Augments

Augments

Augments slot into a beacon's augment drawer and change what it can do. They are the only way a beacon becomes more than its tier.

One augment of each type per beacon. You cannot fit two Range augments for double the reach — the slot refuses it, and so does the resolver, so a beacon assembled by command cannot cheat it either.

Beacon	Augment slots
Beacon I	0
Beacon II	1
Beacon III	2
Beacon IV	4
Cinder / Void / Tidal	2

There are fourteen augments and at most four slots, so the question is never "which do I want" but "which four". Seven are pure gains — the only cost is the slot. The other seven give something up, and those are the ones worth thinking about.

Each augment exists in one to three tiers of its own, crafted separately — a tier III Range is not built from a tier II one.

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Range

What it does. Adds to the aura radius, in blocks. It only matters for effects set to something other than Self: a self-only effect has no radius to grow.

Augment tier	Bonus
I	+4 blocks
II	+8 blocks
III	+12 blocks

How to use it. Base ranges are 0 / 8 / 12 / 16 blocks for Beacons I–IV, and 10 / 14 / 12 for Cinder / Void / Tidal. Range III on a Beacon IV reaches 28 blocks.

What it costs. Range makes shared effects more expensive: cost is multiplied by 1 + range / 64. That is deliberately mild. A linear cost made the largest Range augment strictly worse than no augment at all, which is not a choice, just a trap. At 28 blocks the multiplier is about 1.44.

Configuring. data/<namespace>/portablebeacons/augment/range.json, operation add_range. The values list is indexed by augment tier, so it must hold at least max_tier entries. Base ranges live on each tier as base_range.

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Focus

What it does. Adds one effect slot, so the beacon can project one more effect at a time.

Augment tier	Bonus
I	+1 effect slot

How to use it. Beacons I and II project one effect; III, IV and the themed beacons project two. Focus takes those to two and three. It is the only augment that changes how many things a beacon does rather than how well it does them.

What it costs. Nothing directly — but every extra effect is charged in full, so a beacon with Focus burns fuel faster simply by doing more.

Configuring. augment/focus.json, operation add_effect_slot. Raise max_tier and add values to allow a second or third extra slot. Base counts live on each tier as effect_slots.

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Amplification

What it does. Raises the ceiling on effect levels. It does not raise your effects — you still choose the level, and you still pay for it.

Augment tier	Bonus
I	+1 to the reachable level

How to use it. Two ceilings apply and the lower one wins: the beacon's, and the effect's own max_amplifier. Amplification only helps when the effect can go higher than the beacon currently allows.

Shipped defaults: Beacon IV and Cinder grant level II unaided; every other beacon grants level I. The six combat and movement effects — Speed, Haste, Jump Boost, Resistance, Strength, Regeneration — allow up to level III. The utility effects — Night Vision, Water Breathing, Slow Falling, Fire Resistance, Conduit Power, Dolphin's Grace — are level I only, because a second level of them means nothing in vanilla.

So Amplification takes Speed from I to II on a Beacon III, from II to III on a Beacon IV, and does nothing at all for Night Vision on any beacon.

What it costs. A great deal. Each level multiplies that effect's cost by the effect's amplifier_cost_multiplier, applied per level — so level III costs the multiplier squared. The sharing mode then multiplies again on top.

Configuring. Three fields, and all three are checked:

• augment/amplification.json, operation add_amplifier — how much ceiling the augment adds.
• portablebeacons/tier/<tier>.json, field max_amplifier — the level a beacon grants unaided.
• portablebeacons/effect/<effect>.json, field max_amplifier — the highest level that effect will ever allow, whatever the beacon.

Raising only one of them is the usual reason a change appears to do nothing.

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Efficiency

What it does. Multiplies the beacon's whole fuel bill.

Augment tier	Fuel cost
I	×0.75 — 25% off
II	×0.60 — 40% off
III	×0.45 — 55% off

How to use it. The multiplier applies to the total, after effect level, sharing mode and range. It is therefore worth most on an expensive beacon — two shared effects at level III — and close to worthless on a single self-only Speed.

Configuring. augment/efficiency.json, operation mul_fuel. Values below 1 reduce the cost; a value above 1 raises it, which is a perfectly good way to write a cursed augment.

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Capacity

What it does. Multiplies the size of the beacon's internal fuel buffer.

