Cogwork: From Ore to Orbit

Cogwork is a large NeoForge 1.21.1 modpack built outward from Create. Rotation and contraptions are the spine; the tech mods, the magic and the trip off-world all hang off it. It is a sandbox, not a guided path — nothing is gated, and no mod is hidden behind another.

What's in it

Create, and a lot of it. Create 6.0 with Steam'n'Rails, The Factory Must Grow, Big Cannons, Crafts & Additions, Create Connected, Ultimate Factory, Central Kitchen, Diesel Generators, New Age, Nuclear, Aeronautics and Submarine. If you would rather solve a problem with a contraption than a machine, you can.

The full tech spread, side by side. Mekanism, Immersive Engineering, Oritech, Ender IO, Industrial Foregoing, PneumaticCraft, Electrodynamics, LTX Industries and RFTools. None of them is gated behind another — pick the one whose approach you like and start there.

Storage that scales. Applied Energistics 2 with MEGA Cells, Extended AE, Advanced AE, Applied Mekanistics and ArsEng, plus Storage Drawers for everything that does not need to be digital.

Power to the far end. From a windmill to Extreme Reactors and Draconic Evolution, with Powergrid and Electroenergetics modelling real transmission along the way.

Magic that stands on its own. Ars Nouveau, Botania, Iron's Spellbooks and Forbidden Arcanus — four systems with nothing to do with each other, and none of them treated as a detour from the tech.

A world worth crossing. Terralith and Tectonic reshape the terrain. Towns and Towers, Moog's End Structures and YUNG's work fill it. Ice and Fire, Naturalist, Jurassic Revived and Creeper Overhaul populate it. Stellaris and Star Wars Planets take you off it.

Why this one

Materials are actually unified. A KubeJS script rewrites recipe outputs across 166 tag families, so there is one steel ingot, one tin dust, one lead plate — not one per mod. Twelve mods are prioritised in a fixed order, with AllTheOres first. That is the difference between a working AE2 network and a storage system full of near-duplicates.

It has been profiled, not guessed at. A spark run over 209 seconds puts the server thread at roughly 16.5 ms per tick against a 50 ms budget, with two thirds of the thread idle. Physics stepping, entity activation ranges, connected textures, structure search radii and a dozen other settings were adjusted against what that profile actually showed.

Configs were read, not copied. Every option whose own comment describes it as performance-relevant was checked, and only those not already sitting on the cheaper value were changed. Settings that look expensive but are not were left alone.

Some things were added. Custom KubeJS content extends AE2 with 35 infinity cells — bottomless storage for a single block or fluid — and a Universal Press that replaces the four inscriber presses with one.

Before you download

This is an early beta. It has been played and profiled, but only by one person. Expect rough edges, and take backups.

There is no quest book. This pack does not tell you what to do next. If you want a guided progression with objectives and rewards, this is not that pack. EMI, Jade and the in-game guide books of the individual mods are your map.

Requirements

• Java 21
• 8 GB allocated to the game — 6 GB will run, more than 8 helps little
• NeoForge 21.1.249 or newer for Minecraft 1.21.1

Known issues

• Ender IO ships as a beta build and prints a warning on every world join. It is stable in normal play, but keep backups.
• Create Train Utilities becomes Create Train Doors in version 4, and its platform blocks and noise isolation walls are removed with it. Do not build with those blocks unless you intend to stay on the current version.
• Two mods print a notice into chat when you join a world. Both are harmless, and neither can be turned off in config.

Credits

Every mod in this pack belongs to its author. Cogwork is configuration, KubeJS scripts and artwork layered on top of their work — nothing more. The complete mod list with links is on the Versions tab.

Named where the license asks for it:

• Advancement Plaques by Grend — https://anthonyhilyard.com/
• Botania by Vazkii — https://botaniamod.net
• Create Big Cannons by rbasamoyai
• Create: The Factory Must Grow by DrMangoTea, Pepa and Luna — https://github.com/Metallurgists-of-Create/Create-TFMG-CE
• Cristel Lib by Cristelknight — https://modrinth.com/mod/cristel-lib
• Explorer's Compass by ChaosTheDude — https://github.com/MattCzyr/ExplorersCompass
• Iceberg by Grend — https://anthonyhilyard.com/
• Item Borders by Grend — https://anthonyhilyard.com/
• Jade by Snownee — https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/jade
• Jurassic Revived by CMR Team
• Legendary Tooltips by Grend — https://anthonyhilyard.com/
• Modonomicon by Kli Kli — https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/modonomicon
• Nature's Compass by ChaosTheDude — https://github.com/MattCzyr/NaturesCompass
• Patchouli by Vazkii
• Prism by Grend — https://anthonyhilyard.com/
• Star Wars Planets by St0x0ef & TATHAN
• Stellaris by The Stellaris Team
• Towns and Towers by Kubek and Biban_Auriu — https://modrinth.com/mod/towns-and-towers

The pack itself — configs, scripts and artwork — is All Rights Reserved. This distribution is not monetised in any form, as several of the licenses above require.

If you are a mod author and want your work removed from this pack, say so and it will be removed.