Galacticraft Installation Guide

Welcome to the Galacticraft Installation Guide!

While installing Galacticraft is normally simple, this guide is written to provide a step-by-step instruction on how to install the mod. It’s recommended to read this in full if you are having any issues with the installation process or the 1st run of the mod.

We hope you enjoy the mod as much as we did making it!

Picking Your Minecraft Version

To play any mod in Minecraft, you need four things:

Java runtime from Oracle or OpenJDK
Minecraft (Java Edition)
Forge
the mod

All four of these need to be appropriate versions otherwise the game won’t start properly.

Something important to understand, for people completely new to mods for Minecraft, is you have to match up the versions of Minecraft, Forge, and the mod. All mods – and Forge – are organised according to which Minecraft versions they match, and things will crash or just not work at all if you try to mix mod versions intended for different Minecraft versions.

You do have to pay careful attention to version numbers, and modders and the modding community don’t try to hide this complexity from you – that’s all part of the Java philosophy of treating users as intelligent human beings.

Mods are made for specific Minecraft versions which the community has chosen for modding. The most popular version for mods currently (end of 2019) is Minecraft 1.12.2. Some people still choose to play mods in Minecraft 1.7.10 or even earlier versions of Minecraft, usually because there’s a classic mod or modpack they still enjoy playing.

Even though Minecraft itself is now (end of 2019) updated to version 1.14.4, most of the big mods like Galacticraft are still a few Minecraft versions behind. That’s because each Minecraft version update from Mojang adds a huge amount of work for mod authors. Also, mod authors usually prefer to wait for the last in a series of Minecraft updates, so 1.14.4 instead of 1.14.3, to know that everything is stable.

For most players there are not actually huge differences between different Minecraft versions (OK, some have rabbits and llamas and more underwater stuff, and some don’t… !) All the different Minecraft (Java Edition) versions are free to download, for anyone who already bought the game on a PC or a Mac … if you’ve been playing Minecraft on the same computer for a few years you probably already have them.

There’s no problem with having more than one Minecraft version on your computer: the Minecraft launcher lets you choose between all the different Minecraft versions you have.

So actually you should choose your mods first, and then look to see which Minecraft version is required by the mods you have chosen. We recommend picking Minecraft version 1.12.2.

By the way, if you really really want the latest “official” Minecraft features from versions 1.13 and 1.14, while playing mods in Minecraft 1.12.2, that’s actually possible using a mod called Future Versions.

Galacticraft versions available

Galacticraft for Minecraft 1.12.2 is the latest Galacticraft, also known as Galacticraft 4. Galacticraft 4 offers the Moon, Mars, Venus, Asteroids and Space Stations, and all the latest features including Laser Turrets. (A slightly older version of Galacticraft 4, which plays mostly the same but it doesn’t have Laser Turrets, is still available for Minecraft versions 1.8.9, 1.10.2 and 1.11.2.

We make that available in case there’s a specific reason why you need to play in those Minecraft versions, but we’ve noticed most people play Galacticraft either in Minecraft 1.7.10 or Minecraft 1.12.2)

The Galacticraft version for Minecraft 1.7.10 is known as Galacticraft 3. That version of Galacticraft was current in 2015 and 2016. In its final builds, Galacticraft 3 is extremely stable, and compatible with pretty near all other mods for 1.7.10.

Galacticraft 3 offers the Moon, Mars, Asteroids and Space Stations but not Venus, also it will not have any of the new base-building blocks added in Galacticraft 4 like Laser Turrets, Vacuum Glass, Hydraulic Platform, Grating, and Lighting Panels.

An even older Galacticraft version which was created for Minecraft 1.6.4 is Galacticraft 2. That can be found in modpacks like Attack of the B Team, and it still plays perfectly fine but it only offers the Moon, Mars and Space Stations and doesn’t have the newer features of the mod, for example you won’t be in freefall in Space Stations and you can’t make them rotate.

