Systems Overview

Core gameplay systems that define the IridescentCraft experience.

Death & Penalty System

Keep inventory on death (no item loss). Penalty is durability-based.

Durability Loss on Death

• Affects equipped armor + held weapon ONLY
• Items NEVER break/destroy — at 0 durability they become inert (non-functional)
• Scaling by dimension:

Dimension	Difficulty	Durability Loss
Overworld	1.0x	10%
Twilight Forest	1.5x	12%
Blue Skies	2.0x	14%
The Undergarden	3.0x	17%
Deeper and Darker	3.5x	18%
The Nether	4.0x	20%
The Aether (Deep Aether's biomes included)	6.0x-10.0x	22%
The End	6.0x-10.0x	25%

Soulbound Enchantment

Level	Effect
I	50% of death durability loss prevented
II	75% of death durability loss prevented
III	100% durability loss prevented + item cannot go inert

Treasure enchant requiring high Arcana.

Combat Scaling

Four stats scale independently per dimension. Damage scales fastest.

Base reference: Overworld zombie = 20 HP, 3 damage, 0 armor, 100% speed.

Each dimension has unique combat mechanics beyond stat scaling:

• Twilight Forest: Canopy Ambush (invisibility), Pack Tactics, Twilight Corruption
• Blue Skies: Elemental damage (30% bypasses armor), Elemental Storms
• Undergarden: Virulent Spores (poison), Fungal Armor (regen), Decay Aura
• Deeper and Darker: Acoustic Aggro, Sculk Resonance, Darkness Empowerment
• The Nether: Infernal Rage, Soulfire Burns (30% bypasses armor), Blaze Swarm
• The Aether (Tier 4; Deep Aether's biomes included): its mobs move with Speed I, and its flyers also hit with Strength I. Thin Air: above Y 180 you get Weakness unless your armor has Aether Acclimation. Vertigo: sprinting above Y 200 sometimes brings nausea. Updraft: falling below Y 0, you are given Slow Falling once.
• The Abyss (TATOS): Oppressive Darkness (no held light + low light → mining-fatigue + slowness), Corruption (periodic hunger ticks), Fear Aura (Darkness within 16 blocks of Abyss bosses), Void Whispers (Weakness below Y=20). These fire in theabyss:the_abyss via dimension_mechanics.js. TATOS ("The Abyss: The Other Side") is installed; the dimension is gated T3.
• The End: Void Proximity, Ender Displacement, Void Corruption, Reality Fracture. Dragon Exploration Gate: explore End islands first, fight dragon last. Reached with Eyes of Ender (staged at T4); an End Compass → End Bastion route, the compass crafted from the Aether's materials, is planned to replace them. 9 advancement overrides, 5 End Apotheosis affixes.

Armor damage reduction

Armor has diminishing returns, for players and mobs alike. Each point is worth less than the one before it, and the share blocked is the same for a small hit and a big one. Armor toughness does not enter this step.

Armor	Blocked	Damage taken
0	0%	100%
10	24%	76%
20	35%	65%
30	42%	58%
50	51%	49%
100	63%	37%
200	77%	23%
400	90%	10%
about 520 and up	95% (cap)	5%

In force since October 2026 (see the changelog). General Protection adds flat armor (+0.75 per level) and so goes through the same table.

Champions System (REMOVED 2026-04-07)

Champions Unofficial has been removed from the modpack. The mod had a broken rank config system, was unmaintained, and generated error spam on every mob spawn event causing server lag. Elite mob encounters are now handled by Majrusz's Progressive Difficulty (see below).

Mob Tier HP Scaling

Custom HP multipliers applied via mob_scaling_unified.js based on mob category. Stacks multiplicatively with dimension scaling and ascension systems.

