Ender IO — Minecraft Java Edition 1.20.1 / 1.21.1

Ender IO is a tech mod that solves the problem of tangled wires and pipes on your base. Instead of building separate lines for items, fluids and energy, you use conduits — multi-channel cables that run inside a single block. The mod adds machines for ore processing, autocrafting, mob spawning and fluid management. The port to the newer game versions changed the early game considerably: the developers rewrote the recipes for the base materials and reworked how the first mechanisms operate.

Early game: Obtaining base materials

You don't need energy to craft the first machines, but you will need a specific material — Grains of Infinity. To get it, set fire to Bedrock or Cobbled Deepslate and wait: the fire will burn out on its own and, with a certain chance, drop Grains of Infinity.

With this method you quickly gather the materials for the first machines without complicated trips down to bedrock or building automatic farms.

Basic machines and ore processing

Progression in Ender IO starts with building simple mechanisms that prepare alloys for more complex machines.

Primitive Alloy Smelter

The first furnace you'll make. It runs on ordinary solid fuel (coal, wood) and needs no energy. The furnace has three input slots and one fuel slot. Its main purpose is to smelt the starting alloys:

• Copper Alloy: Silicon + copper.

• Energetic Alloy: gold + redstone + Glowstone Dust.

• Vibrant Alloy: Energetic Alloy + ender pearl.

• Dark Steel: iron + coal powder + obsidian.

SAG Mill (Grinder)

An ore grinder with doubled output and a chance to obtain by-products. It has a special slot for modifiers — the Grinding Ball. For example, if you put an ordinary flint in there, it gives a +125% bonus to output and reduces energy consumption to 85%. The SAG Mill also makes silicon out of ordinary sand.

The result of the SAG Mill using flint as the Grinding Ball (64 Iron Ore were loaded)

Energy generation and storage

Your first power source will be the Stirling Generator, which burns coal or wood. Later you'll be able to craft solar panels — Photovoltaic Cells. They come in different tiers and require special materials (for example, clear glass).

Energy is stored in the Capacitor Bank — these are stackable battery blocks. They automatically connect on their sides to neighboring banks into a single network. Every machine requires a capacitor (item) in a special slot. Capacitors (Basic Capacitor, Double-Layer Capacitor, Octadic Capacitor) not only make the machine run, they also increase the processing speed and the capacity of the internal buffer.

Double-Layer Capacitor in the SAG Mill

Conduits: Logistics in a single block

The main reason to set up Ender IO is the conduits. Within a single block you can run several different pipes at once.

In the newer versions the conduits have a priority system. You can set a priority from -10 to 10 on each connection. Resources go first to the nodes with the higher number, which eliminates the old problem of uneven distribution. From the outside the conduit node hides under a facade that takes on the texture of any vanilla block.

Energy Conduit settings

Item Conduit settings

We added a barrel and connected it to the SAG Mill using an Item Conduit

Several conduits run inside a single block under one facade

Working with fluids and experience

Experience in the mod works as a physical fluid — XP Juice. It can be stored in a Fluid Tank or in a dedicated buffer, the XP Obelisk. The obelisk accumulates the player's experience on a direct click and gives it back in exact portions or levels.

XP Obelisk interface

XP Obelisk appearance

The XP Vacuum sucks XP particles into itself and transfers them to the XP Obelisk

The Vat is used to produce complex fluids. It is a brewing setup for fermentation and distillation. It produces machine oil, vegetable oil and Hootch (a powerful fuel for generators). In the latest updates the developers tidied up the inputs — the order of ingredients no longer affects the recipe.

VAT interface

Specialized machines

Ender IO includes a full set of machines for automating farms and processing mob loot:

• Fluid Tank and Pressurized Fluid Tank: Reservoirs for storing fluids (water, lava, liquid experience). The basic tank is made of iron and glass, while the Pressurized one is made of Dark Steel.

• Powered Spawner: A spawner that runs on energy. You can bind it to a specific mob using a Soul Vial (a vial for capturing souls).

Spawner, empty vial, filled vial

• Vacuum Chest: Automatically collects items within a certain radius around itself. Perfect for mob farms.

• Soul Binder: Transfers souls from a Soul Vial into items. Consumes liquid experience.

• Slice'n'Splice: A machine for creating complex components (for example, zombie-Frankenstein heads for crafting controllers).

• Enchanter: Here you create specific enchanting books using experience and items, removing randomness from the vanilla enchanting table entirely.

• Wired Charger / Wireless Charger: Charge items (for example, Dark Steel armor) in the player's inventory.

Integration with other mods

Ender IO ships separate modules for compatibility. For example, enderio-ae2-conduits adds the ability to route ME cables from Applied Energistics 2 inside a block with conduits. There is a similar module for Refined Storage and Mekanism (chemical conduits).

Conclusion

Ender IO remains the benchmark for base logistics. In no other mod can you run energy, items, fluids and AE2 cables in a single block without visual clutter. The new mechanics for obtaining base materials make the early game more dynamic, removing the tedious wait by the bedrock.

That said, because of the lengthy porting process to the new versions, some content (for example, Dark Steel armor) may work unreliably or be missing altogether in the 1.21.1 releases. For players who love building compact and aesthetic bases it is an indispensable tool, but for plain survival the number of machines and the complex metallurgy may seem excessive.