MSS - Moog's Soaring Structures in FTB Skies 2

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.1 guide

MSS - Moog's Soaring Structures adds lots of vanilla-style floating islands to your world. They're packed with loot, mobs and dungeons, so they give you something new to go exploring for.^[1]

The structures are built from vanilla blocks and entities. As you explore them you'll find loot, enemies and villagers. Because nothing here is a new custom block, the islands feel like part of the normal game rather than a separate content layer.^[1]

Who it's for

It's for you if you like exploring and want a reason to look up as well as down. Floating islands with dungeons make good side trips between your tech and magic projects. The mod can also be installed server-side only, which is handy if you play on a server.^[1]

In this pack

The pack includes version 2.1.2 of the mod, and it was first added in 2.25 or earlier.^[2]

The mod's author says every aspect of it can be customized with datapacks, using a separate config pack template.^[1]

Unverified The sources don't show whether this pack changes any of the mod's structure settings or loot. Treat the mod's default behavior as unconfirmed for this pack.

Unverified No quests in this pack involve the mod, it isn't on the ATM Star path, and no in-jar guidebook was found. Don't expect any guided progression for it. Treat the islands as optional exploration.

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.1 guide

Good news: there's nothing special to craft first. This mod adds floating islands with cool buildings to explore, and they're built with vanilla blocks and entities. Your first step is simply to get out there and find them.^[1][3]

What to do first

1. Explore and keep an eye on the sky. The structures are floating islands, so look up as you travel.^[1]
2. Get ready for what's on them. Islands can hold loot, mobs, dungeons and villagers, so bring gear and supplies for a fight.^[1][3]
3. Land on an island, explore the buildings, and collect the loot you find along the way.^[1][3]

Finding them more or less often

The mod has a universal rarity setting that multiplies the spacing of every Moog's structure. A higher value makes them rarer and a lower value makes them more common. There is also a per-mod version of this multiplier.^[4]

Unverified The sources don't show any in-pack recipes or quests for this mod, and they don't confirm the rarity values this pack uses. If you want to know how often islands appear in your world, check the config in your own instance.

MSS is a world generation mod. It adds floating islands with buildings made from vanilla blocks and entities, and you find loot, enemies and villagers on them. This section therefore covers where structures appear, which biomes they use and what spawns inside them.^[1][5]

How structures are placed

Each structure has its own structure set that uses the mod's advanced random spread placement. It has a salt, a spacing, a separation and a minimum distance from world origin. Some structures also have a frequency. The pack exposes most of these in a placement config, and the values below are the ones this pack uses.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]}

• Arena: arena.spacing is 158 and arena.separation is 92. The mod's own data also sets a minimum distance from world origin of 1,000.^[6][11]
• Birch river: spacing 96 and separation 34, with a minimum distance from world origin of 250.^[7][11]
• Cherry river: spacing 53 and separation 17, with a minimum distance from world origin of 250.^[10][11]
• Calcite house: spacing 68, separation 27 and calcite_house.frequency at 0.6.^[8][11]
• Castle ruin: spacing 107, separation 56 and castle_ruin.frequency at 0.6.^[9][11]

For these five structures the pack's placement values (salt, spacing, separation and frequency where present) are the same as the mod's own data, so the pack has not changed them. The minimum distance from world origin only appears in the mod's data files, not in the pack's config file.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]}

Frequency is only set for a handful of entries in the pack config, and each one is 0.6: calcite_house.frequency, castle_ruin.frequency, castle_tower.frequency, leaf_hollow.frequency, nether_portal.frequency, small_oak_house.frequency, small_pond.frequency, small_tower.frequency and trees.frequency.^[11]

The trees share one entry in the main placement config, with trees.spacing at 58 and trees.separation at 29.^[11]

The mod also has a rarity multiplier for all of its structures. Its description says it multiplies the spacing of every Moog's structure, so higher means rarer and lower means more common. The mod's page adds that every aspect can be customised with datapacks.^[1][13]

Toggles

The pack ships a toggle config with one entry per structure, for example arena.arena and volcano.volcano. The tree variants are listed together under the trees group. Every toggle is set to true in this pack.^[14]

Biome tags

The mod groups biomes into tags. Some are specific, such as badlands, birch, cherry, desert, jungle, mangrove, mountain, mushroom island and ocean. The cherry tag, for instance, lists the vanilla cherry grove, and the mangrove tag lists only the vanilla mangrove swamp.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]}

There are also broader tags for overworld, snowy, swampy and taiga biomes.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Some tags are built from others: the cold tag combines snowy, taiga and mountain biomes, and the red sand tag combines desert and badlands biomes.^[28][29]

Entries from other biome mods, such as the BYG biomes in the birch and desert tags, are marked as not required, so they only matter when that mod is present.^[16][18]

Spawners and vaults

Spawners inside structures are randomised by a spawner processor. Each structure part has a weighted list of entities to pick from. Many are a single mob, like skeletons in the castle tower, cave spiders in the castle ruin and drowned in the muddy water hole.^{[30][31][32][33]}

• Desert pyramid: zombie and husk, each with weight 5.^[34]
• Taiga: zombie with weight 3, zombie villager with weight 2 and cave spider with weight 1.^[35]
• Volcano: zombie 3, spider 3 and skeleton 2.^[36]
• Red sand: husk with weight 3 and phantom with weight 1.^[37]
• Mushroom: pillager, vex and evoker, each with weight 1.^[38]
• Small tower: witch and wither skeleton, each with weight 1.^[39]

The arena is the most elaborate. It spawns bogged from its spawners, and it also randomises trial spawners with a normal and an ominous config, plus vaults with a normal and an ominous loot table.^[30]

