Ecologics for Minecraft

Review Ecologics

Ecologics: A Mod Diversifying the In-Game Biomes

Have you noticed that some biomes in the Minecraft game world look rather empty, and there are no mobs and blocks there that would be peculiar only to them? If you see such a problem, you can install some add-ons that will help you solve it. Thus, you can consider using a mod called Ecologics, which may appeal to you thanks to its additions to the in-game biomes. All the content featured by it is made in the vanilla style, so it will not spoil the original style of the game in any way but only slightly diversify it. All because there will now be more diversity not only in terms of blocks and objects but also in terms of new mobs living in certain biomes. At the moment, the mod changes four biomes, which, from the designer's viewpoint, were empty and rather boring. In this review, you will learn basic information about all the modified biomes where new blocks and mobs have appeared.

Desert Biomes

New Mob: The Camel

There was previously nothing interesting in this biome: you could only find a couple of dead bushes, cacti, and endless dunes there. This mod changes everything, as besides the above, new blocks and mobs will appear in this biome. Thus, you can now find a new creature there — the camel. Perhaps you have heard that in update 1.20, the developers decided to add a camel. But you can already look at it, thanks to this mod. Indeed, the characteristics of this camel are very similar to the one of the forthcoming update. Unlike the horse, the camel is capable of bearing two players at once, which is very convenient for traveling with a friend. You can place a chest on the tamed camel to ensure extra storage space for your stuff. It goes without saying that the camel will move slower than the horse, but its speed is quite satisfactory and comfortable.

Taming the Camel

The camel is tamed in the same way as the horse. That is, you need to constantly sit on it, and over time it will naturally tame. After that, you will be able to ride it at any time and move around the game world. However, many features of the 1.20 camel are absent here. So it is a kind of an early version of the camel with few features. You can feed it with dead bushes and cacti. Camels are bred with the help of prickly pear.

New Plant: The Prickly Pear

The prickly pear is a cactus with a bud on the top. It has several stages of growth. First, you will notice a small red bud, later a yellow larger bud, and finally, a full-blown bin that is similar in size to a head. You can pick it at any stage, but the number of fruits will be different. If you want more prickly pears, it is better to pick them at the final stage of growth. Prickly pear is used as food for camels for their subsequent breeding. Besides, you can also eat them, and they will replenish as many as four hunger points, i.e., two icons. However, the raw fruit will hurt you a bit. So if you want to make this fruit a more healthy meal, you should cook it in a furnace.

Desert Ruins

They are a new structure that generates on the borders of a desert biome. There will be numerous: you can come across ten or even more of these structures in a single desert. They consist of destroyed structures of different shapes. In each complex, you can find a pot, breaking which you can get random items. In some ruins, besides the pot, you can also find a loot chest.

Pot

The pot, which will naturally appear in the desert, will drop random items when destroyed. They are not that valuable, but in rare cases, you can get even very useful items. Besides, you can craft a pot yourself using seven blocks of terracotta. You can use any color, as the pot will still be brown. After that, you can use this block as a decorative element. The screenshots show that the texture of the generated pots is slightly different.

Plains Biome

The plains have not significantly changed, and only some elements have been added to them. So you will still enjoy the vanilla style of the plains, but with some additions. Thus, the new walnut trees now quite actively generate there. Indeed, the plains were almost empty, with the occasional presence of the oak trees. Now the situation has changed, as you will see the walnut trees almost everywhere while walking across the plains.

Making Use of the Walnut Tree

The walnut trees are quite useful for the player, as they can drop edible walnuts. They are quite nutritious and replenish 1.5 hunger points, which is not bad, especially given that you can get them without any difficulty. They can be compared to the apples. The walnut wood is no less useful, as you can make planks of it and use them as a building material. They are darker than the oak ones and look quite beautiful. You will also be able to craft a standard set of blocks: steps, gates, slabs, doors, hatches, buttons, etc.

New Mob

Walking across the plains, you can now meet a squirrel, which will most often be near a walnut tree. It will not be so timid compared to the real-world one, and you will be easily able to approach it, as it will not run away from you. It just calmly wanders around in search of food. The main joy of squirrels is nuts. If you pick up a walnut, a squirrel will start running after you. It does not really trust you by default, but if you feed it walnuts, it will become friendly. This does not mean that it will become your pet, as it will not run and jump after you after feeding. But you will be able to breed squirrels that trust you. To do this, you need to feed them with honeycombs.

Coastal Biomes

In the vanilla Minecraft, the coast was almost empty, and there was nothing interesting there. Everything will change with this mod, and you will appreciate useful additions to the coast. Not all the coastal biomes have changed, though. You will see the changes in the beaches in the warm biomes near boundless oceans. Let us consider them.

On the blocks that are very close to the water, you can notice shells, which are also abundant on the shore. You can collect them, say, to decorate your structures because they are quite beautiful and rich-looking. But this is not their only application. By joining nine shells, you can get a whole block and use it as a building material or for decoration, as it looks very attractive. However, a more effective use of the shells is the crafting of shell tiles. The fact is that such a block requires merely four shells and can certainly be used in construction. This is not all the uses of the shells, and we will touch upon what else can be crafted from them later on.

New trees will now generate on the coast, which will resemble the acacia in terms of structure. These are the coconut trees, which will be quite useful for you. From the planks of their wood, you can craft the standard blocks, namely steps, slabs, doors, and others. But that is not all. The fact is that this tree drops whole coconuts. They are edible but not particularly satiating. It is better to immediately pick them up, as the coconuts on the ground can be sometimes eaten by a certain mob.

These thieves are coconut crabs, which very often live on the sea coast in search of food. Their main food is coconuts, which they find under the trees. These crabs are passive creatures, so they will not touch you by default. But if you hit them, they will become aggressive and start fighting back. They can boast good protection due to their shell, which absorbs damage. But when you destroy its shell, the crab will stop attacking you and run into the water, provided, of course, it has time to do this. The crabs without a shell are very similar to spiders but smaller. After killing a crab, you can get its claw, which can be cooked and eaten. The crab meat is satiating and valuable, so it is worth getting it.

The shell has another application related to saving the turtle eggs. The fact is that you can create a sandcastle from them, which not only serves as a decoration but can also be used as a shelter for turtle eggs. Moreover, the eggs will continue to hatch there.

Snowy Biomes

There were few mobs peculiar only to these biomes, so the designer decided to add a unique creature. You will now be able to meet penguins living in such harsh conditions. They live in groups, and if you approach a small group that consists of at least four specimens, you will get the regeneration effect. They are friendly mobs that will attack you under no circumstances. The penguins hunt for fish, so one can often see them on the ice or in the water. You can also breed them with the help of fish. An egg appears during the process, and a baby penguin hatches after a while.

Besides the usual and dense ice, you will see the new thin ice in frozen rivers and seas. You can move freely on the thin ice, but if you jump on it, it will break, and you can fall through. It will be quite widespread, so you should be careful when walking on the ice.

Making Use of Ice and Snow

Ice and snow now have more applications, as you can craft new versions of blocks to be used for construction. You can build beautiful snow structures of them, such as a snow castle. You can also create ice bricks for the subsequent crafting of steps, slabs, and fences.

Summing it up, we can say that the mod is quite good, although it features not that many additions. In any case, it will at least somehow diversify the game world. Besides, the mod is very popular and has more than five million downloads on the official website. So if you want to see something new, it will perfectly suit you.

Images Ecologics