Maybe for some of the things like iron, add an additional 'scattered' vein effect...
So for example, there is always a little iron scattered everywhere (like real life, get it from clay if you know how) but a very small amount, no more tan 2 blocks or so next to each other, in the upper (>32ish) layers of the ground. There still can be large veins, but if I don't get lucky, I still can find SOME ore.
To be clear, in a single 16x16x64 chunk, I wouldn't expect to see more than maybe 128 iron or so, less than 1% of the blocks in that chunk.
Or to put it another way, maybe accept duplicate entries for blocks? So I could add a small chunk mode for iron, and then a huge vein mode for iron. So there are multiple ways for it to spawn. You have a very powerful system already, I think you can go even further though
Let me know if this isn't clear or if you want some pseudocode.
I did some poking around and found your problem. Turns out disabling "enableWorldGenOreCopper" in the IC2 config doesn't just prevent copper ore from spawning - it prevents the ore block from being added to the game entirely. The relevant snippet from mod_IC2.java:
205 if (enableWorldGenOreCopper) {
206 Ic2Items.copperOre = new aan(
new BlockTex(getBlockIdFor(config, "blockOreCopper", 249), 32, acn.e).
c(3.0F).b(5.0F).a("blockOreCopper"));
207 ModLoader.registerBlock(pb.m[Ic2Items.copperOre.c]);
208 }
Unfortunately, this is not something that I have any control over. CustomOreGen can't place blocks in the world if the blocks don't exist. I would recommend that you contact the IC2 team and request that ore blocks always be registered.
On a related note - Forestry and IC2 "share" common materials through the Forge ore dictionary. You should be able to use Forestry copper and tin ingots for all IC2 recipes. Since they're interchangeable and you know that CustomOreGen works fine with the Forestry ores, why not forget about IC2 Copper/Tin entirely? You'd still need to use the default IC2 Uranium generator, I guess, but at least you can have copper & tin veins.
I'm having the exact same problem trying to use Redpower ores. Minecraft crashes with the same error report as above whenever I remove the comments for the redpower ores in the custom ore gen config file. I am changing the block ID to 140, which is identified in redpower world cfg as the ore block. Since you specifically indicate it works with redpower, and it clearly does not, I think something has changed, maybe in forge, that is causing the problem. Also, your suggestion above that the ores are not being created when disabling them for IC2, doesn't apply here because I've tried it both disabling and not disabling the Redpower ores.
You've probably made a mistake of some kind in the formatting. It's easy to do, especially if you aren't use to XML.
You should be able to find an error message about it in Modloader.txt (in your .minecraft folder). These error messages aren't always that helpful, but it might give you a clue as to what is wrong. If you can't find the mistake yourself, go ahead and post your config file here (in [spoiler] tags) and I will look at it for you.
I downloaded notepad++ and found my mistake. The color coding makes it way easier to see what's going on. Thanks!!! Great mod!!
this would make smp very interesting as we could make veins large, but ultra rare = large underground mining operations = lots of people would live there = a town / city is built to service the mine and the miners
I'm having the exact same problem trying to use Redpower ores. Minecraft crashes with the same error report as above whenever I remove the comments for the redpower ores in the custom ore gen config file.
Thank you for reporting this. It's a bug/incompatibility that surfaced with the latest version of Redpower (2pr5). I've been working nonstop on a fix (and some new features!) for the last 24 hours (sooo tired). It will be released sometime tonight Tuesday (EDIT: taking longer than expected).
Maybe for some of the things like iron, add an additional 'scattered' vein effect...
So for example, there is always a little iron scattered everywhere (like real life, get it from clay if you know how) but a very small amount, no more tan 2 blocks or so next to each other, in the upper (>32ish) layers of the ground. There still can be large veins, but if I don't get lucky, I still can find SOME ore.
If I understand correctly: you would like both large iron veins and, separately, a scattering of small iron clumps. In other words, two independent distributions that both place the same ore (iron).