For historians / nostalgia, there’s even Galacticraft 1 for Minecraft 1.5.2! That was also seen in classic modpacks like Tekkit Lite and Voltz. The only destinations it offered were Space Stations and the Moon.

Requirements

This table shows the minimum version requirements of the other things you need for Galacticraft, with official download links for each element – any later version of Forge (within the same Minecraft version) should also work, we recommend you use the “latest” or the “recommended” versions of Forge shown on the linked download pages. On servers, for Sponge version requirements see here

Galacticraft Version	Minecraft Version	Forge Version	Java
Galacticraft 4	1.12.2	14.23.1.2555	Java 8
Galacticraft 4	1.11.2	13.20.0.2228	Java 8
Galacticraft 4	1.10.2	12.18.2.2171	Java 8
Galacticraft 4	1.8.9	11.15.1.1764	Java 8
Galacticraft 3	1.7.10	10.13.4.1448	Java 7 or Java 8
Galacticraft 3	1.7.2	10.12.2.1147	Java 7 or Java 8
Galacticraft 2	1.6.4	9.10.0.837	Java 7 or Java 8

Installation Guide

First a question: Do you already have Forge installed and working?

Yes: So you are already able to play other mods in whichever version of Minecraft you picked? Great, in that case installing Galacticraft is very easy.

No: First follow the guidance at #Installing_Forge, then come back up here!

Installation in three steps

Step 1

On our official Downloads page, find the Galacticraft version you want to play. This is organised according to different Minecraft versions, and also different Galacticraft builds are listed, because we do update the Galacticraft build from time to time to add new features or to fix bugs. (Please do not download our mod from unauthorised sites like 9minecraft.) (Do not look for the Developer builds, those are only for use by other mod programmers!)

Whichever Minecraft version you pick, we recommend using the Latest build of Galacticraft, given to you at the top of the list. If for some reason that isn’t what you want, older versions are available if you look further down the list.

You must download all three files for Galacticraft:

Before moving on, please check carefully that the downloads of all three files completed. If your internet connection is slow, or you are downloading other stuff at the same time, then a Galacticraft download might need a minute or two to complete!

Step 2

Move the three Galacticraft files you just downloaded into your .minecraft/mods folder. (Don’t have a /mods folder in .minecraft? See #Installing_Forge. Don’t know how to find the .minecraft folder on a PC or on a Mac? See here)

Before doing this, carefully make sure to remove any other versions of the GalacticraftCore, Galacticraft-Planets and MicdoodleCore files which were already in your /mods folder. The game will fail to launch if you have two different versions of the same mod in the /mods folder!

Step 3

Start Minecraft using the standard (vanilla) Minecraft launcher from Mojang, selecting the Forge profile, and hit Play.

It really should be that easy.

Extra Note for first timers:

If this is literally the first time you have started playing with mods then you might need to set the Minecraft launcher to launch the correct version of “Forge”. Choose the Forge profile (bottom left). Make sure it’s Forge for the correct Minecraft version which you want to play (bottom right):

If the launcher profile is not currently set to play with Forge for the Minecraft version you want, click Edit Profile, look in the center of the screen (Version Selection), there is a selection box called Use version: – change it to the Forge version you want. Normally the Forge versions are found near the end of the versions list. [Official guide from Mojang on this.]

Moving On

Once you have the mod installed (and now would be a good time to install any other mods you want) and your Minecraft loads up OK, you may start your adventure to space!

(One more thing: your computer needs to be connected to the internet, the first time you run Galacticraft. That’s because it needs to be able to automatically download one more file, commons-codec-1.9.jar.)

Read on with the Galacticraft Getting Started Guide to get you started with all the basics.

If you are combining this with other mods, or building your own modpack, it would be a good idea to read our notes on Compatibility. We also have wiki pages on Game Balance and Configs and other setup details.

Combining Galacticraft with other mods

Does Galacticraft work with other mods?

