Only a couple days after I saw a zombie in full diamond armor I saw a skeleton in full diamond armor, along with two zombies in full iron armor at the same time - mobs are really crazy on this version of the game (this is nothing new in TMCW though - I even saw two mobs in diamond armor in the same day before):
This is probably not as crazy as what I found a while later - a triple dungeon, the first time that I've ever found one:
Technically, this is a double dungeon because one of the dungeons was a "double dungeon", a variant which was 2 spawners, each spawning a different mob, and 2-3 chests and can be recognized by the chiseled stone bricks in the floor; either way, I've never found a triple spawner dungeon before. I also found a total of 7 dungeons, including 6 normal dungeons and one double dungeon, likely an all-time record for one day. Two of the other dungeons were also creeper dungeons, for a total of 3 in one day (one of the spawners in the triple dungeon was a creeper spawner):
I also found a total of 14 different things today, in large part because I found a network cave region, which covers an area about 300x300 blocks, or 1/10 of a level 3 map, with some caves extending even further (as shown on this map, which is 25x25 chunks or 400x400 blocks), so I covered a huge area in a single day, around 4 times what I'd normally cover; the cave clusters (small clusters of several caves of various non-vanilla types) are associated with the network cave region (they also generate less commonly elsewhere), which also allow mineshafts and large caves and ravines to generate within them, unlike other types of special cave systems (all types exclude normal caves):
Found on 6/30:
6 normal dungeons
1 circular room cave cluster
1 double dungeon (combined with a normal dungeon for a triple dungeon)
1 maze cave cluster
1 mineshaft
1 network cave region
1 ravine cave cluster
1 vertical cave cluster
1 witch hut
(14 individual structures/caves)
Structures/caves found (by number):
24 normal dungeons
7 ravines
6 mineshafts
2 large caves (larger than vanilla, not including giant caves)
1 circular room cave cluster
1 double dungeon (combined with a normal dungeon for 3 spawners)
1 fossil
1 large cave system (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
1 maze cave cluster
1 network cave region
1 ravine cave cluster
1 vertical cave cluster
1 witch hut
(48 individual structures/caves)
Notably, I've been finding an average of 3.57 dungeons per day over the past week, more than double the long-term average of 1.67 that I found the first time I played on this world, part of this may be due to the lower density of caves in the area I've been exploring (dungeons rarely generate in the interiors of denser cave systems since there isn't enough space). I even double-checked the code just to make sure that I didn't mess anything up (I replaced the hard-coded dungeon count of 8 with a variable so you can change their frequency in Superflat), though I didn't see anything out of the ordinary while testing (the exact same dungeons found in the original world generated near spawn).
Here is an animation of what I've explored over the past 7 days, you can see just how much ground I covered on the last day:
Also, I've decided to try something a bit different for a while; I recently made a rendering of my first world and I noticed that I've nearly fully explored the northwestern corner of the continent (on the far left) and while I've stopped playing on it for the time being this makes me want to finish exploring that area, so I've decided to alternately play on both worlds until then, so I won't be posting as much here (still a lot more often than for my first world though):
I've likely set a new all-time record for the most cave spiders ever killed in a single day, 173, out of a total of 646 mobs killed (not a record), meaning that more than one in four mobs was a cave spider. This was largely the result of a mineshaft generating inside a large cave, with several spawners fully exposed, which spawned torrents of spiders (it doesn't help either that spawners spawn mobs much faster in TMCW):
You may also notice that I didn't find a single diamond out of 3249 ore and 4248 resources mined, not including several in minecarts; it is relatively uncommon for me to not find any, I've also not found any amethyst ore for the past few days, though I've accumulated a surplus of 8 since I started playing again, with several found in mineshaft and dungeon chests (I started with 15 in my ender chest and currently have 23, plus 46 in a chest at my main base - barely more than a stack in total despite spending more than 500 hours caving).
