The One Probe — Guide

Probe Modes

The overlay can run in more than one mode, letting you choose how much information is shown and whether an item is required to see it.

Look mode (default)

The tooltip appears simply by looking at a target. No item is needed - just point your crosshair and read.

Held-item mode

You can switch to a mode where the tooltip only appears while you are holding a physical Probe item. This keeps the HUD clean until you actually want to inspect something, and makes the probe feel like a diagnostic tool you equip.

Creative Probe

The Creative Probe is an extended-detail tool. When held, it reveals deeper, technical readouts - useful for building, testing, and debugging setups - showing hidden values that the normal tooltip leaves out.

Tips

Use the source-mod line to quickly figure out which mod added a mystery block or creature you found while exploring a large modpack.
Watch the health bar while fighting to time your final hit instead of over-committing.
Sweep your crosshair across a row of machines to read all their progress and energy at once without opening any of them.
Check the harvest tool and level before mining an unknown ore so you bring the right pickaxe and do not waste the block.
If the overlay feels busy, toggle off the pieces you never use and shrink or reposition the box so it stays out of your way.

The overlay is drawn as a small floating box, usually near the top of the screen, and it refreshes every frame as you look around.

It appears only when you are actually looking at something - it clears itself when your crosshair points at empty air or the sky.
The layout is compact and icon-driven, mixing short text lines with small icons (tool icons, hearts, meters) so it reads at a glance.
The contents change automatically depending on whether the target is a block, a machine, or a living entity.
Nothing about it is intrusive: it does not pause the game, block your view of the world, or require a keypress to summon.

Looking at Blocks

Point at any block and the tooltip identifies it and tells you how to deal with it.

Block name - the readable display name of the block.
Source mod - which mod the block belongs to, so you instantly know where an unfamiliar block came from.
Harvest tool - the tool type needed to mine it (pickaxe, axe, shovel, etc.), shown as an icon.
Harvest level - the tier of tool required (for example, whether a block needs an iron-or-better pickaxe), so you know before you swing whether you will get a drop.
Block state details - relevant properties of the block, such as which way it faces or its current stage.

Machine and Block Data

For blocks that hold or process things, the overlay reads their live internal data and displays it right on the tooltip - so you can monitor a build without opening a single GUI.

Progress

Crafting and smelting progress appears as a bar, so you can see how far along a furnace or machine is.
Crop and plant growth shows the current growth stage of farmland and growing blocks.

Power and storage

Energy - stored power and capacity for energy-holding blocks, shown as a meter.
Fluid tanks - the type and amount of liquid held in a tank block.
Inventory contents - the items currently sitting inside a container or machine.

Redstone

Redstone power level - the signal strength a block is emitting or receiving, useful for debugging contraptions.

Because all of this is on the HUD, you can glance at an entire wall of machines and read their state just by sweeping your crosshair across them.

Looking at Mobs

When your crosshair lands on a living entity, the tooltip switches to an entity readout.

Entity name - the name of the mob or animal you are aiming at.
Source mod - which mod the entity comes from, handy for identifying creatures from content mods.
Health bar - a live bar showing the target's current and maximum hearts, so you know exactly how much damage it has left before it dies.
The readout updates continuously, so you can watch a mob's health drop in real time as you fight it.