[TaCZ] Weapon Research & Blueprints

Build your arsenal through exploration, blueprints, and research. This add-on turns Timeless and Classics Zero (TaCZ) into a configurable progression system: find weapon blueprints, collect Scrap, analyze recovered guns, and work through a Tech Tree toward the weapons you want.

Choose Minecraft 1.20.1 with Forge or the Minecraft 1.21.1 NeoForge beta. Install the matching build and dependencies on both the client and server.

Learning a blueprint permanently unlocks its matching recipe for your player. Knowledge stays with you through death, dimension changes, logout, and server restarts. Crafting can also require a Workbench level or other server-defined progression requirements.

TLDR: I have this setup how I wanted for my own modpack by default but everything is configurable so you can easily change it however you want.

Explore, Research, and Craft

• Find blueprints while exploring. Configurable loot rewards you with blueprints, Scrap, and Research Data. Learn recipes from blueprints or recycle supported duplicates at a Blueprint Analyzer.
• Collect physical Scrap. Find it, earn it from player kills, spend it on research, or trade it. Scrap follows normal death drops. Servers can choose banked Research Points (RP).
• Plan your next weapon. Browse a searchable Tech Tree with weapon artwork, branches, pan, zoom, keyboard navigation, and an interactive minimap. Track a target and its requirements, or filter to research you can afford.
• See the full cost. Compare your resources with a blueprint's prerequisite path. Review and buy a whole path together; failed purchases don't consume partial payments.
• Build better stations. Three Research Bench tiers support research, and three crafting Workbench levels open TaCZ's native crafting screen. Servers configure research and crafting requirements separately.
• Keep a Blueprint Journal. Review discoveries, learned recipes, recent unlocks, and completion, with Getting Started guidance for your server.

Servers can use a single Research Bench or enable Portable Research through the Journal / Research key. Costs and progression requirements still apply. Toggle branch labels or focus the tree on a blueprint or branch.

Analyze Weapons and Research Data

Bring supported equipment to a Blueprint Analyzer for blueprints or fragments. Basic, Advanced, and Experimental Analyzers compare weapon and station tiers; attempts above the station's tier can produce nothing. The screen shows outcomes, costs, and saved progress. Servers can use Single Analyzer mode to handle every weapon tier at the basic station.

Research Data supplies another route to blueprints. By default, Research Notes target Tier 1 weapons, Research Reports target Tiers 1–2, and Research Dossiers target Tiers 1–3. Higher Analyzer tiers improve Data outcomes. Archive matching analysis fragments to reconstruct a blueprint; already learned targets can still produce duplicate rewards.

Ordinary fragments found through loot have separate progress and settings. Completed sets can discount research, reconstruct a blueprint, or return currency for a learned weapon. Servers also control weapon recovery and recycling. Successful processing returns loaded ammo, with overflow dropped at your feet.

Establish Village Traders

Place a Gunsmith Station or Ballistics Desk near an unemployed adult villager. The Gunsmith sells selected guns, matching ammo, and attachments. On Forge, supported TaCZ Magazines content also adds matching empty basic-magazine offers for guns that need them.

The Ballistics Researcher sells Research Data and targeted analysis fragments. Bring those supplies to the Blueprint Analyzer. Purchases don't automatically learn recipes; protected reconstructed blueprints respect prerequisites and can't be recycled for currency under the default rules.

Both professions use the familiar trading screen and five villager levels. Products stay selected through restocking; stock is shared between players. They accept physical research currency, or Emeralds in banked RP mode. Pack authors can change stock and currency. Craftable job sites work in existing worlds.

Design and Configure Progression

Research Designer lets you build custom Tech Trees in game. Copy the server's tree or start an empty project, add weapons, connect paths, and edit costs and prerequisites. Test simulated progress, export a datapack, or share an editable project. Open it from the title or pause menu or /researchdesigner. Capturing server data requires operator permission level 2; local editing does not.

Configure loot, starting blueprints, discovery visibility, research and crafting tiers, and progression exemptions. Datapacks can customize branches, requirements, Analyzer rewards, Data pools, and villager trades. The automatic tree adapts to compatible TaCZ catalogs; pack authors can select exact weapons. To enable the included ammo and attachment Tech Trees, set Ammo Research and Attachment Research to Enabled under Server Settings → Research Progression, with Enable Research on. The default Use Profile choice follows your datapack's category rules; weapons are the only category enabled by the built-in profile. Saving the settings updates connected players without a reload or additional datapack. See the operations guide.

On Forge 1.20.1, TaCZ Magazines 0.2.0-Beta adds empty-magazine crafting at the three Workbench levels and TaCZ's ammo Workbench. Servers can require learned compatible weapons and minimum Workbench levels. Eject inserted magazines before analyzing a gun. This integration is not available in the NeoForge beta.

Getting Started

1. Install matching mod versions on the client and server, with required dependencies.
2. Explore for blueprints, Scrap, and Data; use blueprints to learn recipes.
3. Open the Journal, then craft a Research Bench and the appropriate crafting Workbench.
4. Build an Analyzer to process equipment and Data or archive fragments. Leave two adjacent blocks of space; either half opens it.
5. Establish village traders for equipment and research supplies.

Requirements

Use the dependencies built for your chosen Minecraft version and loader. The NeoForge beta requires the unofficial NeoForge TaCZ port; the Forge TaCZ JAR cannot be used with it. Newer TaCZ versions are accepted by the dependency requirement, but future API changes can still require a compatibility update.

Back up worlds before updating. Start the NeoForge beta in a new world; migration of Forge 1.20.1 worlds and player progress is not supported by this beta. For supported updates within the Forge version, learned recipes, discoveries, fragment archives, and saved RP carry over. Changing currency modes does not turn RP into items automatically; see the currency migration guide. Report issues with mod and dependency versions, installed content packs, and the relevant latest.log.