Gadgets Against Grind in FTB StoneBlock 4

Gadgets Against Grind (GAG for short) is a utility mod built to cut down the repetitive grind of everyday modded play. Its items aim to keep a Vanilla feel and not feel as cheaty as running commands.^[1]

The pack includes version 1.21.1-5.2.0 of the mod.^[2]

What it adds

• Escape Rope: a way to teleport out of caves.^[1]
• Hearthstones: teleport you to your personal spawn point or the world spawn. There's also a variant you can bind to any location.^[1]
• No Soliciting! Sign: blocks certain pesky intruders from entering your base.^[1]
• Dynamite: different types for easier mining and fishing.^[1]
• Temporal Pouch: tick-accelerates blocks, Time-in-a-Bottle style. The mod's author says it might be reworked in the future.^[1]
• Sacred Salt, Balm and Salve: multiple ways to temporarily stop mobs from spawning near you so you can mine in peace.^[1]
• Labeling Tool: renames your items on the go without consuming tons of experience. Pigment Jars let you give your favourite tools custom colored names.^[1]

In this pack

In the pack's quest book, the mod shows up in the "useful_items_tips" chapter. Quest "Time In A Bag" quest there has the Temporal Pouch as its task.^[3]

Pack developers can configure most parameters of these items, and the mod's author suggests changing recipes or disabling features that don't suit a pack. The mod's defaults are tuned to be close-ish to Vanilla.^[1]

Gadgets Against Grind is a utility mod, and each item in it is meant to cut down on a tedious chore. Below are the items worth making first, with the in-pack recipe for each. Follow the recipe blocks rather than any recipe you remember from elsewhere.^[1][4]

Hearthstone

Start with the Hearthstone. It teleports you to your personal spawn point, or to the world spawn if that option is enabled.^[4][5]

HearthstoneMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Empty slot	Polished Deepslate	Empty slot
Polished Deepslate	Amethyst Shard	Polished Deepslate
Empty slot	Polished Deepslate	Empty slot

Recipe id: gag:hearthstone

Mining Dynamite

Next comes Mining Dynamite. It's a throwable explosive that is very efficient against stone, and it drops every block it destroys, so you don't lose your loot.^[4][5]

Mining DynamiteMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any deepslate cobblestone	any deepslate cobblestone	any deepslate cobblestone
any deepslate cobblestone	Tnt	any deepslate cobblestone
any deepslate cobblestone	Firework Rocket	any deepslate cobblestone

Recipe id: gag:mining_dynamite

Temporal Pouch

The Temporal Pouch slowly accumulates time while it sits in your inventory. You can then use it on a ticking block to speed that block up, spending some of the stored time. The pack's useful_items_tips quest chapter has a quest with the pouch as its task: "Time In A Bag" quest.^[3][5]

Temporal PouchMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any raw gold storage block	Nautilus Shell	any raw gold storage block
Leather	Ender Eye	Leather
Leather	Leather	Leather

Recipe id: gag:time_sand_pouch

Stop mobs spawning while you mine

The mod has several ways to stop mobs from spawning near you temporarily: Sacred Salt, Sacred Salve and Sacred Balm. When applied, a repelling item gives you an effect that stops nearby hostile mobs from spawning.^[1][4][5]

Start with the salt, because the salve is made from it and the balm can be made from either of them.^[4]

4× Sacred SaltMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Gunpowder or Redstone or Glowstone Dust
• Fermented Spider Eye or Poisonous Potato
• Glow Berries

Recipe id: gag:sacred_salt

Sacred SalveMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Glow Ink Sac
• Honey Bottle
• any small flower
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt

Recipe id: gag:sacred_salve

You can make the balm starting from salt, or upgrade a salve you already made.^[4]

Sacred BalmMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Honeycomb
• Phantom Membrane
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Bowl

Recipe id: gag:sacred_balm

This route uses Sacred Salt.

Sacred BalmMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Phantom Membrane
• Sacred Salve
• Bowl

Recipe id: gag:sacred_balm_from_salve

This route uses a Sacred Salve.