Yes. Galacticraft can be played alongside any other mods for the same Minecraft version, and should integrate neatly with them. Galacticraft normally does not care which exact other versions of those mods you have, it should work with most things: any known special requirements are listed on the Compatibility page. So just assemble all the different mods you want to play into your .minecraft/mods folder, and start the game.

Note: we cannot promise that all the other mods you want are compatible with each other. Some other mods (CoFH!) require very specific versions of libraries or core mods in order to work, but may not agree about that or it may not be well documented. For this reason, some skill goes into assembling a stable modpack!

If you encounter problems, the best approach is to temporarily remove some mods from your /mods folder and see if that fixes it. Caution: if swapping around mods like that, make sure first to back up your saved world or use a new test world! You will lose blocks and items if you remove mods and then start a game in an existing saved world.

Do you recommend any other mods?

JEI (Just Enough Items) is almost essential, to show you all the Galacticraft recipes.

(Or in older Minecraft versions you can use NEI (Not Enough Items). If you want an alternative to NEI, Galacticraft 3 also has some support for Craft Guide.)

It helps to have an industrial or tech mod with Galacticraft, to help you process ores faster and gather all the resources you need to build rockets and get into space. Mekanism is the closest in spirit to Galacticraft. Tinker’s Construct, IndustrialCraft, Thermal Expansion, EnderIO are other good choices, they can be combined if you like.

Galacticraft also has full compatibility with the long-established industrial mod Buildcraft. You can even use their wrenches on our machines and our Standard Wrench on their machines!

Or you could take a different approach and use magic to help you gather resources, for example Thaumcraft.

We also like the mods which expand the beauty and diversity of the Overworld, mods like Natura and Biomes O’Plenty. Now you can add tool mods, storage mods, combat mods, really the choice is endless…

How much JVM memory do mods need?

If you have lots of mods, you will probably need to increase the memory you give to Minecraft (that’s the ‘JVM Arguments’ in the Minecraft launcher ‘Edit Profile’ page). You can try leaving that on its default, but if you have several mods, that may not be enough. The most important memory setting is -Xmx.

The best memory setting for you to use depends a lot on whether you are running 32-bit or 64-bit Java. As a good rule of thumb, your -Xmx setting needs to be:

64-bit Java: 1G for vanilla Minecraft + another 1G for every 25 mods installed: so 2G or 3G should be OK for Galacticraft and a good number of other mods, very large modpacks could require 5G or 6G there.

32-bit Java: 768M for vanilla Minecraft + another 512M for every 25 mods installed (but on 32-bit Windows on older computers it actually can’t be more than 1024M, that’s the same as 1G). 1G should be OK if you are playing with Galacticraft, NEI or JEI, and just a few other mods.

If the memory requirements of all your mods are a problem, you can cut the memory requirements literally in half using an excellent mod named FoamFix. Galacticraft is tested with FoamFix (including FoamFix ‘Anarchy’ versions) and we are not aware of any issues with it: we can recommend it.

JVM settings will also affect Minecraft performance (mainly lag spikes due to the Java ‘garbage collector’ running). You can find guides to these settings in many places on the internet, some good, some not so good!

The best settings also depend on your PC, how much RAM you have, which operating system, which Java version (Java 7 or Java 8), and whether you have 32-bit or 64-bit Java, so settings which somebody else is recommending are not necessarily the best for your setup!

I’m already playing [INSERT NAME] modpack, it would be great if it had Galacticraft too

Find the /mods folder for that modpack (it may not be in the normal .minecraft/mods location – if you used a different launcher like the Technic Launcher, look for the .technic folder). Add the three Galacticraft .jar files you downloaded to that /mods folder, and now you can have Galacticraft in the modpack.

You may have to set the launcher to stop checking updates for the modpack. If you don’t, a modpack update might undo your addition of Galacticraft to the pack – a lot depends on which launcher you are using.

