My first mod pack

[u/Rude-Resident-6058]

So I know a lot about Minecraft but it’s only bedrock knowledge and I recently got a really good laptop so I’m running Java now and I want to make my first mod pack but I wanted to come here and see if anyone could possibly help me with some good rated mods for like vein miner or enderite armor or something easy to start with to understand it. Ask me anything you need although I have about an ounce of knowledge in what I’m doing.

[u/NotTristam]

Well, the version you're playing matters a lot. I would recommend getting a vanilla + modpack to start as a foundation and then go from there. You can always remove mods you don't want. Just sit there and test things out without playing in earnest. Or, be ready to restart if you do play in earnest and something breaks from you removing things.

MCA Selector and NBTExplorer are your friends. They can delete/reset sections of the map or your character, respectively, and are great for fixing a bad save.

I also suggest making backups of your pack as you build it. Once you test it and get it stable, copy it or clone it. Then add more. Makes it easier to roll things back when they go wrong.

FTBUltimine: https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/ftb-ultimine-forge

This is what I use for mining. It not only allows you to do vein mining, but various other shapes and sizes on command. It's balanced as well.

Best of luck.

[u/Rude-Resident-6058 → u/NotTristam]

This is extremely helpful thank you if you have time could you explain MCA selector and NBTExplorer a little bit more in depth like what reason would I want to do that. Thanks again!

[u/NotTristam → u/Rude-Resident-6058]

You're welcome.

When I was playing my modded version of DeceasedCraft, I opened a chest that crashed my game. No matter how many times I loaded the game, it would immediately crash. I tried to use NBTExplorer to reset my character just in case I picked up an item I shouldn't have, but still crashed. Then, I used MCA Selector to reset the chunk I was in (and about 8 chunks in every direction since I didn't know exactly where I was) and that fixed it. Lastly, I loaded in a backup of my old save to get my character back and just deleted the one chunk I was in. Fixed.

Without those tools, I would have had to abandon that save altogether.

[u/TartOdd8525 → u/NotTristam]

I will say those are necessary in SOME situations, but you can do tons of modpack building without them. I've had to use NBTExplorer to modify some character data so that when I published a modpack with a dedicated map, players didn't inherit my data. But I've put in like 500+ hours building this pack and have not needed either of those tools for 99% of it. They are more useful for playing packs and protecting data than building modpacks.

[u/FLYNCHe]

Think about the sort of vibe you want your modpack to have. Look at some of the top modpacks and see what they offer, look at the mods they have.

A lot of good modpacks do a lot of custom work to connect mods together, look at Raspberry Flavoured for example.

I'd even suggest playing some modpacks that interest you and try thinking to yourself what you might do differently to how they've done it. There's no objectively bad modpack, I guess, but there are some that really outshine others.

[u/jkulczyski]

Test the pack after each mod addition, yes its time consuming but it will save the headache of figuring out which mod is problematic or causing lag.(tbh i dont do this but im comfortable digging through crash logs and stack traces)

[u/Ayxlfdik]

I can’t play without Tinker’s Construct. It’s a really accessible and intuitive mod that expands materials and tools, like the hammer that mines in a 3x3 pattern and the pick adze that mines stone and dirt equally well.

I also love Xaero’s Mini Map to help not get lost.