The Ultimate Guide to RATS
The Ultimate Guide to RATS Mod in Minecraft
Welcome to the comprehensive guide to the RATS mod in Minecraft. This tutorial covers absolutely everything you need to know about taming, breeding, customizing, and battling with rats—without any unnecessary fluff. Whether you’re a beginner looking to tame your first rat or an advanced player seeking to master the Ratlantis dimension, this guide has you covered.
Finding Rats in the Natural World
Rats spawn naturally in specific locations throughout the Overworld. You’ll find them in dark areas or on top of garbage piles, which commonly appear in villages. Wild rats have a distinctive appearance that sets them apart from other mobs.
If you’re struggling with rat infestations, vanilla cats are effective at controlling them. You can tame cats with raw fish, and once tamed, they will actively hunt and kill wild rats in your area.
Rat Drops and Basic Crafting
When rats die, they drop several valuable items:
Raw Rat Meat: Combine with a carved pumpkin to create a Jack-o-Ratton, or cook and place between bread for a Rat Burger
Rat Pelt: Crafts into leather and can be made into banner patterns
Rat Paw: Used for rat upgrades, which we’ll cover later
Creating and Using Trash Cans
You can create a trash can using simple materials. Right-click the trash can to open it and fill it with garbage. Once full and set to “spawn rats on block,” rats will spawn on it. These are the same wild rats you’d find in villages.
Understanding Rat Behavior
Rats are destructive creatures with specific behaviors you should be aware of:
They break through wooden items (like planks) searching for food
They seek out and consume planted crops
They steal food from chests and occasionally leave contaminated food behind
They dig through wood planks to create rat holes
They are attracted to cheese from far distances
You can observe this behavior in action when you place a rat trap with cheese—rats will sense it and break through wooden walls to reach it. Interestingly, you can also create one-block-deep holes under walls to trap and damage rats as they try to escape.
Rat Traps and Capture
Rat traps are an effective control method. To use them:
Place a rat trap on the ground
Add cheese to the trap
Right-click the trap to arm it
If you simply place a trap without arming it, rats will steal the cheese and leave. Make sure to right-click to set the trap properly.
Taming Rats
Unlike wild rats that remain hostile, you can tame rats to keep them as pets. The taming process requires patience and cheese:
Throw cheese on the ground near a rat
Continue feeding cheese as rats will run away from you initially
Feed up to 10 times to stop them from running away
Feed up to 5 additional times to fully tame them
Once tamed, you’ll see love hearts appear over the rat, just like with other Minecraft animals. The process can take up to 15 cheese feedings total.
Making Cheese
Since you’ll need substantial amounts of cheese for taming, here’s how to produce it efficiently:
Fill a cauldron with milk
Wait 7 seconds for it to turn into a cauldron of cheese
You can enhance cheese variants:
Blue Cheese: Add sugar to cheese cauldron (used for upgrades)
Nether Cheese: Add lava to cheese cauldron (used for patrol staves and upgrades)
Marble Cheese: Combine cheese with Nether Quartz (currently no known uses)
Normal cheese is used most frequently for crafting Rat Sacks, Cheese Staffs, Rat Wheels, and Rat Whistles.
Interacting with Tamed Rats
Right-clicking a tamed rat opens its interface, showing:
Rat gender
Upgrade slots (for rat enhancements)
Cheese slot (for food)
Banner slot (for decoration)
Helmet slot (for armor protection)
You can equip a diamond helmet on your rat for protection and set various commands through the interface.
Rat Commands
Tamed rats respond to several commands that control their behavior:
Stay Here: Rat remains stationary at its current location
Follow Me: Rat follows you around
Hunt Mobs: Rat actively hunts specified mobs (requires mob filter upgrade)
Gather Items: Rat searches for dropped items in the area
Wander: Rat explores freely with natural behavior
Using the Cheese Staff
The Cheese Staff is a versatile tool made from a stick and cheese. It allows you to:
Right-click a rat to bind the staff to that rat
Right-click a chest to set deposit location, item source, or rat home point
You can select different sides of the chest (north, west, etc.) to specify directions for item deposit or retrieval.