Minecraft versions older than 1.7.10

Minecraft 1.7.2 support

Galacticraft 3 is for Minecraft 1.7.10, but actually it also works with Minecraft 1.7.2, we made it for both! Really old laptop PCs have Intel internal graphics which cannot support Minecraft 1.7.10, so those PCs can’t use any Minecraft version later than 1.7.2. The Galacticraft 3 download files marked for “1.7.10” also work in Minecraft 1.7.2, isn’t that smart?

Advanced tip

Some players like to have mods from multiple Minecraft versions available on their computer – maybe a set of mods in 1.12.2, as well as your favourite modpack from 1.7.10.

Launching Minecraft will most likely crash if you mix mods for different Minecraft versions in the .minecraft/mods folder.

But there’s an answer for that: in the /mods folder you can make subfolders:

1.6.4 for your 1.6.4 mods
1.7.10 for your 1.7.10 mods
1.8.9 for your 1.8.9 mods
1.10.2 for your 1.10.2 mods
1.11.2 for your 1.11.2 mods
1.12.2 for your 1.12.2 mods
1.14.4 for your 1.14.4 mods

Put all the mods for different Minecraft versions in the correct subfolders, and you should be golden. They will not get mixed up, and – so long as your /mods folder itself is empty of mods – Forge will automatically load the correct ones for the Minecraft version when you play.

If you have 1.7.2 and 1.7.10 subfolders, you might want to copy the Galacticraft 3 files into both of them! (Remember, Galacticraft 3 works equally well in 1.7.2 or 1.7.10.)

If you’re tinkering about with different Minecraft versions like this, please be careful when loading your saved game worlds – if, for example, you made a world in 1.10.2 and you load that world when playing 1.12.2, then the world will be automatically converted to 1.12.2 format and you will not be able to go back to using it in 1.10.2.

Minecraft 1.6.4 support

Towards the end of the Downloads page are some versions of Galacticraft 2, which was for Minecraft 1.6.4. That’s older, but some great modpacks (for example Attack of the B Team) are still using it. If playing those older packs, we recommend that you use the Latest version of Galacticraft 2 – so download the modpack, and then in its /mods folder (which may be somewhere in the .technic folder if you use the Technic launcher) replace the three Galacticraft files with the latest ones which you can download from our page. It fixes a few bugs and should give you a smoother game.

For Minecraft 1.5.2 or earlier:

These are very early versions of Galacticraft. For each game version, we offer the final Galacticraft version on our download page. Some people may have older versions from elsewhere, they are also included in some venerable modpacks such as Tekkit Lite and Voltz. If you have a Technic modpack, use the Technic launcher to download and the launch the modpack. If you don’t:

Install Forge (Drag the Forge class files into your minecraft.jar).
Drop the Galacticraft jar file into your coremods folder – not the mods folder!
If you decided on Basic Components, click the “Load Basic Components” button when it appears after launching Minecraft.
You’re done!

Troubleshooting

This is all very complicated, isn’t there an installer?

Actually, we hope it’s not too complicated if you followed the steps! There is no official installer for Galacticraft. Some people do make unofficial installers. We strongly recommend you do not use them. First, they will likely install an out-of-date version of the mod, as the installer guys do not update as often as we update the mod.

Secondly, who knows what other adware, spyware or viruses they might be installing on your computer as well. Thirdly, some unofficial installers may be breaching Galacticraft’s licensing – Galacticraft is freely available, open source software so if anyone is trying to charge you money for it then something’s wrong!

I don’t know where to find the files I downloaded!

Often your web browser has a Downloads menu which will open up a list of recent downloads and you can check there whether the downloads are completed yet. (In Firefox it’s under the Tools menu.)

If you found the downloads in your browser, you can right-click the individual downloads and choose ‘Open Containing Folder’ to see the folder where the download files are at. (This may work slightly differently in Chrome or other browsers.) If you still can’t find them, maybe ask a friend or family member to help you?

I don’t know where to find the .minecraft folder

This can be tricky to find!

