There's something to be said for an elegant, functional farm- but there are certain aspects of automation in Minecraft that seem a little odd. The most efficient animal farm, for example, consists of a bunch of cows in a hole. Crops can be farmed automatically- but only with the aid of enslaved villagers, who have to be dragged where you want them by means of a boat. Automatic quarries are incredibly complicated, and often require TNT duplication to function.
This thread is less of an original suggestion, and more of an inquiry into how far automation ought to go, and how it should be balanced. I have played with all of these mechanics before by means of the Quark mod- at least, things along these lines; and they seem, (At least to me), to work fairly well. I've tried to do my best to include pros and cons for each aspect of automation, though I'm sure that these are far from complete.
Lastly, if new aspects of automation were added, this would be yet another new application for copper. (Some of my previous thoughts included limited use copper tridents, and 'Shulker Turrets,' described in this thread.)
For awhile, I actually thought that this was part of the game- it just seemed like such an obvious thing to be implemented. The idea is more or less that dispensers should be able to plant seeds on adjacent farmland blocks. I've tried to design farms using this mechanic- and have found, for the most part, that by far the most difficult part of making a fully automatic farm is knowing when to harvest the crops. (A redstone counting circuit can be used, but has trouble accounting for a harvesting cycle that uses water, and all those hoppers tend to be pretty expensive anyways.) As such, I would suggest that when a comparator is hooked up to an observer, it should release a redstone signal of varying strength depending on the maturity of the adjacent crop. (In this manner, individual harvesting nodes could be set up- or a more complex automatic farm in which large harvesting units are hooked up to a smaller single observer node that observes multiple blocks of wheat, in order to detect when the entire system is about ready to harvest.)
PROS
Obviously, automatic planting allows essentially unlimited sources of food, along with unlocking all manner of interesting new farm designs. The mechanic is fairly balanced, seeing that you wind up needing a dispenser for every single plot of wheat, along with other redstone circuitry to automate harvesting and replanting. This seems to make a bit more sense than enslaving villagers to work for you, and could result in some pretty unique designs. Automatic farming would be as simple as allowing dispensers to plant seeds- though the actual machinery is rather more difficult to make, requiring a harvesting mechanism, timer circuit, and a replanting system for the seeds. This really just feels like it should already be a part of the game, and would be the easiest to implement. Furthermore, automatic farms would be somewhat balanced in regards to manual farms, since fortune tools would only be used in manual or semiautomatic designs.
CONS
The first and most obvious problem with this is that Villager farms wind up being significantly cheaper. You don't need so many dispensers, or hoppers to restock the dispensers. Players wouldn't have any reason to put so much effort into making these systems unless villager mechanics were seriously altered. Such alterations could have significant effects on servers and existing farms. Secondly, unless it is possible for these farms to be fully autonomous, there is still no reason to build them- ultimately, it's quicker and simpler to just make a manual farm, and there still won't be any reason to make an automatic one unless it is completely automatic.
Another interesting mechanic added by Quark is a feeding trough- a block that can be filled with grain or seeds, and can thus be used to automatically breed most livestock, since it can be fed with a hopper. In order to balance it, animals only have a fifty percent chance of entering love mode when fed from a trough. The trough could also be another means of using Copper- and could be crafted using copper bars, stone, and a chest.
PROS
...Once again, this could result in more automatic farms and more essentially unlimited sources of food that would create some unique engineering opportunities and solutions. There really doesn't seem to be much else to say here.
CONS
...And also once again, it's entirely possible that the existing design of 'dump a bunch of cows in a hole and spam the feed button,' would still be significantly more efficient- particularly if players simply don't intend to put the effort into designing such complicated systems.
Perhaps the most debatable topic is the idea of a means of automatically mining blocks by means of redstone machines. Once again, while this already sort of exists, they're pretty difficult to make unless you know what you're doing, and are willing to use arguably exploitable TNT duplication. The idea is a version of the End Rod that can be used to break blocks when pushed up against them with a piston. Crafted using an end rod, a netherite ingot, and some copper; they would be suitably expensive- seeing as they could be used to create tunnel boring machines, automatic cobblestone generators, automatic treefarms, and other very much end-game machines.
PROS
Using these mechanics, advanced players could essentially automate every single aspect of the game. In order to balance it, it would have to be both incredibly end-game, and perhaps made slightly less overpowered. However, if these rods did break over time, or could only mine certain blocks, they would hardly be as useful. Everything from tunnel boring weaponry to highly automated quarrying machines that would allow them to dominate their worlds.
