Large Ore Veins

This mod replaces Minecraft's default ore generation with massive, highly customisable ore veins. This encourages the player to explore the world and also makes mining a bit more difficult. You can put the mod in an existing world, just travel to new chunks for the new veins to generate. The mod also works when installed only on the server side, however this means you won't get the JEI integration. Available for Neoforge 1.21.1.

This mod is in BETA and is still being ACTIVELY DEVELOPED! Make backups and report any bugs here.

Gameplay

Ore veins are now much more difficult to find. Your new best mining strategy is to explore caves and hope to stumble across a vein, or use tools from other mods that can help you find ores quickly.

Certain ores are more common in certain biomes:

• Coal: oceans
• Copper: plains
• Diamond: jungle
• Emerald: mountains
• Iron: forests
• Lapis: deserts
• Gold: badlands
• Redstone: swamps

Notes

• Ancient debris still generates in the normal way. I thought massive ancient debris veins were a bit too overpowered.
• JEI is supported automatically! Click on ores in JEI to see information about the veins they generate in.
• You can create custom veins for your modpack that can generate in any vanilla or modded dimension.
• You can change the size, shape, rarity, Y level, biome rarities and more of any of the default veins added by this mod, or remove one altogether.

Configuration guide

Large Ore Veins uses datapacks for customisation. If you are making a modpack that uses KubeJS, you can use the kubejs/data folder for your vein configurations.

In your datapack, you should put all your vein configuration files in one of the following folders:

• For adding new veins: data/<your namespace>/ore_veins
• For editing existing veins: data/largeoreveins/ore_veins

Here is an example of an ore vein configuration file:

{
  "id": "largeoreveins:iron_vein",
  "dimension": "minecraft:overworld",
  "replace_blocks": {
    "minecraft:stone": "minecraft:iron_ore",
    "minecraft:deepslate": "minecraft:deepslate_iron_ore",
    "minecraft:andesite": "minecraft:iron_ore",
    "minecraft:diorite": "minecraft:iron_ore",
    "minecraft:granite": "minecraft:iron_ore",
    "minecraft:tuff": "minecraft:deepslate_iron_ore"
  },
  "rare_block": "minecraft:raw_iron_block",
  "rare_block_chance": 0.05,
  "maxY": 63,
  "minY": -20,
  "size": 35,
  "type": "VEIN",
  "default_weight": 5,
  "biome_weights": {
    "#c:is_forest": 8
  },
  "enabled": true
}

• id: A unique identifier for your vein. For custom veins, put this under your mod(pack)'s namespace, such as myawesomemod:zinc_vein.
• dimension: The dimension to generate your vein in. This can be any vanilla or modded dimension (although I cannot guarantee that all modded dimensions are compatible).
• replace_blocks: Map stone blocks to ore blocks. In the example, the vein will generate iron ore in place of stone and deepslate iron ore in place of deepslate.
• rare_block (optional): Sometimes replaces ores with another block. This can be used to generate raw ore blocks in veins.
• rare_block_chance (optional, default = 0.05): Chance of replacing each ore with rare_block.
• maxY (optional, default = 60): The highest Y value where your vein will generate.
• minY (optional, default = 0): The lowest Y value where your vein will generate.
• size (optional, default = 25): The 'radius' of the vein. The effect this has depends on the vein type.
• type (optional, default = BLOB): Choose between BLOB, VEIN and PLATE:
  • BLOB is a noisy sphere shape.
  • VEIN is a long lumpy shape that looks similar to a scaled up version of vanilla ore veins.
  • PLATE is a thin, flat circular shape.
• default_weight (optional, default = 1): The default weight in any biome. A higher number makes the vein more common.
• biome_weights (optional): Use this to change the weight only in specific biomes. For example, gold veins have a higher weight in badlands biomes. Note that this setting may not work for cave biomes.
• enabled (optional, default = true): Set this to false to disable generation of the vein.

To modify an existing vein, place the vein in data/largeoreveins/ore_veins (not your own namespace) and make sure the id field matches the existing vein.

Another thing to note: If you want your vein's name to be translated when viewed in JEI, add it to your language file (often en_us.json).

"ore_vein.myawesomemod.zinc_vein": "Zinc Vein"

You can view more examples here.

FAQ

Q: Can I use this in a modpack?

A: Yes, of course. Just give credit in some way, like with a link to the mod page.

Q: Can you port this to [some version]/[some modloader]?

A: This mod was primarily made for one of my own modpacks, which is why I'm currently not planning on porting it to anything other than Neoforge 1.21.1. The mod is quite simple and open source, however, so feel free to fork it and port it yourself if you'd like (just make sure to follow the license).

Q: How can I make my ore veins only spawn in cave biomes like the deep dark?

A: Cave biomes are unlikely to work as fields in biome_weights due to how biomes for veins are sampled. I might look into a solution in the future.