This may sound insane but I've already found a second giant cave region, the rarest underground feature in TMCW, less than a week after I finished exploring the first one (on day 64), located only a few hundred blocks to the northwest (the locations shown are the center so the edge-edge distance is less):
Giant cave regions in TMCWv5.10, and day found:
1. 88 1288 (volume: 1696108) - day 58
2. -296 808 (volume: 1718503) - day 70
This is by far the shorted time between finding two, and the closest distance between them, previously 43 days in TMCWv5, where I also didn't find the first one until day 174 (this is the total session count, so relatively even faster when only "caving sessions" are counted), and in previous worlds they were the last thing I found while in this world I didn't find quite a few other features until after the first one with several more still to find (this world has basically all been large caves, more or less the opposite of my experience in TMCWv4, where it took 77 sessions to find a "giant" cave, though they were about 3 times rarer back then; conversely, I'd found a ravine larger than anything in this world by the 30th session, and an even larger one later on (also rarer and smaller back then):
Giant cave regions in TMCWv5, and day found (449 total):
1. 1224 -424 (volume: 1658117) - day 174
2. 744 1032 (volume: 1636600) - day 217
3. -696 -1320 (volume: 1658304) - day 313
Giant cave regions in TMCWv4, and day found (243 total):
1. 1320 -120 (volume: 1253303) - day 136
2. -1224 -1592 (volume: 1299016) - not discovered
(TMCWv4 is not directly comparable since they were rarer, one every 16384 chunks)
On average, I can expect to find one every 131 days or so since they generate once every 13107 chunks and I explore about 100 chunks per play session; there will always be at least two within 1536 blocks of the origin, one within 1040 blocks (in either case at least one chunk within their central 13x13 chunk area so their actual center can be outside of this, or the specified search range, as with the second one in TMCWv4). I've seen seeds with as many as six entirely within this area; at least one, with a 25% chance of two, generate per 128x128 chunk region (a level 4 map) and up to 9 such regions can intersect a 192x192 chunk area (+/- 1536 blocks):
I could easily find seeds with more by specifically searching for them (it is pretty easy for these since you don't need to check every single chunk, just every 13th chunk along an axis / 169th chunk overall, and don't need to measure the volume):
For comparison, this was the seed I previously played on (within 1664 blocks, the others are 1536):
An old diagram showing how various types of caves are placed, including regional caves, which can be as close as 6,6 chunks apart (from corner to corner); four of the regions shown here will be a regional cave with 31.25% being giant cave regions and 68.75% being network cave regions (one every 13107 and 5958 chunks respectively):
Prior to this I found a "colossal cave system" right below my current secondary base; at the time I did notice that I ran into quite a lot of caves while digging a rail tunnel and there were quite a few surface openings around my base and it did cross my mind that there could be something more than just a dense concentration of "normal" caves but as usual I never investigated it until I reached it via normal underground exploration; these are also the hardest type of "special" cave to identify since they could very well be formed from vanilla caves (and I did think I'd found one earlier; the size and overall density is a giveaway though):
While exploring it I found one of the rarest enchantments in the game for the first time - Vein Miner, which is a "true treasure" enchantment, only obtainable via loot chests, and as its name suggests (named after various mods with similar functionality) enables pickaxes to mine up to 4 ore blocks at a time per level, up to 8 at level 2; if placed on an axe (only level 1 is needed) they will mine up to 2 more wood blocks above or below (depending on your POV) the one targeted; it was in the third "double dungeon" I've found so far, out of a total of 104 dungeons (101 normal dungeons, none of which intersected to form a "vanilla" double dungeon, illustrating how uncommon they are), which is also where it is most likely to be found, along with Smelting (which I've found a total of 3 of, none in double dungeons, which have about a 25% chance of each in the first chest placed, otherwise they have the same chance as other enchantments, so this is also a bit unusual, given I haven't found several other vanilla enchantments yet. In the context of randomness this isn't so unexpected (the "clustering illusion" describes apparent non-randomness in random data):
I decided to place it on the axe I use to harvest wood, with a marked improvement in how long it takes to cut down a 2x2 spruce (take a ladder to the top then chop down in a spiral, 3 logs at a time, I specifically chose 3 since this is the number needed to make a staircase up or can be removed below you without taking fall damage).
I also found a large cave with a volume of 185,000 blocks, the third largest one and 7th over 100,000 blocks so far, connected to the giant cave region (for the purposes of exploring the latter this will be counted as part of it):
How do you keep track of all your statistics? I couldn't tell you the time intervals between me finding things unless I'd journaled it, and even then it would take some hunting.
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How do you keep track of all your statistics? I couldn't tell you the time intervals between me finding things unless I'd journaled it, and even then it would take some hunting.
I have a Notepad file listing everything I've found, as well as a spreadsheet for my "session statistics" (the information displayed in the inventory), which are printed out at the end of each session, this includes tables I'd made for each giant cave region, so I just looked at e.g. ore mined and found the corresponding number in the general table:
I didn't make a table of session stats for TMCWv4 but I originally ended the world after I finished exploring the giant cave region that was the last thing I found, after 140 sessions, which is known because I posted the final statistics for the world (I played on it again later on), and it took 5 days to explore, hence it was found on day 136. Some of the others are guesses based on my posting history; I also explored all three worlds more or less the same way up to this point (initially a level 3 map centered around 0,0, then the map to the south; in this world the area was shifted eastwards since I changed the alignment of maps), so the explored area can be compared.
Also, the seed for the world I played on in TMCWv4 ("-1816924181", which is the hash code for "TMCWv4") is quite interesting when used in TMCWv5.10 (the numeric seed must be used since I changed the hash function); there are no less than 9 colossal cave systems within 1536 blocks, the second most known of any seed (10), as well as a ravine with a volume of 557,000 blocks, possibly up to 633,000 if the ground is deep enough (this is close to the largest known ravines when measured below sea level, with the theoretical maximum volume being around 750,000 when including the part above sea level), and a complex of large caves with a volume of 1.2 million blocks; if you consider the area I've explored up to now in my current world I'd have found two giant cave regions, one to the east and another to the south, close to the first one in this world (the original seed also had two, with one further east so I didn't encounter it until I explored that map, and one far to the northwest, with most of the northern third of a +/- 1536 block area unexplored):
The total volume within this area, only including what is shown (special caves, large mineshafts, and strongholds) is 41,052,361 blocks or 7.373% of blocks on layers 4-59, which exceeds the average of about 6.66% for 1.18+ across 116 layers:
This shows the largest caves and ravines only, which had a volume of 16,166,347 blocks or 2.903%; the largest single cave, to the northwest, has a volume of 757,000 blocks, while to the east is a near-merger of two caves with a combined volume of 788,000 (they do merge when including various other large caves that aren't shown here but are shown above; the volume within a 320x320 block area centered on them was 1.21 million, 1.43 million when including all features):
A complete rendering (all features) of the cave complex:
Seed is -1816924181
Center is 1008, -16 and radius is 160 blocks (from 848, -176 to 1167, 143)
Showing up to 10 results for each category. Locations are the center/start.
Locations of vertical cave systems:
1. 1128 -24
2. 1000 -136
Locations of ribbed tunnel cave systems:
1. 1128 40
Locations of large cave cave systems by volume:
1. 904 -24 (type: 1, volume: 124560)
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. 1080 24 -72 (type: 4, length: 498, width: 40, volume: 435781)
2. 952 24 56 (type: 4, length: 450, width: 41, volume: 352579)
3. 936 20 -72 (type: 1, length: 333, width: 26, volume: 72734)
4. 888 29 40 (type: 1, length: 336, width: 17, volume: 29049)
Locations of largest circular rooms by volume:
1. 1020 35 -65 (width: 63, volume: 60463)
Locations of abandoned mineshafts by corridor length:
1. 1160 28 88 (span: 8, size: 118, length: 1190)
Generating map...
Generating caves... 6% 12% 18% 25% 31% 37% 43% 50% 56% 62% 68% 75% 81% 87% 93% 100%
Rendering map... 6% 12% 18% 25% 31% 37% 43% 50% 56% 62% 68% 75% 81% 87% 93% 100%
Total air volume is 1428621 blocks (23.646402%)
A list of features within 1536 blocks (top 10 or less):
I found an igloo for the first time since TMCWv4, when I found four, followed by none in TMCWv5 despite exploring a much larger area, with plenty of the biomes they spawn in (I did later find one at the edge of generated chunks; the structure data file can also be used to verify any structures); the most interesting thing may be how I found it; you guessed it - the basement was exposed in a cave, with a bunch of zombies staring at it due to the villager inside (I did have a look around earlier when I returned to my base but they can be hard to spot among the trees and snow-covered ground). They are otherwise identical to the ones in later vanilla versions, except there is no brewing stand (the splash potion of weakness is in the chest, which is guaranteed as is a golden apple):
Also, I found another giant cave connected to the giant cave region, or rather, a "large cave cluster", with a volume of 168,000 blocks across four caves, the two largest which were individually 122,000 and 60,000 (my cave analysis tool will normally list the two largest caves and only list large cave clusters where no single cave exceeded 25,000 but all of them together did; this can be bypassed by setting the threshold to higher than any single cave):
Locations of large cave clusters by volume:
1. -520 27 744 (caves: 4, volume: 168950)
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -520 24 744 (type: 1, length: 230, width: 48, volume: 122699)
2. -520 34 744 (type: 1, length: 214, width: 30, volume: 60032)
If you are wondering, I can recognize these caves as being separate due to their size and distance from the rest of the caves associated with the giant cave region, and the size of the "ends" of the tunnels, which are distinctly larger as the width of the tunnel increases (vanilla caves have a minimum width of 3 blocks while giant caves reach up to 5 blocks; TMCW also has a regional variation of vanilla cave with a minimum width of 2 blocks); as well as the presence of the smaller variants of huge mushroom (only the largest variants generate in giant cave regions).
After 8 days I've finished exploring the second giant cave region, which had numerous other caves intersecting it for a total explored volume of over 2 million blocks, the highest of any such area:
The volume of the giant cave region is even a bit higher than shown since one of the caves goes outside the 400x400 area used to analyze it (at the top):
In accordance to the increased exploration, I mined a total of more than 24,000 ores and 25,000 resource blocks, completely filling a double chest with storage blocks (including "compressed mossy cobblestone" and "cobweb blocks"; I collected the cobwebs from a few exposed cave spider spawners in the largest single cave but didn't explore them otherwise, thus no rails):
Most of this matches the numbers given above, except for coal, of which I used around 2273 based on the difference between ore mined and blocks crafted, nearly all of this would have been used to craft torches (around 9092, or 1136 per day, I also put some into furnaces to cook food, otherwise the "Smelting" enchantment eliminates the need for coal to smelt ores and I didn't use any other resources except for amethyst to repair my gear, the 15 shown would be only 3 if I showed the net yield, with 8 used to repair my pickaxe alone and 4 more for my armor and sword; even after two months of caving I only have around 48 total surplus when including my normal stockpile):
These are slices through the world at layer 45, 30, and 15, which clearly show the two giant cave regions, as well as the largest single cave and some other features (overall cave density is highest near layer 30 while giant cave regions peak near 15 and 45):
A surface rendering of the trimmed world (minus the stronghold; there were 5926 chunks remaining, or nearly exactly 100 explored per play session spent caving, 59 so far; I used "Minecraft Map Auto Trim" on a copy of the world to delete chunks without player-placed torches nearby; aside from the edges of the world most of the explored area was solidly intact, except mostly around the northern edge of the giant cave region, which I colored black on the maps above):
Here are more screenshots of the giant cave region:
A couple larger ravines (volumes 60 and 39 thousand) that intersected it:
I also found two spider dungeons very close together (none of the 111 dungeons, including 3 "double dungeons", I've found so far have actually intersected) and a zombie in diamond armor, the 17th such mob in this world:
How exactly do you define a region? No connection to other caves at all?
If you are referring to a "giant cave region" that is a type of cave structure which generates as many individual caves within a large region of chunks, as opposed to just a single chunk / starting point (I refer to these as "regional caves" because of the way they generate. There is also regional variation of "vanilla" caves, which occurs within regions of about the same size as regional caves; a giant cave region can be thought of such a region with all the parameters cranked up to max, although they generate differently from normal caves).
Also, these renderings that I post only show "special" underground features, omitting everything else (vanilla caves and smaller ravines and mineshafts); the fact that deleting unexplored chunks left most of the world intact shows just how extensive the underground is:
For comparison, these are centered on the giant cave region in the upper-right, showing all features, special features only, and an interconnectivity map, where the various colors represent a distance from an origin point near the center, cycling from red to blue and back (about 93% of the total air volume was directly interconnected; vanilla 1.6.4 actually isn't much lower but does show much larger regions of similar colors due to less interconnections between them):
Regional caves do have a "regional exclusion zone" around them, which prevents most other features from generating within 4 chunks, as do many of the special types of cave systems, but this still allows for a decent amount of overlap. Here is a map of the area above which shows what can generate in each chunk, based on the return value of a method which checks for which type(s) of caves can generate, some of which will additionally set an area around them to a special value; the pink area in the enter is the 13x13 chunk area where caves generate within a giant cave region, surrounded by a lighter pink regional exclusion zone, which only allows larger caves and ravines to generate; the similar-looking blue area in the top-left is a "network cave region" (something I haven't found yet), the blue dot within a larger gray circle is a colossal cave system and its respective exclusion zone (disallowing everything), next to a stronghold (red dot) with an exclusion zone which only allows normal caves, reduced in density (some of these areas override each other, thus it is possible for normal caves to generate in some chunks within a regional exclusion zone but they will be limited). The various smaller areas represent other types of special cave systems, some of which do not have exclusion zones (these either check if there is nothing else nearby or generate as a variant of normal cave system):
The code I use to determine what can generate in a chunk is quite complex, with one part that populates an array centered on the chunk currently being generated and a second part which is called for each chunk within an 11 chunk radius of it (so hundreds of times per chunk generated. This is quite fast though since most of it is just looping through an array, not performing the "can spawn" checks for each type of cave. Overall cave generation is actually faster than vanilla due to optimization of the actual tunnel generation, the simplest using a much faster RNG, which it uses very heavily):
This is called once per chunk generated:
// Initializes array used to store cave data, used to avoid recalculations due to overlapping chunks within the ranges
// of each chunk checked for a major improvement in performance.
