Nature's Compass in FTB Skies 2

Nature's Compass is a biome finder. You pick a biome, and the compass searches for it anywhere in the world and shows you information about it. It's a good fit if you want to track down a specific biome, whether vanilla or modded, without wandering around blindly.^[1]

The pack includes Nature's Compass version 1.21.1-3.4.0-neoforge.^[2]

How you use it

• Right-click with the compass to open the biome selection GUI. From there you can search for a biome or view information about it.^[1]
• Shift-right-click to reset the compass's state.^[1]
• When the compass isn't pointing at a biome, it points at the world spawn.^[1]
• Once a biome is found, information about it is displayed on the HUD.^[1]

It supports all registered biomes, both vanilla and modded. The mod's config file lets you adjust things like blacklisted biomes and the maximum search distance. I haven't seen the pack's own config values, so I can't tell you whether the pack changes those from the mod's defaults.^[1]

Where it fits in the pack

The compass shows up in the quest book. The quest "Locating Biomes" quest in the "useful_items_tips" chapter has Nature's Compass as its task, so the pack treats it as a handy utility item.^[3]

Unverified The crafting recipe, and any pack-specific changes to it, could not be confirmed from the sources, so check the in-game recipe viewer before you plan around it. This site does hold FTB Skies 2's own recipes, read from the pack itself: look the item up in the item browser.

Nature's Compass lets you search for a biome anywhere in the world and view information about it. It supports all registered biomes, both vanilla and modded, which is handy in a pack with this many modded biomes. Crafting it is one of the first things I'd do.^[1]

Step 1: Craft the compass

The pack has a shaped crafting recipe for it. Here is the exact in-pack recipe:^[4]

Nature's CompassMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any sapling	any log	any sapling
any log	Compass	any log
any sapling	any log	any sapling

Recipe id: naturescompass:natures_compass

The pack also has a quest in the useful_items_tips chapter, "Locating Biomes" quest, whose task is to have the compass in your inventory. Crafting it gets that checked off.^[3]

Step 2: Learn the controls

• Right-click with the compass to open the biome selection GUI. From there you can search for a biome or view information about it.^[1]
• Shift-right-click to reset the compass's state.^[1]
• When the compass isn't pointing at a biome, it points at the world spawn. If it seems to be aiming at spawn, you probably haven't picked a biome yet or you just reset it.^[1]
• Once a biome is found, information about it is shown on the HUD.^[1]

Repairing it

The pack also includes a separate shapeless recipe for repairing the compass:^[4]

Nature's CompassMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Nature's Compass
• Compass

Recipe id: naturescompass:repair_natures_compass

Nature's Compass is a single item, so there are no machines, multiblocks or power to set up. It locates biomes anywhere in the world and shows you information about them. The mechanics are all in how you use the compass and in a handful of config options, which is what this section covers.^[1]

Using the compass

• Right-click with the compass to open the biome selection screen. From there you can search for a biome or view information about it.^[1]
• Shift-right-click to reset the compass's state.^[1]
• When the compass isn't pointing at a biome, it points at the world spawn.^[1]
• It supports all registered biomes, both vanilla and modded.^[1]
• Information about a found biome is shown on your HUD.^[1]

Getting and repairing it

You craft the compass from a vanilla compass, using the recipe below.^[4]

Nature's CompassMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any sapling	any log	any sapling
any log	Compass	any log
any sapling	any log	any sapling

Recipe id: naturescompass:natures_compass

There is also a shapeless repair recipe that combines a vanilla compass with a Nature's Compass.^[4]

Nature's CompassMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Nature's Compass
• Compass

Recipe id: naturescompass:repair_natures_compass

The pack also has the Wandering Trader sell the compass for one silver coin, and each trader will only make that trade once.^[5]

How searching is tuned in this pack

All of these options live in config/naturescompass-common.toml. Where a mod default is listed, this pack leaves the value at that default.^[6]

• General.compassDurability is 0, which disables durability. That means the compass doesn't break from successful searches in this pack. If you set it above 0 (up to 10,000), it becomes the number of successful searches before the compass breaks and needs repairing.^[6]
• General.maxNextSearches is 25. That is the most times you can search for the next instance of a located biome. At 0 the compass always finds the nearest one.^[6]
• General.maxSamples is 50,000. That is the maximum number of samples taken during one biome search.^[6]
• General.radiusModifier is 2,500. The max search radius is the biome size multiplied by this value. Raising it improves search accuracy but can make the search more demanding.^[6]
• General.sampleSpaceModifier is 16. The sample space is the biome size multiplied by this value. Lowering it improves accuracy but makes the search more resource intensive.^[6]

XP cost and blacklist

General.defaultXpLevels is 0 here, so searching costs no XP levels. The option allows up to 3 levels. General.perBiomeXpLevels is empty in this pack, so no individual biome has its own cost.^[6]

General.biomeBlacklist is also empty, so the compass can search for any biome. Entries in that list would be blocked from searching.^[6]