Tier	Multiplier	Examples
Basic	3x HP	Zombie (60 HP), Skeleton, Spider, Creeper, Drowned, Husk, Stray, Witch, Slime
Mid-tier	1.5x HP	Blaze, Wither Skeleton, Piglin Brute, TF/Aether/Blue Skies mobs, dungeon mobs
Elite	1.25x HP	Stacks on top of other affixes (Majrusz Progressive Difficulty elites)
Boss	1x HP	Unchanged, custom HP managed via boss_hp.js
Catch-all	3x HP	Any unlisted hostile mob defaults to basic tier

Progressive Difficulty (Majrusz's)

Three-stage world difficulty scaling tied to progression milestones. Replaces Champions as the primary mob challenge system.

Stage	Tier Range	Trigger	damage_bonus	health_bonus
Normal	T1-T2	Default	+1.5 flat	+50%
Expert	T3	Nether entry	+3.0 flat	+75%
Master	T4	Dragon kill	+5.0 flat	+155%

Flat damage bonus from mobs_spawn_stronger stacks on top of the per-dimension damage multiplier in mob_scaling_unified.js. Damage values tuned 2026-04-17 after tester feedback on one-shot deaths. Health bonus left at defaults (tester feedback confirmed 2026-04-18 that tankiness wasn't the issue — incoming damage was).

Treasure Bags

Majrusz's Progressive Difficulty includes a treasure bag system. Bags have been rewritten for all 7 bosses/events with tier-appropriate loot. Bag contents scale with the current difficulty stage.

Configuration

• Creeperlings: disabled
• Bleeding: kept (symmetrical design with player combat)
• Enderium: removed

Custom Enchantments (24 total)

Category	Enchantments
Dimensional Survival (5)	Heatward, Voidward, Depthstrider, Aether Acclimation, Warp Shield
Resource Enhancement (3)	Prospector, Lumberjack, Reaping
Scaling Combat (5)	Momentum, Adrenaline, Titan Slayer, Crowd Control, Adaptive
Anti-Boss (3)	Boss Ward, Steadfast, Nemesis
Path Synergy (4)	Mana Temper, RF Capacitance, Convergence, Primal Force
Utility & Survival (5)	Magnetism, Last Stand, Vitality, Phalanx, Quick Draw

Loot System Architecture

Chest loot is fully controlled via a multi-layer approach in lootjs_overhaul.js:

Layer 1: GLM Whitelist (global_loot_modifiers.json)

"replace": true ensures only whitelisted GLM entries fire. All unlisted mod GLMs (including rpgseteffects:loot_injection/*) are inert. Whitelisted mods:

• artifacts: — 18 chest injections + 5 archaeology + 2 entity drops + 1 utility (pickaxe heater smelting)
• celestial_artifacts: — 8 chest injections + 11 entity drops + 5 fishing boxes
• relics: — single relic_loot GLM
• irons_spellbooks: — 5 entity drops + 8 chest loot modifiers
• alexsmobs: — 4 entries (ancient_dart, banana_drop, blossom_drop, pigshoes)
• tetra: — 1 entry (bartering_additions)

Note: Global LootJS strip for @artifacts, @celestial_artifacts, @relics was removed due to the persistent filter issue -- removeLoot(@namespace) catches items re-added by earlier modifiers in the same LootJS evaluation pass, which was stripping the tiered re-injections immediately after adding them. These mods now rely on the GLM whitelist for controlled injection rates.

Layer 2: Bytecode Patches

• Ars Nouveau — bytecode-patched to disable dungeon_loot GLM injection at the class level. Complementary dungeon_loot.json override with 0% chances deployed via Paxi + KubeJS as belt-and-suspenders
• Patchouli — bytecode-patched (athrow -> pop) for book rendering stability

Layer 3: LootJS Strip (Section 1B)

Remaining mods stripped from ALL chest loot via LootJS:

• @ars_nouveau — Ars Nouveau spell books (after bytecode patch prevents GLM injection)
• @irons_spellbooks — Iron's Spellbooks scrolls/books

Layer 4: Tiered Re-Injection (Section 1C+)

