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Overview
The World
Pylons
Buried Structures
Cave Crystals
Forests
Luminous Cliffs
Constructs
Progression
Puzzles
Mod Interactions
API
Background
Installation
Custom Recipes
Configuration Settings
Source Code
Downloads

Overview

ChromatiCraft is a very large exploration-, experimentation-, and puzzle-based magic mod centered around harnessing and focusing the power of sixteen colors of crystal energy present in the Minecraft world. Each color of energy is associated with certain forces, traits, or concepts, ranging from light to protection to time.

In ChromatiCraft, you can use this energy in two main ways.
One major use is to drive various devices which run on the energy. These have a wide variety of applications, and can be used to reshape the world, protect an area, acquire or transport resources with ease, augment farms of various kinds, enhance the power of other machines, create stunning decorations, and much, much more.

The other major use of the energy is to imbue yourself with magic powers, which give you the ability to do things like substantially extend your reach, teleport at will, project an aura of light, unify your inventory with machines, see what should normally be hidden, rain fire upon the world, or even phase through solid blocks.

Note to servers: ChromatiCraft requires large amounts of exploration, in chunks that have not been generated without ChromatiCraft. It is recommended that you pregenerate a large area in the overworld, as well as allocate some extra hard drive space for the dimension (which resets and should never exceed a few GB in size at worst, and only temporarily at that).

The World

Pylons

While exploring, you will occasionally find an unusual structure, made of dark stone columns, beams, and tiles. Near the top is a ring of eight blocks engraved with a strange, glowing symbol. At the top of the structure sits a glowing beacon, one visibly and audibly (and if you get too close, palpably) radiating with raw crystal power.
A Crystal Pylon.

Buried Structures

The world is full of other structures - many buried or otherwise at least partly hidden, and all laden with valuables - and interesting blocks as well. Many of these will not be noticeable to you at first, sometimes even while directly looking at them; as you progress, you will gain the ability to recognize and make use of them.
Something shines in the darkness.

Cave Crystals

One of the earliest things you will notice are Cave Crystals, large outcrops of solidified crystal energy, and which radiate weak effects to nearby creatures. Crystals generate in every dimension except the end, and are most frequent in the Twilight Forest. These crystals will be invaluable to your crafting efforts, both whole and their shards.
Some cave crystals and other blocks visible in a ravine.

Forests

With ChromatiCraft, there are also new biomes in the map, including a forest full of multicolored trees and one littered with pools of liquid ender. These too contain both secrets and unique points of interest.

Luminous Cliffs

You will also find the rare Luminous Cliffs, comprised of huge terraces of land forming large overhangs and deep cave-like alcoves, as well as floating islands and foliage, creatures, and objects not found anywhere else.

Constructs

There is a vast array of constructs in ChromatiCraft, designed to address many gameplay needs and solve many problems. Some are fairly standard and comparable to what you might find in a tech mod, while others are unique, and have purposes ranging from decoration to defence to transportation and more.



Progression

Progression in ChromatiCraft is primarily based around cycles of exploration and construction, where you acquire new knowledge via scavenging fragments from various locations, then return home to apply those and create new things, as well as experiment to fill in gaps in that information. You spawn unable to produce anything beyond the informational book (the Chromatic Lexicon) and the basic interaction tool (the Elemental Manipulator). From that point, you will need to "unlock" every recipe and ability via this process.

As a result, ChromatiCraft is not designed to be used immediately in a new world; it is expected players will start by doing other things and will naturally acquire those first fragments that allow them to meaningfully begin. This also means that it is not wise for it to be the sole large mod in a pack; that will force you to focus on the mod in a way that was not intended, making for a rather arduous experience.

At first, your abilities and options will be very limited, and the pylons of energy will be little more than scenery and a small area hazard. As you advance, you will unlock new ways of producing both materials and constructs, new ways to expedite everything from resource collection (including fragments) to construction, and gain an increasingly deep understanding of the mechanics of the various crystal elements and how to harness them.
Successive iterations of your central crafting complex.

Once sufficiently deep into the progression, you can finally start to harness the energy directly, both for your own abilities and to craft and operate new devices. Because pylons are fixed in location, nor are they suitable to build near, you will need to construct a transport network across large distances, using repeaters to relay the signal from the source.

Transporting energy.

Late game constructs using energy.

Imbuing energy into yourself.



Many constructs, especially the more powerful ones, will draw this energy directly from the network; others will require it to be exchanged with a different transport medium, such as miniature repeaters - often indoors or between blocks - or an ambient radiation in a small area. Many constructs also require some kind of structure built to focus this energy.

Towards the end of the progression, you will learn how to build an access point to another place entirely, one where these forces reign supreme, and which might contain clues as to where all those fragments and energy sources came from...


