RLCraft

What sets it apart

RLCraft is a survival pack by Shivaxi that the project page frames as hardcore and semi-realistic, with RPG systems layered on top. The page warns outright that players should expect to die a lot.

The wiki puts the pack at about 185 mods on Minecraft 1.12.2. The ones it highlights explain the reputation: Lycanites Mobs and Ice and Fire for dangerous creatures and dragons, Simple Difficulty for survival needs, First Aid for body-part health, and Reskillable plus Level Up! Reloaded for skill gates on gear.

Early play is deliberately slow. According to the wiki’s starter guide, trees give no logs unless they are cut with an axe-type tool such as a flint hatchet, and Dynamic Trees makes trunks fall when broken. The guide also notes that diamond armor and weapons sit behind skill level 16.

Who it suits

It suits players who want survival to be the main obstacle and who do not mind losing progress repeatedly. Exploration is a large part of the pack: the project page lists dungeon and structure mods along with Waystones and Antique Atlas.

It is a poor match for anyone looking for factory building or a guided quest line. Neither appears in the pack’s documentation.

Before you install

The pack runs on Forge for Minecraft 1.12.2. The CurseForge file list shows the first 1.11.2 beta in February 2018 and the current release, v2.9.3, in June 2023, so this is an older and now stable build.

On memory, the author states on the project page that the default 1 GB is not enough and recommends allocating 3 to 4 GB. The wiki’s installation page suggests 4 GB for manual installs and cautions that going higher can cause memory leak problems. That wiki page says it was last updated for v2.8.2, so parts of it may be dated.

The project page also lists compatibility warnings: use the OptiFine build it names rather than older ones, and do not add VanillaFix or BetterFPS, which it calls incompatible.

The wiki recommends the CurseForge launcher because it handles memory allocation automatically.

Playing with friends

Official server packs are published in the CurseForge file list for both 1.12.2 and the old 1.11.2 beta.

The project page tells server owners to set enable-command-block=true in server.properties. Without it, the page says, some structures will be missing their villagers. It adds that a readme bundled with the server pack covers this.

Server memory requirements are not documented by the author. The wiki has no dedicated server setup section, so the bundled readme and the official Discord linked from the project page are the places the author points people to.