Bonsai Trees 4 in FTB Skies 2

Bonsai Trees 4 is a mod about the art of bonsai, and this pack ships version 4.0.9 of it. The sources I have don't spell out every mechanic, so this overview sticks to what they confirm.^[1][2]

What you get in the pack

The mod adds the Bonsai Pot. It also comes with an in-game guide book, The Book of Trees, which describes itself as teaching you everything you need to know about the art of Bonsai Trees.^[2][3]

The guide's Minecraft Trees section covers the vanilla trees, with a short "In Minecraft" description and an "On Earth" real-world note for each. The entries I can confirm are:^[4]

• Acacia, a savanna tree with distinct diagonal trunks.^[5]
• Azalea, a rare tree that generates above a lush cave biome.^[6]
• Birch, Cherry, Dark Oak and Jungle.^{[7][8][9][10]}
• Mangrove, Oak and Spruce.^[11][12][13]

Where it fits in progression

The mod shows up in the "resource_generation" quest chapter. Quest "Bonsai Trees" quest has you obtain the Bonsai Pot, and it unlocks after another quest in that chapter. That makes the pot a natural early step if you're building up resource generation.^[3]

Unverified The sources don't show Bonsai Trees 4 on the ATM Star path, and they don't give platform details for the mod. Check in-game before planning around either.

Bonsai Trees 4 is all about growing little trees in a pot and harvesting them. In this pack, everything starts with one item: the Bonsai Pot. Here's the order I'd tackle things in.^[2][14]

First, craft the Bonsai Pot

The pot is a shaped crafting recipe in this pack, and the recipe dump lists it as a mod recipe. Here's exactly what the pack uses:^[14]

Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

5 × any brick

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsaipot

The quest "Bonsai Trees" quest in the resource_generation chapter asks you to obtain the Bonsai Pot, so crafting it also ticks off a quest. It comes after another quest in that chapter.^[3]

Next, pick your pot size

There's also a Small Bonsai Pot. You don't need a separate recipe from scratch: the pack has conversion recipes that turn one pot into the other, and they are special recipes that copy the pot's components.^[14]

Small Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Special Copycomponents (bonsaitrees4)

• Bonsai Pot

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsai_pot_to_small

Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Special Copycomponents (bonsaitrees4)

• Small Bonsai Pot

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsai_pot_to_big

Match a sapling to a soil

A bonsai needs a sapling and a soil that work together. The mod's tooltips tell you when a combination doesn't work: a soil can say there are no valid bonsais for it, and a sapling can say there are no valid soils for it. Use those messages to find pairs that work.^[15]

Harvest and improve

• The pot needs a tool to harvest. Its tooltip tells you to insert one, and the mod has gameplay settings for the chance that the tool takes damage when cutting a bonsai.^[15]
• Enchanting the pot improves its performance, according to the mod's own tooltip.^[15]
• Decorating the pot is optional, so you can skip it early on.^[15]
• If a pot shows that production is on hold, or a redstone status of enabled or disabled, that is the mod telling you why it isn't producing.^[15]

In this pack, Bonsai Trees 4 revolves around one block: the bonsai pot. You grow a tree in it, insert a tool to harvest, and the drops go into the pot's output inventory. The sources don't describe any power, fluid or multiblock setup for the mod, so this section sticks to what they confirm.^[15][16]

The pots

There are two sizes: the Bonsai Pot and the Small Bonsai Pot. You can swap one for the other in the crafting grid, and both conversion recipes use a special recipe type that copies components from the input pot to the result.^[14]

Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

5 × any brick

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsaipot

This is the pack's shaped crafting recipe for the Bonsai Pot.

Small Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Special Copycomponents (bonsaitrees4)

• Bonsai Pot

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsai_pot_to_small

Turns a Bonsai Pot into a Small Bonsai Pot.

Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Special Copycomponents (bonsaitrees4)

• Small Bonsai Pot

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsai_pot_to_big

Turns a Small Bonsai Pot back into a Bonsai Pot.

The pot tooltips mention a few extras. There is an optional decoration slot (camouflage), and the tooltip hints that enchanting the pot improves its performance.^[15]

Soils and saplings

A bonsai needs a sapling and a matching soil. The mod tells you when a pairing doesn't work: a soil can show that there are no valid bonsais for it, and a sapling can show that there are no valid soils for it. If the pot refuses an item, you'll see a message that it can't insert those items.^[15]

JEI helps when you're hunting for a combination. In this pack, client.showJEISubtypes is false, so JEI doesn't list every bonsai variant at once. The mod notes that showing them all can clutter the ingredient list and be heavy on low-end machines.^[15][17]

Growing

A bonsai tree can have its own grow time. If it doesn't, the pot falls back to gameplay.baseGrowTicks. This pack sets it to 200 ticks, which is the mod default, so the base growth speed hasn't been changed here.^[15][16]

If you see the tooltip line "Production is on hold.", the pot isn't producing at that moment.^[15]

Harvesting with tools

A pot won't harvest on its own: its tooltip tells you to insert a tool to harvest. Each cut can damage that tool, and the pack's tool settings are all at the mod defaults.^[15][16]