CONS
This would be really, really overpowered- there's a reason players can't already make this sort of thing. There isn't much more to say than that; it would be way too easy for players to find new and innovative ways of abusing such a game mechanic, and it would be a nightmare to balance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are just my takes on this topic- Feedback is highly appreciated.
We have an option to automatize mining already but... it requires a lot of resources and more importantly, very advanced technical knowledge.
And, in my opinion, that is balanced.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out
The one problem with small automated piston flying machines used for automated tunneling would be that the slime blocks would stick to the walls, so more advanced machines would be required. I'm opposed to making such a spike (although I'd prefer if it more resembled a drill) out of unnecessarily endgame materials just for the sake of balancing; I'd rather balance it by making it not drop any blocks.
I would like for there to be a less OP automation system to have a middle ground instead of those hugely automated farms some people have. For example iron golem farms or very big planting systems. Iron sorely needs an easier way to be obtained mid to late game.
Copper would be great for adding smaller mining systems like stripmining and encourage building mineshafts to keep the ceiling up (so maybe something that would work like tnt-but less resources and that the ceiling could collapse when using this, but not with regular stripmining with pickaxe. I think that would be pretty interesting. Nothing like the quarrys from the technic modpack, but something more smallscale would be a great addition imo!
In real life geology in the ground is found with drill cores.
While things like this are too modern for vanilla minecraft:
Some systems that were semi-automated with a vanilla feel could be great. Afterall, we did have mining before technology! Something low tech, balanced with the rest of the game and with a lot of wood materials would be great!
To fit game mechanics it probably should be something like a drill that went quite slow and maybe 100-200 blocks maximum, and required inspection nearby to build ceiling support, see to it that everything worked etc. It should be just good enough that its more effective than strip mining (not faster forward, but mining bigger areas), but needing more setup and being most effective if you found veins of material already.
What I think would fit minecraft best is something tnt-like that would mine out bigger areas than tnt but with less resources and more controlled, and requiring you to build mineshafts and rails to transport materials out. Maybe they could add goblins or a villager mining profession as well to build the mineshafts or work in the mines?
Some images for inspiration:
Maybe you could use shulk sensors or do a drilling test with further reach than a pickaxe. And if it seems resourceful you could dig out a 3x3, 4x3 or 5x4 area in that direction, but having to build ceiling support depending on the rock type and size youre digging in.
Maybe mining should require a separate place to excavate ores from the rock, and needing energy for this (wind, solar, water, horse power, heat...) encouraging building it above ground or in specific places.That would encourage rail systems, or some method of lifting material upwards!
I just think that the way MC is now, the game really doesnt encourage building minecarts and shafts, and they need to do something to change that. I dont think changing the gravity in itself would be good because that would affect previous mining strategies. But a semi-automated system with copper could be relient on building shafts and minecarts, and I think that would add more charm to minecraft.
Many people have said that the inventory system in minecraft needs to be revamped (source comments and youtubers in videos talking about the recent snapshots and speculations). Maybe a change to where materials size and weight mattered would encourage the use of minecarts for transporting massive amounts of rock?
Inspiration forgeries, smelteries, mineral excavation sites and energy sources...
Imagine hiring the stone mason villagers for this! They would finally be useful!
It would be nicer to have som automation with more "reach" that could mean building farms that still look natural. Maybe using villagers for farming could be improved?
Imagine if mineshafts were useful:
Maybe the "main" roads more travelled would need to have ceiling support, while allowing more risk for smaller shafts?
Minecart rails leading to boats that could transport materials as well...
Something I think would make this more useful is if minecraft added more rock layers (some examples in a long and detailed comment I did here!). Then they could add certain minerals spawning in specific layers or magmatic intrusions like it is in real life. This would encourage testing out which layers are efficient in that specific area for getting a certain mineral, and thereby be even more encouraging for strategic mining! You wouldnt just mine at a certain y-level for every single minecraft world or area in the world. You would have underground "biomes" (but bigger) where some ores spawned more in certain layers.
Ores found in sedimental layers: (last one is foliated due to regional metamorphism)
Ores found from igneous intrusions:
Mining in shafts is often referred to as drift mining and would especially relevant forcoal and gold, would also iron and copper (which would fit minecraft mechanics a lot).
