# Onion MC — candidate mods grouped for review

Every candidate grouped by what it is *for*, with what it brings, what it costs in dependencies, how much it changes gameplay, the verdict, and the thing to watch. **ADDED** = already added on the `mod-pack-additions` branch. **ALREADY-IN-PACK** = duplicate of an installed mod.

Verdict legend: **ADD** (ship in the core cohort) · **ADD-OPTIONAL** (good; taste/library decision) · **MAYBE** (test or design decision first) · **SKIP** (don't) · **ALREADY-IN-PACK** · **ADDED**. `New deps` lists required libraries not already in the pack (candidate deps marked).


## Shaders & render stack

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Iris Shaders** (`iris`) | Shader-pack loader compatible with existing OptiFine shader packs | — | Overhaul | ADDED | Already added on branch mod-pack-additions (see Post-review update) |
| **Iris Veil Compat** (`iris-veil-compat`) | Bridges the Veil rendering engine into Iris shaderpacks so Veil-rendered visuals (Aeronautics wings, glass panels, contrails) render correctly under a shaderpack; r… | Iris Shaders | None | ADDED | Already added on branch mod-pack-additions (see Post-review update) |
| **Veil** (`veil`) | developer tooling for advanced rendering — JSON-defined framebuffers, custom post-processing pipeline, full OpenGL shader support + shader injection, color themes/e… | — | None by itself | SKIP | rendering-engine tooling with no dependent mod in the pack, on the most fragile part of the stack |
| **Shine** (`shine`) | Shader-free visual effects: bloom, colored lighting, atmosphere, weather, particles, interactive details; in-game config screen | — | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | confirmed Sodium 0.8.12 compatibility, but partial feature loss on that version, overlap with Subtle Effects, and a privileged positio… |
| **Grassier Grass** (`grassier-grass`) | Per-blade custom wind shader: grass leans and ripples with rolling gusts | — | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | best-looking pick in the batch, but Sodium 0.8-alpha compatibility is unproven; gate on a crash/visual test |
| **Fog** (`fog`) | Complete fog revamp: start/end distance, cave fog that thickens with depth, weather- and time-based (sunset/moon-phase) fog colors, biome-tinted fog including modde… | MRU | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | attractive but unproven next to DH/SSRD; only add after an in-game fog + DH visual test |
| **ATMOSPHERICS** (`atmospherics`) | Real-time per-biome customization of fog, sky, clouds, haze and stars with smooth biome transitions; day/night split, comets, star editing | — | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | visual upside not worth the risk on the Sodium+DH+SSRD stack; no shader-adjacent additions should ride on that axis per pack rules |
| **Immersive Winds** (`immersive-winds`) | Wind system driving particle rain/snow, rain-splash particles, and sway animation for grass, plants, lanterns, and fire | — | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | Sinytra-only NeoForge support is a red flag by pack policy, and Grassier Grass already covers sway if that's added |
| **Puddles & Floods** (`puddles-floods`) | Puddle blocks appearing from rain, dripping blocks, flowing water, splash potions, broken cauldrons, and melting snow; puddles combine into floods in low-lying terr… | Forgified Fabric API | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | Fabric-API-derived dependency (red flag) for a cosmetic payoff with real server tick cost; revisit only if the pack accepts Forgified… |

## Client ambience & visual FX

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **AAA Particles** (`aaa-particles`) | Library that loads Effekseer (`.efkefc`) particle effects; by default replaces the vanilla lightning effect with an Effekseer one | — | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | a library with no in-pack consumer; standalone value is only a lightning visual swap |
| **AAA Particles: World** (`aaa-particles-world`) | In-world Effekseer effects: restored world lightning, explosion effect replacement (default on since 1.0.2), loot beams (1.0.3) | AAA Particles | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | purely cosmetic addon whose required base (AAA Particles) is itself a skip |
| **Particle Effects** (`particle-effects`) | Unique textured particle visuals for every vanilla status effect | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | pure client polish, zero server footprint |
| **Perception** (`perception`) | Immersive client visuals: projectile/entity trails and directional screen-shake triggered by loud sounds, explosions, fast movement (also aids threat localization) | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe client ambience; optional enough that individual players could skip it |
| **Visuality: Reforged** (`visuality-forge`) | cosmetic particles — crystal sparkles, mob-hit particles, custom slime blobs, environmental particles | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe client-only polish; consider whether Subtle Effects already covers the need |
| **Inventory Particles** (`inventory-particles`) | Data-driven particles on inventory items (dust for gunpowder/dyes, glow for luminous items, etc.), with physics/rotation customization | MossyLib | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | pretty and unusually modded-item-friendly; fine as a client-side optional, but pure cosmetics |
| **Fancy World Animations [FWA]** (`fwa`) | Smooth open/close animations for doors, trapdoors, fence gates, levers, buttons, repeaters, cauldrons, composters, lecterns, campfires, chiseled bookshelves, vaults… | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | strong client polish with a blacklist safety valve; verify against Sable/ImmediatelyFast rendering before shipping |
| **Cosy Critters & Creepy Crawlies** (`cosy-critters`) | Client-side ambient fauna: bird flocks that land high and scatter from entities/projectiles; tiny spiders emerging from cobwebs; moths around sky-exposed light bloc… | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap atmosphere for explorers; skip if the ambience budget is full |
| **Better Animations Collection** (`better-animations-collection`) | Re-animated vanilla mob models: wiggly ghast/squid tentacles, fluffy wagging wolf tails, flowing ocelot/cat tails, pig snout+ears, cow udder, chicken bills, etc., w… | Puzzles Lib | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | pure atmosphere polish for one new library dep |
| **Immersive UI** (`immersive-ui`) | Animated UI: particle trail for carried items of non-common rarity, carried-item wiggle/scaling, smooth hotbar selector animation, floating matched container items | ShatterLib | OctoLib | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | two extra libraries for cosmetic overlap with Inventory Particles; poor value per pin |
| **Effectual** (`effectual`) | Atmospheric particles: breath steam in cold biomes, underwater bubbles (mouth/chests/pots), drip on exiting water, footprints + snow residue, cave dust, lava-adjace… | TLib | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | duplicates Subtle Effects' niche and drags in a new lib; only add after an overlap audit, which the config-less pack model makes costly |
| **Blur+** (`blur-plus`) | Gaussian-blur shader behind all GUI backgrounds, with fade animations, ARGB gradient/colors, per-GUI exclusions and radius config | MidnightLib | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe cosmetic; only bother if the pack wants GUI polish |
| **Camera Overhaul** (`cameraoverhaul`) | Client-side camera rotation effects: strafe/turn tilt, jump/fall pitch, explosion shake, idle sway; per-effect intensity config (0 disables) | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap and configurable, entirely a taste/accessibility call |
| **Cinematic Respawn** (`cinematic-respawn`) | Replaces the death screen with a cinematic camera + fade transition into respawn; optional auto-respawn and skippable animation; fully client-side | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | pleasant, zero-risk client polish; taste call on auto-respawn |
| **Smart Particles** (`smart-particles`) | Distance-prioritized particle culling ("smart particle culling") plus camera/frustum culling of off-screen particles | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | targeted client-side stabilizer with no server footprint; watch mixin overlap with ImmediatelyFast |

