Approved Mods
Description
Mods are modifications to the Minecraft game that make it behave differently. Sometimes they're small, like a minor graphical change; sometimes they're big, like adding new blocks and items; and sometimes they're unfair, like x-ray. In an effort to ensure that Autcraft is a safe and fair place to play, where everyone has similar experiences and opportunities, only some mods are allowed.
This is a list of all of the mods currently allowed to be used on the Autcraft server. If a mod you want to use is on this list, please read the entire section for that mod so that you can see if there are any parts of that mod that are disallowed. If there is a mod that you want to use that is not on this list, please see if it has been suggested before and if not, suggest it on the forums and don't use it unless it is put on this list.
Note: If a mod on this list requires another mod to work, that mod is also allowed.
Mod Loaders
Most mods use either the Fabric/Quilt or Forge mod loader. To use a mod, you'll usually have to install a mod loader first.
Fabric
How to Install Fabric
Download the Fabric installer from fabricmc.net/use. Use the Windows/.EXE method if you are on Windows, or the universal jar method if you're on another platform (or don't like the SmartScreen warning). Note that to open the .jar file, you'll need to install Java first which you can do from adoptium.net.
Open the file that you downloaded. If done correctly, the installer window should appear.
Select the Minecraft version you want to use.
Click "Install".
Open the Minecraft launcher (closing it first if it was already open).
A new Fabric installation profile should appear. Select it, put the mods you want to use into a "mods" folder in your Minecraft directory (instructions on how to find it here), and you're ready to play!
Quilt
Quilt is a fork of Fabric, compatible with most Fabric mods (though that's one-directional compatibility - Fabric cannot load Quilt mods). The QuiltMC website has installation instructions if you want to use Quilt.
Forge
How to Install Forge
Download the installer for the version of Forge for the Minecraft version you want to use from files.minecraftforge.net. Note that clicking on the download link will take you to an ad page before letting you download the file, do **NOT** click on *anything* on that page except for the "Skip" button at the top-right! If you did that correctly, you should get a file named forge-<minecraft_version>-<forge_version>-installer.jar.
To open the .jar file, you'll need to install Java first which you can do from adoptium.net.
Open the file that you downloaded (with Java). If done correctly, the installer window should appear.
Click "OK".
Open the Minecraft launcher (closing it first if it was already open).
A new Forge installation profile should appear. Select it, put the mods you want to use into a "mods" folder in your Minecraft directory (instructions on how to find it here), and you're ready to play!
A word of safety: NEVER download mods or mod loaders from websites you don't trust! At best, this can lead to installing malware and viruses; at worst, you can lose your Minecraft account. For your safety (and everyone else's), only download mods from the websites listed below unless you are sure you know what you're doing.
OptiFine
OptiFine is likely the most popular and most downloaded mod for Minecraft. It's been around since Minecraft Beta 1.7.3, and was originally a great mod with many optimisations, features, and quality of life improvements. However, in recent years, it's benefits have dwindled and causes many incompatibilities with other mods due to it replacing large amounts of code and being closed-source. In the modern Minecraft modding era, with the Fabric/Quilt mod loader and community, open-source mods exist to replace most of OptiFine's features. Other mods that optimise the game more than OptiFine exist too, and they work in a way that's more compatible with other mods.
It's not recommended to use OptiFine anymore, but it is allowed as long as Options -> Video Settings -> Performance -> Fast Math is set to OFF (reason why here). OptiFabric is a mod which allows you to use OptiFine on the Fabric mod loader (it isn't supported natively), and is also allowed, though not recommended.
How to Download OptiFine Safely
Go to the download page on optifine.net.
Find the version you want to download in the versions list.
Right click the "(mirror)" button link to the right of the "Download" button for the version you want to download.
A context menu should have appeared. In it should be an option called something like "Open Link in New Tab". Click it.
You should now be on the page with the download link. Click it. There are ads here, so be very careful to click on the right link.
You should get a file called something like OptiFine_<minecraft_version>_HD_U_<letter><number>.jar.
How to Install OptiFine Standalone
Open the installer .jar file. To do this you'll need to install Java first, which you can do from adoptium.net.