Fun extras

• Fishing Dynamite is a throwable explosive that only works underwater and deals extra damage to fish, for when you don't feel like fishing.^[4][5]
• Labeling Tool renames any item in your inventory at no cost.^[4][5]
• Pigment Jar starts out empty. Once it is filled, you can use it with the labeling tool to change the color of an item's name.^[4][5]

Fishing DynamiteMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Gravel or Sand	Dried Kelp	Gravel or Sand
Dried Kelp	Tnt	Dried Kelp
Gravel or Sand	Fishing Rod	Gravel or Sand

Recipe id: gag:fishing_dynamite

Labeling ToolMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Empty slot	Paper	Paper
Paper	any wooden rod	any iron ingot
Empty slot	any iron ingot	Chain

Recipe id: gag:labeling_tool

Pigment JarMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Glass Bottle
• Glowstone Dust
• any wooden button

Recipe id: gag:pigment_jar

Gadgets Against Grind has no machines, multiblocks, power or fluid networks to set up. It is a set of standalone utility items and a sign, each meant to cut down on grind, and the pack currently tunes them through one config file. So this section walks through how each gadget behaves and which values the pack uses.^[1][6]

Hearthstone

The Hearthstone teleports you to your personal spawn point, or to the world spawn if that is enabled. Using it has a warm-up before the teleport, and a cooldown afterwards. If it can't find anywhere to send you, it asks whether you have set your spawn point.^[5]

HearthstoneMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Empty slot	Polished Deepslate	Empty slot
Polished Deepslate	Amethyst Shard	Polished Deepslate
Empty slot	Polished Deepslate	Empty slot

Recipe id: gag:hearthstone

The Energized Hearthstone is a stronger version that has channelled raw lightning. It teleports you to a single bound location instead, and you can reset it by hitting it with lightning again. The item's own hint is to strike it with lightning.^[5]

The pack currently keeps the mod defaults for every hearthstone setting. These are the values it uses:^[6]

• misc.hearthstone.warmup is currently 100 ticks (5 seconds), and misc.hearthstone.cooldown is currently 1,200 ticks (60 seconds).^[6]
• misc.hearthstone.durability is currently 64 for the normal stone, and misc.hearthstone.energized_durability is currently 256 for the energized one.^[6]
• misc.hearthstone.range is currently -1, which means unlimited range.^[6]
• misc.hearthstone.dimension_multiplier is currently 2. This is a damage multiplier for travelling across dimensions, and -1 would disable cross-dimension teleporting.^[6]
• misc.hearthstone.allow_world_spawn is currently true, so you can be sent to the world spawn if you have no respawn point.^[6]
• misc.hearthstone.ignore_spawn_block is currently false, so the stone checks that your spawn block is still valid and unobstructed. misc.hearthstone.use_anchor_charge is currently true, so it uses a charge on your respawn anchor where that applies.^[6]

Escape Rope

The Escape Rope teleports you out of caves and buildings to the nearest point on the surface. If there is no space on the surface, it tells you so. In the pack it currently has a warm-up of 60 ticks (3 seconds), a cooldown of 200 ticks (10 seconds) and a durability of 512, set by misc.escape_rope.warmup, misc.escape_rope.cooldown and misc.escape_rope.durability. All three match the mod defaults.^[5][6]

Dynamite

Mining Dynamite is a throwable explosive that is very efficient against stone and drops all the blocks it destroys. Its blast radius is 7 blocks in the pack (dynamite.mining_radius). If it hits a player, it can give them Haste, which dynamite.mining_gives_haste leaves on.^[5][6]

Mining DynamiteMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any deepslate cobblestone	any deepslate cobblestone	any deepslate cobblestone
any deepslate cobblestone	Tnt	any deepslate cobblestone
any deepslate cobblestone	Firework Rocket	any deepslate cobblestone

Recipe id: gag:mining_dynamite

Fishing Dynamite only works underwater and is aimed at fish. The pack currently uses these settings, all at mod defaults:^[5][6]