## World mechanics & hazards

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Burnt** (`burnt-basic`) | Persistent, spreading fire: lit blocks smolder → burn → leave burnt block variants (with charcoal drops), integrated wind system (read via flags), biome-aware burn… | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | distinctive survival flavor with controls, but server-grief/tick cost means it's a taste call, not a default |
| **Burnt + Additions** (`burnt`) | Everything in `burnt-basic` plus: Flint Bow (flame arrows), Fire/Blaze Barrels (delayed blast + ignition), random structural collapse events, smoker→burnt-wood reci… | — | Moderate | MAYBE | the fuller variant is attractive but heavier; if fire flavor is wanted, choose this over basic deliberately (and still treat as option… |
| **Tree Physics** (`tree-physics`) | cutting a tree with Rooted Dirt beneath it assembles the trunk/canopy into a Sable physics sub-level and topples it realistically; crouch-chop opts out; building on… | — | Moderate | MAYBE | the most on-theme Sable use possible, but per-tree physics sub-levels on the Aeronautics stack demand a dev-server soak test before sh… |
| **Sable Beyond** (`sable_beyond`) | Create interop with Sable sublevels: mechanical arms interacting with sublevels, encased fans pushing/pulling sublevels, dynamic mass for fluid tanks/spouts/drains/… | — | Moderate | MAYBE | the most functionally attractive Aeronautics enhancement in the batch, but alpha software on the pack's most fragile stack; isolated t… |
| **Ragdoll Reactions** (`ragdoll-reactions`) | Players ragdoll in reaction to crashes, being run over, sharp direction changes, and explosions | Sable: Ragdolls | Minor | MAYBE | only alongside Sable: Ragdolls, and only after crash-testing with Aeronautics |
| **Sable: Ragdolls** (`sable-ragdolls`) | Physics-driven player ragdolls using Sable's physics system (H to tumble, Shift to get up) | — | Minor | MAYBE | fun, Sable-native, and unlocks two other candidates; test with Aeronautics before adopting |
| **Sable: Ragdoll Corpse** (`sable-ragdoll-corpse`) | On death, a fully simulated ragdoll corpse holding your entire inventory (items safe in an internal inventory) | Sable: Ragdolls | Minor | SKIP | Gravestone already owns this job; stacking two death-item systems on the Sable physics stack adds fragility for no new capability |
| **Lunar** (`lunar`) | Cycle of lunar events: Bad Omen Moon, Big/Tiny Moon (gravity changes), Blood Moon (harder mobs), Crimson Moon (nether mob spawning in Overworld), Hero/Miner Moon (b… | — | Moderate | MAYBE | fun server-wide content, but gravity/spawn events touching Aeronautics physics is an unquantified risk in this pack |
| **Celestria** (`celestria`) | Server-triggered, synced shooting stars at night (grant Luck; command-spawnable; client renders via a WorldRenderer mixin, with a client-only fallback mode for vani… | — | Minor | MAYBE | nice ambience, but stale build + WorldRenderer mixin on the Sodium/DH/Sable stack needs an in-pack smoke test first |
| **Mystical Oak Tree** (`mystical-oak-tree`) | A rare talking oak tree with 300+ written lore/joke/fact lines, trust mechanic, self-defense; "dynamically grabbed from the web" content | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | harmless flavor for a friends pack; nothing about it strains the stack |

## HUD & client UI

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Auto HUD** (`autohud`) | Dynamically hides HUD elements that aren't currently interesting (keybind toggle, per-element config); hides persistent status effects and shows remaining effect ti… | Fabric API | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | Metadata Fabric-API dep is Fabric-build-only; native NeoForge build |
| **Armor Hud** (`armor-hud`) | HUD overlay showing each equipped armor piece with icons and color-coded durability bars (green/yellow/red/black thresholds) | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | tiny, dependency-free HUD addition |
| **Immersive Armor HUD** (`immersive-armor-hud`) | Pixel-perfect 7×7 armor icons above the vanilla armor bar showing which armor pieces are worn and per-piece durability warnings | TxniLib | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap vanilla-style HUD upgrade; minor recency caveat |
| **Health Bars** (`new-health-bars`) | HUD health panel: mob name, health, armor, damage taken with animated bars | Puzzles Lib | Client-cosmetic (informational) | MAYBE | redundant with Jade unless the group wants damage numbers; if added, de-overlap with Jade deliberately |
| **Neat** (`neat`) | Minimalistic unit frames (health bars colored by HP %, armor, smite/arthropod attribute icons, stack grouping, team colors, toggle keybind) over entities | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | mature, zero-risk combat readability; prefer over the Damage Indicator if choosing one |
| **JeremySeq's Damage Indicator** (`jeremyseqs-damage-indicator`) | Client-side directional damage arrow, floating damage text, text health bars for mobs, optional blood overlay | — | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | harmless, but functionally redundant with Neat if both are added; pick one combat-info mod |
| **Advancement Plaques** (`advancement-plaques`) | Replaces advancement toasts with glowing plaques for Task/Goal/Challenge; configurable position, distance, whitelist; resource-pack customizable | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe client polish on a dep already in pack; one test-instance check on the sound caveat |
| **GUI Effect Timer** (`gui-effect-timer`) | Countdown text (s/m/h/d abbreviations) inside status-effect HUD badges, updated per tick; color configurable; supports infinite/command-set effects | Collective | Client-cosmetic (informational) | ADD-OPTIONAL | tiny, safe, useful; effectively free once Collective is pinned for Followers Teleport Too |
| **Keybind Atlas** (`keybind-atlas`) | Client-side visual keyboard/mouse overlay showing every keybinding, color-coded assigned/unused/hidden, with source-mod attribution and in-overlay rebinding | — | None | ADD-OPTIONAL | genuinely useful in a pack this size, zero risk |
| **Distinct Potions** (`distinct-potions`) | Distinct bottle styles for greater/extended potions, distinct colors for awkward/mundane/thick base potions | Puzzles Lib | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap visual QoL; only worth it if the pack accepts pulling in Puzzles Lib for a single client mod |
| **Obscure Tooltips** (`obscure-tooltips`) | Fully animated tooltip styling: glowing borders, particle effects, rarity-adaptive ornaments, integrated 3D gear previews inside tooltips, smooth scrolling and line… | Fragmentum | None | MAYBE | attractive but redundant with Legendary Tooltips; only add after confirming they don't fight over tooltip rendering, or as a replaceme… |
| **Tooltip Overhaul** (`tooltip-overhaul`) | complete vanilla tooltip replacement — scrollable/wrapping tooltips, equipment comparison, pinned tooltips, 30+ frames, 37+ effects, animations, 3D item icons/previ… | — | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | collides with Legendary Tooltips; the pack should carry one tooltip restyler, and it already does |
| **Visual Workbench** (`visual-workbench`) | crafting tables retain items in the grid between crafts; ingredients + result rendered on top of the table; contents drop when broken | Puzzles Lib | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | popular, polished Fuzs mod; costs one small library |
| **Held Item Tooltips** (`held-item-tooltips`) | Rich info plate above the hotbar on item switch: enchantments, durability, potion effects, item attributes, map IDs, firework/banner/book details | Puzzles Lib | Client-cosmetic (informational) | ADD | low-risk, high-frequency QoL; library cost shared with other Puzzles-Lib picks |
| **GUI Compass** (`gui-compass`) | HUD text readout of direction + coordinates ("FXYZ"), shown only with a compass in inventory (default) | Collective | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | harmless, but marginal over F3 and redundant if Field Guide (with Immersive Overlays) is added |
| **Better Third Person** (`better-third-person`) | Independent free-rotating third-person camera (full 360°), 8-direction movement without camera rotation, full item use in third person, vehicle/swim/elytra support… | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe, popular camera QoL with no deps; just smoke-test it while piloting Aeronautics contraptions |
| **Dynamic Crosshair** (`dynamiccrosshair`) | Context-sensitive crosshair: hides/changes based on what is looked at, held item, and action; highly configurable with optional YACL config screen | Fabric API | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | pure client polish, but must be tested against ImmediatelyFast and dropped if HUD glitches appear |
| **Emojiful** (`emojiful`) | Emojis in chat, including animated ones, with autocomplete and an emoji picker | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | fun for a 10-player social server with zero gameplay footprint |
| **Quick Skin** (`quick-skin`) | In-game skin library GUI (import by username or drag & drop), Classic/Slim model swapping | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | client nicety; preferred over SkinChanger (newer, GUI, more features) |
| **SkinChanger** (`skinchanger`) | `/skin set|clear` and `/cape set|clear` commands by username or URL, working on offline-mode servers; admin variants targeting other players | — | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | redundant with Quick Skin (GUI, HD skins, animated capes) and stale: last updated 2024-10-26 vs. Quick Skin's 2026-09-28 |
| **Akashic Tome** (`akashic-tome`) | A single "Book of Books" item (craft: book + bookshelf) that stores all mod documentation books and transforms into any of them; right-click menu to switch, sneak-r… | — | None | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap, low-risk QoL that scales well with a 142-mod pack |
| **Field Guide** (`field-guide`) | Spyglass-based scanning of entities/blocks to unlock entries in a personal in-game encyclopedia | Item Descriptions, Immersive Overlays | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | excellent fit for a 10-player exploration pack; price of admission is two extra NeoForge libs |
| **Certain Questing Additions** (`certain-questing-additions`) | FTB Quests UI upgrades: entity rendering in quest descriptions/backgrounds, APNG image support, per-chapter shader-based backgrounds, hover/open/zoom animations, gl… | — | None | ADD-OPTIONAL | nice polish for a quested pack; harmless if dropped |
| **FindMe** (`findme`) | Hover an item in JEI and press Y to mark which nearby inventories contain it (cloud particles) | — | Minor | ADD | zero-dep, low-risk, high-frequency QoL |
| **Zume** (`zume`) | hold-to-zoom keybind (FOV zoom) with zoom-level increase/decrease keybinds; auto-reloading JSON5 config in the global `.minecraft` dir | — | None (view convenience; no gamepl… | ADD | zero-dep, zero-server, fills an obvious gap next to Sodium+DH distance viewing |