In an unusual occurrence part of the mineshaft caught fire shortly after I found it; normally if this is going to happen it will have gone out long before I come upon it (it takes about 3 days to explore an area the size of the loaded chunks) but I came upon the mineshaft while exploring the network cave region; it was at the end of one of the caves extending far out and I was able to cover a long distance very quickly (the tunnels in network cave regions are up to 176 blocks long, or 352 from end to end where two or more intersect a circular room):
I also came across the first clearly larger than usual ravine since I started playing again; it was about 200 blocks long, or about twice the average ravine in vanilla, which are 85-112 blocks long, with a second normal-size ravine intersecting it and reaching the surface (first screenshot):
Here are some other caves that I recently found, including the one with the mineshaft where I killed a record 173 cave spiders:
Here is a list of everything that I've found so far since I started playing on the world again, averaging more than 7 per day; as noticed before, I've been finding dungeons at a much faster rate, along with mineshafts, nearly one per day, which has helped contribute to the number of dungeons found (the size and shape of mineshaft corridors are more favorable for valid dungeon locations than caves):
Play sessions spent caving: 10
Structures/caves found (by number):
31 normal dungeons
11 ravines
9 mineshafts
4 large caves (larger than vanilla, not including giant caves)
2 large cave systems (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
2 maze cave clusters
1 circular room cave cluster
1 double dungeon (combined with a normal dungeon for 3 spawners)
1 fossil
1 large ravine (larger than vanilla)
1 network cave region
1 ravine cave cluster
1 vertical cave cluster
1 witch hut
(67 individual structures/caves)
Highest terrain found (y=128 or higher, highest peak in an instance of a biome):
145 (Flower Forest)
134 (Mountainous Desert Hills)
Other:
1 zombie in diamond armor
A rendering of the entire area that I've explored so far; I've gotten pretty close to my base (lower-left), with the record mineshaft just below the two lava lakes near the upper-right, and most of the area between these points covered by a network cave region:
I've seen your posts on the Minecraft subreddit before and I'm really impressed with all your work. Do you do anything special to make caving feel less monotonous?
I've seen your posts on the Minecraft subreddit before and I'm really impressed with all your work. Do you do anything special to make caving feel less monotonous?
The only thing I might do differently is that I only explore the world by caving, other than the immediate area around spawn and finding a stronghold to get to the End. Also, I keep seeing people claiming that caving is so boring and monotonous when I think that is hardly the case; how often you do run into hostile mobs while caving? I've averaged more than 400 per play session since I started playing on this world again (thanks to various tweaks I made, like reducing the size of the "safe zone" around the player) and many of the battles are certainly interesting, especially when you have like 50 mobs coming after you at once (which is not really much of an exaggeration, I once killed around 600 in a single giant cave), many with armor and highly enchanted gear (and that's just on Normal difficulty).
Of course, there is also that fact that from some as-still unknown reason Mojang ruined the underground in 1.7, making it much less varied, while the opposite is true of my own mods, including more variations of caves and underground structures. I've also seen people who enjoy branch-mining - if anything is monotonous it has to be that and I certainly think it is (this is one reason why amethyst ore is more common below cave lava level so it is easier to find by branch-mining, while being much rarer when caving) - but some others don't; for example, this is a comparison of one of my worlds compared to somebody else who mainly branch-mined (all the isolated areas on their world, on the right, are unexplored mineshafts as the mapping tool used only shows caves with torches in them, which I removed or replaced with redstone torches in my own worlds so they don't show up. You can see just how vast their branch-mine is from the size of the biomes - thousands of blocks long with probably hundreds of parallel tunnels).
I probably mainly differ by the fact that I don't do much else other than caving after the "end-game" (prior to then my gameplay is more or less typical for a player who prepares to reach the End, make a set of "end-game" gear, and build a proper base); my usual routine is to go caving until I run out of space, then I return to drop everything off and restock on food and wood, then immediately go back to where I left off, or to one of multiple "return points" I have marked down, with occasional interruptions to bring the resources back to my main base, as well as building the occasional secondary base and railway linking it to my other bases and walls around villages I come across. In my first world I also spend some time on gathering materials to trade for emeralds, which I use to buy diamond gear for repairs (not necessary, just like caving I do this mostly for fun).