Click "Install".
Open the Minecraft launcher (closing it first if it was already open).
A new OptiFine installation profile should appear. Select it, and you're ready to play!
Allowed Mods
Performance
Despite being a simple-looking block game, Minecraft can actually be quite difficult to run because it is incredibly unoptimised. Luckily, the community have recognised this and created mods to help. These mods don't affect gameplay, and exist to improve performance, and so are okay to use on the server.
- Sodium - Rendering engine and client-side optimisation mod, usually even better than OptiFine.
- Indium - An addon mod for Sodium adding Fabric Rendering API compatibility (which is required for some of the mods below to work with Sodium).
- Lithium - Optimises many server-side things, though provides some benefit when installed on a client only.
- Phosphor - Optimises the lighting engine.
- Starlight - Replaces the lighting engine with a significantly more optimised alternative. Generally performs better than Phosphor, though isn't compatible with Phosphor and is generally less compatible with other mods than Phosphor.
- FerriteCore - Reduces memory usage.
- LazyDFU - Reduces start-up time by not compiling DataFixerUpper rules until they're actually needed.
- Dynamic FPS - Renders Minecraft at 1fps (or not at all) when unfocused, as well as improving background performance.
- Enhanced Block Entities - Optimises block entity (such as chests) rendering by rendering them as normal blocks until they need to animate.
- Entity Culling - Optimises entity rendering by culling entities hidden behind walls using asynchronous path-tracing. Not perfect, but can increase performance when there's lots of entities around.
- Exordium* - Rendering the GUI at a lower framerate to increase available rendering resources to the world rendering. There's little point in rendering the hotbar at 100+ fps.
- ImmediatelyFast* - Optimises "extra" rendering - maps, particles, entities, text, etc.
OptiFine Alternatives
While OptiFine is not recommended to be used, you can still use most of its features by using a mod from this list that adds the feature you want to use.
- Iris - Supports loading OptiFine format shaders. It's compatible with Sodium, allowing for much better performance when using shaders compared to OptiFine.
- Canvas - An alternative shader and optimisation mod, incompatible with Sodium and Iris. Uses it's own shader format.
- Kappa - Lets you see OptiFine capes without using OptiFine.
- Logical Zoom - Adds a simple zoom mimicking OptiFine's zoom.
- Ok Zoomer - Adds a configurable zoom.
- Zoomify - Also adds a configurable zoom, with different (more?) options.
- WI Zoom - The zoom from the Wurst hacked client as a dedicated mod.
- LambDynamicLights - Adds dynamic lights. If you hold a torch, the area around you lights up!
- Continuity - Adds efficient MCPatcher/OptiFine format connected textures. Includes a resource pack adding some connected textures (like glass and bookshelves), and another resource pack to fix glass pane culling.
- LambdaBetterGrass - Recreates OptiFine's better grass and snow features with extra customisation.
- Fabrishot - Lets you take large screenshots.
- Cull Leaves - Recreation of OptiFine's "Smart Leaves" feature. If playing on fast graphics, this won't change visuals, but will still provide a performance increase in forested areas (see: MC-179383).
- CIT Resewn - Recreates OptiFine's Custom Item Textures feature, allowing for items to have different textures or models depending on some information about the item such as its name.
- Chime - An alternative Custom Item Textures mod using its own format.
- FabricSkyboxes - Recreates OptiFine's "Custom Skies" feature, but using its own format.
- Entity Textures Fabric* - Recreates OptiFine's Random/Custom Entity Textures feature, allowing resource packs to specify custom textures for entities to use based on several properties such as spawn biome or name.
- Custom Entity Models* - Recreates OptiFine's Custom Entity Models feature, which does exactly what it sounds like it would do.
- OptiGUI - Recreates OptiFine's Custom GUIs feature, giving resource packs way more control over GUI textures.
- Animatica - Recreates OptiFine's Animated Textures feature, allowing almost any texture to be animated instead of only items and blocks.
- Colormatic - Recreates OptiFine's Custom Colours feature, allowing resource packs to change the colours of things that are normally hardcoded by vanilla such as the experience levels number, dyes, the sky, arbitrary blocks based on biome, and lightmaps.