The Rat Sack
If your tamed rat escapes, you can recover it using a Rat Sack made from cheese and leather. The Rat Sack can hold up to 16 rats. For more convenience, combine cheese, leather, and spiderweb to create a Rapture Sack, which rounds up all tamed rats within 16 blocks into one container.
Rat Upgrades Overview
Rats can be enhanced with numerous upgrades placed in their upgrade slots. Available upgrades include:
Basic Upgrades: Speed, health increase, self-healing
Combat Upgrades: Armor, strength, warrior abilities, battle guard
Weapon Upgrades: Bow usage in combat
Environmental Upgrades: Water breathing, flight, fire breathing
Status Effect Upgrades: Demon (lava/fireproof, ignites enemies), poisonous attacks
Utility Upgrades: Item cooking, breeding capability when set to harvest
Mob Hunting Upgrades
To make your rat hunt specific mobs, you’ll need to create filter upgrades:
Make a basic rat upgrade from cheese
Add black dye for a blacklist upgrade or white dye for a whitelist upgrade
Right-click the upgrade in your hand to toggle between whitelist/blacklist
Select the mob type you want to filter
Place the upgrade in your rat’s upgrade slot
When set to “Hunt Mobs” with a whitelist upgrade, the rat will only hunt specified mobs. With a blacklist upgrade, it will hunt everything except the specified mobs.
Rat Cages and Breeding
Rat cages are multi-block structures where you can house and breed your rats. You can make them as large as you want by placing multiple cages adjacent to each other.
Connect cages using Rat Tubes, which create passages allowing rats to move between connected cages freely.
To place rats in a cage:
Shift right-click a rat to place it on your shoulder
Right-click the cage to deposit the rat
Breeding Your Rats
To encourage rats to breed, add decorations to their cage. The Rat Breeding Lantern is the primary breeding item. Other decorative options include:
Rat Seed Bowl (made from raw plastic)
Rat Water Bottle
Rat Wheel (generates RF energy)
Simply add these decorations to the cage with a male and female rat present, and they will begin breeding. Baby rats appear as small wiggly creatures and can be moved between connected cages via Rat Tubes.
Customizing Your Rats
You can personalize your rats using dyes. Right-click any rat with a dye item to change its color. To remove dye, craft a Dye Sponge and right-click the rat to restore its original appearance.
Rat Hats and Helmets
Various hats can be placed in your rat’s helmet slot for both aesthetic and functional purposes. The Party Hat is one example, but many hats are trader-exclusive items.
Pet Shop Traders
Place a trash can as a workstation and a villager on top to convert them into a Pet Shop Owner. They trade valuable items including:
Charged Creeper Chunks
Plague Tomes
Rat Upgrades
Exterminator Hats
Party Hats
Raw Plastic
Garbage Piles
Raw plastic can be obtained by destroying garbage piles (similar to getting flint from gravel) or by trading with Pet Shop Owners.
The Pied Piper
The Pied Piper is a special illager that spawns similarly to regular illigers. He controls wild rats and drops:
Pied Wool
Feathers
Piper Hat
Mysterious Token Fragments
The Piper Hat is particularly useful as wearing it prevents wild rats from fearing you, making taming significantly easier.
Pied Wool is crafted into Rat Upgrade Shears, which allow rats to shear sheep when set to harvest mode. You can also create Pied Garbage by combining Pied Wool and regular garbage, which spawns the Pied Piper instead of wild rats.
Plague Doctors and Plague Rats
Plague Doctors are special villagers that can be found in villages. Some rats spawn as Plague Rats, which inflict a plague effect on players and mobs lasting 5 minutes.