Finding your .minecraft folder on a Windows PC

In any folder in Windows, in the address bar, enter %APPDATA% in the box: note the % sign at the start and the end of that. That should open up the Application Data folder – or it’s called Roaming in Windows 10. The Application Data folder has the .minecraft folder in it, normally it’s the first folder shown.

There are videos on YouTube which can help with this. Once you’ve found it, you might want to create a shortcut to the .minecraft folder and place the shortcut on your desktop for next time.

Finding your .minecraft folder on a Mac

On a Mac, the folder is named minecraft (no dot at the start) and you can find it at ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft. That ~ symbol means the current user folder. You might be able to find the right folder by searching under Macintosh HD/Users using Finder – see next paragraph – but the easiest way to get to the minecraft folder quickly – and without a lot of searching around in Finder – is simply to open up Terminal, and type the following exactly: open ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft, then press the Return key.

This should open up the minecraft folder in Finder immediately. Pro Tip: You can start Terminal by typing ‘Terminal’ into Spotlight (use Cmnd+Space to bring up Spotlight) and double-clicking Terminal in the search results. Congratulations, if you’re using Terminal to do stuff you are a Mac power user!

A problem you will likely encounter if you do not use Terminal and instead just try searching for the minecraft folder in Finder, is that on most Macs the Library folder is a hidden folder by default. That makes it difficult to find the minecraft folder using Finder, but you can still get to the minecraft folder very easily using Terminal as explained above. If you want to use Finder to find it, you may first need to set your Mac to show hidden files and folders in Finder, which is quite complicated!

Minecraft won’t launch at all

You need to figure out whether Minecraft is starting to launch (shows the white Mojang loading screen) and crashing – see next step – or whether it is not even getting that far. If it’s not even getting that far:

Make sure you know how to launch regular (unmodded) Minecraft using the Minecraft launcher.
In the launcher, switch to the Forge profile, see screenshot above, and in the bottom right of the screen (orange circle in that screenshot) make sure it’s showing a Forge version – the example in the screenshot is Forge version 10.12.2.1147 which is the correct one for playing modded Minecraft 1.7.2. Click the Edit Profile button if that’s not showing up correctly, and change the Use version: setting to the one you need, and hit Save Profile.
Click Play. It should be that simple!
For some people there can be various crashes while Forge or mods are starting. If that’s happening to you, don’t panic. You can probably find the cause by simplifying things.

If you need to simplify your mods setup, it would be a good idea to make a new folder somewhere like your desktop, that you can move mods into or out of. You can then try moving all the mods out of the /mods folder (remember also to remove the subfolders like 1.12.2) and see if the game starts with an empty mods folder?

If the game won’t even start with an empty mods folder, then something is wrong with your setup. If the game does start OK with an empty mods folder, now you can start moving mods back into that folder and see if the game still starts OK. For example, you could start with the three Galacticraft files and JEI, then you will know that at least Galacticraft is working OK…

We realise that for some people, it can be very frustrating if you want to play mods and the game keeps on crashing. The mod authors don’t intend for their mods to crash the game, obviously. But some of the mods are fairly complex – some like Galacticraft are almost like a whole new game – and there are approximately 40,000 different Minecraft mods, so it’s not always possible for the authors to know how the mod is going to behave in your exact setup.

So if you are experiencing crashes, a good idea can be to simplify. Remove mods you don’t need, or just start with a small number of mods which are really important to you, and add more one by one, checking that the game still runs OK each time you add one.

Playing a large number of mods together makes the game slow to load, increases the demand on some of the game’s internal resources, and increases the chance of some kind of conflict between mods. Conflict can sometimes be resolved by changing the configs of mods, but that needs some expertise.

Crashes become more likely if you try to combine a large number of mods all together – the more mods you have, the more chance of some unexpected interaction between them! We do have an issues list where issues can be reported and (hopefully) fixed, but if your issue is caused by having a lot of mods, then we may ask you to simplify your mods list first.

