Voidworks harvests void from the world itself, at a permanent cost to the world, moves it between dimensions on dragons, and spends it to power gear and mutate items. It requires nothing a player installs but Minecraft and NeoForge; the libworks-runtime it uses is nested in its jar. The design is docs/spec/void-energy.md.
The Module's terms, each with what it is and the words to avoid. /domain-modeling adds them as they are resolved.
Module: One of the 5thlayer mods, each owning one capability, playing alone in vanilla and requiring no other Module. Avoid: Library, Binding
Voidworks: This Module: harvesting, Voidstone networks, the Void Dragon, Mutation, and carrying matter between dimensions through the void. It requires nothing a player installs but Minecraft and NeoForge.
Consumer: A mod or a pack that builds against or loads this Module. Avoid: client (collides with the game's client side), dependent, integration
Works tab: The creative tab the suite's Modules share, registered by the libworks-runtime nested in the jar. Every Voidworks item shows there and in no other tab; Voidworks has no tab of its own (FactoryWorks ADR-0128). Avoid: Voidworks tab, creative tab (alone)
Gallery pack:
The optional datapack in the jar, "Voidworks Gallery", offered and off by default, whose functions lay the Module's features out as working scenes, one plot per scene with a sign naming it, which replays the scene when clicked, for an operator player to see them at work (ADR 0008). Unlike dev_pack/ and gametest_pack/, the datapacks only the Module's own runs load, it ships. It holds functions only, so turning it on changes nothing about how Voidworks plays.
Avoid: showcase (the /voidworks showcase command), demo world
Void Mote: The unit of void, harvested, stored and moved; "mote" for short. A mote carries a grade: one step above the Void Pressure where it was harvested, so it is always worth something there. Grades run from the lowest any harvest gives to a fixed maximum. A mote is never an item: only Voidstone, void machines (a Consumer's too) and the Void Siphon hold motes, pooled by grade, and motes of different grades never pool. Avoid: mote item, stack of motes
Void energy: What a mote releases when it is spent: the more its grade exceeds the Void Pressure where it is spent, the more it releases, doubling with each step. Nothing stores void energy; everything stores motes. It is not FE, but a Void Siphon converts what it releases into FE in the FE items it charges. Bare "void" means this mechanic; removing items is "destroying" or "trashing" them. Avoid: voiding (for destroying items), void as "needs no power"
Sink: What a factory pours its surplus into. Voidworks is one as well as a source: every spend uses motes up for good, and no spend has a last step, so a bigger factory always has more to spend them on. Avoid: drain, money sink
Void Pressure: The ambient void level of a place, a small integer: a base per dimension, highest in the End, then the Overworld, lowest in the Nether, and one step higher where the End is open to the void below. It sets the grade of motes harvested there, the value of motes spent there, how fast a Void Crucible works there, and how fast a Void Dragon diving to or from there weakens. Motes stored nearby never change it. Avoid: network pressure (the motes' own, which only steers flow)
Harvest kind:
What a dimension harvests, named by its Void Pressure entry: end, overworld, nether, or none
for a dimension that harvests nothing. The Void Siphon behaves by it, and Voidstone placed there looks
by it.
Density: How many motes a block yields when fed to a Void Displacer. It is set per block, by item tag, and steepens sharply with each step: storage blocks are how harvesting scales. Only listed blocks have a Density; every other block, easily renewed and abundant ones above all (cobblestone, stone, dirt, sand, netherrack, end stone), has Density 0 and nothing harvests it, so every harvest, and every Voidstone, costs something mined.