This is possible already - in fact, I use it in the default config file. If you look at the default iron distribution, you will see that it has two seperate <Veins> elements. The first one is the regular veins, and the second one is for extra veins that only occur in Taiga/Icy biomes. What you need to do is add in a third <Veins> element that generates tiny clusters near the surface:
<!-- Small clusters of Iron near the surface -->
<Veins blockID='56'>
<PDist name='MotherlodeFrequency' avg='1.5'/>
<PDist name='MotherlodeHeight' avg='48' range='16'/>
<PDist name='MotherlodeSize' avg='0.5' range='0.3'/>
<PDist name='BranchFrequency' avg='0' range='0'/>
</Veins>
this would make smp very interesting as we could make veins large, but ultra rare = large underground mining operations = lots of people would live there = a town / city is built to service the mine and the miners
That is definitely possible. I like to keep moving while I mine - that's why I like long narrow veins so much - but large deposits could be a lot of fun in SMP.
OK seriously, this is REALLY powerful. This needs to get spotlighted or something. Hard to... tritrate the amouont of ores, but you get some REALLY cool looking deposits. I think if you maybe added some... presets, other than the veins, it might be easier. Maybe a template file? So you could edit it or download other templates, and provide pictures with how the distribution would look.
The biggest stumbling block is the redpower gems, I wish there was a way to get them to only generate with your mod. Also, any chance for a dwarf fortress-esque generation of special ores/stone in other veins? Could you provide an example of a cluster? I assume huge deposit with little or no Branching?
I didn't think anything could stop me from putting up my server, but this ore thing really has me thinking.
OK seriously, this is REALLY powerful. This needs to get spotlighted or something. Hard to... tritrate the amouont of ores, but you get some REALLY cool looking deposits. I think if you maybe added some... presets, other than the veins, it might be easier. Maybe a template file? So you could edit it or download other templates, and provide pictures with how the distribution would look.
The biggest stumbling block is the redpower gems, I wish there was a way to get them to only generate with your mod. Also, any chance for a dwarf fortress-esque generation of special ores/stone in other veins? Could you provide an example of a cluster? I assume huge deposit with little or no Branching?
I didn't think anything could stop me from putting up my server, but this ore thing really has me thinking.
It is powerful
I did my best to be creative with the default vein distributions, and you can use them as templates for most customization. I agree that it can be hard to visualize what a vein distribution will look like from just it's config settings. When I want to test some settings, I copy them into the "debugging" distribution (red wool that spawns in mid-air around height 120) so that I can clearly see what it looks like in-game. I'm also working on a new feature that will make this sort of thing easier.
You can create isolated clusters of ores using just motherlodes with no branches. The default diamond distribution is a good example, as is the iron distribution in spoilers in my last post.
I asked Eloraam to add options for disabling the rest of the ores some time ago, and she said she would. It's been several months, though, and it will probably be several more before she gets around to it.
I'm not sure what you mean by dwarf fortress-esque generation - I've never actualy played that game. Can you explain?
Glad to know you're working on a fix for the redpower issue, hope you get it ironed out soon.
Good job on this mod by the way, I've liked these ore vein mods and used one before called Strategic Ore Gen, which I liked a lot but isn't updated any longer. Yours is similar and offers more customization, and the ability to use mod ores is a big plus, so thanks for your hard work.
Regarding your request for feedback on the default ore distribution, I find it quite good. It's not as rare as the mod I used before, nor are the veins near so large, but it doesn't feel quite so impossible to find them. I tend to come across them pretty reasonably as I explore any large cave system, especially along ravines. I might suggest you include some alternate configs to be included in the mod to suit the more popularly requested ore configurations, thus saving every user from needing to learn the complexities of the config file. Certainly we users could help out with this by providing our own config settings.
And lastly, I had an idea but haven't tried it yet. Do you know if you can use your mod to create custom cave systems? To do this I would think you could use the block ID for air in a vein configuration. Might be some cool results could come from this. If this does work, might be good if there was a way to turn off standard caves, or affect their rarity within the mod. Might be more than you're interested in though, but just some of my thoughts for you to consider.
Glad to know you're working on a fix for the redpower issue, hope you get it ironed out soon.
