🧪 Version 2.6.3 — Complete Changelog

From its beginnings as a Minecraft 1.21.1 port to the completion of the In My Elements era, this is the full development history leading to version 2.6.3—the first version uploaded to Modrinth.

🌱 Before 1.0 — From Port to Independent Foundation

The project began as a Minecraft 1.21.1 port of EightSidedSquare's Minepathy mod. Minepathy, along with a small permitted compatibility subset of EightSidedSquare's zine helpers, provided the initial technical and gameplay foundation needed to get the mod running on the newer Minecraft version.

That foundation was invaluable—but it was only the starting point.

During pre-1.0 development, the project moved beyond being a straightforward port. Existing systems were repeatedly audited, repaired, rebalanced, and rethought for a different long-term vision. Registration and networking plumbing was adapted for 1.21.1, while the gameplay systems themselves began a much larger transformation into what would become Applied Science.

The original foundation included

• Procedurally generated diseases with airborne, contact, and foodborne transmission.
• Disease spread through players, mobs, items, containers, vehicles, and the food-supply chain.
• World-generated molecules and unknown substances.
• Early dissolution, reaction, crystallization, and identification mechanics.
• Basic laboratory vessels and equipment such as Beakers, Test Tubes, Hotplates, Microscopes, Culture Plates, and Diffractometers.
• Disease sampling, diagnosis, cures, immunity, Hazmat Suits, and Goggles.
• A discovery loop in which substances and diseases remain unknown until the player actually studies them.

The project then established its own direction

• The mod was retuned around hands-on, understandable scientific procedures instead of single-block automation.
• Chemistry became the shared foundation for future medicine, materials science, and research rather than a collection of disconnected crafting recipes.
• Progression was redesigned around early-, mid-, and late-game laboratory capabilities.
• Hidden information became a core mechanic: players must measure, separate, analyze, print, and file results to build permanent knowledge.
• Equipment roles, visual feedback, data persistence, multiplayer authority, and save behavior were rewritten or hardened for continued development.
• The identity shifted away from a simple Minepathy port and into a substantially reworked, independently designed science mod.

Credit where it is due: Minepathy by EightSidedSquare served as the foundational base for the original 1.21.1 port. The systems that followed were extensively reworked and expanded for this project, but that early foundation made the journey possible.

⚗️ Versions 1.0.0–1.30.0 — Chemistry Fundamentals

The 1.x era turned the early foundation into a connected laboratory sandbox. Its focus was not merely adding more machines—it was making matter, equipment, research, and player knowledge behave like parts of the same system.

🧬 Chemistry rebuilt as a real gameplay loop

• Reworked the chemistry engine for more consistent molecules, formulas, properties, names, reactions, and persistence.
• Added temperature-aware chemistry with independently simulated heating, cooling, melting, boiling, and phase behavior.
• Added gas production, venting, routing, transfer, and collection using Delivery Tubes, Test Tubes, and Eudiometers.
• Added electrochemistry and a broader foundation for acid/base and inorganic behavior.
• Made dissolution and reactions incremental and resumable instead of instant all-or-nothing operations.
• Made solution colors change progressively as substances dissolve and reactions proceed.
• Added concentration, purity, conversion, yield, equivalence, pH, solubility, polarity, and other properties without presenting them as interchangeable values.
• Introduced a formula-first molecular pipeline so generated structures and systematic names originate from the same description and cannot silently disagree.

🧪 A complete family of specialized labware

• Gave Beakers, Erlenmeyer Flasks, Graduated Cylinders, and Volumetric Flasks distinct, enforceable roles.
• Added calibrated volume handling and configurable transfer increments.
• Added hand swirling for Erlenmeyer Flasks, including persistent manual-stirring progress and a visible held animation.
• Added real-time liquid levels and content colors to vessels in the world, inventory, and hand.
• Added Pipettes, Cuvettes, Eudiometers, Glass Slides, Weigh Boats, Filter Paper, Thermometers, pH Paper, and pH Meters.
• Added the hands-on Mortar and Pestle workflow for grinding crystals and other solids into powders.
• Removed or consolidated redundant equipment so each remaining apparatus has a clear purpose.

🔥 Laboratory apparatus became physical systems

• Rebuilt the Hotplate with separate heat and magnetic-stirring controls, a live surface temperature, and simultaneous processing support.
• Added the adjustable Bunsen Burner as a standalone heat source.
• Reworked the Cooling Basin into a reusable, adjustable cooling counterpart rather than an ice-consuming tax.
• Built the modular Ring Stand, supporting mounted vessels and attachments such as Burettes, Condensers, Büchner Funnels, Delivery Tubes, Cuvettes, and Test Tubes.
• Added titration, filtration, distillation, gas routing, phase separation, and column chromatography workflows.
• Added the Automatic Stopcock upgrade for precise fraction collection.
• Added the Centrifuge for emulsions and difficult density separations.
• Added the Balance/Scale and mass-aware powder handling.

