Dark Utilities Mod — Guide

Vector Plates & Movement

Vector Plates are the cornerstone of Dark Utilities, functioning as flat, rotatable blocks that push entities in a specific direction. Unlike vanilla water streams, mobs can spawn directly on top of Vector Plates, making them ideal for high-efficiency mob farms.

Plate Variants

Mechanics

• Sneaking: Players and mobs that are sneaking (holding Shift) are not affected by the movement of Vector Plates.
• Redstone Control: Powering a Vector Plate with a redstone signal will disable its movement effect.
• Waterlogging: Vector Plates can be waterlogged, allowing them to function underwater.
• Lightning Conversion: If a lightning rod adjacent to a chain of Vector Plates is struck, up to 64 plates can be converted into higher tiers.

Traps & Damage Plates

Traps are flat blocks that apply specific effects to any living entity that steps on them. They are essential for automating mob grinders or defending a base.

Damage Plates

• Damage Plate: Deals 3 hearts of generic damage to entities.
• Maim Damage Plate: Deals non-lethal damage (0.5 hearts), reducing mobs to low health without killing them—perfect for manual XP farming.
• Player Damage Plate: Deals 3 hearts of "player-type" damage. Mobs killed by this plate will drop experience orbs and player-only rare drops (like music discs or carrots).

Status Effect Traps

These traps apply potion effects to entities for as long as they remain on the block: * Flame Trap: Sets the entity on fire. * Slowness Trap: Applies Slowness III. * Weakness Trap: Reduces attack damage. * Poison Trap: Applies Poison effect. * Wither Trap: Applies the Wither debuff. * Levitation Trap: Causes the entity to float upwards. * Darkness/Blindness Trap: Impairs vision. * Hunger Trap: Rapidly depletes hunger bars. * Frost Trap: Causes the entity to begin freezing (as if in powdered snow).

Charms & Player Utilities

Charms provide passive benefits while held in the player's inventory or equipped in a dedicated charm slot (if mods like Curios are installed).

• Portal Charm: Removes the "waiting" time for Nether and End portals, allowing for instant travel.
• Sleep Charm: Prevents the accumulation of Insomnia (stopping Phantoms from spawning) and allows the player to sleep instantly in a bed without the animation.
• Warding Charm: Causes negative status effects to wear off twice as fast.
• Experience Charm: Increases the pickup radius for experience orbs and slightly boosts the amount of XP dropped by mobs.
• Null Charm: Automatically deletes specific items that enter the player's inventory. Can be configured by right-clicking the charm.

Automation & Redstone

Dark Utilities adds several components to simplify complex redstone circuits and automation tasks.

• Ender Tether: A block that intercepts any Ender Pearls thrown within a 32-block radius, teleporting the player or entity to the Tether's location instead of the pearl's impact point.
• Redstone Randomizer: Periodically toggles its redstone output on and off at random intervals.
• Shielded Redstone: A redstone block that only emits a signal from one specific side, preventing accidental interference with adjacent wires.
• Item Grate: Allows items to fall through it but prevents mobs and players from passing.
• Slime Crucible: A specialized crafting station. By "feeding" it slimes and specific items, players can produce rare materials like Slime Eggs or specialized dusts.

Decorative & Miscellaneous

The mod includes several decorative blocks and unique materials used in its high-tier recipes.

• Colored Slime Blocks: 16 color variants of the vanilla slime block that do not stick to each other if they are different colors.
• Wither Dust: A crafting material obtained from Wither Skeletons, used to create Wither-themed decorative blocks (Bricks, Carved, Chiseled).
• Dark Glass: A glass variant that prevents light from passing through, allowing for mob-spawning rooms that are still visible to the player.
• Tomes: Special books like the Enchanting Tome (consumes XP to re-roll enchantment table seeds) and the Tome of Shadows (used to toggle the visibility of certain blocks).

Mob Filters

Mob Filters are specialized blocks that act as a solid wall to most entities but allow specific types to pass through as if the block were air. This allows for complex sorting systems in mob farms.

Available Filter Types

• Player Filter: Only allows players to pass.
• Hostile Filter: Only allows hostile mobs (Zombies, Creepers, etc.).
• Animal Filter: Only allows passive animals (Pigs, Cows, etc.).
• Child Filter: Only allows baby mobs.
• Undead Filter: Only allows undead mobs (Skeletons, Zombies).
• Arthropod Filter: Only allows Spiders, Cave Spiders, and Silverfish.
• Villager Filter: Only allows Villagers.
• Illager/Raider Filter: Only allows Pillagers, Vindicators, and Witches.
• Slime Filter: Only allows Slimes and Magma Cubes.
• Pet Filter: Only allows tamed animals.
• Equipment Filter: Only allows mobs wearing armor or holding items.

Advanced Logic

• Inversion: Sneak-clicking a filter block with an empty hand will invert its logic (e.g., an Inverted Player Filter allows everything except players to pass).
• Redstone: Powering a filter with redstone makes it solid to all entities, regardless of its type.

Sneaky Blocks & Camouflage

Sneaky Blocks are utility blocks that can mimic the texture of any other block in the game. By right-clicking a Sneaky block with another block in hand, the Sneaky block will adopt that texture perfectly while retaining its original properties.

• Sneaky Block: A standard block that can look like anything.
• Sneaky Lever: A functional lever that can be hidden as a wall block.
• Sneaky Pressure Plate: A pressure plate that is invisible when camouflaged.
• Sneaky Torch: A light source that can look like a solid block.
• Sneaky Obsidian: Has the blast resistance of obsidian but can look like glass or dirt.
• Sneaky False Block: A block that looks solid but has no collision, allowing players to walk through "walls."