If you are having issues with Galacticraft specifically, including any dimension-related issues, and you also have some of the add-ons made by the Galacticraft community (like ExtraPlanets or More Planets or AmunRa or GalaxySpace), then please try Galacticraft without those add-ons.

It’s not usually a good idea to combine all the Galacticraft add-ons together, there can definitely be conflicts if you have all of them. That’s because they do some overlapping things, for example two of them have Mars space stations and that causes problems. So instead of taking all of these add-ons, just pick one.

Minecraft crashes with:- org.lwjgl.LWJGLException: Pixel format not accelerated

This is a common Minecraft setup problem. Minecraft uses OpenGL to talk to your video card / display. LWJGL is a standard ‘library’ which manages that talking. If it pops up this error when you start the game, it’s because it wasn’t able to make an OpenGL connection with your video card.

This can be for many different reasons, for example: you’re on a laptop which is so old (10 years+ old) or so basic that it doesn’t have a video card capable of OpenGL – or maybe your video card driver needs updating – maybe some other strange setting like JVM memory settings is wrong (untick the JVM options box in Minecraft Launcher profile) – or something which can be fixed just by restarting your PC. There’s a lot of stuff written on internet forums about this, most of it not very helpful.

Another possible cause is that another program on your PC took the OpenGL connection, which stops Minecraft from using it.

Skype has been seen to do this, in recent versions. Yes really, Skype! (Even though Microsoft owns both products.) So if you think your video card supports OpenGL and its drivers are up-to-date, just try quitting Skype and all other programs you have open, and try again.

Minecraft crashes with:- AL lib: (EE) alc_cleanup: 1 device not closed

This is a rare Minecraft start problem. It’s the audio code crashing.

It’s a confusing one, because sometimes you see this when there is some other startup problem (scroll up higher in the console or error log to see if there was something else) and sometimes the audio system is the real problem.

Advanced users who are having to start Minecraft over and over due to setup problems are the most likely to see this…

The cause of the audio system problem is like this. When the Minecraft game ends normally, for example using the Quit button in the main game screen, then if you look at the console logging you can notice it always finishes with the rather important message: “SoundSystem shutting down…”.

Even when the Minecraft game crashes, it normally shuts down its sound system OK before it exits to desktop (it’s good that way!) But if you force-closed the Minecraft game, last time you played, then it misses that all-important step. By “force-close” we mean on Windows, right-click on the Minecraft tab in the Windows taskbar and select Close (or even worse, use the Task Manager to force the application to close). Force-closing Minecraft is bad, don’t do it!

The good news is that usually this problem fixes itself if you just start Minecraft again after seeing the error.

If it recurs, check again that there isn’t some other cause – look for error messages earlier in the console or log. You can also try shutting down any other Minecraft or other game running on your computer, also your music player, movie/TV player, Skype and other voicechat programs, and anything else which might take over your PC’s sound system. Then start Minecraft again!

Minecraft crashes with:- java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException

If you are having this specific crash (these are the first four lines of your crash report):

   java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException
  at java.nio.Buffer.checkIndex(Unknown Source)
  at java.nio.DirectIntBufferU.get(Unknown Source)
  at net.minecraft.client.renderer.RenderGlobal.func_72712_a(RenderGlobal.java:350)

the reason for this crash is mostly likely your view distance is too large for Minecraft to handle. This can happen – for example – if you play later Minecraft versions like 1.12 or 1.14 then switch back to 1.7.10 to play older mods. The later Minecraft versions are OK with the longer view distances, but the earlier Minecraft versions can’t always handle them.

If you got as far as the Minecraft main menu, you can change your Options there, including the view distance.

If the game doesn’t get as far as the main menu, but reports this error in logs, you can fix it by quitting the game and editing the options.txt file in your .minecraft main folder. Look for a line like this: renderDistance:32 (it could be another number, anything over 16 is potentially a problem).