After stripping, curated item pools are re-injected at tier-appropriate rates per dimension:

Tier	Dimensions	Combined Artifact Rate	Items
Village	Village chests	8%	Curated village artifact pool
T1	Overworld	10%	Utility/movement artifacts (snorkel, running shoes, etc.)
T2	Twilight Forest, Blue Skies	12%	Combat/defensive artifacts (power glove, crystal heart, etc.)
T3	Nether, Undergarden	14%	Powerful offense artifacts + celestial items
T4	End, Aether, Deeper Darker (Otherside)	16%	Endgame artifacts + relics items

Per-structure theming (2026-05-17). Marquee structures (high-profile landmarks per master.md §XIII) receive a themed pool layered on top of a reduced dimensional baseline — 70% themed / 30% baseline inside the tier's combined rate. 14 marquees across the 4 tiers. Roster, theme catalog, and per-structure item lists: master-appendix.md §N. ISS spellbooks capped at 2% per chest (starter kit handles onboarding). ISS scrolls remain uncapped.

Ars Nouveau Glyph Pools

Ars Nouveau spell books are blank caster tools that require glyphs inscribed at a Scribes Table. Glyphs are seeded into chests per tier (Forms front-loaded in T1–T2):

Tier	Dimensions	Glyphs	Combined Rate
T1	Overworld	18 (Forms: projectile/touch/self + basic effects/augments)	~12%
T2	TF, Blue Skies	25 (aoe/underfoot + mobility/utility effects)	~14%
T3	Nether, Undergarden	22 (linger + advanced effects: lightning, wall, fangs, blink, etc.)	~15%
T4	End, Aether, Deeper Darker (Otherside)	12 (summons, rune, wither, dispel, randomize)	~18%

Custom Patched JARs

The following mods ship as custom bytecode-patched JARs (added to custom JAR allowlist in server scripts):

• Patchouli — athrow -> pop crash fix
• Ars Nouveau — dungeon_loot GLM injection disabled

Other Loot Controls

• Enchanted books: removed globally, re-added with .enchantWithLevels() at dimension-scaled rates
• Diamond/netherite gear: stripped from T1/T2 chests
• Village chests: sanitized with curated 25-artifact pool at ~4% combined rate
• Clutter items (horse armor, spider eyes, rotten flesh, etc.): removed from structure chests
• Food mods: stripped from chest loot to prevent bypassing the food/hunger system (village chests exempt — they receive a thematic food + seed boost on top; see below)

Apotheosis Affixes

~95 total designed, 149 implemented (84 JSON datapacks + 65 event-driven). The JSON affix definitions are single-sourced from one custom datapack — an earlier duplicate copy living alongside the scripts was removed in the 2026-06-06 cleanup, so there is now exactly one home for each affix.

Categories: Generic Power, Weapon (Offensive/Utility), Armor (Defensive/Mobility/Utility), Shield, Dimensional, Boss-Themed, Tier-Gated.

Scorching (formerly Ignition). The fire-themed weapon affix was reworked on 2026-06-06: instead of accidentally buffing the target, it now adds a small attack-damage bump and marks whatever it hits with a timed fire vulnerability, so follow-up fire damage lands harder. The amount scales with rarity (provisionally 15-50%). The display name changed from "Ignition" to "Scorching"; the affix is the same one under the hood.

Affix Rates by Tier

Tier	Common	Uncommon	Rare	Epic	Mythic	Max Sockets
1	15%	5%	—	—	—	1
2	25%	15%	5%	—	—	2
3	35%	25%	15%	8%	—	3
4	35%	25%	15%	10%	5%	4+

