How to Play RLCraft With Friends

RLCraft works in multiplayer as it ships. Its author, Shivaxi, says it started as something he put together for his own server and friends. Everyone in the group needs the same build, RLCraft 2.9.3 for Minecraft 1.12.2, and the one decision left after that is which PC or server keeps the world running.

Match RLCraft 2.9.3 on every PC

Match the pack before anything else. RLCraft has not changed since release 2.9.3 on 27 June 2023, so everyone should see that version in the CurseForge app. A different build on one PC is the first thing to rule out when a friend cannot join.

Install it the way Shivaxi recommends on RLCraft's CurseForge page: in the CurseForge app, browse modpacks, find RLCraft, install it and click Play. His 2.9.2 notes say the default 3 GB of memory is fine and warn against giving the game more than 4 GB, which makes Java's garbage collection misbehave.

Players do not install Java for this, because the official Minecraft launcher has it built in. Java only becomes your job if one of you runs the server.

Pick a way to play together

There are four ways to share an RLCraft world, and they differ in who has to stay online.

Open to LAN on the same network

If everyone is on the same home network, you need nothing beyond the pack. The steps follow the Minecraft Wiki's LAN tutorial:

1. 1The player who owns the world loads it in RLCraft.
2. 2They open the pause menu, click Open to LAN, pick the game mode, set Allow Cheats, then click Start LAN World.
3. 3Chat confirms the world is open and shows its port number.
4. 4Friends open Multiplayer, where the LAN world appears at the bottom of the server list. If it does not show, they add the owner's local IP address and that port by hand, and the owner's firewall has to allow the port.

Turn Allow Cheats on here if you want /tp later, which helps with the random spawns below. The world closes when its owner quits, and friends in other houses cannot reach it without port forwarding or a VPN.

Essential: turn off Custom Main Menu first

Essential is a free mod that lets friends join your single-player world over the internet, with no server to set up. It has a current Forge 1.12.2 build (1.5.0.1, 17 September 2026), and 1.12.2 is on the list of versions Essential keeps supporting after retiring older ones.

1. 1Every player opens My Modpacks in the CurseForge app, clicks RLCraft, opens the three-dot menu next to Play, selects Profile Options and enables Allow content management for this profile.
2. 2In the Content tab, each player presses Add More Content, searches for Essential Mod and installs it.
3. 3Still in Content, each player disables Custom Main Menu. RLCraft includes it to customise its main menu, and Essential's CurseForge guide lists it among the mods to disable.
4. 4The player who owns the world opens the Essential menu, clicks Host, picks the world, starts it, selects friends and confirms with Add Members.
5. 5Friends accept the invite and join from the Social menu with Join Game, or from the Friends tab in Multiplayer.

Up to 8 players can be connected at once, everyone needs the exact same mods, and the world is only up while its owner is in the game. e4mc, the other one-mod shortcut, is not an option here: its builds start at Minecraft 1.17, and there is none for 1.12.2.

Run an RLCraft server on a friend's PC

A server keeps the world apart from anyone's single-player save, and on a friend's PC it stays up as long as that PC does. RLCraft publishes a separate server pack for this.

1. 1Install Java 8 on that PC. Mojang's version manifest lists Java 8 for Minecraft 1.12.2, and Forge's lead developer said in 2017 that Java 9 support would not come to 1.12.
2. 2Download the Forge 1.12.2-14.23.5.2860 installer, run it, choose Install server and point it at an empty folder.
3. 3From the RLCraft 2.9.3 file page on CurseForge, download RLCraft Server Pack 1.12.2 - Release v2.9.3 (318.9 MB) and extract it into the same folder. It carries the mods and config folders and a readme for servers.
4. 4Start the Forge server once, set eula=true in eula.txt, and start it again.
5. 5Set the four server.properties values Shivaxi lists below, then restart.
6. 6To let friends in other houses connect, forward port 25565 on the router to that PC and give them its public IP address.

enable-command-block=true
allow-flight=true
max-tick-time=-1
difficulty=3

Shivaxi's reasons: without command blocks, structures generate without their villagers. Without allow-flight, anyone on a flying mount gets kicked. max-tick-time of -1 turns off the watchdog, so generating large structures does not shut the server down, and difficulty 3 (Hard) is the balance the pack is built around.

Give the server more memory than a player's game. CraftLands sizes RLCraft servers from 6 GB before anyone joins plus about 0.2 GB per player, so 8 GB covers 10 players, and the RAM calculator does the sum for other group sizes.

Keep an RLCraft world online

A PC server goes down when its owner switches the PC off, which is hard on a world that takes weeks to get going. Our RLCraft server hosting installs RLCraft 2.9.3 with Forge 14.23.5.2860 on Java 8 before first boot, with the four server.properties values above already set.

Friends then join with the server address shown in the panel, with nothing to forward.

RLCraft

Forge · 1.12.2

Deploy

RLCraft 2.9.3 on Minecraft 1.12.2, installed with Forge 14.23.5.2860 on Java 8 and Shivaxi's four server.properties values already set.

Finding each other after you spawn

Until a player sets a spawn point, RLCraft drops them at random coordinates between -10,000 and 10,000, so two friends on a fresh world can start thousands of blocks apart. A death with no spawn point set sends you somewhere random again.

F3 will not help: RLCraft turns off the coordinates on the debug screen, and a compass shows them instead. These get the group together:

• Wormhole Potion. Brew an Eye of Ender into a Recall Potion, which is itself a Warp Scroll brewed into an Awkward Potion. Drinking it sends a request to a player you choose and teleports you to them.
• /tp. With Allow Cheats on for the LAN world, or as an operator on a server, /tp <you> <friend> moves one player to another. In 1.12.2 it fails if you are in different dimensions.
• A shared waystone. Once you meet, everyone activates the same waystone. The pack's quick-start guide says waystones set your spawn point and a sleeping bag does not, so a death brings you back to the same place instead of a new random spot.

Then share a map. Combining a blank Antique Atlas with an opened one makes a copy, and the RLCraft wiki notes that markings on one show on every atlas with the same number.

If the server lags

RLCraft already includes spark, the profiler, so you can see what the server is doing before you blame the RAM. While the lag is happening, run this as an operator. After three minutes spark prints a link to the report.

/spark sampler --timeout 180

Open that link in your browser to see spark's view of what the server thread was doing.

Two things not to add: Shivaxi's pack page says VanillaFix and BetterFPS are not compatible with RLCraft. Our server lag guide covers view distance, pre-generation and the rest.

Frequently asked questions

Where to go next

If RLCraft wears the group down, our modpack roundup sorts other adventure packs by playstyle and server RAM.