Tetras’ Construct!… wait what?

Yeah, I'll admit that's a bit cursed to look at.

Hey everyone! I've been building an expert modpack for almost a year now, and originally the tool system was going to revolve around Silent Gear. I do like it… but honestly it never had the depth I was looking for to make progression feel truly immersive and unique. After chatting with some playtesters, I ended up landing on a slightly insane idea.

Tetra has one of the most unique tool-building systems out there right now, it genuinely makes you feel like the tool you're holding matters and has a life of its own, with a gorgeous HUD that breaks away from the usual crafting grid entirely. For someone who's been playing expert packs with the same tool systems for years, it's a very welcome shift.

But then… there's the beloved Tinkers' Construct. A classic. Choosing between them was harder than it sounds — so hard that I figured maybe the more interesting move was to combine both. I genuinely love Tinkers, but engaging with the same loop and the same tools for 8+ years started feeling a little stale to me personally. And that's exactly the thinking that led to this middle ground.

The idea: every Tetra part and modifier gets crafted through Tinkers. Pickaxe heads, bindings, handles, blades, all of it. But instead of assembling those into Tinkers tools, they become components for Tetra to build its own tools with, making the whole tool-crafting process even richer.

Yes, that means having Tinkers in the pack without access to the tools it actually generates. And it also means stripping out a big chunk of its internals — probably the first time someone's put Tinkers in a pack where its tools, which are kind of the whole point of the mod, are simply not an option.

To make sure the integration actually feels cohesive, all the normalization work will be applied throughout. As you can see in the second image, Tinkers' original stat tooltips have been replaced with custom ones that mirror Tetra's own stat language, so material comparisons stay consistent across both mods. This also means you can look materials up directly in JEI if you want something more straightforward than the in-world holosphere, without feeling like you're context-switching between two completely different systems.

Either way, it's just one more weird idea I'm throwing at this modpack, all in the name of building something expert that actually feels fresh and fun. Would love to hear what you think!

Oh, and the playtest is finally live after a year of development! Perhaps there is no public instance yet (distribution still closed via manifest), If you're interested in joining and helping me stress-test more cursed ideas like this one, just send me a DM or drop a comment and I'll reach out 😀