• The radius is currently 4 blocks (dynamite.fishing_radius).^[6]
• The blast can instakill fish, since dynamite.fishing_instakill is currently true. If it were false, fish would take 2x damage instead.^[6]
• The blast can also damage all other entities, not just fish, since dynamite.fishing_damage_all is currently true.^[6]
• dynamite.fishing_targets is currently "hybrid", which combines the abstract fish check with the fish tag filter. It is the most reliable option for modded fish.^[6]
• dynamite.fishing_additional_loot is 5. That is the most extra fish from the vanilla loot table that can drop. The amount is random and leans lower the more fish the blast already hit.^[6]

Fishing DynamiteMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Gravel or Sand	Dried Kelp	Gravel or Sand
Dried Kelp	Tnt	Dried Kelp
Gravel or Sand	Fishing Rod	Gravel or Sand

Recipe id: gag:fishing_dynamite

Temporal Pouch

The Temporal Pouch slowly accumulates time while it sits in your inventory, stored as Grains of Time. Use it on a ticking block and it spends some of that stored time to accelerate the block.^[5]

Temporal PouchMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any raw gold storage block	Nautilus Shell	any raw gold storage block
Leather	Ender Eye	Leather
Leather	Leather	Leather

Recipe id: gag:time_sand_pouch

• Each click currently uses 600 grains (temporal_pouch.grains_used), which is currently equivalent to the ticks a player accrues. Each use accelerates the block for 30 seconds (temporal_pouch.duration_per_use), and that sets the worth of grains shown in the tooltip.^[6]
• Repeated uses in a row can speed the block up further. temporal_pouch.max_rate is currently 8, so the top speed is 2^8 = x256.^[6]
• A pouch can hold up to 2,147,483,647 grains (temporal_pouch.pouch_capacity).^[6]
• Random ticking blocks such as crops and saplings can be accelerated, since temporal_pouch.allow_random_ticks is true. temporal_pouch.random_tick_chance is 4096.^[6]

The pack currently changes one pouch setting. temporal_pouch.level_filter is set to an empty list, so no levels are blocked. temporal_pouch.invert_level_filter stays false, and turning it on would make the pouch work only in the listed levels.^[6]

Sacred Salt, Salve and Balm

These items give you the Repelling effect when applied, which stops nearby hostile mobs from spawning. Sacred Salve lasts a bit longer than Sacred Salt and covers a larger area. Sacred Balm lasts considerably longer than either, but with a reduced radius.^[5]

4× Sacred SaltMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Gunpowder or Redstone or Glowstone Dust
• Fermented Spider Eye or Poisonous Potato
• Glow Berries

Recipe id: gag:sacred_salt

Sacred SalveMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Glow Ink Sac
• Honey Bottle
• any small flower
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt

Recipe id: gag:sacred_salve

You can make the balm from salt directly, or by upgrading a salve.^[4]

Sacred BalmMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Honeycomb
• Phantom Membrane
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Bowl

Recipe id: gag:sacred_balm

Sacred BalmMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Phantom Membrane
• Sacred Salve
• Bowl

Recipe id: gag:sacred_balm_from_salve

'No Solicitors!' Sign

This sign wards off certain pesky intruders within an area around it. In the pack, the radius is currently 64 blocks and it can stop Wandering Traders from spawning (misc.no_solicitors_radius). Right-click the sign with wool to toggle silent mode.^[5][6]

Labeling Tool and Pigment Jars

The Labeling Tool renames any item in your inventory at no cost, through a Rename Item text box.^[5]

Labeling ToolMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Empty slot	Paper	Paper
Paper	any wooden rod	any iron ingot
Empty slot	any iron ingot	Chain

Recipe id: gag:labeling_tool

A filled Pigment Jar can be used in the labeling tool to change the colour of the item's name. An empty jar needs filling first, and the in-game hint is to grind up some dye with flint, then add milk. Combine jars with each other to mix colours.^[5]

Pigment JarMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Glass Bottle
• Glowstone Dust
• any wooden button

Recipe id: gag:pigment_jar

The pack's quest book touches Gadgets Against Grind in one place, and the rest of the mod is reached through crafting recipes. So this section is a short path through what the pack confirms.^[3][4]

The quest

The only quest tied to the mod is "Time In A Bag" quest, in the useful_items_tips chapter. Its task is to obtain the Temporal Pouch. The quest has no title in the pack files.^[3]

The pouch is a shaped crafting recipe in the pack, shown below.^[4]

Temporal PouchMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any raw gold storage block	Nautilus Shell	any raw gold storage block
Leather	Ender Eye	Leather
Leather	Leather	Leather

Recipe id: gag:time_sand_pouch

This is the item the quest task asks for.