Weapon Progression

System	Role	Acquisition
Tetra stack (Tetra + art_of_forging + adtetra)	Primary crafted weapons + tools	Crafting with tier materials at the Tetra workbench (formerly documented as "Truly Modular", which is not in pack)
Iridescent Reforging (in iridescent_tetra_expansion)	Modular armor (Tetra-extension)	Leather base recipe + Tetra workbench, OR convert specialized armor
Simply Swords	Unique trophy weapons	Boss drops ONLY (via LootJS)
Iron's Spells	Magic combat	Crafting + loot
Cataclysm	Signature boss weapons	Cataclysm boss drops
Mahou Tsukai	Ultimate magic combat	Tier 4 crafting
Mekanism	Tech endgame (MekaTool)	Tier 4 crafting

Class Artifacts (Epic RPG)

14 class-themed curio items from the rpgseteffects: namespace, each with a stronger "Awakening" variant. Plus 25 standalone Relics providing single-effect passives. Drops-only — no crafting path exists.

Acquisition

Item type	Source	Rate
Fragment Core	Any hostile mob	4% drop
T1 Relics (movement, utility)	Overworld / Twilight Forest chests	~0.4% per chest
T2 Relics (combat, immunity)	Blue Skies chests	~0.6% per chest
T3 Relics (fire, decay)	Nether / Undergarden chests	~0.8% per chest
T4 Relics (endgame passives)	End / Aether / Deeper Darker (Otherside) chests	~1.0% per chest
Artifact Piece Pouch	T2+ boss kills	1× from T2 bosses, 2× from T4 bosses
Normal artifacts	Pouch open	14-way weighted pool, one per pouch
Awakening artifacts	T4 boss direct drops only	0.7% per awakening × 14 = ~9.3% combined per T4 boss

T2 Boss Sources

Naga, Lich, Hydra (Twilight Forest), Ignis (Cataclysm), Summoner (Blue Skies).

T4 Boss Sources

Ender Dragon, Ender Guardian, Harbinger (Cataclysm), Shattered (Deeper Darker), Slider (Aether).

AStages Tier Gating

• Normal artifacts + artifact_piece_pouch → T2 (picked up but not equipped until T2 unlock)
• Awakening artifacts → T4 (held as trophies until T4)

Configuration

Class Artifacts' native elite mob system (tier 1/2/3 Elite/Master/Legendary spawns) is disabled via rpgseteffects-common.toml — IridescentCraft uses Majrusz's Progressive Difficulty for elite enemies. Both systems at once would create redundant skull-marked mobs with competing boss bars.

Food & Hunger

Hunger drain rate increased to 2.5x vanilla baseline. Seed drops from grass reduced to 5%. Structure food loot reduced across all loot tables except village chests — villages receive a flat food + seed boost (~1.4 food + ~0.6 seeds per chest expected) as of 2026-05-17, walking back the original blanket food reduction which proved overly onerous given the 2.5x hunger drain. Targets: vanilla biome houses (plains/desert/savanna/snowy/taiga), CTOV village chests, Villages and Pillages chests. Spawn protection area provides slower hunger drain for new players.

Seed economy is Farmer's-Delight-weighted (2026-05-17). FD is the pack's farming-mod baseline, so its seeds (cabbage_seeds, tomato_seeds, onion, rice) make up ~68% of the village seed roll; vanilla wheat/beetroot/pumpkin/melon seeds the remaining ~31%. Cabbage and tomato seeds also drop from grass + tall_grass loot tables (3-4% each) so the discovery-via-grass-breaking onboarding flow covers FD too.

Village butcher chests have guaranteed meat (2026-05-17). Vanilla butcher chest tables had all meat at low random-roll weights; a butcher chest could produce zero meat. Now adds 1-3 porkchop + 1-3 chicken + 1-2 beef guaranteed on top of vanilla rolls. Thematically correct, addresses tester report that butcher chests felt broken.

Village farm-animal density boosted in surrounding biomes (2026-05-17). Forge biome_modifier (icraft_worldgen_overrides/data/icraft/forge/biome_modifier/village_animals.json) adds passive spawn entries for pig/cow/chicken/sheep in the 9 biomes where vanilla villages generate (plains, sunflower_plains, savanna, savanna_plateau, taiga, old_growth_pine_taiga, old_growth_spruce_taiga, snowy_plains, meadow). Approximates "villages have more farm animals" by raising surrounding biome density rather than gating spawns to the village structure bounding box (which would require per-biome village structure JSON overrides). Desert villages skipped (rabbits suit the biome more than pigs/cows/sheep).