Augment tier	Buffer
I	×2
II	×3
III	×4

How to use it. This one matters more than it looks, because of how refuelling works: a beacon refuses any fuel item its buffer cannot hold whole. It will not burn most of a netherite ingot and waste the remainder. A Beacon II holds 3600 units, so a netherite ingot worth more than that simply sits in the slot, full and useless.

Capacity is what lets a small beacon use dense fuel at all, and what lets a large one run unattended for longer.

Base buffers are 1200 / 3600 / 10800 / 36000 for Beacons I–IV, and 10800 for the themed three.

Configuring. augment/capacity.json, operation mul_capacity. Base buffers live on each tier as fuel_capacity.

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Attunement

What it does. Unlocks wider sharing than the beacon offers on its own.

The sharing modes form a ladder, and each has a rank:

Mode	Rank	Reaches	Fuel cost
Self	0	only you	×1.0
Team	1	your scoreboard team	×1.7
Allies	2	every player nearby	×2.0
Allies and Pets	3	nearby players and tamed animals	×2.4

A beacon grants every mode up to its own aura_rank. Attunement raises that rank.

Augment tier	Bonus
I	+1 rank
II	+2 ranks

How to use it. The shipped defaults:

Beacon	aura_rank	Unaided	+ Attunement I	+ Attunement II
I	0	Self	no augment slot	no augment slot
II	0	Self	Team	Allies
III, IV	1	Team	Allies	Allies and Pets
Cinder / Void / Tidal	1	Team	Allies	Allies and Pets

Team sits below Allies deliberately: it reaches fewer people and costs less, so it is the cheaper first step out of keeping everything to yourself.

A Beacon II has exactly one augment slot, so sharing at all costs it the only augment it will ever carry. That is the intended decision, not an oversight.

What it costs. The mode multiplies every shared effect's cost — see the table above. Allies is twice Self; Allies and Pets nearly two and a half times. Range multiplies on top of that.

Configuring. augment/attunement.json, operation unlock_aura, and aura_rank on each tier (0–3, defaulting to 0).

Give a tier "aura_rank": 3 to make all sharing free from the start; set every tier to 0 to make sharing always require the augment. The ranks of the modes themselves are fixed by the ladder and are not datapack-configurable — only which rank a beacon reaches is.

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Discretion

What it does. Hides the visual evidence that you have effects running.

Augment tier	Hides
I	the particle swirl
II	the particle swirl and the status icons

How to use it. Useful on PvP servers, where a swirl of particles announces that you are buffed, and useful for anyone who dislikes the visual noise. It changes nothing about what the effects do, only what others — and you — can see.

Configuring. augment/discretion.json, operation hide_effects. The value is read as a level, not summed: 1 hides particles, 2 or more hides the icons as well. Two augments both granting concealment do not add up — the highest wins, because the value names a behaviour rather than an amount.

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Augments that change the economy

The seven above are pure gains — the only cost is the slot, so the only question is which you lack room for. The seven below each give something up, and they are where the decisions live.

Four of them work on levers the plain augments never touch: what sharing costs, whether an effect is charged at all, and whether you are standing still. Three combine several gains across different axes for one cost, so what they really buy back is a slot — the scarcest thing a beacon has.

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Communion

What it does. Makes sharing cheaper without making anything else cheaper.

Augment tier	Sharing surcharge	All fuel
I	×0.5	×1.35
II	×0.3	×1.5

How to use it. Sharing normally costs a surcharge on top of the effect: ×1.7 for Team, ×2.0 for Allies, ×2.4 for Allies and Pets. Communion scales only that surcharge. At tier I, Allies costs +50% instead of +100%; at tier II, +30%.

The counterweight is that everything gets dearer, including what you keep to yourself. So Communion is worth it on a beacon that shares most of what it runs, and actively bad on one that shares nothing.

This is the only augment that makes a strategy affordable rather than a number bigger. Before it, nothing in the mod modulated the cost of sharing at all.

Configuring. augment/communion.json, operations mul_aura_cost and mul_fuel.

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Wellspring

What it does. Runs one effect for nothing.

Augment tier	Free effects	All other fuel
I	1	×1.6

How to use it. The free slot always covers your most expensive effect, whichever that is — not the first one you configured. That is deliberate: taking them in configured order would make the augment worth whatever order you happened to set things up in, which is not a decision, just a thing to get right or wrong without being told.

So Wellspring rewards one very expensive effect alongside cheap ones. A Regeneration III shared with allies, free, while two self-only buffs pay a 60% surcharge, is a good trade. Three effects of equal cost is a bad one.