Plague Doctors trade cures and preventatives:
Bundle of Sweet Smelling Herbs: 10% chance to cure plague
Purified Garbage: Spawns only pure rats without plague
Plague Leech: 50% chance to remove plague
Plague Stew: Guaranteed plague cure
Purifying Liquid: Cures plague and converts zombie villagers to normal villagers
Plague Doctor Mask: Reduces plague infection chance
Plague Doctors will sometimes throw cures at you automatically if you’re infected and nearby. Plague Essence drops from Plague Rats and can be traded for additional items.
The Black Death Boss
Plague Tomes (extremely rare drops from Plague Rats) transform Plague Doctors into the Black Death boss—a terrifying encounter. The Black Death summons armies of rats, plague clouds, and massive plague beasts while infecting you with plague.
Strategy: Enclose the boss in an area to prevent being overwhelmed. Golden apples are highly recommended. Defeat it to obtain:
Black Death Mask: Reduces plague chance and prevents plague rats from attacking
Black Death Scythe: Summons plague clouds as projectiles when used
Plague Doctor-type drops
The Rat King Boss
To summon the Rat King, create a Ball of Filth by:
Collecting garbage piles and compressing them into compressed garbage
Combining 9 compressed garbage into one filth block
Combining 9 filth blocks into a Ball of Filth
Right-click a wild rat with the Ball of Filth to transform it into the Rat King. He launches rats at you rapidly but isn’t extremely difficult. Kiting and ranged attacks work well. Upon defeat, he drops:
Rat King’s Crown: Crafts into Idle Upgrade (rats gain golden appearance, Piglins won’t target them)
Tangled Rat Tails: Used for corrupted rat skulls and gilded rat flutes
Golden Rat Skulls: Rare drops
Rat Flutes
The Rat Flute allows bulk command changes to nearby tamed rats. Sneak and right-click to cycle through commands (Stay, Follow, Harvest, etc.), then use the flute to apply the command to all nearby tamed rats simultaneously.
The Gilded Rat Flute shoots rats as projectiles when used as a weapon, providing both utility and combat capability.
Accessing Ratlantis Dimension
To access the Ratlantis dimension, you need a Chunky Cheese Token. Obtain tokens through:
Direct Drop: Extremely rare drop from rats
Fragment Collection: Gather 9 Mysterious Token Fragments (5% drop from Pied Piper)
Tiny Coins: Collect 8 tiny coins (trading with Pet Shop Owners) to make a fragment; 9 fragments make a chunk
Once you have a Chunky Cheese Token, right-click it on the ground. It will spin faster and faster, eventually opening a portal to Ratlantis.
Ratlantis Features and Creatures
The Ratlantis dimension contains unique features:
Rat Fish: Cute aquatic rats found in the water
Buildings and Structures: Small rat villages and pirate ships
Pirate Boats: Contain pirate rats and treasure chests with valuable items
Jungle Biomes: Dangerous areas with hostile mobs
The Archaeologist Rat upgrade allows conversion of items into Ratlantis-specific items:
Fire Charge → Cheese Cannonball
Nether Ingot → Calcum Ingot
Tropical Fish → Rat Fish
Skeleton Skull → Rat Land Automation Head
Iron Sword → Pirate Cutlass
Emerald → Gem of Ratlantis
Ratlantis Mobs
The jungle areas contain dangerous creatures:
Feral Rat Land Team: Cow-like creatures with sharp claws that drop Feral Rat Claws and togas. Claws craft into the Feral Rat Land Team Bargnark weapon
Rat Land Team Spirit: Nocturnal creatures that shoot energy beams at you
The Rat Barren Boss
Use an Air Raid Siren at a landing strip to summon the Rat Barren boss. This flying opponent requires ranged weapons (bow and arrow recommended) for effective combat. Upon defeat, drops:
Biplane Wing: Crafts into Biplane Mount upgrade (300 health, flight capability)
Leggings of Ratlantis: Spectral protection armor that stacks
Rat Nuggets and Calcum Nuggets
The Flying Dutchman Rat Boss
Find a green ship on your map (use Journey Map or similar). The Flying Dutchman appears at night—ring the bell on the ship’s deck to summon him. Fight inside the hull to prevent item loss to the ocean.
