onion-mc/analysis/archive/2026-09-candidate-review/MODLIST-REVIEW.md

Onion MC — Candidate Modlist Review

Pack: Onion MC 0.1.0 — Minecraft 1.21.1 / NeoForge 21.1.251 (packwiz) Candidates reviewed: 189 minetest/mod links (mods, plugins, datapacks) supplied by the operator Existing pack: 142 tracked entries (133 Modrinth + 9 CurseForge) Date: 2026-09-29 (post-review update: see Section 0)

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0. Post-review update — new commits and the mod-pack-additions branch

After the first pass of this review, the remote was fetched and two things changed the premises:

A. New commits on origin/main (local main was 2 commits behind):

• be07001 — Clumps added (XP-orb merging, side = both): cuts XP-orb entity count, entity packets and server tick cost. Low-risk, standard server-perf mod; no conflict with anything reviewed here.
• 25b3f78 — C2ME runtime cache/ untracked from the pack index (housekeeping).

B. Branch mod-pack-additions (2 commits ahead of the local main; not merged, and checked out in a separate worktree at ~/.herdr/worktrees/onion-mc/mod-pack-additions). It adds:

Added	Detail
Iris Shaders	iris-neoforge-1.8.14-beta.1+mc1.21.1, side = client
Iris Veil Compat	irisveil-0.3.0.jar — bridges Veil (embedded in Sable) through Iris so Create Aeronautics visuals render correctly under shaders
Aeronautics Iris Fix	CurseForge aero-shadow-fix-2.1.0.jar — third-party fix for Create Aeronautics balloon envelopes rendering as ghost artifacts under Iris
Shaderpacks	Complementary Reimagined r5.9.3, MakeUp Ultra Fast 9.5f
Resourcepacks	Motschen's Better Leaves 9.6, Fresh Animations: Extensions v1.8.1

What this changes in this report:

• The "no shaders" premise is retired. Onion MC is moving to Iris + a curated shader list, with two purpose-built compat patches for the exact Aeronautics/Iris problems FINDINGS.md flagged.
• iris and iris-veil-compat move from SKIP to ADDED — they are now pack content.
• createbetterfps moves from SKIP to MAYBE. Its blocker was "1.21.1 needs Sodium and Iris"; with Iris now present it is technically unblocked, but it patches Create's code directly and benefits only shader scenes, so it must be tested against the Aeronautics/Sable stack before shipping.
• Shader-adjacent candidates get a second look: shine, grassier-grass, fog, and ATMOSPHERICS now sit next to a real shader pipeline. shine/grassier-grass (Sodium terrain shaders) become more relevant; fog/ATMOSPHERICS (sky/fog rewrites) now conflict with the shaderpacks' own fog/sky, so their SKIP/MAYBE verdicts stand for a stronger reason.
• Residual risk is not zero. The fix chain is iris + iris-veil-compat + aeronautics-iris-fix, and aeronautics-iris-fix is a small third-party CurseForge patch (~2.6K downloads, present in ~11 modpacks). Known Aeronautics/Iris issues beyond balloon shadows exist (e.g. heat-particle rendering has a separate fix mod). Treat the Aeronaautics-under-shaders combination as verified-in-progress, and keep the phase0/ measurement plan for shader on/off before/after.
• Sections below are otherwise unchanged, except where marked (updated).

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1. Executive summary

Every one of the 189 candidates has a 1.21.1 NeoForge-compatible build. Nothing on the list is blocked by version availability. The real filters are dependency cost, overlap, and a small number of hard conflicts.

Headline result:

Verdict	Count
ADD — clear, low-risk win	18
ADD-OPTIONAL — good, but a taste/librarary decision	88
MAYBE — needs an in-pack test or a design decision first	36
SKIP — conflict, dead dependency, duplication, or wrong stack	36
ALREADY-IN-PACK — duplicate of an installed mod	9
ADDED — already on mod-pack-additions	2

The single most useful finding is that the candidate list is dominated by "more of what the pack already has". Onion MC already runs five Farmer's Delight addons, a full Create stack, ~20 structure mods, a large mob roster, and a saturated client-performance stack. Most candidates are another Delight addon, another decoration mod, another HUD mod, or another culling/perf mod. Adding all the safe ones would bloat the pack and its library surface without changing the shape of the game.

Recommended core: 20 mods + 2 libraries (Section 4). Everything else is either a deliberate expansion choice, a test-first item, or a skip.

The second finding is dependency economics. The candidates would collectively drag in ~25 new NeoForge library mods (Puzzles Lib, Moonlight Lib, Blueprint, Fragmentum, Collective, Almanac, Delight Lib, Lodestone, SmartBrainLib, Coralib, Faewulf's Lib, Teal Lib, etc.). Several are shared by multiple candidates, so the sane strategy is to pick one or two content families and pay for the libraries those need — not to adopt candidates piecemeal.

The third finding is that a few candidates are actively dangerous in this specific pack: anything that needs Iris/shaders (the pack deliberately has none; Create Aeronautics and SSRD both document Iris rendering issues), anything Fabric-only via Sinytra Connector, a second dynamic lights engine next to LambDynamicLights, and a second claim/party system next to FTB. See the risk register in Section 8.

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2. How this review was produced (and how much to trust it)

• Deterministic data (high confidence). All 189 links were resolved through the Modrinth API v2 — project metadata, loader/side support, every 1.21.1 build, and the required-dependency graph of the selected 1.21.1 NeoForge build. The existing pack was read directly from its 142 .pw.toml files. Counts, loader support, version availability and required dependencies in this report are machine-derived, not guessed.
• README/feature analysis (medium-high confidence). Each candidate's Modrinth README was used as the primary source for what it adds and for author-declared compatibility notes. Where the README was silent, the assessment says so.
• Compatibility claims (medium confidence). Named conflict claims come from mod READMEs, official issue trackers, or the pack's own FINDINGS.md. They are cited in the detailed appendix and should be re-tested in a dev instance before shipping — a closed issue or a fixed version can invalidate any of them.
• Where this report is uncertain it says unknown, unverified, or lists a test gate. Treat the verdict as a prior, not a guarantee.

Corrections applied after validation

The bulk research pass was independently checked on the highest-impact claims. Three corrections were made; the full per-mod appendix retains the corrected view:

1. veil — the "no consumer mod" rationale was wrong. Veil is embedded inside Sable (embedded dependency in Sable's own metadata), which is why iris-veil-compat exists. The verdict is still SKIP, but the correct reason is "Veil is already jar-in-jar inside Sable; adding it standalone is a duplicate/conflict on the fragile render stack" — not "nothing uses it".
2. autohud — the Fabric-API "red flag" was a metadata artifact. The README explicitly scopes the Fabric API requirement to the Fabric build; the NeoForge build is native. Verdict raised from MAYBE to ADD-OPTIONAL.
3. supplementaries — the Create conflict is stale. All three cited issues (Create #7405, Create #9755, Supplementaries #1436) are closed, and both mods are now ~18 months newer. Verdict raised from MAYBE to ADD-OPTIONAL, with a Create smoke test still recommended.

