YUNG's Better Nether Fortresses in FTB Evolution 2

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.2 guide

YUNG's Better Nether Fortresses is a complete redesign of Minecraft's Nether fortresses, rebuilt from the ground up. Compared to vanilla, these fortresses are much larger, more complex and more rewarding.^[1]

What a fortress looks like

Each fortress has three parts: the bridge networks, the Keep, and the Lava Halls that extend deep underground. So don't just stay on the surface bridges, because the fortress goes well below them.^[1]

The mod also has built-in Create compatibility. If Create is installed, certain parts of the fortress have a chance of spawning using Create pieces. It's an optional feature, and Create isn't required for the mod to run.^[1]

It's meant to work with other worldgen mods too. With Apocalyptic Fortress, that mod's fortress spawns alongside the Better Fortress. With Bygone Nether, the Better Fortress spawns instead of its enhanced vanilla fortress.^[1]

In this pack

This pack ships version 1.21.1-NeoForge-3.1.5 of the mod, and it has been included since the pack's 1.0 release or earlier.^[2]

Good news first: YUNG's Better Nether Fortresses is a world generation mod, so there is nothing for you to craft to get started. It completely redesigns Nether fortresses from the ground up, and your first step is simply to head into the Nether and find one.^[1]

What you will find

Compared to vanilla, these fortresses are much larger, more complex and more rewarding. Each one has three parts: the bridge networks, the Keep, and the Lava Halls that extend deep underground. Expect to explore a lot more than a single bridge and a blaze spawner.^[1]

The mod also has built-in Create compatibility. If Create is installed, certain parts of a fortress have a chance of spawning using Create pieces. It is an optional feature and Create is not required for the mod itself.^[1]

Reading the rooms

The pack's item frame config sorts the items you can spot in frames into room themes: alchemy, loot, mess hall, study and weapon. Each theme has its own list of items with a number next to each one, and the default item for every theme is air.^[3]

• Alchemy: Fire Charge at 0.2, plus Magma Cream and Quartz at 0.3 each.^[3]
• Loot: Gold Nugget at 0.2, plus Gold Ingot and Nether Wart at 0.1 each.^[3]
• Mess hall: Porkchop and Cooked Porkchop at 0.3 each, and Gold Ingot at 0.2.^[3]
• Study: Book at 0.4, then Enchanted Book, Paper and Writable Book at 0.1 each.^[3]
• Weapon: Golden Sword and Golden Axe at 0.05, and Netherite Sword at just 0.005, the smallest number in the file.^[3]

You can tune these in weaponItems.entries.minecraft:netherite_sword and its siblings, but the sources here do not explain how the numbers are applied, so treat them as the pack's settings rather than exact drop odds.^[3]

Unverified The sources here show no crafting recipes for this mod's items and no quests that involve it, so there is no in-pack crafting order to follow. Check the pack's quest book yourself to see whether it says anything about Nether fortresses.

YUNG's Better Nether Fortresses is a worldgen mod: it redesigns Nether fortresses from the ground up. So the mechanics here are about how a fortress is placed, built and filled, not about machines or power. Each fortress is made of three parts: the bridge networks, the Keep, and the Lava Halls that extend deep underground.^[1]

Where fortresses can generate

The fortress structure is allowed in every biome in the Minecraft Nether tag. It also accepts the common in_nether tag, but that one is optional, so the fortress still works if no mod provides it.^[4][5]

Placement uses an enhanced random spread from YUNG's API, with a spacing of 30 and a separation of 20. There is also an exclusion zone: a Better Fortress will not generate within 10 chunks of the vanilla Nether complexes structure set. The pack also has an option whose tooltip reads "Whether vanilla Nether Fortresses should be disabled."^[6][7][8]

If you run other fortress mods, the mod page says Apocalyptic Fortress spawns alongside the Better Fortress. With Bygone Nether, Better Fortresses spawn instead of its enhanced vanilla fortress.^[1]

