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Rotwire

A Zombie Survival take on Minecraft with infested cities. Establish a radio connection with the survivors to maintain your ammunition and resource supply. Migrate from town to town as their difficulty scales with your activity within each of them.

NeoForge
Loaders
NeoForge
Downloads on Modrinth
399
Followers on Modrinth
2
versions
9
Updated
August 9, 2026Aug 9
Published
in 2026
Horde Night Heavy Fog — Instead of an intrusive text warning you that tonight is horde night, a heavy fog rolls out progressively as midnight comes · swipe

At a glance

Runs on NeoForge
For Minecraft 1.21.1
Needed in the game and on the server
Latest version — 1.1.6 from August 9, 2026
License MIT — free
Where it's needed
In gamerequiredOn serverrequired

Needed both in the game and on the server

Game versions1.21.1

modpack still under review | Survivor NPCs & City settlements system incoming

Rotwire

Rotwire is a Minecraft 1.21.1 NeoForge integration mod built for a curated urban zombie-survival experience. It began as a collection of systems for my own server, but has evolved into a standalone-capable progression layer for modpacks and multiplayer worlds.

Explore ruined Lost Cities, search furnished interiors for supplies and intelligence, clear persistent building encounters, confront the Rotwire Brute, and build a network of firearms, survival equipment, fast travel, and survivor logistics.

This project is primarily designed for servers, although it works in standalone worlds. The intended experience depends on server-side configuration, so review the /config files and adjust them to suit your preferred difficulty.

If you encounter problems, please report them in the issue tracker:

https://github.com/gev414/rotwire/issues

What this mod aims for:

  • Long-term world building.
  • Camp settlement
  • Radio Transmitter trader hub allowing tasks (quests) and farmable resources (guns and ammo, building block palettes, etc)
  • NPC settlers, armed and non-armed.
  • (WIP) Fast travel between established camps (camp must have at least 3 settlers alive to allow fast travel) When this condition is met zombie sieges become active for the city/settlement. This is yet to be implemented.

All mechanics introduced by this mod can be seen in the wiki: https://github.com/gev414/rotwire/wiki

For Distant Horizons

Set the distantGeneratorMode option to PRE_EXISTING_ONLY. Otherwise, Distant Horizons may attempt to generate terrain independently of Lost Cities and cause problems with Lost Cities buildings.

The setting is located in:

/config/DistantHorizons.toml

Shader compatibility

Photon works best as it automatically animates texture pack leaves like Alacrity (the texture pack I use) and requires no tweaking for additional content like Biome'O Plenty's special leaf blocks, which are not supported by default by Alacrity, but I have made an add-on texture pack to accompany the base Alacrity, which will be added later as well. Bliss shaders also work nice, but may lack animated waving leave blocks for special biome o' plenty blocks.

Lost Cities profile

A Lost Cities profile is not included with Rotwire.

You can use the ancient profile included with The Lost Cities, or create your own profile using Lost Cities' customization options and documentation.

Rotwire detects real Lost Cities building metadata and layers encounter behavior on top of generated structures. It does not replace Lost Cities' world-generation system.

Compatibility

Rotwire is incompatible with Lost Souls because both mods manage encounters inside Lost Cities buildings.

Client and server should use the same Rotwire version and required mod set.

Rotwire was designed around a specific server and modpack configuration. Installing only the Rotwire JAR will not reproduce every rule described in the Survivor's Field Manual.

Installation

For the complete intended experience, install the official Rotwire modpack or server package.

For manual installation:

  1. Install Minecraft 1.21.1 with NeoForge 21.1.235 or newer.
  2. Install every required mod and supporting library. FTB Quests (and Teams) must be downloaded from Curseforge.
  3. Place the Rotwire JAR in the client and server mods directories.
  4. Install the optional compatibility mods you intend to use.
  5. Deploy the intended server configuration separately.
  6. Restart the client and server completely.
  7. Create or select a compatible Lost Cities profile.
  8. Confirm that the Survivor's Field Manual, Radio Transmitter, and starter advancement are available.

Do not replace the server configuration while it is running.

FAQ

How to install Rotwire?

Install NeoForge for your Minecraft version, download Rotwire for the same version and loader, put the file into the mods folder and launch the game with the loader profile.

Which Minecraft versions does Rotwire support?

Rotwire has builds for Minecraft 1.21.1.

Is Rotwire needed on the server?

Needed in the game and on the server

License and source
MIT Licensefree to use and share with credit to the author
Original — Modrinth↗Files unchanged, verified with SHA-512Is this your mod? For rights holders

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