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3. Baseline: what the pack is, and what that implies

From FINDINGS.md, pack.toml, index.toml and the phase0/ tuning docs, the decision-relevant facts are:

Fact	Consequence for candidate screening
Shaders: now being added via mod-pack-additions — Iris + shaderpacks + two compat patches (see Section 0); previously none by design.	Iris, iris-veil-compat and the shaderpacks are now pack content. Shader-adjacent candidates are re-evaluated in Section 0; sky/fog rewrites now also conflict with the shaderpacks themselves.
Fragile render core: Sodium 0.8.13 + Distant Horizons + SSRD + Sable's intrusive mixins. Sodium is version-pinned by Sable (≥ 0.8.12-alpha.2).	Any mod that hooks the sky/fog/weather/terrain render path or couples to a Sodium version is test-first at best.
Create + Sable + Aeronautics is the highest-risk component. Five Sable compat patches already exist.	Create addons and anything touching player/block physics (gradient, ragdolls, tree physics, ships) need a dev-server test.
Client-perf stack is saturated: Sodium, Lithium, ModernFix, FerriteCore, EntityCulling, ImmediatelyFast, Dynamic FPS, AllTheLeaks, C2ME, Noisium.	Additional generic perf/culling mods have small marginal gains and add mixin surface.
No configs shipped. .packwizignore excludes config/* except one FTB Chunks file.	Candidates that require config curation (Burnt, More Music Discs, Lunar, Celestia, Sleep Tight, Worldgen structure tuning) carry a maintenance cost the pack does not currently pay.
Worldgen is curated and already dense: Terralith + Tectonic + Incendium + Nullscape + Towns and Towers + When Dungeons Arise + 9 YUNG's mods + Explorify + Sparse Structures.	Biome-adding and structure-adding candidates meet a stack that is already at the "loading" end and already uses Sparse Structures to tame it.
Content pillars: Farmer's Delight (+5 addons), Create, Aquaculture 2, Apotheosis, Sophisticated Storage/Backpacks, Waystones/Gravestone/Lootr, Alex's Mobs/Caves, Ars Nouveau, Twilight Forest.	The best candidates are those that plug into a pillar with the same dependencies, not those that start a new one.
~10-player dedicated server matters as much as the client.	Server-side candidates (lmd, PetProtect, claim mods, structure mods, BlueMap) are judged on TPS/ops cost, not just fun.
A dedicated Create Aeronautics compatibility mod is installed and explicitly patches Sleep Tight and Etched among others.	Those two candidates have a positive, author-provided compatibility signal for the Sable stack.

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4. Recommended core — add these

Chosen for value ÷ risk: high player-facing value, no hard conflicts, and either zero new libraries or one small, widely-used library. This is the set I would ship as a first cohort.

#	Mod	What it adds	Anchor / relationship	Gameplay impact	New libs	Compat notes
1	Supplementaries (supplementaries)	Large Vanilla+ block set: jars, signposts, faucets, spring launchers, sconces, planters, rope, lights, decoration + light automation	Decoration family (Chipped/Handcrafted/Rechiseled); NeoForge-first project	Moderate	Moonlight Lib	Old Create 1.21.1 conflicts all closed; smoke-test with Create. Also unlocks Sleep Tight/Haunted Harvest.
2	Let Me Despawn (lmd)	Mobs that picked up gear despawn naturally (dropping the gear first)	Server perf next to Lithium/ModernFix; does not replace the chunk engine	Minor (server perf gain)	Almanac	Directly helps a mob-dense Apotheosis/Alex's Mobs server. Check affixed-mob drops.
3	Comforts (comforts)	Sleeping bags (no spawn-set) + hammocks (skip day); dyeable	Expedition QoL next to Waystones/Gravestone	Minor	none	22.9M downloads, current 1.21.1 NeoForge build.
4	Traveler's Titles (travelers-titles)	RPG biome/dimension entry titles; Waystones region titles; Twilight Forest built in	Exploration family	Client-cosmetic	none (YUNG's API in pack)	Makes the curated Terralith/Tectonic world legible.
5	Zume (zume)	Hold-to-zoom keybind with adjustable zoom levels	Client utility; no zoom mod in pack	Client-cosmetic	none	Zero server footprint.
6	FindMe (findme)	Hover an item in JEI, press Y to locate it in nearby inventories	JEI + Sophisticated Storage loop	Minor	none (Architectury in pack)	High-frequency QoL for a storage-heavy pack.
7	Sophisticated Item Actions (sophisticated-item-actions)	Keybind-highlight nearby storages holding an item; deposit/restock without opening GUIs	Sophisticated Core/Backpacks/Storage + JEI	Minor	none	Fills a real gap; JEI-aware.
8	Chalk (chalk-mod)	Dyeable chalk marks on block faces (glow variants) + chalk box	Navigation next to Waystones/compasses/Ping Wheel	Minor	none	Fills the cave-marking niche nothing else covers.
9	PetProtect (petprotect)	Server toggle: tamed mobs can't be hurt/killed by players in PvP	Pet family	Minor (server policy)	none	Cheap grief insurance on a friends server.
10	Waystones Teleport Pets (waystones-teleport-pets)	Pets follow you through Waystones without a lead	Direct Waystones addon	Minor	none	Server-side.
11	Extreme Sound Muffler (extreme_sound_muffler)	Per-sound volume/mute GUI + ranged "anchor" muffling	Client audio control over AmbientSounds + Sound Physics + Create noise	Client-cosmetic	none	Client-only; complements (doesn't replace) Sound Physics Remastered.
12	Simple Music Control (simple-music-control)	Halved music delay, next-track key, now-playing widget	Client audio QoL	Client-cosmetic	none (Fzzy Config in pack)	Zero risk.
13	Held Item Tooltips (held-item-tooltips)	Info plate on item switch: enchants, durability, effects, shulker previews	Complements Enchantment Descriptions + Legendary Tooltips (different surface)	Client-cosmetic	Puzzles Lib	Puzzles Lib also unlocks Visual Workbench / Distinct Potions / Mob Lassos.
14	Display Delight (display-delight)	Placeable 3D models of every Delight food (no block entities — lag-friendly), food plates	All five installed Delight addons	Minor	none	README lists explicit compat with Ocean's/End's/Aquaculture Delight.
15	Fruits Delight (fruits-delight)	17 fruits, 90 fruit foods, jam/jello cauldrons, 18 plants/14 fruit trees	Farmer's Delight; author-claimed Create + Terralith compat	Moderate	none	2.2M downloads; plugs into two existing pillars.
16	Rustic Delight (rustic-delight)	Bell peppers, coffee (Speed/Haste), cotton, pancakes, fried foods	Farmer's Delight	Minor	none	Textbook same-dependency addon.
17	Cat Jam (cat_jam)	Cats bob to music discs, with per-disc routines	Client charm; Alex's Mobs discs explicitly supported	Client-cosmetic	none	Client-only, oldest-but-stable build.
18	Death Knell (death-knell)	35+ situational death messages	Flavor	Client-cosmetic	none (Prickle + Bookshelf in pack)	Zero risk, deps already installed.
19	Portfolio (portfolio)	100+ paintings in 10 themed catalogues	Decoration family	Client-cosmetic	none	Ships as mod or datapack; zero deps.
20	FishingOverhaul (fishingoverhaul)	Reel-in fishing minigame with crit regions and per-fish tuning	Aquaculture 2 (README states compat)	Minor	none	Changes the fishing interaction, not progression.

Bundle cost: 20 mods, 2 new libraries (Moonlight Lib, Almanac), one of which (Moonlight Lib) unlocks further candidates later. No config maintenance. No server-render risk. Nothing here touches Sodium, DH, Sable, Create physics, or worldgen.

Runner-up core picks (equally safe, pick if the theme appeals): Sounds (sound, +MRU) for 170+ upgraded SFX; Particle Effects and Perception for client ambience; Distinct Potions (+Puzzles Lib, already paid for by Held Item Tooltips); GUI Effect Timer (+Collective); Neat for mob health bars; Advancement Plaques (Iceberg already in pack); Visual Workbench (+Puzzles Lib).

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5. Strong optional additions, by content family

These are all defensible ADD-OPTIONALs. Use them to steer the pack deliberately, not to accumulate.

5.1 Farmer's Delight expansion (the pack's most crowded lane)

Farmer's Delight already has 5 addons. Adding more is cumulative, not gap-filling.