private void initializeCaveData(int chunkX, int chunkZ, int distance)
{
// caveDataArray is 33x33 chunks in size (+/- 16) to account for 11 chunk gen range and 5 chunk max radius for checking
// nearby chunks around each chunk within the 11 chunk radius
for (int z = -16; z <= 16; ++z)
{
int zIndex = (z + 16) * 33 + 16;
int cz = chunkZ + z;
int z2 = z * z;
for (int x = -16; x <= 16; ++x)
{
int x2z2 = x * x + z2;
// x2z2 values were calculated with CaveInfo.calculateMaxX2Z2, using 10 for special caves, 17 for regional caves,
// and 35 for colossal caves and strongholds
if (x2z2 <= 317)
{
int cx = chunkX + x;
if (distance < 16384) distance = cx * cx + cz * cz;
byte data = 0;
if (this.validColossalCaveLocation(cx, cz, distance))
{
data = COLOSSAL;
}
else if (this.validStrongholdLocation(cx, cz, distance))
{
data = STRONGHOLD;
}
else if (x2z2 <= 250)
{
if (this.validRegionalCaveLocation(cx, cz, distance))
{
data = REGIONAL;
}
else if (x2z2 <= 225)
{
data = (byte)this.validSpecialCaveLocation(cx, cz, distance);
}
}
this.caveDataArray[zIndex + x] = data;
}
}
}
// Initializes height map storing coordinates of water blocks; -1 is equivalent to 255 (read as unsigned byte)
for (int i = 0; i < 256; ++i)
{
this.waterHeightMap[i] = -1;
}
}
This method is called once per chunk within the "gen-range", of 11 chunks, with some of those chunks in turn leading to additional checks that extend it to up to +/-16 chunks (not all variants of caves use these methods):
// Returns a value indicating the type of cave that should be generated in a chunk
private int validCaveLocation(int cx, int cz)
{
int flag = NORMAL;
cx += 16;
cz += 16;
for (int z = -5; z <= 5; ++z)
{
int zIndex = (cz + z) * 33 + cx;
int z2 = z * z;
for (int x = -5; x <= 5; ++x)
{
int x2z2 = x * x + z2;
if (x2z2 <= 35)
{
int data = this.caveDataArray[zIndex + x];
if (data != 0)
{
if (data == COLOSSAL)
{
// Colossal cave systems; all caves are excluded from a 2 chunk radius, otherwise only sea level
// caves are allowed
if (x2z2 == 0) return COLOSSAL;
return (x2z2 <= 5 ? NONE : SEA_LEVEL_ONLY);
}
else if (data == STRONGHOLD)
{
// Used to exclude large caves/ravines from around strongholds
if (x2z2 == 0) return STRONGHOLD;
flag = NORMAL_ONLY;
}
else if (x2z2 <= 10)
{
// Special cave systems
if (data == CIRCULAR_RAVINE)
{
if (x2z2 == 0) return CIRCULAR_RAVINE;
if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY;
flag = NORMAL_ONLY;
}
else if (data == VERTICAL)
{
if (x2z2 == 0) return VERTICAL;
if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY;
flag = NORMAL_ONLY;
}
else if (data == MAZE)
{
if (x2z2 == 0) return MAZE;
if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY;
flag = NORMAL_ONLY;
}
else if (data == LARGE_CAVE_SYSTEM)
{
if (x2z2 == 0) return LARGE_CAVE_SYSTEM;
if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY;
flag = NORMAL_ONLY;
}
}
// Note that regional caves only set flag to REGIONAL_EXCLUSION when it is NORMAL so other caves
// can override it (NORMAL is large caves and ravines; NORMAL_ONLY is only normal caves, reduced
// in size, and no large ravines).
if (data == REGIONAL && x2z2 <= 17)
{
if (x2z2 == 0) return REGIONAL;
if (flag == NORMAL) flag = REGIONAL_EXCLUSION;
}
}
}
}
}
return flag;
}
The main method that is called once per chunk generated; this is similar to what vanilla does when generating caves and structures, with the "gen-range" limiting the maximum span of a structure (else it will abruptly cut off along a chunk border. Vanilla uses a range of +/-8 or 17x17 chunks, so the 11 chunk circular radius used here isn't actually much larger). A secondary range of +/-1 is used when generating the main part of jungle caves, which are separate so they are the last to remove/replace blocks:
public void generate(int chunkX, int chunkZ)
{
this.chunkX_16 = chunkX << 4;
this.chunkZ_16 = chunkZ << 4;
this.chunkCenterX = (double)(this.chunkX_16 + 8);
this.chunkCenterZ = (double)(this.chunkZ_16 + 8);
this.noiseGenLCG = (chunkX * Random32.CM + chunkZ) * Random32.CM;
boolean generateJungleCave = false;
// Used to avoid overflow at very large chunk coordinates; 128 is well outside of any near-origin exclusion zones and
// any value up to 32767 could be used.
int distance = (Math.abs(chunkX) < 128 && Math.abs(chunkZ) < 128 ? 0 : 16384);
this.initializeCaveData(chunkX, chunkZ, distance);
for (int x = -11; x <= 11; ++x)
{
int cx = chunkX + x;
for (int z = -11; z <= 11; ++z)
{
int x2z2 = x * x + z * z;
if (x2z2 <= 145)
{
int cz = chunkZ + z;
if (distance < 16384) distance = cx * cx + cz * cz;
long chunkSeed = this.rand.getChunkSeed(cx, cz);
int genCaves = this.validCaveLocation(x, z);
if (genCaves == COLOSSAL)
{
// Range is square instead of circular due to cave distribution
if (Math.abs(x) <= 9 && Math.abs(z) <= 9)
{
this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed);
this.generateColossalCaveSystem(cx, cz);
}
}
else if (genCaves == STRONGHOLD)
{
if (x2z2 <= 101)
{
this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed);
this.generateStrongholdCaves(cx, cz);
}
}
else if (genCaves >= SPECIAL_CAVE)
{
// Special cave systems (circular room, ravine, maze, vertical, large cave)
this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed);
this.generateSpecialCaveSystems(cx, cz, genCaves, x2z2);
}
else if (genCaves != NONE)
{
// Regional caves use a range of 10 chunks (< 121 gives maximum coverage)
if (genCaves == REGIONAL && x2z2 < 121)
{
this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed);
this.generateRegionalCaves(cx, cz);
}
this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed);
this.generateCaves(cx, cz, x2z2, distance, genCaves);
// These caves never generate when genCaves is SEA_LEVEL_ONLY
if (genCaves != SEA_LEVEL_ONLY)
{
// Used to determine whether to generate jungle caves; placed here instead of in validCaveLocation to
// reduce complexity of code
if (x2z2 <= 40 && genCaves == NORMAL && this.validJungleCaveLocation(cx, cz))
{
if (x2z2 <= 2) generateJungleCave = true;
this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed);
this.generateJungleCaveHorizontalLinkCaves(cx, cz);
}
this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed);
this.generateRavines(cx, cz, x2z2, distance, genCaves);
}
}
}
}
}
// Ensures that jungle caves are the last to carve out blocks
if (generateJungleCave)
{
for (int z = -1; z <= 1; ++z)
{
int cz = chunkZ + z;
for (int x = -1; x <= 1; ++x)
{
if (this.validJungleCaveLocation(chunkX + x, cz)) this.generateJungleCave(chunkX + x, cz, x == 0 && z == 0);
}
}
}
this.fixWaterIntersections();
}
The overall complexity of my cave generation code is quite impressive to say the least, some 20 times larger than vanilla if you combined the three separate classes it uses (indicated by the first entry, which is the class for my "World1 custom client" mod. The second list of files are the top 10 largest classes; there are a total of 571 classes totaling 7.93 MB so less than 5% is cave generation (still relatively a lot compared to vanilla. I'll also note that TMCW is very small compared to modern versions, even 1.8 is still larger despite TMCW adding far more content over 1.6.4, and the modded jar having a lot of unused vanilla classes due to completely replacing many of them, with exceptions like World class due to how much code references it):
This is an animation of what I explored during the first 60 days of caving; the path I took was entirely by following interconnected caves underground and partly influenced by what I found (as mentioned in previous posts I kept finding large caves to the south so I explored in that direction, this would be at the time I made a secondary base and railway to the south, which has its own frame):
I'll note that it isn't practical to go much longer than 60 days at a time as GIMP was already taking up over 6 GB of RAM after loading every frame (I had the characteristic lag due to having to swap memory back from disk after closing GIMP); the initial frame was sized to cover a 2048x2048 area centered around 0,0 (the actual coverage is larger since MCMap renders everything tilted so the corners of the area are in the middle of each side; I explored as far south as 1500, close to the z-axis) and I updated each day by pasting in a rendering of the newly explored areas on top of the previous frame.
Also, these are underground and surface renderings of the cropped world made with Unmined, which I used to use to see what I'd explored but have mostly just used my own cave mapping/analysis tools, with Unmined used to verify that they match the game* (I use my cave/biome tools to develop new features or changes then copy them to the game), even if they don't show the actual world or have a GUI that can pan around and slice through different depths, but they do make clearer images and don't require trimming the world to avoid seeing anything I haven't explored yet (you can still see a few significant unexplored areas in the outermost chunks; in the southeast is a cave I mentioned in post 34 but decided not to explore at the time; to the northwest of the giant cave region near the bottom is part of a cave I mentioned in post 41, most of which is outside of the trimmed area. There are also some truly isolated caves and ravines in the interior which I'd otherwise never find; "truly isolated" means not connected to anything else or the surface, otherwise it is chance that I come across surface openings that lead to otherwise isolated caves, which are usually just a tunnel or a ravine or two):
Surface (Unmined doesn't understand many new blocks, which appear as gray or the wrong colors (e.g. quartz sand appears the same as sand; it also colors stone and gravel green, transitioning to brown at higher elevations), or have the ability to customize them like other mapping tools; the version I use was actually made for 1.2.5 but a newer version wouldn't make much difference, e.g. the "hardened clay" in mesa biomes is not actually hardened clay but "biome stone", which uses the ID of prismarine in 1.8 and quartz sand would be rendered as red sand (TMCW uses 0 for yellow, 1 for quartz, 2 for red while 1.8 uses 1 for red since I added quartz sand first; I also made new flowers a variant of dandelion instead of rose, and biomes aside from the original 23 in 1.6.4 very different IDs):
Layer 62:
Layer 36 (this shows larger caves better by removing smaller caves over them, but not too much of the caves themselves):
*For example, this is CaveFinder's simulated rendering of the second giant cave region overlayed over Unmined, showing that they match almost perfectly (the random noise I apply to cave walls may be slightly different since this depends on everything that generates within a chunk but this is insignificant; CaveFinder doesn't show decorations or the impact of bodies of water or terrain above sea level). This also shows the additional large caves I found around the giant cave region, which extend outside the area covered by the CaveFinder overlay:
Also, an MCEdit analysis of this area, minus the easternmost few chunks (to the eastern edge of the giant cave region itself, and the southernmost of the caves and ravines that directly intersected it from the south) found a total of 2.45 million air blocks and 8055 torches (I explored closer to 2.4 million since this includes air left by ores that I removed and above the numerous lakes that generate within giant cave regions, many of which are isolated, and an unexplored mineshaft around the large cave to the north; this represents an average of about 300,000 blocks of air volume explored per session, normally this will be much lower; for comparison, I average around 80,000 in vanilla 1.6.4):
(0:0),Air,2452816
(1:0),Stone,4626902
(1:1),Stone,468593
(1:3),Stone,327508
(1:5),Stone,443184
(1:8),Stone,4371
(2:0),Grass,11053
(3:0),Dirt,490727
(4:0),Cobblestone,5251
(4:1),Cobblestone,73
(5:0),Wood Planks,1046
(5:2),Wood Planks,384
(7:1),Bedrock,147576
(7:8),Bedrock,9362
(7:11),Bedrock,2038
(9:0),Water,133573
(11:0),Lava,47768
(12:0),Sand,14971
(12:1),Sand,40731
(13:0),Gravel,102227
(13:1),Gravel,100822
(14:0),Gold Ore,3537
(14:2),Gold Ore,245
(15:0),Iron Ore,37014
(15:2),Iron Ore,2130
(16:0),Coal Ore,60856
(16:2),Coal Ore,3147
(17:0),Wood,68
(21:0),Lapis Lazuli Ore,1935
(21:2),Lapis Lazuli Ore,85
(24:0),Sandstone,1088
(24:4),Sandstone,3796
(30:0),Web,182
(31:0),(Unused Shrub),4
(32:0),Dead Shrub,25
(39:0),Brown Mushroom,587
(39:1),Brown Mushroom,361
(39:2),Brown Mushroom,422
(39:3),Brown Mushroom,266
(39:4),Brown Mushroom,176
(48:0),Moss Stone,94
(49:0),Obsidian,22487
(50:1),Torch,643
(50:2),Torch,625
(50:3),Torch,467
(50:4),Torch,447
(50:5),Torch,5873
(52:0),Monster Spawner,6
(53:12),Wooden Stairs,1
(53:13),Wooden Stairs,1
(54:2),Chest,2
(54:3),Chest,7
(54:4),Chest,4
(54:5),Chest,5
(56:0),Diamond Ore,1023
(56:2),Diamond Ore,91
(65:2),Ladder,1
(65:3),Ladder,13
(65:4),Ladder,9
(65:5),Ladder,3
(66:0),Rail,104
(66:1),Rail,164
(73:0),Redstone Ore,8391
(73:2),Redstone Ore,431
(75:1),Redstone Torch (off),5
(75:2),Redstone Torch (off),4
(75:3),Redstone Torch (off),3
(75:4),Redstone Torch (off),5
(75:10),Redstone Torch (off),3
(75:11),Redstone Torch (off),1
(75:12),Redstone Torch (off),1
(78:0),Snow Layer,111
(79:0),Ice,12845
(81:8),Cactus,9
(82:0),Clay,46896
(83:0),Sugar Cane,2
(85:0),Fence,648
(85:2),Fence,272
(97:2),Hidden Silverfish (Stone Brick),15
(97:3),Hidden Silverfish (Smooth Stone),1
(97:5),Hidden Silverfish (Smooth Stone),1
(98:0),Stone Bricks,514
(98:1),Mossy Stone Bricks,98
(98:2),Cracked Stone Bricks,63
(98:3),Circle Stone Bricks,2
(99:1),Huge Brown Mushroom (Northwest),62
(99:2),Huge Brown Mushroom (North),54
(99:3),Huge Brown Mushroom (Northeast),62
(99:4),Huge Brown Mushroom (West),54
(99:5),Huge Brown Mushroom (Top),219
(99:6),Huge Brown Mushroom (East),54
(99:7),Huge Brown Mushroom (Southwest),62
(99:8),Huge Brown Mushroom (South),54
(99:9),Huge Brown Mushroom (Southeast),62
(99:10),Huge Brown Mushroom (Stem),78
(99:11),Huge Brown Mushroom,9
(100:1),Huge Red Mushroom (Northwest),88
(100:2),Huge Red Mushroom (North),68
(100:3),Huge Red Mushroom (Northeast),88
(100:4),Huge Red Mushroom (West),68
(100:5),Huge Red Mushroom (Top),170
(100:6),Huge Red Mushroom (East),68
(100:7),Huge Red Mushroom (Southwest),88
(100:8),Huge Red Mushroom (South),67
(100:9),Huge Red Mushroom (Southeast),88
(100:10),Huge Red Mushroom (Stem),98
(100:11),Huge Red Mushroom,23
(101:0),Iron Bars,2
(106:1),Vines,24
(106:2),Vines,34
(106:4),Vines,8
(106:8),Vines,5
(106:12),Vines,2
(111:0),Lilypad,10
(118:2),Cauldron,1
(126:9),Oak-Wood Slab,1
(140:0),Flower Pot,1
I got not one, two, three but four music discs at the same time from a group of creepers that were at the bottom of a pit, along with a couple skeletons, which started shooting at me, and ended up fighting each other, killing 4 creepers in the process, which did not retaliate since they had seen me first and unlike other mobs they don't retarget their attacker unless they lose sight of the player (most other mobs only retarget if the player hadn't attacked them yet; old AI mobs, like spiders, will always target their last attacker):
I've found several new biomes; Bushlands, a plains-like biome dotted with small bushes similar to the ones in jungles, but spruce, with additional variations, this is also one of several "spawn biomes" that the player may spawn in and/or will be added close to the origin if one doesn't exist; Autumnal Forest, a fall-themed forest with its own tree types with red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves, and one of several biomes with rubies, and the closest one to spawn (I previously found a Rocky Mountains about twice as far away); and what appears to be the full-size variant of Ice Hills, which I previously found as a sub-biome of Ice Plains; the full-size biome generates with a ring of Ice Plains Spikes, then Ice Plains, making it easy to tell apart from the sub-biome without seeing the full extent of the biome yet:
This brings the total number of unique biomes that I've found up to 28 (counting sub-biomes and their full-size variants as one, I list both if I found the sub-biome first):
Meadow (spawn biome)
Mixed Forest
Mesa
Mountainous Desert
TMCW Mega Taiga
Big Oak Forest
Winter Forest
Swamplands
Mega Forest
Mega Spruce Taiga
