Hi gang! Up until this point I've always played Minecraft in a vanilla setup, I'm not even using texture packs. Recently I wanted a copy of my residence and via - via discovered the World downloader plugin. It basically allows you to play in a (multiplayer) world and download all your surroundings. It did require a little tweaking but could be easily made to work with MC 1.7.10, and because I only needed it once... Well, that started to lead a life on its own and soon I got asked many times: "how did you install that?" to which I could honestly only answer: "I downloaded the zip, followed the instructions (readme file), and that's it...". Anyway, 1.8 is upon us and some changes move us closer to vanilla gameplay. I like that, but I can also see that some changes make certain parts of the game a little harder on us than it was before. Nothing wrong with that but it did make me wonder about giving myself a small boost to enhance the gameplay a little bit. Nothing too spectacular, I don't want inventory tweaks and all that stuff. But getting a better overview of my surroundings (especially since the server map still needs to catch up here and there) and an option to save my work (residence) would be a welcome one. And what do you know? I got it to work! And as always with these things I'd like to share my discoveries. Hopefully this will be of more use to you guys than "just download the zip and follow the instructions?" Before we get started... There are tons of different client mods out there and not every one of them is appropriate to use on the Empire. So please have some consideration and check the wiki page about using mods on the Empire before you pick up on all this. What is a mod and how can you get one? Vanilla minecraft is just what it is; the game we all came to love and respect. However, there are plenty of people out there who thought it would be nice to write plugins for the game so that you can do completely different things with it. Enhance on it if you will. For example: normally you only see your direct playfield but there are plugins which can show you a map of your surroundings and even allow you to create waypoints so that you can find your way around: Minecraft with the Voxelmap plugin There are tons of these plugins, or mods ("modules"), available online and which one to use is fully up to you. From maps (as shown above) to status plugins, inventory tweaks (a plugin which can quickly remove an item from your hotbar right before it breaks) and so on. Now, as you may know the vanilla version of Minecraft doesn't support plugins. So what to do about that? Well: get a version which does. A so called mod loader. There are two very well known names when it comes to mod loaders: Forge and Liteloader. You can consider Forge to be a modified version of Minecraft. Modified in such ways that it allows you to load and configure mods from within the game. Even the main screen will look different to you (it shows an option for mod configuration as well as a brief summary of the loaded mods). Liteloader on the other hand is a little bit what its name implies: a light modification to Minecraft with the sole intent to allow for the use of modules. The bad news is that both mod loaders use different types of mods, so they're not compatible. For example: a module which was made for Forge cannot be used with Liteloader. The good news however is that Liteloader can be used together with Forge. So you can use both mod loaders at the same time, which allows you to basically use any kind of mod you want. 1 - Getting & installing the mod loaders We'll start with Forge. So the first thing you should do is go to the Forge website and download the latest version. At the time of writing this is 11.14.1.1404. My preference is to download the installer (the jar file) and not so much the Windows installer (executable). I noticed that a lot of sites try to dump executables on you when you want to download a mod, and quite frankly I don't trust some of those programs (risk of malware, spyware, etc.). So I always try to get either an archive or a jar file. In this case it doesn't matter too much because you're downloading the software from the official site. Installing Forge is easy. Just start the installer and follow the instructions. In case of the above jar file I'm simply opening a command line (cmd.exe), go to the right directory and then starting the installer as follows: java -jar forge-1.8-11.14.1.1404-installer.jar. You'll get a screen like this: The Forge installer. Note: The version numbers in my pictures don't match my guide. We're using development snapshots which means so much that new versions can come out every day. Don't let this bother you too much. Install the client, and it should be ready within a few seconds. Now, the fun part is that this doesn't really modify your Minecraft version but merely installs an extra version for you to use. Start the Minecraft launcher and check the available profiles (lower left corner of your screen) by clicking the pull down menu. You should have a new option called Forge. Start it and check that everything works. Don't worry about the details for now, just start the program, check that you can load one of your save files (careful, you may experience major lag so don't try anything fancy) and quit the game. Step 2: Liteloader Now that we got Forge to work it's time to patch it and add Liteloader to the mix. You can download Liteloader for Minecraft 1.8 right here (development snapshot). As before I prefer to grab the jar file but if starting those confuse you then you can also simply grab the execututable (exe file) instead. At the time of writing the version which we're using is: liteloader-installer-1.8.0-00-SNAPSHOT.jar. Once again this is a development snapshot, so some care should be taken (it could be unstable). As before we start the installer, but now pay close attention to the version which you're extending ("patching"): The Liteloader installer; note the mentioning of Forge This will patch our Forge version and add yet another new profile option to the Minecraft launcher (note that you can set the name yourself, I prefer renaming it to "Forge Lite"). Just like with Forge the installation should be done in a few seconds. Start Minecraft again and this time you'll notice something quite different, the splash screen (loading screen) has changed a bit: Liteloader splashscreenNot to worry, this is quite ok. If everything goes as planned you should now end up with a Forge screen which also shows a small tab in the upper right corner of your screen. Hover your mouse over it and a chicken should appear which mentions "LiteLoader 1.8.0". Congratulations, you've installed the mod loaders. Now it's