Mod	What it adds	New libs	Notes
Expanded Delight	More crops/workstations; best-covered by Display Delight (37 foods)	none	Author-declared beta.
ExtraDelight	7 kitchen workstations (oven, chiller, melting pot…), cookware	none	Block-entity heavy; confirm server load.
Miner's Delight	Cave-food addon (cave carrots, copper pot/cup)	Lodestone	Author-declared beta.
More Delight	Sandwiches, toast, stone/wood knives; Create-compatible	Delight Lib	Safe, low marginal value.
Dungeon's Delight	Monster Pot, inverted "monster effects", Rotbulb crop	none	Check effect stacking with Apotheosis.
Barbeque's Delight	Grill/skewer loop + seasonings	none	Frictionless.
Fright's Delight	56 horror foods from mob drops, cursed berries	none	Horror theme is a taste call.
Veggies Delight	7 vegetables, temperature-based wild spawns, village Depot Houses	none	Low-risk; village structures are additive.
Hearth and Harvest	Crops, corn mazes, salt caverns, ranching utilities	none	Corn overlaps Haunted Harvest — pick one.
Haunted Harvest	Trick-or-treating villagers, pumpkin carving, corn	Moonlight Lib	Shares Moonlight with Supplementaries.
Cultural Delights	Avocado/eggplant/cucumber/corn/beans/cinnamon, world cuisine	Cook's Collection	Extra lib for one addon.
Delightful Creators	Second FD↔Create automation bridge (fluids/soups)	none	Overlaps the installed Slice & Dice — deliberate "both routes" decision.

5.2 Create expansion (test every one against Aeronautics/Sable)

Mod	What it adds	New libs	Notes
Create: Bells & Whistles	36 deco/utility blocks (platforms, headlights, train grab bars)	none	Decorative; smoke-test on contraptions.
Create: Design n' Decor	Create-styled deco/variant blocks	none	Active maintenance; low risk.
Create: Teleporters	TP links, entity/item teleporters, pocket-dimension portal	none	Adds a dimension; independent of worldgen.
Create: Waystones Recipes	Replaces Waystones recipes with Create machine recipes	none	Progression design decision.
Create: Factory	Create-themed foods	none	Crowded food lane; low value.
Create: Structures Arise	28 Create-themed worldgen structures	none	Thickens an already structure-saturated worldgen stack.
Create: Sophisticated Backpacks Compat	Third-party recipe pack for SB components	none	Likely partial recipe overlap with the installed official integration — check JEI.

5.3 Decoration & building

Items Displayed, Beautiful Campfires, Sooty Chimneys, Too Many Paintings, Spooky Doors, Boatload (+Blueprint), Display Case / Fetzi's Displays / Gallery (+Blueprint, pick one display system), Etched (music discs from URLs — note: Create Aeronautics Compat explicitly patches Etched, a positive signal; content-policy caveat), Accents (+Fragmentum).

5.4 HUD, client polish & ambience

Neat (prefer over JeremySeq's Damage Indicator — pick one mob-info mod), Armor HUD or Immersive Armor HUD (+TxniLib), Advancement Plaques, AutoHUD, GUI Effect Timer (+Collective), Keybind Atlas, Blur+ (+MidnightLib), Distinct Potions (+Puzzles Lib), Emojiful, Quick Skin (prefer over SkinChanger), Sounds Be Gone, Now Playing (+Deimos for discs), Loot Journal (+Fragmentum), Particle Effects, Perception, Smart Particles, Better Animations Collection (+Puzzles Lib), Visuality: Reforged, Better Third Person, Camera Overhaul, Cinematic Respawn, Mermod, Piggyback (+Faewulf's Lib), Cosy Critters, Fancy World Animations (blacklist safety valve exists).

5.5 Mobs, combat & gear

Fowl Play (+SmartBrainLib), Animal Garden – Porcupine (zero deps), Hybrid Aquatic (+Hybrid API + Biolith; big ocean overhaul — gate on a worldgen/Aquaculture test), Realm RPG: Fallen Adventurers (explicit Twilight Forest support), Reliquary Reincarnations (needs a balance pass vs Apotheosis/Artifacts), Too Many Bows (explicitly recommends Better Combat + Curios, both in pack), Skillcloaks (Curios), TarotCards: Remastered (team-aware via FTB Teams), Mob Lassos (+Puzzles Lib; check boss exclusion), Friends&Foes – Flowery Mooblooms (same author as installed F&F), Pet Cemetery (+Blueprint; verify modded-pet support), Animal Garden, Dream Relics (balance overlap with Artifacts).

5.6 Social & minigames

Immersive Melodies, Charta, Mino++, Watut (+CoroUtil), PlayerRevive (Gravestone interplay test), Incapacitated (changes core death rules — owner sign-off).

5.7 Sleep

Sleep Tight (+Moonlight Lib; explicitly patched by the installed Create Aeronautics Compat, a positive signal; adds bedbugs/nightmares), Room For Two (beta; pick one of these two).

5.8 Server / admin

BlueMap (web map — ops overhead: port, web server, bStats opt-out; async to the server thread), Followers Teleport Too (+Collective; overlaps Waystones Teleport Pets — pick one), Better Compatibility Checker (only if the pack pipeline will update bcc-common.toml each release).

5.9 Fishing & food extras

Fishing Real (fish spawn as live entities; defaults cover vanilla only — needs datapack JSONs for Aquaculture species), Overweight Farming, AlcoCraft+, Create: Factory.

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6. Full master table (all 189 candidates)

Verdicts and one-line rationale per candidate. MAYBE = test-first or a design decision. The detailed Adds / Relationship / Missing deps / Compatibility / Perf breakdown for every mod is in the appendix (analysis/assess/chunk*.md, consolidated in analysis/CANDIDATE-APPENDIX.md). The same candidates grouped by purpose with a “what it brings” column are in MODLIST-GROUPS.md.

(updated) iris and iris-veil-compat are now ADDED (branch), and createbetterfps is now MAYBE — see Section 0.

ADD (18)

Mod	Impact	Rationale
cat_jam (cat_jam)	Client-cosmetic	tiny, client-only, documented compat with a mod already in the pack.
Chalk (chalk-mod)	Minor	cheap, self-contained, fills a real gap for cave exploration.
Comforts (comforts)	Minor–Moderate	staple adventure QoL, well-maintained, no dependency cost.
Death Knell (death-knell)	Client-cosmetic	zero-risk flavor whose deps are already installed.
Display Delight (display-delight)	Minor	direct, low-risk upgrade to the pack's food-and-decor identity.
Extreme sound muffler (extreme_sound_muffler)	Client-cosmetic	zero-risk, zero-server-cost QoL that is actively maintained (3.56, 2026-09-22).
FindMe (findme)	Minor	zero-dep, low-risk, high-frequency QoL.
FishingOverhaul (fishingoverhaul)	Minor	declared Aquaculture 2 compat makes this a natural pack fit.
Fruits Delight (fruits-delight)	Moderate	big, popular (2.2M downloads) FD expansion that plugs into two pack pillars (Create, Terralith).
Held Item Tooltips (held-item-tooltips)	Client-cosmetic (informational).	low-risk, high-frequency QoL; library cost shared with other Puzzles-Lib picks.
Let Me Despawn (lmd)	Minor	clear server-side perf win for a 10-player mob-dense pack; add Almanac with it.
PetProtect (petprotect)	Minor	tiny, dependency-free, and directly prevents grief/accident on a 10-player PvP-capable server full of tamed mods' pets.
Portfolio (portfolio)	Client-cosmetic	zero-dependency pure content that fills an empty decorative niche.
Rustic Delight (rustic-delight)	Minor	textbook fit: same-dependency addon for an existing content pillar.
Simple Music Control (simple-music-control)	Client-cosmetic.	zero-risk client QoL whose only dependency is already present.
Traveler's Titles (travelers-titles)	Client-cosmetic.	cheap, polished, and it makes the pack's giant curated worldgen legible to players.
Waystones Teleport Pets (waystones-teleport-pets)	Minor QoL for pet owners.	tiny, targeted, and fixes a real annoyance for a 10-player server full of tamed pets.
Zume (zume)	None (view convenience; no gameplay ch	zero-dep, zero-server, fills an obvious gap next to Sodium+DH distance viewing.