- Coal stems from organic material and is sedimentary, and would generate in layer structures in very long and layered veins. Also, fun fact! Open fire in these veins is very dangerous and a fire can go on for decades in a coal vein underground! Maybe you'd have to use lanterns or other light sources than torches when drift mining
- Iron is most abundant in sedimentary rocks that were deposited when oceans had a high iron content, but also prevalent in mafic igneous rocks (aka prevalent in mid ocean ridges which would fit with ocean ravines in minecraft). In the detailed comment about underground biomes I linked earlier I explained more about ocean ravines and ocean crust vs continental crust. Often surface-mining is used for iron extraction, but thats because its more expensive in real life to mine in caves, though it would fit minecraft mechanics to use drift mining. Surface mining is most prevalent for extracting a certain rock because you need it in more volume and its often too expensive compared to selling price to extract it from caves.
- Iron, copper and gold are usually extracted from rocks more rich in these minerals. Maybe if they added certain layers that had a prevalence of the rock with nuggets inside (similar to hidden silverfish in stone). That would also encourage making minecart systems that transported the rocks out of the caves to be crushed and extracted :))
- Gold is often found with quarts, which there is a lot of in felsic igneous rock types like granitoids (granite, diorite..+++). Maybe they could also add a way of extracting quartz in granite and diorite? and it would be soo funny and realistic (but i guess useless for minecraft) if they added pyrite aka. fools gold! xD Not sure about game mechanics tho, maybe for trying to fool those nether piglins idk.
I dont think they should add long veins with diamond, lapis or emeralds though. Its not super realistic, and it'd also break game mechanics because these ores are rarer or more "mystical".
- Diamond is usually found at high pressure, low temperature gradient (meaning deep in the ground) and are very rare to find closer to the surface.
- Lapis is often crystallised as a result of contact metamorphism, close to underground magma, but not in direct contact. It may be game breaking if it was too predictable though, as lapis is used for enchanting aka magic. But its often found with calcite and pyrite (pyrite=fools gold), so adding calcite in and around lapis "blobs" would be very interesting! And also fit minecraft since people are requesting calcite to be more common.
- Emeralds needs space to crystallize and is formed when enough beryllium is prevalent, which is quite rare. I dont know much about beryllium as its a rare mineral, but it seems like emeralds is formed most often during contact metamorphism. However, in minecraft they did it so it spawns in mountains which is linked to regional metamorphism. But whatever, it would impact minecraft lore too much to change this.
More naturally generating structures would be cool as well:
More naturally generating structures would be cool!
More types of mineshafts (drift mining) and vertical mineshafts...
And some generating quarries, maybe nearby richer villages! This could be a great way to get down to the deeper layers quickly!
If you remember old mod - railcraft. There were perfect additions for trains (connect minecarts, locomotives...) and as well great boring machine. That would be fine addition. I´m waiting for something like that. Imagine bore head from Netherite.. http://railcraft.info/wiki/cart:tunnel_bore
Well considering I am interested in making food factories these days, these are the only automated farms I think should exist in the vanilla game.
It would be a great way to synergize redstone builds with crop harvesting, giving redstone far more use in survival.
Most of the crop harvesting builds I've seen that had auto harvesting, only worked without replanting, which doesn't appeal to me all that much.
But having a redstone block that could replant crops automatically would give people more incentive to build a complex redstone machine.
As tow4rzysz suggested,
while having organic resources being automated wouldn't break the game,
automated mining or grinders, definitely would.
I want redstone to have more of a purpose instead of just being used for sticky pistons to open doors or alternate lights or make sounds on noteblocks etc.
We should have more practical uses for it in machinery in survival.
There's something to be said for an elegant, functional farm- but there are certain aspects of automation in Minecraft that seem a little odd. The most efficient animal farm, for example, consists of a bunch of cows in a hole. Crops can be farmed automatically- but only with the aid of enslaved villagers, who have to be dragged where you want them by means of a boat. Automatic quarries are incredibly complicated, and often require TNT duplication to function.
This thread is less of an original suggestion, and more of an inquiry into how far automation ought to go, and how it should be balanced. I have played with all of these mechanics before by means of the Quark mod- at least, things along these lines; and they seem, (At least to me), to work fairly well. I've tried to do my best to include pros and cons for each aspect of automation, though I'm sure that these are far from complete.
Lastly, if new aspects of automation were added, this would be yet another new application for copper. (Some of my previous thoughts included limited use copper tridents, and 'Shulker Turrets,' described in this thread.)