- Puzzle - Adds configs for a few mods that re-implement OptiFine features to one central place, and adds a few extra resource packs features of its own.
- Sodium Extra - Adds lots of OptiFine's smaller settings, like whether certain animations, particles, or details render, and an optional fps information overlay like OptiFine has.
- Reese's Sodium Options - Changes Sodium's options menu to fit more on the screen, recommended to use with Sodium Extras due to the amount of extra options it adds.
- MCPPPP - Runs a conversion tool on startup converting OptiFine/MCPatcher format resource packs into newer formats (most notably for FabricSkyboxes).
Visual Changing Mods
- Item Model Fix - A small graphical enhancement mod that fixes the tiny gaps in item models.
- Figura - A mod allowing for extensive customisation of Minecraft player models.
- 'Slight' GUI Modifications - Allows you to customise some parts of the GUI that are normally hard-coded and adds some new animations for things like taking screenshots.
- Quilt Loading Screen - A tiny mod that changes the loading screen to have several patches from the Quilt logo falling like snow (with an optional pride mode).
- First-person Model - Enables the third-person model in first-person, so you can see the game from the player's real perspective. Do not enable FirstPerson Settings -> Cosmetics -> Change camera height.
- Not Enough Animations - Adds some missing third-person animations that play in first-person and modifies some existing third-person animations to make them more accurate to how they're rendered in first-person.
- Skin Layers 3D - Renders the usually flat second layer of player skins as a 3D model.
- CapeTweaks - Allows you to disable capes and slightly modify how they behave.
- Wavey Capes - Makes capes be wavey!
- Clear Skies (forge version) - Removes the lighter-coloured band around the horizon.
- Blur (forge version) - Lets you customise the normally transparent black GUI background shown when in inventories or in the pause menu by changing its colour, making it a gradient, or blurring what's behind it.
- Falling Leaves - Adds little particle leaves that fall from trees and move in the wind.
- MinecraftCapes Mod - A cape mod letting you add custom capes to your Minecraft character.
- Hat List - Always shows the hat layer of Minecraft skins in the tab player list.
- Chat Heads - Shows player heads next to chat messages depicting the sender of the message.
- Semitranslucency Fix - Allows resource packs to use semi-transparent pixels instead of only either fully transparent or fully opaque pixels in GUI/HUD textures.
- Seamless Loading Screen (1.19.2 fork) - Takes a screenshot when you leave a world or server, and shows it as the loading screen background when you rejoin.
- Fullbright (Forge)- This mod provides 4 brightness levels which can be cycled through by tapping the keybind
- GammaUtils (Fabric) - This is a fully configurable and client side gamma/brightness utility mod.
- Caxton* - Adds proper TrueType/OpenType font rendering support, allowing for perfectly smooth vector font rendering like in web browsers instead of using bitmaps. This can make chat easier to read, especially when scaled to certain values.
Utility Mods
- Mod menu - Adds a "Mods" button and provides a list of mods and a way to access their configs in-game.
- LambdaControls - Adds controller support like in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition to Minecraft: Java Edition. If you use this mod, make sure the options "Fast Block Placing" (enabled by default), "Front Block Placing", and "Vertical Reacharound" in Options -> Controls -> Gameplay Options are disabled.
- Controllable - Adds controler support similar to Bedrock Edition to Java Edition. (Forge)
- ShulkerBoxToolip - A mod allowing you to see everything that's inside a shulker box by hovering over it in an inventory instead of only seeing a small text list.
- AdvancedChatCore - A base mod that other AdvancedChat module mods rely on, that also adds a few basic features such as chat timestamps and duplicate message stacking.
- AdvancedChatLog - Adds a searchable chat log of many previous messages that you can access with a keybind or button.
- AdvancedChatFilters - Lets you filter incoming chat messages and replace their contents, change colours, play a sound, and many other things.
- AdvancedChatBox - Adds some configurable features to the chat box area that you type in, such as a spell checker and in-chat calculator.
