Storage you dig

There are no chests in a salt marsh. There is water, and what sinks into it.

In Saltmere you dig a pond and fill it with brine. Each brine source block holds stacks of items. Throw an item into the pond and it sinks into the hoard of that pool. Make the pond bigger and it holds more. Pour a canal to the next pond and the two pools become one. At the Angler's Pier you see everything the pond holds, and the items drift as glints on the water.

Saltmere is new. There could still be bugs that have to be fixed.

How the mere works

Pour, drop, grow, steep, connect, dry out, recover.

• A pool is all the brine source blocks that touch. One pool has one hoard.
• Capacity comes from the water. Each source adds capacity: brackish 4 stacks, deep 16 stacks, abyssal 64 stacks. Flowing brine holds nothing.
• Items sink in. An item that falls into brine sinks after half a second with a plop and joins the hoard. A water stream that carries items into the pond feeds it too. When the pool is full, the item floats.
• Ponds merge and split. A new source that touches two pools merges them, and both piers show the same hoard. A dam that cuts a pool in two divides the items by the capacity of each part.
• Nothing is lost. When the last source of a pool goes, the hoard condenses into a Hoard Crust. Mine it to get a Hoard Pearl, then drop the pearl into any pond to merge the hoard back.
• No infinite brine. Brine makes no new sources and does not mix with water. Lava that touches brine turns into a Block of Salt.

Three tiers of brine

Brackish Brine

Craft a Brackish Brine Bucket from a water bucket and 3 Salt. Each source holds 4 stacks. A 3 x 3 pond holds 36 stacks.

Deep Brine

Drop Tide Salt into a pool. A wave of colour spreads out from where it sank and turns up to 32 brackish sources into deep brine. Each source holds 16 stacks. Tide Salt needs prismarine crystals and a nautilus shell from the ocean.

Abyssal Brine

Drop Abyssal Salt into deep brine and the wave turns it abyssal. Each source holds 64 stacks, and the water glows in the dark. Abyssal Salt needs echo shards and sculk from an ancient city.

The hoard screen

Open it at the Angler's Pier, from up to 24 blocks away with the Mere Rod, or from anywhere with the Conch.

• Search: type a name, @mod for a mod, or #tag for an item tag.
• Sort by count, name, mod or newest, and flip the order. Tabs for blocks, tools, food and other items.
• Mouse: left click takes a stack, right click takes half, shift-click moves a stack into your inventory, ctrl-click takes all that fits. Shift and the scroll wheel move one item in or out.
• Keys: 1 to 9 put a stack in that hotbar slot, Q drops one item, ctrl+Q drops a stack. Ctrl+F goes to the search.
• Deposit puts your main inventory in. Match puts in only the items the hoard already has.
• Gauge: the water level shows how full the pool is, with a band for each brine tier.
• Name: each pool gets a name, like "Heron's Rest Mere". Click the title to rename it.

Blocks and items

• Angler's Pier: the terminal. Put it next to a pool to open its hoard.
• Sluice Gate: connects hoppers and pipes to the hoard on all sides. A filter of 9 ghost slots sets which items pass. A comparator reads the fill level. Its side wheels turn while items flow.
• Mere Rod: opens the hoard of the pond you look at. Select an item and it leaps out of the water to you. Sneak and use to put your main inventory into the pond.
• Conch: bind it to a pier, then open that hoard from anywhere, also from another dimension. With Curios, wear it in a charm slot and press K.
• Hoard Pearl: holds a dried hoard. Its tooltip shows the top items. Fire, explosions and despawning do not destroy it.
• Salt Pan: renewable salt from water, sun and open sky. It is faster in hot biomes. A hopper below pulls the salt out.
• Rock Salt Ore, Block of Salt, Salt Bricks and the warm Salt Lamp for building.
• Paludier's Logbook: the in-game guide. You get it the first time you pick up Salt.

Features

• Big storage that stays fast: tens of thousands of item types in one pool. Insert, extract and count are hash lookups, so the size of the hoard does not slow the server.
• Automation: the Sluice Gate is an item handler for hoppers, pipes and other mods, with a filter and a comparator output.
• Multiplayer: the server keeps the hoards. The screen gets a snapshot when it opens and only the changes after that.
• Safe data: a hoard keeps items from removed mods as dormant entries, so they come back when the mod returns. Breaking a pier or a sluice never touches the hoard.
• Recovery: the /saltmere command lists the hoards and gives an operator a pearl for a hoard that has no pool.
• Polish: synthesised sounds, splash, bubble and steeping particles, item glints on the water, and a config for capacity, ranges and visuals.
• Integrations: JEI recipe categories (salt pan, steeping, lava flash) and info pages, Jade tooltips for the pier, sluice, brine, crust and pan, and a Curios charm slot for the Conch. All are optional.

Getting started

1. Mine Rock Salt Ore, or build a Salt Pan from 5 mud bricks and fill it with water.
2. Craft a Brackish Brine Bucket from a water bucket and 3 Salt.
3. Dig a pond and pour the brine in.
4. Craft an Angler's Pier and put it at the edge of the pond.
5. Throw your items into the water.

Open the Paludier's Logbook for the full guide.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.11 with NeoForge 21.11.48 or newer.
• No required libraries.
• Optional: JEI, Jade, Curios.

All textures, models, sounds and code of Saltmere are original work.