## Audio & music

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Sounds** (`sound`) | 170+ new/reworked SFX (UI, chat, item, block sounds); configurable per event and extensible via resource packs; spiritual successor to ExtraSounds/Auditory | MRU | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | high polish, zero server footprint; costs one new small library |
| **Extreme sound muffler** (`extreme_sound_muffler`) | Client-side selective sound muffling via an inventory-button/keybind GUI with per-sound volume sliders | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD | zero-risk, zero-server-cost QoL that is actively maintained (3.56, 2026-09-22) |
| **Sounds Be Gone!** (`soundsbegone`) | Mute any vanilla/modded sound event from a "recently played" list, with unmute audit trail | — | Client-cosmetic (no gameplay chan… | ADD-OPTIONAL | tiny, safe, real accessibility value for a 10-player group |
| **Simple Music Control** (`simple-music-control`) | Halved delay between background music tracks, next-track keybind (default M), now-playing widget | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD | zero-risk client QoL whose only dependency is already present |
| **Now Playing** (`now-playing`) | Toast/hotbar popup announcing the current music track (background music and jukeboxes), with placement/timing/sprite resource-pack options | — | None | ADD-OPTIONAL | trivial, safe; most valuable if music-content mods are added |
| **More Music Discs** (`more-music-discs`) | Custom music discs (YouTube-sourced tracks, used with permission) found as chest loot, mob drops, or creative tab; loot-table injection fully configurable/disableab… | Deimos | None-Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap flavor; verify default disc-in-every-loot-pool density is wanted |
| **Net Music: Better Experience** (`net-music-play-list`) | Playlist items and a portable music player built on the "Net Music" mod; playlist discs for jukeboxes/CD burners | Net Music | None-Minor | SKIP | dependent on an absent streaming-music base mod with service/licensing baggage; poor fit |
| **VinURL** (`vinurl`) | custom music discs that download and play audio from YouTube/file-hosting URLs via jukebox; `/vinurl` commands; auto-downloads yt-dlp, deno, and FFmpeg binaries at… | Sinytra Connector, Forgified Fabric API, oωo (owo-lib) | Minor (custom music per player) | SKIP | Connector red flag, runtime binary downloads, and licensing minefield; not worth it for jukebox music |
| **Immersive Melodies** (`immersive-melodies`) | 7 instruments playing 25 bundled songs; custom melodies via in-game drag-and-drop or datapacks (MIDI/ABC) | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | fun multiplayer toy at essentially zero mechanical risk |
| **Even More Instruments!** (`evenmoreinstruments`) | Playable instruments: trombone, violin, keyboard, guitar, saxophone, koto, shamisen, pipa; all 16 note blocks as playable instruments | Genshin Instruments | Minor | SKIP | abandoned per its own README and requires Genshin Instruments, which the pack does not have |
| **cat_jam** (`cat_jam`) | Client-side animation: cats bob/jam to the rhythm of music discs, with per-disc routines | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD | tiny, client-only, documented compat with a mod already in the pack |
| **Etched** (`etched`) | Custom music discs burned from URLs (MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud) via the Etching Table with label customization | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | great social toy for a small server; settle the URL-content policy first |