AUTOMATED PLANTING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For awhile, I actually thought that this was part of the game- it just seemed like such an obvious thing to be implemented. The idea is more or less that dispensers should be able to plant seeds on adjacent farmland blocks. I've tried to design farms using this mechanic- and have found, for the most part, that by far the most difficult part of making a fully automatic farm is knowing when to harvest the crops. (A redstone counting circuit can be used, but has trouble accounting for a harvesting cycle that uses water, and all those hoppers tend to be pretty expensive anyways.) As such, I would suggest that when a comparator is hooked up to an observer, it should release a redstone signal of varying strength depending on the maturity of the adjacent crop. (In this manner, individual harvesting nodes could be set up- or a more complex automatic farm in which large harvesting units are hooked up to a smaller single observer node that observes multiple blocks of wheat, in order to detect when the entire system is about ready to harvest.)
PROS
Obviously, automatic planting allows essentially unlimited sources of food, along with unlocking all manner of interesting new farm designs. The mechanic is fairly balanced, seeing that you wind up needing a dispenser for every single plot of wheat, along with other redstone circuitry to automate harvesting and replanting. This seems to make a bit more sense than enslaving villagers to work for you, and could result in some pretty unique designs. Automatic farming would be as simple as allowing dispensers to plant seeds- though the actual machinery is rather more difficult to make, requiring a harvesting mechanism, timer circuit, and a replanting system for the seeds. This really just feels like it should already be a part of the game, and would be the easiest to implement. Furthermore, automatic farms would be somewhat balanced in regards to manual farms, since fortune tools would only be used in manual or semiautomatic designs.
CONS
The first and most obvious problem with this is that Villager farms wind up being significantly cheaper. You don't need so many dispensers, or hoppers to restock the dispensers. Players wouldn't have any reason to put so much effort into making these systems unless villager mechanics were seriously altered. Such alterations could have significant effects on servers and existing farms. Secondly, unless it is possible for these farms to be fully autonomous, there is still no reason to build them- ultimately, it's quicker and simpler to just make a manual farm, and there still won't be any reason to make an automatic one unless it is completely automatic.
AUTOMATED BREEDING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another interesting mechanic added by Quark is a feeding trough- a block that can be filled with grain or seeds, and can thus be used to automatically breed most livestock, since it can be fed with a hopper. In order to balance it, animals only have a fifty percent chance of entering love mode when fed from a trough. The trough could also be another means of using Copper- and could be crafted using copper bars, stone, and a chest.
PROS
...Once again, this could result in more automatic farms and more essentially unlimited sources of food that would create some unique engineering opportunities and solutions. There really doesn't seem to be much else to say here.
CONS
...And also once again, it's entirely possible that the existing design of 'dump a bunch of cows in a hole and spam the feed button,' would still be significantly more efficient- particularly if players simply don't intend to put the effort into designing such complicated systems.
AUTOMATED MINING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps the most debatable topic is the idea of a means of automatically mining blocks by means of redstone machines. Once again, while this already sort of exists, they're pretty difficult to make unless you know what you're doing, and are willing to use arguably exploitable TNT duplication. The idea is a version of the End Rod that can be used to break blocks when pushed up against them with a piston. Crafted using an end rod, a netherite ingot, and some copper; they would be suitably expensive- seeing as they could be used to create tunnel boring machines, automatic cobblestone generators, automatic treefarms, and other very much end-game machines.
PROS
Using these mechanics, advanced players could essentially automate every single aspect of the game. In order to balance it, it would have to be both incredibly end-game, and perhaps made slightly less overpowered. However, if these rods did break over time, or could only mine certain blocks, they would hardly be as useful. Everything from tunnel boring weaponry to highly automated quarrying machines that would allow them to dominate their worlds.
CONS
This would be really, really overpowered- there's a reason players can't already make this sort of thing. There isn't much more to say than that; it would be way too easy for players to find new and innovative ways of abusing such a game mechanic, and it would be a nightmare to balance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are just my takes on this topic- Feedback is highly appreciated.
Cooking with Mindthemoods ~ Biomes ~ Archeology
---
~ My Portfolio ~ Skindex ~ Test ~ Discs ~
I am absolutly pro automatic planting. But i've got a half-automatic farm in mind.
If a dispenser could plant seeds from below, you could make use of dispensers with waterbucket to harvest the crops.
