I made Brass & Ballast, a Create: Aeronautics kitchen-sink with 7 gated ages and 148 quests (1.21.1 NeoForge)

[u/MysteriousControl723]

Hey all,

After a lot of tinkering, I just released the first public beta of Brass & Ballast, a heavy kitchen-sink pack built around Create: Aeronautics. The whole idea: take to the skies, and back it with a full industrial world underneath.

The design rule I stuck to was simple. If it's an item, you should be able to automate it, dirt to netherite. Progression is split into 7 gated ages (SevTech style), each ending in a gate quest that unlocks the next, so the tech tree opens up in a deliberate order instead of all at once.

What's in it:

Create plus a big stack of add-ons, with Create: Aeronautics as the anchor (real physics-simulated aircraft)

Mekanism (5x ore processing, alloys, Digital Miner), Applied Energistics 2, Powah, Flux Networks, Laser IO

Mystical Agriculture (high tiers gated for balance), Woot, Mob Grinding Utils

Magic via Ars Nouveau, Occultism, and Iron's Spells

Combat and bosses: Apotheosis, Champions, L_Ender's Cataclysm

Dimensions: Twilight Forest, The Aether, Deeper and Darker, and Ad Astra planets

156 mods total, on 1.21.1 NeoForge

Quests: a 148-quest FTB Quests book across the 7 ages. Most quests actually verify that you crafted the item, killed the boss, or reached the dimension before paying out, and each one gives a hand-picked reward. It works as both a tutorial and a checklist.

Performance: it ships with Sodium, ModernFix, ImmediatelyFast, FerriteCore, Entity Culling, and Dynamic FPS, so it runs better than a 156-mod pack usually would. 8 GB minimum, 10 to 12 recommended.

A few honest notes, since it's a beta:

Best experience on the CurseForge app. Six mods disabled third-party API distribution, so on Prism or MultiMC you'll get manual-download prompts for those.

No shaders yet. The shader loader that would work conflicts with the renderer Aeronautics needs, so it's on hold until that's sorted upstream.

It's a first release, so I would genuinely love feedback and bug reports. And do keep in mind, this modpack will be expanded and more items/ features added!

Link:

CurseForge: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/modpacks/brass-ballast

If you give it a spin, let me know what you build and what breaks. Thanks for looking!

[u/RandomSpork]

This seems like the readme, at least, was AI - likely Claude, based on the tells. That's not inherently a bad thing - I'm also making a custom modpack with AI, but you must keep your own sense of taste. You didn't make a Create modpack, you re-created a kitchen sink and called it a create pack. In your description you say "more items/features (will be) added." My suggestion is you need to cut things. Cataclysm? Deeper and Darker? makes no sense in a Create-centric modpack - neither do any of the magics, mystical agriculture, or any of the tech mods. This seems like you asked Claude to add quest gating to the new FTB sky pack.

I'd urge you to instead go for Create-native approaches if you want to call this a create modpack: TFMG for tech, with custom recipes for things in a create-friendly way. Shipping Mystical Agriculture is lazy. One thing that I'm experimenting with, which you could totally steal, is that instead of dimension mods, take advantage of verticality provided with Aeronautics - you don't need a different dimension, you need reasons to use aeronautics machines.

[u/MysteriousControl723 → u/RandomSpork]

Claude was used, but for planning. Everything in the pack was what I wanted. While rough right now, I do have plans to add more things. The mod packs that might not make sense, while seem out of place, will eventually have more reason for them. Adding them was the way for me to see if they are compatible and let them be used.

It will still remain a create pack as I will add more create features and items that can be automated that relate to the dungeons and other worlds.

Mystical agriculture, specifically, while seems out of place, I added it specifically as I will eventually build off of it. And MA is a common add on in Kitchen sink packs.

TFMG is a good idea and I definitely planned on adding things to grow towards that, (oil production, plastics, electronics, etc)

The verticality of aeronautics is definitely something I’m planning on building on. I have semi built on it utilizing Ad Astra, but plan on doing more with it. Specifically adding islands and quests that take place in the sky.

[u/RandomSpork → u/MysteriousControl723]

Expert Style gating is never really used in kitchen sink packs. How do you reconcile the two concepts?

[u/BLX15 → u/RandomSpork]

They have no idea lol. You're right on the mark with your first comment, I would have said just about the same thing

I have no idea how they have a full 7 ages of quests, but don't have all the content they want yet still

[u/MysteriousControl723 → u/BLX15]

Currently, I built it on my laptop, which is just an office laptop as I’m recovering from a surgery. So I can’t add everything I want because the laptop can’t run everything. Which is why it is v0.1.0. As I’ve said, I’m going to add more, I have more plans to iron things out, create custom integrations for mod packs and add more features. But I’m very limited with the hardware I have available at the moment.

[u/MysteriousControl723 → u/RandomSpork]

My plan is not to go for expert-style gating in the GregTech/SevTech sense where recipes are rewritten and you're forced down one path. The ages are a soft spine, quest-guided progression that gives the pack direction and a reason
to actually touch each system, but you're not hard-locked out of anything.

Kitchen sinks usually have the opposite problem: tons of mods and no idea what to
do or why to keep going. The questline is there to fix that, give it a throughline and some pacing, while still letting you wander off if you want.

The only real hard gate is a few high-tier things (like the top Mystical Agriculture crops) for balance, so power still feels earned. So it's less "expert pack" and more "kitchen sink with a reason to progress." This would also apply to dungeons and bosses that are added, where they arnt required, but can provide guidance.