This of course also unlocks the most powerful set of abilities in the mod.



Puzzles

The primary puzzles found in ChromatiCraft are the ongoing ones regarding your knowledge as you progress; not everything you learn or need to discover will be straightforward. In many cases, you will only be explicitly presented with half the information, or with the knowledge separated into several isolated components. In all cases, you will be required to work out the missing data, or the connection between seemingly unrelated pieces of information. As a simple example, you may find yourself needing to utilize a particular construct, but with the construct requires an additive with specific properties; meanwhile, you - much earlier in the progression - have discovered a material you have made occasional use of, which exhibited signs of possessing those properties. You would be left to realize the connection and application, rather than ever being explicitly told.

Much later in the mod, you will find yourself in front of - in a very literal sense - a wide variety of much more explicit puzzles, in part as a representation of unlocking some of the deepest secrets regarding the manipulation of crystal energy. Solving these will be required to reach the pinnacle of such developments.

Mod Interactions

ChromatiCraft has a huge number of interactions with a great many mods; many of its blocks are designed to work with the features in other mods, or address challenges that often arise. Many more are designed to be able to leverage other mods' features to enhance their own functionality. Additionally, ChromatiCraft adds custom content into many mods, including custom Forestry bees, trees and butterflies and ThaumCraft aspects and recipes.
Some ThaumCraft integration.

Various other mod integration features.


API

Background

ChromatiCraft has an extensive API to allow for mod creators to interface with mod systems and to add custom content, including adding recipes and abilities, querying player progression, interacting with the adjacency cores, mineral extractor, and other constructs, and more. There are also a great many events with which you can be notified of various occurrences.

Installation And Use

The API can be found in the "API" package of the source code; just add that to your development environment as you see fit (it was designed with simply dropping it into the source folders in mind, but can also be loaded as a library). I take special care to avoid the API making hard references to any internal CC code, so you should have no issues integrating it. To avoid a hard dependency on the API, use standard Forge @Optional (or similar) methods to conditionally strip interfaces and either conditional calls (ie calling the API function via a method which is itself only invoked if CC is loaded, thus "compartmentalizing" your references to the API within a method that is never loaded if not necessary) or reflection to invoke library methods.

Adding Custom Recipes

ChromatiCraft can use the LuaBlock system to add custom recipes to some or all of its production blocks (such as crafting tables, machines, et cetera). To do this, create a folder called ChromatiCraft_CustomRecipes in the Reika subfolder of your config directory. In that folder you can place LuaBlock files with the extension .recipes_[system], where [system] is the internal name of the machine, recipe system, or the like. The exact format and parameters required depends entirely on the nature of the recipes you are adding, and what properties and features they normally have. To see example files, as well as a list of all available recipe systems for ChromatiCraft, see this folder on the GitHub repository.

It is strongly advised that you be familiar with both the specific recipe system you want to add to, as well as the mod as a whole, before attempting to add new recipes. Not only is a working understanding of the relevant parts of the mod necessary to make additions make sense from a game design standpoint, but the large number of properties ChromatiCraft recipes have invites many opportunities to define properties with meaningless or invalid values, such as item counts exceeding stack limits, temperatures out of bounds, or items that do not exist. Though the recipe parsers apply many sanity checks, those cannot be fully comprehensive, and it is entirely possible to still define recipes that are syntactically but not semantically valid. These recipes, when attempted to be used, are likely to create undesired effects ingame, including failure to operate, exploits, or even crashes.

Configuration Settings

This mod contains several config options to modify values and behaviors - such as for balance or server safety concerns, or simply personal taste - to your preferences. Note that several settings may have bounds imposed on their values, either logically or explicitly; these can usually be seen in the actual settings files or ingame. These are listed in order found in the source code, which is generally the order in which they were added; They may be present in a different order ingame or in the configuration files.
The settings for the mod, when installed, can be found in the 'config/Reika' subfolder of the MC instance.

Lamp Noises

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Disable Pendant Particles

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true
Whether to disable potion spirals from pendant-given effects.

Crystal Plants May Drop Shards

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Max Accelerator Lag in NanoSeconds

Type: int
Current Default Value:
1000000
How many ns can be spent before an accelerator will stop ticking a TileEntity that tick (set negative to disable throttling).

Guardian Stone Range

Type: int
Current Default Value:
16

Guardian Stone is Full Chunk Height

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Dye Block Particles

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Generate Anti-Taint plants in Rainbow Forest

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Rainbow Forest Animal Density

Type: int
Current Default Value:
6
Note that when reducing this, animals in rainbow forests drop more, to keep total yields the same.

Rainbow Trees Spread Rainbow Forests

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Ender Forest Coloring

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Whether to use the purplish coloring of foliage for Ender Forests.

