PLAYING MIGHTYPEAR

Part one

Install & join

1. Java 17. Prism can fetch one for you — if it complains on first launch, let it download. Otherwise install Temurin 17.
2. Prism Launcher. Free. The Modrinth App and ATLauncher work too; these steps assume Prism.
3. Download the pack from the downloads page. Take the .mrpack unless you're offline.
4. Import it — Add Instance → Import → pick the file.
5. Use your Ironvale name. The server is offline-mode so cracked accounts work, but the whitelist is the Ironvale roster. A different name gets refused.
6. Add the server: mightypear.parallex.in — no port number.

Part one — alternative

TLauncher / SKlauncher

Use this if you're on TLauncher, SKlauncher, or the official launcher. None of them can import a .mrpack or a Prism instance, so the mods go in by hand. It's a few more steps, but it works exactly the same once you're in.

1. Java 17

Forge 1.20.1 will not run on anything newer or older. Adoptium Temurin 17 is the usual one. Most launchers can fetch it for you.

2. Install Forge 47.4.23

The version has to match the server exactly. How you do it depends on your launcher:

• TLauncher — easiest. Open the version dropdown on the main screen, tick Forge in the filter, and pick Forge 1.20.1. It installs it itself. If it offers several 1.20.1 builds, take 47.4.23; if that exact one isn't listed, use the installer below instead.
• SKlauncher / official launcher — launch plain 1.20.1 once and let it reach the main menu (this creates .minecraft), then run the exact installer, choose Install client, and point it at that folder. Restart the launcher and pick the Forge 1.20.1 profile.

3. Find your .minecraft folder

Windows — %appdata%\.minecraft
macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft
Linux — ~/.minecraft

TLauncher sometimes uses its own game directory. If you're not sure, open Settings → Game directory and use whatever path it shows there.

4. Put the mods in

Unzip Mightypear-1.3-mods.zip and copy its mods folder into .minecraft. You should end up with .minecraft/mods/ holding 51 jar files.

Optionally copy options.txt and the config folder across too — those carry the low-end video settings and the Mightypear title screen. It overwrites your existing settings, so skip it if you've customised things.

5. Memory, then go

Set memory to 4 GB in your launcher's Java settings, launch the Forge profile, and add mightypear.parallex.in.

Worth knowing: TLauncher has a mixed reputation over bundled extras and telemetry. It works fine for this, but if you'd rather not, Prism Launcher is free, open source, and handles the .mrpack in two clicks.

Read this before you join

You have to register first

The server is offline-mode, which means anyone could otherwise log in using your name. So it runs a password system — the same idea as Ironvale's. The very first time you join, you pick a password.

1. Join the server. You'll be frozen, blinded, and your inventory hidden. That's expected — it's not a broken install.
2. Type: /register yourpassword yourpassword
   (twice, to confirm it). Pick something you'll remember.
3. Every join after that: /login yourpassword
4. Change it later with /changepassword oldpass newpass.

Your password is stored hashed (bcrypt with a salt), not in plain text. Still, don't reuse a password that matters to you — it's a Minecraft server, not a bank.

Part two

How to get a dragon

This is the thing everyone gets stuck on, because it doesn't start with dragons. It starts with a villager. You cannot tame anything until you've done the trading step.

1. Find a Hooligan villager. They're the dragon-mod villager profession — check villages, including the ones Repurposed Structures and Towns & Towers generate.
2. Trade with them to unlock the good stock.
3. Buy the Book of Dragons. This is the key item — it's the in-game reference for every species. Shift-click any tamed dragon while holding it to inspect that dragon.
4. Buy a Roost Map. Five exist: Barrens, Cave, Cliff, Glade, Wetland. Right-click one and it points toward the matching roost.
5. Follow it to the Roost and look for scales on the ground nearby — the trail tells you which species lives there before you walk in.
6. Tame one. Seven species across five classes — Gronckle, Deadly Nadder, Night Fury, Monstrous Nightmare, Skrill, Whispering Death, Hiddeous Zippleback.
7. Bind a Dragon Whistle — right-click your tamed dragon with it, and you can summon that dragon later. It only works outdoors, in the Overworld.
8. Ride it, then breed two for an egg. Eggs need incubating — place them to continue. Keep working the same dragon for bonded status.

What to do with scales

A Viking Anvil turns scales into Fireproof Scalemail (immune to fire and lava) and Night Fury scale armour. Gronckles produce Gronckle Iron, a crafting metal. A Rattle-Staff commands several of your dragons at once — follow, move, sit, or attack a target.

