Create Modpacks on Your Server: Above and Beyond, Astral, Arcane

Create packs are built around mechanical contraptions: shafts, cogwheels and moving structures instead of cables and energy counters. The three best known are Create: Above and Beyond, with roughly 50 inventions on the road to space; Create: Astral on Fabric and Minecraft 1.18.2, with well over 1.4 million downloads, in which you industrialise and then fly to Mars; and Create: Arcane Engineering with more than 716,000 downloads, which blends Create with Pneumaticcraft, Thermal Expansion, Forbidden & Arcanus and Ars Nouveau. On a server these packs ask relatively little memory but a lot of CPU per tick, because every moving contraption is recalculated from scratch on every single tick.

What makes a Create pack different from an ordinary modpack?

In most tech packs you build an energy grid: cables, a buffer, and machines that draw power from it. Create works with rotation instead. A water wheel, windmill or motor produces force that travels through shafts and cogwheels to the machine, with no buffer to tap into.

That difference also shapes how your server behaves. An energy grid is mostly bookkeeping: numbers shifting from A to B. A Create factory is physical. Belts move real items, pistons push real blocks, and a moving contraption briefly exists as a moving object in its own right. That costs far more work per tick than a cable passing a number along. If you are not yet sure how a modpack works under the bonnet, start with what a modpack is and how you install one.

Which three Create packs are worth running?

There are dozens of packs featuring Create; three of them have a finished progression and a serious player base.

Create: Above and Beyond

The pack that made Create a household name as a quest pack. You work your way through roughly 50 inventions, each with its own production line, until you can reach space. Skipping a step with some other mod is not an option, because that mod simply is not in the pack.

Create: Astral

Astral runs on Fabric and Minecraft 1.18.2 and has well over 1.4 million downloads. The progression goes from hand crafting to full industrialisation and finally to Mars. Being on Fabric, you can fall back on the optimisation mods around Sodium and Lithium. Do keep in mind that 1.18.2 is an older version: players will have to roll their client back.

Create: Arcane Engineering

With more than 716,000 downloads, this is the pack for anyone who finds Create on its own a little bare. It mixes Create with Pneumaticcraft, Thermal Expansion, Forbidden & Arcanus and Ars Nouveau, so alongside rotation you get compressed air, tech machinery and two magic systems. For a server this is the heaviest of the three, simply because more systems are running at once.

Why do moving contraptions cost so much CPU?

A Minecraft server works in ticks: twenty times a second it walks through everything that needs attention. Stay inside that time budget and you hold 20 TPS (ticks per second); go over it and everything starts to feel sluggish.

A moving contraption is an expensive guest in that loop. While it is moving it is not a static pile of blocks but an object that gets a new position every tick, checks collisions and drags its contents along. A spinning bearing, a rolling train or a piston carrying half a factory does that continuously, even when nobody is watching. On top of that comes the kinetic network: change anything on a shaft and the entire chain is recalculated.

The second problem is concentration. A factory that fits inside one or two chunks (the 16x16 block sections the world is divided into) feels efficient to the builder, but it piles all that work into one spot. The server processes chunks one after another rather than side by side, so a single crammed chunk can cause a tick spike on its own while the rest of the map does nothing. Multithreaded server software is no way out: Folia is experimental, breaks most plugins and is a Paper fork, whereas Create packs run on Forge, NeoForge or Fabric.

A Create server rarely runs out of memory. It gets stuck on that one chunk where too much is moving at the same time.

How much RAM and what kind of CPU do you need?

The speed of a single CPU core matters more than the number of cores. The tick loop is largely single-threaded, so a contraption bottlenecked on raw calculation gains nothing from extra cores. Our budget line on AMD EPYC 7443P is fine for a quiet Create server; the premium line on AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is the better call once your group starts leaving factories running permanently.

For memory, follow the pack author's own figure, because it differs from pack to pack. As a reference point it helps to know what a big kitchen sink pack asks for. All the Mods 10, with 400 to 500-plus mods, needs at least 10 GB, 12 GB for a small group and 14 to 16 GB with five or more players. Create packs contain fewer mods and sit below that, but exactly how far below depends on the pack. With Minecraft hosting from MC-Node the budget line is a flat EUR 1.10 per GB per month, so 8 GB comes to EUR 8.80, and you can scale up the moment you notice you need more.

