Set up an Engineer's Life server

Engineer's Life is a Minecraft 1.12.2 Forge modpack built around a progression-through-ages system, where changed recipes guide you rather than strict locks. You move from the Stone Age through to a Digital Age, with farming, processing and storage at the centre. This guide installs it on your server from the Modpacks tab.

Checked against Engineer's Life 2.05 on Minecraft 1.12.2 (Forge), October 2026.

What the pack covers

The author's page names six ages: Stone, Mechanical (Better with Mods), Industrial (Immersive Engineering), Agricultural Expansion (Forestry), Industrial Revolution (Techreborn) and Digital (Refined Storage). It also lists over 500 quests, custom village buildings and a revamped hunger mechanic. The page lists 115 mods, including Better With Engineering, Tech Reborn, Tinkers Construct, Quark, Signals and Waystones.

What it needs

• RAM. The author recommends allocating 4 GB. Check the plans on Minecraft hosting and choose one with at least 4 GB, or more if many players will join. How much RAM does my Minecraft server need? has a calculator.
• Java 8. The panel runs Minecraft 1.12.2 on Java 8 by itself, so you do not choose it.
• The pack on every player's computer. Players install Engineer's Life from its CurseForge page.

Install it on your server

Installing a modpack reinstalls the whole server, so use a new server or one you can wipe.

1. Open the Backups tab and click Create backup.
2. Open the Modpacks tab, under Content in the left rail. Above the search box, choose the CurseForge chip.
3. Search for Engineer's Life and find the row Engineer's Life by dreams01. The row shows the 1.12.2 and Forge badges. Engineer's Life 2, by the same author, is a different pack and can appear in the results too.
4. Click Install. A window titled Install Engineer's Life? opens and names the loader and Minecraft version it will use.
5. Leave Take a backup first ticked. Tick Start the server when it's ready if you want it to boot straight away; if the I agree to the Minecraft EULA box then appears, tick it.
6. Click Install and reinstall, then watch the Console tab until the install finishes.

The pack has a dedicated server pack, EL-Serverpack-2.05, so the panel installs it as a ready-made server.

Join the server

Share the address from the left rail (Connect to your server for the first time shows where). To use commands, make yourself an operator with Operators in the Players tab (Whitelist players and set operators).

Common problems

• The server stops with an out-of-memory error. Press Download Log in the Console tab (a download icon on a phone) to read the error, then use Change plan in the Settings tab.
• The server lags. Read Why is my server lagging?.
• The install window lists mods to download. If it names mods you must fetch yourself, follow Modpack mods to download from CurseForge.