Change the number there to something like 12 or less, that’s a render distance of 12 chunks (192 blocks) which should be enough for most people. If 12 works OK and your PC is powerful, you can try increasing it through in-game options after the game started OK. If 12 doesn’t work, try something even smaller like 6, 7, or 8.

Minecraft keeps crashing while the game starts up

If you’re seeing a “brown screen of death” with Forge requirements missing, make a careful note of what it says, shut down the game, and put the missing mods in your /mods folder. (Sometimes it’s asking for a specific version number of a mod there, so make sure you have that version – so some mods have “dependencies” on other mods, it’s trying to tell you there what is needed!)

If mod configurations are wrong, or there is a bug or incompatibility between mods, Minecraft can crash after starting Forge startup but before reaching the main menu. There are probably details of this crash in your logs (look in the .minecraft/logs folder for the latest log)

First thing to check is whether it’s Minecraft + Forge themselves which are crashing, or a mod which is crashing. So, empty out your /mods folder totally – move the mods to another place for now, like to a new folder in Documents or on your desktop. Click Play. It should launch Minecraft with only Forge installed, no mods. The game main menu will say, bottom left, “3 mods loaded”. (That’s Forge, FML and MCP – the framework for modded Minecraft but no actual mods!) Create a New World – do not use your existing worlds, you will damage the world if you play it after removing mods! Check the New World plays OK.

If there’s even a crash with no mods then you need to fix your Minecraft + Forge. Maybe it doesn’t have enough memory (try the default memory settings, in the launcher click Edit Profile and untick the JVM arguments box). Or maybe it’s not installed correctly (a bad download?) Or if the crash says Exception in native code then most likely it doesn’t like your video driver, try updating the video driver and also it’s important to make sure the video settings on your PC have all the OpenGL settings fully enabled, see above.

If you can launch OK with no mods, then start adding mods back into the /mods folder in small groups. Keep on over and over adding more mods and starting the game again to see if it still works. Keep notes of which ones you just added, so that if it stops working, you know which mods to be looking at. Maybe start with Galacticraft’s three files (GalacticraftCore, Galacticraft-Planets, MicdoodleCore) and check that you can play OK with only those installed.

While you’re doing this, check again that all the mods are versions intended for this Minecraft version! People sometimes try to mix and match mods for different Minecraft versions, and that won’t work!

A few people have incomplete downloads of mods, especially larger file sizes (for example GalacticraftCore is a large mod file, around 11MB). Incomplete downloads can look like they’re working but then cause various crashes soon after the game starts, usually ClassNotFoundException. Please check carefully that your Galacticraft file downloads completed – look in your browser’s Downloads history, it will show which downloads completed and which failed! If you’re not sure, definitely try downloading Galacticraft again!

Galacticraft actually checks for a few common installation problems when it starts – if you see a text box reporting a problem, do what it recommends and do not just hit the Ignore button!

It reaches the Minecraft main menu screen but then crashes when I start playing a saved world

Try updating to the latest version of Galacticraft, also test whether a new world plays OK.

If that doesn’t fix it, read the first few code lines of the crash report, starting from the top – this is also called the stacktrace. Often (not always) it names right there the mod which is causing the problem. In those code lines in the crash report, the author name comes first (sometimes also com. or net. at the start). For example Galacticraft is micdoodle8.mods.galacticraft.core. because micdoodle8 is the lead author.

Try doing a Google search for words or computer code seen in the first few code lines of the crash report, maybe you can find something written about the problem and how somebody else fixed it.

If it’s a Galacticraft problem, you can ask for support on the forum. You will be asked to post a copy of your crash report (find it in folder .minecraft/crash-reports) and maybe other information as well.

Be patient, most problems are fixable and people on the forum will help you, but it can take a few days to find the answer.

Bugs and incompatibilities can be reported to the Galacticraft developers at the issues list, please respect the developers’ time by using that only for definite problems in Galacticraft.