Part three

The Aether

A whole second dimension above the clouds. To get in, build a portal frame out of glowstone — same shape as a Nether portal — and pour a water bucket into it. No flint and steel.

Bring gear. The mod's own description for the place is "Hostile Paradise", and it has its own progression: bronze, silver and gold dungeons, each with their own loot and boss.

Part four

Voice chat

It's already in the pack — Simple Voice Chat, nothing extra to install. It's proximity based: you hear people near you, and they fade as they walk away.

• Press V to open the voice chat menu the first time and pick your microphone.
• All the keys — push to talk, whisper, mute mic, groups, volumes — are under Options → Controls → Voice Chat. Set push-to-talk there if you'd rather not use voice activation.
• Groups let you talk to specific people regardless of distance — useful when you split up.
• If nobody can hear you, it's almost always the wrong input device in the voice chat menu.

Part five

Using the mods

The ones you'll actually touch every session.

Finding out how anything works

• JEI — hover any item and press R for its recipe, U for what it's used in. With 56 mods installed this is the most useful key on your keyboard.
• Jade — look at any block or mob and it names it at the top of the screen.

Carrying things

• Sophisticated Backpacks — craft one early. It takes upgrades: a pickup upgrade hoovers drops straight in, a magnet pulls them from a distance, stack upgrades multiply capacity.

Getting around

• Waystones — right-click one to bind it, then warp between any you've touched. They're common near villages. Warp scrolls and stones let you jump without walking back.
• Xaero's Minimap + World Map — minimap in the corner, full map on its own key. Set waypoints on things you want to find again; roosts are worth marking.
• Simple Hot Air Balloons — slow, scenic, and genuinely fun before you have a dragon.

Staying alive and fed

• Farmer's Delight — cutting board, cooking pot and skillet. Proper meals give much better effects than bread. Knives are also solid early weapons.
• Comforts — sleeping bags and hammocks let you skip night anywhere without hauling a bed or resetting your spawn.
• Supplementaries — hundreds of vanilla-styled decorative and utility blocks: sconces, hanging signs, item shelves, safes, flags.

Where the loot is

• 351 structures across eleven mods. When Dungeons Arise builds the big set-pieces; the YUNG's mods replace vanilla dungeons, mineshafts, strongholds, fortresses, monuments and desert temples with far larger versions; Towns & Towers and Repurposed Structures expand villages and outposts; Structory and Dungeons & Taverns scatter smaller hand-built pieces.
• Terralith reshapes the Overworld into close to 100 biomes, and BetterNether and BetterEnd do the same to the other two dimensions. The End is worth visiting in this pack, which is not true in vanilla.

Part six

Every mod in the pack

Search it or filter by category. "Side" says whether a mod runs on the server, only on your client, or both.

Optional

Shaders

Yes, shaders work — but none are installed. The pack ships Oculus, which is the shader loader for Forge, and deliberately ships no shaderpack. That way the pack is fast by default and shaders are something you opt into, rather than something you have to figure out how to turn off.

Turning them on

1. Download a shaderpack .zip. Don't unzip it.
2. Drop it in your shaderpacks folder. In Prism: right-click the instance → Folder → shaderpacks. Manual installs: .minecraft/shaderpacks.
3. In game: Options → Video Settings → Shader Packs, pick it, done.

If you want to try anyway

• Weak machine / integrated graphics: start with one of the "lite" or "enhanced default" packs — Sildur's does well-known light versions. Expect to still lose a lot of frames.
• Decent GPU: Complementary or BSL are the usual picks, and most have Low / Medium / High presets in their own settings screen. Turn the preset down before blaming the pack.
• Drop render distance to 6 the moment you enable shaders. The two multiply.
• Never install OptiFine to get shaders. Oculus already does the job, and OptiFine and Embeddium both replace the renderer — installing both crashes the game on startup.

Shaders are purely client-side. Using them doesn't affect anyone else, and not using them doesn't disadvantage you.

Part seven

Make it run better

In order of how much they buy you. The first one is worth more than everything else combined.

Eleven performance mods already ship on your side — Embeddium, ImmediatelyFast, Entity Culling, FerriteCore, ModernFix, Memory Leak Fix, Starlight, BadOptimizations, Dynamic FPS, Cull Leaves and Clumps. Adding more will not help.

Part eight

When something breaks