• gameplay.toolDamageChance is 0.3333333432674408, so each cut has about a one-in-three chance of damaging the tool.^[16]
• gameplay.toolDamagePerCut is 1, which is the damage dealt when that chance triggers.^[16]
• gameplay.toolAllowIndestructible is true, so tools that don't take damage, such as the Supremium Axe from Mystical Agriculture, can be used to cut bonsais.^[15][16]

Output and cooldown

Drops go into the pot's output inventory. If a cut's drops don't fit, the pot waits and tries again after gameplay.cutCooldown, which is 20 ticks in this pack (the mod default). The mod says this exists mainly to stop servers being overloaded by repeated cut attempts while the output is full.^[15][16]

Redstone

The pot shows a redstone status in its tooltip, which reads either Enabled or Disabled.^[15]

Display and debug options

The remaining options only change what you see, not how the pot works. In this pack client.disableModelCache and client.minimalQuads are both false. The model cache option is meant for debugging and has a significant performance cost when enabled, and minimal quads renders only the pot's hull to help very low-end machines. client.showTreesInSaplingTooltip is true, so saplings show their tree in the tooltip.^[15][17]

The debug options debug.showChances, debug.showRollsAsCountInJEI, debug.showUnknownLootConditions and debug.showUnusedSoilRecipesInJEI are all false here. The chances they show are estimated from loot tables, and the mod warns they aren't reliable.^[15][16]

Here's the honest picture of Bonsai Trees 4 progression in this pack: it's short. The pack gives the mod a single quest, and the sources don't show a tier ladder for it, so I'm only covering what I can confirm.^[3][14]

The quest path

The mod appears once in the quest book, in the resource_generation chapter. The quest "Bonsai Trees" quest asks you to obtain a Bonsai Pot. It unlocks after another quest in the same chapter (ID 3E25D043676C1CE9), so finish that one first.^[3]

Getting your first pot

The Bonsai Pot is a shaped crafting recipe that takes a brick from the common bricks tag, so any brick type that belongs to that tag works. The recipe is listed below exactly as it is in the pack.^[14]

Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

5 × any brick

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsaipot

Switching pot sizes

There's also a Small Bonsai Pot. You don't craft it from scratch: the pack has one recipe that turns a Bonsai Pot into a small pot and another that turns a small pot back into a full-size one. Both are listed as the mod's own recipes.^[14]

Small Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Special Copycomponents (bonsaitrees4)

• Bonsai Pot

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsai_pot_to_small

Bonsai PotMod recipe

Crafting Special Copycomponents (bonsaitrees4)

• Small Bonsai Pot

Recipe id: bonsaitrees4:bonsai_pot_to_big

The trees

The mod's in-game guide has entries for acacia, azalea, birch, cherry, dark oak, jungle, mangrove, oak and spruce. Each entry describes the tree as it appears in vanilla Minecraft.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]}

Unverified The sources don't confirm any tier system for Bonsai Trees 4 in this pack. They also don't cover soils, growth times, drops, or which trees you unlock when, so check those in-game before planning around them.

Bonsai Trees 4 shows up in just one quest in this pack, and it's in the resource_generation chapter. That makes it a short stop on your quest path.^[3]

The quest is "Bonsai Trees" quest, and it has no title in the pack files. Its only task is to hand in a Bonsai Pot, so you need to have one ready.^[3]

The quest has a prerequisite. It unlocks only after another quest in the same chapter is done, so finish that one first.^[3]

Unverified The quest data we have doesn't list any rewards for this quest, and it doesn't say how the Bonsai Pot is meant to be obtained. Check the in-game quest book for the reward.

Bonsai Trees 4 has a common config for gameplay and debug options, and a client config for visuals and JEI. Good news: every gameplay value in this pack that lists a mod default is set to exactly that default, so the pack hasn't changed how fast trees grow or how tools wear down.^[16][17]

Gameplay options

These live in the common config and are the ones you're most likely to care about.^[16]

• gameplay.baseGrowTicks is 200 in this pack, the same as the mod default. It's the base number of ticks a bonsai tree takes to grow, and it must be above 1.^[16]
• gameplay.toolDamageChance is 0.3333333432674408, the mod default. It's the chance that a tool takes damage when it cuts a bonsai tree. The allowed range is 0.0 to 1.0.^[16]
• gameplay.toolDamagePerCut is 1, the mod default. When a tool does take damage from a cut, this is how much it takes.^[16]
• gameplay.cutCooldown is 20, the mod default. If a tree has been cut but its drops don't fit in the output inventory, this is how many ticks it waits before trying again.^[16]
• gameplay.toolAllowIndestructible is true in this pack. That means indestructible tools, like those from Mystical Agriculture, can be used in bonsai pots.^[16]

Client options

These only affect what you see on your own screen.^[17]

• client.showTreesInSaplingTooltip is true, so sapling tooltips show the tree model.^[17]
• client.showJEISubtypes is false. Turning it on shows all trees in JEI.^[17]
• client.disableModelCache is false, so the model cache stays enabled.^[17]
• client.minimalQuads is false, so the minimal-quads rendering mode is off.^[17]

Debug options

The common config also has a set of debug options, and all of them are false in this pack: debug.showChances (chances in tooltips), debug.showRollsAsCountInJEI (rolls as a count in JEI), debug.showUnknownLootConditions (unknown loot conditions in tooltips) and debug.showUnusedSoilRecipesInJEI (unused soil recipes in JEI).^[16]