Ender Pool Density from 1 to 3

Type: int
Current Default Value:
2
Higher is more pools.

Liquid Ender Effect

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true
Whether CC liquid ender should propel entities around (meaningless if TE is installed as Resonant Ender is used instead).

Rainbow Leaf Gold Apple Drop Percentage

Type: float
Current Default Value:
0.25F

Generate Some Pylons as Broken

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Reload Handbook Data on Open

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Run Worldgen in Superflat Worlds

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Generate Pylons in Non-Overworld

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Spawn with CC Lexicon

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Chest Generation Tier

Type: int
Current Default Value:
4
How advanced/expensive items generating in worldgen chests can be. Higher is more.

Enable Ender TNT

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Use vanilla keybind system for ability selection GUI

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Instead of forced middle mouse button.

Allow duplication wand to copy TileEntities

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

More difficult ThaumCraft integration

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true
Whether CC/TC integration requires more progress in both mods.

Energy Buffer Overlay Location

Type: int
Current Default Value:
0
Where to place the lumen buffer HUD element on screen, 0-3 for the corners, 0 being top-left, 1 bottom-left, 2 top-right, 3 bottom-right.

Rainbow Forest Biome Weight

Type: int
Current Default Value:
10

Ender Forest Biome Weight

Type: int
Current Default Value:
10

Luminous Cliffs Biome Weight

Type: int
Current Default Value:
4

Allow Danger in Rainbow Forests

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Whether ball lightnings can do damage, becoming the only potentially-dangerous (if not aggressive) mobs in the biome.

Lumen Relay Range

Type: int
Current Default Value:
16

Always Respawn EnderDragon

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Respawn the EnderDragon when it is killed and the end is reloaded.

Delete End on Unload

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Auxiliary Fragment Acquisition

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Whether certain progress flags will also give an associated fragment, instead of you needing to unlock it like the others.

Duplication Wand Max Volume

Type: int
Current Default Value:
1000

World Shift Can Move TileEntities

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Dimension Structure Difficulty

Type: int
Current Default Value:
3
1-3, with 1 being easy and 3 hard.

Enable Ball Lightning

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Pylons Chunkload Selves Once Used

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

World Rifts Chunkload

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Make Pylon pathfinding attempt shortest path - can be intensive

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Notify players of progress gains

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Notify players via chat of their own progress gains

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Cave Lighter Range

Type: int
Current Default Value:
128

Cave Lighter Zone Size

Type: int
Current Default Value:
8
The subterranean illuminator works by dividing the world into NxNxN blocks and attempting to place a light in each one. Smaller zones take longer to process the volume but have more thorough lighting.

Adjacency Upgrades Require Energy

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Progression Notification Duration

Type: int
Current Default Value:
800

Play Dimension Join Sound For Others

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Blend CC Biome Edges

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true
Whether to attempt to blend the edges of the Luminous Cliffs to the surroundings. Expensive and imperfect.

Orchestra MIDI Size Limit (KB)

Type: int
Current Default Value:
80
How large a MIDI can be loaded into the crystal orchestra, as superlarge MIDIs will overflow packet limits.

Superbuild Ability Activation

Type: String
Current Default Value:
Key.LCTRL.name()
What key to hold to build in superbuild.

Village Structure Frequency

Type: float
Current Default Value:
1F

Crystal-Network-Integrated ThaumCraft Node Improvement Speed

Type: float
Current Default Value:
1F

Meteor Tower Projectiles Start Fires On Impact

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
true

Panel-Form Lumen Lamps Have No Hitbox

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Epilepsy Mode

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Whether to reduce the dynamism of some visuals, such as by making them only show when holding a manipulator.

Wireless RF Transmission Efficiency (%)

Type: float
Current Default Value:
100F

Launch Pad Power

Type: float
Current Default Value:
1F

Crystal Fence segment count limit

Type: int
Current Default Value:
64

Structure Generation Attempts Per Flagged Chunk - affects worldgen CPU use and structure rarity

Type: int
Current Default Value:
20
How forcefully should CC attempt to generate structures in the planned locations. More attempts means more computation time, but fewer means a lower success rate and thus lower total structure frequency.

Use Alternate Progress Shader

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Whether to replace the pixelation progress shader with a colorful overlay.

Enhanced Pendants Require Charging

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false
Whether enhanced pendants are "charged tools" like the aura tracker is.

Ability Selection GUI only shows abilities you have

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:
false

Luminous Cliffs Terrain Shape Seed Shift

Type: int
Current Default Value:
0
A modifier for the seed used to generate luminous cliffs terrain. Allows you to try a new terrain layout for a biome while keeping the overall world seed.

Source Code

The source code for ChromatiCraft can be found here:GitHub

Downloads

Via CurseForge