MSS - Moog's Soaring Structures in FTB Evolution 2

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.2 guide

MSS - Moog's Soaring Structures fills your world with vanilla style floating islands. Each one is packed with loot, mobs and dungeons, and some have villagers too, so there's always something to go and explore up in the sky.^[1]

The structures are built from vanilla blocks and entities. That means the mod adds new places to find without bringing a pile of new materials with it.^[1]

In this pack

The pack ships version 2.2.0 of the mod. It has been in the pack since 1.7 or earlier, so it's a long-standing part of the world generation.^[2]

Customising it

Every aspect of the mod can be customised with datapacks. The mod author offers a config pack template with full instructions. I haven't checked whether this pack changes any of the mod's defaults, so check before you rely on a specific structure setting.^[1]

The mod can also be installed on a server only, which is handy if you run a multiplayer world.^[1]

MSS - Moog's Soaring Structures adds lots of floating islands with cool buildings to explore, all made with vanilla blocks and entities. That means your first steps are about exploring, not crafting.^[1][3]

The sources I have for this mod show no recipe to craft first, so there are no recipe blocks in this section. The mod is about finding structures in the world.^[1][3]

What to do first

1. Explore your world and keep an eye on the sky. The floating islands are the whole point of the mod.^[1][3]
2. Land on an island and look around. You can discover loot, enemies and villagers along the way.^[3]
3. Expect mobs and dungeons. The mod describes its islands as full of loot, mobs and dungeons to explore.^[1]

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.2 guide

This mod is about world generation, not machines or automation. It adds floating islands with buildings, loot, enemies and villagers, all made from vanilla blocks and entities. So the "mechanics" here are about where those structures spawn and what lives in them.^[1][4]

Server-side friendly

Because the structures use vanilla blocks and entities, the mod can be installed only on the server. The project page lists NeoForge, Fabric and Quilt as supported, and says the mod is compatible with any modpack.^[1][4]

Where the islands generate

Structures are tied to biome tag groups, and those groups decide which biomes can host an island. There are groups for badlands, birch forests, cherry groves, deserts, jungles and mangrove swamps.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}

More groups cover mountains, mushroom islands, oceans, snowy biomes, swamps and taiga, plus a general Overworld group.^{[11][12][13][14][15][16][17]}

Some groups are built from other groups. The cold group combines the snowy, taiga and mountain groups. The red sand group combines the desert and badlands groups.^[18][19]

Many entries in these groups are marked as optional, so biomes from other worldgen mods only count when that mod is actually installed. The sources show optional entries from BYG and Biomes O' Plenty, plus common cross-mod biome tags.^{[6][8][12][14][15]}

Rarity

The mod's language file describes two rarity settings. One multiplies the spacing of every Moog's structure, where higher means rarer and lower means more common. The other multiplies the spacing of every structure from one specific mod.^[20]

The project page also says every aspect of the mod can be customized with datapacks, and that a template with full instructions exists.^[1]

Spawner randomizing

Each structure family has its own processor list that swaps in a weighted choice of mobs for its spawners. That's why different islands feel like different dungeons. Here's what the lists contain:^{[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]}

• Arena: bogged only.^[21]
• Castle ruin: cave spider only. Castle tower: skeleton only.^[22][23]
• Desert pyramid: zombie (weight 5) and husk (weight 5). The desert pyramid top uses husk only.^[24][29]
• Jungle: piglin brute (weight 2) and witch (weight 1). The jungle east variant uses piglin brute only, and jungle south uses witch only.^[25][30][31]
• Large tower: piglin brute (weight 1) and skeleton (weight 1). The large tower top uses skeleton only.^[26][32]
• Mushroom: pillager, vex and evoker, each with weight 1.^[27]
• Red sand: phantom (weight 1) and husk (weight 3).^[28]
• Leaf hollow: pillager. Mangrove: witch. Muddy water hole: drowned. Nether portal: piglin brute.^{[33][34][35][36]}

Unverified Other structures, such as the small deepslate house, small tower, taiga and volcano ones, have their own spawner lists in the mod's data files. The sources here do not show what those lists contain.

