GeoStrata

Overview

GeoStrata is a small mod to diversify underground world generation, making mining and caves more interesting, while simultaneously adding many aesthetic and functional building materials.
Its basic premise is that it adds a bunch of real-world rock types which overwrite 10-20% of vanilla stone. These rocks generate at realistic depths, and in realistic biomes (for example, shale and limestone, being silt/mud rocks, spawn more often in oceans, and cannot spawn in deserts). These stones cannot overwrite ores, nor do they block ores from spawning.
GeoStrata cobble can be used as vanilla cobble for use in properly-coded recipes.

Not all rocks are created equal; some are harder to mine and require better pickaxes. However, these ones also have greater blast resistances, with granite and hornfel being the hardest to destroy. Soft rock like shale is the most easily destroyed.

GeoStrata rock behaves like vanilla stone with pickaxes - it generates as smooth stone, drops cobblestone (unless using silk touch), can be smelted into smooth, and smooth can be crafted into bricks. By combining smooth and bricks in various forms, a large variety of other designs and patterns are available, granting hundreds of permutations to choose from.

Rock Types

Granite
Basalt
Marble
Limestone
Shale
Sandstone
Pumice
Slate
Gneiss
Peridotite
Quartz
Granulite
Hornfel
Migmatite
Schist
Onyx
Opal

Generation Pattern

Rock generation can occur in one of several patterns, selectable via the config.

Legacy

This is the default option, and is basically 'Vanilla'; it uses the "ore plops" generator that vanilla and almost all mods use for their ores. This results in roughly elliptical blobs of rock.

Banded

Banded generation is characterized by thin to moderate-thickness layers of rock, with the type strongly determined by depth. This option requires specifying the base Y levels of each of the rock types' bands; if not specified they will use the default y level of the vanilla generation (about 75% the way upwards of their vertical range), resulting in lots of rock overwriting each other and many Y levels being vanilla stone, which is not desirable.

Bands at several Y levels using the above defaults.

Cross-sections of the same settings.

Simplex

Simplex generation uses a 3D noise function to generate rock, resulting in a much more 'continuous' 'weblike' structure. Each rock type has its own distinct 'web', which will intersect in complex ways.

Vents

GeoStrata also generates vents in the floors of caves, including under bodies of liquid. Vents are normally dormant, but occasionally fire for a few seconds, emitting sound, particles, and giving various effects.

Vents come in several types, some of which are dangerous:

Steam vents emit white smoke particles and deal 0.5 hearts of damage per second to mobs standing on them
Smoke vents emit black smoke and deal no damage, but do prevent air replenishment
Fire vents emit flames and light mobs on top of them on fire, plus dealing 1 heart of damage per second
Lava vents emit lava particles and deal 4 hearts of damage per second, in addition to lighting mobs and blocks on fire
Gas vents emit potion particles and deal an area-of-effect poison potion effect
Water vents can hurt endermen, extinguish burning entities, and accelerate crop growth
Cryo vents can freeze their surroundings
Ender vents (end only), cause random teleportations in a small area
Pyro vents (nether only) are like superpowerful fire and lava vents - they deal severe fire damage and can ignite large areas.

All vents generate naturally in stone/netherrack/etc, with fire-type and gas vents occurring deeper underground. All vents also respond to redstone, and will trigger when given a positive edge. They can only be harvested with Silk Touch.

Sample vents.

Other Blocks

Some vanilla blocks can also be crafted into brick variants, but keeping their original properties, like redstone, glowstone, and obsidian. GeoStrata also adds a few other block types, including formations of glowing crystals, semimolten "lava rock" near deep lava, spires of crystal in the ocean, beautiful (and highly tradeable) Void Opals floating in the void of the End, and the rare but valuable "flux crystals", which can act as a growable battery.

There is also a "partial bounds block", which can have its six sides set to any position with in the block and be coated with any block, allowing for freeform geometry with any appearance.

Four glowing crystal spires, showing two of four colors.

Lava rock around deep lava caves.

Some ocean crystals.

Void opals.

A flux crystal grown to accommodate a huge quantity of energy.

Special Blocks And Biomes

Geostrata adds two special kinds of block, both of which - optionally - will create small patches of special biomes around them when they generate.

The first is creepvine, a kelplike underwater plant which will spawn at low to moderate depths (6-18 blocks). This plant has two variants, a 'basic' version and a 'fertile' version. Fertile ones only spawn in the deeper range of the allowable depths, and contain clusters of glowing yellow seed pods around the middle of the plant. These seed pods can be harvested and used as crafting/industrial ingredients, and will slowly regrow.

If enabled, creepvine will spawn in small "Kelp Forest" biome patches, which have minimal functional difference from ocean but are aesthetically more fitting.

A kelp forest, above and below water.

The second block type is actually two variant of vanilla packed ice, a snowy white version and a smooth slightly-luminous glacial blue version. These variants spawn in the form of large conical structures that can appear in clusters in Ice Plains biomes. Like with creepvine, these have an optional minibiome surrounding them, the Arctic Spires. This biome is bitterly cold, so much so that it can be dangerous to be outside without shelter or another source of heat. Icy ore veins can also be found scattered among the spires' bases.

Arctic Spires, day and night.

Configuration Settings

This mod contains several config options to modify values and behaviors - such as for balance or server safety concerns, or simply personal taste - to your preferences. Note that several settings may have bounds imposed on their values, either logically or explicitly; these can usually be seen in the actual settings files or ingame. These are listed in order found in the source code, which is generally the order in which they were added; They may be present in a different order ingame or in the configuration files.
The settings for the mod, when installed, can be found in the 'config/Reika' subfolder of the MC instance.

Generate Rock in the Twilight Forest

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:

true

Generate Rock in Other Dimensions

Type: boolean
Current Default Value:

true