Voidstone: The indestructible block a harvested position becomes. Every harvest leaves one, so harvesting permanently consumes the world, which is what bounds void. Touching Voidstone forms a network that carries motes. It looks like the dimension it was placed in, by its harvest kind, but it is one block, and its networks join whatever it looks like. Avoid: bedrock, residue
Void Displacer: A machine that harvests motes until its Zone is spent, attuned to the dimension it is built for and working only there. It holds no motes and needs no network to start: it harvests outward from itself, only positions touching it or the Voidstone it has already left, nearest first, so what it has harvested is the network its motes go into. The End Displacer grows only into a pyramid widening out ahead of its front face. It cannot be broken or moved while its Zone is unspent and it can still reach something to convert; then it becomes Voidstone itself. Avoid: harvester, Void Well
Zone: How many positions a Void Displacer harvests in its life. It is a count, not a region: the Displacer grows outward until its Zone is spent, and Zone upgrades raise it. Avoid: area, range, radius
Zone upgrade: One level more of a Void Displacer's Zone, bought with motes from its network. Each level a Displacer buys costs more than the last, with no last level, and a new Displacer starts again at the first. Avoid: zone level, expansion
Void Siphon: The item a player harvests motes with by hand, at a far worse yield than a Void Displacer's. It holds motes and keeps them wherever it goes, as many as its tier allows, and spends them to charge FE items. Standing on Voidstone, it charges from the network or empties into it, as its holder sets it; set to charge, it also charges the FE items its holder wears and holds, wherever they are. Its tiers, the Void Siphon, the Resonant and the Draconic, hold more and charge faster, and it climbs them at a smithing table. Avoid: glove
FE item: Any item, another mod's, that holds FE and takes it through NeoForge's item energy capability, such as Gearworks' Gear. A Void Siphon set to charge charges it while it is worn or held, never in the rest of the inventory; Voidworks makes no gear of its own. Avoid: void gear, equipment (belt equipment in the suite), Gear (Gearworks' suit alone)
Dormant: A void machine placed but not yet paid for: it soaks its cost in motes where it stands, from any touching mote store (a Voidstone network, another void machine) or an emptying Void Siphon, and works once it is paid. A machine that costs no motes, such as the Overworld's Void Displacer or the Void Crucible, is never dormant. Avoid: frame, uncharged (charging is the Void Siphon's)
Void Well: A large store of motes on a Voidstone network, and the stop where the Void Dragon loads, unloads and heals: a 5×5×5 well of casing and a raised rim, its core, which holds the store, set in one wall. Voidstone touching any block of it joins it to that network. A Well is the face of its network: what it holds, how full it is, its fill target and what a dragon takes from it or heals from are the whole network's, its core and every Voidstone together. Avoid: roost, Void Displacer
Shaft: The open 3×3 column inside a Void Well's walls, where a dragon dives and emerges and laid eggs pop out. It shows the Well's fill: a void fluid as high as the network is full, with butterflies of the grades it holds. Avoid: pit, well hole
Stop: An owner's Void Wells on one network, which their dragons treat as one: a dragon never carries between them, stops at whichever its dive reaches soonest, and judges the network by the highest of their fill targets. Another owner's Wells on the network are that owner's stop. Avoid: station, hub
Fill target: How full a Void Well asks to be kept, as a share of all its network can hold: none, a quarter, a half, three quarters or full. Void Dragons deliver to a stop below its target, the highest of its Wells', and take from one above it; a stop whose Wells have none is a reservoir, which only gives. Avoid: quota, setpoint
Well hatch: A container placed against the outside of a Void Well's wall, joining that Well, where a Matter-line dragon loads and unloads items and hoppers, belts and pipes reach them. It is not part of the Well's structure, and it is either a requester or a provider. Avoid: port, dock, item core
Requester: A Well hatch asking for one item, so many stacks of it: Matter-line dragons deliver it there until the hatch holds that many, and it never gives. Avoid: receiver, input hatch
Provider: A Well hatch offering whatever is put in it to its owner's requesters elsewhere; it never asks. Avoid: giver, output hatch
Toll: The void energy a Matter-line dragon spends from the Well it loads at, by the stacks it takes and how far they climb in Void Pressure to where they go: the void's price for moving matter. The Mote line pays none. Avoid: fare, fee, freight cost
Owner: The player a Void Dragon and a Void Well belong to: whoever placed the egg it hatched from, or the Well's core. A dragon serves only its owner's Wells. Avoid: tamer, master
Void Dragon: A dragon raised on void that carries motes or matter, as its Line says, between Void Wells, diving through the void between them, across dimensions. It grows from a Dragonling. Nothing hurts it: it only weakens on dives outside the End and heals at its Wells. It ages through its life stages and dies of old age. Avoid: Ender Dragon (the boss), tamed dragon
Dive: A Void Dragon's passage through the void between two Void Wells, in any dimensions. It is a distance the dragon covers at its speed, slower as it weakens on the way, and nothing in the world sees the dragon, or its rider, while it lasts. Avoid: teleport, flight
Ridden dive: A dive with its owner riding, to the Well they picked. It takes at most a short set time, and its load shrinks by the share of time saved, so riding never carries more a second, motes or stacks. The rider sees its progress as a bar in the destination dimension's colour. Avoid: fast dive, rider dive
Trip: A Void Dragon's errand: to a source Well to load, a dive, and on to the destination Well to unload. It is claimed as it is planned, so a network's need counts the motes already on their way to any Well on it, whoever's dragon carries them; a Matter-line trip claims items by kind, against the requests it fills and the provider it loads from. A load no Well needs is stowed: carried to the owner's Well with most room, or for items, to their providers with room. A stop may be added to a trip: the Well its owner calls the dragon to, or the Well its rider picks, which it fills as it sets them down before it goes on. Avoid: route, job
Call: An owner standing on the rim of one of their Void Wells, which brings a dragon of theirs there and keeps it waiting while they stay. It lasts only while they stand there; one dragon answers it, the nearest free, diving there as a ridden dive does, its load cut to match, its progress a bar over the caller's action bar. Avoid: summon, whistle
Life stage: How old a grown Void Dragon is: young, adult, senior or old, reached by the cargo it has carried. Each later stage is slower and carries more; only an adult lays eggs, and an old dragon dies when its stage runs out. Avoid: age class, tier
Dragonling: A Void Dragon before it grows, not yet in any life stage, hatched from an egg soaked in motes. It cannot carry yet; it stays near where it hatched, follows a player holding a Void Siphon, and grows faster for the motes a Siphon feeds it.