Over the past few days I explored not just one but two giant caves, plus a third smaller cave, merged together, one with a volume of about 103000 and the other about 33000:
Locations of largest caves by volume:
1: -1016 24 -200 (length: 291, width: 37, volume: 103092)
2: -1112 30 -328 (length: 241, width: 19, volume: 32935)
These renderings of the caves were made with the CaveFinder utility, with the individual caves rendered using its debug mode which generates separate maps for large caves (mainly to verify that they were generated correctly, but I left in a command-line option to enable it). For scale, the first map is 256x256 blocks while the others are 400x400 blocks, with the checkerboard being 1 chunk per square (the circular area represents the maximum range a cave can cover):
This is another rendering with only "special" caves shown, you can see that there is actually another "large" cave which isn't shown on either of the individual cave renderings below, or listed by CaveFinder as it isn't large enough, but is shown here since it is a "special" cave (not a "normal"/"vanilla"-type cave; "large" caves are generated separately and vary greatly in size with the smallest ones indistinguishable from vanilla caves). Additional (normal) caves and a ravine around the area they intersect make them merge them together more than suggested here. The separate areas near the bottom are ravine and maze cave clusters, the latter of which connected to a ravine leading from the giant cave:
The first cave was quite eventful to explore, with a nearly overwhelming number of mobs - 1300 killed over two play sessions while exploring it and associated caves and mineshafts; here are various screenshots I took while exploring it:
Much of a mineshaft was fully exposed inside the cave, thankfully with no cave spider spawners in this part (either way, I explore such mineshafts first so mobs don't rain down from them)
A swarm of naturally spawned cave spiders, one of my additions to make things more interesting (why are they called cave spiders if they don't actually spawn in caves?)
There were multiple skeletons with Flame bows (extremely rare in vanilla/my first world, even with my change to making inhabited time start at half the maximum)
Notably, there was low-level lava exposed to the sky at one point where a ravine intersected the cave - around 60 blocks below the surface:
Here are screenshots taken after I finished exploring the cave; there were also 3 ravines intersecting it, all more or less normal size (if any were larger than usual they didn't stand out, or get detected by CaveFinder):
As if that wasn't enough, I almost immediately found yet another giant cave, not as large but still very large by vanilla standards:
These were the results of the two play sessions spent exploring the bigger cave and associated areas, totaling 7632 resource blocks mined, 6527 ore mined, 1300 mobs killed, 14 mob spawners (3 dungeon and 11 cave spider), and 13989 XP collected (quiet a lot of the XP dropped by mobs in the cave despawned or was blown up by creepers):
Notably, I've reached the large ravine next to my base, which has at least 3 other ravines intersecting it (I have not explored it yet; even though it was right next to my base I would only explore it directly if no caves happened to lead to it underground after exploring everything else around it):
Here is an animated sequence of underground renderings from the past few days (I've been saving these from every time I've played since I started playing again, currently at 17 days and 18 frames including the initial frame so far):
Aside from caves, I found more interesting terrain, this time in a Winter Forest, including a floating island at y=135:
This is the first time I saw the Winter Forest (I only got close to it by exploring caves that lead into it):
In addition, several days earlier I found a quadruple cave spider spawner, all within the same area and close enough to activate at the same time (I mined one before I saw the others):
I found one of the rarest items in the game - an enchanted golden apple, only the 4th one that I've found so far out of 247 dungeons and 15 mineshafts (I only added them to mineshafts, as well as temples, in TMCWv4.5, which removed their crafting recipe, so I only counted the mineshafts that I've since explored, with a total of 75 explored so far. Either way, this makes them considerably rarer than in current vanilla versions, where if 247 dungeons average 1.5 chests each (close to exact in TMCW, which makes 20 attempts each at placing 1 or 2 chests, compared to vanilla which only makes 3 attempts each of 2 chests, the actual number is also slightly higher since "double dungeons", which are 5% of dungeons, have 2-3 chests) and each chest has a 1/32 chance of an apple I would have found close to a dozen; for comparison, I previously calculated a 1/121 chance per chest in TMCW, which is still valid as I haven't made any changes to dungeon loot since then. Apples in mineshafts are rarer, 1/71 per chest in vanilla but each one has around 5 chests based on a count I once made, averaging about one apple for 15 mineshafts, 5 for 75, and 17 total from dungeons and mineshafts based on the vanilla chances (aka my playstyle makes things found by caving not that "rare", unless you look at the time spent on acquiring them or relative to other resources):
Also, a skeleton dropped a bow with Power III, Flame, Punch I, and Infinity, possibly the most highly enchanted item that I've ever gotten as a drop (I only picked it up as my bow was getting low on durability, which I repair with bows dropped by skeletons; otherwise, the only drops I regularly pick up are helmets, which I don't have as part of my normal armor, which have included Projectile/Blast/Fire Protection IV and/or Respiration II-III and Aqua Affinity, as well as Protection III; it is also possible to get Protection IV on a gold helmet at level 22, the maximum on Normal, while Hard goes up to 30):