ADD-OPTIONAL (88)

Mod	Impact	Rationale
Fisherman's Haven (fishermans-haven)	Moderate	no deps, distinct fishing mechanics that complement Aquaculture 2; accept the niche overlap deliberately.
Accents (accents)	Minor	low-risk cosmetic+minor-stat layer; costs one new library dep.
Advancement Plaques (advancement-plaques)	Client-cosmetic.	safe client polish on a dep already in pack; one test-instance check on the sound caveat.
Akashic Tome (akashic-tome)	None	cheap, low-risk QoL that scales well with a 142-mod pack.
AlcoCraft+ (alcocraft)	Minor	small, self-contained fun; no flags.
Animal Garden - Porcupine (animal-garden-porcupine)	Minor	tiny, dependency-free, fits the existing tameable-mob theme.
Armor Hud (armor-hud)	Client-cosmetic.	tiny, dependency-free HUD addition.
Ars Elixirum (ars-elixirum)	Moderate	deep alchemy content with one new library dep; confirm in testing that it doesn't hard-require anything beyond Fragmentum.
Auto HUD (autohud)	Client-cosmetic.	Metadata Fabric-API dep is Fabric-build-only; native NeoForge build.
Barbeque's Delight [Forge/NeoForge] (barbeques-delight-forge)	Minor	frictionless fit with the existing Delight stack.
Beautiful Campfires (beautiful-campfires)	Minor	cheap cosmetic polish; document the oak-only recipe change in pack notes.
Better Animations Collection (better-animations-collection)	Client-cosmetic.	pure atmosphere polish for one new library dep.
Better Third Person (better-third-person)	Client-cosmetic.	safe, popular camera QoL with no deps; just smoke-test it while piloting Aeronautics contraptions.
BlueMap (bluemap)	None	genuinely useful for a small dedicated server, but it's ops overhead (webserver, ports, configs) rather than content.
Blur+ (blur-plus)	Client-cosmetic	safe cosmetic; only bother if the pack wants GUI polish.
Boatload (boatload)	Minor	pleasant water QoL, but chest-boat overlap with vanilla makes it low-value; needs Blueprint.
Burnt (burnt-basic)	Moderate	distinctive survival flavor with controls, but server-grief/tick cost means it's a taste call, not a default.
Camera Overhaul (cameraoverhaul)	Client-cosmetic	cheap and configurable, entirely a taste/accessibility call.
Certain Questing Additions (certain-questing-additions)	None	nice polish for a quested pack; harmless if dropped.
Charta (charta)	Minor	charming multiplayer flavor, zero risk if unused.
Cinematic Respawn (cinematic-respawn)	Client-cosmetic	pleasant, zero-risk client polish; taste call on auto-respawn.
Cosy Critters & Creepy Crawlies (cosy-critters)	Client-cosmetic	cheap atmosphere for explorers; skip if the ambience budget is full.
Create Waystones Recipes (create-waystones-recipes)	Minor	safe; a deliberate progression/taste decision for the questbook rather than a technical one.
Create: Bells & Whistles (bellsandwhistles)	Minor	strong deco value for a Create pack; verify blocks behave on Aeronautics contraptions first.
Create: Design n' Decor (create-design-n-decor)	Minor	safe factory decoration; nice with the pack's Chipped/Rechiseled angle.
Create: Factory (create-factory)	Minor	harmless, but the food family is already the pack's most crowded content lane; low marginal value.
Create: Structures Arise (create-structures-arise)	Moderate	strong fit for a Create + exploration pack, but it thickens an already structure-saturated worldgen stack with no config knobs shipped.
Create: Teleporters (create-teleporters)	Moderate	clean fit for Create logistics with no flagged conflicts; decide whether the pack wants dimensional play.
Cultural Delights (cultural-delights)	Moderate	on-theme food content, but it requires adopting Cook's Collection and the Delight shelf is already crowded.
Death Count (death-count)	Minor	harmless novelty for a 10-player server, though equally achievable with a one-line vanilla scoreboard datapack.
Distinct Potions (distinct-potions)	Client-cosmetic	cheap visual QoL; only worth it if the pack accepts pulling in Puzzles Lib for a single client mod.
Dungeon's Delight (dungeons_delight)	Moderate	thematically perfect next to the pack's existing Delight collection; sanity-check the new effect types against Apotheosis stacking.
Dynamic Crosshair (dynamiccrosshair)	Client-cosmetic	pure client polish, but must be tested against ImmediatelyFast and dropped if HUD glitches appear.
Emojiful (emojiful)	Client-cosmetic	fun for a 10-player social server with zero gameplay footprint.
Etched (etched)	Minor	great social toy for a small server; settle the URL-content policy first.
Expanded Delight (expanded-delight)	Moderate	strongly on-theme and the best-covered addon for Display Delight, but accept the author-declared beta instability or wait for stable.
ExtraDelight (extradelight)	Moderate	the meatiest Delight addon in the batch and a natural kitchen-tier progression; confirm the block-entity load on the dedicated server before committing.
Fancy World Animations [FWA] (fwa)	Client-cosmetic	strong client polish with a blacklist safety valve; verify against Sable/ImmediatelyFast rendering before shipping.
Farmer's Knives (farmers-knives)	Minor	cheap thematic glue whose payoff is real but limited to Twilight Forest materials since the other supported tool mods aren't in the pack.
Field Guide (field-guide)	Minor	excellent fit for a 10-player exploration pack; price of admission is two extra NeoForge libs.
Fishing Real (fishing-real)	Minor	cheap, fun, low-risk; worth a small datapack pass to include Aquaculture species.
Followers Teleport Too (followers-teleport-too)	Minor	clear QoL win with Waystones for ~10 players; costs one shared lib.
Fowl Play (fowlplay)	Minor	strong ambience fit for the pack's mob roster; costs one AI lib.
Friends&Foes - Flowery Mooblooms (Forge/NeoForge) (friends-and-foes-flowery-mooblooms-forge)	Minor	cheap flavor that slots into an installed mod; skip only if moobloom density is unwanted.
Fright's Delight (frights-delight)	Minor	fits the pack's Delight collection; horror theme is a taste call.
GUI Effect Timer (gui-effect-timer)	Client-cosmetic (informational).	tiny, safe, useful; effectively free once Collective is pinned for Followers Teleport Too.
Hearth and Harvest (hearth-and-harvest)	Moderate	solid FD-family expansion; coordinate corn overlap with Haunted Harvest before adding both.
Hybrid Aquatic (hybrid-aquatic)	Major	biggest content win in this batch; gate on a worldgen + Aquaculture overlap test because of the two new library pins.
Immersive Armor HUD (immersive-armor-hud)	Client-cosmetic.	cheap vanilla-style HUD upgrade; minor recency caveat.
Immersive Melodies (immersive-melodies)	Minor	fun multiplayer toy at essentially zero mechanical risk.
Items Displayed [NeoForge] (items-displayed-forge)	Minor	safe builder content that fits the pack's decoration mods.
Keybind Atlas (keybind-atlas)	None	genuinely useful in a pack this size, zero risk.
Loot Journal: Pickup Notifier (loot-journal)	Client-cosmetic	nice HUD polish; in-game config means no shipped-config maintenance.
Mermod (mermod)	Minor	small, cheap, fits the pack's exploration theme; low information confidence due to thin README.
Miner's Delight (miners-delight)	Minor	strong thematic fit with the Delight family, but the author's own beta warning plus a new library dep argue for wait-and-see.
Mino++ (minopp)	Minor	charming social content with no risk surface; pure taste call.
Mob Lassos (mob-lassos)	Minor-Moderate	useful QoL; check boss exclusion config before shipping to a pack with Apotheosis.
More Delight (for Farmer's Delight) (more-delight)	Minor	safe, on-theme content; the Delight family is already large, so it's cumulative rather than filling a gap.
More Music Discs (more-music-discs)	None-Minor	cheap flavor; verify default disc-in-every-loot-pool density is wanted.
Mystical Oak Tree (mystical-oak-tree)	Minor	harmless flavor for a friends pack; nothing about it strains the stack.
Neat (neat)	Client-cosmetic	mature, zero-risk combat readability; prefer over the Damage Indicator if choosing one.
Now Playing (now-playing)	None	trivial, safe; most valuable if music-content mods are added.
Overweight Farming (overweight-farming)	Minor	small, self-contained farming charm.
Particle Effects (particle-effects)	Client-cosmetic	pure client polish, zero server footprint.
Perception (perception)	Client-cosmetic	safe client ambience; optional enough that individual players could skip it.
Pet Cemetery (pet-cemetery)	Minor	emotionally valuable on a friends server; verify modded-pet support first.
Piggyback (piggyback)	Minor	harmless co-op fun, but requires adding Faewulf's Lib to the pack.
PlayerRevive (playerrevive)	Moderate	strong social fit, but it rebalances death and needs a Gravestone interplay check.
Quick Skin (quick-skin)	Client-cosmetic	client nicety; preferred over SkinChanger (newer, GUI, more features).
Realm RPG: Fallen Adventurers (realm-rpg-fallen-adventurers)	Minor	easy exploration flavor; note the 1.21.1 build dates to 2025-01 (aging but stable, 2.3M downloads).
Reliquary Reincarnations (reliquary-reincarnations)	Moderate	content-rich and maintained, but demands a balance pass against Apotheosis/Artifacts.
Room For Two (room-for-two)	Minor	harmless fun at BETA maturity; pick it OR Sleep Tight's ecosystem, and test if both.
Skillcloaks (skillcloaks)	Minor	solid Curios content on an existing dependency; consider adding Lucent for the full feature set.
Sleep Tight (sleep-tight)	Moderate	popular, well-scoped sleep rework; requires adding Moonlight Lib and choosing between it and Room For Two rather than stacking blindly.
Smart Particles (smart-particles)	Client-cosmetic	targeted client-side stabilizer with no server footprint; watch mixin overlap with ImmediatelyFast.
Sooty Chimneys (sooty-chimneys)	Minor	safe, charming builder content with negligible cost.
Sophisticated Item Actions (sophisticated-item-actions)	Minor (inventory-flow QoL, Terraria-st	genuinely new capability that plays well with the Sophisticated + JEI stack already in the pack.
Sounds (sound)	Client-cosmetic.	high polish, zero server footprint; costs one new small library.
Sounds Be Gone! (soundsbegone)	Client-cosmetic (no gameplay change; p	tiny, safe, real accessibility value for a 10-player group.
Spooky Doors (spooky-doors)	Minor	small, charming, Balm-based and low-risk.
Supplementaries (supplementaries)	Moderate	Create conflict issues all closed; NeoForge-first. Needs Moonlight Lib; smoke-test.
TarotCards: Remastered (tarotcards-remastered)	Minor	clean fit for an exploration/loot pack; explicitly team-aware.
Too Many Bows (too-many-bows)	Moderate	strong synergy with Better Combat and Curios already in the pack.
Too Many Paintings! (too-many-paintings)	Client-cosmetic (placed paintings are	zero-dep cosmetic content, safe on both sides.
Veggies Delight (veggies-delight)	Minor	low-risk content that deepens the pack's largest content family.
Visual Workbench (visual-workbench)	Minor	popular, polished Fuzs mod; costs one small library.
Visuality: Reforged (visuality-forge)	Client-cosmetic.	safe client-only polish; consider whether Subtle Effects already covers the need.
What Are They Up To (Watut) (what-are-they-up-to)	Minor	genuinely fun on a small friend group; costs one small library.