- AdvancedChatHUD - Lets you separate different types of chat messages into different chat windows (known as "tabs"), as well as colour them and move them wherever you want.
- MiniHUD - Adds a customisable "mini-F3" screen, with many additional render options showing things like light levels or holographical spheres. If you use this mod, you are not allowed to use the debug water renderer (enabled with Config -> Renderer Hotkeys -> debugWaterEnabled).
- Item Scroller - Adds many new shortcuts for inventory GUIs allowing you to move items around much quicker than usual. Note: Autcraft has a packet rate-limit and your client will get auto-kicked if it sends too many packets too quickly, which can happen when using certain shortcuts too many times too quickly. You can enable Config -> Generic -> rateLimitClickPackets and adjust the Config -> Generic -> packetRateLimit setting if you would like to prevent this from happening, however that can cause your shortcuts to take a while to execute and so this is not required.
- No Strip - Adds a toggle to being able to strip logs.
- Amecs - Allows you to have more control over your keybinds.
- Extra Sounds - Adds configurable sounds to the Minecraft UI for actions that are normally silent (such as changing hotbar slot or a message appearing in chat).
- Xaero's World Map and Xaero's Minimap (Fair-Play Edition) - Map mods that work together. They map out the area around you in real-time and let you set waypoints to remember locations. Note: Only the Fair-Play edition of Xaero's Minimap is allowed, please make sure you don't use the full edition. Also, remember to disable the minimap and don't use the world map while in competitive minigames such as bed wars and H&S.
- Vivecraft - Lets you play Minecraft in Virtual Reality!
- Roughly Enough Items (and Just Enough Items (Forge-exclusive)) - Offers a clean, simple way to view blocks and items, along with their recipes.
- multiconnect - Allows your client to fake the Minecraft version its running so you can join older servers with newer clients.
- ViaFabric (and ViaForge) - Adds ViaVersion packet translation to the client, allowing you to join older servers in newer clients (similar to multiconnect). Autcraft has server-side ViaVersion packet translation, so this mod isn't necessary there, but it's allowed anyway.
- ViaBackwards - Like ViaFabric, but the other way around. Allows you to join newer servers in older clients.
- Not Enough Crashes - Improves Minecraft crashing. Instead of closing the game immediately, it shows you a list of mods possibly involved in the crash and returns you to the main menu. Sometimes a crash is unrecoverable, or a crash corrupts the render engine, in which case a restart is required.
- Inventory Control Tweaks - Adds a few useful inventory shortcuts, like swapping an elytra in your hand with the chestplate you're wearing with right-click (normally you can only do this if you're not already wearing the chestplate).
- Language Reload - Only reloads language data when swapping languages instead of all resources from all enabled resource packs. Also allows you to have multiple languages enabled at the same time, similar to resource packs.
- Distant Horizons - Adds a Level Of Detail (LOD) system to Minecraft, allowing for much higher effective render distances by rendering far-away chunks as blocks of colours instead of detailed block models. On multiplayer servers, it will only load LODs for chunks that you've seen before. If there's a gap in the areas you've been, there'll be a gap in the world, which you can see through to see things underground you wouldn't be able to normally (although not in much detail). Remember, intentionally x-raying in any way is not allowed. Please do not abuse this.
- Force Close Loading Screen - Fixes a bug where the "loading terrain" screen shows longer than it needs to.
- Enhanced Searchability - Adds a search bar to the resource pack, server, and data pack selection screens.
- PingList - Replaces the ping bars in the player tab list with coloured numerical values.
- microDurability - Adds durability bars above the experience points level number showing the durability level of your armour/elytra.
- One Click Crafting - Makes it faster to use the recipe book by making it craft stuff on click instead of just preparing the recipe.
- ChestTracker - Remembers the contents of containers you open and allows you to search through its memories to highlight containers containing the item you want.
- Colorful Subtitles- Categorizes subtitles into hostile, peaceful, and other areas to assist with awareness of surroundings. Colors are assigned to each type of sound.
- Mouse Tweaks* - Replaces the default dragging mechanic to allow for quickly selecting identical blocks when moving between inventories.
*asterisk means the mods is a recent addition.