## Food & farming

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Chef's Delight - Farmer's Delight Villagers** (`chefs-delight`) | Two villager professions (Cook, Chef) trading FD food, plus village structures for them (cook/chef houses) | — | Minor (if it worked) | SKIP | 1.21.1 build is bound to FD Refabricated, which conflicts with the pack's existing Farmer's Delight |
| **Expanded Delight** (`expanded-delight`) | Farmer's Delight expansion: new crops, blocks, workstations and more, added "gradually" on top of the base mod | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | strongly on-theme and the best-covered addon for Display Delight, but accept the author-declared beta instability or wait for stable |
| **More Delight (for Farmer's Delight)** (`more-delight`) | Extra Farmer's Delight meals and ingredients, bread-slice sandwiches, toast, wooden/stone knives | Delight Lib | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe, on-theme content; the Delight family is already large, so it's cumulative rather than filling a gap |
| **Miner's Delight** (`miners-delight`) | Farmer's Delight cave-food addon: cave carrots (new crop + gossypium flower), bat/silverfish snacks, copper pot and copper cup cooking utensils, cave-themed meals | Lodestone | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | strong thematic fit with the Delight family, but the author's own beta warning plus a new library dep argue for wait-and-see |
| **Dungeon's Delight** (`dungeons_delight`) | Monster Pot cooking station (heated by spawner-like blocks) producing Monster Foods | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | thematically perfect next to the pack's existing Delight collection; sanity-check the new effect types against Apotheosis stacking |
| **Barbeque's Delight [Forge/NeoForge]** (`barbeques-delight-forge`) | Grills + skewer cooking loop (place → smoke cue → sneak-flip → collect; burning on failure), ingredients basin crafting of skewers | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | frictionless fit with the existing Delight stack |
| **Fright's Delight** (`frights-delight`) | 56 horror-themed Farmer's Delight foods/drinks/candies crafted from hostile-mob drops (rotten flesh, spider eye, ghast tear, slime, cobweb, wither/soul berries) | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | fits the pack's Delight collection; horror theme is a taste call |
| **Veggies Delight** (`veggies-delight`) | 7 new vegetables (bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, sweet potato, turnip, zucchini) + forageable dandelion leaf; temperature-based wild veggie worldgen; v… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | low-risk content that deepens the pack's largest content family |
| **Fruits Delight** (`fruits-delight`) | 17 fruits (peach, mango, lychee, durian, …) with unique per-fruit processed-food effects (Strength+Rage Aura, Night Vision, Healing Aura, walk-on-ice, eat-when-full… | — | Moderate | ADD | big, popular (2.2M downloads) FD expansion that plugs into two pack pillars (Create, Terralith) |
| **Rustic Delight** (`rustic-delight`) | New crops: bell peppers (red/yellow/green), coffee, cotton, with wild spawns (e.g., jungle wild bell peppers/coffee) | — | Minor | ADD | textbook fit: same-dependency addon for an existing content pillar |
| **Cultural Delights** (`cultural-delights`) | New world-cuisine crops: avocado, eggplant, cucumber, corn, beans, cinnamon | Cook's Collection | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | on-theme food content, but it requires adopting Cook's Collection and the Delight shelf is already crowded |
| **Hearth and Harvest** (`hearth-and-harvest`) | New farmable crops, some with unique growth mechanics, plus new interactive food/resource crafting systems | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | solid FD-family expansion; coordinate corn overlap with Haunted Harvest before adding both |
| **Haunted Harvest** (`haunted-harvest`) | Trick-or-treating: baby villagers wear 9 mask types, walk at night, collect candy from adult villagers (with witch interactions and egg-throwing on refusal); candy-… | Moonlight Lib | Minor | MAYBE | charming, but adds a lib, modifies villager AI, and double-buys corn with Hearth and Harvest |
| **Overweight Farming** (`overweight-farming`) | Rare "overweight" super-crops (beets/carrots/potatoes/beans) with boosted yields, moonlight growth bonus, straw hat (breeding twins/triplets), peeling/waxing/melon-… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | small, self-contained farming charm |
| **AlcoCraft+** (`alcocraft`) | Brewing keg with 10+ beer recipes (hops, sugar, apples, water) | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | small, self-contained fun; no flags |
| **Fishing Real** (`fishing-real`) | Fish hooked as items spawn as live entities instead (salmon → live salmon, etc.) | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap, fun, low-risk; worth a small datapack pass to include Aquaculture species |
| **FishingOverhaul** (`fishingoverhaul`) | Reel-in minigame: fish circles a bar; right-click inside the catch region to land loot; crit region doubles loot | — | Minor | ADD | declared Aquaculture 2 compat makes this a natural pack fit |
| **Fisherman's Haven** (`fishermans-haven`) | Fishing expansion: new rods, traps and nets that catch multiple fish at once | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | no deps, distinct fishing mechanics that complement Aquaculture 2; accept the niche overlap deliberately |
| **Farmer's Knives** (`farmers-knives`) | Farmer's Delight knives in many modded materials — for mods actually in this pack that means The Twilight Forest (Ironwood, Fiery, Steeleaf, Knightmetal) plus a cop… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap thematic glue whose payoff is real but limited to Twilight Forest materials since the other supported tool mods aren't in the pa… |
| **Display Delight** (`display-delight`) | Placeable 3D food blocks for every Farmer's Delight (+ addon) food; placed foods are neither block entities nor entities (explicitly lag-friendly) | — | Minor | ADD | direct, low-risk upgrade to the pack's food-and-decor identity |
| **Create: Factory** (`create-factory`) | Create-themed foods: rolls, waffles, apples and related items/recipes; optional extra recipes when Create: Confectionery or Ecologics are present | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | harmless, but the food family is already the pack's most crowded content lane; low marginal value |
| **Delightful Creators** (`delightful-creators`) | Farmer's Delight ↔ Create automation bridge: new fluids for soups, stews and sauces; mixer recipes to produce them; bowl filling from fluids | — | Moderate | MAYBE | pick one FD↔Create bridge; Slice & Dice is already installed and proven, so this needs a deliberate "both approaches" decision |
| **Berry Good** (`berry-good`) | Berry QoL: bush placement moved to "pips" so bushes aren't placed accidentally; other simple berry-use improvements (excerpt details only the placement change) | Blueprint | Minor | SKIP | an entire additional library dependency (Blueprint) for one minor placement QoL; revisit only if the pack adopts Team Abnormals mods w… |
| **Abnormals Delight** (`abnormals-delight`) | Farmer's Delight integration for Team Abnormals mods: FD cabinets in every Abnormals wood type, Duck/Deer meat cuts, cake slices alongside Neapolitan | Blueprint | Minor (and in this pack, near-zer… | SKIP | required Blueprint dep plus an ecosystem (Team Abnormals) the pack doesn't run; mostly dead content |
| **ExtraDelight** (`extradelight`) | Kitchen workstations: Oven (3×3 slow-baking), Dough Shaping Station, Mixing Bowl, Mortar & Pestle, Drying Rack, Melting Pot (solids→fluids), Chiller (fluids→solids) | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | the meatiest Delight addon in the batch and a natural kitchen-tier progression; confirm the block-entity load on the dedicated server… |