The covered effect says free in the info panel instead of showing a share of the bill.

Configuring. augment/wellspring.json, operations free_effect_slot and mul_fuel.

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Wayfarer

What it does. Cheap while you travel, expensive while you stop.

Augment tier	While moving	Standing still
I	×0.5	×1.6
II	×0.35	×1.9

How to use it. The beacon for expeditions — mining trips, long overland journeys, anything where you are rarely stationary. Stop to build and it turns against you.

The movement check is deliberately coarse: horizontal movement only, above a threshold well clear of the drift a standing player produces. An augment that pays differently for moving and standing must not flicker because someone shifted their feet.

Configuring. augment/wayfarer.json, operations mul_cost_moving and mul_cost_still.

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Sentinel

What it does. The exact opposite of Wayfarer.

Augment tier	Standing still	While moving
I	×0.5	×1.6
II	×0.35	×1.9

How to use it. The beacon for a base, a farm, a defended position — anywhere you set up and stay. It is the pair to Wayfarer rather than a variant of it: same magnitudes, opposite condition, and no beacon can usefully carry both.

Configuring. augment/sentinel.json, operations mul_cost_still and mul_cost_moving.

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Vanguard

What it does. Range and reach in one slot.

Augment tier	Range	Sharing	Fuel
I	+12 blocks	+1 rank	×1.9

How to use it. It does what a Range III and an Attunement I do together — for one slot instead of two, and a permanent 90% surcharge. On a Beacon II, which has exactly one augment slot, it is the only way to get both at all.

Configuring. augment/vanguard.json, operations add_range, unlock_aura and mul_fuel.

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Prism

What it does. More effects and stronger ones, in one slot.

Augment tier	Effect slots	Level ceiling	Fuel
I	+1	+1	×2.2

How to use it. Focus and Amplification in a single slot, at more than double the running cost. The surcharge applies to every effect, and you have just added one — so Prism is the most expensive augment in the mod by some distance, and worth it only when a slot matters more than fuel does.

Configuring. augment/prism.json, operations add_effect_slot, add_amplifier and mul_fuel.

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Recluse

What it does. Three advantages for one hard restriction.

Augment tier	Fuel	Buffer	Particles	Sharing
I	×0.35	×3	hidden	−2 ranks

How to use it. This is the solo build. A third of the running cost, three times the buffer, and no particle swirl — in exchange for losing two ranks of sharing, which on most beacons means Self only and nothing else offered.

It is the one augment that takes something away outright rather than charging for it, and the one that defines how you play rather than how much of something you have.

Configuring. augment/recluse.json, operations mul_fuel, mul_capacity, hide_effects and a negative unlock_aura. The aura rank floors at 0, so Self is never taken away.

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Crafting

Every augment is the same item — its identity comes from a component — so they all share a shape, and only the core changes.

Tier I — amethyst shards around the core:

 A
AMA      A = Amethyst Shard
 A       M = the core, see below

Tier II — amethyst blocks at the corners:

BAB
AMA      B = Amethyst Block
BAB

Tier III — eyes of ender replace the shards:

BEB
EME      E = Eye of Ender
BEB

Augment	Core	Highest tier
Range	Ender Pearl	III
Focus	Spyglass	I
Amplification	Glowstone	I
Efficiency	Block of Redstone	III
Capacity	Block of Gold	III
Attunement	Echo Shard	II
Discretion	Phantom Membrane	II
Communion	Goat Horn	II
Wellspring	Nautilus Shell	I
Wayfarer	Rabbit's Foot	II
Sentinel	Shield	II
Vanguard	End Rod	I
Prism	Amethyst Cluster	I
Recluse	Sculk Sensor	I

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Adding your own

An augment is one registered item plus a component pointing at a datapack registry entry, precisely so a datapack can introduce a new augment with no code at all.

// data/mypack/portablebeacons/augment/surveyor.json
{
  "max_tier": 2,
  "color": 5636095,
  "operations": [
    { "type": "add_range", "values": [2.0, 5.0] },
    { "type": "mul_fuel", "values": [0.9, 0.8] }
  ]
}

An augment may carry several operations, as above — nothing restricts an entry to one. The values list is indexed by augment tier and must hold at least max_tier entries.

The full list of operation types, and how to give your augment a name, a colour, a glyph and a recipe, is in the Datapack Guide.