Advanced Loot Info (ALI) guide for FTB Skies 2 1.10.1 to 1.14.3

Advanced Loot Info, or ALI for short, is a plugin for your recipe viewer that shows detailed information about loot tables and villager trades. Everything is laid out in a clear way, so you can check what something can drop or what a villager can offer without guessing.^[1]

It is not a standalone mod. It needs one of three supported recipe viewers: Just Enough Items (JEI), EMI or Roughly Enough Items (REI). It works with LootJS out of the box, which matters in a pack where loot may have been customised.^[1]

The mod also supports plugins from other mods. These can add custom loot entries, custom loot conditions, custom loot functions and custom number providers. They can also add new categories, though right now only from the Gameplay loot category.^[1]

In this pack

The pack ships Advanced Loot Info (ALI) 1.8.2, using the NeoForge 1.21.1 build of the mod. It has been in the pack since FTB Skies 2 1.0.1 or earlier.^[2]

The sources I was given don't show any quest book chapter, group or position for this mod, so I can't tell you what comes before or after it there. Treat it as a quality-of-life tool in your recipe viewer rather than something you progress through.^[2]

Unverified No in-jar guidebook was found for this mod, and the pack's config values for it were not available, so any pack-specific settings are unconfirmed.

Good news: there's nothing to craft to get started with Advanced Loot Info. It's not a standalone mod, it's a plugin that needs one of three supported recipe viewers: Just Enough Items, EMI or Roughly Enough Items. It then shows loot tables and villager trades in a clear way inside that viewer.^[1]

It also supports LootJS out of the box, so loot changed through that mod is covered too.^[1]

What you get in the viewer

The mod sorts loot into categories, and this pack's config defines them. Each one has a key, an icon and a type, and none of them are hidden in this pack. Here is what they cover:^[3]

• Blocks: plant loot (anything based on the bush block class, with a diamond hoe icon) and general block loot (a diamond pickaxe icon). These are set in blockCategories.^[3]
• Entities: one entity loot category with a skeleton skull icon, set in entityCategories.^[3]
• Gameplay: chest loot, trial chambers, fishing, archaeology, Hero of the Village and a catch-all gameplay category. These are matched by loot table path patterns in gameplayCategories.^[3]
• Trades: a single trade loot category with an emerald block icon, set in tradeCategories.^[3]

First steps

1. Open your recipe viewer, the same way you look up item recipes.^[1]
2. Browse the loot categories listed above. The Hero of the Village one appears under the name Hero of the Village Loot in EMI.^[3][4]
3. Use the chest, trial chamber, fishing and archaeology categories to see what a loot table can give you. Use the trade category to check villager trades.^[1][3]

Advanced Loot Info (ALI) isn't a machine mod, so there's no power, fluid or item handling to automate and no multiblocks to build. It's a plugin that adds loot table and villager trade information to your recipe viewer. All of its mechanics are about how that information is sorted and displayed.^[1]

What it needs

ALI doesn't work on its own. It requires one of three recipe viewers: Just Enough Items (JEI), EMI or Roughly Enough Items (REI). Out of the box it also supports LootJS.^[1]

The mod's language file includes an EMI category called "Hero of the Village Loot", which is one of the loot pages you can browse.^[4]

How loot gets sorted into categories

The pack's config file sorts loot into categories, and each category has a key, an icon, a type and a hide flag. In this pack every category has hide set to false, so none of them are hidden.^[3]

Block loot is set in blockCategories. Blocks are matched by Java class. Anything that extends the bush block class goes into ali:plant_loot (icon: Diamond Hoe). Any other block goes into ali:block_loot (icon: Diamond Pickaxe).^[3]

Mob drops are set in entityCategories. There is a single category, ali:entity_loot, which matches the base entity class and uses Skeleton Skull as its icon.^[3]

Villager trades are set in tradeCategories. There is a single category, ali:trade_loot, which uses the pattern ".*" to match everything. Its icon is Emerald Block.^[3]

Gameplay loot categories

Gameplay loot is matched by name patterns instead of classes. These are in gameplayCategories. This pack sets up the following categories:^[3]