## Create & technology

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Create: Bells & Whistles** (`bellsandwhistles`) | 36 decorative/utility Create blocks: station platforms, headlights, "Metro" casing/panel/window palette, andesite/brass/copper grab bars & bogie steps & door steps… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | strong deco value for a Create pack; verify blocks behave on Aeronautics contraptions first |
| **Create: Design n' Decor** (`create-design-n-decor`) | Create-focused QOL decoration: block variants (multiple crushing-wheel variants), containers, and extra factory-styled deco blocks | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe factory decoration; nice with the pack's Chipped/Rechiseled angle |
| **Create: Teleporters** (`create-teleporters`) | Create-styled teleportation: TP Links with a configurable range, plus entity and item teleporters in multiple sizes | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | clean fit for Create logistics with no flagged conflicts; decide whether the pack wants dimensional play |
| **Create: Structures Arise** (`create-structures-arise`) | 28 new Create-themed worldgen structures scattered across the world | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | strong fit for a Create + exploration pack, but it thickens an already structure-saturated worldgen stack with no config knobs shipped |
| **Create Waystones Recipes** (`create-waystones-recipes`) | Replaces all Waystones crafting recipes with Create-style (machine/mechanical) recipes and rebalances them; pairs with an optional texture/GUI resource pack | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe; a deliberate progression/taste decision for the questbook rather than a technical one |
| **Create: Sophisticated Backpacks Compat** (`create-sophisticated-backpacks-compat`) | A curated set of Create machine recipes for Sophisticated Backpacks items/components, enabling automation of key SB components inside Create factories (only "carefu… | — | Minor | MAYBE | plausible value, but check for recipe collisions with the official Create Integration already in the pack before committing |
| **Create: Dynamic Lights** (`create-dynamic-lights`) | Dynamic lighting for moving Create contraptions (client-side light via Sodium-family dynamic lights), plus an optional server-side "light block" mode that places re… | Sodium Dynamic Lights | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | redundant with LambDynamicLights, wrong rendering stack assumptions (Embeddium/Rubidium), and its niche is better covered (or delibera… |
| **Create Sable Dynamic Lights** (`create-sable-dynamic-lights`) | Dynamic-light support for Create contraptions and Sable sub-levels (moving contraptions/sub-levels actually illuminate surroundings, incl. on Aeronautics ships) | Sodium Dynamic Lights | Client-cosmetic | SKIP | requires a second dynamic-lights engine that duplicates LambDynamicLights and couples to the fragile Sodium/Sable version pin |
| **CreateBetterFps** (`createbetterfps`) | FPS optimization for Create scenes ("up to 50%" with a shaderpack, 7→35 fps with 512 waterwheels) via Sodium API usage and backface culling | — | None | MAYBE | Iris + Sodium now in pack, so unblocked in principle, but it patches Create's code on the Aeronautics/Sable stack - test first |
| **Sophisticated Inventory Interactions** (`sophisticated-inventory-interactions`) | Search field inside vanilla/modded container GUIs; sort modes (name/mod/count/tags) | — | Minor (pure inventory-management… | MAYBE | good mod, but it replaces rather than stacks with Client Sort; pick one container-sorting solution |
| **Sophisticated Item Actions** (`sophisticated-item-actions`) | Keybind highlights nearby storages containing the held/hovered/JEI-bookmarked item (green exact / blue type match) | — | Minor (inventory-flow QoL, Terrar… | ADD-OPTIONAL | genuinely new capability that plays well with the Sophisticated + JEI stack already in the pack |
| **Sophisticated Sorter** (`sophisticated-sorter`) | Sophisticated Core sort buttons on most regular container screens (name/mod/count/tags modes) | — | Minor | SKIP | redundant with Client Sort in-pack and with Sophisticated Inventory Interactions in this same batch; side metadata is also "unknown" f… |
| **Refined Storage - JEI Integration** (`refined-storage-jei-integration`) | JEI ↔ Refined Storage recipe transfer for Crafting Grid and Pattern Grid, incl. autocrafting tasks from JEI preview | Refined Storage | None in this pack | SKIP | dead weight without Refined Storage |

## Decoration & building

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Beautiful Campfires** (`beautiful-campfires`) | Wood-themed campfire variants (birch, etc.) so the crafted wood determines appearance; vanilla campfire recipe restricted to oak; includes the fire-type variants (r… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap cosmetic polish; document the oak-only recipe change in pack notes |
| **Sooty Chimneys** (`sooty-chimneys`) | Brick, Cobblestone, Mud Brick, Stone Brick, Iron, Copper, and Terracotta chimneys emitting smoke | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe, charming builder content with negligible cost |
| **Items Displayed [NeoForge]** (`items-displayed-forge`) | Sneak-right-click placement of items (sherds, smithing templates, ingots, etc.) as world-facing 3D models; craftable "Item Display" stand rotatable to any angle, va… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | safe builder content that fits the pack's decoration mods |
| **Too Many Paintings!** (`too-many-paintings`) | 50+ new paintings including famous artworks (Van Gogh, da Vinci); works in existing worlds | — | Client-cosmetic (placed paintings… | ADD-OPTIONAL | zero-dep cosmetic content, safe on both sides |
| **Portfolio** (`portfolio`) | 100+ paintings by artist Yapetto across 10 themed catalogues (Still Life, Void Manor, Death, Rana, Far Lands, Anchor, Giant, Elemental, Cloud Cuckoo, Keeping Up) | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD | zero-dependency pure content that fills an empty decorative niche |
| **Display Case** (`displaycase`) | A decorative single-item display block; clicking with honeycomb stops the spin (axe unwaxes) | — | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | fine in isolation, but choose between this and Fetzi's Displays (same batch) rather than shipping both display systems |
| **Fetzi's Displays** (`fetzis-displays`) | Glass cloches in 16 colors, katana stands, and wall holders with item-name plaques | — | Client-cosmetic | MAYBE | good feature set but redundant with Display Case (batch) + Handcrafted; pick one display system for the pack |
| **Gallery** (`gallery`) | Icon textures for all painting variants; right-click-with-painting GUI to search/select variants | Blueprint | Client-cosmetic (decorator QoL) | MAYBE | nice decorator QoL but drags in the Blueprint library for a niche feature |
| **Spooky Doors** (`spooky-doors`) | horror-game door behavior for all doors — drag to half-open/peek, slam by fast drag, run-into to open, creak sound set; Honeycomb/Ghast Tear toggle | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | small, charming, Balm-based and low-risk |
| **Boatload** (`boatload`) | Boats with chests, boats with furnaces, large boats, and boats with banners | Blueprint | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | pleasant water QoL, but chest-boat overlap with vanilla makes it low-value; needs Blueprint |
| **Supplementaries** (`supplementaries`) | Vanilla+ block set: jars, signposts, faucets, weather vanes, spring launchers, sconces, planters, lights, decoration + automation | Moonlight Lib | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | Create conflict issues all closed; NeoForge-first. Needs Moonlight Lib; smoke-test |
| **Accents** (`accents`) | Dyeable cosmetic accessories (hats, back items, e.g. partial-coloring Top/Pirate Hat) with small situational stat bonuses (e.g. Sheathed Katana +5% damage worn on b… | Fragmentum | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | low-risk cosmetic+minor-stat layer; costs one new library dep |