Good job on this mod by the way, I've liked these ore vein mods and used one before called Strategic Ore Gen, which I liked a lot but isn't updated any longer. Yours is similar and offers more customization, and the ability to use mod ores is a big plus, so thanks for your hard work.
Regarding your request for feedback on the default ore distribution, I find it quite good. It's not as rare as the mod I used before, nor are the veins near so large, but it doesn't feel quite so impossible to find them. I tend to come across them pretty reasonably as I explore any large cave system, especially along ravines. I might suggest you include some alternate configs to be included in the mod to suit the more popularly requested ore configurations, thus saving every user from needing to learn the complexities of the config file. Certainly we users could help out with this by providing our own config settings.
And lastly, I had an idea but haven't tried it yet. Do you know if you can use your mod to create custom cave systems? To do this I would think you could use the block ID for air in a vein configuration. Might be some cool results could come from this. If this does work, might be good if there was a way to turn off standard caves, or affect their rarity within the mod. Might be more than you're interested in though, but just some of my thoughts for you to consider.
Thanks for the feedback on the distributions - I really do appreaciate it. I like the idea of providing lots of ready-made distributions to pick from, but so far there have only been a few (one?) request for a distribution that really varies from the default. I'll keep tabs as more ideas pop up.
Cave generation is actually something I tried early on. It worked ok, but since veins are made up of lots of discrete segments they tended to have odd shapes. Also, I don't think you can actually use air (0) as a block id in the current release. I am currently fixing both things. The new version will allow air as a valid blockID again, and will also feature smooth, continuous veins. When it's done, you should be able to generate pretty decent cave systems with it. However, there are special 'extras' that the vanilla cave generator adds - water springs, vines in jungle biomes, lava below level 10, etc - that you couldn't reproduce.
The next version is still a WIP, I'm afraid, but I am getting close to finishing. Bear with me
Basically, iron in the game generates as large clusters, say an ellipse of 15x30. Inside the iron, platinum can spawn. The only place platinum can spawn is inside an iron vein. If you look at TFC, this system you have is what they would need to actually make USE of all that ore and stone they've added.
Actually, can you customize it so certain blocks only replace other blocks? If so, you already have this in place, and you've humbled me yet again.
Also, DUH. Make them generate in the air. I am so stupid. Using x-ray mode, there are definitely more ores, but I think I'm going to make them a bit rare. Just keep on this man, I don't see any reason you couldn't get this added to forge or vanilla or something, there's just too many options to pick and choose from.
Thanks for the feedback on the distributions - I really do appreaciate it. I like the idea of providing lots of ready-made distributions to pick from, but so far there have only been a few (one?) request for a distribution that really varies from the default. I'll keep tabs as more ideas pop up.
Well the main one I would suggest would be something like what was produced with Strategic Oregen http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/289229-174-strategic-oregen-for-sp-smp/page__hl__strategic%20oregen
The main difference is that the veins are much larger and longer. Where your defaults tend to be about 2 to 3 blocks wide, these veins are more like 8 to 10 and go on for very long stretches. I don't have exact numbers, but once you found them, you'd get like 500 to 1000 blocks of ore out of one. But by that token they were much much harder to find. You could explore for hours and only come up with one ore type. The way this mod helped you out was by having a few random sprinkles of small deposits that would show up sometimes on the surface and you'd know there was a large vein somewhere nearby. Still a challenge to find it though.
I don't recommend changing your default to this because not everyone likes having that tough a time to find ore, but I think it would make a good alternative. I may give a try at reproducing this myself with the settings options you have already (though I don't think the small marker deposits would be possible).
Cave generation is actually something I tried early on. It worked ok, but since veins are made up of lots of discrete segments they tended to have odd shapes. Also, I don't think you can actually use air (0) as a block id in the current release. I am currently fixing both things. The new version will allow air as a valid blockID again, and will also feature smooth, continuous veins. When it's done, you should be able to generate pretty decent cave systems with it. However, there are special 'extras' that the vanilla cave generator adds - water springs, vines in jungle biomes, lava below level 10, etc - that you couldn't reproduce.