Trial spawners and vaults in the arena

The arena goes further than plain spawners. Its processor list also randomizes trial spawners, pointing them at a normal and an ominous config. It randomizes vaults too, with one loot table for the normal vault and another for the ominous one.^[21]

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.2 guide

This mod works differently from most in the pack: the sources I have show no crafting tiers to climb. What they do show is where its structures generate and what you can pull out of them, so this section covers that instead.^[37][38]

Unverified No quests or crafting recipes for this mod were found in the sources provided for this section, so there is no quest-guided tier path or recipe ladder to describe.

Early loot: the abandoned structure

The abandoned loot table is the most beginner-friendly one in the sources. The first pool rolls between 2 and 5 times and hands out mostly mob-drop basics: Rotten Flesh is the most common entry, followed by bones, string, arrows, gunpowder and spider eyes.^[37]

A second pool rolls once and gives you a small metal bonus. It can be Iron Nugget or gold nuggets, a little Iron Ingot, an Emerald, or, rarely, a damaged Iron Sword. Don't expect gear upgrades from it, but it is a fine early-game top-up.^[37]

Trial keys from the arena

The arena structures have trial spawner loot tables whose only entry is a key. The normal one gives a Trial Key and the ominous one gives an Ominous Trial Key. Each table rolls once, so you get exactly one key per roll.^[38][39]

Where to look

• Badlands: one of the mod's biome tags for structure placement covers every biome tagged as badlands.^[5]
• Cherry groves: another biome tag covers the cherry grove biome, plus any biome tagged as cherry by other mods.^[7]

The mod also ships two structure tags, named no_basalt and no_delta, that list the same long set of Nether-style structures. Examples are bridges, a mega fortress, a nether tower, a nether wart farm and a ruined portal.^[40][41]

FTB Evolution 2 1.1.0 ships MSS - Moog's Soaring Structures version 2.2.0. The mod has been in the pack since 1.0.2 or earlier.^[42]

What changed in 2.2.0

This is the mod's own changelog for the version you are playing. Here are the changes most likely to matter when you explore.^[43]

Added

• Every structure apart from the trees now has a working Preview button in Moog's Structure Lib's config screen.^[43]
• A glow item frame now decorates the desert pyramid.^[43]
• Decorated pots in the desert pyramid, jungle, mangrove, muddy water hole, small tower, taiga and volcano now hold loot that fits where they're found.^[43]

Changed

• Villagers, pillagers and the arena's skeleton archers are now rolled fresh every time a structure generates, instead of every copy being identical.^[43]
• Monster spawners now pick their mob each time a structure generates, and modpacks can change which mobs each structure's spawners use. A few spawners that never spawned anything, in the arena, muddy water hole and red sand, are now active.^[43]
• Trees are spread more evenly instead of sometimes clustering, and they share a single toggle and spacing slider in Moog's Structure Lib's config screen.^[43]
• Trees, calcite houses, small ponds, nether portals, leaf hollows, small oak houses, castle ruins, small towers and castle towers generate less often, so the world feels less crowded.^[43]
• The chest at the top of the castle tower has slightly toned-down loot to better match how easy it is to reach.^[43]
• Barrels that form part of the white house's walls no longer hold loot, and the large tower and white house use leaves instead of green wool in their natural areas.^[43]
• The mod now needs Moog's Structure Lib 3.0.0 or newer.^[43]

Fixed

• The arena's trial spawners now run a couple of waves of skeletons before usually handing over a trial key, and its vaults open with those keys for arena-only rewards.^[43]
• Villagers in the white house and diorite house now offer proper trades.^[43]
• The trees at the arena, large tower, white house and diorite house have their full leaves again.^[43]
• Every structure has been rebuilt for each Minecraft version it supports, fixing a range of small visual and loading problems.^[43]

Unverified The sources here include no pack changelog entries for this mod, so what changed for it between individual FTB Evolution 2 releases is not shown. Check the pack's own changelogs for that.