MAYBE (36)

Mod	Impact	Rationale
Better Compatibility Checker (better-compatibility-checker)	None.	only earns its slot if the build pipeline commits to updating its config each release.
Burnt + Additions (burnt)	Moderate	the fuller variant is attractive but heavier; if fire flavor is wanted, choose this over basic deliberately (and still treat as optional).
Celestria (celestria)	Minor	nice ambience, but stale build + WorldRenderer mixin on the Sodium/DH/Sable stack needs an in-pack smoke test first.
Companions! (companions-mod)	Moderate	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.
Create: Estrogen (create-estrogen)	Moderate	can't be evaluated in isolation (dep is a batch candidate), self-declared in-development, and tone may not fit the pack; decide together with the Estrogen entry.
Create: Sophisticated Backpacks Compat (create-sophisticated-backpacks-compat)	Minor	plausible value, but check for recipe collisions with the official Create Integration already in the pack before committing.
CreateBetterFps (createbetterfps)	None	Iris + Sodium now in pack, so unblocked in principle, but it patches Create's code on the Aeronautics/Sable stack - test first.
Delightful Creators (delightful-creators)	Moderate	pick one FD↔Create bridge; Slice & Dice is already installed and proven, so this needs a deliberate "both approaches" decision.
Display Case (displaycase)	Client-cosmetic	fine in isolation, but choose between this and Fetzi's Displays (same batch) rather than shipping both display systems.
Dream Relics (dream-relics)	Moderate	duplicate niche vs Artifacts with Apotheosis balance implications; needs a curation pass before adding.
Effectual (effectual)	Client-cosmetic	duplicates Subtle Effects' niche and drags in a new lib; only add after an overlap audit, which the config-less pack model makes costly.
Environmental (environmental)	Moderate	its content substantially duplicates what Terralith + Alex's Mobs already deliver, and it requires pulling in Blueprint for a single mod.
Fetzi's Displays (fetzis-displays)	Client-cosmetic	good feature set but redundant with Display Case (batch) + Handcrafted; pick one display system for the pack.
Fog (fog)	Client-cosmetic.	attractive but unproven next to DH/SSRD; only add after an in-game fog + DH visual test.
Gallery (gallery)	Client-cosmetic (decorator QoL).	nice decorator QoL but drags in the Blueprint library for a niche feature.
Grassier Grass (grassier-grass)	Client-cosmetic.	best-looking pick in the batch, but Sodium 0.8-alpha compatibility is unproven; gate on a crash/visual test.
GUI Compass (gui-compass)	Client-cosmetic.	harmless, but marginal over F3 and redundant if Field Guide (with Immersive Overlays) is added.
Haunted Harvest (haunted-harvest)	Minor	charming, but adds a lib, modifies villager AI, and double-buys corn with Hearth and Harvest.
Health Bars (new-health-bars)	Client-cosmetic (informational).	redundant with Jade unless the group wants damage numbers; if added, de-overlap with Jade deliberately.
Incapacitated (incapacitated)	Major	great co-op mechanic but changes core death rules; needs owner sign-off plus a Gravestone interaction test.
Inventory Particles (inventory-particles)	Client-cosmetic.	pretty and unusually modded-item-friendly; fine as a client-side optional, but pure cosmetics.
JeremySeq's Damage Indicator (jeremyseqs-damage-indicator)	Client-cosmetic	harmless, but functionally redundant with Neat if both are added; pick one combat-info mod.
Lunar (lunar)	Moderate	fun server-wide content, but gravity/spawn events touching Aeronautics physics is an unquantified risk in this pack.
More Culling (moreculling)	None	plausible FPS gain, but redundant-adjacent to Entity Culling and unvetted against the pack's fragile rendering core; test in isolation or skip.
Obscure Tooltips (obscure-tooltips)	None	attractive but redundant with Legendary Tooltips; only add after confirming they don't fight over tooltip rendering, or as a replacement.
Primal (mod-primal)	unknown	sparse documentation; inspect the wiki and jar contents before committing.
Punchy! x Tiny Takeover (tiny-takeover-x-punchy)	Minor	verify whether Punchy/Tiny Takeover base mods are actually required and that the NeoForge build is real before adding.
Ragdoll Reactions (ragdoll-reactions)	Minor	only alongside Sable: Ragdolls, and only after crash-testing with Aeronautics.
Sable Beyond (sable_beyond)	Moderate	the most functionally attractive Aeronautics enhancement in the batch, but alpha software on the pack's most fragile stack; isolated testing and backups are mandatory.
Sable: Ragdolls (sable-ragdolls)	Minor	fun, Sable-native, and unlocks two other candidates; test with Aeronautics before adopting.
Shine (shine)	Client-cosmetic.	confirmed Sodium 0.8.12 compatibility, but partial feature loss on that version, overlap with Subtle Effects, and a privileged position on the fragile rendering stack.
Small Ships (small-ships)	Moderate	appealing content, but a beta build with old updates parked next to Aeronautics/Sable physics; needs a dedicated compat test or should pass.
Sophisticated Inventory Interactions (sophisticated-inventory-interactions)	Minor (pure inventory-management QoL).	good mod, but it replaces rather than stacks with Client Sort; pick one container-sorting solution.
Spawn (spawn-mod)	Major	substantial content but collides with the pack's curated worldgen and mob roster; needs Teal Lib and dedicated testing before inclusion.
Spawn Animations (spawn-animations)	None	mild flourish; if wanted, use the datapack form to dodge the Fabric dep chain rather than the mod.
Tree Physics (tree-physics)	Moderate	the most on-theme Sable use possible, but per-tree physics sub-levels on the Aeronautics stack demand a dev-server soak test before shipping.