I've finished exploring the large ravine next to my base, which tuned out to be one of 5 intersecting ravines (the most that I've ever found in vanilla, but in this world I found as many as 7, which intersected one of the largest ravines I've found*), including one which ran nearly straight below the largest ravine, with the bottom dropping as low as y=5, nearly enough to expose lava to the sky. The ravine itself wasn't actually as large as it appeared at first glance due to the second ravine below it but it was still about twice the size of the largest ravine possible in vanilla (a bit less due to extending above the surface); it was 212 blocks long and up to 16 blocks wide, compared to 112 and 15 for the largest vanilla ravine (a ravine of this size in TMCW will be slightly larger in terms of volume as the ends are deeper, with less of a decrease in height from the middle to the ends):
Locations of largest ravines by volume:
1: -1000 51 8 (length: 212, width: 16, depth: 33, volume: 58839)
Here is a rendering of the ravines, you can see that one is nearly aligned with the largest ravine (in green, potentially exposed to the surface; this is not from the actual world but made with the CaveFinder utility), with the others near the ends and near the middle:
Here are screenshots taken after I explored them; as mentioned above, the most notable feature is the double-stacked ravines which would be around 60-65 blocks deep if the ground was deep enough (as seen in this screenshot the large ravine, to the lower-right, extends a good amount above sea level, this is also why the depth is listed as only 33 above, as it ignores parts above sea level and below lava level):
From the bottom of the first ravine, near the western end of the large ravine:
A triple ravine intersection, with one mostly aligned with the large ravine above it:
Another view of the triple intersection, showing the deeper ravine better:
Another ravine, with a mineshaft, intersects the eastern end of the large ravine:
Several views down the length of the largest ravine:
This was taken while standing at the deepest point of the lowest ravine, showing an elevation of y=5, 58 blocks below sea level:
Also, if you thought that the caves I found earlier were big I've found a cave which is just insanely huge, possibly the largest one I've found in this world so far:
This is the first look I got of the cave, I knew it had to be large but later on I found out just how large it is:
The second look I got of the cave, from a different cave intersecting it:
Later, I came out at the area exposed to the sky in the screenshots above:
Then I saw this:
The cave is also easily visible on the map as several gray pixels to the south and east of my location (I haven't gone up to the surface to see what is up there):
If you are wondering, this shows just how large caves can get in TMCW; this one has a volume of 685000 blocks, compared to 250000 for the largest (measured) cave I've found in this world:
I've finished exploring one of the largest caves I've ever seen; I had to increase the render distance to 12 to get a clear view of the other end. The cave had a volume of about 199,000 blocks (excluding any other caves/ravines intersecting it, including a smaller large cave which added perhaps 15,000 to the volume), making it the second-largest cave I've found in terms of volume, though this one had a much larger exposed (non-lava) surface area:
Parts of the cave also went well above sea level (CaveFinder only measures the volume between layers 4-62), with the highest point at y=84 (83 at feet level), so when considering the overall volume of the cave and other caves/ravines merging with it it was likely nearly as large (the other cave only had a few narrow tunnels intersecting it):
Here are screenshots I took at 8 and 12 chunks (9-10 would probably be enough with fog turned off); the first one was taken during the day before I explored it:
Here are additional screenshots of the surface and inside:
Also, there was an interesting land formation above the cave, a continuation of the Flower Forest that has an extremely large mountain further east:
In addition, I saw a skeleton in full amethyst armor while exploring the cave, the rarest type of armor that a mob can spawn with, with a one in 5000 chance among all skeletons and zombies on Normal difficulty (there is a 1 in 1000 chance of armor being amethyst and a 20% chance of a mob having armor at maximum global difficulty, which is permanently reached after the first 100 hours (it can be reached after 75 hours during a full moon). For comparison, the chance of diamond is one in 1667 mobs, while in vanilla the chance of any armor being diamond is one in 2333 and one in 15551 when including a 15% chance of armor at maximum regional difficulty):
I also found a vertical cave system, the first "special" cave system that I've found since I started playing on this world again; these cave systems can easily be recognized by the fact their caves spiral up and down instead of being mostly horizontal; and a "large" cave which was quite long:
This is a side view of a vertical cave system in MCEdit, which I'd generated by itself for a clear view:
These are all of the same cave, which was quite long (the most common variant of large cave can get up to 336 blocks long, though this is rarely apparent as they tend to loop around on themselves, and the main tunnel branches into two smaller branches at 50-75% of the total length. The largest variant of cave has the same initial maximum length but generates in such a way as to be equivalent to a normal cave which is up to 462 blocks long; the total length of the main tunnel and all branches can also be as much as 924 blocks):
Also of note, I found two "double dungeons" in the same day, each with a 5% chance of generating in place of a normal dungeon, so this is quite rare (even rarer would be finding a "double double dungeon", with a total of 4 spawners of 2-4 types of mobs and 4-6 chests); one of them spawned zombies and endermen, the latter of which are automatically hostile if you come within 8 blocks (a new addition in TMCWv4.5 so endermen dungeons are more of a threat, not that you can't just hide under a 2 high ceiling as with any endermen, and endermen spawned from spawners are also less likely to drop ender pearls).