My main interest in the cave function would be in having some really massive caverns much larger than what comes out of vanilla, but I'll be interested to see what can be done, and I'm glad you're going to give us the option to play with it. I think having support for liquid blocks (don't know if it's already possible) might allow for some interesting results as well. Random pockets of underground water and lava would be interesting and different from the predictable vanilla lakes and falls. Might be interesting if you could link the lava veins to redpower volcanoes when that mod is installed.
Since you seem pretty open to ideas for further development of your mod I'd like to make a suggestion. One of the goals of this type of mod is to encourage the use of minecart systems for mining. Problem is it doesn't really work because it's still more work to make the minecart system than the time it takes you to run back and forth to unload your inventory from time to time. A way to fix this would be to implement an optional (through config) inventory limitation for ores and cobblestone. If you can only carry 1 stack of any ore or stone then you would need a way to transport it, thus making it worth the effort to create a cart track system to get it back to your main processing base. Might be necessary to have the limitation for ingots as well or you might be tempted to smelt them to get arouind the restriction. I found a mod with another take on this but I don't know if it's forge compatible so I haven't tried it: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/860404-124-mining-overhaul-v11/
This mod uses a method where you get nuggets/stones instead of ore blocks when mining, which are more plentiful and take up more inventory.
One other idea I have on this would be to implement some kind of encumbrance system. The more heavy items you're carrying the more slowly you can move and mine and fight. Thus you could load up all you want and still move, but would be heavily burdened. You could establish weights for all vanilla blocks and items, and allow config settings to adjust or add mod blocks. This may be more work than it's worth but thought I'd put it out there.
One other thing to mention, I found a cool mod that I think complements yours: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1180022-125-gregs-prospecting/
It's an ore detector, very cool design, with pretty advanced crafting requirements so it's not something you can use in the early game, but good for tracking down those hard to find veins later on.
Looking forward to your next update, keep up the good work.
Fixed Redpower2pr5 compatibility. The problems with redpower ore ids not being recognized has been resolved. Redpower (and perhaps a few other mods) waits until the last possible moment to register its ores. The fix means that the CustomOreGen config file is not fully processed until new chunks are actually generated.
Smooth Vein branches. Branch segments can now either be straight lines (the old way) or smoothly interconnected curves. This choice has some effect on how the SegmentRadius setting is interpreted, but the other settings are still used in the same way.
New attribute for <Vein>: branchType. Used to select the old vs new branch types. See the config file for details.
New attribute for <Vein> and <StandardGen>: name. Used to identify the distribution in output messages and make the config file easier to understand.
New child element for <Vein>: <Description>. Used to add descriptive text to a vein distribution - neater and more readable than using XML comments.
Tweaked default distributions. Changes due to the new branch type, and an entirely new Lapis Lazuli distribution. Also a lot of reformatting to make the config file easier to read and edit.
Air (block 0) is no longer rejected as a blockID. Distributions can now place air, i.e. for creating custom cave systems.
Aside from a significant compatibility fix, the big feature this time is the smooth branches:
Old (Straight Ellipsoidal segments):
New (Curved Bezier segments):
The new branch algorithm isn't perfect (slower to generate), and the old one will remain available for anyone who liked it.
Actually, can you customize it so certain blocks only replace other blocks? If so, you already have this in place, and you've humbled me yet again.
You can, using the <Replaces> element. I use it for the red wool testing distribution, and also the new Lapis Lazuli distribution. You could easily make an ore that only spawns in another ore. It's worth noting, if you plan to try this, that distributions are spawned in the order they appear in the config file. So the main ore would need to come first, then the "inner" ore after it.
I remember creating giant elusive ore deposits with the old BiomeTerrainMod. I'll add "mega-deposits" to the todo list. Small marker deposits aren't currently possible, but that raises some interesting ideas for proximity constraints ... I need to think about it.
I just tried tinkering with cave generation, and it will need some work. You can create large cave systems using either branch type, but I need to do more testing to see how well they really scale. One thing I forgot to mention before is that the vanilla cave generator works on a single chunk, whereas veins generate over very large areas at once.