Storage is underrated. Modded servers read thousands of individual files at start-up: with ATM10 that is the difference between ten minutes or more of loading on a hard disk and two to three minutes on SSD. Also check per pack which Java version the authors prescribe; ATM10 on 1.21.1 genuinely needs Java 21 and will not run on Java 17, while older packs have different requirements.

How do you install a Create pack on your server?

1. Write down the exact pack version, the mod loader and the Minecraft version. For Astral that is Fabric on 1.18.2.
2. Download the server version of the pack, not the client version. The server pack contains the start scripts and leaves out client-only mods.
3. Set the correct mod loader and Java version in the Pterodactyl panel before you upload anything.
4. Upload the server pack and let the first start run its course: mods create their configuration files and the world is generated.
5. Make sure every player runs exactly the same pack version, otherwise nobody gets in.
6. Take a backup before you update later on. A version jump can rename or remove blocks, and a half-vanished contraption is a nuisance to repair.

If it is the setup itself that trips you up, the basics are covered step by step in our article on how to make a Minecraft server.

How do you keep TPS stable with large factories?

• Spread factories across several chunks. One compact megabase produces sharper tick spikes than the same machines across a wider area.
• Switch off contraptions that are doing nothing. A clutch or gearshift wired to a redstone signal stops a spinning bearing when there is nothing to produce. It is the cheapest win available.
• Limit permanent motion. Windmills and decorative contraptions cost just as much per tick as production machinery, without producing anything.
• Keep loose items off the floor. Route output straight into a chest via belts and funnels; piles of item entities drag TPS down.
• Lower simulation-distance before view-distance. Simulation distance decides how many chunks actually tick.
• Go easy on chunk loaders. Every force-loaded chunk keeps ticking while nobody is there.
• Measure instead of guessing. A profiler such as spark shows where the tick is being spent, so you can find that one chunk.

Optimisation mods help too, but pick them to match your mod loader: on NeoForge, FerriteCore, Canary and ModernFix are the standard set, and FerriteCore alone saves 30 to 40 percent memory. Broader measures are covered in our article on optimising your Minecraft server.

When is a Create pack the wrong choice?

If you want players to install nothing at all, Create is not for you. Mods have to match in version on both server and client, whereas plugins on Paper or Purpur run purely server-side on otherwise vanilla mechanics. If ease of administration is your priority, a Paper server with EssentialsX, LuckPerms and CoreProtect is a calmer starting point.

If you want as much varied content as possible, a kitchen sink pack makes more sense: All the Mods 10 has over 18 million downloads, but also demands at least 10 GB of RAM. And Create packs sit on older Minecraft versions, with Astral on 1.18.2, while Minecraft itself has since reached 26.2 "Chaos Cubed" and 1.21 "Tricky Trials" is still the most played version on Dutch servers.

Frequently asked questions

Which Create pack should you run first? Create: Above and Beyond is the most straightforward start, with roughly 50 inventions as its through line. If you want Fabric and a longer industrial build-up towards Mars, pick Create: Astral on 1.18.2 with its 1.4-plus million downloads. Arcane Engineering is there for anyone who wants magic and extra tech.

How much RAM does a Create server need? It varies per pack, so follow the pack author's own figure. As a reference point: All the Mods 10 with 400 to 500-plus mods needs at least 10 GB, and 14 to 16 GB with five or more players. Create packs contain fewer mods and sit below that, but measure again as the factories grow.

Can you run plugins such as EssentialsX on a Create server? Not on a bare Forge, NeoForge or Fabric server: plugins belong to Bukkit, Spigot, Paper and Purpur, and a mod loader will not load them. On a modded server you handle homes, claims and permissions with mods instead.

Why does TPS drop the moment someone fires up a big factory? Every moving contraption is recalculated on every tick, and a factory that fits into one or two chunks concentrates all that work in one place. Switch unused contraptions off with a clutch, spread the build out and lower simulation-distance if you need to.

Do players have to install the pack themselves as well? Yes. Mods must be at exactly the same version on server and client, or players will get an error when connecting. So always pass on the precise pack version, for example Fabric 1.18.2 for Create: Astral.

Further reading

• Setting up a Skyblock server: modpack or plugin?
• Sodium, Lithium and FPS: which performance mod goes where?
• Update a modpack without losing your world