Spice of Life: Carrot Edition rewards food diversity with HP bonuses. Food is ungated from Tier 1 but best diversity requires dimensional ingredients. Farmer's Delight Cooking Station and Skillet serve as primary food crafting stations (70 recipes converted).

XP Economy

XP is plentiful with many sinks: JustLevelingFork leveling, skill point investment, Apotheosis enchanting, relic leveling, anvil operations, reforging.

Storage Progression

Tier	Storage	Transport
1	Sophisticated Backpacks (iron), Storage Drawers	Pretty Pipes, Create belts
2	Sophisticated (steel), Drawer upgrades	Thermal Ducts, IF basic
3	Refined Storage, Sophisticated (diamond)	XNet, IF advanced
4	RS advanced, Sophisticated (netherite)	Mekanism QIO, RFTools

Tetra Modded Materials

27 modded metal material definitions integrated via Paxi datapack (icraft_tetra_materials). Enables Tetra tool crafting with modded metals. Includes Blue Skies, Undergarden, Forbidden & Arcanus, and theabyss (TATOS) metals — the 4 theabyss entries (garnite, knight, phantom, unorithe, keyed to theabyss:*_ingot, diamond tool level) are live since TATOS is in pack. Diamond hammer tier required for high-tier crafting.

Tier	Materials
T1	Brass
T2	Steel, Signalum, Lumium, Manasteel, Steeleaf, Ironwood, Fiery, Knightmetal, Diopside, Charoite, Horizonite
T3	Osmium, Refined Obsidian, Terrasteel, Elementium, Enderium, + Undergarden metals, F&A metals
T4	Aethersteel

See Tetra Materials for full reference.

Seasonal Farming (Serene Seasons)

Serene Seasons adds seasonal crop growth. Crops die in winter unless grown in a greenhouse (glass-enclosed, torch-lit). Documented in a 4-page Patchouli Codex entry.

Azukaar's Fair Difficulty (REMOVED 2026-05-03)

Removed alongside ScalingMobs / Improved Mobs when the bespoke iridescent_difficulty mod took over dimension scaling (see "Difficulty engine" above). Its former stat scaling was already zeroed; the remaining behavior features (hunger nerf, night purge, no-sleep enforcement, respawn distance) are now covered by the dedicated mods that own those mechanics (Hunger Overhaul, Sleep Hunger, etc.).

Mekanism Balance

All machine RF costs raised to 2.5x stock (the demand-side lever; generator outputs stay stock - and as of ERA 4, fusion/fission outputs are buffed so reactors carry the late-game load). Digital Miner recipe requires higher-tier materials. Mekanism tool and armor recipes removed (MekaTool/MekaSuit remain T4-only via existing gating).

ERA 4 endgame rebalance (2026-06-06). With machine costs raised, the late-game reactors are now the intended answer: fusion output is buffed x1.5 (energy-per-fusion-fuel up to 15M) and fission output x1.25 (energy-per-fission-fuel up to 1.5M), so building a real reactor pays off. Radiation is disabled and meltdowns are disabled — an over-damaged fission reactor force-shuts-down instead of exploding or irradiating your base, making fission a dangerous-but-recoverable build rather than a base-ending mistake. The fusion chain, SPS/antimatter, the Digital Miner, and the ultimate-tier facilities are now pinned behind the T4 stage, while the intermediate machines that lead up to them stay open so the ramp still feels continuous.