I really like the idea of an inventory overhaul to add some depth to the transport/infrastructure aspect of the game. Right now you can pack an entire medium-sized city into your pockets and run around with it. I won't be adding anything like that to this mod, however - any attempt at an overhaul like that would need to be a separate project.
That is brilliant. And you are right, it complements this mod perfectly. The #1 question I always have while mining veins is : have I reached the end, or is do I need to keep digging? Ore detectors fill that niche perfectly.
Great job on the update, loving the smooth curves. I played around last night with the config file a lot and was trying for similar results by using small segment lengths. Wasn't terribly happy with that so glad to see you've got a better method now.
I did come up with some nice settiings for really long snaking veins with a big motherlode. Rarity in the 0.0005 range seems like a good choice for making them hard to come by. I'll play with this some more tonight with the new version and report back with something useful.
I think you would need the marker veins or a combination of these large rare veins and smaller more common ones or you might go forever without finding them. The real advantage for the extra large rare veins is that you end up with several mines throughout your map, each dedicated to a separate ore. This gives the added challenge of linking them up with a rail or pipe/tube system.
I got some pretty cool results playing with the vein settings as caves (use block id 0). There's some quirks that keep it from being perfect, but it does show what kind of epic results could be acheived with a mod focused on custom cave generation. The two main problems with the way it works now are that you get the occasional floating block inside the vein which can produce some oddities like floating blocks of lava and water. And the other is that because the veins generate after all the vanilla stuff, you can end up with cave openings near the surface with trees growing over the top in mid air, sometimes lava lakes hang unsupported, and gaping holes in the middle of the ocean where a tunnel surfaces.
But despite these problems it's still very cool having really large tunnels and epic scaled caverns. A big change of pace over the familiar restricted tunnels of vanilla. Try branch radius around 8 to 12, length of 600 or more, and motherlodes of around radius 20 or larger. To get rid of most of the random junk you need a replaces block setting for most naturally generated blocks including water and lava. I forget what the name of the setting is, it's the one that affects the raggedness of the vein, I found that you need around 0.5 to make sure the tunnels are relatively smooth and have the least amount of clutter inside. I'll try to get some screenshots tonight.
I discovered what I think is a bug in the motherlode spawning. I made custom vein settings for Redpower ores, copper and tin have the same settings, with rarity around 0.001. The problem is that the motherlodes for both ores spawn in the same place (I used cloud height settings and air spawning so I could see this very clearly). Wherever you find copper, you also find tin with overlapping motherlodes. I think this is likely an issue with your metadata code. I also had silver but those don't overlap because the vein settings are different. I think it's limited to just ores with the same block ID because coal has the same vein settings and doesn't overlap with the copper/tin.
I got some pretty cool results playing with the vein settings as caves (use block id 0). There's some quirks that keep it from being perfect, but it does show what kind of epic results could be acheived with a mod focused on custom cave generation. The two main problems with the way it works now are that you get the occasional floating block inside the vein which can produce some oddities like floating blocks of lava and water. And the other is that because the veins generate after all the vanilla stuff, you can end up with cave openings near the surface with trees growing over the top in mid air, sometimes lava lakes hang unsupported, and gaping holes in the middle of the ocean where a tunnel surfaces.
Thanks for trying that out. The next version fixes bugs that may be responsible for some of the quirks you see. It also upgrades block replacement so that you can replace many block types without actually listing them all by id. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about the order of world generation without modifying base classes.
I discovered what I think is a bug in the motherlode spawning. I made custom vein settings for Redpower ores, copper and tin have the same settings, with rarity around 0.001. The problem is that the motherlodes for both ores spawn in the same place (I used cloud height settings and air spawning so I could see this very clearly).
Thank you for reporting this. Every distribution in the config file is given a unique random seed value. What you are seeing is a weakness in the java random number generator. Now that I know about, though, I can fix this problem in the next version.
*NOTE: Need to replace all naturally ocurring block ID's including modded ores/stones, moving and still water/lava, etc... Maybe in next version we'll get a Replaces all block ID's.
Maybe for some of the things like iron, add an additional 'scattered' vein effect...
