RLCraft Hardcore Guide

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Current version of Shivaxi's Hardcore Config

Overview

This is a guide for the RLCraft Hardcore mode. It is one of the hardest modpacks in hardcore mode. It's less about completing the game, but rather how far you can actually get and how much you learn.

The guide will take you from day one to farther on. Not for the weak of mind!

General Tips

• Mitigate risks. It's better to obtain a resource in a safe if tedious way (ie. trading) than a quick but risky one (ie. dungeoneering)

• Be prepared. A random mob spawn can ruin your run even during routine tasks such as farming, woodcutting or even sleeping. Always keep your armor, weapons and trinkets on and hold at least one healing item in your inventory at all times.

• Avoid extreme weather biomes if possible. Hyper- and hypothermia can kill you even if mobs won't. Cold weather clothing doesn't provide much protection, while armor tends to make temperature hazards worse.

• Use XP as needed, rather than as available. Dying means the end of the run, so carrying unspent XP is not an extra risk, while allowing some added flexibility.

• Get the best armor possible at any given time. Spruce wood houses with guaranteed chain and iron armors can be found in most villages, while finding a wizard tower or a large village forge guarantees a diamond set just from exploring overworld surface.

• Trading is the safest way to obtain XP. String is the easiest to trade in bulk to Fletchers and Fishermen, so a base with one or both and a sizeable sheep/yale farm should be one of your earliest goals. Excess emeralds can be traded to armor/weapon/toolsmiths for reliable and safe access to diamonds.

• Do not underestimate craftable trinkets. A tool belt and quiver can be reforged with just leather, while potion rings require slightly harder but still fairly common gold. 8 extra hearts and 12% damage reduction from 4 Undying trinkets will prevent many one-shots.

Phase 1 - First Night

On your first day you want to do normal RLCraft day 1 things. Depending on where you spawn you will need to do different things.

Forest/Plains/River Spawn

Starting in a temperate biome usually has the best chances for survival, although some forests are dark enough to spawn mobs even during the day - if that's the case, pick a direction that the terrain seems the least rough and sprint until you find a clearing. Look around for buildings: sometimes you'll find a crafting table and/or a bed there that will make the start way easier.

If no structures are in sight, start with the basics. Find some gravel nearby, you'll likely need two pieces of flint unless you find some sheep or yales in the area. Also pick up any stones you'll find, 24 or, even better, 40, would be optimal. Punch some leaves for sticks, then right click the flint on a stone surface to break it into shards and make a flint knife. With it you can cut the grass clumps growing on dirt to get some plant fibers, which you can then craft into plant string. Get 3 Fibers then craft that into a string. Then you can make a flint hatchet; with the hatchet you can cut down a tree and make planks by right clicking on oak logs and make a crafting table. With the stones you can now make some cobblestones to make your initial gear: an axe, a pick-axe and a stone shield. The reason why you might need 2 pieces of flint is that if you don't have any wool-giving animals nearby, you will need exactly 39 plant fiber, which usually takes more than one knife. That makes 13 strings, 1 to make the flint axe and 12 to spin into 3 wool that you can make into a bedroll (or a bed, if you prefer - the choice is purely cosmetic at this point). Try and get this done as quick as possible to ensure you can go to sleep as soon as the sun touches the horizon - that's a VERY important habit to form, as it prevents nocturnal mobs from spawning.

Desert spawn

The desert should not kill you by hypothermia initially, so that should not be your first concern. Breaking dead shrubs can provide you with sticks and stones are easy to spot without grass on the ground, but to start out you need wood and wool. Try to spot any trees on the horizon and then sprint until you get there. Do a normal day 1 there.

Polar spawn

Unlike the desert, cold biomes can and will kill you very quickly. Take a quick look around and if you can't see any signs of a warmer biome, pick a direction that the terrain seems the least rough and start sprinting. Do not stop for any reason - trying to kill sheep or yales to make clothing will not be fast enough, unless you manage to find a structure with a crafting table and even then, you'd need a whole lot of them.

Ocean spawn

Ocean spawn, contrary to popular belief, is not always the worst. You'll basically always be close to one of either a beach (surface, get on the shore, see what biome surrounds you), or a sea structure: a castle, a resort or an undersea temple (yellow structure with a glass roof). The first has 3 chests that sometimes have some tools or planks in them as well as some fire and lava that you can warm yourself up next to, the second has beds and 6 chests (as well as 2 furnaces, if you're lucky to find a pick-axe there) and the third is a doozy: 7 chests, beds, crafting tables and furnaces.