Inside the ship, loot ghost pirate rats and chests containing:
Echoplasm (crafts into ghost pirate items)
Cheese Cannonballs
Tiny Coins
Pirate Cutlasses
Pirate Hats
The Flying Dutchman drops:
Flying Dutch Rat’s Wheel: Converts to Echoplasm
Boots of Ratlantis: Matching the legs (spectral rat protection)
Contributions to Skull of Ratlantis and non-believer upgrades
The Rat Land Automaton Boss
Craft a Rat Land Automation Core using raw marble cheese and a Gem of Ratlantis, then combine with marble cheese to create the core. Top it with a Rat Land Automation Head (5% drop from Rat Land Ferrels) to summon the Automaton.
The Automaton has two attacks: close-range blade swings and long-range lasers (each dealing 6 damage). Not extremely difficult but straightforward combat. Drops:
Arcane Technology: 50% drop chance (needed for multiple crafts)
Ancient Saw Blade: Automation mount and upgrade components
Upgrade Separator: Splits combined upgrades
The Neo Rat Land Boss (Vial of Consciousness)
Create a Vial of Consciousness using Rat Land Spirit Flame, glass bottle, rat glove petals, and Feral Rat Claws. Throw this bottle at a Feral Rat Land Team to transform it into the Neo Rat Land boss.
The Neo Rat Land summons attack portals that shoot lasers and apply glowing, levitation, and whither effects. Use a bow to defeat him from distance. This is the most annoying boss encounter. Upon defeat, drops:
Sonic Rat Brain: Crafts into Helmet of Ratlantis
Psychic Upgrade: Summons portals to attack targets
Never right upgrade and rat upgrade non-believer
Ratlantis Tools and Equipment
The dimension offers specialized tools with unique properties:
Sword of Ratlantis: Summons special rats on each attack for additional damage
Shovel: Unbreakable when mining sand
Pickaxe: Unbreakable when mining stone
Axe: Unbreakable when mining wood
Hoe: Tills a 3×3 area
Bow: Fires arrows twice as fast
Ratlantis Ores and Resources
Underground in Ratlantis, you’ll find valuable ores:
Ratlantis Gem Ore: Rare ore that smelts into ingots
Calcum Ore: Smelts into Calcum Ingots
Cheese Ore: Can be mined for resources
Rat Nuggets: Drop from rats and can be right-clicked for associated items
Advanced Rat Features
Some advanced mechanics include:
Rat Papers: Traders in Ratlantis provide papers to transfer rat ownership between players
Rat Upgrade Combiner: Combine two upgrades into one (created from Avatar of Ratlantis crafting)
Upgrade Separator: Splits combined upgrades back into individual pieces
All-Doubler Rats: Place nuggets in rats set to harvest mode; they eat ore blocks and produce nuggets for doubling
The Avatar of Ratlantis
The ultimate rat upgrade comes from the Avatar of Ratlantis, requiring:
Feral Rat Claws
Rat Fish Toga
Pirate Hat
Block of Calcum
Gem of Ratlantis (made from rat glove petals)
Ratlantian Spirit Flame
Flying Dutch Rat’s Wheel
Sonic Rat Brain
Crafting the Avatar yields the Rat Upgrade Non-Believer, which massively increases rat damage, max health, armor, and provides health regeneration—the ultimate rat enhancement.
Summary
The RATS mod is an expansive content addition featuring everything from simple wild rat management to complex boss encounters and the Ratlantis dimension. Whether you’re establishing a rat farm, customizing your perfect rat companion with upgrades and armor, or battling the terrifying Black Death, there’s content for every playstyle. The mod encourages experimentation and rewards players who thoroughly explore its mechanics with powerful upgrades and unique items. Now that you have this complete guide, you’re ready to become a true rat master in Minecraft.
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