SLR: Forgeworks

An add-on for SoloCraft: Reawakening

Magic beasts drop more than mana crystals now.

Forgeworks adds monster materials, crystal alloys, and a chain of workstations that turn what you cut off a beast into what you carry into the next gate. Every material arrives at the rank of the mob that dropped it, so an S-rank fang will drop from an S-rank mob.

Drop rates are displayed using JEI with JER.

Requires SoloCraft: Reawakening. This mod does nothing on its own.

What it does

Beasts drop materials

Kill something in a gate and it may leave hide, fang, horn, bone, carapace or gem shards behind. What drops depends on the creature: wolves give hide and fangs, skeletons give bone, golems give gem shards, and demons give horn.

The rank of what drops is the rank of the mob that died, read from the same system SoloCraft uses for everything else. Fight in an E-rank gate, get E-rank materials. Fight something that was always going to be S-rank, and it drops accordingly.

Higher ranks are rarer. Drop chances are fully configurable through a datapack and are currently very unbalanced.

Seven workstations

The mana network

Pylons swallow mana crystals whole and bank their charge. An S crystal is worth thirty-two E crystals. Mana-powered stations conduct, so a pylon feeding a forge feeding another pylon is one shared pool, and you can see it: connected blocks grow crystal conduits toward each other.

Break a pylon and it keeps its charge. Place it again and the mana is still there.

Crystal alloys

Mana crystal plus metal, melted together at the forge. Iron carries the lower ranks, gold takes over at B, diamond at A, and netherite at S. The result is a veined ingot that shapes into any weapon part or armour plating on the anvil.

Weapons

Every weapon has its own 3D model, not a flat sprite, and every material that makes weapons makes a full set at every rank: dagger, sword and bow.

Crystal alloy is the baseline. Its daggers and swords hit as hard as SoloCraft's own tier weapons of the same rank, with crystal-veined blades, bevelled cutting edges and a glowing crystal ridge. Every material without weapons of its own, which currently means horn, bone, carapace and gem, still makes crystal alloy parts.

Fang makes weapons of its own: curved fang blades on a spiral-wrapped grip. Fang's trait is armour piercing: every hit ignores part of the target's armour, from 10% at E up to 25% at S. In exchange, fang weapons deal about 10% less damage than crystal alloy, so they shine against armoured enemies rather than everywhere. Fang does not make armour.

Crystal Alloy Armour

A full set at every rank: helmet, chestplate, leggings and boots.

Armour is two materials. Lining is cut from hide at the leatherworking station. Plating is shaped from horn, bone, carapace or crystal alloy, using a stencil for the piece you want. The anvil fits one plating out with lining and hands you the finished piece.

Material cost matches vanilla armour: four for boots, five for a helmet, seven for leggings, eight for a chestplate, with the hide on top of that.

Every piece has its own model rather than a flat texture layer, and the alloy's crystal veining runs across the whole set. Because the metal changes with rank, so does the armour: steel through the lower ranks, gold at B, pale blue at A, dark violet at S.

E-rank already beats iron. D matches diamond, C passes netherite, and B upward is past anything vanilla offers.

Bows

SoloCraft gives hunters only one bow, and it cannot be obtained through normal play. Forgeworks adds ranked crystal alloy bows and fang bows, assembled at the anvil from two limbs and a handle. Fang bows carry fang's armour piercing on their arrows.

As the rank goes up, the bows draw faster and hit harder.

Every bow works with the mana quiver skill, and the nocked arrow sits on the string through all three draw stages.

Gear that lasts

Forgeworks armour, weapons and bows are never destroyed. At their last point of durability they break with the usual sound, but stay in your inventory with a red overlay. Broken armour gives no protection, a broken sword or dagger hits like a bare hand, and a broken bow will not draw until it has been repaired.

No single hit can take more than 2% of an armour piece's durability, so even the heaviest hitters cannot shred a set in a handful of blows.

The Repair Station

A two by two workstation with three pedestals and a crystal hanging over each. Every item placed in it regains 1% of its durability per second, all three at once, for one mana per point. Your gear floats over the pedestals while it repairs, with mana arcing onto it from the crystals above.

It repairs anything from Forgeworks or SoloCraft that takes damage, including broken Forgeworks gear.

The anvil

Two modes. Shaping turns alloy ingots into blades, handles, bow limbs and plating. Assembly puts a matching-rank blade and handle together into a dagger or sword of the blade's material, strings two limbs onto a handle to make a bow, or fits armour plating out with lining.

SoloCraft: Dungeon Expansion

Almost every creature in the Dungeon Expansion drops Forgeworks materials as well as its own, at its own rank. Ranks above S count as S.

Recipe viewer support

Full JEI integration with a page for every station, showing the rank required, the mana or knife needed, and how long it takes. Every repairable item has a repair page with its mana cost and repair time. Full JER support too, so you can look up any material and see exactly which beasts drop it at which rank and what the drop chances are.

Getting started

1. Craft a Mana Pylon and feed it crystals.
2. Craft a Forge and put it next to the pylon, it needs mana to function.
3. Make a Processing Knife from a stick and a crystal.
4. Craft a Bonecutting Station, and cut your first blade.
5. Build the Mana Anvil, and put blade and handle together.

For armour, add a Leatherworking Station for lining, then shape plating at the bonecutting station or the anvil. When your gear starts to wear, build a Repair Station beside a pylon.

You will need stencils, one each for sword blades, dagger blades, handles, bow limbs, armour lining, and one per armour piece. They are crafted, reusable, and never consumed.

Work in progress

This is an early build. The systems work; the polish does not exist yet.

What is currently being worked on

• Around 12 item textures are still placeholders with a rank letter on them.
• Every balance number is a test value. Drop rates, crafting times, mana costs, knife durability. None of it has been tuned against real play. Monster material drop rates in particular are low enough that the crystal alloy route is currently the cheaper one, which is backwards.

What is coming before 1.0

• More materials with an identity of their own. Fang is the first, with its own weapons and armour piercing. Horn, bone, carapace and gem are next, each with its own trait, and armour is already named for the split.

After 1.0: better models and textures throughout. The goal for 1.0 is that everything works, not that everything looks good.

Bug reports and suggestions are welcome. If something is unbalanced, please also suggest balance changes.

Compatibility

Not affiliated with the creators or rights holders of Solo Leveling. This is a fan add-on to a fan mod.