Sifter's Excavation

Sifter's Excavation

Turn riverbeds, reefs and Nether soul ground into an archaeology workshop. Dredge rich sediment, screen ancient treasures, and awaken a Relic Sentinel to guard your base or supply your screening table.

Features

• Excavation Dredge Bucket: recover two rich sediment blocks from submerged gravel, clay, mud, sand or red sand. In the Nether, dredge soul sand, soul soil and magma blocks for cinder sediment.
• Three sediment families: river alluvial, oceanic reef and Nether cinder sediment, each with its own treasure tables.
• Wooden Screening Table: pan by hand with three clicks, or wash automatically in 60 ticks. Waterlogging the table or placing water beside it reduces washing to 30 ticks.
• Hopper automation: insert sediment from above or the sides and extract treasure from below. The table provides one input, one optional brush slot and six output slots.
• Archaeology rewards: discover pottery sherds, nuggets, gems, prismarine, trims, fragments and Ancient Relic Cores. Combine four Netherite Scrap Fragments into one scrap, or nine Sniffer Egg Fragments into an egg.
• Relic Sentinel Golems: awaken an empty decorated pot on terracotta or mud bricks with an Ancient Relic Core. Guardian mode patrols nearby and attacks hostile mobs. Dredger mode supplies one alluvial sediment every 400 loaded ticks to a suitable nearby screening table.
• Datapack customization: recipes and loot tables can be replaced for modpack balance. No new structures or world-generation changes are required.

Getting started

1. Craft a dredge bucket with copper ingots, iron bars and a bucket.
2. Dredge ground with water directly above it, then load the sediment into a screening table.
3. Right-click with a brush or an empty main hand to pan. Sneak-right-click the table to open its inventory.
4. Put a brush in the upgrade slot for automated washing. Fortune or Luck of the Sea increases rare-category loot weights; Unbreaking follows vanilla durability behavior.
5. Use a relic core on an empty decorated pot above terracotta or mud bricks, leaving room above it. The summoner can sneak-right-click the sentinel with a dredge bucket to switch modes, and repair it with terracotta.

Requirements

Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.1 · Fabric Loader 0.16.14+ · Fabric API 0.116.6+1.21.1 · Java 21

Install the mod and Fabric API on both the client and server. Tables and sentinels work while their chunks are loaded.

Loot is intentionally generous, so progression-focused modpacks may wish to adjust the datapack tables. Each sediment makes two or three loot rolls; listed category weights are per roll.

Testing and feedback

The initial build passed 21 automated gameplay checks and a two-process save/reload test. Graphical client and multiplayer verification remain pending. Please report issues with your Minecraft, Fabric Loader and Fabric API versions.

Original code, textures and models. MIT license. Independent unofficial project; not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft.