Firmalife guide for All the Mods - Gravitas 2.0 to 2.3

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What is Firmalife?

1 part

Firmalife is a food-and-farming expansion for TerraFirmaCraft, and this pack ships version 1.2.8. It adds a much deeper kitchen: cheese, yeast bread, chocolate, drying, herbs and spices, plus beekeeping. It also adds two multiblock structures, the Cellar and the Greenhouse, both run by a Climate Station.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]

It's for you if you enjoy the slower, more crafted side of TFC. The mod changes how some familiar things work. Cheese is a longer process and can be aged in a Cellar. Bread needs yeast and a sweetener, while regular TFC bread only makes flatbread, which is worse nutritionally. Sugar matters more too, so honey from your own bees or sugar from beets are good alternatives to sugar cane.[8]

Where it fits in the pack

The pack's quest chapter introduces Firmalife through beekeeping, right after an early lumberjack quest. The chain looks like this:[12]

  1. Get a Beehive Frame (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}").[12]
  2. Make a Wooden Beehive (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}").[12]
  3. Collect Raw Honey and an Empty Jar (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}").[12]
  4. Get Beeswax (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}").[12]
  5. Hand in 8 Treated Lumber (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}").[12]

That order makes sense. Beeswax is the most important ingredient for Treated Lumber, and Treated Wood is one of the greenhouse types. A greenhouse lets you grow crops year round, and a Cellar lets you age cheese and store food with better decay modifiers.[2][4][10][13]

Tip: Be careful when taking frames out of an active hive. The bees will attack you unless you do it at night or have a Firepit lit under the hive. Being wet also stops bees from attacking you. Scraping a filled frame with a Knife gives you beeswax but kills the queen inside.[2]

How do you get started with Firmalife?

5 parts

In this pack, Firmalife starts with bees, and the quest chain walks you through it. It begins with a frame and a hive, goes through honey and beeswax, and ends with treated lumber. Here is the order to follow.[2][12]

Step one: Beehive Frame and Wooden Beehive

The first quest asks for a Beehive Frame. The next one asks for a Wooden Beehive. Bees need frames inside a hive to live, so you need both. Quest a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" and quest a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" cover them.[2][12]

Beehive FrameMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

5 × any lumber

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/beehive_frame

Wooden BeehiveMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any lumberBeehive Frameany lumber
any lumberThatchany lumber
any lumberBeehive Frameany lumber

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/beehive

The hive knows about the area within 5 blocks of it. If at least 10 flowers are around, an empty frame can be populated with a queen, and you will see bee particles around the hive. Keeping 4 empty frames in the hive greatly improves the chances of bees moving in.[2]

Watch out: Removing frames from an active hive makes the bees attack you, unless you do it at night or have a Firepit active under the hive. Being wet also stops them from attacking.[2]

Step two: Empty Jar and Raw Honey

Next, quest a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" wants Raw Honey and an Empty Jar. Use the empty jar on a hive that visibly has honey to get a Honey Jar. Opening it gives you Raw Honey, which works as a sugar substitute.[2][12]

4× Empty JarMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/empty_jar

The pack changes the Honey Jar recipe and the recipe for opening a jar into Raw Honey, so use the versions below rather than what you may remember from other packs.[14]

Honey JarChanged by the pack

Crafting Shapeless

  • any bottle
  • any honeycomb

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/honey_jar

Raw HoneyChanged by the pack

Crafting Shapeless

  • any honey

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/honey_jar_open

Step three: Beeswax

Quest a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" asks for Beeswax. You get it by pressing a filled frame in your inventory with a Knife.[2][12]

Watch out: Scraping a frame for beeswax kills the queen inside it, so only do it when you are happy to lose that colony.[2]

Step four: Treated Lumber

The last step of the chain is Treated Lumber, and quest a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" asks for 8 of it. The in-game guide calls this the most important use of beeswax.[2][12]

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any lumberany lumberany lumber
any lumberBeeswaxany lumber
any lumberany lumberany lumber

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/treated_lumber

Where to go next

Treated lumber is an ingredient in the Mixing Bowl in this pack, and it is also used for the treated wood greenhouse blocks. The pack changes both of those recipes from the mod's defaults.[14]

A greenhouse and a cellar are both controlled by a Climate Station. Beeswax also goes into Sealed Bricks, which the cellar is built from.[4][7][14]

How does Firmalife work?