## Mobs & wildlife

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Animal Garden - Porcupine** (`animal-garden-porcupine`) | Tamable/breedable porcupines spawning in forests (JSON-configurable spawn tags); quill damage to nearby attackers; apple taming, sweet-berry breeding/healing, incre… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | tiny, dependency-free, fits the existing tameable-mob theme |
| **Fowl Play** (`fowlplay`) | ~13 bird species (hawks, gulls, ravens, crows, ducks, geese incl. swan/emden variants, songbirds, penguins) with realistic flight, sounds, and ecosystem behavior; s… | SmartBrainLib | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | strong ambience fit for the pack's mob roster; costs one AI lib |
| **Companions!** (`companions-mod`) | 10 tamable companion creatures with abilities, hostile mobs with unique skills, new weapons, a boss; Small/Great Essence economy (Great Chalice, Soul Furnace, fille… | Knight Lib | Moderate | MAYBE | decent content but redundant with the existing mob roster and it drags in a new library; only if the pack wants more combat-pet content |
| **Hybrid Aquatic** (`hybrid-aquatic`) | Large marine mob roster: new fish species, sharks, crustaceans, critters, otters, nautiluses, and a new miniboss | Hybrid API [HAPI], Biolith | Major | ADD-OPTIONAL | biggest content win in this batch; gate on a worldgen + Aquaculture overlap test because of the two new library pins |
| **Alex's Mobs Continued** (`alexs-mobs-continued`) | Unofficial continuation of Alex's Mobs: the full ~116-mob roster (grizzly bears, tigers, gorillas, sharks, orcas, soul vultures...), taming/breeding/mounts/bucketin… | CodxLib | Overhaul (if it *replaced* the ex… | SKIP | direct duplicate of an existing pack mod; would only ever be a 1:1 swap project |
| **Friends&Foes - Flowery Mooblooms (Forge/NeoForge)** (`friends-and-foes-flowery-mooblooms-forge`) | One moobloom cow variant per flower (allium, sunflower, lilac, etc.) | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | cheap flavor that slots into an installed mod; skip only if moobloom density is unwanted |
| **Pet Cemetery** (`pet-cemetery`) | Dead pets drop Pet Collars; use a charged Respawn Anchor to revive them as Zombie pets (tankier, curable) or Skeleton pets (faster, unrecoverable) with stat tradeof… | Blueprint | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | emotionally valuable on a friends server; verify modded-pet support first |
| **PetProtect** (`petprotect`) | Server-side protection toggles for tamed mobs in PvP: prevent pet player-damage, pet death, pet attacks on players; owner-damage, creative, and totem-effect options… | — | Minor | ADD | tiny, dependency-free, and directly prevents grief/accident on a 10-player PvP-capable server full of tamed mods' pets |
| **Mob Lassos** (`mob-lassos`) | Craftable lassos to carry mobs in inventory: golden (land), aquatic, diamond (no timer), emerald (villagers via contract), hostile (target below 50% HP, bites carri… | Puzzles Lib | Minor-Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | useful QoL; check boss exclusion config before shipping to a pack with Apotheosis |
| **Realm RPG: Fallen Adventurers** (`realm-rpg-fallen-adventurers`) | 50+ treasure-bearing skeleton types generating across biomes and dimensions, dropping ores, materials, food, gear, and enchanted books | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | easy exploration flavor; note the 1.21.1 build dates to 2025-01 (aging but stable, 2.3M downloads) |
| **Spawn** (`spawn-mod`) | Overworld wilderness overhaul: new biomes, many animal mobs with variants, ambience, mechanics | Teal Lib | Major | MAYBE | substantial content but collides with the pack's curated worldgen and mob roster; needs Teal Lib and dedicated testing before inclusion |
| **Mermod** (`mermod`) | Magical necklace (Curios-style accessory) that transforms the wearer into a merperson in water (per description; details on wiki, not README) | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | small, cheap, fits the pack's exploration theme; low information confidence due to thin README |
| **Punchy! x Tiny Takeover** (`tiny-takeover-x-punchy`) | Carry baby mobs in first person with dedicated animations (crouch + right-click; "I" key playful animation) | — | Minor | MAYBE | verify whether Punchy/Tiny Takeover base mods are actually required and that the NeoForge build is real before adding |
| **Environmental** (`environmental`) | New overworld biomes: Blossom Woods, Pine Barrens, Marshes | Blueprint | Moderate | MAYBE | its content substantially duplicates what Terralith + Alex's Mobs already deliver, and it requires pulling in Blueprint for a single m… |
| **Primal** (`mod-primal`) | Wilderness-immersion content released in "Hunters" (1.0) and "Hunt & Gather" (1.1) updates; further specifics are deferred to an external wiki that the README itsel… | — | unknown | MAYBE | sparse documentation; inspect the wiki and jar contents before committing |
| **Pixelmon** (`pixelmon`) | Every Pokémon Gen 1–9 (1000+) with handmade models/animations, plus battling, trading, breeding | — | Overhaul | SKIP | total-conversion-scale content that steamrolls the pack's identity, worldgen, and mob budget |

## Combat, gear & magic

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Too Many Bows** (`too-many-bows`) | 38 unique bows with special abilities; new attributes (Bow Draw Speed, Bow Damage, Ranged Weapon Damage) | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | strong synergy with Better Combat and Curios already in the pack |
| **Reliquary Reincarnations** (`reliquary-reincarnations`) | Magical utility items: Coin of Fortune (item/XP magnet), Interdiction Torch (pushes mobs), Mob Charms (per-mob-type ignore), Sojourner's Staff (torch staff), Void T… | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | content-rich and maintained, but demands a balance pass against Apotheosis/Artifacts |
| **More Relics** (`more-relics`) | 25+ relics (accessory items with unique/evolved forms, e.g. Tyrant Mask, Whispering Amulet evolution chains) distributed across structure chests | ShatterLib | OctoLib, Relics | Moderate | SKIP | needs a missing base mod + two libraries, carries self-documented version-pin fragility, and duplicates the Artifacts niche the pack a… |
| **Relics: Arcane Abilities** (`arcane-abilities`) | Dungeons containing three relic artifacts: Fate Beacon (structure finding + teleport marks), Shadow Lantern (darkness abilities: blinding, invisibility, time manipu… | — | Moderate | SKIP | its own README requires Relics + Hammer Lib (missing); would need both plus a balance review to reconsider |
| **Dream Relics** (`dream-relics`) | Curios-integrated accessories: necklaces/rings/bracelets/special items with abilities (damage scaling vs missing/target health, multi-jump boots, XP-granting grail) | — | Moderate | MAYBE | duplicate niche vs Artifacts with Apotheosis balance implications; needs a curation pass before adding |
| **TarotCards: Remastered** (`tarotcards-remastered`) | 22 Major Arcana cards found only in loot chests (buried treasure, shipwrecks, dungeons), each granting a passive buff while carried; dedicated Curios slot; deck com… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | clean fit for an exploration/loot pack; explicitly team-aware |
| **Skillcloaks** (`skillcloaks`) | Curios back-slot cloaks from villager trades (colored sacks from master-tier villagers): Agility, Attack, Construction (teleport to spawn), Cooking, Crafting (porta… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | solid Curios content on an existing dependency; consider adding Lucent for the full feature set |
| **Ars Elixirum** (`ars-elixirum`) | Free-form elixir brewing: ingredients with seed-dependent alchemical properties, player-authored/saveable/shareable recipes (recipe books on lecterns) | Fragmentum | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | deep alchemy content with one new library dep; confirm in testing that it doesn't hard-require anything beyond Fragmentum |
| **Ars Ocultas** (`ars-ocultas`) | Ars Nouveau ↔ Occultism compatibility: spirits usable from Containment Jars, 7×7 auto item-processing around jars, item-capability piping into jars (pipes/hoppers/s… | Occultism | Moderate if Occultism were presen… | SKIP | required dependency Occultism is absent from both the pack and this batch |
| **Estrogen** (`estrogen`) | Estrogen Pill → "Girl Power" effect enabling a dash movement ability (+ hidden abilities); Estrogen Patches worn in their own Curios-style slots | Cynosure | Moderate | SKIP | meme-toned content whose headline feature alters player movement near a fragile physics stack, and which costs two extra pieces (Cynos… |
| **Create: Estrogen** (`create-estrogen`) | The Create module of the Estrogen mod: a Centrifuge multiblock/machine for new fluid processing recipes, plus custom package (Create packager) shipping recipes; JEI… | Estrogen | Moderate | MAYBE | can't be evaluated in isolation (dep is a batch candidate), self-declared in-development, and tone may not fit the pack; decide togeth… |
| **Small Ships** (`small-ships`) | Medieval sailable ships (R to open/close sail, W/S speed), biome-temperature speed bonuses, ship inventory | — | Moderate | MAYBE | appealing content, but a beta build with old updates parked next to Aeronautics/Sable physics; needs a dedicated compat test or should… |