How a fortress is built

The fortress is a jigsaw structure that starts from the starts pool and grows outward from an anchor piece. Its size setting is 46 and it can reach at most 116 from its center. It generates in the surface structures step, with a start height picked uniformly between absolute Y 80 and Y 100.^[5]

The terrain is adapted around it: the top is carved out and the bottom is left alone, using a custom kernel with a size of 24 and a distance of 24. That is how the fortress cuts into the Nether instead of sitting on top of it.^[5]

Piece pools and limits

Each pool limits how often some pieces can appear. The battle bridge pool holds a start, straight, gate, split and pillar piece. The battle_bridge_start piece is capped at 3 per fortress.^[9]

One of the battle bridge gate options is a Create version, which can only be picked if Create is loaded. Create is optional, and the mod page says certain parts of the fortress have a chance of spawning with Create pieces.^[1][9]

Blaze rooms follow similar rules. One forced blaze room is allowed (maximum 1). After that, up to 2 normal blaze rooms and up to 2 of each broken variant can appear, and only at a depth of at least 28. The broken variants come in left and right mirrored forms.^[10]

Bridge chests are rarer than empty bridge segments. The chest piece has a weight of 1 and is capped at 6, while the empty version has a weight of 12.^[11]

Unverified The layouts of the Keep, the halls and the other pools (starts, halls, keep, mobs and so on) are set in template pool data files that the sources here do not show, so their exact piece lists and limits are unverified.

Block processing

Every main piece runs through the same processor list, which swaps placeholder blocks in the structure files for the final blocks. It includes processors for stair pillars, item frames, bridge arches, nether wart and red sandstone stairs, plus the block replacements below.^[12]

• Orange terracotta becomes red nether bricks, and yellow terracotta becomes nether bricks. Both also build pillars of nether bricks that can include magma blocks (probability 0.5, altitude cutoff Y 31) and cracked nether bricks (probability 0.4, cutoff Y 33).^[12]
• Orange wool and orange concrete become nether bricks, with a 0.75 probability of magma block. Their pillars use nether bricks with a 0.4 probability of cracked nether bricks.^[12]
• Diorite placeholders turn into lava.^[12]
• Purple terracotta becomes obsidian with a 0.75 probability, and crying obsidian otherwise.^[12]
• Red sandstone becomes TNT, so watch where you dig.^[12]
• Nether bricks have a 0.1 probability of becoming cracked nether bricks.^[12]

Monster spawns

The fortress overrides monster spawns, and they apply within each individual piece's bounding box. The entries are:^[5]

• Blaze: weight 10, groups of 2 to 3.^[5]
• Zombified piglin: weight 5, groups of 4.^[5]
• Wither skeleton: weight 8, groups of 5.^[5]
• Skeleton: weight 2, groups of 5.^[5]
• Magma cube: weight 3, groups of 4.^[5]

Item frame contents

The item frame processor fills frames from the pack's itemframes config. It has five categories, and each one falls back to air through its default item, for example lootItems.defaultItem. The sources here do not explain how the numbers are applied, so below they are only listed as the values the pack sets.^[3][12]

• Alchemy: Fire Charge 0.2, Magma Cream 0.3, Quartz 0.3.^[3]
• Loot: Gold Ingot 0.1, Gold Nugget 0.2, Nether Wart 0.1.^[3]
• Mess hall: Cooked Porkchop 0.3, Porkchop 0.3, Gold Ingot 0.2.^[3]
• Study: Book 0.4, Enchanted Book 0.1, Paper 0.1, Writable Book 0.1.^[3]
• Weapons: Golden Axe and Golden Sword 0.05 each; Iron Axe, Iron Sword, Shield, Stone Axe and Stone Sword 0.025 each; Netherite Sword 0.005.^[3]