7 parts

Most of Firmalife's big machines are multiblocks: you build a structure, and a block inside it brings the whole thing to life. The ones you will use most are the cellar, the greenhouse and the oven. The sections below cover how each one works, plus the smaller devices that plug into them.[4][10][15]

The Climate Station

The Climate Station manages both the greenhouse and the cellar. Place it on the first level of the multiblock, touching a wall. When the structure is built correctly it shows water on its sides, and when it is invalid it shows ice, so you can tell whether the structure is valid.[7]

It updates on its own periodically, and also when it is placed or broken. Each update tells every block inside the multiblock that it can operate. That is what lets cheese start aging, for example.[7]

Tip: Stuck on an ice-looking station after fixing a gap in your walls? Use the station to force an update of it and the blocks inside the multiblock.[7]
Climate StationMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any plankBrass Mechanismsany plank
any redstone dustBlue Stained Glassany redstone dust
any plankBrass Mechanismsany plank

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/climate_station

Cellars

A cellar only needs to be an enclosed area surrounded on all sides by Sealed Bricks or Sealed Brick Doors. The Climate Station goes on the first level, touching a wall. Cellars are used for aging cheese and for food preservation.[4]

Inside a valid cellar, Food Shelves hold a full stack of one food item and give a decay modifier better than vessels. Hangers store meat or garlic, and their decay modifier is better than shelves or vessels. Both only work in a valid cellar.[13][16]

Cooler cellars preserve food better. Below 0 degrees the decay modifiers work slightly better, and below -12 degrees they work much better. The pack sets those thresholds with general.cellarLevel2Temperature at 0 and general.cellarLevel3Temperature at -12. They are compared against the average temperature.[4][17]

Cheese wheels placed in a cellar age through Fresh, Aged and Vintage. In this pack, general.cheeseAgedDays is 28 days and general.cheeseVintageDays is 112 days. Slice the wheel with a Knife to get cheese. If you break the block, the aging is lost.[5][17]

Greenhouses

The greenhouse is also controlled by a Climate Station and lets you grow crops year round. Like the cellar, it is an enclosed area, but every wall, door and roof block must belong to the same greenhouse type. The floor can be any solid block.[10]

There are four block shapes: walls, doors, roofs (stairs) and roof tops (slabs). Most greenhouse blocks weather over time, but the weathered versions belong to the same type, so the greenhouse keeps working.[10]

  • Treated Wood can age into Weathered.[10]
  • Copper can age into Exposed, Weathered and Oxidized.[10]
  • Iron can age into Rusted.[10]
  • Stainless Steel does not age.[10]

The pack changed the crafting recipes for the treated wood, copper and iron greenhouse blocks. Here is the in-pack recipe for the iron wall.[14]

8× Iron Greenhouse WallChanged by the pack

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any iron rodGlassany iron rod
any iron rodGlassany iron rod
any iron rodGlassany iron rod

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/greenhouse/iron_greenhouse_wall

Changed by the pack.

Planters and watering

Planters grow crops inside a valid greenhouse that has been activated with a Climate Station. They need at least some natural sunlight and consume nutrients much like regular crops. Hold a Hoe and look at one to see its status. They also must be watered, using a Watering Can on nearby planters.[18]

  • Large Planters grow one crop each: green beans, tomatoes, sugarcane, jute and grains. Grains need a copper or better greenhouse.[18]
  • Quad Planters grow four crops that share one nutrient pool. They suit beets, cabbage, carrots, garlic, onions, potatoes and soybeans in any greenhouse type.[18]
  • Bonsai Planter grows small fruit trees, all except bananas, and needs an iron or better greenhouse.[18]
  • Hanging Planters grow squash (any greenhouse) and bananas (iron or better). They must anchor to a solid block above.[18]
  • Trellis Planters grow berry bushes, except cranberries, and need an iron or better greenhouse. A mature bush can grow upward into a trellis planter stacked on top.[18]
  • Hydroponic Planters grow rice and cranberries without watering, but need a Nutritive Vat below them, filled with water.[18]

For hands-off watering, the Sprinkler waters a 5x6x5 area centered on the block below it. It fills itself from any fluid tank or pipe placed above it, and a barrel of water is the easiest setup. The dribbler works the same way but only waters the 7 blocks below it.[19]

Ovens and oven appliances

An oven is a Bottom Oven, a Top Oven and optionally chimneys. Food baked in it decays at 90% of the normal rate. The Bottom Oven holds fuel, which can only be logs, and is where you light it. It passes heat up to the Top Oven, which holds the food and releases heat slowly, so it keeps working for a while after the fuel runs out.[15]

Cover every side of each oven part except the front with oven insulation. That can be bricks, other oven blocks, or anything that insulates a forge. Stack chimneys directly behind the oven so the smoke goes up and out instead of filling your house.[15]