Both mechanisms could be activated using buttons.
I can't see any "balancing issues" here. You need a certain amount of redstone ressources to build such a farm.
Compare that to a chicken farm. It's redicolous how fast you can build them, how close they come to the cruel chicken farms in reality.
My projects:
-are abandoned for now. I might pick 'em up in the future.
For now i'm working on a private modpack that suit's my own playstyle.
I am gonna stay in modded 1.12.2 untill my potato dies. No mercy! :Q
Organics - yes
Mining - no
We have an option to automatize mining already but... it requires a lot of resources and more importantly, very advanced technical knowledge.
And, in my opinion, that is balanced.
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out
That's not mining, that's griefing.
But i agree.
My projects:
-are abandoned for now. I might pick 'em up in the future.
For now i'm working on a private modpack that suit's my own playstyle.
I am gonna stay in modded 1.12.2 untill my potato dies. No mercy! :Q
Griefing what? Who?
Dwarf gamer found:
Buildings - square, not round
Materials - from rubble mound
Dark caves - lit 'n' cleaned out
Settlements - deep underground
Farmability - to grinder bound
Shields - made creepers but sound
Axes and crossbows - taking mobs out
The one problem with small automated piston flying machines used for automated tunneling would be that the slime blocks would stick to the walls, so more advanced machines would be required. I'm opposed to making such a spike (although I'd prefer if it more resembled a drill) out of unnecessarily endgame materials just for the sake of balancing; I'd rather balance it by making it not drop any blocks.
My suggestions: Enhancements - Throwable Fire Charges - On Phantoms and Elytra. Also check out The Minecraftian Language. This signature is not here to waste your space.
I would like for there to be a less OP automation system to have a middle ground instead of those hugely automated farms some people have. For example iron golem farms or very big planting systems. Iron sorely needs an easier way to be obtained mid to late game.
Copper would be great for adding smaller mining systems like stripmining and encourage building mineshafts to keep the ceiling up (so maybe something that would work like tnt-but less resources and that the ceiling could collapse when using this, but not with regular stripmining with pickaxe. I think that would be pretty interesting. Nothing like the quarrys from the technic modpack, but something more smallscale would be a great addition imo!
In real life geology in the ground is found with drill cores.
While things like this are too modern for vanilla minecraft:
Some systems that were semi-automated with a vanilla feel could be great. Afterall, we did have mining before technology! Something low tech, balanced with the rest of the game and with a lot of wood materials would be great!
To fit game mechanics it probably should be something like a drill that went quite slow and maybe 100-200 blocks maximum, and required inspection nearby to build ceiling support, see to it that everything worked etc. It should be just good enough that its more effective than strip mining (not faster forward, but mining bigger areas), but needing more setup and being most effective if you found veins of material already.
What I think would fit minecraft best is something tnt-like that would mine out bigger areas than tnt but with less resources and more controlled, and requiring you to build mineshafts and rails to transport materials out. Maybe they could add goblins or a villager mining profession as well to build the mineshafts or work in the mines?
Some images for inspiration:
Maybe you could use shulk sensors or do a drilling test with further reach than a pickaxe. And if it seems resourceful you could dig out a 3x3, 4x3 or 5x4 area in that direction, but having to build ceiling support depending on the rock type and size youre digging in.
Maybe mining should require a separate place to excavate ores from the rock, and needing energy for this (wind, solar, water, horse power, heat...) encouraging building it above ground or in specific places.That would encourage rail systems, or some method of lifting material upwards!
I just think that the way MC is now, the game really doesnt encourage building minecarts and shafts, and they need to do something to change that. I dont think changing the gravity in itself would be good because that would affect previous mining strategies. But a semi-automated system with copper could be relient on building shafts and minecarts, and I think that would add more charm to minecraft.
Many people have said that the inventory system in minecraft needs to be revamped (source comments and youtubers in videos talking about the recent snapshots and speculations). Maybe a change to where materials size and weight mattered would encourage the use of minecarts for transporting massive amounts of rock?
Inspiration forgeries, smelteries, mineral excavation sites and energy sources...
Imagine hiring the stone mason villagers for this! They would finally be useful!
It would be nicer to have som automation with more "reach" that could mean building farms that still look natural. Maybe using villagers for farming could be improved?
Imagine if mineshafts were useful:
Maybe the "main" roads more travelled would need to have ceiling support, while allowing more risk for smaller shafts?