Quartz Desert
Ice Plains
Mega Tree Plains
Spruce Hills (sub-biome of Mega Tree Plains)
Savanna
Cherry Grove (sub-biome of Big Oak Forest and others)
Lake (sub-biome of Mixed Forest and others)
Desert M
Oasis
Cherry Grove (full-size biome)
Rocky Mountains
Ice Hills (sub-biome of Ice Plains)
Ice Plains Spikes (sub-biome of Ice Plains)
Forest
Ocean
Hilly Plains
Plains (sub-biome of Hilly Plains)
Bushlands
Autumnal Forest
Ice Hills (full-size biome)
Autumnal Forest is also one of the more unique biomes exclusive to TMCW, containing three unique mobs and a structure in addition to the trees; the design of this biome was also directly based on a suggestion:
Mobs include autumnal creepers, a variant of creeper which has fall-colored skin and drops rubies as a rare drop (making it renewable), black bears, a variant of bear which is slightly smaller and always hostile, with no child form, but can be made neutral by feeding them meat (they will become hostile again if attacked), and vampires, a variant of zombie which inflicts Poison (so basically to zombies what bogged are to skeletons) and spawns hostile bats when attacked (they target the player's head, getting in their way, killing the vampire makes them passive). Autumnal leaves also have a falling leaf particle effect (added after I added cherry trees; Autumnal Forest itself was added in TMCWv5):
There are also "pumpkin houses" as seen in the link above, a structure shaped like a large pumpkin with a couple witches and a black cat inside and which behaves like a witch hut. Speaking of which, I found a witch hut for the first time in a nearby swamp, while I made the witches not despawn (like pumpkin houses they have two witches and a black cat), I saw no signs of any of the mobs since it had been loaded for quite a while (I've only found an occupied witch hut once or twice, never before I fixed the despawning. Witches that generate with the world also have twice as much health, 52 instead of 26):
As far as caving goes, I've mostly been exploring more or less typical 1.6.4 underground (moderate to dense "vanilla" caves and more frequent mineshafts, the latter of which had been significantly rarer for quite a while since they can't generate within or near giant cave regions and larger caves), with one larger cave with a volume of about 49,000 blocks, and several smaller caves below the 25,000 threshold I use to count them as such but still quite large compared to vanilla (a cave with a volume of at least 10,000, which I consider to be a "giant" cave in my first world, is about 40 times more common than in vanilla, not including "special" cave systems consisting of larger caves; the equivalent volume in terms of frequency is around 400,000):
This was technically another "large cave cluster", with two large caves generated in the same chunk, which represents 10% of all such chunks (90% have a single cave and 3.3% each have 2,3,4 caves, with about one of any every 130 chunks, or one with 2-4 caves every 1300 chunks):
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -312 33 360 (type: 1, length: 336, width: 26, volume: 43623)
2. -312 34 360 (type: 1, length: 116, width: 20, volume: 16458)
Locations of large cave clusters by volume:
1. -312 34 360 (caves: 2, volume: 49312)
I came across a Pumpkin House in the Autumnal Forest, which as noted before is a direct copy of a structure in a suggestion, and are functionally identical to a witch hut (they will spawn in them like they do in witch huts):
One or both of the chests may have loot, if both do then the items are split between them so there are the same number either way, which are mostly witch drops and related items:
I tamed the cat, which retains its skin, unlike ocelots (the skin itself is set separately from whether it is tamed, this is true of vanilla as well, I just had to change the code that picked a random skin to only do so if it is the default ocelot skin):
It is worth noting that I've found 6 structures within an area of less than half a level 4 map, based on my exploration rate, I'm pretty sure this has to be more structures than you'd find in modern versions, which are widely criticized for having too many:
1 desert temple
1 igloo (1 Winter Forest, 1 with basement)
1 pumpkin house
1 quartz desert pyramids
1 village (1 Meadow)
1 witch hut (1 Swamplands)
A couple examples from 1.21; these may seem to show a lot of structures but the area shown is about 3300x1900 blocks, or 24492 chunks, equivalent to about 245 days of exploration or four times as much as I've done so far (I'll note that they do show 10-13 villages, so I'd have found 3-4 instead of just one by now, but less structures overall); there are (for some reason) WAY more structures underwater than on land, which does look cluttered then and is far in excess of what I've found (TMCW does have shipwrecks but they are much rarer and only a third, the largest size, actually contain a loot chest):
Of course, in either version there are even more structures underground, again more in TMCW due to dungeons and mineshafts being more common (about the same as and 60% of 1.6.4 respectively; ChunkBase shows that mineshafts have remained the same since 1.13, which only changed their layout, with the frequency being 40% of 1.6.4 since 1.7, plus the ground is now twice as deep, so even if they had the same frequency as 1.6.4 you'd still have to explore twice the volume):
125 dungeons
77 ravines (up to 7 intersecting)
36 vertical pit caves
20 mineshafts
12 large caves (volume >= 25000)
11 large ravines (volume >= 25000 and length >= 112 or width >= 15 or depth >= 45)
10 vertical cave clusters
9 maze cave clusters
8 giant caves (volume >= 100000)
8 toroidal caves
7 large mineshafts (length >= 2000)
6 dense cave systems (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
6 fossils (4 Desert, 2 Swamplands)
6 ribbed tunnel cave clusters
5 circular room cave clusters
5 large circular rooms (width >= 34)
5 ravine cave clusters
5 zigzag cave clusters
4 large cave cave systems
4 random cave clusters
4 ribbed tunnel cave systems
3 double dungeons (a special type with 2 spawners and 2-3 chests)
3 random cave systems
2 circular room cave systems
2 CRM combination cave systems
2 giant cave regions
2 giant ravines (volume >= 100000)
2 spiral cave systems
2 vertical cave systems
2 zigzag cave systems
1 colossal cave system
1 desert temple
1 igloo (1 Winter Forest, 1 with basement)
1 maze cave system
1 mesa mineshaft
1 pumpkin house
1 quartz desert pyramids
1 ravine cave system
1 RZV combination cave system
1 stronghold (with eyes of ender)
1 village (1 Meadow)
1 witch hut (1 Swamplands)
An example of dungeons and mineshafts in 1.21; there are 73 dungeons and 18 mineshafts within a 3645 chunk area, equivalent to one dungeon every 100 chunks and one mineshaft every 400 chunks when adjusted to the original ground depth (i.e. the same volume explored. This is actually better than average for mineshafts, which average one every 250 chunks / 500 equivalent, not sure what the average for dungeons is but the adjusted density here is about the same as 1.7 with about twice as many overall due to the greater volume); 1.6.4 and TMCW average about one dungeon every 42.5 chunks, plus one double dungeon every 650 chunks in TMCW, and one mineshaft every 100 chunks in 1.6.4 and 175 chunks in TMCW:
Also, this is the largest ravine that I've found so far, with a volume of 138,000 blocks, only slightly larger than the next largest but that one was much shorter and intersected a giant cave region; this is also the first "real" giant ravine, as defined in the code, where "type 3" ravines are approximately equivalent to "type 2" caves (almost always reaching 100,000 blocks or more, with a similar frequency of both. The comparison isn't exact since there are 3 types of "giant" caves (2-4) and 2 types of "giant" ravines (3-4)). There were also 5 smaller ravines intersecting it, the second most I've found so far, and the 4th largest mineshaft:
Locations of random cave systems:
1. -392 200
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -436 54 175 (type: 0, length: 111, width: 16, volume: 10111)
2. -445 64 178 (type: 0, length: 140, width: 20, volume: 7476)
Locations of largest circular rooms by volume:
1. -437 54 177 (width: 21, volume: 2390)
Locations of abandoned mineshafts by corridor length:
1. -408 25 296 (span: 9, size: 252, length: 2375)
This is still relatively "small" compared to what I may find; the largest ravines I found in TMCWv5 were about three times larger and the largest known ravines are another factor of 1.6 times larger, even more if they can fully generate above sea level (up to about 650,000 and 750,000 blocks respectively; unlike caves volume is much more closely related to the length/width/depth parameters, and altitude).
I've pretty much finished exploring the map at -512, 512 for now, which is about half explored; I'll return to it once I make a secondary base to the west, and will finish exploring the area within about 512 blocks of 0,0 to the north before permanently moving from my main base as an "operations center" (returning to it between caving trips and a source of food and wood, then it just becomes a storage center for everything I collect):
I love the pumpkin hut! Are the witches spawned trapped?
As has been pointed out in numerous discussions, the best frequency of spawned structures depends on the player. Your style of play, which explores very small areas, makes frequent spawning desirable because otherwise you'd never see them. For most players it would be to high; for exploration-oriented players like me or Princess Garnet that many structures would be ridiculous. The best solution is some way to configure structure frequency.
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I love the pumpkin hut! Are the witches spawned trapped?
They aren't supposed to be but often do end up inside of the cauldrons/composters and for some reason they can't get back out, I did find a bug report which says it was fixed in 1.14, I know it has something to do with how mobs see various blocks as obstacles:
Actually, I may be able to fix it based on the fact that cauldrons were fixed in 1.9 and there is source available online (via various GitHub repositories, which all seem to end at 1.12, not coincidentally, when MCP was discontinued), I know that when I added new partial blocks I had to set the block as being passable so they would pathfind into/over them without issues (they still sometimes get stuck in e.g. larger stalagmites, where small ones are fully transparent and larger ones have a collision box for blocks below the tip, and the fences of mineshaft supports; not to be confused with mobs avoiding rails (which was an intentional feature added in 1.6 and which I removed unless a player is in a minecart so mineshafts are a bit more dangerous to explore):
In any case it doesn't really affect them much in this case due to their ranged attack (I was poisoned as soon as I got inside); they also won't leave, like they do in witch huts, since the door is closed, I also covered it up before entering so the cat wouldn't run away, a bit risky since the witches throw potions of Harming but it also avoids the player so it stayed on the other side, and even with twice the health it only took 4 hits per witch and upon taking any damage they drink Instant Health potions, which overrides their attack AI.
I found a "real" double dungeon for the first time in this world, out of a total of 138 dungeons so far (including my own special "double dungeon" variant), illustrating how rare it is to find two dungeons directly intersecting, on average about 1% of all dungeons are part of an intersecting pair (i.e. one out of every 200 instances of dungeons found, for comparison, my special dungeons are about 6% of all dungeons, or 12 out of 200, making them a dozen times more common):
Not long after that I nearly found a "triple dungeon", if that is the correct term, a normal dungeon right next to one of my special double dungeons, which I actually have found once before, in TMCWv4, with a third dungeon nearby which had an enchanted golden apple, the third one I've found so far (they are much rarer than in modern versions, even as one of the changes in TMCWv5.10 was to make them more common, otherwise, like 1.9 I removed their crafting recipe but did not nerf their effects):
I've also found three more biomes; Winter Taiga, which is just a new name for the "Taiga" biome in 1.6.4 and is otherwise more or less the same (more height variation but that is the norm for TMCW), Mushroom Forest, one of my more fantastical biomes with numerous huge mushrooms among its trees, which also vary a lot from chunk to chunk, and underground and unique blue-green foliage; and Forest Mountains, which can be seen as a forested variant of Extreme Hills with a mix of oak, birch, and spruce trees and emerald ore and infested blocks underground, and was the second biome ever to be added by TMCW (the first was Hilly Plains, based on their biome IDs in TMCWv1):
Winter Taiga, with some interesting formations among generally hilly terrain (this likely indicates that it is in a region of the world where the height variation has been enhanced; this also makes it less likely that it may have an igloo since they won't generate if the terrain is too steep):
Mushroom Forest; besides the huge mushrooms the colors of vegetation and water stand out (water uses the same color as Tropical Ocean), this is also the only biome that alters the color of spruce leaves (which never changes at all in any vanilla version), tree cover also varies from chunk to chunk (changing the chances of different types.sizes of tree within 2x2 chunk regions):
Forest Mountains; the mountain seen here, probably only a small part of the biome, is rather "small" compared to what they can become, often nearing the terrain height limit of y=191 with fantastical overhangs and "crazified" terrain in general (I mix in a special noise field for some biomes which was designed to enhance this, the most extreme variations occur in an Extreme Forest Mountains sub-biome, along with Extreme Mountains in Extreme Hills and Extreme Savanna Mountains in Savanna Mountains):
The map I'm currently exploring, centered at -512, -512; the Forest Mountains is just to the north of my location, the large snowy biome is the Winter Taiga (snowy biomes in general also seem to be more prevalent than usual so far), and the Mushroom Forest is to my southeast, easily identifiable from the multicolored dots and water color; between them is also the first actual Plains biome (as opposed to sub-biome); while I've found several such biomes so far only one has had a village, even with the increased underlying spawn rate (the region size is 24x24 chunks, down from 32x32 in vanilla for 1.78 times the areal density, the average biome size is small enough that on average around two full biomes are needed per village, and when their frequency is factored in villages are about as common as in vanilla):
I've found several more larger caves, including what turned out to be a "vanilla" cave system with enhanced tunnel and room size (there were no actual "large" caves in the area), and two caves under the Mushroom Forest with volumes of 110,000 and 70,000 blocks merged together:
The first two caves:
This covers the whole area shown, minus the northeast corner (I separately mapped two areas and merged them as I haven't explored the northeastern area yet and don't want to reveal anything interesting that might be there). The information for "normal" caves only includes the cave system in the upper left, which has the chance of circular rooms increased to 100% (from 25% per iteration of the main loop, which iterates "size" times), a flag for "larger large caves" set (an additional multiplier applied to those caves which have a 10% chance of becoming larger, these caves also exist in vanilla, also with a 10% chance),a "width multiplier" set to 2 (double the base width variation), "curviness" set to 0.2 (half the normal value of 0.4 so tunnels are straighter), and "vertical variation set to a 1/3 chance (form 1/6) of tunnels having more vertical variation than normal.