## Exploration & worldgen

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Dynamic Trees** (`dynamictrees`) | Trees as growing multiblock structures: seeds self-plant, trees grow biome/temperature/rainfall-dependently, grow around obstacles, die in darkness | — | Major | SKIP | a transformative tree overhaul whose coverage against the pack's 10+ worldgen mods is unverified and which demands config curation the… |
| **Spawn Animations** (`spawn-animations`) | hostile mobs dig out of the ground or poof into existence when spawning (works for zombies, skeletons, creepers, endermen, etc.); server-side, command-driven settin… | Quilted Fabric API (QFAPI)…, Fabric API | None | MAYBE | mild flourish; if wanted, use the datapack form to dodge the Fabric dep chain rather than the mod |
| **Spawn Animations Compats** (`spawn-animations-compats`) | datapack adding Spawn Animations support to 50+ modded mobs (Enderman Overhaul, Deeper and Darker, The Graveyard, Galosphere, etc.) | Spawn Animations | None | SKIP | only meaningful if Spawn Animations is added, and its supported mob list barely overlaps this pack |
| **Loot Journal: Pickup Notifier** (`loot-journal`) | Animated item/XP pickup notifications with smart stacking, rare-find highlights, nearby-player pickup tracking, themes, and in-game config | Fragmentum | Client-cosmetic | ADD-OPTIONAL | nice HUD polish; in-game config means no shipped-config maintenance |
| **Traveler's Titles** (`travelers-titles`) | RPG-style fade-in titles when entering biomes/dimensions; Waystone-named region titles (1.18+ Forge/NeoForge), custom sounds via resource pack, dimension/biome blac… | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD | cheap, polished, and it makes the pack's giant curated worldgen legible to players |
| **Death Count** (`death-count`) | A per-player death counter displayed in the tab player list | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | harmless novelty for a 10-player server, though equally achievable with a one-line vanilla scoreboard datapack |
| **Chalk** (`chalk-mod`) | Craftable chalk (calcite / loot) that draws arrow/dot/symbol marks on block faces; dyeable 16 colors; glowstone/glow-ink glowing marks; chalk box for storing/select… | — | Minor | ADD | cheap, self-contained, fills a real gap for cave exploration |

## Social, sleep & death

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Comforts** (`comforts`) | Sleeping bags (portable bed that doesn't set spawn) and hammocks (sleep day→night), 16 colors + dyeing; optional config mechanics (well-rested, sleepiness, break ch… | — | Minor–Moderate | ADD | staple adventure QoL, well-maintained, no dependency cost |
| **Sleep Tight** (`sleep-tight`) | Sleep overhaul: hammocks (day rest), night bags (spawn-less temporary beds), dream essence, home-bed rewards, slower early-game sleep progression | Moonlight Lib | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | popular, well-scoped sleep rework; requires adding Moonlight Lib and choosing between it and Room For Two rather than stacking blindly |
| **Room For Two** (`room-for-two`) | Multiple players sharing one bed; >2 players stack; camera faces your sleeping direction; `/sleeppos [front|back|left|right]` preference | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | harmless fun at BETA maturity; pick it OR Sleep Tight's ecosystem, and test if both |
| **PlayerRevive** (`playerrevive`) | A 60-second post-death window in which friends can revive you instead of a hard respawn | — | Moderate | ADD-OPTIONAL | strong social fit, but it rebalances death and needs a Gravestone interplay check |
| **Incapacitated** (`incapacitated`) | Downed state between life and death: crawling, bleed-out timer, 3 downs before true death (configurable); lava and similar causes bypass instantly | — | Major | MAYBE | great co-op mechanic but changes core death rules; needs owner sign-off plus a Gravestone interaction test |
| **Death Knell** (`death-knell`) | 35+ new death messages, including circumstance-specific ones (cookie-weapon kills, axe dismemberment) and generic variants | — | Client-cosmetic | ADD | zero-risk flavor whose deps are already installed |
| **Charta** (`charta`) | Card-game system: 3 games (Crazy Eights, "Fun", Solitaire), card tables in 3 sizes for up to 8 players, decks found in village/dungeon loot, in-game tutorials; API… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | charming multiplayer flavor, zero risk if unused |
| **Mino++** (`minopp`) | Playable Uno-style card game: placeable table, scroll-wheel card selection, bot players (`/summon minopp:mino_auto_player`, bot config requires YACL), rule variants… | — | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | charming social content with no risk surface; pure taste call |
| **Piggyback** (`piggyback`) | Replaces the default sit-on-head player mechanic with a piggyback-style ride (right-click a crouching player with an empty hand) | Faewulf's Lib | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | harmless co-op fun, but requires adding Faewulf's Lib to the pack |
| **What Are They Up To (Watut)** (`what-are-they-up-to`) | in-world indicators when other players are typing (speed-animated), GUI-activity visuals (hand clicking at a screen), idle/sleeping player visuals, and Zz idle mark… | CoroUtil | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | genuinely fun on a small friend group; costs one small library |
| **Open Parties and Claims** (`open-parties-and-claims`) | Chunk claiming + forceload, player parties, party chat, admin controls, permission-API integration (FTB Ranks, LuckPerms), explicit FTB Teams and Xaero's map integr… | — | Overhaul of base-protection/socia… | SKIP | direct duplicate of FTB Chunks + FTB Teams; would only make sense as a wholesale replacement, which contradicts the installed FTB Ques… |
| **Welcome Screen** (`welcome-screen`) | one-time welcome screen on first world/server join and update-"what's new" screens, fully customizable via FancyMenu | FancyMenu, Necronomicon API | None | SKIP | 2-3 new dependencies for a screen a server MOTD/pin note can replace |
| **Early Bedtime** (`early-bedtime`) | Server-side configurable earlier sleeping threshold (default 1000 ticks / ~50s sooner) | TxniLib | Minor | SKIP | solves a shader-specific problem this shaderless pack doesn't have, at the cost of adopting TxniLib |
| **Horror messages** (`horror-messages`) | A random horror chat message ("Help me", "Behind you", binary "LEAVE") broadcast to all players every 10–15 minutes | — | None | SKIP | chat-spam gimmick; only defensible if the pack deliberately becomes a horror pack |