Your first priority should be getting two planks to make into buttons and then earplugs - this can be done without the crafting table. Sirens will end your run if you happen to be anywhere in sight without plugs. You can usually spot their rocks from pretty far away, though: they are almost always a sharp cone.

Sea serpents are another concern, but they usually make themselves known by shooting their bubble beam at squids - if you hear that sound, spot them and swim in the opposite direction, you should be fine.

One more structure to keep an eye out for is the fishing hut: it's usually right next to a beach and contains a crafting table and a chest with minor loot. If you spawn near a beach, you can usually find one very easily, allowing you to skip the flint stage altogether.

One final point - as soon as you have a crafting table and 5 planks, make a boat and start looking for a proper landmass (not just n island). If you don't end up on dry land by the end of Day 1, the run's basically over.

Jungle/Swamp/Defiled Lands spawn

These are rare, but happen. Nothing to see there, start running and don't stop until in another biome.

Phase 2 - Wandering

After spending your first night, you will want to start looking for a place to settle. Take your time, most biomes are safe during the day so as long as you keep going to sleep while it's light outside, you should be good.

Preparation

Before taking off, try and assemble the following list of neccessities:

• Furnace, crafting table and bed/sleeping bag - self explanatory
• Around a half stack of dirt, cobblestone and wood/planks
• 8 bottles of purified water - dig up 9 blocks of sand and smelt them, make glass bottles, fill them with water and cook; you can drink and toss one, they stack up to 8. This will take care of thirst without requiring any resources (bar fuel) to make.
• Some bandages - two pieces of string and one wool make two; make sure you patch yourself up immediately after any combat.
• A stone melee weapon - up to preference, a spear is safer due to reach but a rapier or saber tends to kill stuff quicker.
• A stone throwing weapon - while requiring some practice, they are way better than a normal bow and arrows at this point, since they a) don't require feathers (rare early) or flint (pain in the neck to get in bulk), b) can be picked up and reused even after hitting a target, c) can be wielded alongside your shield. Choice is up to you, knives are more forgiving while javelins require less hits.

Notice I don't include food here - you can find passive mobs dropping meat in pretty much every biome, plus there are Wildberry bushes almost everywhere, which both take care of your hunger and help with thirst as well.

Foraging

While exploring, keep an eye out for resources that will come in handy in the next phase. Once you get a few levels from hunting or mining coal, focus on gathering the following:

• Iron ore - can be found close to the surface in caves sometimes, but don't go more than a few steps in; there's plenty of outcrops on the surface that are way safer. A small node contains 6 pieces, a large one has 21.
• Leather - murder any cows, horses and Maka you come across. Don't bother with leather armour - it won't help you much and you'll need a lot of that stuff later. You can also cut up any armour pieces you find with a knife, just remember that the item losing even a single hit point prevents you from doing so.
• Wool - your first two iron ingots should always go towards shears; they yield more wool than simple killing. You can also gather cobwebs with them, then right click with a knife in your main hand and the webs in your shield slot - each makes 8 string, equivalent of 2 wool.
• Eggs - a stack of 16 is usually enough to start a chicken farm.
• Sugar cane - if you're strapped for XP, remember it always grows on sand or dirt - break that block, the whole plant turns pickable.
• Wildberry bushes - they don't multiply, so any you will have later are the ones you pick up along the way.

Remember that if at any point you start running out of space there's a few ways to increase your carrying capacity.

• A tool belt and quiver might free up a few spaces and don't require anything more than resources you're hoarding anyway
• A cart, while might drop off your back when travelling over rough terrain, can be built with just planks and sticks, so can be made pretty much anywhere and provides as much space as a double chest.
• The backpack has the dual drawback of requiring a gold ingot and taking up your chest spot, but provides a reasonable amount of conventient storage space.
• Many villages have crates that function like smaller shulker boxes, which is to say they keep their contents inside when broken.
• When it comes to it, you can also carry a chest with loot by crouch-using it.