So for example, there is always a little iron scattered everywhere (like real life, get it from clay if you know how) but a very small amount, no more tan 2 blocks or so next to each other, in the upper (>32ish) layers of the ground. There still can be large veins, but if I don't get lucky, I still can find SOME ore.
To be clear, in a single 16x16x64 chunk, I wouldn't expect to see more than maybe 128 iron or so, less than 1% of the blocks in that chunk.
Or to put it another way, maybe accept duplicate entries for blocks? So I could add a small chunk mode for iron, and then a huge vein mode for iron. So there are multiple ways for it to spawn. You have a very powerful system already, I think you can go even further though
Let me know if this isn't clear or if you want some pseudocode.
I'm having the exact same problem trying to use Redpower ores. Minecraft crashes with the same error report as above whenever I remove the comments for the redpower ores in the custom ore gen config file. I am changing the block ID to 140, which is identified in redpower world cfg as the ore block. Since you specifically indicate it works with redpower, and it clearly does not, I think something has changed, maybe in forge, that is causing the problem. Also, your suggestion above that the ores are not being created when disabling them for IC2, doesn't apply here because I've tried it both disabling and not disabling the Redpower ores.
I downloaded notepad++ and found my mistake. The color coding makes it way easier to see what's going on. Thanks!!! Great mod!!
tonightTuesday (EDIT: taking longer than expected).If I understand correctly: you would like both large iron veins and, separately, a scattering of small iron clumps. In other words, two independent distributions that both place the same ore (iron).
This is possible already - in fact, I use it in the default config file. If you look at the default iron distribution, you will see that it has two seperate <Veins> elements. The first one is the regular veins, and the second one is for extra veins that only occur in Taiga/Icy biomes. What you need to do is add in a third <Veins> element that generates tiny clusters near the surface:
I love Notepad++ Glad to hear that you got everything working!
That is definitely possible. I like to keep moving while I mine - that's why I like long narrow veins so much - but large deposits could be a lot of fun in SMP.
The biggest stumbling block is the redpower gems, I wish there was a way to get them to only generate with your mod. Also, any chance for a dwarf fortress-esque generation of special ores/stone in other veins? Could you provide an example of a cluster? I assume huge deposit with little or no Branching?
I didn't think anything could stop me from putting up my server, but this ore thing really has me thinking.
I did my best to be creative with the default vein distributions, and you can use them as templates for most customization. I agree that it can be hard to visualize what a vein distribution will look like from just it's config settings. When I want to test some settings, I copy them into the "debugging" distribution (red wool that spawns in mid-air around height 120) so that I can clearly see what it looks like in-game. I'm also working on a new feature that will make this sort of thing easier.
You can create isolated clusters of ores using just motherlodes with no branches. The default diamond distribution is a good example, as is the iron distribution in spoilers in my last post.
I asked Eloraam to add options for disabling the rest of the ores some time ago, and she said she would. It's been several months, though, and it will probably be several more before she gets around to it.
I'm not sure what you mean by dwarf fortress-esque generation - I've never actualy played that game. Can you explain?
Good job on this mod by the way, I've liked these ore vein mods and used one before called Strategic Ore Gen, which I liked a lot but isn't updated any longer. Yours is similar and offers more customization, and the ability to use mod ores is a big plus, so thanks for your hard work.
Regarding your request for feedback on the default ore distribution, I find it quite good. It's not as rare as the mod I used before, nor are the veins near so large, but it doesn't feel quite so impossible to find them. I tend to come across them pretty reasonably as I explore any large cave system, especially along ravines. I might suggest you include some alternate configs to be included in the mod to suit the more popularly requested ore configurations, thus saving every user from needing to learn the complexities of the config file. Certainly we users could help out with this by providing our own config settings.
And lastly, I had an idea but haven't tried it yet. Do you know if you can use your mod to create custom cave systems? To do this I would think you could use the block ID for air in a vein configuration. Might be some cool results could come from this. If this does work, might be good if there was a way to turn off standard caves, or affect their rarity within the mod. Might be more than you're interested in though, but just some of my thoughts for you to consider.