Drained Dragon Egg: The egg an adult Mote-line Void Dragon lays as it works: a dragon egg drained of void. It, the vanilla egg, the founder of the Mote line, and the Matter Dragon Egg all soak motes once a player places them touching Voidstone, as a Dormant machine soaks its cost, and hatch once they have soaked enough; broken first, an egg loses what it soaked. Avoid: lesser egg
Matter Dragon Egg: The Matter line's egg: a Drained Dragon Egg tinted amber, made by upgrading a Mote-line egg by Mutation and laid by adult Matter-line dragons. Its colour tells it from a Mote-line egg in a chest; the dragon it hatches looks like any other until it carries. Avoid: laden egg, freight egg
Line: A Void Dragon's inherited kind, fixed in its egg, which says what it carries: the Mote line carries motes, the Matter line items, and never both. A dragon lays eggs of its own Line. The vanilla egg founds the Mote line; the Matter line is founded by upgrading a Mote-line egg to a Matter Dragon Egg by Mutation, never the other way. Each Line has its own tint, a dragon or Dragonling of the Mote line the void's purple and of the Matter line a pale amber, and a grown dragon shows its Line too by what it carries: a Matter-line one hangs its first stack under its body, a Mote-line one is followed by mote butterflies of its grades. Avoid: breed, strain, class
Mutation: Turning an item into another: upgrading it to the next tier of its Family, or breaking it down into its ingredients. A Mutation Chamber upgrades quickly for motes, a Void Crucible upgrades slowly and for free, and an Unmaking Chamber breaks down for motes. An upgrade is a chance roll that keeps the item on failure, and a breakdown never returns more than went in. Avoid: transmutation, recycling
Mutation Chamber: The machine that upgrades items up their Family, spending motes. It never breaks items down.
Unmaking Chamber: The machine that breaks an item down into the ingredients of its crafting recipe, spending motes. Each ingredient comes back only by chance, at its yield: a quarter at first, rising with the motes it has spent in its life, never to all of them. Broken, it forgets what it has spent. Avoid: recycler, grinder, Void Sunderer
Void Crucible: A block that holds items in Void Pressure until they upgrade up their Family. It spends no motes, only time, and is never Dormant. It works twice as fast for each step of Void Pressure, never fails an upgrade, and progresses only while its chunk is loaded. Crucibles near each other share one rate, so many together upgrade no faster than one. Avoid: altar, cradle
Family: An ordered ladder of Rungs that an upgrade climbs, one item form to a Family: metal ingots climb copper → iron → gold, metal blocks have a Family of their own. Families are data, so other mods' items can join a Rung. An item on a top Rung or in no Family has no upgrade, unless another Family carries it on. Avoid: tier, quality, material ladder
Rung: One step of a Family: the items accepted there, and the one result item an upgrade from the Rung below lands on, with what the step costs: how many items it takes per result, how much void energy a Mutation Chamber spends on it, and its chance. A Rung always accepts its own result, so an upgraded item climbs on; the bottom Rung only accepts. Another mod's item joins a Rung as an input; the result changes only on purpose. Avoid: tier, level
Steep Rung: A Rung whose count and cost are set high on purpose: the toll before a Gate item or across a dimension border. It is a description of the numbers, not a kind of Rung. Avoid: hard Rung, gated Rung
Gate item: An item the progression uses as a toll before the step that earns it: the Void Siphon's ghast tear and blaze rod, crying obsidian, netherite, blaze powder (the eye of ender), shulker shells. A Family may reach one, but only by a steep Rung, so a gate is paid through, never barred. Avoid: key item, progression item