Early threats

Even if not doing anything dangerous, there's a risk to everything you do in RLCraft. Some of the more common random spawns you will encounter:

• Reaper
  • Spawns when: killing mobs, sleeping
  • Threat: Medium - has ranged attack that fears and blinds you
  • Fight or flight: Fight - they don't deal that much damage and their attacks are easy to block; they drop bones (useful for taming wolves) and obsidian (required for reforging station)
  • Strategy: keep your shield up and run for cover; it will either give up or phase through, allowing you to swing at it with your melee weapon; don't fight from range - you can't block its shots when doing so and if you take one, it opens you up for follow-up.
• Spriggan
  • Spawns when: breaking plant blocks (sugar cane, wildberry bushes, grass)
  • Threat: medium - has a continual ranged beam attack that drains your health and poisons
  • Fight or flight: Flee - the beam can't be fully blocked and while it doesn't hurt that much by itself, the poison it inflicts does; the drops are situationally useful most of the time at best;
  • Stragety: run for cover and hit it as it approaches you.
• Ent
  • Spawns when: breaking wood or leaf blocks (inc. cutting down trees).
  • Threat: Low - slow and deals contact damage only.
  • Fight or flight: Fight - the drops are nothing to write home about, but it's very slow and susceptible to knockback;
  • Strategy: any melee atacks will keep them at bay, even your fists.
• Geonach
  • Spawns when: mining ores/coal
  • Threat: High - flies, deals significant melee damage and inflicts weight, preventing jumping and swimming; if it pushes you into water you're dead, period.
  • Fight or flight: Flee, unless you're VERY good with timing your attacks - drops are mediocre and can be obtained in other ways, while it can easily kill you even if you have some armor on already.
  • Strategy: Stay as far away from mined blocks as possible and remember to always have an escape plan that takes Weight into account (digging into the wall might help, as it's pretty wide); attacking with a pick-axe deals extra damage.
• Banshee
  • Spawns when: near an underground structure such as a mineshaft
  • Threat: High - flies erratically, phases through blocks, inflicts fear on melee attack
  • Fight or flight: Flee - Tends to chase you and if you get hit by the fear, you will sometimes not get a chance to retaliate before it hits you again, but since fear causes you to move about randomly, it slows escape to a crawl, too.
  • Strategy: Listen for their moaning and if you hear it, IMMEDIATELY run away; if unable to, keep it at bay with melee attacks - it gets knocked back pretty far, assuming you hit it.

Phase 3 - Settling Down

Finding a good spot to make your first permanent residence in Hardcore is very important. While you can make camp pretty much anywhere as long as you stick to sleeping early to prevent spawns, once you settle down you might want to work or even hunt overnight. Bloodmoons are also a factor that should not be neglected. At the same time, you want to have resources at arms' reach to make setting up easier. A few things to look out for:

Biomes

• Temperate climate. It's hard enough to deal with summer heat and winter cold without those becoming immediately lethal.
• Manageable spawns. One of the worst ways to lose a well-developed run is to die to a randomly-spawned Morock or Quetzodracl.
• Presence of neutral mobs. While with leashes you can actually pull passives for quite some distance, the big ones such as Maka and especially Arisaur are very picky about the terrain they're able to navigate.

Assets

• Waystone. Once you start exploring, it's extremely helpful to be able to teleport directly back home.
• Villagers. I can't stress it enough, trade is what will make or break your midgame. At least one fletcher/fisherman is absolutely crucial, as well as one smith. A Librarian with a enchantment like Unbreaking, Sharpness or Efficiency could be nice, but due to XP scarcity this usually does not come up until quite far into the run.
• Flatland. That one's relative, but the rule of thumb is: you should have enough space to make a farm for each of endgame foods (Maka, Arisaur, Aspid, Bobeko, Yale, Silex, Pinkies (late game) and possibly Ika if you're on the coast) as well as a vineyard, a wildberry farm, a sugar cane farm and possibly an ironberry grove. Going vertical has its merits, but is usually more trouble than it's worth.
• Neighboring biome diversity. Settling in a "boring" one means that you don't have immediate access to certain materials, so it's worth taking into account sources for the following:
  • Aspid Meat, Slimeballs (swamp, defiled lands)
  • Frost Rods (Cold biomes, ooze pools)
  • Jouste Meat (Desert)
  • Rabbit Feet (Desert, cold biome)
  • Ika Meat, Prismarine Crystals, Sea Serpent Scales (Ocean)