The oven blocks start as clay and must be cured. In this pack, general.ovenCureTemperature is 600 and general.ovenCureTicks is 2,000 ticks. The in-game guide estimates about 80 seconds, so go by the config value. Curing spreads to nearby oven blocks and up nearby chimneys.[15][17]

general.ovenRequirePeel is true here, so touching a hot oven without a Peel in hand hurts you. Use the Peel to take items out.[15][17]

  • The Oven Hopper feeds logs into the Bottom Oven it faces. It holds 16 logs, you fill it by dropping items in the top, and it can also be fed by automation from other mods.[20]
  • The Ashtray goes below a Bottom Oven and has a 0.5 chance of gaining Wood Ash whenever fuel is consumed.[20]
  • The Vat sits on the block above a Bottom Oven and brews select boiling recipes in bulk. It has one item slot and fluid space similar to a barrel. One example is Olive Oil Water, at 1 Olive Paste to 200 mB Water.[20]
  • TFC Pots and Grills can sit on top of a Bottom Oven and take heat automatically. Each has only 4 slots, and the pot only makes soup.[20]
Watch out: A vat must be sealed before it will boil. It also will not boil if the recipe's output would overflow it, so watch fills for recipes that make more fluid than they use.[20]
AshtrayMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
SaltSaltSalt
Sealed Bricksany wrought iron sheetSealed Bricks

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/ashtray

Drying, smoking and composting

The Drying Mat works in the sun, and rain resets the process. In this pack, general.dryingTicks is 12,000 ticks, which is half a day. The solar drier is 12x as fast, and general.solarDryingTicks is 1,000 ticks.[9][17]

Smoking uses wool string above a firepit. The firepit must be directly underneath the string, within four blocks. It takes 8 in-game hours, and the pack sets general.smokingTicks to 8,000 ticks. Meat must be brined first, but cheese has no such requirement.[17][21]

Watch out: Only burn logs in a firepit used for smoking. Fuel like peat gives your food the Disgusting trait instantly.[21]

The Composter can be upgraded to an Iron Composter, which works the same but is four times as fast. The pack sets general.ironComposterTicks to 72,000 ticks.[17][22]

Smaller machines

The Mixing Bowl mixes items and fluids, but it needs a Spoon. Use the Spoon on the bowl to add it, which lets the bowl operate.[23]

Beehives need Beehive Frames inside. A hive knows the area within a 5 block radius, and with at least 10 flowers around it an empty frame can get a queen. Having 4 empty frames greatly improves the chances of bees moving in. This pack has general.enableBeeSwarm turned on, so provoked bees can swarm and hurt you.[2][17]

How do you progress through Firmalife?

4 parts

Firmalife progression in this pack runs through a few clear stages: beekeeping first, then a cellar, then a greenhouse that you upgrade through four material types. The pack's quest chapter covers the opening stage, and the in-pack recipes cover the rest.[4][10][12][14]

Stage 1: Beekeeping and Treated Lumber

The quest chapter is a straight chain. It starts after the early lumberjack quest and ends with a stack of treated lumber, which is the gateway to most of the mod.[12]

  1. Craft a Beehive Frame for a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}".[12]
  2. Build a Wooden Beehive for a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}".[12]
  3. Collect Raw Honey and an Empty Jar for a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}".[12]
  4. Get Beeswax for a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}". This also unlocks the next quest.[12]
  5. Hand in 8 Treated Lumber for a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}".[12]
Beehive FrameMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

5 × any lumber

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/beehive_frame

Wooden BeehiveMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any lumberBeehive Frameany lumber
any lumberThatchany lumber
any lumberBeehive Frameany lumber

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/beehive

4× Empty JarMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/empty_jar

Frames need to be inside a hive for bees to live there. Each hive checks the area within a 5 block radius. With at least 10 flowers nearby, an empty frame can get a Queen, and having 4 empty frames in a hive greatly improves the chances of bees moving in.[2]

Using an Empty Jar on a hive that visibly has honey gives you a Honey Jar, and opening that jar gives you Raw Honey. The pack changed the recipe for opening a honey jar, so check the in-game recipe viewer rather than assuming the mod default.[2][14]

Pressing a filled frame with a Knife gives you Beeswax. Beeswax's most important use is making Treated Lumber.[2]

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any lumberany lumberany lumber
any lumberBeeswaxany lumber
any lumberany lumberany lumber

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/treated_lumber

Watch out: Scraping a frame for beeswax kills the queen inside it. Also, removing frames from an active hive makes the bees attack, unless you do it at night or with a Firepit lit underneath the hive.[2]