A total of 35 tunnels generated within this area, of which 22 became "large", a width of more than 9 blocks (the maximum a vanilla tunnel can reach without the 10% chance of a wider tunnel); 7 out of 8 circular rooms were also larger than the maximum width of 17 blocks in vanilla (if "larger circular rooms" is also enabled they could be much larger; all these parameters interact so if all are set to favor larger caves then extreme sizes will can be reached). The altitude range extends down to -7 since all caves were shifted downwards by 7 in accordance with lava level (the average altitude is equivalent to 26.26 in vanilla, itself about 7 layers deeper than average. This also does mean that caves are less likely to reach the surface, the average air volume at sea level is about twice that of vanilla due to larger caves and ravines, and to a smaller extent additional caves generated near and above sea level in various regions):
Normal cave system parameters for center chunk:
largerCircularRooms: false
circularRoomChance: 1/1
largerLargeCaves: true
largeCaveChance: 1/10
widthMultiplier: 2.0
maxLength: 112
curviness: 0.2
verticalVariation: 1/3
circularRoomCaves: 0-0
minWidth: 3.0
extraBranchChance: 0%
extraLavaLevelCaves: false
extraSeaLevelCaves: false
Vertical pit cave at -56 -296
Size 3 cave system at -72 -280; total number of caves: 3
Size 8 cave system at -56 -280; total number of caves: 15
Size 8 cave system at -56 -248; total number of caves: 13
Size 3 cave system at 8 -216; total number of caves: 4
Number of cave systems: 4
Initial number of caves: 22; largest cave system: 8 (-56 -280)
Total number of caves: 35; largest cave system: 15 (-56 -280)
Additional circular room caves: 11
Additional lava level caves: 0
Additional sea level caves: 2
Number of small caves: 13; average width is 5.91
Number of large caves: 22; average width is 12.08; max width: 17.17 (-73 9 -272)
Number of circular rooms: 8; average width is 26.85; max width: 42.30 (-63 9 -276)
Additional caves per circular room: 1.38
Average caves per chunk: 0.546875 (64 chunks)
Average altitude: 19.26
Percentage of caves on layers -7 to 2: 5.71
Percentage of caves on layers 3 to 12: 40.00
Percentage of caves on layers 13 to 22: 28.57
Percentage of caves on layers 23 to 32: 11.43
Percentage of caves on layers 33 to 42: 2.86
Percentage of caves on layers 43 to 52: 5.71
Percentage of caves on layers 53 to 62: 2.86
Percentage of caves above layer 62: 2.86
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. 56 19 -184 (type: 1, length: 336, width: 28, volume: 66675)
2. -73 9 -272 (type: 0, length: 94, width: 17, volume: 9707)
3. 52 39 -205 (type: 0, length: 80, width: 20, volume: 8759)
4. -56 16 -285 (type: 0, length: 86, width: 17, volume: 6407)
Locations of largest circular rooms by volume:
1. -63 9 -276 (width: 42, volume: 17064)
2. -56 9 -247 (width: 39, volume: 13673)
3. -63 13 -285 (width: 30, volume: 6388)
4. -50 31 -277 (width: 24, volume: 3201)
5. -70 12 -279 (width: 23, volume: 2978)
6. -75 9 -273 (width: 22, volume: 2777)
7. -78 33 -287 (width: 20, volume: 1868)
Locations of toroidal caves by volume:
1. 68 15 -205 (type: 1, toroid width: 57, tunnel width: 14, volume: 16629)
This is the complex to the southeast, consisting of a large cave with a volume of 66,000 blocks, a larger "vanilla" cave with a volume of 8,700 blocks (which is pretty rare in vanilla), a toroidal cave with a volume of 16,600 blocks, and a vanilla-sized ravine:
The complex of large "vanilla" caves, with most of the open space being from multiple large circular rooms overlapping:
The two large caves under the Mushroom Forest, with a combined volume of around 180,000 blocks, and numerous huge mushrooms, the highest concentration that can be found underground, along with Mushroom Island (there is a 50% chance of up to several mushrooms per chunk, otherwise, giant cave regions have mushrooms in 25% of 2x2 chunk regions and elsewhere there is a 5% chance per chunk). There are also two large ravines to the east and northwest:
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -328 33 -248 (type: 2, length: 419, width: 33, volume: 110736)
2. -248 35 -216 (type: 1, length: 225, width: 33, volume: 70178)
I've now played on this world for 100 sessions, of which 82 were spent caving, during which I mined a total of 266,000 ores, 288,000 resource blocks, and killed 40,000 mobs (these numbers do not include "non-caving" sessions, so just the 82, and otherwise represents over 99.5% of the resources I've mined in the Overworld):
The average amount of XP, nearly 7,000 per session, has also been higher than usual, and the highest of any world, due to the use of the "Smelting" enchantment for most of the period, which increases the XP dropped by iron and gold (averaging 1.33 for iron and 2.5 for gold, similar to how mining other ores drops more XP compared to smelting them), which is partly offset by the increased cost to maintain it due to having to spend 43, 45, 47 levels per repair, then a ruby for 21 levels to lower the penalty by 6 (3 workings), instead of a fixed 43 levels to repair the same tool with Mending instead of Smelting (both have the same base cost).
I'll note that I've still found only one "Vein Miner" book, and only level I at that (mining up to 4 blocks total, 8 for level II) in over 300 hours spent caving, which has also yielded the following rare loot (maybe too rare for practical use by most players? I could probably increase the dungeon count from 8 to 10 (25% more), considering I averaged about 33% more moss stone per hour in my first world, this isn't so much because they are rarer in TMCW (they are slightly more common, averaging about 8.5 attempts per chunk, 8 normal and 0.5 double) but because you have to explore more caves to explore the same area; likewise, there are about 33% more ores exposed per chunk but this isn't reflected in mining rates; you may also notice that the period from days 49-77 had larger fluctuations in daily rates, which was due to all the giant caves I found, which paradoxically reduce rates (I see people showing how many resources they collected from a large cave in a short time in 1.18; either they are using Night Vision, mobs are that much rarer (and I did increase them, beyond just offsetting increased cave density, or ignoring ores in the ceiling (I've still counted around 600 ores per hour while mining them out):
11 amethyst horse armor
6 amethyst wolf armor
3 enchanted golden apples
3 Smelting books
1 Vein Miner books
5 Swift Sneak books
5 Long Fall books
3 Mending books
A breakdown of all the mob spawners I've found, including outside of caving (all but 21, including the Nether, stronghold, desert temple, and one dungeon); as in vanilla cave spider spawners in mineshafts are by far the most common type, averaging about 3.6 per mineshaft; the number of double dungeons I've found is also rather low (averaging about 6% of dungeons, or 8 / 16 spawners, this is partly because I haven't found any "network cave regions", which increase the chance to 20% but the chance otherwise is still about 5%. These are also where Smelting and Vein Miner are most likely to be found, a 50% chance of one in the first chest placed):
302 mob spawners
147 from dungeons
124 from mineshafts
9 from nether dungeons
9 from strongholds
8 from double dungeons
3 from quartz desert pyramids
2 from desert temples
Here is a rendering of what I've explored underground and my map wall; I've continued exploring northwards and will certainly make my next secondary base around 0, -1024 soon, given what I've found just a bit further to the north (much like when I found the giant caves to the south):
As for what I've found further north, not shown on the map wall above (taken the last time I returned to my main base), I noticed a huge area of lava appear on the map, which could only mean one thing, an extremely large cave going straight down to lava level, or more likely, a ravine, which is exactly what I found when I went over to see what it was - easily the largest surface ravine, if not ravine in general, that I've ever found, I didn't update the map past the point where I was caving but it would stretch for a couple hundred blocks, if not more (the largest ravines can get up to 384 blocks or 24 chunks long, this is about the furthest you can clearly see at 32 chunk render distance in modern versions since fog starts at 75% of the distance):
These views may seem a bit limited but I generally only increase the render distance once I've finished exploring something (turning fog off is another trick to increase visibility, increasing the clear distance by about a third, much more if looking up/down):
The ravine was also between a Savanna Plateau and a (normal) Desert, the 32nd and 33rd biomes that I've found so far, averaging one new biome every 3 days with only a few duplicates so far (not counted, 33 is the number of unique biomes), mostly Winter Forest and Winter Taiga, I've also found a second Rocky Mountains to the north. Given the number of Winter Forests and Taigas it should be no surprise that I found a second igloo, also with a basement, and similar to the first one I found it while caving due to the odd behavior of zombies, which were fixated on something in a wall; unlike the first one it was hidden behind a couple blocks:
More of a biome isn't necessarily a guarantee of finding more structures, given I found no igloos in TMCWv5 despite exploring a much larger area (one did generate at the very edge of generated chunks), and conversely, have still found only one village so far out of multiple village spawn biomes, including Savanna Plateau, which can have villages generating on top of them (these villages can only generate entirely within Savanna Plateau while other villages can't extend into it, avoiding possibly very messy villages generating on the slopes, a vanilla feature (villages restricted to their valid spawn biomes) which was lost in 1.10).
As far as caving goes, I found a complex of several large caves with a total volume of about 150,000 blocks:
The appearance of this cave reminded me of one of the largest (largest for several years) caves I found in my first world, except about 4 times larger:
This is two caves merged together, the dark area on the left is where they intersect the cave above:
There was also a zombie in diamond armor which I first spotted on the other side of the cave, and came across it again about 15 minutes later, after I assumed it had despawned but it had picked up a bone at some point:
You can also see a minor detail in this screenshot; the zombie's corpse isn't wearing boots or holding a bone since I fixed MC-135164 (mobs not visually losing dropped items which wasn't officially fixed until 1.16.3; a very minor issue but still a bug):
It's kind of neat that if you look carefully at the cave and surface maps you can see you mapped the surface by caving (one is a rotation of the other, with some extra padding.)
Again, complements on your map coloring. If I could get Explorercraft working in 1.12 I'd ask to use it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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I finally got around to building a secondary base near 0,-1024 after finishing exploring the area within about 512 blocks of the origin (corresponding to a level 3 map around each base, if no longer the case in practice since I changed their centering), which ended up in a Mushroom Forest, the second such biome, a Winter Forest was to its south and what looks like a normal Desert is to the northeast, all biomes I've found before, while directly to the east is a Big Birch Forest, which contains larger variants of birch tree which can also occasionally be found in Birch Forest:
To the north / down at my base:
To the east, with a Big Birch forest:
To the west / southwest, the opening to the right is a Meadow sub-biome within the Mushroom Forest:
The two maps I made centered at -512,-1536 and 512,1536 before I zoomed them out to level 3 (prior to zooming they would have been centered at -64,-1088 and 64,-1088), which also reveals a Desert to the northeast:
Also, I mined 393 coal and 144 iron while digging a rail tunnel to the east, which comes out to about 19% and 7% of the blocks I removed from the tunnel itself (not including ores extracted from the walls), as an illustration of how effective tunnel / branch mining is, certainly not as efficient as caving in terms of total blocks removed or ores gathered over time, but over 10 times more efficient than if you simply dug out a large area (as they are about 1% and 0.6% of blocks below sea level. The Wiki has an article that claims that diamond ore can be as much as as 1.7% of the blocks removed from a tunnel, up from an overall concentration of about 0.1% (the data they use is from 2012 so it really only applies to versions before 1.8, though their conclusions are still valid), which I've always thought was too high; I do get close to the figure for a spacing of 3 blocks between tunnels, about 0.9%):
Prior to this I finished exploring the remaining area to the northeast of 0,0, out to around 512 blocks, most of which had more normal cave generation (variations of vanilla caves), including a "vertical cave system" (caves spiraling/sloping up/down) but I did find a larger cave with a volume of about 114,000 blocks, the 10th cave reaching 100,000, and a large "large cave cave system" which merged with several smaller large caves for a total volume of around 210,000 blocks (such a volume would be exceptional when only considering the large cave cave system by itself, which was around 138,000 blocks, typical of the larger ones found within a 3072x3072 block area, while their range within a 104 million chunk area was 46-204,000, averaging about 120,000):
This is centered over the large cave cave system and associated large caves:
Center is 496, -144 and radius is 80 blocks (from 416, -224 to 575, -65)
Locations of large cave cave systems by volume:
1. 520 -168 (type: 2, volume: 138598)
The large cave cave system and associated large caves:
I also found a peak in the Mountainous Desert to the east of spawn which went up to y=144, with a slightly shorter peak nearby, the second time I've found a biome with terrain reaching y=128 or more (the limit in vanilla before 1.7) in this world; terrain has generally been less extreme compared to my previous world, perhaps because most of the area has been in a region of lower biome height variation (which isn't really lower compared to TMCWv4 and before, the heights of biomes are modified with a large-scale noise field so they can get higher than their base values, but not lower), it may also simply be due to the biomes, in TMCWv5 I found Savanna Mountains and Forest Mountains right next to each other just to the northeast of spawn and the majority of high peaks are such biomes, or other "mountainous" biomes but on rarer occasions even "normal" biomes (not even "hills") can reach or exceed y=128:
This is the largest ravine that I've ever explored, with a volume of about half a million blocks, with the ground being slightly higher than sea level, while having a river cross it near one end; the volume below sea level was about 496,000 blocks and as much as 541,000 if the ground were high enough to completely cover it (I've recorded it as having a volume of 511,000, correps9nding to a ground depth of 64; it would have to be at least 71 / surface at 72 for the entire ravine to generate, plus another layer for it to be completely underground):
These are the first views I got of the ravine from underground, as well as showing how far I went while going to the other end, and a view of the bottom after I'd went around, pouring water down onto the lava, which still left a very wide strip of lava in the middle, and another of dozens of mobs that spawned after I'd started putting out the rest but hadn't placed any torches there:
These were taken after I finished exploring it, with the render distance increased:
I also found a desert temple and a village, both for the second time in this world, near the eastern end of the ravine, I saw the desert temple first, then saw the village after I came out of it:
The desert temple was one of the simpler configurations, with no spawners in the upper part and no pressure plate, which might lead to somebody playing on TMCW for the first time without knowing anything to get a big surprise - since the lack of a pressure plate means the chests are trapped chests with additional TNT placed under them (13 total), which can also be combined with a pressure plate:
A view of the desert temple and village, and the village itself, I made a special trip back to my main base after this to get an iron pickaxe and diamond shovel for mining sand/sandstone to build a wall around the village and fix it up (I use iron pickaxes taken from mineshafts and enchanted/combined up to Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III for non-caving work):
Another view with the giant ravine in the foreground; the desert temple is also near where I made a "return point", marked by the pillar, to return to later on:
There was also a fossil exposed in a smaller ravine near the village:
I found another instance of terrain reaching y=128 in a Winter Forest to the west of the ravine; whether such terrain has smooth slopes is up to luck as terrain is just the vanilla height map, with its tendency to generate fantastical formations that were so loved by many prior to Beta 1.8 ("Did the Terrain Become BORING?"; Beta 1.8 pretty much restricted it to Extreme Hills, and the only place where I intentionally make high terrain smoother is in Rocky Mountains, otherwise only changes in the "base height" of biomes are smoothed out, e.g. from Savanna to Savanna Plateau; conversely, I mix in a more extreme noise field in "extreme mountains" biomes):
Also, if you are wondering how the ravine compares, it is close to the largest ravine you can expect to find within 1536 blocks of the origin, even in TMCWv5, when the largest was around 475,000 blocks, while the largest I found in that version was around 400,000, itself close to the largest in TMCWv4 (none of these versions / worlds are directly comparable since in TMCWv4 the maximum size was a length of 336 and width of 39, increased to 368 / 50 in TMCWv5 and 384 / 50 in TMCWv5.10, and the largest sizes of ravine became more common over that period). The seed "-1487380866319738157" has the largest known ravine in TMCWv5.10, with a volume of 650,000 blocks, and up to 708,000 depending on ground depth; compared to caves the size is much more closely related to the length / width, with the altitude having a larger impact (even larger ravines can possibly exist if their altitude is over y=40 and they are in a biome with elevated terrain, like Savanna Plateau or Rocky Mountains):
Here is a map of larger caves and ravines, as well as larger mineshafts and strongholds, within 1536 blocks; the largest single cave has a volume of 820,000 blocks and merges with a smaller cave for a total volume of 950,000 blocks (plus some more above sea level):
Also, this is a video somebody uploaded where they fly through a couple large ravines, giving a better view of just how large they are (46 seconds of Creative flight is about 500 blocks traveled):
How does the size of the ravine compare to the largest vanilla can generate?
Even in modern versions they are tiny by comparison, with only a slight increase in size:
Canyons are around 85 to 127 blocks in length and typically less than 15 blocks wide. Water-filled canyons can also be found in any ocean biome. Canyons are up to 62 blocks in depth and can start at levels 10 to 72.
For comparison, prior to 1.18 they range from 85-112 blocks long, 3-15 blocks wide, and 9-45 blocks deep and the largest known ravine has a volume of about 32,000 blocks, so the largest ravines in TMCW get over 20 times larger (likewise, the largest known single cave in vanilla 1.6.4 (unchanged up to 1.17; the Wiki also indicates there were only very minor changes to "old caves" in 1.18) has a volume of about 26,000 blocks, which is about 50 times smaller than the largest known cave in TMCW).
This shows the largest known caves and ravines in TMCWv5 and vanilla 1.6.4, via a large search using my "CaveFinder" tool:
I found a slightly larger ravine in vanilla since I made this graphic, but pretty much identical in appearance since their width/length can't get any larger, the main variable is their altitude with most such ravines being too deep so the bottom cuts off at lava level (their altitude distribution favors lower altitudes; vanilla has a total of 52 layers between lava and sea level, compared to a maximum depth of 45 blocks, which may be exceeded along the length of a ravine since they may have a slight vertical curvature, similar to but less than caves. The largest ravines in TMCW will always cut off at lava level, as well as sea level, unless I modify my search tool to consider deeper terrain, in which case ravines much larger than 708,000 may be found, but whether they actually fully generate in a real world depends on the terrain (of course, the inverse may also be true, if an ocean exists over their location).