For YUNG's Better Nether Fortresses, the sources I have for this pack cover the chest loot tables for the beacon, extra and obsidian chests. That tells you what each chest is worth opening, so use it as a rough guide to what you will find as you explore.^[13][14][15]

Beacon chests: ranged gear

The first pool in a beacon chest gives either Arrow or Fire Charge, and both have weight 5.^[13]

The second pool rolls 1 time and always gives a Bow. A plain, damaged bow has weight 20. A bow enchanted at level 10 has weight 10, and one enchanted at level 20 has weight 5. So the better the bow, the rarer the find.^[13]

Extra chests: basic materials

Extra chests roll on a single pool of common materials. Iron Nugget and Iron Ingot both have weight 25, while Gold Nugget and Gold Ingot both have weight 50.^[14]

• Leather and String have weight 50 each.^[14]
• Glowstone Dust and Quartz have weight 50 each.^[14]

Obsidian chests: the best loot

The main pool in an obsidian chest gives Obsidian or Crying Obsidian, both at weight 50.^[15]

The second pool is optional, so it can come up empty. When it pays out, Flint And Steel has weight 10 and Diamond has weight 5.^[15]

For YUNG's Better Nether Fortresses, the config file this pack ships is itemframes.json, in the betterfortresses folder. It covers alchemy, loot, mess hall, study and weapon entries. Each group has a default item and a short list of items with a number next to each one. Here is exactly how the pack sets them.^[3]

Default items

Every group uses minecraft:air as its default item: alchemyItems.defaultItem, lootItems.defaultItem, messHallItems.defaultItem, studyItems.defaultItem and weaponItems.defaultItem.^[3]

Alchemy, loot and mess hall

• Alchemy: alchemyItems.entries.minecraft:fire_charge is 0.2, alchemyItems.entries.minecraft:magma_cream is 0.3 and alchemyItems.entries.minecraft:quartz is 0.3.^[3]
• Loot: lootItems.entries.minecraft:gold_ingot is 0.1, lootItems.entries.minecraft:gold_nugget is 0.2 and lootItems.entries.minecraft:nether_wart is 0.1.^[3]
• Mess hall: messHallItems.entries.minecraft:cooked_porkchop is 0.3, messHallItems.entries.minecraft:porkchop is 0.3 and messHallItems.entries.minecraft:gold_ingot is 0.2.^[3]

Study and weapon

• Study: studyItems.entries.minecraft:book is 0.4, while studyItems.entries.minecraft:enchanted_book, studyItems.entries.minecraft:paper and studyItems.entries.minecraft:writable_book are each 0.1.^[3]
• Weapon: weaponItems.entries.minecraft:golden_axe and weaponItems.entries.minecraft:golden_sword are 0.05 each.^[3]
• Weapon: weaponItems.entries.minecraft:iron_axe, weaponItems.entries.minecraft:iron_sword, weaponItems.entries.minecraft:stone_axe, weaponItems.entries.minecraft:stone_sword and weaponItems.entries.minecraft:shield are 0.025 each.^[3]
• Weapon: weaponItems.entries.minecraft:netherite_sword is 0.005, the lowest number in the weapon group.^[3]

FTB Evolution 2 1.1.0 ships YUNG's Better Nether Fortresses at version 26.1.2-NeoForge-4.1.1. The pack's mod list says the mod was first included in FTB Evolution 2 1.0.2 or earlier, so it has been part of the pack for a while.^[16]

What changed in 4.1.1

The mod's own changelog for the version in this pack lists three changes:^[17]

• Better replacement of vanilla structures in the /locate command, and in mods such as Explorer's Compass. If you hunt for fortresses with those tools, this is the change that matters to you.^[17]
• A fix for an unsafe call to ServiceLoader#load.^[17]
• The mixin refmap was removed, which reduces log spam.^[17]

The only version of this mod's changelog I have for this guide is 4.1.1, so I can't tell you what changed in earlier versions.^[16][17]