The Sacred line

The sacred items build on each other in the pack. Sacred Salt is the base, and it is a shapeless recipe.^[4]

4× Sacred SaltMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Gunpowder or Redstone or Glowstone Dust
• Fermented Spider Eye or Poisonous Potato
• Glow Berries

Recipe id: gag:sacred_salt

Sacred Salt is the starting point of the sacred items.

Sacred Salve is crafted using the salt.^[4]

Sacred SalveMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Glow Ink Sac
• Honey Bottle
• any small flower
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt

Recipe id: gag:sacred_salve

The salve is the next step after the salt.

Sacred Balm can be crafted either with salt or with a salve, so you can skip the salve step if you want.^[4]

Sacred BalmMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Honeycomb
• Phantom Membrane
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Sacred Salt
• Bowl

Recipe id: gag:sacred_balm

This version of the balm is made with salt directly.

Sacred BalmMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Phantom Membrane
• Sacred Salve
• Bowl

Recipe id: gag:sacred_balm_from_salve

This version of the balm is made from a salve instead.

Other craftable gadgets

The pack also has recipes for these gadgets. The sources do not tie them to any quest or order, so you can craft them whenever you have the materials.^[4]

• Mining Dynamite^[4]
• Fishing Dynamite^[4]
• Hearthstone^[4]
• Labeling Tool^[4]
• Pigment Jar^[4]

Mining DynamiteMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

any deepslate cobblestone	any deepslate cobblestone	any deepslate cobblestone
any deepslate cobblestone	Tnt	any deepslate cobblestone
any deepslate cobblestone	Firework Rocket	any deepslate cobblestone

Recipe id: gag:mining_dynamite

Mining Dynamite recipe as set in the pack.

Fishing DynamiteMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Gravel or Sand	Dried Kelp	Gravel or Sand
Dried Kelp	Tnt	Dried Kelp
Gravel or Sand	Fishing Rod	Gravel or Sand

Recipe id: gag:fishing_dynamite

Fishing Dynamite recipe as set in the pack.

HearthstoneMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Empty slot	Polished Deepslate	Empty slot
Polished Deepslate	Amethyst Shard	Polished Deepslate
Empty slot	Polished Deepslate	Empty slot

Recipe id: gag:hearthstone

Hearthstone recipe as set in the pack.

Labeling ToolMod recipe

Crafting Shaped

Crafting Shaped

Empty slot	Paper	Paper
Paper	any wooden rod	any iron ingot
Empty slot	any iron ingot	Chain

Recipe id: gag:labeling_tool

Labeling Tool recipe as set in the pack.

Pigment JarMod recipe

Crafting Shapeless

• Glass Bottle
• Glowstone Dust
• any wooden button

Recipe id: gag:pigment_jar

Pigment Jar recipe as set in the pack.

This mod only shows up in one place in the quest book: the "useful_items_tips" chapter. It's a small appearance, so there's no long questline to follow here.^[3]

The chapter has a single quest for this mod, "Time In A Bag" quest, which has no title in the pack. Its task is to obtain the Temporal Pouch.^[3]

Since there is only one quest involving the mod, there's no order to worry about. The sources don't show what the quest rewards, or which quests it depends on, so I can't say anything about those.^[3]

Unverified Rewards for this quest and any prerequisites in the chapter are not shown in the available quest data.