Minecart rails leading to boats that could transport materials as well...
Something I think would make this more useful is if minecraft added more rock layers (some examples in a long and detailed comment I did here!). Then they could add certain minerals spawning in specific layers or magmatic intrusions like it is in real life. This would encourage testing out which layers are efficient in that specific area for getting a certain mineral, and thereby be even more encouraging for strategic mining! You wouldnt just mine at a certain y-level for every single minecraft world or area in the world. You would have underground "biomes" (but bigger) where some ores spawned more in certain layers.
Ores found in sedimental layers: (last one is foliated due to regional metamorphism)
Ores found from igneous intrusions:
Mining in shafts is often referred to as drift mining and would especially relevant for coal and gold, would also iron and copper (which would fit minecraft mechanics a lot).
- Coal stems from organic material and is sedimentary, and would generate in layer structures in very long and layered veins. Also, fun fact! Open fire in these veins is very dangerous and a fire can go on for decades in a coal vein underground! Maybe you'd have to use lanterns or other light sources than torches when drift mining
- Iron is most abundant in sedimentary rocks that were deposited when oceans had a high iron content, but also prevalent in mafic igneous rocks (aka prevalent in mid ocean ridges which would fit with ocean ravines in minecraft). In the detailed comment about underground biomes I linked earlier I explained more about ocean ravines and ocean crust vs continental crust. Often surface-mining is used for iron extraction, but thats because its more expensive in real life to mine in caves, though it would fit minecraft mechanics to use drift mining. Surface mining is most prevalent for extracting a certain rock because you need it in more volume and its often too expensive compared to selling price to extract it from caves.
- Iron, copper and gold are usually extracted from rocks more rich in these minerals. Maybe if they added certain layers that had a prevalence of the rock with nuggets inside (similar to hidden silverfish in stone). That would also encourage making minecart systems that transported the rocks out of the caves to be crushed and extracted :))
- Gold is often found with quarts, which there is a lot of in felsic igneous rock types like granitoids (granite, diorite..+++). Maybe they could also add a way of extracting quartz in granite and diorite? and it would be soo funny and realistic (but i guess useless for minecraft) if they added pyrite aka. fools gold! xD Not sure about game mechanics tho, maybe for trying to fool those nether piglins idk.
I dont think they should add long veins with diamond, lapis or emeralds though. Its not super realistic, and it'd also break game mechanics because these ores are rarer or more "mystical".
- Diamond is usually found at high pressure, low temperature gradient (meaning deep in the ground) and are very rare to find closer to the surface.
- Lapis is often crystallised as a result of contact metamorphism, close to underground magma, but not in direct contact. It may be game breaking if it was too predictable though, as lapis is used for enchanting aka magic. But its often found with calcite and pyrite (pyrite=fools gold), so adding calcite in and around lapis "blobs" would be very interesting! And also fit minecraft since people are requesting calcite to be more common.
- Emeralds needs space to crystallize and is formed when enough beryllium is prevalent, which is quite rare. I dont know much about beryllium as its a rare mineral, but it seems like emeralds is formed most often during contact metamorphism. However, in minecraft they did it so it spawns in mountains which is linked to regional metamorphism. But whatever, it would impact minecraft lore too much to change this.
More naturally generating structures would be cool as well:
More naturally generating structures would be cool!
More types of mineshafts (drift mining) and vertical mineshafts...
And some generating quarries, maybe nearby richer villages! This could be a great way to get down to the deeper layers quickly!
If you remember old mod - railcraft. There were perfect additions for trains (connect minecarts, locomotives...) and as well great boring machine. That would be fine addition.
I´m waiting for something like that. Imagine bore head from Netherite.. http://railcraft.info/wiki/cart:tunnel_bore
Well considering I am interested in making food factories these days, these are the only automated farms I think should exist in the vanilla game.
It would be a great way to synergize redstone builds with crop harvesting, giving redstone far more use in survival.
Most of the crop harvesting builds I've seen that had auto harvesting, only worked without replanting, which doesn't appeal to me all that much.
But having a redstone block that could replant crops automatically would give people more incentive to build a complex redstone machine.
As tow4rzysz suggested,
while having organic resources being automated wouldn't break the game,
automated mining or grinders, definitely would.
I want redstone to have more of a purpose instead of just being used for sticky pistons to open doors or alternate lights or make sounds on noteblocks etc.
We should have more practical uses for it in machinery in survival.