📈 Separation and analytical chemistry

• Added paper chromatography with solvent-dependent resolution and stable retention factors.
• Added column chromatography with visible bands and separately collectible fractions.
• Added gravity separation and centrifugation for immiscible phases.
• Reworked the Diffractometer as an early crystal-analysis instrument.
• Rebuilt the Spectrometer around liquid Cuvettes, powder Glass Slides, and gas-filled Eudiometers.
• Added interactive molecular diagrams, spectrographs, and chromatograms with hoverable atoms, peaks, groups, bands, abundance, polarity, and phase-affinity information.
• Added impurity and incomplete-process detection so analytical instruments report a meaningful failure instead of granting impossible knowledge.

📓 Research, discovery, and the Lab Notebook

• Expanded the Lab Notebook into a persistent, player-specific research record.
• Added separate catalogs for substances, reactions, procedures, analytical resources, and experiment records.
• Required printed reports to be physically filed before results become permanent knowledge.
• Added progressive disclosure: rough analysis, full identification, and detailed structural knowledge are earned separately.
• Added unknown mixture entries such as ?-N, allowing players to know that a component exists without magically learning its identity.
• Added Pondering as a deliberate final step for unlocking complete structures and functional-group explanations.
• Added interactive page navigation, search, bookmarks, pagination, parent-page memory, and more readable layouts for large research collections.
• Added two naming modes: a grounded Realistic vocabulary and a parallel fictional Applied Science vocabulary.

🥽 Hazards, PPE, and disease systems

• Added structure-derived chemical contact and vapor hazards.
• Added route-aware protection so the correct PPE blocks the corresponding exposure pathway.
• Expanded protective equipment with Nitrile Gloves, Face Masks, Lab Coats, and Gowns beneath the full Hazmat tier.
• Added single-use and contaminated PPE states, including visibly dirty items and cross-contamination behavior.
• Preserved the deeper procedural disease system: generated pathogens, multiple transmission routes, diagnostic sampling, symptoms, cures, recovery, and immunity.

🎨 Presentation and stability

• Added true 3D held rendering for major glassware while preserving readable 2D inventory sprites.
• Reworked vessel grips, pivots, scale, and swirl movement for first- and third-person views.
• Improved narrow-tube liquid rendering, glass/content ordering, and Burette visibility.
• Added detailed block models, state-driven apparatus rendering, particles, progress feedback, and physical interaction regions.
• Fixed major synchronization issues affecting research, diseases, and equipped gloves in multiplayer.
• Hardened transfers, failed operations, partial processes, inventory behavior, save data, packet validation, and legacy-world compatibility.

By 1.30.0, the mod had grown from an updated port into a connected Chemistry Fundamentals experience with a real early-to-late laboratory progression.

🌈 Versions 2.0.0–2.6.3 — In My Elements

The 2.x era introduced the first named major update: In My Elements. It expanded the chemistry foundation to the complete periodic table, rebuilt analytical progression, and then gave the entire laboratory a cohesive visual, animation, interaction, and sound language.

⚛️ All 118 elements

• Expanded the active periodic pool from the original core chemistry set to atomic numbers 1–118.
• Added accepted names, symbols, atomic weights or representative nuclides, proton/neutron/electron counts, electron configurations, shells, groups, periods, blocks, categories, standard states, oxidation behavior, electronegativity, ionization energy, and atomic radius where scientifically supportable.
• Clearly distinguishes measured, evaluated, calculated, predicted, fictional, and unavailable information instead of inventing certainty for poorly characterized superheavy elements.
• Added deterministic per-world Applied identities for every element, including unique fictional names, symbols, hues, and accessibility patterns.
• Preserved the original six world identities when upgrading existing worlds.
• Added color-independent element patterns so crowded diagrams remain distinguishable without relying only on hue.

🔭 A new analytical progression

1. Analyze a crystal in the Diffractometer to obtain an identity-safe lattice scaffold and provisional substance record.
2. Run Molecular Analysis in the Spectrometer to reveal formula, identity, connectivity, bonds, groups, and molecular properties.
3. Run Elemental Analysis on the captured sample to characterize its atomic species.
4. Print and file each report in the Lab Notebook to make that knowledge permanent for the player.

