now, have in mind my device has only 12 gigs of RAM, but despite this, I found the framerate bearable for the most part, then again, I am normally used to lag spikes during my gameplay, so I'd be wary of that if you are not accustomed. Perhaps it runs smoother on a better machine, but I have not found out myself.
The page of the modpack says it features Cobblemon, but it actually does not, which I knew beforehand when looking for a Cobblemon-less pack and stumbling across this one, but perhaps you might not know that, so do be aware of it.
Now, as I mentioned previously, the pack has no questline, as therefore, has no end goal. Not even a set progression. This, in turn, made me drop it after building a simple air balloon with Create: Aeronautics.

Overall, solid presentation, very little meat.

Apothic enchanting is a module that really demonstrates the great ideas of the entire Apotheosis mod, whereas vanilla enchanting is very one-dimensional and doesn't add much actual length or complexity to progression, apothic enchanting adds complexity in an enjoyable way!

The new bookshelves do really help in bringing decision making to enchanting, unlike the vanilla system of getting 30 bookshelves then continually picking the highest experience option until you get what you want. One drawback is, like the rest of apotheosis, the higher level enchants available through this system will often cause significant scaling issues with other mods, especially fortune and looting which can make resources far more plentiful than mods were designed around.

One gripe I do have with this mod is how easy it is to remove enchantments from gear, it makes it so that you basically never have to think about whether it is worth using enchantments as you can always get them back later, or the fact you can split enchanting books you find in loot to apply the good enchants without worrying about the curses.

This mod has a pretty good configuration and I'd highly advise checking it out to make the experience fit your pack and ideal as best as possible. I recommend this mod to people who don't like the enchanting system in vanilla but don't want to throw it out entirely.

Apotheosis is an incredibly ambitious mod, and does actually manage to achieve many of its goals. The elites and invaders help break up all enemies feeling the same and can add more interest to combat.

I honestly really love the conceptual idea of socketing gems, a way to imbue gear with abilities you can find through exploration and combat. I also really like the fact mobs have more variety added through elites (although I will get into the issues I feel there are with the execution of this later). This mod is a treasure trove of interesting concepts and ways to improve systems in the game, however it fells like this mod would be better if it thought about how these would interact with other mods.

My issues with this mod start at the balance, but in my opinions hint at some deeper issues when this mod is viewed from the standpoint as a small side addition to many packs as it is often treated. As a mod that is often treated as a side mod, this mod does a lot of things in questionable ways, for example the elites/invaders can often be so fast it's incredibly difficult to escape them, or have so much regeneration it is almost impossible to kill them with your gear at the time. This, in my opinion, often draws from the intended experience of the pack/game because it interrupts the players focus, forcing them to deal with some threat when they may have just been trying to build or explore.

On the other hand, for combat focused packs which are designed to make a player try to become as powerful as possible and feel as 'cool' as possible, this mod does really work, however I feel this is a narrow scope for the usability of the mod. This leads on to understanding how this mod is balanced, because it isn't balanced around vanilla gameplay, it is balanced around taking everything and scaling up both damage and health in roughly equal proportions. While this can make the player feel powerful, and lead to cool moments, it often makes other mod's content get overshadowed as spells become underpowered or modded bosses become trivial. This is fixable with configuration, but out of the box as it is in many packs it can be a large issue.

You should try this mod, maybe in a small pack or in a combat/RPG pack, but please, don't shove this into any old pack and expect the balance to work. I recommend this mod to those that don't mind sinking their teeth into config files to make sure their mods work correctly together.

While this mod cannot hold a torch to it's new rewrite, that does not mean it was not a good mod on the versions where it existed already. I would heavily advise staying away from the original MCreator version however due to serious stability issues.

'Oh The Biomes You'll Go' is an interesting mod, many of it's biomes are unique and I feel have more character than mods such as 'Biomes o' Plenty'. However, in my opinion, many of the textures are... lacking. Most trees don't provide much utility for building unfortunately and although the biomes are often interesting they can sometimes look discontinuous.

This mod often doesn't work amazingly with other biome mods, with much repeated content or biomes that have no business being together being placed immediately adjacent, however this is to be expected to some extent with how large this mod is.

Despite all the problems I've described with this mod, most of the criticism comes from a place of love as this is a mod I have played with a lot, despite it's flaws. I would recommend this on older versions to people who are bored of vanilla, but if possible play it's rewrite first!

Malum is a mod I should've tried long ago and for some reason I've only just gotten around to it. The ability to collect different materials from every enemy with a scythe is amazing to add more reason to explore and do things that may have once been monotonous annoyances.

This mod has a really good grasp of trade-offs, use the scythe and get extra resources to do magic or use conventional weapons and get bonus damage and the ability to use ranged weapons. Use totems to replenish your hunger or keep food on you to make sure you're protected wherever you go. Sure, you could do both but then you're wasting inventory, which in Minecraft is often very limited.

I'm not normally a huge proponent of magic mods, I often find them very disconnected from the main gameplay loop of Minecraft or many packs, but Malum does a great job at making its systems feel interconnected with the Minecraft world.

This may now be my favourite magic mod, we'll have to see. I would highly recommend to people who like magic mods and want a fresh new experience, or to those who are trying a magic mod for the first time!