SKIP (36)

Mod	Impact	Rationale
AAA Particles (aaa-particles)	Client-cosmetic.	a library with no in-pack consumer; standalone value is only a lightning visual swap.
AAA Particles: World (aaa-particles-world)	Client-cosmetic.	purely cosmetic addon whose required base (AAA Particles) is itself a skip.
Abnormals Delight (abnormals-delight)	Minor (and in this pack, near-zero).	required Blueprint dep plus an ecosystem (Team Abnormals) the pack doesn't run; mostly dead content.
Alex's Mobs Continued (alexs-mobs-continued)	Overhaul (if it replaced the existin	direct duplicate of an existing pack mod; would only ever be a 1:1 swap project.
Ars Ocultas (ars-ocultas)	Moderate if Occultism were present; in	required dependency Occultism is absent from both the pack and this batch.
AsyncParticles (asyncparticles)	None (pure client optimization).	a named crash interaction with in-pack C2ME that the pack cannot pre-configure, plus beta render-layer mixins against the fragile Sable/Create stack; revisit only if particle load measurably hurts cli
ATMOSPHERICS (atmospherics)	Client-cosmetic.	visual upside not worth the risk on the Sodium+DH+SSRD stack; no shader-adjacent additions should ride on that axis per pack rules.
BadOptimizations (badoptimizations)	None.	marginal, hard-to-measure gains on a stack that already covers these areas (constraint 6); not worth extra mixin surface for a ~4% synthetic-FPS delta per the author's own screenshots.
Berry Good (berry-good)	Minor.	an entire additional library dependency (Blueprint) for one minor placement QoL; revisit only if the pack adopts Team Abnormals mods wholesale.
Carry On + Create Aeronautics Compat (carryon-aeronautics-compat)	Moderate (when it applied); effectivel	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)	Minor	dead on arrival without Carry On; revisit only if the pack adopts Carry On itself.
Chef's Delight - Farmer's Delight Villagers (chefs-delight)	Minor (if it worked)	1.21.1 build is bound to FD Refabricated, which conflicts with the pack's existing Farmer's Delight.
Create Sable Dynamic Lights (create-sable-dynamic-lights)	Client-cosmetic	requires a second dynamic-lights engine that duplicates LambDynamicLights and couples to the fragile Sodium/Sable version pin.
Create: Dynamic Lights (create-dynamic-lights)	Client-cosmetic	redundant with LambDynamicLights, wrong rendering stack assumptions (Embeddium/Rubidium), and its niche is better covered (or deliberately declined) elsewhere.
Dynamic Trees (dynamictrees)	Major	a transformative tree overhaul whose coverage against the pack's 10+ worldgen mods is unverified and which demands config curation the pack explicitly does not ship.
Early Bedtime (early-bedtime)	Minor	solves a shader-specific problem this shaderless pack doesn't have, at the cost of adopting TxniLib.
Estrogen (estrogen)	Moderate	meme-toned content whose headline feature alters player movement near a fragile physics stack, and which costs two extra pieces (Cynosure + separate Create module) for weak fit.
Even More Instruments! (evenmoreinstruments)	Minor	abandoned per its own README and requires Genshin Instruments, which the pack does not have.
Horror messages (horror-messages)	None	chat-spam gimmick; only defensible if the pack deliberately becomes a horror pack.
Immersive UI (immersive-ui)	Client-cosmetic.	two extra libraries for cosmetic overlap with Inventory Particles; poor value per pin.
Immersive Winds (immersive-winds)	Client-cosmetic.	Sinytra-only NeoForge support is a red flag by pack policy, and Grassier Grass already covers sway if that's added.
More Relics (more-relics)	Moderate	needs a missing base mod + two libraries, carries self-documented version-pin fragility, and duplicates the Artifacts niche the pack already covers.
Net Music: Better Experience (net-music-play-list)	None-Minor	dependent on an absent streaming-music base mod with service/licensing baggage; poor fit.
Open Parties and Claims (open-parties-and-claims)	Overhaul of base-protection/social sys	direct duplicate of FTB Chunks + FTB Teams; would only make sense as a wholesale replacement, which contradicts the installed FTB Quests/Chunks/Teams chain.
Pixelmon (pixelmon)	Overhaul	total-conversion-scale content that steamrolls the pack's identity, worldgen, and mob budget.
Puddles & Floods (puddles-floods)	Client-cosmetic	Fabric-API-derived dependency (red flag) for a cosmetic payoff with real server tick cost; revisit only if the pack accepts Forgified Fabric API.
Refined Storage - JEI Integration (refined-storage-jei-integration)	None in this pack	dead weight without Refined Storage.
Relics: Arcane Abilities (arcane-abilities)	Moderate	its own README requires Relics + Hammer Lib (missing); would need both plus a balance review to reconsider.
Sable: Ragdoll Corpse (sable-ragdoll-corpse)	Minor	Gravestone already owns this job; stacking two death-item systems on the Sable physics stack adds fragility for no new capability.
SkinChanger (skinchanger)	Client-cosmetic.	redundant with Quick Skin (GUI, HD skins, animated capes) and stale: last updated 2024-10-26 vs. Quick Skin's 2026-09-28.
Sophisticated Sorter (sophisticated-sorter)	Minor.	redundant with Client Sort in-pack and with Sophisticated Inventory Interactions in this same batch; side metadata is also "unknown" for both sides.
Spawn Animations Compats (spawn-animations-compats)	None.	only meaningful if Spawn Animations is added, and its supported mob list barely overlaps this pack.
Tooltip Overhaul (tooltip-overhaul)	Client-cosmetic.	collides with Legendary Tooltips; the pack should carry one tooltip restyler, and it already does.
Veil (veil)	None by itself	rendering-engine tooling with no dependent mod in the pack, on the most fragile part of the stack.
VinURL (vinurl)	Minor (custom music per player).	Connector red flag, runtime binary downloads, and licensing minefield; not worth it for jukebox music.
Welcome Screen (welcome-screen)	None.	2-3 new dependencies for a screen a server MOTD/pin note can replace.

ALREADY-IN-PACK (9)

Mod	Impact	Rationale
Apothic Combat (apothic-combat)	Major (as installed)	duplicates the pack's existing Apothic Combat entry.
Aquaculture 2 (aquaculture)	Moderate (as installed).	exact duplicate of the existing Aquaculture 2 entry.
Aquaculture Delight (aquaculture-delight)	Minor (as installed).	exact duplicate of the existing Aquaculture Delight entry.
Ars Creo (ars-creo)	Moderate (as installed).	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)	Moderate	duplicates the existing "Create Aeronautics: Compatibility" entry in the pack list; do not add a second copy.
Nature's Compass (natures-compass)	N/A	byte-for-byte duplicate of the existing Nature's Compass entry; drop from the candidate list.
Separate Sable Render Distance (ssrd)	None	duplicate of the pack's existing SSRD entry; exclude from the candidate list.
Sophisticated Backpacks Create Integration (sophisticated-backpacks-create-integration)	Minor (already shipped; storage automa	exact duplicate of the pack's own Sophisticated Backpacks Create Integration entry.
Sophisticated Storage Create Integration (sophisticated-storage-create-integration)	Minor (already shipped).	exact duplicate of the pack's own Sophisticated Storage Create Integration entry.

