How to Upgrade Your Traveler’s Backpack: Tiers, Upgrades, and Slots

A Traveler's Backpack starts at the Leather tier with 27 storage slots, 2 upgrade slots and 2 tool slots. It can be raised 4 times, through Iron, Gold and Diamond up to Netherite, and each step adds 18 storage slots and 1 more of each of the other two. Everything stored inside carries over when a tier is applied, there's no need to empty it out first.

There are 2 kinds of upgrade in the mod and they work differently. Tier Upgrades are applied at a Smithing Table and change the size of the backpack, whereas functional upgrades like the Crafting Upgrade or the Magnet Upgrade are placed into the backpack's own upgrade slots and can be taken out again whenever you like.

The Five Backpack Tiers

Every tier uses the same 9-wide inventory, it just gets more rows. The fluid tanks grow with the rows as well, from 3 Buckets at Leather to 11 Buckets at Netherite, which is a fair amount of Lava or Water for the Hose by the end.

The upgrade slots are the number that matters once the storage feels big enough, as each functional upgrade takes 1 of them. A Leather backpack can only hold 2 at a time, like a Crafting Upgrade and a Furnace Upgrade, whereas a Netherite one has room for 6 of the 11.

What You Need Before Upgrading

Firstly, you'll need a backpack to upgrade. The Standard Traveler's Backpack is crafted from 4 Leather, 2 String, a Chest, a Sleeping Bag and 2 Backpack Tanks, and the tanks can be left out of the recipe if you'd rather add them later with a Tanks Upgrade.

Standard Traveler's Backpack (Leather Tier)

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Every upgrade in the mod is built on a Blank Upgrade. 1 Leather surrounded by 4 String gives 4 of them, which is enough for a full run from Leather to Netherite.

Otherwise, the materials are 8 Iron Ingots for the Iron tier, 8 Gold Ingots for Gold and 8 Diamonds for Diamond, plus 1 Netherite Ingot and a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template for the last step. A Smithing Table is needed to apply each tier, along with 1 Leather each time as the template item.

How to Upgrade the Backpack Tier

The Iron Tier Upgrade, Gold Tier Upgrade and Diamond Tier Upgrade all share one shape, a Blank Upgrade in the middle with 8 of the material filling the rest of the grid. These are regular Crafting Table recipes and can be made anywhere.

Iron Tier Upgrade

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Gold Tier Upgrade

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Diamond Tier Upgrade

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The Netherite Tier Upgrade can't be made in a Crafting Table. It works like Netherite armor instead, a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template goes in the first slot of a Smithing Table, a Blank Upgrade in the second and 1 Netherite Ingot in the third. The template is used up in the process, a spare from a Bastion Remnant or a duplicate made with Netherrack and Diamonds covers that.

Netherite Tier Upgrade

Template

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Base

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Addition

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Applying a tier uses the Smithing Table as well, with 1 Leather in the template slot, the backpack in the middle and the Tier Upgrade in the last slot. The backpack comes out at the new tier with everything still inside it, the items, the fluids, any functional upgrades and the sleeping bag color are all kept.

Tiers have to be applied in order, an Iron Tier Upgrade only fits a Leather backpack, a Gold one only fits Iron, and so on up to Netherite. The Smithing Table won't show a result if the upgrade doesn't match the backpack's current tier, which is the usual reason a recipe seems broken.

The same 3 slots take a backpack all the way to Netherite, with 1 Leather and 1 upgrade per step. Themed backpacks, like the Creeper or Bookshelf ones, are upgraded in exactly the same way and keep their ability as they go up.

Finding Tier Upgrades as Loot

Iron and Gold Tier Upgrades can be found in structure Chests, and the Diamond one turns up in End Cities. Each has a small chance per Chest, it's something that happens on the way rather than a way to farm them, though a Desert Pyramid or an Abandoned Mineshaft early on can save the 8 Iron Ingots.

The Netherite Tier Upgrade is never placed in Chests, it has to be made at the Smithing Table every time.

Functional Upgrades

Functional upgrades don't go through the Smithing Table at all. Open the backpack and place the upgrade into one of the slots on the right side of the inventory, it starts working straight away and can be taken back out just as easily.

How many can be fitted at once is decided by the tier, from 2 at Leather up to 6 at Netherite. Each one is crafted from a Blank Upgrade and a few materials that match its job, like a Furnace for the Furnace Upgrade. There are 11 in total.

The Tanks Upgrade is the odd one out, as it's only needed if the backpack was crafted with the no-tanks recipe. A backpack that already has tanks gains nothing from it, and that slot is better spent on something like the Pickup Upgrade.

Resetting and Changing a Backpack

Resetting to Leather

A backpack can be dropped back to the Leather tier by placing it in the world and shift-clicking it with a Blank Upgrade. Everything inside is thrown out around it, the items and the functional upgrades both, which makes it worth emptying beforehand.

Changing the Sleeping Bag

The sleeping bag color isn't fixed at crafting. Place the backpack down, sneak, and right-click it while holding a Sleeping Bag of a different color, and the 2 are swapped over. The old bag is dropped out on top of the backpack, nothing is lost by trying a few.

Turning a Themed Backpack Back to Standard

A themed backpack, like the Lapis or Ocelot one, can be turned back into a Standard Traveler's Backpack by placing it down, sneaking, and right-clicking it with Shears. The backpack pops out as a Standard one at the same tier with its contents intact, and the Shears lose 1 durability for it.

Frequently Asked Questions