time to install some mods. However, one mod is a mandatory installation (in my opinion): 2 - Installing Optifine Optifine, check the official description here, is a plugin ("mod") which drastically enhances the graphical performance of Minecraft. It can make Minecraft both run faster as well as look better. The problem which we have here is that the mod loaders which we're using (Forge & LiteLoader) are both based on Minecraft 1.8. So not the optimized Minecraft 1.8.3+, which means that you may run into serious lag and major performance issues if you try to use this. The solution? Optifine! You can download Optifine here, but be careful! Remember that we're using Minecraft 1.8, not one of the newer versions. So the Optifine version which you should download is more down to the bottom, below the "Minecraft 1.8.0" header. We'll be downloading: OptiFine 1.8.0 HD U D3 ("OptiFine_1.8.0_HD_U_D3.jar"). Note: I am aware that some later versions may also provide support for older Minecraft versions. But in this case I like to play it safe, so I focus myself on the 1.8.0 version. After you downloaded Optifine all you need to do is place it in the "mods" folder, you can find this in your Minecraft program folder. Normally this folder should already be present, but if it isn't just create it yourself. If you have problems finding your Minecraft program folder; don't worry! If you started Minecraft then go to the options and click the option "Resource packs". This will show another option: "Open resource pack folder". Click it, go one directory 'up' and you're in the Minecraft program folder. I did it again.... Multi-part message, sorry
3 - Installing some cool mods! My personal preferences, the links point to the location where you can download them: Voxelmap; This shows you a map in your game (see screenshot above) and also allows you to create waypoints. It'll even automatically create a waypoint for you in case you get killed (so you can quickly run back to collect your items). World Downloader; Always wanted to get a backup copy of your residence so that you don't risk losing all your hard work? Or maybe you'd like to have the option to test your builds in Creative mode? Obviously you can't do that on the Empire, but now you can in single player! This mod allows you to download the world you're in and save it as a single player world. Note that you'll need to open all your chests if you want to download their contents as well. DurabilityShow; using your gear or getting attacked by mobs will wear out your items. But how much use is left in them? One way to show this is by using F3 + h (keep F3 pressed, then press h) but this only works when you opened up your inventory. DurabilityShow on the other hand will show you the stats. of everything you're wearing and using right on your game screen. TooManyItems; Note: this mod. is not really useful on the Empire unless you're a Senior Staff member or a shop holder. It shows a list of all the available in-game items, and if you're in Creative mode it can quickly give you one or more. I like having it around because it also quickly shows you the item ID's anything you might want, these can be used with Player Shop Signs. NotEnoughItems; Note: when grabbing this one also be sure to download & install the CodeChickenCore mod. This is basically an expanded version of the TooManyItems. The mod itself isn't too useful on the Empire, unless you're a Senior Staff member. However, shop holders may also benefit from it because it can quickly give you the right item codes for any block you'd like. You can use these codes on Player shop signs. What this plugin does? It allows you to spawn any type of block you'd like, control the server time & weather with the click of a button and also show you the crafting recipes (if applicable). Definitely something to install if you're maintaining your own server. With thanks to RainbowChin for mentioning this mod. Apart from these mods I'm also trying WorldEdit CUI. I'm not including it in my guide because it has no use with regular EMC gameplay. Installing these mods is easy: just make sure you download either the Forge or Liteloader version and place the file (either .jar or .litemod) in your mods folder, located in your main Minecraft game folder (see above). These mods can really spice up your game play without overdoing it. Note: I suggest that you don't add these mods all at the same time. Some of these require you to get the developer snapshot (for 1.8 support) which means that they could be a little buggy. If you add 2 buggy mods at the same time and your game crashes then you'll have no way to quickly find out which mod caused it. 4 - Enjoy! My Minecraft modloader; including Forge & LiteLoader And if I click my LiteLoader screen open (upper right corner) I get to see something like this: Minecraft on steroids chickens? I guess so... And that concludes my guide; some steps which might help you get up to speed with the wonderful world of using Minecraft mods. Maybe some useful tips for the mods I mentioned above: Pressing h will show and hide your item stats (DurabilityShow), Pressing z will zoom in your mini-map and 'm' will show you the full map and the options (VoxelMap). Pressing o with your inventory open will toggle the extended view (TooManyItems). Make sure to bind "add new waypoint" to an easily found key (VoxelMap): Press 'm', then click 'options'. Now click 'controls' (lower left corner) and select your keys. I like 'q' for waypoints because you can quickly press it in-game. Using Optifine with a texture pack can result in Minecraft requiring (much) more memory. If you're going to download your world make sure to set some options first (click the "..." button). This allows you to make sure you'll always start in creative (for example) when loading your world save. Make sure to enable the "Multiworld" option in Voxelmap. And there you have it, I hope this can help some of you!
One tip, I'd recommend switching out Too Many Items and instead try Not Enough Items. http://chickenbones.net/Pages/links.html Does all the things of Too Many Items with the addition of full recipes for every craftable item.
Well, partly. When I'm playing in single player I have the "Radar" option enabled and can still see all around me. This option gets disabled on the Empire (for good reasons IMO) but other players do show up from time to time. Not always, which somewhat puzzles me. Drats, my secret has been discovered! Now I'll have to switch back to my earl grey & coffee again Thanks a bunch! Well, that explains why I read about those recipes so much but couldn't find them. Going to switch this one out right now and will probably update my post later (I never write before I try myself)