Here is an updated list of everything that I've found so far; I've been averaging about 6 types of caves/structures found per day, and an animation of what I explored over the past 5 days (I've continued to save frames from each day, now up to a total of 23 over 22 days):
Play sessions spent caving: 22
Structures/caves found (by number):
48 normal dungeons
32 ravines
16 mineshafts
7 large caves (larger than vanilla, not including giant caves)
5 large cave systems (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
3 double dungeons (one combined with a normal dungeon for 3 spawners)
3 large ravines (larger than vanilla)
3 maze cave clusters
2 giant caves (>50000 in volume)
2 ravine cave clusters
2 vertical cave clusters
1 circular room cave cluster
1 combination cave system
1 fossil
1 network cave region
1 vertical cave system
1 witch hut
(129 individual structures/caves)
Highest terrain found (y=128 or higher, highest peak in an instance of a biome):
145 (Flower Forest)
135 (Winter Forest Mountains)
134 (Mountainous Desert Hills)
Other:
1 skeleton in amethyst armor
1 skeleton in diamond armor
1 zombie in diamond armor
1 Notch apple
I found one of the rarest types of caves/cave systems; a colossal cave system, which is similar in size and structure as a cave system in my first world, one of the largest and densest cave systems that I know of in vanilla:
The first image is up to y=62 while the second is up to y=13, corresponding to y=20 in vanilla:
For comparison, this is the cave system in my first world, at -800, -1050 in the seed "-123775873255737467" in vanilla 1.6.4, with the image on the right being at y=20 (this is directly equivalent to y=13 in TMCW, with additional caves added near sea level to extend cave systems up higher in accordance with normal caves being 7 layers deeper):
These generate once every 8192 chunks and at least 640 blocks (circular) away from the origin, with at least one guaranteed to generate within 1056 blocks (+/-); for comparison, this is the same as strongholds and twice as common as a giant cave region, the rarest type of cave, and 2-4 times rarer than other types of special cave systems and the largest sizes of caves and ravines (individually, not combined). This is the second one that I've explored so far, more or less consistent with the area that I've explored outside of the near-origin "exclusion zone" (I've actually found three so far but didn't explore the second one, which is to the south of the easternmost part of the map to the east), and the closest one to the origin.
Interestingly, despite its size it had a lower volume than the largest cave that I've found so far, though a far greater surface area and much longer time taken to explore (around 10 hours):
There was also a large cave with a volume of about 37,000 on the southern edge of the cave system (not associated with it; colossal cave systems only have "vanilla" type caves with nothing else allowed to generate within 6 chunks of the center, though they can extend inwards):
Also, I found a fossil, the 9th one that I've found in this world, and a zombie in diamond armor while exploring it:
The cave system was also quite infested with mobs, as usual, and quite dangerous due to all the drops off of random floating platforms, often into a lava sea below (I had once incident where a skeleton with a Punch bow neatly knocked me down, with some nice parkour action following):
Here are more screenshots, some taken while exploring it (it wasn't really safe to take screenshots before completely lighting it up and getting rid of the exposed lava):
Here are screenshots of the large cave, which was part of a "large cave cluster" consisting of 2-4 large caves of various sizes (since a recent update CaveFinder will now list cave clusters separately if none of the caves have a volume of at least 25000 but the entire cluster is at least 15000 + caveCount * 5000, or 25000-35000):
Here is an animated rendering over 4 days, with the equivalent of about 3 play sessions spent exploring it (I explored a bit on several previous days, with most of it explored within 2 days):
Interestingly, I've also completed a large loop of interconnected caves extending from where I started exploring northwards to a network cave region (I might have explored the colossal cave system back then if I hadn't found it, at the time I just saw it was a new cave system and placed a marker for returning to later; as it is, I actually reached the marker from the other direction). This then lead down a long ravine, then I came across two giant caves before going southwards into the ravine complex by my base, then another giant cave further south before heading eastwards into the colossal cave system from the opposite direction I'd originally found it from:
The yellow dot on the far right is where I started exploring and the green dots are return points, where there are more caves to explore further on; the colossal cave system is circled by the red path, with paths leading into it from both sides. The dotted red line leading from a return point near the upper-left corner to the stronghold to the west (actually, northwest; west is to the lower-left in this perspective) indicates my next objective - to try to find a way to the stronghold by exploring interconnected caves underground, which probably won't follow such a direct path (this would be the first stronghold that I've found in such a manner, albeit I already found it before using eyes of ender).