MultiMC problems

Are you using MultiMC as a launcher? Some people have made it work OK but if you have even a small error in your MultiMC setup then you can have problems launching modded Minecraft.
The main thing to watch with MultiMC is that you have all the vanilla and library files (that’s Minecraft, LWJGL, Forge, and maybe LiteLoader and more) in the Version tab and all the mod files from the /mods folder, including Galacticraft, in the Loader tab. If you mix them up, it won’t work.
If you have problems with MultiMC, that’s something the Galacticraft team can’t support.

Installing Forge

First up, Galacticraft only works for the Windows PC, Mac, or Linux versions of Minecraft (or any other modern computer which can run Java) – now called Minecraft Java Edition. You can’t play Galacticraft in console (XBox360, Playstation, etc) or mobile (Minecraft Pocket Edition) versions – also called Bedrock Edition – of Minecraft.

Also you can’t play Galacticraft in the version of Minecraft which comes pre-installed in Windows 10, because that’s actually a limited mobile version, not the full Minecraft game – it’s not Minecraft Java Edition. All of that is out of our hands, if you want to play Galacticraft on a console then go ask Mojang or Microsoft to make proper modding possible in the console versions.

You will need Java of course. To run mods you need, specifically, Java 7 or Java 8. Out of these, we recommend Java 8 – that’s jre8 also called Java SE Runtime Environment 8. Galacticraft 4 for Minecraft 1.12.2 requires Java 8.

Unless you’re a coder or running other Java applications on your computer already, you probably need to install Java on your PC or Mac at this point. [Download Java 8 from Oracle] and on that page from Oracle you’ll want one of the x64 versions, probably the .dmg for Mac or the .exe for Windows. (Oracle don’t make this very easy to find for users, so hopefully our link will continue working.

Note that Oracle themselves are now promoting newer Java versions, and they want commercial users to pay for them but personal use is free and the classic and very popular Java versions like Java 8 remain free for everyone).

Download the Minecraft version you want from an official source if you don’t have it already. (The Minecraft launcher, under Edit Profile, Use Version, should have a list of all the Minecraft versions available on your installation.)

If you don’t have it, recently Mojang’s main Minecraft download page is only linking to the latest Minecraft versions, but Mojang also makes all the older Minecraft versions available on its official (Amazon-backed) download server. [Download link for the official 1.12.2 version]

For earlier versions, we have given links to the official Mojang download server in our table at the top of this article. Check every download link carefully: as long as it’s coming from amazonaws.com that should be from the official source.

Now install Forge. (If you are already playing modded Minecraft, most likely you already did that, so why are you reading this?) It’s pretty easy because Forge has an installer you can download – Forge Download page for 1.12.2. Forge has many versions, even after you chose the Minecraft version.

Usually there are only very small differences between different Forge versions. The Recommended version is usually best. Galacticraft 4 is happy with any version of Forge as long as final number is the same or later than the required version listed in the table at the top of this guide.

Other mods you are playing may have more specific Forge version requirements so you can check that. If you plan to play on a server with other people, it would be an idea to ask the server owner which exact Forge version the server uses, and use the same.

Installing Forge on Windows

Download the Forge installer for Windows – the ‘Installer-win’ version. Find the downloaded file, and run it. When you run the Forge installer, it should present you with a short menu with three choices: select ‘Install client’ and then hit Install. Problems? See Forge official guide.

Installing Forge on a Mac

Download the ‘Installer’ version of Forge, not the ‘Installer – Win’ version! This downloads a .jar file.

The .jar file is runnable on your Mac just by double-clicking on it, but on most modern Macs your security settings (Gatekeeper) will cause it to throw this error message when you try that: App can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.

Have no fear, there is a simple solution. Just Ctrl-click on the .jar file and choose ‘Open’. It will give you the same ‘App can’t be opened …’ error message, but this time there is an extra button you can click, called ‘Open’. Click the ‘Open’ button and the Forge installer should run. Choose ‘Install client’ and it should automatically install Forge on your Mac.