Thanks for the feedback on the distributions - I really do appreaciate it. I like the idea of providing lots of ready-made distributions to pick from, but so far there have only been a few (one?) request for a distribution that really varies from the default. I'll keep tabs as more ideas pop up.
Cave generation is actually something I tried early on. It worked ok, but since veins are made up of lots of discrete segments they tended to have odd shapes. Also, I don't think you can actually use air (0) as a block id in the current release. I am currently fixing both things. The new version will allow air as a valid blockID again, and will also feature smooth, continuous veins. When it's done, you should be able to generate pretty decent cave systems with it. However, there are special 'extras' that the vanilla cave generator adds - water springs, vines in jungle biomes, lava below level 10, etc - that you couldn't reproduce.
The next version is still a WIP, I'm afraid, but I am getting close to finishing. Bear with me
Actually, can you customize it so certain blocks only replace other blocks? If so, you already have this in place, and you've humbled me yet again.
Also, DUH. Make them generate in the air. I am so stupid. Using x-ray mode, there are definitely more ores, but I think I'm going to make them a bit rare. Just keep on this man, I don't see any reason you couldn't get this added to forge or vanilla or something, there's just too many options to pick and choose from.
Well the main one I would suggest would be something like what was produced with Strategic Oregen
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/289229-174-strategic-oregen-for-sp-smp/page__hl__strategic%20oregen
The main difference is that the veins are much larger and longer. Where your defaults tend to be about 2 to 3 blocks wide, these veins are more like 8 to 10 and go on for very long stretches. I don't have exact numbers, but once you found them, you'd get like 500 to 1000 blocks of ore out of one. But by that token they were much much harder to find. You could explore for hours and only come up with one ore type. The way this mod helped you out was by having a few random sprinkles of small deposits that would show up sometimes on the surface and you'd know there was a large vein somewhere nearby. Still a challenge to find it though.
I don't recommend changing your default to this because not everyone likes having that tough a time to find ore, but I think it would make a good alternative. I may give a try at reproducing this myself with the settings options you have already (though I don't think the small marker deposits would be possible).
My main interest in the cave function would be in having some really massive caverns much larger than what comes out of vanilla, but I'll be interested to see what can be done, and I'm glad you're going to give us the option to play with it. I think having support for liquid blocks (don't know if it's already possible) might allow for some interesting results as well. Random pockets of underground water and lava would be interesting and different from the predictable vanilla lakes and falls. Might be interesting if you could link the lava veins to redpower volcanoes when that mod is installed.
Since you seem pretty open to ideas for further development of your mod I'd like to make a suggestion. One of the goals of this type of mod is to encourage the use of minecart systems for mining. Problem is it doesn't really work because it's still more work to make the minecart system than the time it takes you to run back and forth to unload your inventory from time to time. A way to fix this would be to implement an optional (through config) inventory limitation for ores and cobblestone. If you can only carry 1 stack of any ore or stone then you would need a way to transport it, thus making it worth the effort to create a cart track system to get it back to your main processing base. Might be necessary to have the limitation for ingots as well or you might be tempted to smelt them to get arouind the restriction. I found a mod with another take on this but I don't know if it's forge compatible so I haven't tried it:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/860404-124-mining-overhaul-v11/
This mod uses a method where you get nuggets/stones instead of ore blocks when mining, which are more plentiful and take up more inventory.
One other idea I have on this would be to implement some kind of encumbrance system. The more heavy items you're carrying the more slowly you can move and mine and fight. Thus you could load up all you want and still move, but would be heavily burdened. You could establish weights for all vanilla blocks and items, and allow config settings to adjust or add mod blocks. This may be more work than it's worth but thought I'd put it out there.
One other thing to mention, I found a cool mod that I think complements yours:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1180022-125-gregs-prospecting/
It's an ore detector, very cool design, with pretty advanced crafting requirements so it's not something you can use in the early game, but good for tracking down those hard to find veins later on.
Looking forward to your next update, keep up the good work.
Changes in [1.2.5]v3:
Aside from a significant compatibility fix, the big feature this time is the smooth branches:
The new branch algorithm isn't perfect (slower to generate), and the old one will remain available for anyone who liked it.
