GeoTectonic

Minecraft 1.20.1 to 1.21.1: Fabric on every version, Forge on 1.20.1 to 1.21 and NeoForge from 1.20.4.

⭐ What It Does

• The deep is solid again - vanilla cave entrances, noodle caves, cheese voids, ravines and the extra underground carvers are all suppressed, so rock is rock except where GeoTectonic cuts it.
• Eight caves worth finding, each placed by biome and depth:
  • Tectonic Fracture - a narrow surface crack that descends toward bedrock, widening and branching. Every overworld biome.
  • Karst Chamber - biomes with a temperate or warm base temperature, never snowy land, desert, savanna or badlands. A vaulted hub with satellite rooms, stalactites, calcite veins and a floor pool you can switch off.
  • Cenote - biomes with a mild or warm base temperature, such as plains, forests and jungles, never snowy land, desert, savanna or badlands. A narrowing shaft opens into a chamber flooded to its middle, lit by glow berries.
  • Erosion Cave - a winding passage starting between Y 35 and 60 and slowly descending, with a flowing channel, moss, hanging roots and clay.
  • Sea Cave - a passage that starts just below sea level and runs 30 to 67 blocks sideways into a chamber, flooded up to two blocks below its ceiling.
  • Crystal Vein - a straight gallery at deepslate depth on a mineral fault: heavy iron, gold, copper and redstone, amethyst along its walls, a diamond alcove at one end and a sealed cave-in at the other.
  • Volcanic Vent - a hydrothermal chamber with a magma floor, basalt ceiling, rising chimney, central lava source and soul fire on the walls.
  • Dry Passage - a long, wide, winding tunnel deep underground, centered between Y -20 and 10 and carved dry, its walls showing a little amethyst and the odd ore. Every overworld biome.
• Tune every one of them - each cave type has its own per-chunk spawn chance and an on or off switch, in a settings screen or the config file.
• Know when you find one - an optional discovery subtitle and ambient loop each time you enter a cave, and an advancement the first time you find each type, each toggleable on its own.
• Four commands for finding and checking - /geotectonic find, list, stats and help, at operator level 4.
• It knows about Tectonic - bundled overrides fill Tectonic's caves, noodle caves and lava tunnels with rock and keep its underground rivers, each one switchable.
• And about Terralith and YUNG's Better Caves - bundled overrides fill their caves with rock too, each with its own switch.

📋 Requirements

• Minecraft 1.20.1, 1.20.2, 1.20.3, 1.20.4, 1.20.5, 1.20.6, 1.21 or 1.21.1 on Fabric, with Fabric API.
• Minecraft 1.20.1, 1.20.2, 1.20.3, 1.20.4, 1.20.6 or 1.21 on Forge, including the NeoForge 1.20.1 fork.
• Minecraft 1.20.4, 1.20.5, 1.20.6, 1.21 or 1.21.1 on NeoForge.
• Mod Menu on Fabric, only to open the settings screen.

📥 Installation

1. Install your loader, plus Fabric API if you are on Fabric.
2. Install with the CurseForge app, or download the jar for your version and loader into your mods folder.
3. Create a world and dig down, or run /geotectonic find fracture to be taken to the nearest one.

⚙️ Configuration

GeoTectonic writes config/geotectonic.toml on first launch:

• [cave_generation] holds a per-chunk spawn probability and an on or off switch for each of the eight cave types, plus switches for the Karst pool, the erosion stream and the volcanic lava.
• [aquifers] holds aquifers_enabled, on by default. Off keeps vanilla aquifers from filling caves with water and lava, including the lava lakes deep underground.
• Vanilla springs and small lakes are not aquifers, so they stay with aquifers_enabled off. Cenotes and sea caves always hold water, so turn those two types off for dry caves.
• [tectonic] holds one switch each for filling Tectonic's caves, noodle caves, lava tunnels and underground rivers with rock; rivers are kept unless you turn on suppress_underground_rivers.
• [terralith] and [yungs_better_caves] each hold one switch, suppress_caves, for filling that mod's caves with rock.
• [client] holds the three toggles for the discovery subtitle, the advancement and the ambient sound.
• [updates] holds check_for_updates, on by default; turn it off to skip the update check.
• The update check reads https://alkeari.com/updates/geotectonic.json once per game start and sends nothing else; only when a newer version is out for your Minecraft version and loader does it say so in chat with a link.

Change them in the settings screen, opened from Mod Menu on Fabric or the Config button in the mod list on Forge and NeoForge, or in the file. A change in the screen applies at once and a change to the file at the next game start; the [tectonic], [terralith] and [yungs_better_caves] switches take effect at the next game start. Either way a change applies only to chunks generated afterwards.

🖥️ Compatibility

• Existing worlds. Chunks generated before you added the mod keep their vanilla caves; only new chunks get GeoTectonic's. Expect a visible seam at the edge of explored terrain.
• Client or server. It changes world generation, so it goes on the server and on every client.
• The Nether changes too. Its vanilla carver is suppressed the same way, so Nether terrain loses its carved tunnels.
• Vanilla mineshafts, surface terrain, biomes, structures and ore distribution are untouched.
• Tectonic, Terralith and YUNG's Better Caves are handled by bundled overrides that put GeoTectonic's rock back where each would carve its own caves.
• No override is bundled for any other terrain-generation mod, so another one that carves the overworld may conflict.

🐛 Support

• Leave a comment on this page.
• Include your Minecraft version, your loader and its version, the mod version, and your other mods.
• The settings, messages and cave names come in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Simplified Chinese; every language but English is machine translated.
• To fix a translation or add a language, download the translation kit from this mod's Nexus Mods page, edit your language's file, and post it there.

📄 License

License terms are in the Alkeari License Agreement.

Every release, its changes and how to send feedback are on the project page at alkeari.com/projects/geotectonic.

If you want to see how it works, you can read the source code at github.com/Alkeari/GeoTectonic-PUBLIC.

💛 Donate

If you would like to donate, you can do so on Ko-fi, Patreon, PayPal, Stripe or GitHub Sponsors.