Every world event so far has been a fight. Starfall is not — it is a resource race. The sky
warns you, a star falls, and whoever gets there first walks away with a rare ore that nothing
else in the world drops.
Starfall is on by default.
You need a diamond pickaxe or better. Mining it drops Star Iron — Fortune increases how
much you get, and Silk Touch lets you bag the ore block itself instead.
The ore cluster is a handful of blocks (a default event drops around six), and leftovers
despawn 20 minutes after impact by default.
Star Iron mostly comes from Starfall. The only other source is an Elite Crate,
which holds a pair about 1.5% of the time; there is no smelting recipe for it.
It is a required ingredient on all eight Aetherforged weapon and armor
recipes, so a Dragonforge station can’t finish that gear without it.
By default, a Starfall can occur anywhere from 3 to 8 hours after the last one, and needs at
least 3 players online to trigger. The site is usually chosen near a random online player,
always well clear of the world spawn and out of claimed territory — your server can retune all
of this, including switching to a fixed ring around spawn instead.
Being within range of the impact (96 blocks by default) counts as witnessing it, whether or
not you get any ore. Witness enough Starfalls and you’ll pick up:
Every phase is called out by the Voice of the World, written into the Codex’s
Events tab, and posted to Discord if your server has that set up.
Once the sky gives its warning, a translucent wedge appears on the FTB Chunks large map, fanned
out from world spawn in the announced direction and covering the rough distance band — the same
coarse heads-up the Voice gave you, just drawn out. The minimap shows a small star icon on its
edge, pointing the same way.
After impact, both maps swap the wedge for an exact pin at the landing site, which stays until
the ore is swept away.
You can turn these map markers off for yourself in the mod’s client settings; your server can
also disable them for everyone.
Server admins can trigger, check or clear a Starfall with /etadmin starfall.