Navigating the sprawling landscape of All The Mods 10 (ATM10) demands more than just grit; it requires strategic planning, especially when it comes to experience points (XP). Integrating XP farms into your ATM10 progression isn't just about grinding levels; it's about seamlessly automating one of the game's most crucial resources, enabling you to unlock powerful enchantments, craft advanced gear, and truly master this epic modpack. From your first tentative steps to late-game exploits, a well-designed XP system will be your bedrock, ensuring you're always ready for the next challenge.
At a Glance: Your XP Farming Blueprint
- Early Mobility is Key: Prioritize flight and fast travel to efficiently gather resources for farm construction.
- Power Your Ambition: Establish a robust power grid early to fuel your automation.
- Silent Gear for Longevity: Craft modular, repairable tools for all your mining and farming needs.
- Fortune V, Simplified: Leverage EvilCraft for easy access to high-tier fortune enchantments.
- Apothic Spawners are Supreme: Customize spawners for precise mob farming and optimal XP output.
- XP as a Crop: Mystical Agriculture allows you to grow experience directly.
- Automate Everything: Use Harvester Pylons and Sophisticated Storage to streamline collection and management.
- Master the Dimensions: Utilize the Mining Dimension and The Other for unique resources crucial for upgrades.
The XP Crunch in ATM10: Why Every Level Matters
ATM10 isn't just a modpack; it's an ecosystem of intertwined systems. Every new mod, every powerful enchantment, every intricate crafting recipe often circles back to one common requirement: experience levels. Without a consistent and increasingly efficient source of XP, you'll find yourself constantly bottlenecked, unable to progress to the exciting mid and late-game content that makes ATM10 so rewarding. Whether you're enchanting a new pickaxe, repairing Mending gear, or leveling up your character's skills, a reliable XP farm transforms a tedious grind into a background process, freeing you to focus on exploration, building, and automation.
Laying the Groundwork: Essential Preparations for Any Farm
Before you even think about placing your first spawner, a few foundational elements will dramatically improve your efficiency and safety, setting the stage for truly integrated XP farming.
Taking Flight: Early Mobility for Resource Gathering
Getting around efficiently is paramount in ATM10. Your first step towards mastering movement should be acquiring a Wooden Jetpack from the Iron Jetpacks mod. This humble device, powered by FE, grants vertical movement and crucial hovering capabilities, a game-changer for early exploration and construction. Pair it with Mekanism's Free Runners for step assist and fall damage prevention, and you'll navigate the world with ease. Powering this setup is simple: a Mekanism Wind Generator (placed as high as possible for maximum output) can feed power to a Powah Player Transmitter which, using a Blank Binding Card, wirelessly charges your equipped gear.
Later, you can transcend jetpacks entirely. Through Apotheosis, you can craft a Potion of Flying (requiring Phantom Membrane, Popped Chorus Fruit, and Fermented Spider Eyes, building upon Slow Falling and Levitation potions). Extend its duration to 30 minutes, then apply it to an Infusion Pylon using a Potion Filter. Once the filter accumulates one hour of total duration, it activates a passive, creative-style flight toggle, permanently freeing you from power constraints and jetpack maintenance.
Mastering Navigation: Fast Travel and Global Awareness
Getting to your farm and back, or locating critical biomes and structures, needs to be seamless. Waystones, found naturally in villages or crafted, become your personal teleportation network. Name them clearly – "Main Base," "Nether Portal," "Deep Dark Entrance" – to avoid confusion. For fixed, high-traffic routes, Warp Plates offer instant, customizable transport between two specific locations, even across dimensions. Think linking your base to the Mining Dimension entrance or your primary mob farm.
Beyond fixed points, an Explorer's Compass is invaluable for locating crucial generated structures like Bastions, Mineshafts, or Woodland Mansions, many of which hide valuable starting loot or unique mobs. For rare biomes, especially the Deep Dark where you'll find precious Allthemodium ore, the Nature's Compass (crafted with 4 Logs, 4 Saplings, 1 vanilla Compass) guides you directly. Finally, never forget the simple efficiency of /home to return to your personal waypoint and /back to retrace your steps after a death or teleport (mind the cooldown!).
Building Your First Power Grid: Fueling Automation
Automation runs on power. Your initial energy solution should be Mekanism Wind Generators. Place them as high as possible – think temporary towers – for optimal output. To store and distribute this energy, utilize Ender Cells (portable batteries, expandable with additional Batteries/Energy Cells) and Ender Gates, which can wirelessly transmit energy to machines or even your armor. A basic Powah Energizing Orb placed nearby will efficiently energize your capacitors, kickstarting your energy infrastructure.
Sophisticated Storage: Managing the Harvest
As your farms scale, managing drops becomes a monumental task. Begin with Sophisticated Backpacks, upgrading them with Magnet Upgrades for automatic item collection. Transition quickly to a comprehensive Sophisticated Storage system within your base. This mod offers highly customizable and efficient item storage, sorting, and automation capabilities that are essential for processing the deluge of items an XP farm generates. Implementing a good storage solution early prevents frustrating bottlenecks down the line.