What the sources show for this mod is its chest loot, not a tier ladder. The loot tables below are the ones shipped in the mod's own data, so this is what you can expect to find when you explore its structures. Nothing here is a crafted item.^[40][41]

Early loot: the abandoned table

The abandoned loot table is the humblest one. Its first pool rolls 2 to 5 times and hands out Rotten Flesh, Bone, String, Arrow, Gunpowder and Spider Eye. A second pool rolls once for small metal and gem finds.^[40]

• The second pool can give Iron Nugget, Gold Nugget, Iron Ingot (1 to 2), an Emerald, or a damaged Iron Sword.^[40]

Mid-game extras: the amethyst cove arena

The arena_amethyst_cove table rolls 2 to 4 times. Amethyst is the most common entry: Amethyst Shard has the highest weight, at 4 to 12 per stack. You can also find a Spyglass, Echo Shard (1 to 3), Emerald, Gold Ingot, Lapis Lazuli, Glow Berries, and an enchanted Book.^[41]

A bonus pool rolls 0 to 1 times and gives either Copper Ingot (2 to 6) or Raw Copper (2 to 5).^[41]

Trial keys

The arena's trial spawner key tables are simple. One gives a single Trial Key, and the ominous version gives a single Ominous Trial Key. Each table rolls once with only that one entry.^[42][43]

Where it spawns

One biome tag, mangrove_biomes, lists only the mangrove swamp. So whichever structure uses that tag can generate in mangrove swamps in this pack.^[20]

The options you will most likely care about live in two files in the mss config folder: one that switches each structure on or off, and one that controls where they are placed.^[11][14]

Structure toggles

In this pack every toggle is set to true, so nothing is switched off. That includes arena.arena, volcano.volcano and nether_portal.nether_portal, plus every tree toggle from trees.tree_1 to trees.tree_8. If you want to remove an island type from your world, this is the file to edit.^[14]

Placement

Each structure has its own spacing, separation and salt in the placement file. These are the values the pack sets for a few of them, so you can compare island types.^[11]

• Cherry river: spacing cherry_river.spacing is 53 and separation cherry_river.separation is 17.^[11]
• Desert well: spacing desert_well.spacing is 66 and separation desert_well.separation is 15.^[11]
• Trees group: spacing trees.spacing is 58 and separation trees.separation is 29.^[11]
• Arena: spacing arena.spacing is 158 and separation arena.separation is 92.^[11]
• Volcano: spacing volcano.spacing is 158 and separation volcano.separation is 78.^[11]
• Diorite house: spacing diorite_house.spacing is 156 and separation diorite_house.separation is 97.^[11]

Frequency

Some entries in the placement file also have a frequency, and the pack sets all of them to 0.6: calcite_house.frequency, castle_ruin.frequency, castle_tower.frequency, leaf_hollow.frequency, nether_portal.frequency, small_oak_house.frequency, small_pond.frequency, small_tower.frequency and trees.frequency. The other structures have no frequency entry in this file.^[11]

The extra files

The pack also ships copies of both files with "-had-error" in the name. In the placement copy, cherry_river differs from the regular file: spacing cherry_river.spacing is 74 and separation cherry_river.separation is 32, and its salt is different too. That copy also lists each tree as its own entry instead of one trees group, and it has no frequency entries.^[11][12]

The mod's project page says every aspect of the mod can be customized with datapacks, and that it can be installed on the server only.^[1]

FTB Skies 2 1.23.0 ships MSS 2.2.0 (the universal 1.21 build), and the mod has been in the pack since 1.0.1 or earlier. Here are the changes worth knowing about, newest first.^[44]

Unverified No pack changelog entries for this mod were available, so which pack releases moved MSS from one version to another is unverified.

2.2.0 (the version in the pack)

This is the biggest update in the changelogs I have. The mod's own notes also mention support for newer Minecraft versions, which don't apply to the 1.21 build the pack uses. Here is what changes how structures feel in your world.^[44][45]

• Villagers, pillagers and the arena's skeleton archers are rolled fresh every time a structure generates, so copies are no longer identical.^[45]
• Monster spawners pick their mob each time a structure generates, and modpacks can change which mobs each structure's spawners use. A few spawners in the arena, muddy water hole and red sand that never spawned anything are now active.^[45]
• 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.^[45]
• Trees are spread more evenly instead of sometimes clustering, and share a single toggle and spacing slider in Moog's Structure Lib's config screen. The mod now needs Moog's Structure Lib 3.0.0 or newer.^[45]
• Structures can generate in the new dappled forest biome.^[45]
• 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, and a glow item frame decorates the desert pyramid.^[45]
• Every structure apart from the trees has a working Preview button in Moog's Structure Lib's config screen.^[45]

2.2.0 loot and fixes

• The chest at the top of the castle tower has slightly toned-down loot to match how easy it is to reach, and barrels that form part of the white house's walls no longer hold loot.^[45]
• The arena's trial spawners 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. If you're up for a challenge, the changelog suggests trying the arena with bad omen.^[45]
• Villagers in the white house and diorite house now offer proper trades.^[45]
• The trees at the arena, large tower, white house and diorite house have their full leaves again, and the large tower and white house use leaves instead of green wool in their natural areas.^[45]
• Every structure was rebuilt for each Minecraft version it supports, fixing a range of small visual and loading problems.^[45]

Earlier releases

Version 2.1.2 fixed versioned structures so they have a defined path for Minecraft 26.1 to 26.1.2. The game stops logging "no version mapping matched" warnings and no longer falls back to an older structure template.^[46]

The 1.21 to 2.0.0 changelog updated the mod to the datapack version, which depends on moogs_structures, and fixed jigsaw alignment issues.^[47]

The 1.3.5 to 1.21 changelog added c biome tags and fixed broken nbt files. It also adjusted spacing values to make all structures rarer.^[48]