Actually, I just checked out a few seeds I'd listed as having one of the largest ravines and found one with a volume of 724,000 when considering a deeper underground - and the terrain is deep enough to fully accommodate it, with the top of the ravine at y=74, making this the true largest known ravine in TMCW (otherwise I use the volume below sea level since this will be pretty much guaranteed for anything not in an ocean biome):
The top of the ravine is one more than listed (at my feet):
These were the second and third largest ravines; in both cases the average ground level was around y=70, or 7 blocks deeper than sea level, giving a slightly lower volume, but still more than what I normally analyze (up to sea level):
Also, this is a comparison of the seeds with the largest known ravines in vanilla and TMCW, illustrating just how different things are, with hundreds of caves and ravines larger than anything that can possibly exist in vanilla, and these numbers will be even higher with a greater ground depth (this doesn't matter as much for vanilla since the largest caves and ravines can fit entirely between lava and sea levels so increasing it won't reveal anything larger):
Vanilla; you may notice that there are several duplicate entries, such as the second and third ravines, only differing in the sign of the coordinates (less the random offset of 0-15 within a chunk), due to a bug in the code that calculates the "chunk seed" (which has never been fixed in vanilla):
TMCW, which also shows the much greater number of underground features (circular rooms are not listed in vanilla since they are too small to really be notable, only up to 17 blocks in diameter; strongholds are not listed because they require the biome map, while TMCW places them independent of biomes):
Interestingly, Bedrock Edition apparently has ravines that can get much larger, and since long before 1.18, listed as "mega ravines" on ChunkBase, but they still appear to be much smaller (ChunkBase lists their "width" incorrectly, they seem to be reporting a value which is actually the "radius variance", where the actual radius varies from 1.5 to 1.5+ variance and width is twice that; thus, the width of 10.5 for the highlighted ravine corresponds to a real width of 24, and a depth of 72 with the fixed height ratio of 3 in vanilla, at least before 1.18. Length is not shown):
Otherwise, the closest anything else comes to TMCW is an old mod from 1.5.2 called "Crazy Ravines (and Caves)", from which I'd actually gotten inspiration / source code examples from, it still only makes them wider, not longer, and affects all ravines, while TMCW has a wide range of shapes and sizes, including some smaller than vanilla, and other cave variants derived from ravines:
These are maps of all ravines within +/- 1536 blocks in the seeds with the largest ravine in vanilla and TMCW; even the smaller "vanilla" ravines are more varied than in vanilla, with more curvature and/or an increased width-height ratio:
Vanilla:
TMCW:
This Imgur album contains more images comparing vanilla 1.6, 1.7, and TMCW:
This is by far the shorted time between finding two, and the closest distance between them, previously 43 days in TMCWv5, where I also didn't find the first one until day 174 (this is the total session count, so relatively even faster when only "caving sessions" are counted), and in previous worlds they were the last thing I found while in this world I didn't find quite a few other features until after the first one with several more still to find (this world has basically all been large caves, more or less the opposite of my experience in TMCWv4, where it took 77 sessions to find a "giant" cave, though they were about 3 times rarer back then; conversely, I'd found a ravine larger than anything in this world by the 30th session, and an even larger one later on (also rarer and smaller back then):
On average, I can expect to find one every 131 days or so since they generate once every 13107 chunks and I explore about 100 chunks per play session; there will always be at least two within 1536 blocks of the origin, one within 1040 blocks (in either case at least one chunk within their central 13x13 chunk area so their actual center can be outside of this, or the specified search range, as with the second one in TMCWv4). I've seen seeds with as many as six entirely within this area; at least one, with a 25% chance of two, generate per 128x128 chunk region (a level 4 map) and up to 9 such regions can intersect a 192x192 chunk area (+/- 1536 blocks):
For comparison, this was the seed I previously played on (within 1664 blocks, the others are 1536):
An old diagram showing how various types of caves are placed, including regional caves, which can be as close as 6,6 chunks apart (from corner to corner); four of the regions shown here will be a regional cave with 31.25% being giant cave regions and 68.75% being network cave regions (one every 13107 and 5958 chunks respectively):
Prior to this I found a "colossal cave system" right below my current secondary base; at the time I did notice that I ran into quite a lot of caves while digging a rail tunnel and there were quite a few surface openings around my base and it did cross my mind that there could be something more than just a dense concentration of "normal" caves but as usual I never investigated it until I reached it via normal underground exploration; these are also the hardest type of "special" cave to identify since they could very well be formed from vanilla caves (and I did think I'd found one earlier; the size and overall density is a giveaway though):
Colossal cave systems:
1. 8 1000 (volume: 262210, type: N-S)
While exploring it I found one of the rarest enchantments in the game for the first time - Vein Miner, which is a "true treasure" enchantment, only obtainable via loot chests, and as its name suggests (named after various mods with similar functionality) enables pickaxes to mine up to 4 ore blocks at a time per level, up to 8 at level 2; if placed on an axe (only level 1 is needed) they will mine up to 2 more wood blocks above or below (depending on your POV) the one targeted; it was in the third "double dungeon" I've found so far, out of a total of 104 dungeons (101 normal dungeons, none of which intersected to form a "vanilla" double dungeon, illustrating how uncommon they are), which is also where it is most likely to be found, along with Smelting (which I've found a total of 3 of, none in double dungeons, which have about a 25% chance of each in the first chest placed, otherwise they have the same chance as other enchantments, so this is also a bit unusual, given I haven't found several other vanilla enchantments yet. In the context of randomness this isn't so unexpected (the "clustering illusion" describes apparent non-randomness in random data):
I decided to place it on the axe I use to harvest wood, with a marked improvement in how long it takes to cut down a 2x2 spruce (take a ladder to the top then chop down in a spiral, 3 logs at a time, I specifically chose 3 since this is the number needed to make a staircase up or can be removed below you without taking fall damage).
I also found a large cave with a volume of 185,000 blocks, the third largest one and 7th over 100,000 blocks so far, connected to the giant cave region (for the purposes of exploring the latter this will be counted as part of it):
-200 21 648 (type: 2, length: 428, width: 36, volume: 185845)
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumHow do you keep track of all your statistics? I couldn't tell you the time intervals between me finding things unless I'd journaled it, and even then it would take some hunting.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
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Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I have a Notepad file listing everything I've found, as well as a spreadsheet for my "session statistics" (the information displayed in the inventory), which are printed out at the end of each session, this includes tables I'd made for each giant cave region, so I just looked at e.g. ore mined and found the corresponding number in the general table:
I didn't make a table of session stats for TMCWv4 but I originally ended the world after I finished exploring the giant cave region that was the last thing I found, after 140 sessions, which is known because I posted the final statistics for the world (I played on it again later on), and it took 5 days to explore, hence it was found on day 136. Some of the others are guesses based on my posting history; I also explored all three worlds more or less the same way up to this point (initially a level 3 map centered around 0,0, then the map to the south; in this world the area was shifted eastwards since I changed the alignment of maps), so the explored area can be compared.
Also, the seed for the world I played on in TMCWv4 ("-1816924181", which is the hash code for "TMCWv4") is quite interesting when used in TMCWv5.10 (the numeric seed must be used since I changed the hash function); there are no less than 9 colossal cave systems within 1536 blocks, the second most known of any seed (10), as well as a ravine with a volume of 557,000 blocks, possibly up to 633,000 if the ground is deep enough (this is close to the largest known ravines when measured below sea level, with the theoretical maximum volume being around 750,000 when including the part above sea level), and a complex of large caves with a volume of 1.2 million blocks; if you consider the area I've explored up to now in my current world I'd have found two giant cave regions, one to the east and another to the south, close to the first one in this world (the original seed also had two, with one further east so I didn't encounter it until I explored that map, and one far to the northwest, with most of the northern third of a +/- 1536 block area unexplored):
This shows the largest caves and ravines only, which had a volume of 16,166,347 blocks or 2.903%; the largest single cave, to the northwest, has a volume of 757,000 blocks, while to the east is a near-merger of two caves with a combined volume of 788,000 (they do merge when including various other large caves that aren't shown here but are shown above; the volume within a 320x320 block area centered on them was 1.21 million, 1.43 million when including all features):
A complete rendering (all features) of the cave complex:
A list of features within 1536 blocks (top 10 or less):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Also, I found another giant cave connected to the giant cave region, or rather, a "large cave cluster", with a volume of 168,000 blocks across four caves, the two largest which were individually 122,000 and 60,000 (my cave analysis tool will normally list the two largest caves and only list large cave clusters where no single cave exceeded 25,000 but all of them together did; this can be bypassed by setting the threshold to higher than any single cave):
Locations of large cave clusters by volume:
1. -520 27 744 (caves: 4, volume: 168950)
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -520 24 744 (type: 1, length: 230, width: 48, volume: 122699)
2. -520 34 744 (type: 1, length: 214, width: 30, volume: 60032)
If you are wondering, I can recognize these caves as being separate due to their size and distance from the rest of the caves associated with the giant cave region, and the size of the "ends" of the tunnels, which are distinctly larger as the width of the tunnel increases (vanilla caves have a minimum width of 3 blocks while giant caves reach up to 5 blocks; TMCW also has a regional variation of vanilla cave with a minimum width of 2 blocks); as well as the presence of the smaller variants of huge mushroom (only the largest variants generate in giant cave regions).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
The volume of the giant cave region is even a bit higher than shown since one of the caves goes outside the 400x400 area used to analyze it (at the top):
In accordance to the increased exploration, I mined a total of more than 24,000 ores and 25,000 resource blocks, completely filling a double chest with storage blocks (including "compressed mossy cobblestone" and "cobweb blocks"; I collected the cobwebs from a few exposed cave spider spawners in the largest single cave but didn't explore them otherwise, thus no rails):
Most of this matches the numbers given above, except for coal, of which I used around 2273 based on the difference between ore mined and blocks crafted, nearly all of this would have been used to craft torches (around 9092, or 1136 per day, I also put some into furnaces to cook food, otherwise the "Smelting" enchantment eliminates the need for coal to smelt ores and I didn't use any other resources except for amethyst to repair my gear, the 15 shown would be only 3 if I showed the net yield, with 8 used to repair my pickaxe alone and 4 more for my armor and sword; even after two months of caving I only have around 48 total surplus when including my normal stockpile):
These are slices through the world at layer 45, 30, and 15, which clearly show the two giant cave regions, as well as the largest single cave and some other features (overall cave density is highest near layer 30 while giant cave regions peak near 15 and 45):
A surface rendering of the trimmed world (minus the stronghold; there were 5926 chunks remaining, or nearly exactly 100 explored per play session spent caving, 59 so far; I used "Minecraft Map Auto Trim" on a copy of the world to delete chunks without player-placed torches nearby; aside from the edges of the world most of the explored area was solidly intact, except mostly around the northern edge of the giant cave region, which I colored black on the maps above):
Here are more screenshots of the giant cave region:
A couple larger ravines (volumes 60 and 39 thousand) that intersected it:
I also found two spider dungeons very close together (none of the 111 dungeons, including 3 "double dungeons", I've found so far have actually intersected) and a zombie in diamond armor, the 17th such mob in this world:
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumHow exactly do you define a region? No connection to other caves at all?
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If you are referring to a "giant cave region" that is a type of cave structure which generates as many individual caves within a large region of chunks, as opposed to just a single chunk / starting point (I refer to these as "regional caves" because of the way they generate. There is also regional variation of "vanilla" caves, which occurs within regions of about the same size as regional caves; a giant cave region can be thought of such a region with all the parameters cranked up to max, although they generate differently from normal caves).
Also, these renderings that I post only show "special" underground features, omitting everything else (vanilla caves and smaller ravines and mineshafts); the fact that deleting unexplored chunks left most of the world intact shows just how extensive the underground is:
For comparison, these are centered on the giant cave region in the upper-right, showing all features, special features only, and an interconnectivity map, where the various colors represent a distance from an origin point near the center, cycling from red to blue and back (about 93% of the total air volume was directly interconnected; vanilla 1.6.4 actually isn't much lower but does show much larger regions of similar colors due to less interconnections between them):
Regional caves do have a "regional exclusion zone" around them, which prevents most other features from generating within 4 chunks, as do many of the special types of cave systems, but this still allows for a decent amount of overlap. Here is a map of the area above which shows what can generate in each chunk, based on the return value of a method which checks for which type(s) of caves can generate, some of which will additionally set an area around them to a special value; the pink area in the enter is the 13x13 chunk area where caves generate within a giant cave region, surrounded by a lighter pink regional exclusion zone, which only allows larger caves and ravines to generate; the similar-looking blue area in the top-left is a "network cave region" (something I haven't found yet), the blue dot within a larger gray circle is a colossal cave system and its respective exclusion zone (disallowing everything), next to a stronghold (red dot) with an exclusion zone which only allows normal caves, reduced in density (some of these areas override each other, thus it is possible for normal caves to generate in some chunks within a regional exclusion zone but they will be limited). The various smaller areas represent other types of special cave systems, some of which do not have exclusion zones (these either check if there is nothing else nearby or generate as a variant of normal cave system):
The code I use to determine what can generate in a chunk is quite complex, with one part that populates an array centered on the chunk currently being generated and a second part which is called for each chunk within an 11 chunk radius of it (so hundreds of times per chunk generated. This is quite fast though since most of it is just looping through an array, not performing the "can spawn" checks for each type of cave. Overall cave generation is actually faster than vanilla due to optimization of the actual tunnel generation, the simplest using a much faster RNG, which it uses very heavily):
// Initializes array used to store cave data, used to avoid recalculations due to overlapping chunks within the ranges // of each chunk checked for a major improvement in performance. private void initializeCaveData(int chunkX, int chunkZ, int distance) { // caveDataArray is 33x33 chunks in size (+/- 16) to account for 11 chunk gen range and 5 chunk max radius for checking // nearby chunks around each chunk within the 11 chunk radius for (int z = -16; z <= 16; ++z) { int zIndex = (z + 16) * 33 + 16; int cz = chunkZ + z; int z2 = z * z; for (int x = -16; x <= 16; ++x) { int x2z2 = x * x + z2; // x2z2 values were calculated with CaveInfo.calculateMaxX2Z2, using 10 for special caves, 17 for regional caves, // and 35 for colossal caves and strongholds if (x2z2 <= 317) { int cx = chunkX + x; if (distance < 16384) distance = cx * cx + cz * cz; byte data = 0; if (this.validColossalCaveLocation(cx, cz, distance)) { data = COLOSSAL; } else if (this.validStrongholdLocation(cx, cz, distance)) { data = STRONGHOLD; } else if (x2z2 <= 250) { if (this.validRegionalCaveLocation(cx, cz, distance)) { data = REGIONAL; } else if (x2z2 <= 225) { data = (byte)this.validSpecialCaveLocation(cx, cz, distance); } } this.caveDataArray[zIndex + x] = data; } } } // Initializes height map storing coordinates of water blocks; -1 is equivalent to 255 (read as unsigned byte) for (int i = 0; i < 256; ++i) { this.waterHeightMap[i] = -1; } }This method is called once per chunk within the "gen-range", of 11 chunks, with some of those chunks in turn leading to additional checks that extend it to up to +/-16 chunks (not all variants of caves use these methods):
// Returns a value indicating the type of cave that should be generated in a chunk private int validCaveLocation(int cx, int cz) { int flag = NORMAL; cx += 16; cz += 16; for (int z = -5; z <= 5; ++z) { int zIndex = (cz + z) * 33 + cx; int z2 = z * z; for (int x = -5; x <= 5; ++x) { int x2z2 = x * x + z2; if (x2z2 <= 35) { int data = this.caveDataArray[zIndex + x]; if (data != 0) { if (data == COLOSSAL) { // Colossal cave systems; all caves are excluded from a 2 chunk radius, otherwise only sea level // caves are allowed if (x2z2 == 0) return COLOSSAL; return (x2z2 <= 5 ? NONE : SEA_LEVEL_ONLY); } else if (data == STRONGHOLD) { // Used to exclude large caves/ravines from around strongholds if (x2z2 == 0) return STRONGHOLD; flag = NORMAL_ONLY; } else if (x2z2 <= 10) { // Special cave systems if (data == CIRCULAR_RAVINE) { if (x2z2 == 0) return CIRCULAR_RAVINE; if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY; flag = NORMAL_ONLY; } else if (data == VERTICAL) { if (x2z2 == 0) return VERTICAL; if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY; flag = NORMAL_ONLY; } else if (data == MAZE) { if (x2z2 == 0) return MAZE; if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY; flag = NORMAL_ONLY; } else if (data == LARGE_CAVE_SYSTEM) { if (x2z2 == 0) return LARGE_CAVE_SYSTEM; if (x2z2 <= 5) return SEA_LEVEL_ONLY; flag = NORMAL_ONLY; } } // Note that regional caves only set flag to REGIONAL_EXCLUSION when it is NORMAL so other caves // can override it (NORMAL is large caves and ravines; NORMAL_ONLY is only normal caves, reduced // in size, and no large ravines). if (data == REGIONAL && x2z2 <= 17) { if (x2z2 == 0) return REGIONAL; if (flag == NORMAL) flag = REGIONAL_EXCLUSION; } } } } } return flag; }The main method that is called once per chunk generated; this is similar to what vanilla does when generating caves and structures, with the "gen-range" limiting the maximum span of a structure (else it will abruptly cut off along a chunk border. Vanilla uses a range of +/-8 or 17x17 chunks, so the 11 chunk circular radius used here isn't actually much larger). A secondary range of +/-1 is used when generating the main part of jungle caves, which are separate so they are the last to remove/replace blocks:
public void generate(int chunkX, int chunkZ) { this.chunkX_16 = chunkX << 4; this.chunkZ_16 = chunkZ << 4; this.chunkCenterX = (double)(this.chunkX_16 + 8); this.chunkCenterZ = (double)(this.chunkZ_16 + 8); this.noiseGenLCG = (chunkX * Random32.CM + chunkZ) * Random32.CM; boolean generateJungleCave = false; // Used to avoid overflow at very large chunk coordinates; 128 is well outside of any near-origin exclusion zones and // any value up to 32767 could be used. int distance = (Math.abs(chunkX) < 128 && Math.abs(chunkZ) < 128 ? 0 : 16384); this.initializeCaveData(chunkX, chunkZ, distance); for (int x = -11; x <= 11; ++x) { int cx = chunkX + x; for (int z = -11; z <= 11; ++z) { int x2z2 = x * x + z * z; if (x2z2 <= 145) { int cz = chunkZ + z; if (distance < 16384) distance = cx * cx + cz * cz; long chunkSeed = this.rand.getChunkSeed(cx, cz); int genCaves = this.validCaveLocation(x, z); if (genCaves == COLOSSAL) { // Range is square instead of circular due to cave distribution if (Math.abs(x) <= 9 && Math.abs(z) <= 9) { this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed); this.generateColossalCaveSystem(cx, cz); } } else if (genCaves == STRONGHOLD) { if (x2z2 <= 101) { this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed); this.generateStrongholdCaves(cx, cz); } } else if (genCaves >= SPECIAL_CAVE) { // Special cave systems (circular room, ravine, maze, vertical, large cave) this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed); this.generateSpecialCaveSystems(cx, cz, genCaves, x2z2); } else if (genCaves != NONE) { // Regional caves use a range of 10 chunks (< 121 gives maximum coverage) if (genCaves == REGIONAL && x2z2 < 121) { this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed); this.generateRegionalCaves(cx, cz); } this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed); this.generateCaves(cx, cz, x2z2, distance, genCaves); // These caves never generate when genCaves is SEA_LEVEL_ONLY if (genCaves != SEA_LEVEL_ONLY) { // Used to determine whether to generate jungle caves; placed here instead of in validCaveLocation to // reduce complexity of code if (x2z2 <= 40 && genCaves == NORMAL && this.validJungleCaveLocation(cx, cz)) { if (x2z2 <= 2) generateJungleCave = true; this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed); this.generateJungleCaveHorizontalLinkCaves(cx, cz); } this.rand.setSeed(chunkSeed); this.generateRavines(cx, cz, x2z2, distance, genCaves); } } } } } // Ensures that jungle caves are the last to carve out blocks if (generateJungleCave) { for (int z = -1; z <= 1; ++z) { int cz = chunkZ + z; for (int x = -1; x <= 1; ++x) { if (this.validJungleCaveLocation(chunkX + x, cz)) this.generateJungleCave(chunkX + x, cz, x == 0 && z == 0); } } } this.fixWaterIntersections(); }The overall complexity of my cave generation code is quite impressive to say the least, some 20 times larger than vanilla if you combined the three separate classes it uses (indicated by the first entry, which is the class for my "World1 custom client" mod. The second list of files are the top 10 largest classes; there are a total of 571 classes totaling 7.93 MB so less than 5% is cave generation (still relatively a lot compared to vanilla. I'll also note that TMCW is very small compared to modern versions, even 1.8 is still larger despite TMCW adding far more content over 1.6.4, and the modded jar having a lot of unused vanilla classes due to completely replacing many of them, with exceptions like World class due to how much code references it):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
This is an animation of what I explored during the first 60 days of caving; the path I took was entirely by following interconnected caves underground and partly influenced by what I found (as mentioned in previous posts I kept finding large caves to the south so I explored in that direction, this would be at the time I made a secondary base and railway to the south, which has its own frame):
I'll note that it isn't practical to go much longer than 60 days at a time as GIMP was already taking up over 6 GB of RAM after loading every frame (I had the characteristic lag due to having to swap memory back from disk after closing GIMP); the initial frame was sized to cover a 2048x2048 area centered around 0,0 (the actual coverage is larger since MCMap renders everything tilted so the corners of the area are in the middle of each side; I explored as far south as 1500, close to the z-axis) and I updated each day by pasting in a rendering of the newly explored areas on top of the previous frame.
Also, these are underground and surface renderings of the cropped world made with Unmined, which I used to use to see what I'd explored but have mostly just used my own cave mapping/analysis tools, with Unmined used to verify that they match the game* (I use my cave/biome tools to develop new features or changes then copy them to the game), even if they don't show the actual world or have a GUI that can pan around and slice through different depths, but they do make clearer images and don't require trimming the world to avoid seeing anything I haven't explored yet (you can still see a few significant unexplored areas in the outermost chunks; in the southeast is a cave I mentioned in post 34 but decided not to explore at the time; to the northwest of the giant cave region near the bottom is part of a cave I mentioned in post 41, most of which is outside of the trimmed area. There are also some truly isolated caves and ravines in the interior which I'd otherwise never find; "truly isolated" means not connected to anything else or the surface, otherwise it is chance that I come across surface openings that lead to otherwise isolated caves, which are usually just a tunnel or a ravine or two):
Layer 62:
Layer 36 (this shows larger caves better by removing smaller caves over them, but not too much of the caves themselves):
*For example, this is CaveFinder's simulated rendering of the second giant cave region overlayed over Unmined, showing that they match almost perfectly (the random noise I apply to cave walls may be slightly different since this depends on everything that generates within a chunk but this is insignificant; CaveFinder doesn't show decorations or the impact of bodies of water or terrain above sea level). This also shows the additional large caves I found around the giant cave region, which extend outside the area covered by the CaveFinder overlay:
Also, an MCEdit analysis of this area, minus the easternmost few chunks (to the eastern edge of the giant cave region itself, and the southernmost of the caves and ravines that directly intersected it from the south) found a total of 2.45 million air blocks and 8055 torches (I explored closer to 2.4 million since this includes air left by ores that I removed and above the numerous lakes that generate within giant cave regions, many of which are isolated, and an unexplored mineshaft around the large cave to the north; this represents an average of about 300,000 blocks of air volume explored per session, normally this will be much lower; for comparison, I average around 80,000 in vanilla 1.6.4):
(1:0),Stone,4626902
(1:1),Stone,468593
(1:3),Stone,327508
(1:5),Stone,443184
(1:8),Stone,4371
(2:0),Grass,11053
(3:0),Dirt,490727
(4:0),Cobblestone,5251
(4:1),Cobblestone,73
(5:0),Wood Planks,1046
(5:2),Wood Planks,384
(7:1),Bedrock,147576
(7:8),Bedrock,9362
(7:11),Bedrock,2038
(9:0),Water,133573
(11:0),Lava,47768
(12:0),Sand,14971
(12:1),Sand,40731
(13:0),Gravel,102227
(13:1),Gravel,100822
(14:0),Gold Ore,3537
(14:2),Gold Ore,245
(15:0),Iron Ore,37014
(15:2),Iron Ore,2130
(16:0),Coal Ore,60856
(16:2),Coal Ore,3147
(17:0),Wood,68
(21:0),Lapis Lazuli Ore,1935
(21:2),Lapis Lazuli Ore,85
(24:0),Sandstone,1088
(24:4),Sandstone,3796
(30:0),Web,182
(31:0),(Unused Shrub),4
(32:0),Dead Shrub,25
(39:0),Brown Mushroom,587
(39:1),Brown Mushroom,361
(39:2),Brown Mushroom,422
(39:3),Brown Mushroom,266
(39:4),Brown Mushroom,176
(48:0),Moss Stone,94
(49:0),Obsidian,22487
(50:1),Torch,643
(50:2),Torch,625
(50:3),Torch,467
(50:4),Torch,447
(50:5),Torch,5873
(52:0),Monster Spawner,6
(53:12),Wooden Stairs,1
(53:13),Wooden Stairs,1
(54:2),Chest,2
(54:3),Chest,7
(54:4),Chest,4
(54:5),Chest,5
(56:0),Diamond Ore,1023
(56:2),Diamond Ore,91
(65:2),Ladder,1
(65:3),Ladder,13
(65:4),Ladder,9
(65:5),Ladder,3
(66:0),Rail,104
(66:1),Rail,164
(73:0),Redstone Ore,8391
(73:2),Redstone Ore,431
(75:1),Redstone Torch (off),5
(75:2),Redstone Torch (off),4
(75:3),Redstone Torch (off),3
(75:4),Redstone Torch (off),5
(75:10),Redstone Torch (off),3
(75:11),Redstone Torch (off),1
(75:12),Redstone Torch (off),1
(78:0),Snow Layer,111
(79:0),Ice,12845
(81:8),Cactus,9
(82:0),Clay,46896
(83:0),Sugar Cane,2
(85:0),Fence,648
(85:2),Fence,272
(97:2),Hidden Silverfish (Stone Brick),15
(97:3),Hidden Silverfish (Smooth Stone),1
(97:5),Hidden Silverfish (Smooth Stone),1
(98:0),Stone Bricks,514
(98:1),Mossy Stone Bricks,98
(98:2),Cracked Stone Bricks,63
(98:3),Circle Stone Bricks,2
(99:1),Huge Brown Mushroom (Northwest),62
(99:2),Huge Brown Mushroom (North),54
(99:3),Huge Brown Mushroom (Northeast),62
(99:4),Huge Brown Mushroom (West),54
(99:5),Huge Brown Mushroom (Top),219
(99:6),Huge Brown Mushroom (East),54
(99:7),Huge Brown Mushroom (Southwest),62
(99:8),Huge Brown Mushroom (South),54
(99:9),Huge Brown Mushroom (Southeast),62
(99:10),Huge Brown Mushroom (Stem),78
(99:11),Huge Brown Mushroom,9
(100:1),Huge Red Mushroom (Northwest),88
(100:2),Huge Red Mushroom (North),68
(100:3),Huge Red Mushroom (Northeast),88
(100:4),Huge Red Mushroom (West),68
(100:5),Huge Red Mushroom (Top),170
(100:6),Huge Red Mushroom (East),68
(100:7),Huge Red Mushroom (Southwest),88
(100:8),Huge Red Mushroom (South),67
(100:9),Huge Red Mushroom (Southeast),88
(100:10),Huge Red Mushroom (Stem),98
(100:11),Huge Red Mushroom,23
(101:0),Iron Bars,2
(106:1),Vines,24
(106:2),Vines,34
(106:4),Vines,8
(106:8),Vines,5
(106:12),Vines,2
(111:0),Lilypad,10
(118:2),Cauldron,1
(126:9),Oak-Wood Slab,1
(140:0),Flower Pot,1
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I got not one, two, three but four music discs at the same time from a group of creepers that were at the bottom of a pit, along with a couple skeletons, which started shooting at me, and ended up fighting each other, killing 4 creepers in the process, which did not retaliate since they had seen me first and unlike other mobs they don't retarget their attacker unless they lose sight of the player (most other mobs only retarget if the player hadn't attacked them yet; old AI mobs, like spiders, will always target their last attacker):
I've found several new biomes; Bushlands, a plains-like biome dotted with small bushes similar to the ones in jungles, but spruce, with additional variations, this is also one of several "spawn biomes" that the player may spawn in and/or will be added close to the origin if one doesn't exist; Autumnal Forest, a fall-themed forest with its own tree types with red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves, and one of several biomes with rubies, and the closest one to spawn (I previously found a Rocky Mountains about twice as far away); and what appears to be the full-size variant of Ice Hills, which I previously found as a sub-biome of Ice Plains; the full-size biome generates with a ring of Ice Plains Spikes, then Ice Plains, making it easy to tell apart from the sub-biome without seeing the full extent of the biome yet:
This brings the total number of unique biomes that I've found up to 28 (counting sub-biomes and their full-size variants as one, I list both if I found the sub-biome first):
Mixed Forest
Mesa
Mountainous Desert
TMCW Mega Taiga
Big Oak Forest
Winter Forest
Swamplands
Mega Forest
Mega Spruce Taiga
Quartz Desert
Ice Plains
Mega Tree Plains
Spruce Hills (sub-biome of Mega Tree Plains)
Savanna
Cherry Grove (sub-biome of Big Oak Forest and others)
Lake (sub-biome of Mixed Forest and others)
Desert M
Oasis
Cherry Grove (full-size biome)
Rocky Mountains
Ice Hills (sub-biome of Ice Plains)
Ice Plains Spikes (sub-biome of Ice Plains)
Forest
Ocean
Hilly Plains
Plains (sub-biome of Hilly Plains)
Bushlands
Autumnal Forest
Ice Hills (full-size biome)
Autumnal Forest is also one of the more unique biomes exclusive to TMCW, containing three unique mobs and a structure in addition to the trees; the design of this biome was also directly based on a suggestion:
fishg's Autumnal Forest
Mobs include autumnal creepers, a variant of creeper which has fall-colored skin and drops rubies as a rare drop (making it renewable), black bears, a variant of bear which is slightly smaller and always hostile, with no child form, but can be made neutral by feeding them meat (they will become hostile again if attacked), and vampires, a variant of zombie which inflicts Poison (so basically to zombies what bogged are to skeletons) and spawns hostile bats when attacked (they target the player's head, getting in their way, killing the vampire makes them passive). Autumnal leaves also have a falling leaf particle effect (added after I added cherry trees; Autumnal Forest itself was added in TMCWv5):
There are also "pumpkin houses" as seen in the link above, a structure shaped like a large pumpkin with a couple witches and a black cat inside and which behaves like a witch hut. Speaking of which, I found a witch hut for the first time in a nearby swamp, while I made the witches not despawn (like pumpkin houses they have two witches and a black cat), I saw no signs of any of the mobs since it had been loaded for quite a while (I've only found an occupied witch hut once or twice, never before I fixed the despawning. Witches that generate with the world also have twice as much health, 52 instead of 26):
As far as caving goes, I've mostly been exploring more or less typical 1.6.4 underground (moderate to dense "vanilla" caves and more frequent mineshafts, the latter of which had been significantly rarer for quite a while since they can't generate within or near giant cave regions and larger caves), with one larger cave with a volume of about 49,000 blocks, and several smaller caves below the 25,000 threshold I use to count them as such but still quite large compared to vanilla (a cave with a volume of at least 10,000, which I consider to be a "giant" cave in my first world, is about 40 times more common than in vanilla, not including "special" cave systems consisting of larger caves; the equivalent volume in terms of frequency is around 400,000):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
One or both of the chests may have loot, if both do then the items are split between them so there are the same number either way, which are mostly witch drops and related items:
I tamed the cat, which retains its skin, unlike ocelots (the skin itself is set separately from whether it is tamed, this is true of vanilla as well, I just had to change the code that picked a random skin to only do so if it is the default ocelot skin):
It is worth noting that I've found 6 structures within an area of less than half a level 4 map, based on my exploration rate, I'm pretty sure this has to be more structures than you'd find in modern versions, which are widely criticized for having too many:
A couple examples from 1.21; these may seem to show a lot of structures but the area shown is about 3300x1900 blocks, or 24492 chunks, equivalent to about 245 days of exploration or four times as much as I've done so far (I'll note that they do show 10-13 villages, so I'd have found 3-4 instead of just one by now, but less structures overall); there are (for some reason) WAY more structures underwater than on land, which does look cluttered then and is far in excess of what I've found (TMCW does have shipwrecks but they are much rarer and only a third, the largest size, actually contain a loot chest):
Of course, in either version there are even more structures underground, again more in TMCW due to dungeons and mineshafts being more common (about the same as and 60% of 1.6.4 respectively; ChunkBase shows that mineshafts have remained the same since 1.13, which only changed their layout, with the frequency being 40% of 1.6.4 since 1.7, plus the ground is now twice as deep, so even if they had the same frequency as 1.6.4 you'd still have to explore twice the volume):
77 ravines (up to 7 intersecting)
36 vertical pit caves
20 mineshafts
12 large caves (volume >= 25000)
11 large ravines (volume >= 25000 and length >= 112 or width >= 15 or depth >= 45)
10 vertical cave clusters
9 maze cave clusters
8 giant caves (volume >= 100000)
8 toroidal caves
7 large mineshafts (length >= 2000)
6 dense cave systems (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
6 fossils (4 Desert, 2 Swamplands)
6 ribbed tunnel cave clusters
5 circular room cave clusters
5 large circular rooms (width >= 34)
5 ravine cave clusters
5 zigzag cave clusters
4 large cave cave systems
4 random cave clusters
4 ribbed tunnel cave systems
3 double dungeons (a special type with 2 spawners and 2-3 chests)
3 random cave systems
2 circular room cave systems
2 CRM combination cave systems
2 giant cave regions
2 giant ravines (volume >= 100000)
2 spiral cave systems
2 vertical cave systems
2 zigzag cave systems
1 colossal cave system
1 desert temple
1 igloo (1 Winter Forest, 1 with basement)
1 maze cave system
1 mesa mineshaft
1 pumpkin house
1 quartz desert pyramids
1 ravine cave system
1 RZV combination cave system
1 stronghold (with eyes of ender)
1 village (1 Meadow)
1 witch hut (1 Swamplands)
An example of dungeons and mineshafts in 1.21; there are 73 dungeons and 18 mineshafts within a 3645 chunk area, equivalent to one dungeon every 100 chunks and one mineshaft every 400 chunks when adjusted to the original ground depth (i.e. the same volume explored. This is actually better than average for mineshafts, which average one every 250 chunks / 500 equivalent, not sure what the average for dungeons is but the adjusted density here is about the same as 1.7 with about twice as many overall due to the greater volume); 1.6.4 and TMCW average about one dungeon every 42.5 chunks, plus one double dungeon every 650 chunks in TMCW, and one mineshaft every 100 chunks in 1.6.4 and 175 chunks in TMCW:
Also, this is the largest ravine that I've found so far, with a volume of 138,000 blocks, only slightly larger than the next largest but that one was much shorter and intersected a giant cave region; this is also the first "real" giant ravine, as defined in the code, where "type 3" ravines are approximately equivalent to "type 2" caves (almost always reaching 100,000 blocks or more, with a similar frequency of both. The comparison isn't exact since there are 3 types of "giant" caves (2-4) and 2 types of "giant" ravines (3-4)). There were also 5 smaller ravines intersecting it, the second most I've found so far, and the 4th largest mineshaft:
Locations of random cave systems:
1. -392 200
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -436 54 175 (type: 0, length: 111, width: 16, volume: 10111)
2. -445 64 178 (type: 0, length: 140, width: 20, volume: 7476)
Locations of largest ravines by volume:
1. -456 24 264 (type: 3, length: 278, width: 19, depth: 54, volume: 138096)
2. -328 44 264 (type: 1, length: 94, width: 11, depth: 35, volume: 16892)
Locations of largest circular rooms by volume:
1. -437 54 177 (width: 21, volume: 2390)
Locations of abandoned mineshafts by corridor length:
1. -408 25 296 (span: 9, size: 252, length: 2375)
This is still relatively "small" compared to what I may find; the largest ravines I found in TMCWv5 were about three times larger and the largest known ravines are another factor of 1.6 times larger, even more if they can fully generate above sea level (up to about 650,000 and 750,000 blocks respectively; unlike caves volume is much more closely related to the length/width/depth parameters, and altitude).