Same as in the FTB Skies 2 1.22.0 guide

Good news: this pack leaves almost every Gadgets Against Grind option at the mod's own default. Only one option in the main config is flagged as changed by the pack, so you can mostly rely on the mod's normal behaviour. Here are the options you are most likely to care about and the values the pack uses.^[7]

The one thing the pack changed

temporal_pouch.level_filter is the list of levels where the Temporal Pouch will not work. The pack currently sets it to an empty list, and the config file marks it as changed from the mod default. temporal_pouch.invert_level_filter is currently false, so the empty list means no level is blocked by this filter.^[7]

Hearthstone

• misc.hearthstone.warmup is currently 100 ticks (5 seconds to use the stone) and misc.hearthstone.cooldown is currently 1,200 ticks (60 seconds between uses). Both are the mod defaults.^[7]
• misc.hearthstone.durability is currently 64, and misc.hearthstone.energized_durability for the energized hearthstone is currently 256. Both are the mod defaults.^[7]
• misc.hearthstone.range is currently -1, which means unlimited range.^[7]
• misc.hearthstone.dimension_multiplier is currently 2, the damage multiplier for travelling across dimensions. Setting it to -1 would disable cross-dimension teleporting, but the pack currently leaves it at 2.^[7]
• misc.hearthstone.allow_world_spawn is currently true, so the stone sends you to the spawn point if you have no respawn point. misc.hearthstone.ignore_spawn_block is currently false and misc.hearthstone.use_anchor_charge is currently true.^[7]
• On the client side, misc.hearthstone.hide_position is false. Turn it on if you stream and don't want to show your base coordinates in the GUIs.^[8]

Escape Rope

As the config currently stands, the rope takes 60 ticks (3 seconds) to use per misc.escape_rope.warmup, then has a 200 tick (10 second) wait per misc.escape_rope.cooldown. misc.escape_rope.durability is currently 512. All three are the mod defaults.^[7]

Dynamite

• Mining Dynamite currently has an explosion radius of 7 blocks (dynamite.mining_radius). With dynamite.mining_gives_haste currently true, it gives Haste to a player it hits.^[7]
• Fishing Dynamite currently has a radius of 4 blocks (dynamite.fishing_radius). dynamite.fishing_instakill is currently true, so fish die outright. If it were false, fish would take 2x damage instead.^[7]
• dynamite.fishing_damage_all is currently true, so Fishing Dynamite damages all entities, not just fish. Keep that in mind when you blast near other mobs or players.^[7]
• dynamite.fishing_additional_loot is currently 5, which sets how many extra fish from the vanilla loot table may drop. dynamite.fishing_targets is currently "hybrid", which combines the abstract fish check with the fish tag filter.^[7]

Temporal Pouch

• temporal_pouch.duration_per_use is currently 30 seconds of acceleration per use, and temporal_pouch.grains_used is currently 600 grains per click.^[7]
• temporal_pouch.max_rate is currently 8, which the config describes as a top speed of 2^8 = x256.^[7]
• temporal_pouch.allow_random_ticks is true, so the pouch can speed up crops and saplings. temporal_pouch.random_tick_chance is 4096.^[7]
• temporal_pouch.pouch_capacity is currently 2,147,483,647 grains, effectively the maximum.^[7]

No Solicitors sign

misc.no_solicitors_radius is currently 64 blocks in this pack, the radius in which the sign stops Wandering Traders from spawning. The config file lists 64 as the mod default, although its own comment text mentions 32.^[7]

FTB StoneBlock 4 1.21.0 ships Gadgets Against Grind 1.21.1-5.2.0. The mod was already in the pack by 1.0.0 or earlier, so it has been part of StoneBlock 4 from the start.^[2]

1.21.1-5.2.0 (the version in this pack)

• Fixes some minor issues with component formatting.^[9]
• Fixes the EMI plugin, which now uses its own random instead of the world random.^[9]
• Version numbers changed format because the developer switched to AlmostGradle for their build workflows. That is why the version reads 1.21.1-5.2.0 instead of the older plain style.^[9]

5.1.1

• Fixes not being able to enchant the mod's breakable items with Unbreaking or Mending outside of Creative Mode.^[10]
• Includes some minor UX and description improvements.^[10]

The mod's changelogs for older versions have not been written up, so this is all the version history I can confirm.^[9]