Four symbols - clockwise, they are a cold white star, a bright green tree, a purple hammer, and a pale crescent moon - are overlaid on top of an orange spiral.

Data and Essence

Mod Overview

Data & Essence (DnE) is a magitech-themed automation mod inspired by ChromatiCraft that incorporates exploration and discovery into progression, along with machine infrastructure. You will harness the four kinds of Essence - a magical force or energy - to drive a factory and make helpful tools, all the while exploring your world and others, gradually uncovering a story of intertwining histories, color, music, and war that never quite ended - and your part to play may not just be that of an idle historian.

The mod's content is mostly inaccessible from the start of your world, requiring you to learn from the Data of the Ancients that came before you. Their knowledge was left behind in scattered structures, sitting in their Data Banks, kept guarded by machinations, shields, and security mechanisms that still function to this day.

As you progress, you will work with more types of Essence, and more complex mechanics. These provide access to more powerful - and less conventional - machinery and equipment. This culminates in discovering a way to travel outside of your realm, to one where Essence permeates everything within it. Exploration of this other realm yields some of the most powerful things in the mod, as well as deeper insight into the origins of Essence and the Ancients you've been learning from.

Alpha Notice

As of now, this mod is in alpha - specifically, it is not feature-complete. There is a lot more to come, and the current content represents only the early game. That said, it is perfectly usable despite that, and work is underway on the next stages of the mod. We occasionally release updates to the current releases too, with new features, fixes, and improvements.

Starting the Mod

You will need to explore your world to find strange constructions built from a dark, reddish-purple Shielding Rock. These structures contain Computers, which you can interact with to obtain a Signal Tracker. Follow it to where it leads you. Once you've reached your destination, you may enter from above to retrieve a Data Tablet... after some effort. This Tablet is your guide through the mod, showing all recipes, information, and multiblock diagrams. It is, however, rather empty to start with - you'll need to venture to other structure types and clear the way to their Data Banks to unlock more entries.

A given Data Bank will reveal only the data you have clearance to see - to raise your Tier and see more in it, you will need to unlock all of the critical data on your given Tier. That may entail simply solving puzzles in a Data Bank, crafting a requisite item, or a yet more involved thing, the latter two of which are at least hinted at.

Screenshot of an interface showing several magenta-framed block and item icons connected by glowing blue lines, with a dark blue background depicting a city and a night sky above it.

Your "personal" ancient lexicon.

Machinery

A variety of machines are available, from ones found in standard tech mods of the modern day, to those forgotten by time, and some more unique things. As you progress, so too will the scale and complexity of your machines. Many machines past the earlygame are "megablocks" - more than one block in size. Some may also require multiblock structures to act as foci.

In the earlygame, a variety of common machines for processing resources exist, such as the Entropic Processor (analogous to a pulverizer or crusher), the Melter, and the Mineral Purification Chamber (an ore processor). In addition, there is a block breaker, an item collector, machines to collect and place fluids, and upgradeable point to point item and fluid transportation. There are also several crafting machines, designed to turn one set of resources into another, or to refine something into a more complex form. Such machines will be used throughout your factories.

Screenshot of several, mostly machine, earlygame blocks from Data & Essence, placed against a backdrop of an otherworldly purple rock.

An array of Essence-driven machinery.

Modpack authors, note that all of the machines' recipes may be customized or added to with datapacks.

World Generation

This mod includes a decent amount of world generation, such that it is not recommended to add to existing worlds.

DnE includes several structures, often biome-specific, ranging from abandoned factories to hidden outposts. These, in addition to Data, are often host to scraps of lore on their Computers, and contain a wealth of starting machines and resources. Discovery of one of each structure type is required to unlock everything.

DnE also adds special resources that you may not notice for anything but vanilla blocks at first... but exposure to Ancient knowledge will train your eyes to see them for what they really are. Right now, these number one new plant, and one new ore, but more await.

Screenshot of the interior of a Nature Outpost structure; it is built from a purple rock and is visibly overgrown, with leaves and moss everywhere.

What can you learn from such a place?

Mod Integration

DnE includes some pieces of built-in mod integration, with more being added every few updates. This is mostly in the form of ore processing, but a few special interactions exist:

Applied Energistics 2: Several convenience recipes for processing AE2's materials with DnE's machinery.
Mekanism: A new set of Nodes and Wires for transferring Chemicals. They work exactly as Item and Fluid ones.
Opalescence: Opal variants of Traversite Road blocks.
Pastel: A few convenience recipes, for now. Deeper interop will be added as both mods grow!
Refined Storage: A few convenience recipes for obtaining its materials more efficiently.

Screenshot of a series of high-tech machines from Mekanism placed on dark purple bricks, connected via colorful wires.

Can you apply the Ancients' knowledge in your other pursuits?

Configuration and Progression Customization

DnE's config files (common and client) have a few options that may be tweaked to be more fitting for your pack, server, or personal preferences. You can for example individually turn off the mod's post shaders if you are experiencing visual errors with them, or adjust the numbers of several mechanics (such as generation- and transfer rate of a few blocks). More options will be added as the mod grows. For deeper customization, you will need to use a data pack. If you want something to be customizable and it is not, you're free to ask us to make it so.

Much of the mod is data-driven, including progression. You are able to add entries to the Data Tablet and Data Banks, edit existing ones, or altogether override it all with your own, allowing your modpack's progression to be reliant on finding structures and solving puzzles.

For documentation on our data-driven features and recipe formats, you may see our developer wiki.

Data & Essence

Compatibility

Minecraft: Java Edition

Platforms

Supported environments

Links

Creators

Details