Mining Essentials: Getting the Resources You Need
Effective XP farming often requires specific resources, and you'll need the right tools to get them.
- Vein Miner: Pressing the grave key (`) lets you instantly mine entire veins of ore or chop down whole trees. Remember to hold SHIFT and scroll to change mining modes (e.g., "Shapeless," "Small Tunnel," "Staircase") for versatile digging.
- Silent Gear: Forget flimsy vanilla tools. Silent Gear allows you to craft custom, modular tools that don't truly break but become unusable at zero durability, repairable indefinitely. Start with basic materials like Stone or Iron, but quickly aim for Diamond or Obsidian heads. The beauty is you can swap parts – put a Diamond Head on a Stone tool body to get Diamond mining levels without rebuilding the whole tool. This modularity means your tools grow with you.
- Easy Fortune V: This is a game-changer for resource gathering. Use EvilCraft's Blood Extractor to collect blood, process it into hardened blood materials, and craft a Blood Infuser. This infuser converts Dried Bushes into Undead Saplings, which grow special wood. Use this wood to craft Vengeance Pickaxes, which come pre-enchanted with Fortune V. They have low durability and are cursed, but you can transfer that precious Fortune V enchantment to a durable Silent Gear tool (or Netherite pickaxe) using an Anvil and enchantment books.
- Acquiring Silk Touch: Essential for picking up spawners intact, Silk Touch can be acquired via enchantment books or specialized tools like the Steam Mining Drill, which allows you to toggle Silk Touch on/off (Left SHIFT + right-click). Combining a Silk Touch book with a block of Obsidian on an Anvil is a reliable way to transfer it.
- The Mining Dimension: Once you locate Allthemodium ore (faintly glowing in the Deep Dark biome, found with your Nature's Compass) and craft Allthemodium Nuggets, you can make a Teleport Pad. This pad grants access to the Mining Dimension, a flat, ore-rich world perfect for resource gathering. A second pad leads to The Other, a dangerous dimension with valuable loot. These pads are dimension-specific and greatly benefit from chunk loading to keep them active.
Unlocking XP Potential: Modifying Spawners for Maximum Gain
Mob spawners are the backbone of many XP farms, and ATM10 offers powerful tools to optimize them.
Picking Up and Customizing Spawners
Before you can build your dream farm, you need spawners. A tool with Silk Touch (like your newly enchanted Silent Gear pickaxe or a Steam Mining Drill) is crucial for picking up Apothic Spawners intact. Once acquired, these aren't your typical vanilla spawners. You can customize them extensively using various items:
- Echo Shards: Increase the number of mobs spawned per cycle.
- Nether Stars: Drastically reduce spawn delay.
- Chorus Fruit: Teleports mobs away from the spawner, useful for dropping them into a grinder.
- Wool: Makes mobs silent, reducing auditory clutter.
- Turtle Eggs: Spawns baby variants (useful for specific drops or challenges).
- Other items can modify light level requirements, mob behavior, and even spawn conditions.
Experiment with combinations to maximize spawn rates and ensure mobs funnel efficiently into your grinder.
Controlling the Environment with Light Field Blocks
To ensure your spawner operates optimally and mobs only spawn where you want them, Light Field Blocks are invaluable. These blocks emit light in a 24-block radius, completely preventing mob spawns. Strategically place them around your farm area and in nearby caves to focus all mob activity within your collection zone. This is particularly useful in dangerous dungeons or when creating farms in places like The Other dimension, where unwanted spawns can quickly become overwhelming.
Beyond the Grind: Automated XP Generation
While mob spawners are classic, ATM10 offers even more sophisticated ways to generate XP, often with fewer moving parts.
Growing Your Experience with Mystical Agriculture
One of the most satisfying forms of XP generation comes from Mystical Agriculture, which allows you to literally cultivate experience as a crop. These special plants yield experience orbs when harvested. To accelerate their growth, you can use tools like the Crystal Resonance Generator.
For full automation, place Harvester Pylons directly above your Mystical Agriculture XP crops. Equip a Supremium Hoe inside the pylon, and it will automatically harvest mature experience plants, even continuing to function at 1 durability. The harvested experience orbs (or items if you're growing other crops) will then be directed into your Sophisticated Storage system. To collect and store this valuable experience, craft an Experience Capsule from Soul Glass and Soulium Ingots. Simply right-click with it to absorb experience orbs. These capsules can hold massive amounts of XP, ready for when you need to enchant or repair.
Infinite Resources and XP from Mob Drops
The XyCraft Machines' Extractors offer a unique way to generate both items and experience. By placing specific Mob Heads and Eggs above these extractors, you can yield infinite resources. For example, placing a Dragon Head and Dragon Egg above an Extractor will provide an endless supply of Dragon's Breath and even additional Dragon Eggs. While not a direct XP farm, the resources gained can fuel other XP-generating processes or powerful enchantments, indirectly boosting your progression.