I've pretty much finished exploring the map at -512, 512 for now, which is about half explored; I'll return to it once I make a secondary base to the west, and will finish exploring the area within about 512 blocks of 0,0 to the north before permanently moving from my main base as an "operations center" (returning to it between caving trips and a source of food and wood, then it just becomes a storage center for everything I collect):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumI love the pumpkin hut! Are the witches spawned trapped?
As has been pointed out in numerous discussions, the best frequency of spawned structures depends on the player. Your style of play, which explores very small areas, makes frequent spawning desirable because otherwise you'd never see them. For most players it would be to high; for exploration-oriented players like me or Princess Garnet that many structures would be ridiculous. The best solution is some way to configure structure frequency.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
They aren't supposed to be but often do end up inside of the cauldrons/composters and for some reason they can't get back out, I did find a bug report which says it was fixed in 1.14, I know it has something to do with how mobs see various blocks as obstacles:
MC-142650 Mobs entering a composter never leave the composter
Actually, I may be able to fix it based on the fact that cauldrons were fixed in 1.9 and there is source available online (via various GitHub repositories, which all seem to end at 1.12, not coincidentally, when MCP was discontinued), I know that when I added new partial blocks I had to set the block as being passable so they would pathfind into/over them without issues (they still sometimes get stuck in e.g. larger stalagmites, where small ones are fully transparent and larger ones have a collision box for blocks below the tip, and the fences of mineshaft supports; not to be confused with mobs avoiding rails (which was an intentional feature added in 1.6 and which I removed unless a player is in a minecart so mineshafts are a bit more dangerous to explore):
MC-93182 Mobs entering a cauldron never leave the cauldron
In any case it doesn't really affect them much in this case due to their ranged attack (I was poisoned as soon as I got inside); they also won't leave, like they do in witch huts, since the door is closed, I also covered it up before entering so the cat wouldn't run away, a bit risky since the witches throw potions of Harming but it also avoids the player so it stayed on the other side, and even with twice the health it only took 4 hits per witch and upon taking any damage they drink Instant Health potions, which overrides their attack AI.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Not long after that I nearly found a "triple dungeon", if that is the correct term, a normal dungeon right next to one of my special double dungeons, which I actually have found once before, in TMCWv4, with a third dungeon nearby which had an enchanted golden apple, the third one I've found so far (they are much rarer than in modern versions, even as one of the changes in TMCWv5.10 was to make them more common, otherwise, like 1.9 I removed their crafting recipe but did not nerf their effects):
I've also found three more biomes; Winter Taiga, which is just a new name for the "Taiga" biome in 1.6.4 and is otherwise more or less the same (more height variation but that is the norm for TMCW), Mushroom Forest, one of my more fantastical biomes with numerous huge mushrooms among its trees, which also vary a lot from chunk to chunk, and underground and unique blue-green foliage; and Forest Mountains, which can be seen as a forested variant of Extreme Hills with a mix of oak, birch, and spruce trees and emerald ore and infested blocks underground, and was the second biome ever to be added by TMCW (the first was Hilly Plains, based on their biome IDs in TMCWv1):
Mushroom Forest; besides the huge mushrooms the colors of vegetation and water stand out (water uses the same color as Tropical Ocean), this is also the only biome that alters the color of spruce leaves (which never changes at all in any vanilla version), tree cover also varies from chunk to chunk (changing the chances of different types.sizes of tree within 2x2 chunk regions):
Forest Mountains; the mountain seen here, probably only a small part of the biome, is rather "small" compared to what they can become, often nearing the terrain height limit of y=191 with fantastical overhangs and "crazified" terrain in general (I mix in a special noise field for some biomes which was designed to enhance this, the most extreme variations occur in an Extreme Forest Mountains sub-biome, along with Extreme Mountains in Extreme Hills and Extreme Savanna Mountains in Savanna Mountains):
The map I'm currently exploring, centered at -512, -512; the Forest Mountains is just to the north of my location, the large snowy biome is the Winter Taiga (snowy biomes in general also seem to be more prevalent than usual so far), and the Mushroom Forest is to my southeast, easily identifiable from the multicolored dots and water color; between them is also the first actual Plains biome (as opposed to sub-biome); while I've found several such biomes so far only one has had a village, even with the increased underlying spawn rate (the region size is 24x24 chunks, down from 32x32 in vanilla for 1.78 times the areal density, the average biome size is small enough that on average around two full biomes are needed per village, and when their frequency is factored in villages are about as common as in vanilla):
I've found several more larger caves, including what turned out to be a "vanilla" cave system with enhanced tunnel and room size (there were no actual "large" caves in the area), and two caves under the Mushroom Forest with volumes of 110,000 and 70,000 blocks merged together:
The first two caves:
This covers the whole area shown, minus the northeast corner (I separately mapped two areas and merged them as I haven't explored the northeastern area yet and don't want to reveal anything interesting that might be there). The information for "normal" caves only includes the cave system in the upper left, which has the chance of circular rooms increased to 100% (from 25% per iteration of the main loop, which iterates "size" times), a flag for "larger large caves" set (an additional multiplier applied to those caves which have a 10% chance of becoming larger, these caves also exist in vanilla, also with a 10% chance),a "width multiplier" set to 2 (double the base width variation), "curviness" set to 0.2 (half the normal value of 0.4 so tunnels are straighter), and "vertical variation set to a 1/3 chance (form 1/6) of tunnels having more vertical variation than normal.
A total of 35 tunnels generated within this area, of which 22 became "large", a width of more than 9 blocks (the maximum a vanilla tunnel can reach without the 10% chance of a wider tunnel); 7 out of 8 circular rooms were also larger than the maximum width of 17 blocks in vanilla (if "larger circular rooms" is also enabled they could be much larger; all these parameters interact so if all are set to favor larger caves then extreme sizes will can be reached). The altitude range extends down to -7 since all caves were shifted downwards by 7 in accordance with lava level (the average altitude is equivalent to 26.26 in vanilla, itself about 7 layers deeper than average. This also does mean that caves are less likely to reach the surface, the average air volume at sea level is about twice that of vanilla due to larger caves and ravines, and to a smaller extent additional caves generated near and above sea level in various regions):
This is the complex to the southeast, consisting of a large cave with a volume of 66,000 blocks, a larger "vanilla" cave with a volume of 8,700 blocks (which is pretty rare in vanilla), a toroidal cave with a volume of 16,600 blocks, and a vanilla-sized ravine:
The complex of large "vanilla" caves, with most of the open space being from multiple large circular rooms overlapping:
The two large caves under the Mushroom Forest, with a combined volume of around 180,000 blocks, and numerous huge mushrooms, the highest concentration that can be found underground, along with Mushroom Island (there is a 50% chance of up to several mushrooms per chunk, otherwise, giant cave regions have mushrooms in 25% of 2x2 chunk regions and elsewhere there is a 5% chance per chunk). There are also two large ravines to the east and northwest:
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -328 33 -248 (type: 2, length: 419, width: 33, volume: 110736)
2. -248 35 -216 (type: 1, length: 225, width: 33, volume: 70178)
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I've now played on this world for 100 sessions, of which 82 were spent caving, during which I mined a total of 266,000 ores, 288,000 resource blocks, and killed 40,000 mobs (these numbers do not include "non-caving" sessions, so just the 82, and otherwise represents over 99.5% of the resources I've mined in the Overworld):
The average amount of XP, nearly 7,000 per session, has also been higher than usual, and the highest of any world, due to the use of the "Smelting" enchantment for most of the period, which increases the XP dropped by iron and gold (averaging 1.33 for iron and 2.5 for gold, similar to how mining other ores drops more XP compared to smelting them), which is partly offset by the increased cost to maintain it due to having to spend 43, 45, 47 levels per repair, then a ruby for 21 levels to lower the penalty by 6 (3 workings), instead of a fixed 43 levels to repair the same tool with Mending instead of Smelting (both have the same base cost).
I'll note that I've still found only one "Vein Miner" book, and only level I at that (mining up to 4 blocks total, 8 for level II) in over 300 hours spent caving, which has also yielded the following rare loot (maybe too rare for practical use by most players? I could probably increase the dungeon count from 8 to 10 (25% more), considering I averaged about 33% more moss stone per hour in my first world, this isn't so much because they are rarer in TMCW (they are slightly more common, averaging about 8.5 attempts per chunk, 8 normal and 0.5 double) but because you have to explore more caves to explore the same area; likewise, there are about 33% more ores exposed per chunk but this isn't reflected in mining rates; you may also notice that the period from days 49-77 had larger fluctuations in daily rates, which was due to all the giant caves I found, which paradoxically reduce rates (I see people showing how many resources they collected from a large cave in a short time in 1.18; either they are using Night Vision, mobs are that much rarer (and I did increase them, beyond just offsetting increased cave density, or ignoring ores in the ceiling (I've still counted around 600 ores per hour while mining them out):
A breakdown of all the mob spawners I've found, including outside of caving (all but 21, including the Nether, stronghold, desert temple, and one dungeon); as in vanilla cave spider spawners in mineshafts are by far the most common type, averaging about 3.6 per mineshaft; the number of double dungeons I've found is also rather low (averaging about 6% of dungeons, or 8 / 16 spawners, this is partly because I haven't found any "network cave regions", which increase the chance to 20% but the chance otherwise is still about 5%. These are also where Smelting and Vein Miner are most likely to be found, a 50% chance of one in the first chest placed):
Here is a rendering of what I've explored underground and my map wall; I've continued exploring northwards and will certainly make my next secondary base around 0, -1024 soon, given what I've found just a bit further to the north (much like when I found the giant caves to the south):
As for what I've found further north, not shown on the map wall above (taken the last time I returned to my main base), I noticed a huge area of lava appear on the map, which could only mean one thing, an extremely large cave going straight down to lava level, or more likely, a ravine, which is exactly what I found when I went over to see what it was - easily the largest surface ravine, if not ravine in general, that I've ever found, I didn't update the map past the point where I was caving but it would stretch for a couple hundred blocks, if not more (the largest ravines can get up to 384 blocks or 24 chunks long, this is about the furthest you can clearly see at 32 chunk render distance in modern versions since fog starts at 75% of the distance):
These views may seem a bit limited but I generally only increase the render distance once I've finished exploring something (turning fog off is another trick to increase visibility, increasing the clear distance by about a third, much more if looking up/down):
The ravine was also between a Savanna Plateau and a (normal) Desert, the 32nd and 33rd biomes that I've found so far, averaging one new biome every 3 days with only a few duplicates so far (not counted, 33 is the number of unique biomes), mostly Winter Forest and Winter Taiga, I've also found a second Rocky Mountains to the north. Given the number of Winter Forests and Taigas it should be no surprise that I found a second igloo, also with a basement, and similar to the first one I found it while caving due to the odd behavior of zombies, which were fixated on something in a wall; unlike the first one it was hidden behind a couple blocks:
More of a biome isn't necessarily a guarantee of finding more structures, given I found no igloos in TMCWv5 despite exploring a much larger area (one did generate at the very edge of generated chunks), and conversely, have still found only one village so far out of multiple village spawn biomes, including Savanna Plateau, which can have villages generating on top of them (these villages can only generate entirely within Savanna Plateau while other villages can't extend into it, avoiding possibly very messy villages generating on the slopes, a vanilla feature (villages restricted to their valid spawn biomes) which was lost in 1.10).