ADDED (2)

Mod	Impact	Rationale
Iris Shaders (iris)	Overhaul	Already added on branch mod-pack-additions (see Post-review update).
Iris Veil Compat (iris-veil-compat)	None	Already added on branch mod-pack-additions (see Post-review update).

7. Skip list — the 36 I would not add, by reason

7.1 Render-stack violations (updated)

Iris Shaders and Iris Veil Compat are no longer skips — they are now ADDED on the mod-pack-additions branch (Section 0). The entries below remain rejected.

Mod	Reason
ATMOSPHERICS	Rewrites sky/fog/cloud rendering. It already clashed with the Sodium + DH + SSRD axis and warned about Sodium "Improved Transparency"; now it also fights the shaderpacks' own sky/fog.
Veil	Already embedded inside Sable; adding it standalone duplicates the render engine.
Fog	Fog/sky coverage the newly added shaderpacks already provide; Distant Horizons compatibility is an open upstream question.

(updated) The previously listed Iris Shaders, Iris Veil Compat and CreateBetterFps moved: iris/iris-veil-compat to ADDED; CreateBetterFps to MAYBE (its blocker was "1.21.1 needs Sodium and Iris", and Iris is now present, but it patches Create's code on the Aeronautics/Sable stack). Shine and Grassier Grass stay MAYBE; both are Sodium-coupled and now also sit next to a real shader pipeline.

7.2 Fabric-only / Sinytra Connector dependency (hard)

Mod	Reason
Immersive Winds	README: "NEOFORGE REQUIRES SINYTRA TO RUN, ALL MOD FILES ARE FABRIC."
VinURL	Sinytra + Forgified Fabric API + owo-lib, and it auto-downloads and executes yt-dlp/deno/FFmpeg at runtime — supply-chain and licensing exposure on the server.
Puddles & Floods	Requires Forgified Fabric API for a cosmetic puddle effect with real rain-driven tick cost.

7.3 Dead dependency / missing base mod (hard)

Mod	Reason
Ars Ocultas	Requires Occultism, absent from pack and list.
Carry On Extend	Requires Carry On, absent.
Carry On + Create Aeronautics Compat	Author-declared obsolete (fix upstreamed to Carry On 2.2.6+); base absent; documented server-hang on picking up players onto contraptions.
Net Music: Better Experience	Requires Net Music, an external NetEase streaming service with login/licensing baggage.
Refined Storage – JEI Integration	Requires Refined Storage, absent — the pack uses Sophisticated Storage.
Relics: Arcane Abilities	README requires Relics + Hammer Lib (contradicting its metadata); both absent.
Even More Instruments!	Author has retired the project; requires Genshin Instruments, absent.
AAA Particles / AAA Particles: World	A library with no consumer mod in this pack; the addon depends on the skipped base.
Spawn Animations Compats	Only meaningful with Spawn Animations, and its supported mob list barely overlaps this pack (Alex's Mobs is not on it).

7.4 Duplication — the pack already owns this (hard)

Mod	Duplicates
Alex's Mobs Continued	The installed Alex's Mobs (Unofficial Port) — same mod/ID namespace; only a 1:1 swap is possible.
Open Parties and Claims	FTB Chunks + FTB Teams (and FTB Quests assumes that ecosystem). Two claim systems = split protection logic.
Sable: Ragdoll Corpse	Gravestone (which already ships Sable + Curios compat) — two death-item systems on the physics stack.
SkinChanger	Quick Skin (newer, GUI, HD skins); SkinChanger is stale (2024-10).
Sophisticated Sorter	Client Sort (installed). Three-way overlap with Sophisticated Inventory Interactions.
Tooltip Overhaul	Legendary Tooltips — the pack should carry one tooltip restyler.
Create: Dynamic Lights / Create Sable Dynamic Lights	LambDynamicLights (installed) — a second dynamic-lights engine; both also assume Embeddium/Rubidium or Sodium Dynamic Lights and recommend the banned shader stack.
Chef's Delight	Its 1.21.1 builds target Farmer's Delight Refabricated, a colliding reimplementation of the installed Farmer's Delight.

7.5 Wrong shape for this pack — scale, worldgen, or marginal value

Mod	Reason
Pixelmon	Total-conversion scale (1000+ entities, its own structures/economy); its README recommends a dedicated Pixelmon pack. Would steamroll the pack identity, worldgen and mob budget.
Dynamic Trees	Transformative tree overhaul with unverified coverage across 10+ worldgen mods and no config shipped.
Estrogen / Create: Estrogen	Meme content; movement-dash mechanic near the Sable physics stack; needs Cynosure + the Create module.
More Relics	Needs the absent Relics base + two libs; self-documented version-pin fragility; duplicates the Artifacts niche.
AsyncParticles	Documents a C2ME crash (in-pack) that needs a config edit; beta render-layer mixins against the Sable/Create axis. A candidate for a later test, not now.
BadOptimizations	Marginal gains on an already-saturated client perf stack; author's own screenshots show ~4%.
Welcome Screen	Three new libraries (FancyMenu + Necronomicon + Better Compatibility Checker) for a cosmetic first-join screen.
Horror messages	Chat-spam gimmick; tone mismatch with the pack.
Immersive UI	Two libraries for cosmetic overlap with Inventory Particles.
Early Bedtime	Solves a shader-only darkness problem this pack does not have; costs TxniLib.
Abnormals Delight / Berry Good	Require Blueprint for content that is inert (no Team Abnormals mods) or tiny.
Sophisticated Sorter / SkinChanger	(See duplication above.)

---

8. Swap candidates — is replacing an installed mod justified?

Yes, for a small number of pairs — but the bar is higher than "the new one is shinier". A swap is only worth it when the candidate is (a) strictly more capable or better maintained, (b) no worse against the fragile stack (Sodium/DH/SSRD/Sable/Create), and (c) safe for existing worlds (entity/item IDs, already-generated chunks, claims, quest data). Otherwise the incumbent wins by default.

The newly fetched branch is itself an example of a justified swap: the pack's "no shaders" stance was replaced only because purpose-built compatibility patches (iris-veil-compat, aeronautics-iris-fix) neutralised the specific blocker.

Installed mod	Candidate replacement	Case for swapping	Case against	Recommendation
Alex's Mobs (Unofficial Port)	Alex's Mobs Continued	Actively-maintained continuation, same content, deliberately Citadel-free (bundles what it needs); removes reliance on an unofficial port.	Two forks of one mod: entity/item IDs and NBT may differ, so an in-place swap can orphan tamed mobs/items. Citadel still needed by Alex's Caves.	Evaluate on a world copy. Best maintenance swap on the list, not urgent.
Client Sort	Sophisticated Inventory Interactions	Built on Sophisticated Core (installed); adds GUI search, container↔player transfer, remembered searches; deepens an existing pillar.	Newer/less proven; keybind and sort-button overlap; sorts containers, not the whole UI.	Plausible upgrade — test UI collisions. Do not also add Sophisticated Sorter.
Legendary Tooltips	Obscure Tooltips	Animated styling plus in-tooltip 3D gear previews — a real capability gain.	Adds Fragmentum; per-frame cost; coexistence unverified, so it must be a swap, never a stack.	Swap-or-keep, never both.
LambDynamicLights	Sodium Dynamic Lights + Create Sable Dynamic Lights	Would light moving Create contraptions and Aeronautics sub-levels, which LambDynamicLights does not.	SDL is coupled to the exact Sodium alpha Sable pins, and the Create mods assume Embeddium/Rubidium or the shader ecosystem. Trades a stable engine-agnostic mod for a version-fragile one.	Do not swap now. Revisit if contraption lighting becomes a pain point.
Gravestone (+ Sable/Curios compat)	Sable: Ragdoll Corpse	Novel physics-corpse recovery, Sable-native.	Gravestone is proven and already Sable/Curios-patched; two death-item systems risk item-loss precedence bugs on the physics stack.	Keep Gravestone.
FTB Chunks + FTB Teams	Open Parties and Claims	More granular party/claim permissions; LuckPerms/FTB Ranks hooks.	Wholesale replacement breaks FTB Quests/Teams and FTB's permission model; two claim systems cannot coexist.	Keep FTB.
Client Sort	Sophisticated Sorter	Sophisticated styling.	Less proven, unknown side metadata, duplicates Client Sort and Sophisticated Inventory Interactions.	No — if replacing, choose Sophisticated Inventory Interactions.
Slice & Dice	Delightful Creators	Different FD↔Create automation flavor (fluids/soups vs sequenced assembly).	Slice & Dice is installed and proven; running both duplicates recipes and clutters JEI.	Only as a deliberate flavor swap, never alongside.
EntityCulling	More Culling	—	Different scope (entities vs block/other culling); complementary, not alternatives.	Not a swap.
(no skin mod installed)	SkinChanger vs Quick Skin	—	—	If adding one, Quick Skin (newer, GUI, HD skins, animated capes).