Advanced Strategies for Exponential Growth
Once your basic XP farms are running, you can fine-tune them and integrate advanced mechanics to push your progression even further.
Potion of Flight: True Freedom of Movement
As mentioned, the Infusion Pylons from Apotheosis allow you to convert a long-duration Potion of Flying into a permanent, creative-style flight toggle. This is a significant upgrade from jetpacks, offering boundless freedom for building, exploring, and managing your sprawling base without worrying about power or fuel. This kind of quality-of-life improvement accelerates every aspect of your gameplay, including farm expansion and maintenance.
Speeding Up the Workflow: Time Manipulation
For single-player worlds, or carefully managed server environments, tools that manipulate time can dramatically increase the output of your farms and processing machines. The Time in a Bottle stores game ticks and can then be used to accelerate machines. Similarly, the Time Wand from Just Dire Things offers comparable acceleration. Exercise caution with these in multiplayer, as excessive use can cause significant server lag. Use them sparingly and strategically for specific bottlenecks, such as speeding up the growth of your Mystical Agriculture XP crops or rapidly cooking ores.
Locating Late-Game Resources
Advanced progression, and thus advanced XP farm components, often require rare materials:
- Vibranium Ore: Found in the Nether, typically near Bastions. Keep an eye out for Suspicious Clay Blocks; using a brush on these can yield Vibranium Upgrade Kits.
- Unobtanium Ore: Located in the End Highlands biome. The Destruction Gadget from Building Gadgets is essential here; it allows you to expose ore veins without destroying them, making harvesting much more efficient.
These materials are crucial for crafting the most powerful Silent Gear tools, high-tier armor, and top-tier furnaces like the Unobtainium Furnace, which will exponentially speed up your processing of ores and drops.
Maximizing Ore Yield with Crushing Hammers
Even with Fortune V, you can extract more from your raw ores. Utilize Crushing Hammers (e.g., Platinum Hammers) to double your ore yield before smelting. Platinum Hammers offer good durability and are accessible relatively early. Automate this crushing process, then feed the doubled ores into high-efficiency furnaces like the Unobtainium Furnace for maximum resource output, providing more materials for crafting and enchanting.
The Ultimate XP Hub: Designing Your Integrated Farm
The true power of integrating XP farms in ATM10 comes from combining these individual elements into a cohesive system. Imagine a centralized hub where:
- Apothic Spawners are configured for maximum mob density, dropping creatures into a grinder.
- Light Field Blocks ensure mobs only spawn within the grinder's area.
- Harvester Pylons are simultaneously collecting experience from Mystical Agriculture XP crops.
- All drops and experience orbs are funneled into a massive Sophisticated Storage system via a network of pipes and conveyors.
- Experience Capsules automatically collect ambient XP orbs.
- An Unobtainium Furnace or other high-efficiency smelter processes mob drops (like Rotten Flesh for villagers or iron for more gear).
- An Ender Cell network ensures a constant power supply to all components, drawing from your high-altitude Wind Generators.
This type of integrated system means you're constantly generating XP, passively collecting valuable mob drops, and fueling your base's needs without direct intervention. It’s a self-sustaining engine of progression. For an even deeper dive into optimization and specific layouts, you might find valuable insights in All about the ATM 10 XP farm.
Troubleshooting Common XP Farm Hurdles
Even the best-designed farms can hit snags. Here are a few common issues and their solutions:
- Mob Cap Issues: If your farm slows down, check the mob cap. Too many mobs in surrounding areas can prevent spawners from working. Use Light Field Blocks to prevent spawns, clear out nearby caves, or design your farm in a chunk-loaded area away from other high-mob-density zones.
- Power Supply Shortages: If machines are lagging, your power generation might not keep up. Expand your Wind Generator array, elevate them higher, or invest in more advanced power solutions like Mekanism's Fission Reactor later in the game.
- Storage Bottlenecks: A clogged storage system can halt your entire farm. Regularly expand your Sophisticated Storage, ensure sorting filters are correctly set, and consider voiding less useful items or setting up automatic processing for them.
- Lag: Complex farms can strain your system. Use simple, direct mob killing mechanisms (like fall damage or simple spikes) rather than overly elaborate setups. Reduce unnecessary animations, and be mindful of overly complex redstone or pipe networks.
Your Next Steps to XP Mastery in ATM10
Integrating XP farms into your ATM10 progression is an iterative process. Start small with a basic spawner setup or a few Mystical Agriculture XP plants. Gradually expand, adding automation, better tools, and more efficient power. Don't be afraid to experiment with different mod interactions. The beauty of ATM10 lies in its versatility; there's always a new way to optimize.
Your journey through ATM10 is a marathon, not a sprint. By prioritizing early mobility, establishing a robust power grid, and strategically automating your XP generation, you'll ensure a smooth, enjoyable, and rewarding experience as you conquer everything this incredible modpack has to offer. Go forth, automate, and level up!