Stage 2: The Cellar

A cellar is an enclosed area surrounded by Sealed Bricks or Sealed Brick Doors on all sides. It is controlled by a Climate Station, which goes on the first level of the cellar, touching a wall. Beeswax from your hives is what gets you here.[4][7]

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any stone brickany stone brickany stone brick
any stone brickBeeswaxany stone brick
any stone brickany stone brickany stone brick

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/sealed_bricks

Climate StationMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any plankBrass Mechanismsany plank
any redstone dustBlue Stained Glassany redstone dust
any plankBrass Mechanismsany plank

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/climate_station

The climate station shows water on its sides when the multiblock is valid and ice when it is not. You can press it to force an update.[7]

Once the cellar works, you can age cheese wheels such as Cheddar Cheese Wheel in it, and store food on shelves and hangers. Slice cheese off the wheel with a Knife, because breaking the block loses the aging.[4][5][13][14][16]

Stage 3: The Greenhouse Tiers

The greenhouse is also controlled by a climate station and lets you grow crops year round. It is an enclosed area built from one greenhouse type. There are four block kinds: walls, doors, roofs and roof tops. Roofs are stairs and roof tops are slabs.[10]

The pack changed the greenhouse recipes for the treated wood, copper and iron types, while the stainless steel ones are the unchanged mod recipes. Here are the pack's iron and stainless steel walls as examples.[14]

8× Iron Greenhouse WallChanged by the pack

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any iron rodGlassany iron rod
any iron rodGlassany iron rod
any iron rodGlassany iron rod

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/greenhouse/iron_greenhouse_wall

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
Stainless Steel RodGlassStainless Steel Rod
Stainless Steel RodGlassStainless Steel Rod
Stainless Steel RodGlassStainless Steel Rod

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/greenhouse/stainless_steel_greenhouse_wall

Drying upgrades

Along the way you will want the Drying Mat, which is made from fruit leaves. Place it in the sun, and after half a day the item on it is dried. Rain resets the process. The Solar Drier does the same job 12x as fast, and the pack changed its recipe.[9][14]

Solar DrierChanged by the pack

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any stainless steel rodsGlassany stainless steel rods
Empty slotDrying MatEmpty slot
any treated lumberany treated lumberany treated lumber

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/solar_drier

How does Firmalife work with other mods?

3 parts

Firmalife sits on top of TFC, so most of its connections are with TFC items. The pack also ties Firmalife's chocolate, honey jars and tea into Create and Create Additions through recipes. Here is where the mods meet.[8][14]

TFC

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
SaltSaltSalt
Milk CurdMilk CurdMilk Curd
SaltSaltSalt

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/cheddar_wheel

Mod recipe

Barrel Sealed (tfc)

Recipe id: firmalife:barrel/curdled_milk

Iron ComposterMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any wrought iron sheetComposterany wrought iron sheet

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/iron_composter

Watering CanMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/watering_can

Climate StationMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped
any plankBrass Mechanismsany plank
any redstone dustBlue Stained Glassany redstone dust
any plankBrass Mechanismsany plank

Recipe id: firmalife:crafting/climate_station

The Climate Station uses TFC's Brass Mechanisms, and it manages both the Cellar and the Greenhouse.

The jar recipes for Compost Jar, Guano Jar and Rotten Compost Jar turn TFC's compost, guano and rotten compost into jars. The pack changed these recipes, but the sources here do not show what was changed. Opening a jar gives the TFC item back.[14]

Create and Create Additions

These links are all changed by the pack, so they are not mod defaults. Create's Chocolate can be compacted into Dark Chocolate. Note that this uses Create's chocolate, not Chocolate.[14]

Dark ChocolateChanged by the pack

Compacting (create)

Recipe id: create:compacting/chocolate

Going the other way, Firmalife's Chocolate is the chocolate used in two filling recipes. One makes Chocolate Glazed Berries, and the other makes Chocolate Cake from a Baked Cake Base. The chocolate itself comes from Firmalife's own processing chain.[6][14]

Chocolate CakeChanged by the pack

Filling (create)

Recipe id: createaddition:filling/chocolate_cake

Chocolate Glazed BerriesChanged by the pack

Filling (create)

Recipe id: create:filling/chocolate_glazed_berries

Create's emptying recipes also hand back Firmalife's Empty Jar. Emptying honey gives Honey, and emptying Builder's Tea gives Builder's Tea. That fits nicely with the Honey Jars you collect from beehives.[2][14]

Empty Jar, 250× HoneyChanged by the pack

Emptying (create)

  • any honey

Recipe id: create:emptying/honey_bottle

Quests

The quests that feature Firmalife only ask for Firmalife items. The chain starts with Beehive Frame (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}") and moves on to the Wooden Beehive (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}"). After the beehive come two branches: Raw Honey with an Empty Jar (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}"), and Beeswax (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}"). The beeswax quest is followed by a quest for Treated Lumber (a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}"). The first quest unlocks after the lumber jack quest. The most important use of beeswax is treated lumber, so this chain walks you through the whole beekeeping loop.[2][12]

Which All the Mods - Gravitas quests use Firmalife?