• ali:chest_loot (icon: Chest) matches loot tables with chests or chest in their path, including the inject/chests and inject/chest paths.^[3]
• ali:trial_chambers (icon: Spawner) matches trial chamber chests, pots, dispensers and spawners, plus the equipment paths.^[3]
• ali:fishing_loot (icon: Fishing Rod) matches gameplay/fishing paths.^[3]
• ali:archaeology_loot (icon: Decorated Pot) matches archaeology paths.^[3]
• ali:hero_loot (icon: Emerald) matches gameplay/hero_of_the_village paths. This is the Hero of the Village page.^[3][4]
• ali:gameplay_loot (icon: Compass) uses the pattern ".*", so it matches any gameplay loot table. It is the last gameplay category in the list.^[3]

What the loot pages show

The mod's screen text labels the details of a loot entry with the headers "----- Predicates -----" for conditions and "----- Modifiers -----" for functions. It also has display names for functions such as Set Writable Book Pages and Set Written Book Pages.^[4]

Extending it

Other mods can add plugins to ALI. According to the project page, plugins can display custom loot entries, conditions and functions, work with custom number providers, and create custom categories. Custom categories currently only work for the Gameplay loot category.^[1]

Advanced Loot Info only has one config file in this pack, and all of its options are lists of loot categories. These decide how the loot tables and villager trades are sorted in your recipe viewer. Every category in the pack has hide set to false, so nothing is hidden.^[3]

Block and entity categories

• blockCategories has two categories. ali:plant_loot covers anything built on the bush block class and uses a diamond hoe icon. ali:block_loot covers the general block class and uses a diamond pickaxe icon.^[3]
• entityCategories has a single category, ali:entity_loot. It matches the general entity class, so all mob drops land here, and it uses a skeleton skull icon.^[3]

Gameplay categories

gameplayCategories is the biggest option. Each category matches loot table paths with patterns, and it is where you see the pack's chest, fishing and special-case loot sorted out.^[3]

• ali:chest_loot matches loot table paths containing chests/ or chest/, including the inject/chests/ and inject/chest/ variants. It uses a chest icon.^[3]
• ali:trial_chambers uses a spawner icon. It matches trial chamber chests, pots, dispensers and spawners (normal and ominous), plus the equipment tables.^[3]
• ali:fishing_loot matches the gameplay fishing tables and uses a fishing rod icon.^[3]
• ali:archaeology_loot matches the archaeology tables and uses a decorated pot icon.^[3]
• ali:hero_loot matches the hero of the village gameplay tables and uses an emerald icon.^[3]
• ali:gameplay_loot is listed last and its pattern matches everything. It uses a compass icon.^[3]

Trade categories

tradeCategories holds one category, ali:trade_loot, with a pattern that matches every trade. It uses an emerald block icon, so all villager trades are grouped together.^[3]

Unverified The sources do not show the mod's default category values, so it is unverified which of these entries the pack changed from default.

FTB Skies 2 1.14.3 ships Advanced Loot Info (ALI) 1.8.2, the NeoForge 1.21.1 build, and the mod has been in the pack since FTB Skies 2 1.0.1 or earlier. I don't have any pack changelog entries for this mod, so everything below comes from the mod's own changelogs.^[2]

Changes by release (newest first)

• 1.8.2 (the version in this pack): fixed a sporadic game freeze on world start.^[2][5]
• 1.7.2: fixed missing Wandering Trader trade info and decreased the packet size when syncing, to avoid timeouts in some cases. The same fixes are listed for 1.21.1-1.6.0 and 1.21.1-1.5.2.^[6][7][8]
• 1.21.1-1.3.7: finally fixed a bug with /reload.^[9]
• 1.21.1-1.3.4: added compatibility for Supplementaries, Moonlight, The Bumblezone, Villagers Plus, Cultural Delights, Sawmill, Hybrid Aquatic, Snow! Real Magic!, Deeper And Darker, Repurposed Structures and Immersive Engineering.^[10]
• Also in 1.21.1-1.3.4: fixed a crash when the registry is unavailable, fixed unwanted modification of components, and fixed missing item stack modifications for LootJS items.^[10]
• 1.21.1-1.2.5: fixed no LootJS info being displayed when adding to an empty loot table.^[11]
• 1.21.1-1.2.3: fixed a crash on a failed mixin.^[12]
• 1.21.1-1.1.8: fixed view usages in EMI not working, used black text for the loot name in REI, and shortened loot names with an ellipsis when they are too long, with a tooltip added.^[13]

Version 1.8.2 is the newest release in these changelogs and the build you get in 1.14.3. Releases earlier than 1.21.1-1.1.8 are not covered by the changelogs I have.^[2][13]