Bridging Mod in FTB Skies 2: Aero

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.1 guide

Bridging Mod adds a bridging assist, often called reach-around placement. It lets you place blocks into gaps in front of, above or below existing blocks, even when the surface you need isn't visible. It's very similar to a feature in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition and the Quark mod, and it takes the best parts of both.^[1]

The pack ships Bridging Mod 2.6.2+1.21.1 as a NeoForge build. It has been in the pack since 2.25 or earlier.^[2]

What it does for you

Out of the box, the mod just works. It bridges with a crosshair, works on every axis, and tries to stay out of your way when you don't need it. You can place blocks in air gaps both up/down and horizontally.^[1]

• Building platforms^[1]
• Filling in walls^[1]
• Building staircases in the Nether and the End^[1]
• Plain old bridging^[1]

Slabs work naturally, blocks align to the blocks you're building off, and torches no longer get in your way. When bridging is available, a crosshair hints at which block you'll be bridging off of. With the F3 menu visible, an extra outline shows the exact position the block will go in. You can also turn that outline on all the time in the config.^[1]

Compared with Quark's version, it's a bit closer to Bedrock's reach-around. It's much more lenient, but it adds vertical placement.^[1]

Who it's for

It's for anyone who builds a lot, whether that's big platforms, bridges over gaps or staircases. If bridging ever gets awkward, there's a keybind to switch it off without opening the config.^[1]

The config is split into four tabs: Main for how bridging works (for example the delay, or locking bridging to the horizontal axis), Visuals for the outline and crosshair, Fixes for smoothing tweaks you can turn off if they cause odd behavior, and Debug for development aids that are mostly off by default.^[1]

Where it fits in the pack

It's a quality-of-life mod that you can use from the very start. The sources show no pack-specific changes to its recipes or configs, so everything above describes the mod as its project page documents it.^[1][2]

Unverified The sources I was given don't show any quests involving this mod or any place for it on the ATM Star path.

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.1 guide

Good news: Bridging Mod doesn't need a crafting order or a progression path. There's nothing to build first. It's a bridging assist, also called Reach-Around Placement, that lets you place blocks in gaps in front of, above or below blocks, even when the surface you'd normally click isn't visible.^[1]

What to do first

1. Just start building. Out of the box the mod works on every axis, so you can place blocks in air gaps both up/down and horizontally.^[1]
2. Watch for the crosshair. It only appears when you're about to place a block using bridging, and it hints at where the block will be bridged off of (up, down or horizontally).^[1]
3. Try it on the jobs it's meant for: building platforms, filling in walls, and building staircases in the Nether and the End.^[1]
4. Press F3 if you want to see the exact position the block will go in. The extra outline shows while the F3 menu is visible, and you can turn it on all the time in the config.^[1]

Slabs work naturally, blocks align to the blocks you're building off, and torches no longer get in your way. That makes it comfortable to use right away.^[1]

Tweaking it later

Almost every part of the mod is configurable, and the config is split into 4 main tabs. Main covers how bridging works, from the placement delay (so you can spam placement more) to locking bridging to the horizontal axis. Visuals lets you turn on outlines or turn off the crosshair. Fixes is meant to make the mod feel smoother, so if the mod does something unexpected, try turning some of those off.^[1]

Unverified I have no recipes, quests or in-pack descriptions for this mod, so there are no crafting steps to show here. I also can't confirm whether this pack changes any of the mod's default config values, so check the config screen yourself.

Same as in the All the Mods 10 8.1 guide

Bridging Mod works differently from most mods in a pack. It is a placement assist, often called Reach-Around Placement, so it has no machines, multiblocks, power or item automation to set up. Everything below is about how the bridging feature behaves.^[1]

How bridging works

Bridging lets you place blocks into gaps in front of, above, or below blocks, even when the surface you would normally click isn't visible. It works on every axis, so you can go up, down and horizontally.^[1]

When bridging is available, a crosshair appears to show where the block will go. It only shows when you are about to place a block using bridging, and it hints at which block you are bridging off of: up, down or horizontal. With the F3 menu open you also get an outline of the exact position being placed in. The config can turn that outline on all the time.^[1]

What it's good for

• Building platforms.^[1]
• Filling in walls.^[1]
• Building staircases in the Nether and the End.^[1]
• Bridging across gaps.^[1]

Slabs work naturally, placed blocks align to the blocks you're building off, and torches no longer get in your way. The mod is closer to Bedrock Edition's reach-around than to Quark's. It's more lenient, but it adds vertical placement.^[1]