HUD and teleporting

General.displayCoordinates is true. You can see the precise coordinates and distance of a located biome on the HUD, instead of relying only on the direction the compass points.^[6]

General.allowTeleport is true. A player can teleport to a located biome when in creative mode, opped, or in cheat mode. It doesn't give regular survival players a shortcut.^[6]

Good news: there's no tier ladder to climb with this one. In this pack, Nature's Compass is a single item, Nature's Compass, and nothing in the pack data shows upgraded versions or tiers of it.^[3][4]

The quest

The pack has one quest for it, "Locating Biomes" quest, in the useful_items_tips chapter. Its task is built around the Nature's Compass item, so it works as a nudge to pick the compass up early rather than a step in a longer chain.^[3]

Crafting it

The pack uses a shaped crafting recipe from the mod for the compass. Here's the exact in-pack version:^[4]

Nature's CompassMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any sapling	any log	any sapling
any log	Compass	any log
any sapling	any log	any sapling

Recipe id: naturescompass:natures_compass

Repairing it

There's also a shapeless repair recipe in the pack that gives you a Nature's Compass back as the result, so you can refresh a compass you already own.^[4]

Nature's CompassMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Nature's Compass
• Compass

Recipe id: naturescompass:repair_natures_compass

Unverified The sources don't show the quest's rewards, any quest dependencies, or how the compass behaves in play (such as its search range or which biomes it can find), so none of that is covered here.

Nature's Compass only shows up in one quest chapter in this pack: "useful_items_tips". There's just a single quest tied to the mod there, so there's no long chain to follow.^[3]

• "Locating Biomes" quest has no title in the quest file. Its task is an item task asking you to hand in Nature's Compass.^[3]

Since this is the only quest involving the mod, there's no order to worry about. You can pick it up whenever you have a compass ready.^[3]

Unverified The quest's rewards, its prerequisites and where it sits in the chapter's layout aren't shown in the available data, so they are unverified.

Good news: in this pack, every Nature's Compass option that lists a mod default is sitting at that default. The pack doesn't change any of those numbers, so what you read in the mod's own config descriptions applies here as is.^[6][7]

Cost and durability

• General.compassDurability is 0, which disables durability. The compass doesn't break after a set number of successful searches, so it doesn't need repairing for that reason.^[6]
• General.defaultXpLevels is 0 (allowed range 0 to 3), so searching for a biome costs no XP levels.^[6]
• General.perBiomeXpLevels is an empty list. No biome has its own XP cost, and the mod caps any per-biome cost at 3 levels.^[6]
• General.maxNextSearches is 25. That's how many times you can ask for the next instance of a located biome. Setting it to 0 would turn that off and always give you the nearest one.^[6]

Search reach and accuracy

• General.maxSamples is 50,000, the maximum number of samples taken during one biome search.^[6]
• General.radiusModifier is 2,500. The max search radius is the biome size multiplied by this value.^[6]
• General.sampleSpaceModifier is 16. The sample space is the biome size multiplied by this value, and lowering it makes searches more accurate but more demanding on your game.^[6]
• General.biomeBlacklist is empty, so the compass isn't blocked from searching for any biome.^[6]

Teleporting and HUD info

• General.allowTeleport is true. You can teleport to a located biome, but only in creative mode, when opped, or in cheat mode.^[6]
• General.displayCoordinates is true, so the HUD shows the exact coordinates and distance of what you found instead of leaving you to follow the needle.^[6]

Client options

• Client.overlaySide is set to LEFT (LEFT or RIGHT are allowed). Switch it if the info clashes with other HUD elements.^[7]
• Client.overlayLineOffset is 1 (range 0 to 50), moving the HUD lines if you need to nudge them.^[7]
• Client.displayWithChatOpen is true, so the compass info stays visible while chat is open.^[7]
• Client.fixBiomeNames is true. It adds missing spaces to biome names, so ForestHills shows as Forest Hills.^[7]

FTB Skies 2 1.22.0 ships Nature's Compass version 1.21.1-3.4.0-neoforge. The mod has been in the pack since FTB Skies 2 1.0.1 or earlier.^[2]

3.4.0 (the version in this pack)

Every entry in this release's changelog is a backport. Here is what it lists:^[8]

• A feature to search for the next instance of a biome you have already located.^[8]
• Config options that make the compass consume XP levels when searching for a biome.^[8]
• A config option to give the compass durability, plus a recipe to repair a broken compass.^[8]
• A fix for biomes with the c:hidden_from_locator_selection tag not being hidden.^[8]
• Improvements to the biome selection GUI.^[8]
• Ecuadorian Spanish translations.^[8]

3.0.2

Version 1.21.1-3.0.2-neoforge updated the mod to NeoForge 1.21.1.^[9]

Unverified No pack changelog entries for Nature's Compass were available here. Whether FTB Skies 2 turns on the XP cost or durability options, or changes any of this mod's recipes or config values, is not shown by these sources.