• Rebuilt the Spectrometer as a two-mode instrument with separately targeted controls, physical carrier ports, a paper tray, stoppable/resumable operation, and private server-authoritative analysis state.
• Added staged atomization, ionization, spectral, nuclear, shell, and reconstruction visuals.
• Added session-based unknown species labels so an unfiled discovery is not leaked or remembered magically.
• Reworked the Diffractometer to report neutral atomic sites, ratios, geometry, symmetry, coordination, approximate distances/angles, crystal systems, unit-cell behavior, and powder traces without exposing hidden identities.
• Unified provisional and complete results into the same substance record so knowledge upgrades cleanly instead of producing duplicate entries.

📚 Atomic pages and inorganic chemistry

• Added permanent Lab Notebook pages for discovered elements.
• Added Minecraft-styled Bohr teaching diagrams with exact nucleus counts and electrons arranged across as many as seven shells.
• Added hoverable nuclei, shells, and electrons.
• Added full electron-configuration text and orbital-box diagrams following Pauli exclusion and Hund occupancy.
• Added charge-balanced ionic formula units and qualitative solubility rules for major salt, halide, sulfate, carbonate, phosphate, hydroxide, oxide, sulfide, selenide, and telluride families.
• Added balanced ionic double-displacement reactions with atom-ledger validation and precipitation of the less-soluble product.

🖼️ The laboratory-wide visual overhaul

• Established a bright, clinical, vanilla-plus scientific art direction across blocks, items, held forms, worn equipment, particles, and GUIs.
• Rebuilt or extensively refined the Scale, Hotplate, Cooling Basin, Centrifuge, Spectrometer, Bunsen Burner, Biohazard equipment, Microscope, Diffractometer, and supporting apparatus.
• Reworked sprites and models around recognizable silhouettes, meaningful masses, readable mechanisms, authored pixel texture, and consistent material palettes.
• Improved live machine controls, displays, carrier insertion, printed media, liquid placement, powder placement, optical elements, and animation endpoints.
• Matched visible models, selection outlines, tooltip regions, and click targets so interactions correspond to what the player actually sees.
• Added performance-conscious cached interaction geometry for complex instruments such as the Spectrometer.
• Reduced excessive break particles from highly detailed apparatus.
• Rebuilt worn PPE as layered cloth rather than rigid armor shells, with better body clearance, movement, silhouettes, and material identity.
• Gave held tools and apparatus purpose-built poses instead of relying on generic item transforms.

🔊 A laboratory that sounds physical

• Added a comprehensive material-and-action sound language covering 125 registered sound events.
• Added dedicated audio for machines, glassware, ceramic equipment, controls, valves, clamps, paper handling, liquid and powder transfer, grinding, gas connections, PPE, and analytical operation.
• Added state-bound operating loops for equipment such as the Centrifuge and Diffractometer.
• Standardized sounds by gesture and material so the same physical action remains recognizable across different equipment.
• Tuned repeated actions to remain tactile without overwhelming the surrounding Minecraft soundscape.

✨ 2.6 release polish

• 2.6.0: Integrated the redesigned art with live state, held use, animation, interaction targeting, dynamic environmental readouts, and sound lifecycles.
• 2.6.1: Improved continuous pH and temperature displays, instrument media alignment, Spectrometer ports and materials, break-particle budgets, Microscope shading, and cloth-like worn PPE.
• 2.6.2: Corrected final camera-visible alignment, Lab Coat/Gown geometry, Spectrometer screen and media placement, Microscope optical cues, and expensive per-frame targeting work.

🔬 Version 2.6.3

• Refined the Gown with a lighter medical-blue palette, clearer cloth depth, and a more natural woven appearance.
• Improved the Lab Coat with a visible recessed lining, better lower-panel clearance, and a continuous split rear tail that moves more naturally with the player.
• Reframed and rescaled the held Thermometer so its complete silhouette remains visible in first person.
• Unified the Thermometer's bulb and capillary color and retained its live visual range from approximately −30°C to 150°C.
• Reworked the Microscope slide-seat backlight to match the exact footprint and centerline of a glass slide.
• Added grounded graphite trim to the Microscope while keeping its established optical components and silhouette intact.
• Preserved the interaction-performance, media-alignment, camera, and rendering fixes completed in 2.6.0–2.6.2.
• Completed the final focused visual and presentation polish for the first Modrinth build.

📦 Release Information

A note from the laboratory

This mod rewards experimentation. Unknown substances are intentionally unknown, machines have physical controls and ports, and the Lab Notebook is part of progression—not merely a recipe book. Start small, read your equipment tooltips, print and file your reports, and let your laboratory knowledge grow with you.

Stay curious, label your glassware, and wear the right PPE. 🥼