1 part

Firmalife shows up in a single quest chapter in the pack, and it's a nice little beekeeping line. Every quest in it is an item-submission task, and the quests have no titles in the data I have, so I'll point to them by quest ref. The chapter's own title isn't readable in that data either.[12]

The order, step by step

  1. a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" asks you to hand in a Beehive Frame. It unlocks after a lumber jack quest from the caveman line, so that quest comes first.[12]
  2. a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" asks for a Wooden Beehive. It follows the beehive frame quest.[12]
  3. a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" asks for Raw Honey and an Empty Jar. It opens once the beehive quest is done.[12]
  4. a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" asks for Beeswax. It also opens after the beehive quest, so you can do it before or after the honey quest.[12]
  5. a quest in "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" asks for 8 Treated Lumber. It unlocks after the beeswax quest.[12]

After the beehive quest the line branches. The honey and jar quest and the beeswax quest are both open at that point. The treated lumber quest only follows the beeswax branch, though.[12]

Tip: Get your beehive frame sorted early. Every other quest in this chain waits on it, since the beehive comes after the frame and the honey, beeswax and lumber quests all come after the beehive.[12]

Which Firmalife config options matter?

4 parts

Same as in the All the Mods - Gravitas 4.0 guide

Firmalife keeps its main settings in one server config file. Here is how this pack sets the options you're most likely to care about. All the tick values use the same conversion: 24,000 ticks is 1 day.[25]

Cheese and cellars

Drying, smoking and composting times

Oven behavior

Watch out: Because general.ovenRequirePeel is on, keep a peel in your hand whenever you interact with an oven.[25]

Other toggles

Unverified The pack's config file doesn't list mod defaults for most of these options, apart from the hollow shell capacity. I can't confirm which of the values above the pack changed, so treat them as this pack's settings rather than as changes.

Sources

  1. All the Mods - Gravitas 2.3 mod list · pack file
  2. In-game guide: Beekeeping (firmalife) · official docs
  3. In-game guide: Bread (firmalife) · official docs
  4. In-game guide: Cellars (firmalife) · official docs
  5. In-game guide: Cheese (firmalife) · official docs
  6. In-game guide: Chocolate (firmalife) · official docs
  7. In-game guide: Climate Station (firmalife) · official docs
  8. In-game guide: Differences from TFC (firmalife) · official docs
  9. In-game guide: Drying (firmalife) · official docs
  10. In-game guide: Greenhouse (firmalife) · official docs
  11. In-game guide: Herbs and Spices (firmalife) · official docs
  12. All the Mods - Gravitas 2.3 quests: "{gravitas.chapters.1.title}" · pack file
  13. In-game guide: Food Shelves (firmalife) · official docs
  14. All the Mods - Gravitas 2.3 recipe dump: recipes making Firmalife items · pack recipe dump
  15. In-game guide: Ovens (firmalife) · official docs
  16. In-game guide: Hangers (firmalife) · official docs
  17. All the Mods - Gravitas 2.3 config: defaultconfigs/firmalife-server.toml · pack file
  18. In-game guide: Planters (firmalife) · official docs
  19. In-game guide: Sprinklers (firmalife) · official docs
  20. In-game guide: Oven Appliances (firmalife) · official docs
  21. In-game guide: Smoking (firmalife) · official docs
  22. In-game guide: More Fertilizer Options (firmalife) · official docs
  23. In-game guide: Mixing Bowl (firmalife) · official docs
  24. In-game guide: Berry Bushes (firmalife) · official docs
  25. All the Mods - Gravitas 4.0 config: defaultconfigs/firmalife-server.toml · pack file
Where this guide comes from

Written from what All the Mods - Gravitas itself ships: its files and recipes, the in-game guidebooks and the mods' own pages. Every statement links to the source it came from, and the numbers are checked against the pack before publishing.

Guide last verified Oct 17, 2026.

Guides for other versions: 3.7 to 4.0 · 2.4 to 3.6b

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