I’ve put off making this review for awhile because I felt like I haven’t put enough hours into the pack or gotten very far, but I feel like early game and first impressions are really important. I’ll update this review whenever I get to the rest of the pack.

Coming from someone that has really struggled to enjoy tech mods and automation in modpacks, this pack felt different. I’ve always wanted to enjoy tech, I find it really cool! But for one reason or another I couldn’t get very far in any tech pack or mod without getting frustrated at a lack of explanations or boredom.

This pack explains EVERYTHING *but* still let’s you figure out puzzles on your own. The puzzle being how to most efficiently complete this automation task. At least in the early game, the quests give you all the information you could need, with a few exceptions. It’s really easy to get into the groove and just keep going. Most other packs have some sort of roadblock or tedium, this pack doesn’t have that so far.

Thats another thing, basically all tedium is GONE. No mobs, no day-night cycle, no annoying terrain, just focus on the fun! This might put off some people but I implore you to give it a try! Because of its heavy focus, it has a lot more effort put into the fun part of the gameplay loop. While there is a main progression (thankfully!), this pack lets you explore with a few different tech mods at the start, letting you tackle what you feel is most important.

Performance is very great, given it’s a basically superflat world with no mobs. With some modern 1.12 performance mod changes and Cleanroom, you could probably get this pack to run on a 20 year old laptop. I can’t say anything about late game performance however.

Aesthetics I gave 3 stars because not much effort was put into it as far as I can tell. No high-effort presentation and aesthetic polish that many modern packs have these days, basic vanilla main menu with a logo and screenshots. Only 2 texture changes as far as I see in the files. The custom item textures are nice however. I would’ve really loved a more polished presentation and consistency in aesthetics, but it really doesn’t matter all that much considering the vanilla aesthetics fit the pack mostly well, but a unique presentation and aesthetic is important these days!

If you’ve struggled with tech in the past, want to try something different or don’t want any tedium/differing focus of other tech packs, please give Feed The Factory a try!

Thanks to Feed The Factory I learned to appreciate conduits and mass-crafting.

Premise

Feed The Factory’s premise is simple. No worldgen, no hunger, no pesky monsters to worry about. Only a mining drill, a questbook and a dream to build the biggest, meanest factory. The core gameplay loop is about gathering resources and feeding them to machines that create research, needed to unlock more advanced technology.

Tech

There are 5 tiers of research in total, each unlocking more advanced logistics, power generation and production technologies. You start with hoppers and minecarts, moving to conveyors and conduits. Windmills and coal burners make way for complicated petrol refinement facilities, and those are needed to unlock nuclear power. And with enough perseverance and knowledge of tech mods, it’s possible to make an ore processing chain that turns a single ore into 294 ingots. Because of the gating, you WILL have to go through each tech mod. That is the first time I actually progressed in Immersive Engineering beyond the Blast Furnace. The entire modpack is basically a giant tutorial for some of the main tech mods, but it challenges advanced players too.

Appearance

The style is gritty and technological, and the machines from various mods don’t explicitly clash with each other. I could have appreciated if the sprites of the machines were changed to correspond to each research tier, with machines for each new tier bearing an increasingly futuristic, powerful appearance. But that’s a small complaint.

Performance

Runs on 4-5 GB of RAM, perhaps even less than that. When the modpack is set in a superflat world and centered around the few key tech mods, there’s really no need to worry about performance.

Conclusion

Feed The Factory is a very well-designed modpack, perhaps one of the exemplars in how to design a tech-centered modpack. All gameplay elements not related to the tech premise are removed, and the progression is strictly linear. This allows the player to focus on exploring the tech mods, helping understand their strengths and weaknesses.

The “Feed the Factory” modpack is an excellent Minecraft experience, with an exceptional combination of mods that make it a highly enjoyable and immersive game. The gameplay and progression are both outstanding, earning a solid 5-star rating. The addition of great mods such as Thermal Expansion, Buildcraft, and EnderIO enhances the gameplay experience significantly.

EnderIO is a standout mod that provides players with a wide range of machines, tools, and conduits for item transportation and energy transfer. The mod adds a great deal of depth and versatility to the game, allowing players to automate their factories and increase efficiency. The conduits are a particularly useful feature, enabling players to transport items and energy over long distances quickly and efficiently. The ender conduits are especially convenient, allowing players to teleport items instantly between locations.

The questbook in the “Feed the Factory” modpack is highly detailed and provides clear objectives and instructions on how to complete them, making it easy for players to progress through the game. This feature is a major standout and adds to the overall enjoyment and sense of progression in the game.

The aesthetics of the modpack could use some improvement, earning a 3-star rating, but it is still an enjoyable experience overall. Additionally, the modpack performs well, with minimal lag and smooth gameplay, earning a 4-star rating in performance.

Overall, the “Feed the Factory” modpack is an exceptional Minecraft experience that I highly recommend to anyone looking for a challenging and rewarding game.

A pack that’s very different from everything else. Don’t know how else to describe it other than Factoriolike!

This pack is how I got my sister into modded MC!

While I’ve yet to progress very far, it lives up to it’s asperations of being Factorio-like.

My biggest praise is that it’s quests are extremely detailed, so whether you’re a modpack veteran like myself, or new to the game, you can get started in this relatively laidback expert-style automation and have a pleasent time.

You’ll be tossed into a superflat world where manual labor is fruitless (except for tree chopping I suppose) and you’ll need to use your ore map to find chunks with the metals you need, place down your multiblock miners and start building some conveyor belts.

Automate research to unlock new mods and technologies.

If you’re like me and prefer Digital logistics mods like LaserIO or Xnet, you may struggle in the beginning, and personally I’d recommend techopolis 2 or Stoneblock 3 to be your introduction to my physical logistics systems as they have modern QOL improvements being in modern versions, have no fear EnderIO and Simple Storage Networks are available but can get very expensive and have some of their most powerful features locked off in the early game.

But if you’re well acquainted with Immersive Engineering you should be right at home.