Custom Abyss-themed Curio System

8 kubejs:ring_* curio items shipped as a curated T3 curio chain replacing theabyss (TATOS)'s 30 stock rings. TATOS is in pack: its stock rings + arcane workbench are stripped in recipe_audit.js §K, and the 8 custom rings drop from TATOS structure chests + Abyss bosses via abyss_boss_loot.js (effects in abyss_ring_effects.js). See Master-Design-Appendix §C.11.

Blue Skies Balance

Dusk Arc weapon and Shadow Armor set removed (overpowered for T2). Runic Arc changed to boss-drop only. Diopside, Charoite, and Horizonite nerfed to T2-appropriate stats and integrated into Tetra.

End Overhaul

Dragon Exploration Gate: players must explore End islands and complete objectives before the dragon fight becomes available. 9 advancement overrides replace the vanilla End advancement chain. 5 End-specific Apotheosis affixes. Entity ID corrections for End mobs. Moog's End Structure loot tables populated.

Difficulty engine — iridescent_difficulty (time-based)

As of 2026-05-03, the bespoke iridescent_difficulty mod is the dimension-scaling engine. It replaced ScalingMobs, the Improved Mobs difficulty accumulator, and Azukaar's Fair Difficulty Overhaul (all removed). Per-dimension HP / damage / armor multipliers ramp linearly from a per-tier start% to a cap% over capHours of dimension-loaded time, then freeze; the End uniquely uncaps after the Ender Dragon is killed.

Tier	Start %	Cap %	Cap Hours
T1 (Overworld)	150%	300%	100
T2 (Twilight / Blue Skies)	200%	350%	100
T3 (Undergarden / Deeper Darker / Nether / Abyss + Frost World)	300%	450%	100
T4 (End / Aether, incl. Deep Aether's biomes)	600%	1000%	200

• Scope: linear on max_health / attack_damage / armor, sqrt on movement_speed; tamed + non-MONSTER mobs skipped (except a short list that is scaled anyway, which since 2026-10-16 includes the Aether's own hostile creatures: swets, whirlwinds, the aechor plant, cockatrices, zephyrs, baby zephyrs and venomites), and bosses on the configurable exclusion list (a boss that is not listed is scaled like any other hostile mob).
• Idle gating: the per-dimension timer ticks at the active / total player ratio in that dimension (idle = no movement/combat for N minutes, or within the spawn radius).
• Stacks on top of (not replaced): per-kill boss scaling, per player (boss_progressive.js; not the Wither, the Ender Dragon, the Warden or the Elder Guardian), the static mob_scaling_unified.js tier-HP block (basic 3× / mid 1.5× / elite 1.25×), and Majrusz's content features (treasure bags + spawn variants — Majrusz's own stat scaling is config-disabled).

Full curve + commands: mods/custom.md and config/iridescent_difficulty-common.toml.

Mob equipment (iron-tier cap)

Mobs spawn with gear at dimension-scaled rates (5% Overworld → 80% End), capped at iron-tier breaking tools, via scaling/mob_equipment.js. (Originally an Improved Mobs config; that mod was removed 2026-05-03, so the handler now holds these targets directly. See master-appendix §D.11.)

Tectonic Terrain

Tectonic worldgen tuned for much lower, flatter terrain: vertical_scale reduced from 1.155 to 0.38, with ultrasmooth enabled and a flat_terrain_skew of 0.65 pulling generation toward flatter ground, plus reduced ridge_scale. Mountains are still present but far less extreme (worldgen rebalance 2026-06-06).

Walkable Mekanism Cables

Coremod (v1.0.1) that makes Mekanism cables/pipes walkable instead of having tiny hitboxes. Includes LocalVariableTable fix.

HDPE & Rubber Pipeline

HDPE Circuit Board added as a craftable component for alternative Mekanism machine recipes. IF latex/rubber pipeline reworked: logs produce latex via Create/Thermal processing routes, HDPE converts to dry rubber for recipe chains.

Related Pages

• Master Design Document — Parts I, II, V, VI, VII
• Progression — Tier and dimension details
• Classes — How scaling interacts with class roles