## Server, admin & performance

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **BlueMap** (`bluemap`) | Reads world files and generates 3D maps of the whole surface, viewable in a browser via its own built-in web app | — | None | ADD-OPTIONAL | genuinely useful for a small dedicated server, but it's ops overhead (webserver, ports, configs) rather than content |
| **Better Compatibility Checker** (`better-compatibility-checker`) | Replaces the default loader server-list compatibility check with modpack project-ID/version comparison, showing tick/X for players adding the pack's server | — | None | MAYBE | only earns its slot if the build pipeline commits to updating its config each release |
| **Let Me Despawn** (`lmd`) | Lets mobs that picked up/equipped items despawn naturally (dropping the items first), with configurable exclusion list and live `/letmedespawn add|remove` commands;… | Almanac | Minor | ADD | clear server-side perf win for a 10-player mob-dense pack; add Almanac with it |
| **More Culling** (`moreculling`) | Client-side culling changes for multiple render categories (per description/wiki: e.g. leaves, block-entity type cases) to cut rendered geometry | — | None | MAYBE | plausible FPS gain, but redundant-adjacent to Entity Culling and unvetted against the pack's fragile rendering core; test in isolation… |
| **BadOptimizations** (`badoptimizations`) | Client micro-optimizations: skip lightmap texture re-uploads when nothing affecting brightness changed; gate debug renderers (bees/game events/gametest/villager AI)… | — | None | SKIP | marginal, hard-to-measure gains on a stack that already covers these areas (constraint 6); not worth extra mixin surface for a ~4% syn… |
| **AsyncParticles** (`asyncparticles`) | Client particle optimizations: GPU-accelerated particle vertex rendering, async particle ticking, particle culling, async light cache | — | None (pure client optimization) | SKIP | a named crash interaction with in-pack C2ME that the pack cannot pre-configure, plus beta render-layer mixins against the fragile Sabl… |
| **Followers Teleport Too** (`followers-teleport-too`) | Non-sitting pets (wolves/cats) near the player teleport along with them on any teleport | Collective | Minor | ADD-OPTIONAL | clear QoL win with Waystones for ~10 players; costs one shared lib |
| **Waystones Teleport Pets** (`waystones-teleport-pets`) | pets teleport alongside players using Waystones without needing a lead attached | — | Minor QoL for pet owners | ADD | tiny, targeted, and fixes a real annoyance for a 10-player server full of tamed pets |
| **Carry On + Create Aeronautics Compat** (`carryon-aeronautics-compat`) | Patches Carry On so blocks can be picked up from Aeronautics/Sable simulated contraptions | Carry On | Moderate (when it applied); effec… | SKIP | self-declared obsolete (fix upstreamed to Carry On 2.2.6+), base mod absent, documented server-hang known issue |
| **Carry On Extend** (`carry-on-extend`) | Shift+Q to throw the entity/block you are currently carrying (Carry On add-on) | Carry On | Minor | SKIP | dead on arrival without Carry On; revisit only if the pack adopts Carry On itself |

## Already in pack (duplicates)

| Mod | What it brings | New deps | Impact | Verdict | Watch-out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Aquaculture 2** (`aquaculture`) | (duplicate entry) — 30+ biome-specific fish, neptunium gear, hooks/bait/line rods, tackle box, fish fillets and fishing loot | — | Moderate (as installed) | ALREADY-IN-PACK | exact duplicate of the existing Aquaculture 2 entry |
| **Aquaculture Delight** (`aquaculture-delight`) | (duplicate entry) — Farmer's Delight × Aquaculture 2 compatibility: fish dishes, Neptunium knife, knife cross-compat, cooking pot/cutting board recipes | — | Minor (as installed) | ALREADY-IN-PACK | exact duplicate of the existing Aquaculture Delight entry |
| **Apothic Combat** (`apothic-combat`) | (duplicate entry) — Compatibility between Apotheosis and Better Combat: registers two-handed Better Combat weapons as HEAVY_WEAPON; removes the Entity Reach attribu… | — | Major (as installed) | ALREADY-IN-PACK | duplicates the pack's existing Apothic Combat entry |
| **Ars Creo** (`ars-creo`) | (duplicate entry) — Ars Nouveau × Create addon: Starbuncle Wheel (SU generation), spell/timer turrets on contraptions, Source Jars as contraption parts | — | Moderate (as installed) | ALREADY-IN-PACK | duplicate of the existing Ars Creo entry; the "missing dep" line is a dead-ID artifact, not a real gap |
| **Create Aeronautics: Compatibility** (`create-aeronautics-compatability`) | (per README) Fixes for mods that break on Sable sub-levels/physics ships: Etched, WATERFrAMES, Alex's Mobs + Alex's Caves (pathfinding RAM/OOM fix), Another Furnitu… | — | Moderate | ALREADY-IN-PACK | duplicates the existing "Create Aeronautics: Compatibility" entry in the pack list; do not add a second copy |
| **Nature's Compass** (`natures-compass`) | (Duplicate entry) Biome-locating compass with searchable GUI, HUD info, config blacklists | — | N/A | ALREADY-IN-PACK | byte-for-byte duplicate of the existing Nature's Compass entry; drop from the candidate list |
| **Separate Sable Render Distance** (`ssrd`) | (duplicate) — Sable physics objects rendering beyond view distance with Distant Horizons/Voxy; Sodium-menu sub-level render distance slider; server-friendly `/ssrd… | — | None | ALREADY-IN-PACK | duplicate of the pack's existing SSRD entry; exclude from the candidate list |
| **Sophisticated Backpacks Create Integration** (`sophisticated-backpacks-create-integration`) | Lets Sophisticated Backpacks sit on Create contraptions with all upgrades (Pickup, Magnet, Filter, Void) functional while in motion | — | Minor (already shipped; storage a… | ALREADY-IN-PACK | exact duplicate of the pack's own Sophisticated Backpacks Create Integration entry |
| **Sophisticated Storage Create Integration** (`sophisticated-storage-create-integration`) | Sophisticated Storage barrels/chests/shulker boxes usable on Create contraptions (trains, gantries, flywheels) with upgrades, tier upgrades, and Storage Tool functi… | — | Minor (already shipped) | ALREADY-IN-PACK | exact duplicate of the pack's own Sophisticated Storage Create Integration entry |