Overview

Features

Features

Under the hood, BTA is very different from vanilla beta 1.7.3. The majority of existing bugs have been ironed out and fixed, and almost the entire game has been rewritten and optimised to make the development of new additions much, much easier. For example, the game’s implementation of McRegion has been rewritten to allow for 256 block-high worlds, the game now has native support for HD texture packs, and the block ID system has been overhauled to allow for thousands of blocks, instead of beta 1.7.3’s hard-limit of 256.

The fun doesn’t end there though, BTA also offers a plethora of new features and mechanics to play around with. The biggest of which is probably the new “seasonal cycle”.

Seasons
Minecraft worlds now cycle through 4 seasons, over a span of 28 days (7 days per season). These seasons provide an interesting spin on survival gameplay; as the seasons change and winter begins to fall, the game will become progressively more challenging. Crops start to grow less often, mobs spawn more frequently, and the nights will become longer. It is important you plan around the changing seasons, stocking up on resources to survive the cold winter.



Revamped Beta World Generation
The iconic beta world generation has also been given a major touch-up in BTA. First and foremost, the sea-level has been risen to 128, which means 128 blocks of underground, and 128 blocks of overworld. This also means mountains can grow to twice the size they could than before, leading to even wackier terrain than normal.

Biomes have been changed too, they now generate at around twice the size they used to, meaning no more ugly micro-deserts. Existing biomes have also been touched up to make them more unique, for example, swamplands now spawn with fields of algae and mossy trees, and seasonal forests spawn groves of cherry trees that shine a bright pink in the spring.




Creative Mode
One thing that beta 1.7.3 and below did lack was a functioning creative mode where you can test out contraptions and plan builds in a world with infinite blocks and health. This has been added to BTA, however its not just a simple port of beta 1.8’s creative mode. We thought we’d try and improve on it by adding better flying controls, a more readable creative inventory, and a list of single player commands.




New Blocks


3 new types of stone with brick and cobbled variants (Basalt, Granite and Limestone), painted wooden planks in 16 different dye colours, dirt paths, fence gates, new slab and stair variants for existing blocks, coloured Redstone lamps and many, many more blocks to expand your building capabilities with. As well as that, BTA also adds new blocks for Redstone contraptions, such as retractable ‘spike traps’ that damage mobs when stepped on, ‘motion sensors’ that activate when mobs move past them, and ‘mesh blocks’ that allow items to pass through them, yet block off mobs and players.





Steel

Exploring the nether now has a purpose with the addition of steel, a refined form of iron, made from smelting iron bars in a blast furnace with a new nether-exclusive ore called “nether coal” that offers extremely high durability tools at the cost of being slightly slower at mining than diamond. It can also be used to make a rocket launcher. Quake style!





The Guidebook


Because we understand that sometimes recipes can be difficult to discover, especially in modded games, we decided to add a “guidebook” accessed by pressing R in-game that tells you each of the recipes found in the game. However, this book works a little differently to how you’d expect…



The book starts with all the items blacked out, filling out each item once obtained by the player to maintain the sense of discovery for those who enjoy finding things out for themselves. It also offers as a completion objective for players who wish to fill out the book completely and “craft ‘em all”. (But alternatively if you just want to see the new recipes for yourself, try opening the book in creative)

Installation

• To install the utility, simply drag and drop that link onto your MultiMC instance list, then run it. It'll generate a managed instance of BTA, which you can then run to launch the mod.
• Whenever the mod releases a new update you can just run the update utility again and it'll automatically upgrade your managed instance to the latest version! No more messing around with jar files, and all your saves, screenshots and settings will be in exactly the same place

• Download MultiMC and load it up
• Simply drag and drop the MultiMC instance zip file into your MultiMC and it
  should appear on your instances screen. Alternatively, click "add
  instance" and "import from zip" then locate the file and click "OK"
• Load your newly created instance and play!

• Download the Betacraft launcher
• Create a new instance, call it whatever you like, and click OK.
  
• Click "versions" and choose b1.7.3.
  
• Click on "Edit Instance" and then "Mods Repository"
  
• Click on the "Better Than Adventure!" folder and choose the latest release
  
• Click "load" and then play!
  

Notes

• Special thanks to the members of the Modification Station discord for help
• Also check out Not So Seecret Saturdays by DirtPiper - a huge inspiration for this mod!
  
• Check out b3spectacled's Modern Beta for beta terrian in Minecraft 1.17! He's helped me with previous projects in the past and his work is really good!