Modpack Makers

Spectrum's progression is a fragile little thing. Because it is so intertwined, there is some stuff to look out for when creating a modpack. Here is a small checklist of the most essential stuff to look out for:

• Make sure the Overworld generates Citrine and Topaz geodes. Adjust the generation heights and frequency in the config. Otherwise, players would not be able to progress after just a few hours of play time.
  • The default values are perfectly fine for the vanilla terrain generator
• Make sure the world generates swamp, ocean and plains biomes and that finding them is not too hard. Otherwise, add suitable alternatives in the mods config.
• Using only 1-high flat bedrock world bottoms is discouraged. While it does not make the mod impossible to finish, it makes it quite a bit harder for players to get certain materials
• Check for recipe conflicts. Since Spectrum uses its own recipe types 99% of the time you will me mostly fine. The critical things are the smelting/blast furnace recipes for Polished Calcite and Polished Basalt blocks, as well as the 3x3 Amethyst blocks.
  • Known conflicts: Consistency+
• Mods like Dark Enchanting may offer Spectrum's enchantments to players, despite them being set to not be available through normal means. Enchantments obtained that way will not be usable unless enough progress in Spectrum is reached by the player, so it is best to disable Spectrum's enchantments in their configs to not confuse your players.

Modifying & Removing Recipes

Before adjusting recipes to better fit the pack, please read the chapter Adjusting Progression. Instead of just overwriting the recipe with an empty value, you should check these things instead:

• Set the recipe unlock advancement (e.g. spectrum:progression/unlock_light staff) to an impossible value
  • This will also prevent the associated manual page from unlocking ✔
• If the recipe is associated with any displayed advancements, remove that too. Your players will be unable to complete it and be will confused -- rightfully so
• Check if any of the advancements you modified/removed are associated in other (hidden) advancements. You will need to add replacements there and switch them to functional ones

Server Hosters

• Fixing weather / daylight cycle or settings to always skip the night will prevent users from getting some necessary resources (like very low /gameRule sleepPlayerPercentage values)

Frequent Problems

• If you find that Spectrum's guidebook has all entries unlocked from the start, some mod did bad stuff to Patchouli. (java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot read field "entries" because "this.contents" is null). Try to find out which mod did it by disabling mods with a Patchouli book one by one and open an issue on their issue tracker to get it fixed. There is nothing we can do about it.
  • Previous offenders: Besmirchment
• Check if the biome composition allows for spawning of all of Spectrum's ores and plants. Especially tricky is the generation of Quitotic Reeds: they require shallow water in swamps with clay, like vanilla has. Does any one of the mods in the pack make the generation of these plants hard or impossible? Try bumping up generation chances in the Spectrum config
  • Previous offenders: Terralith