You can, using the <Replaces> element. I use it for the red wool testing distribution, and also the new Lapis Lazuli distribution. You could easily make an ore that only spawns in another ore. It's worth noting, if you plan to try this, that distributions are spawned in the order they appear in the config file. So the main ore would need to come first, then the "inner" ore after it.
I remember creating giant elusive ore deposits with the old BiomeTerrainMod. I'll add "mega-deposits" to the todo list. Small marker deposits aren't currently possible, but that raises some interesting ideas for proximity constraints ... I need to think about it.
I just tried tinkering with cave generation, and it will need some work. You can create large cave systems using either branch type, but I need to do more testing to see how well they really scale. One thing I forgot to mention before is that the vanilla cave generator works on a single chunk, whereas veins generate over very large areas at once.
I really like the idea of an inventory overhaul to add some depth to the transport/infrastructure aspect of the game. Right now you can pack an entire medium-sized city into your pockets and run around with it. I won't be adding anything like that to this mod, however - any attempt at an overhaul like that would need to be a separate project.
That is brilliant. And you are right, it complements this mod perfectly. The #1 question I always have while mining veins is : have I reached the end, or is do I need to keep digging? Ore detectors fill that niche perfectly.
I did come up with some nice settiings for really long snaking veins with a big motherlode. Rarity in the 0.0005 range seems like a good choice for making them hard to come by. I'll play with this some more tonight with the new version and report back with something useful.
I think you would need the marker veins or a combination of these large rare veins and smaller more common ones or you might go forever without finding them. The real advantage for the extra large rare veins is that you end up with several mines throughout your map, each dedicated to a separate ore. This gives the added challenge of linking them up with a rail or pipe/tube system.
But despite these problems it's still very cool having really large tunnels and epic scaled caverns. A big change of pace over the familiar restricted tunnels of vanilla. Try branch radius around 8 to 12, length of 600 or more, and motherlodes of around radius 20 or larger. To get rid of most of the random junk you need a replaces block setting for most naturally generated blocks including water and lava. I forget what the name of the setting is, it's the one that affects the raggedness of the vein, I found that you need around 0.5 to make sure the tunnels are relatively smooth and have the least amount of clutter inside. I'll try to get some screenshots tonight.
Thanks for trying that out. The next version fixes bugs that may be responsible for some of the quirks you see. It also upgrades block replacement so that you can replace many block types without actually listing them all by id. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about the order of world generation without modifying base classes.
Thank you for reporting this. Every distribution in the config file is given a unique random seed value. What you are seeing is a weakness in the java random number generator. Now that I know about, though, I can fix this problem in the next version.
Here's the vein settings:
<Veins name='Massive Cave' blockID='0' branchtype='bezier'>
<PDist name='MotherlodeFrequency' avg='0.001' range='0'/>
<PDist name='MotherlodeSize' avg='24' range='12' distribution='normal'/>
<PDist name='MotherlodeHeight' avg='43' range='10.5' distribution='normal'/>
<PDist name='BranchFrequency' avg='6' range='4' distribution='uniform'/>
<PDist name='BranchInclination' avg='0' range='0.55' distribution='uniform'/>
<PDist name='BranchLength' avg='800' range='450' distribution='normal'/>
<PDist name='BranchHeightLimit' avg='100'/>
<PDist name='SegmentForkFrequency' avg='0.08'/>
<PDist name='SegmentForkLengthMult' avg='0.75' range='0.25' distribution='uniform'/>
<PDist name='SegmentLength' avg='30' range='6' distribution='uniform'/>
<PDist name='SegmentAngle' avg='0.50' range='0.50' distribution='uniform'/>
<PDist name='SegmentRadius' avg='8' range='5' distribution='uniform'/>
<PDist name='OreRadiusMult' avg='0.75' range='0' distribution='uniform'/>
<Replaces blockID='1'>
*
<Biome name='.*'/>
</Veins>
*NOTE: Need to replace all naturally ocurring block ID's including modded ores/stones, moving and still water/lava, etc... Maybe in next version we'll get a Replaces all block ID's.