Swap mechanics note: packwiz makes the file change trivial, but the risk lives in the world. For any swap that touches registered content (Alex's Mobs, dynamic lights, death handling), test on a copy of the live world and diff entity/item IDs. Structural swaps (claim system, sorting UI, tooltip layer) mostly affect client UI and are lower risk, but still change player muscle memory.

---

9. Dependency economics and the collision map

9.1 New libraries the candidates would introduce

Ordered by how many candidates each unlocks. Bold = recommended if you adopt that family.

Library	Unlocks	Recommendation
Puzzles Lib	Held Item Tooltips, Visual Workbench, Distinct Potions, Health Bars, Mob Lassos, Better Animations Collection	Buy once — high value
Moonlight Lib	Supplementaries, Sleep Tight, Haunted Harvest	Buy once — high value; also a Supplementaries prerequisite
Blueprint	Environmental, Pet Cemetery, Gallery, Boatload, Berry Good, Abnormals Delight	Only if you adopt several
Fragmentum	Accents, Ars Elixirum, Obscure Tooltips, Loot Journal	Only if you adopt several
Collective	Followers Teleport Too, GUI Compass, GUI Effect Timer	Cheap; bundle or skip
Almanac	Let Me Despawn	Buy (core pick)
MRU	Sounds, Fog	Cheap; pairs well
TxniLib	Early Bedtime, Immersive Armor HUD	Only if adopting
Delight Lib / Lodestone / Cook's Collection / Deimos / SmartBrainLib / CoroUtil / Faewulf's Lib / Teal Lib / MidnightLib / TLib / MossyLib / Knight Lib	one Delight/utility candidate each	Weigh individually
Item Descriptions + Immersive Overlays	Field Guide	Two libs for one mod
Hybrid API + Biolith	Hybrid Aquatic	Gate on a worldgen test
Sable: Ragdolls	Ragdoll Reactions (and the skipped corpse mod)	Only with Aeronautics crash-testing
Sinytra Connector + Forgified Fabric API	VinURL, Immersive Winds, Puddles & Floods	Avoid

9.2 Candidate-vs-candidate collisions (pick one)

• Mob health UI: Neat vs JeremySeq's Damage Indicator
• Tooltip restyler: Obscure Tooltips vs existing Legendary Tooltips (prefer existing)
• Display furniture: Display Case vs Fetzi's Displays (+ existing Handcrafted)
• Corn crop: Hearth and Harvest vs Haunted Harvest
• Grass sway: Grassier Grass vs Immersive Winds (Immersive Winds is Fabric-only — Grassier Grass wins)
• Carried-item particles: Immersive UI (skipped) vs Inventory Particles
• HUD coordinates: GUI Compass vs Field Guide's Immersive Overlays dependency
• Pet teleport: Waystones Teleport Pets vs Followers Teleport Too
• Container sorting: Client Sort (installed) vs Sophisticated Inventory Interactions / Sophisticated Sorter
• Sleep overhaul: Room For Two vs Sleep Tight
• Fire flavor: Burnt vs Burnt + Additions (never both)
• FD↔Create bridge: Slice & Dice (installed) vs Delightful Creators

9.3 Test-first items (not rejections — gates)

Candidate	Gate
Supplementaries	Create 6.0.10 smoke test (old conflicts are closed)
CreateBetterFps	Iris now present, but it patches Create directly — test on the Aeronautics/Sable stack
Grassier Grass	Sodium 0.8.12/0.8.13-alpha compatibility; custom terrain shader; interaction with shaderpacks
Fog	Distant Horizons/SSRD visual test (upstream DH issue history); shaderpack fog already covers this
Shine	Sodium 0.8.12+ confirmed, but partial feature loss on the pinned alpha
More Culling	Rendering-core test next to EntityCulling/Sable/DH
Tree Physics	Dev-server soak test; per-tree Sable physics sub-levels
Sable Beyond	Alpha software; backup + crash-test with Aeronautics
Ragdoll Reactions / Sable: Ragdolls	Crash-test with Aeronautics before adopting the cluster
Lunar	Gravity/spawn events vs Create Aeronautics physics + Apothic Spawners
AutoHUD	Confirm the NeoForge jar's real dependency list (metadata artifact)
Spawn Animations	Confirm NeoForge jar deps; prefer the datapack form
Hybrid Aquatic	Terralith/Tectonic/Lithostitched worldgen + Aquaculture loot overlap
Dream Relics / Reliquary / Too Many Bows	Balance pass vs Apotheosis + Artifacts
PlayerRevive / Incapacitated	Gravestone interplay; owner sign-off on death-rule changes

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10. Adoption plan

Phase A — Core cohort (this is the recommendation). Add the 20 mods in Section 4 plus Moonlight Lib and Almanac. Expected result: a noticeably richer QoL/exploration/decor layer, one clear server-perf gain (lmd), zero new render/physics risk, no config maintenance.

Phase B — Pick one expansion family. Choose one of: (a) Farmer's Delight expansion, (b) Create decoration, (c) client ambience, (d) mobs/combat gear. Adopt its shared library and 3–6 mods. Run a /spark health baseline before and after.

Phase C — Test-first candidates on a dev server. Take the Section 9.3 gates one at a time, one variable per run, with backups. Promote only what survives.

Phase D — Server infrastructure. Decide on BlueMap (ops cost) and the FTB Chunks tuning already recommended in FINDINGS.md; neither is urgent game content.

Never / not without a rewrite: Sinytra-Connector dependency chains, a second dynamic-lights engine, and a second claim system. (Shaders are no longer on this list — the pack has adopted them with purpose- built compat patches; see Section 0.)

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11. Appendix — detailed per-mod assessments

The full per-candidate breakdown (Adds / Relationship / Missing deps / Gameplay impact / Compatibility / Perf cost / Verdict, with citations where web sources were used) is retained:

• Raw per-chunk assessments: analysis/assess/chunk01.md … chunk07.md (27 mods each, 189 total). analysis/CANDIDATE-APPENDIX.md consolidates these and carries a corrections note (Section 2).
• Grouped decision table (start here for “which should I add?”): MODLIST-GROUPS.md — every candidate by purpose, with what it brings, new deps, gameplay impact, verdict and the watch-out.
• Machine-readable candidate data: analysis/summary.json (title, side, loaders, 1.21.1 build, required deps, in-pack flag) and analysis/verdicts.json.
• Research digest used for the assessments: analysis/chunks/chunk*.md, analysis/raw/projects.json, analysis/raw/versions.json.
• Pack context given to the reviewers: analysis/PACK-CONTEXT.md.

Confidence legend used throughout

• High — read from Modrinth/loader metadata, the mod's own README, or the pack's own files.
• Medium — inferred from the README, or a compatibility claim from a third-party source.
• Unknown/unverified — evidence absent; the report says so rather than guessing.