Configuration and keybind

The mod's own config is split into 4 tabs. Main covers how bridging works, from the placement delay (so you can spam more) to locking bridging to the horizontal axis. Visuals covers things like outlines and turning the crosshair off. Fixes holds smoothing tweaks that you can switch off if they cause unexpected behaviour. Debug is mostly off by default and mostly made of visual aids for development.^[1]

If bridging gets in your way and you don't want to open the config, there is a keybind to turn it off.^[1]

Unverified This pack ships no config files for this mod, and no recipes or in-game descriptions for it were available. The default keybind, the default values of the config options, and whether the pack changes any of them are unconfirmed. This site does hold FTB Skies 2: Aero's own recipes, read from the pack itself: look the item up in the item browser.

Everything for Bridging Mod lives in one file, version is set to 2 there, and the rest of the options are listed below with the exact values this pack uses.^[3]

The big one: the bridging assist toggle

enableBridgingAssist is set to false in this pack. The file's own comment on it says it is also known as 'Reacharound Placement' in keybinds, and calls it the Quark thing. Check that option first if bridging isn't behaving the way you expect.^[3]

For context, the mod's bridging feature lets you place blocks into gaps in front of, above or below blocks, even when the surface isn't visible, and a crosshair shows where the block will go.^[1]

Placement behaviour

• onlyBridgeWhenCrouched is false.^[3]
• supportedBridgeAxes is "BOTH", and supportedBridgeAxesWhenCrouched is "FALLBACK".^[3]
• bridgingAdjacency is "CORNERS" and bridgingSnapStrength is 1.^[3]
• minBridgeDistance is 20, minBridgeDistanceHorizontal is 1 and minBridgeDistanceVertical is 0.1.^[3]
• delayPostBridging is 4.^[3]
• enableSlabAssist, enableNonSolidReplace and skipTorchBridging are all true.^[3]
• nonBridgeRespectsCrouchRules is true.^[3]
• perspectiveLock is "LET_BRIDGING_MOD_DECIDE".^[3]

Visual options

• showCrosshair is true, so you get the crosshair that shows where a block will be placed.^[1][3]
• showOutline and showOutlineEvenWhenNotBridging are both false. The mod's project page says the exact-position outline appears when the F3 menu is visible, and that you can turn it on all the time in the config.^[1][3]
• outlineColour is 1,711,276,032.^[3]
• For the debug options, showDebugHighlight is true, while showDebugTrace and showNonBridgingDebugHighlight are false.^[3]

Unverified The sources don't list the mod's own default values, so which of these options the pack changed from the default can't be confirmed here. The values above are what the pack's config file sets.

FTB Skies 2: Aero 1.10.0 ships Bridging Mod 2.6.2+1.21.1. The mod has been in the pack since Aero 1.0.3 or earlier, so the changes below are the two most recent releases of the mod itself.^[4]

2.6.2

• The minimum bridging distance is now a single slider for all directions. This replaces the separate horizontal and vertical settings added in 2.6.0.^[5]
• Fixed a crash caused by broken Bank Storage compatibility.^[5]
• Fixed off-hand bridging taking priority over a usable item in your main hand, such as bows, tridents and food.^[5]
• Updated the Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese translations.^[5]

2.6.0

This was a big release of small things. The main goal was making bridging more comfortable, because the mod snaps to blocks more than other bridging mods do. That can be handy, but also annoying, so you got finer control over the snapping.^[5]

• Minimum Bridging Distance (under Features) was split into horizontal and vertical values. In this release, a block had to be 2.2 blocks away horizontally and 1 block away vertically before you could bridge at it. Before this, the minimum of 1 applied in all directions and wasn't visible in the config.^[5]
• Bridging Snap Strength (under Fixes, marked experimental) is a magic number that affects the size of the bridging targets.^[5]
• Bridging Adjacency (under Fixes, marked experimental) changes whether blocks that catch the edge of your sightline count as bridgeable. The strict setting makes the biggest difference.^[5]
• Added a compatibility API, which should speed up future updates. The mod internals were restructured for it, which was a breaking change.^[5]
• Added compatibility with Bank Storage and Dank Storage.^[5]
• Changed the behaviour when the Freelook mod is used. The Perspective Lock option under Fixes lets you bridge from either your head or the camera.^[5]
• Config values are now shown with "block(s)" and "tick(s)" where appropriate.^[5]
• The toggle bridging keybind was renamed to "toggle reacharound placement".^[5]

Unverified No pack changelog entries for this mod were available, so whether the pack changed any of its settings is unverified.