As far as caving goes, I found a complex of several large caves with a total volume of about 150,000 blocks:
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1. -296 35 -72 (type: 1, length: 269, width: 29, volume: 68372)
2. -200 36 -120 (type: 2, length: 300, width: 27, volume: 63692)
3. -296 19 -88 (type: 1, length: 325, width: 16, volume: 25218)
The appearance of this cave reminded me of one of the largest (largest for several years) caves I found in my first world, except about 4 times larger:
This is two caves merged together, the dark area on the left is where they intersect the cave above:
There was also a zombie in diamond armor which I first spotted on the other side of the cave, and came across it again about 15 minutes later, after I assumed it had despawned but it had picked up a bone at some point:
You can also see a minor detail in this screenshot; the zombie's corpse isn't wearing boots or holding a bone since I fixed MC-135164 (mobs not visually losing dropped items which wasn't officially fixed until 1.16.3; a very minor issue but still a bug):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumIt's kind of neat that if you look carefully at the cave and surface maps you can see you mapped the surface by caving (one is a rotation of the other, with some extra padding.)
Again, complements on your map coloring. If I could get Explorercraft working in 1.12 I'd ask to use it.
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RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
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I finally got around to building a secondary base near 0,-1024 after finishing exploring the area within about 512 blocks of the origin (corresponding to a level 3 map around each base, if no longer the case in practice since I changed their centering), which ended up in a Mushroom Forest, the second such biome, a Winter Forest was to its south and what looks like a normal Desert is to the northeast, all biomes I've found before, while directly to the east is a Big Birch Forest, which contains larger variants of birch tree which can also occasionally be found in Birch Forest:
To the east, with a Big Birch forest:
To the west / southwest, the opening to the right is a Meadow sub-biome within the Mushroom Forest:
The two maps I made centered at -512,-1536 and 512,1536 before I zoomed them out to level 3 (prior to zooming they would have been centered at -64,-1088 and 64,-1088), which also reveals a Desert to the northeast:
Also, I mined 393 coal and 144 iron while digging a rail tunnel to the east, which comes out to about 19% and 7% of the blocks I removed from the tunnel itself (not including ores extracted from the walls), as an illustration of how effective tunnel / branch mining is, certainly not as efficient as caving in terms of total blocks removed or ores gathered over time, but over 10 times more efficient than if you simply dug out a large area (as they are about 1% and 0.6% of blocks below sea level. The Wiki has an article that claims that diamond ore can be as much as as 1.7% of the blocks removed from a tunnel, up from an overall concentration of about 0.1% (the data they use is from 2012 so it really only applies to versions before 1.8, though their conclusions are still valid), which I've always thought was too high; I do get close to the figure for a spacing of 3 blocks between tunnels, about 0.9%):
Prior to this I finished exploring the remaining area to the northeast of 0,0, out to around 512 blocks, most of which had more normal cave generation (variations of vanilla caves), including a "vertical cave system" (caves spiraling/sloping up/down) but I did find a larger cave with a volume of about 114,000 blocks, the 10th cave reaching 100,000, and a large "large cave cave system" which merged with several smaller large caves for a total volume of around 210,000 blocks (such a volume would be exceptional when only considering the large cave cave system by itself, which was around 138,000 blocks, typical of the larger ones found within a 3072x3072 block area, while their range within a 104 million chunk area was 46-204,000, averaging about 120,000):
This is centered over the large cave cave system and associated large caves:
The large cave:
440 24 -248 (type: 2, length: 385, width: 40, volume: 114556)
The large cave cave system and associated large caves:
I also found a peak in the Mountainous Desert to the east of spawn which went up to y=144, with a slightly shorter peak nearby, the second time I've found a biome with terrain reaching y=128 or more (the limit in vanilla before 1.7) in this world; terrain has generally been less extreme compared to my previous world, perhaps because most of the area has been in a region of lower biome height variation (which isn't really lower compared to TMCWv4 and before, the heights of biomes are modified with a large-scale noise field so they can get higher than their base values, but not lower), it may also simply be due to the biomes, in TMCWv5 I found Savanna Mountains and Forest Mountains right next to each other just to the northeast of spawn and the majority of high peaks are such biomes, or other "mountainous" biomes but on rarer occasions even "normal" biomes (not even "hills") can reach or exceed y=128:
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumThat multicolored mushroom forest calls out for a fantasy or postmodern build.
Good slope on the last mountain. Did you design for that or were you lucky?
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These are the first views I got of the ravine from underground, as well as showing how far I went while going to the other end, and a view of the bottom after I'd went around, pouring water down onto the lava, which still left a very wide strip of lava in the middle, and another of dozens of mobs that spawned after I'd started putting out the rest but hadn't placed any torches there:
These were taken after I finished exploring it, with the render distance increased:
I also found a desert temple and a village, both for the second time in this world, near the eastern end of the ravine, I saw the desert temple first, then saw the village after I came out of it:
The desert temple was one of the simpler configurations, with no spawners in the upper part and no pressure plate, which might lead to somebody playing on TMCW for the first time without knowing anything to get a big surprise - since the lack of a pressure plate means the chests are trapped chests with additional TNT placed under them (13 total), which can also be combined with a pressure plate:
A view of the desert temple and village, and the village itself, I made a special trip back to my main base after this to get an iron pickaxe and diamond shovel for mining sand/sandstone to build a wall around the village and fix it up (I use iron pickaxes taken from mineshafts and enchanted/combined up to Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III for non-caving work):
Another view with the giant ravine in the foreground; the desert temple is also near where I made a "return point", marked by the pillar, to return to later on:
There was also a fossil exposed in a smaller ravine near the village:
I found another instance of terrain reaching y=128 in a Winter Forest to the west of the ravine; whether such terrain has smooth slopes is up to luck as terrain is just the vanilla height map, with its tendency to generate fantastical formations that were so loved by many prior to Beta 1.8 ("Did the Terrain Become BORING?"; Beta 1.8 pretty much restricted it to Extreme Hills, and the only place where I intentionally make high terrain smoother is in Rocky Mountains, otherwise only changes in the "base height" of biomes are smoothed out, e.g. from Savanna to Savanna Plateau; conversely, I mix in a more extreme noise field in "extreme mountains" biomes):
Also, if you are wondering how the ravine compares, it is close to the largest ravine you can expect to find within 1536 blocks of the origin, even in TMCWv5, when the largest was around 475,000 blocks, while the largest I found in that version was around 400,000, itself close to the largest in TMCWv4 (none of these versions / worlds are directly comparable since in TMCWv4 the maximum size was a length of 336 and width of 39, increased to 368 / 50 in TMCWv5 and 384 / 50 in TMCWv5.10, and the largest sizes of ravine became more common over that period). The seed "-1487380866319738157" has the largest known ravine in TMCWv5.10, with a volume of 650,000 blocks, and up to 708,000 depending on ground depth; compared to caves the size is much more closely related to the length / width, with the altitude having a larger impact (even larger ravines can possibly exist if their altitude is over y=40 and they are in a biome with elevated terrain, like Savanna Plateau or Rocky Mountains):
Here is a map of larger caves and ravines, as well as larger mineshafts and strongholds, within 1536 blocks; the largest single cave has a volume of 820,000 blocks and merges with a smaller cave for a total volume of 950,000 blocks (plus some more above sea level):
Also, this is a video somebody uploaded where they fly through a couple large ravines, giving a better view of just how large they are (46 seconds of Creative flight is about 500 blocks traveled):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumHow does the size of the ravine compare to the largest vanilla can generate?
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Even in modern versions they are tiny by comparison, with only a slight increase in size:
For comparison, prior to 1.18 they range from 85-112 blocks long, 3-15 blocks wide, and 9-45 blocks deep and the largest known ravine has a volume of about 32,000 blocks, so the largest ravines in TMCW get over 20 times larger (likewise, the largest known single cave in vanilla 1.6.4 (unchanged up to 1.17; the Wiki also indicates there were only very minor changes to "old caves" in 1.18) has a volume of about 26,000 blocks, which is about 50 times smaller than the largest known cave in TMCW).
This shows the largest known caves and ravines in TMCWv5 and vanilla 1.6.4, via a large search using my "CaveFinder" tool:
I found a slightly larger ravine in vanilla since I made this graphic, but pretty much identical in appearance since their width/length can't get any larger, the main variable is their altitude with most such ravines being too deep so the bottom cuts off at lava level (their altitude distribution favors lower altitudes; vanilla has a total of 52 layers between lava and sea level, compared to a maximum depth of 45 blocks, which may be exceeded along the length of a ravine since they may have a slight vertical curvature, similar to but less than caves. The largest ravines in TMCW will always cut off at lava level, as well as sea level, unless I modify my search tool to consider deeper terrain, in which case ravines much larger than 708,000 may be found, but whether they actually fully generate in a real world depends on the terrain (of course, the inverse may also be true, if an ocean exists over their location).
Actually, I just checked out a few seeds I'd listed as having one of the largest ravines and found one with a volume of 724,000 when considering a deeper underground - and the terrain is deep enough to fully accommodate it, with the top of the ravine at y=74, making this the true largest known ravine in TMCW (otherwise I use the volume below sea level since this will be pretty much guaranteed for anything not in an ocean biome):
The top of the ravine is one more than listed (at my feet):
These were the second and third largest ravines; in both cases the average ground level was around y=70, or 7 blocks deeper than sea level, giving a slightly lower volume, but still more than what I normally analyze (up to sea level):
Also, this is a comparison of the seeds with the largest known ravines in vanilla and TMCW, illustrating just how different things are, with hundreds of caves and ravines larger than anything that can possibly exist in vanilla, and these numbers will be even higher with a greater ground depth (this doesn't matter as much for vanilla since the largest caves and ravines can fit entirely between lava and sea levels so increasing it won't reveal anything larger):
TMCW, which also shows the much greater number of underground features (circular rooms are not listed in vanilla since they are too small to really be notable, only up to 17 blocks in diameter; strongholds are not listed because they require the biome map, while TMCW places them independent of biomes):
Seed is -1487380866319738157 Center is 0, 0 and radius is 3072 blocks (from -3072, -3072 to 3071, 3071); area is 147456 chunks 20 colossal cave systems 59 circular room cave systems 58 ravine cave systems 62 vertical cave systems 56 maze cave systems 47 CRM combination cave systems 50 RZV combination cave systems 52 random cave systems 104 ribbed tunnel cave systems 133 zigzag cave systems 78 spiral cave systems 65 large cave cave systems 69 dense cave systems (total size >= 40) 13 giant cave regions 28 network cave regions 1413 total large caves 366 large caves >= 25000 186 large caves >= 50000 132 large caves >= 100000 64 large caves >= 200000 41 large caves >= 300000 21 large caves >= 400000 11 large caves >= 500000 3 large caves >= 600000 2 large caves >= 700000 1 large caves >= 800000 41 large cave clusters >= 25000 5 large cave clusters >= 50000 2618 total ravines 446 large ravines >= 25000 203 large ravines >= 50000 100 large ravines >= 100000 55 large ravines >= 200000 26 large ravines >= 300000 10 large ravines >= 400000 4 large ravines >= 500000 1 large ravines >= 600000 264 large circular rooms (width >= 34) 145 toroidal caves 871 mineshafts 116 large mineshafts (length >= 2000) 18 strongholds Locations of largest caves by volume: 1. -1016 29 152 (type: 4, length: 496, width: 50, volume: 819924) 2. 2824 26 -1896 (type: 4, length: 502, width: 54, volume: 733525) 3. -504 29 2968 (type: 4, length: 460, width: 57, volume: 677534) 4. 1288 26 408 (type: 4, length: 486, width: 45, volume: 599666) 5. 904 28 2072 (type: 4, length: 446, width: 48, volume: 599339) 6. -2424 28 1304 (type: 4, length: 484, width: 52, volume: 568413) 7. -2296 34 2968 (type: 4, length: 504, width: 49, volume: 561449) 8. 2184 27 -2024 (type: 4, length: 468, width: 44, volume: 556894) 9. -376 37 -1768 (type: 4, length: 438, width: 48, volume: 550337) 10. 2056 32 -2152 (type: 4, length: 422, width: 48, volume: 531937) Locations of largest ravines by volume: 1. 904 34 920 (type: 4, length: 384, width: 50, depth: 59, volume: 653496) 2. 2056 35 1816 (type: 4, length: 384, width: 46, depth: 59, volume: 569464) 3. -1912 40 2968 (type: 4, length: 364, width: 48, depth: 59, volume: 530000) 4. -3064 42 2840 (type: 4, length: 366, width: 46, depth: 59, volume: 514805) 5. -3064 24 2328 (type: 4, length: 364, width: 43, depth: 59, volume: 464233) 6. 1928 27 1688 (type: 4, length: 338, width: 44, depth: 59, volume: 457820) 7. -1528 40 -3048 (type: 4, length: 344, width: 43, depth: 59, volume: 445513) 8. -1528 30 280 (type: 4, length: 346, width: 41, depth: 59, volume: 441681) 9. -1144 34 -616 (type: 3, length: 358, width: 38, depth: 59, volume: 427230) 10. -2168 27 -1128 (type: 4, length: 340, width: 41, depth: 59, volume: 419907) Locations of largest circular rooms by volume: 1. -3001 30 -2776 (width: 71, volume: 88724) 2. -1770 34 -215 (width: 71, volume: 87913) 3. -730 19 1904 (width: 71, volume: 86933) 4. -147 14 1888 (width: 71, volume: 84802) 5. 1041 34 2052 (width: 69, volume: 82491) 6. -2836 13 1503 (width: 71, volume: 81688) 7. 886 28 335 (width: 67, volume: 75579) 8. 2211 10 -997 (width: 71, volume: 72668) 9. -1269 12 -1765 (width: 65, volume: 64590) 10. 629 21 -173 (width: 63, volume: 63342) Locations of abandoned mineshafts by corridor length: 1. -1800 27 1576 (span: 11, size: 465, length: 4945) 2. 680 29 1816 (span: 11, size: 450, length: 4890) 3. -1576 22 -888 (span: 11, size: 433, length: 4740) 4. 1112 25 -1784 (span: 11, size: 422, length: 4715) 5. -904 19 2232 (span: 10, size: 357, length: 4215) 6. 2136 25 2808 (span: 11, size: 395, length: 4110) 7. -1800 24 2696 (span: 11, size: 363, length: 4060) 8. 2216 33 1128 (span: 11, size: 359, length: 3970) 9. 2216 15 -2696 (span: 11, size: 374, length: 3930) 10. -2712 32 -8 (span: 11, size: 343, length: 3910)Interestingly, Bedrock Edition apparently has ravines that can get much larger, and since long before 1.18, listed as "mega ravines" on ChunkBase, but they still appear to be much smaller (ChunkBase lists their "width" incorrectly, they seem to be reporting a value which is actually the "radius variance", where the actual radius varies from 1.5 to 1.5+ variance and width is twice that; thus, the width of 10.5 for the highlighted ravine corresponds to a real width of 24, and a depth of 72 with the fixed height ratio of 3 in vanilla, at least before 1.18. Length is not shown):
https://www.chunkbase.com/apps/seed-map#seed=-123775873255737467&platform=bedrock_1_19&dimension=overworld&x=2545&z=-360&zoom=0.788
Otherwise, the closest anything else comes to TMCW is an old mod from 1.5.2 called "Crazy Ravines (and Caves)", from which I'd actually gotten inspiration / source code examples from, it still only makes them wider, not longer, and affects all ravines, while TMCW has a wide range of shapes and sizes, including some smaller than vanilla, and other cave variants derived from ravines:
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/minecraft-mods/1284860-1-5-2-crazy-ravines-and-caves-mod
These are maps of all ravines within +/- 1536 blocks in the seeds with the largest ravine in vanilla and TMCW; even the smaller "vanilla" ravines are more varied than in vanilla, with more curvature and/or an increased width-height ratio:
TMCW:
This Imgur album contains more images comparing vanilla 1.6, 1.7, and TMCW:
https://imgur.com/a/underground-comparison-between-vanilla-tmcw-UOu5YO1
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?