In addition, this is what I brought back to my main base when I made a trip back to bring back all the resources I'd accumulated since the last trip - a total of 38460 items, including 35147 minerals:
In total, I collected the following resources and other items:
Other:
1542 rails
1112 cobwebs
453 mossy cobblestone
79 chiseled stone bricks
45 empty monster spawners
21 powered rails
11 detector rails
8 activator rails
3 golden apples
1 enchanted golden apple
38 misc items (mob drops, enchanted books, etc)
3313 total other
38460 total minerals and other items
Also, I've found myself in an interesting predicament; when I started playing I had 15 spare amethyst in my ender chest (plus 46 more in a chest at my main base) - which is the same number that I currently have, with my stockpile being used faster than I can find it over the past week or two (the colossal cave system didn't have any at all, I believe I last found one in a minecart chest), likely in part due to the much greater number of mobs I've been encountering (in part due to changes to mob spawning in TMCWv4.5), enough to destroy an entire iron/chain helmet in a single play session (these have 241 durability, the same as a chestplate; for comparison, amethyst armor has 4500 durability with each unit restoring 1124 so this means I have to repair my armor about once every 4-5 days, with my sword repaired about as often based on 1171 durability per unit and Unbreaking III).
Because of this, I decided to put Unbreaking III on my chestplate and leggings, which increases their repair cost from 35 to 42 levels; I can't put it on my boots since they already cost 44 levels and they would become too expensive (max of 49 levels for amethyst gear, 39 for everything else). However, I increased the effectiveness of Unbreaking on armor from 1.43x to 2x with Unbreaking III (this is still half the effectiveness as on tools, which get 4x the lifetime) so this reduces the frequency of repairs by 1/3 (2 vs 3 units consumed over the same time, saving one unit every 4-5 days). If this still isn't enough I can always resort to bringing the Fortune pickaxe I used to mine amethyst when branch-mining with me.
I haven't made any progress in reaching the stronghold over the past 3 days (for all I know it is isolated from the global "super network", though I know for a fact it intersects at least one ravine which I saw while exploring it; cave density is lower within a 6 chunk radius of strongholds) but I did find another giant cave and saw two zombies in diamond armor; the first point I started exploring from, which lead to a relatively small but very dense cave system, turned out to be a dead end so I went to another return point further east, which has so far lead to a couple cave systems and the most recent giant cave that I've found, as well as a mineshaft which may go further west than the first point; there is also what appears to be a quite large and dense cave system to the north, with very extensive areas of lava, but I'm not going to explore it at this time:
The giant cave was the third largest cave that I've found over the past few weeks, with a volume of about 75,000 and covering a 93x99 block area:
Also, this is what the cave looks like with the width set to the minimum, showing that they are just normal vanilla-type tunnels with a much greater length and width:
Here is another rendering but with curviness set to 0 so the tunnels are all straight, except where they branch at 90 degree angles; unlike vanilla caves they branch twice, with a total of 7 separate tunnel segments (the "length" given by CaveFinder is measured from the start of the main cave to the end of a secondary branch, which can be up to 462 blocks; the total length of tunnels is greater as there are two primary branches and four secondary branches, which can total up to 924 blocks in length in the longest caves, with the main cave 168 blocks, 2 primary branches 126 blocks each and 4 secondary branches 126 blocks each):
Of interest, this is what the cave looks like with the maximum width and length values; it had a volume of over a million blocks, even larger if it didn't cut off at lava level (only air blocks between layers 4-62 are counted), and covers a 322x314 block area (no single cave is ever likely to be this large since the tunnels are never straight for long; the largest naturally generated cave that I've found in any seed had a volume of about 685,000):
The mineshaft I found last time lead to some caves which in turn lead to a relatively wide ravine with the stronghold in it, completing my goal of reaching it by only exploring interconnected caves; I've since explored another mineshaft and more caves (leading to yet another mineshaft which I will explore next) on a path that may eventually lead back to the map to the south (which I've mostly been exploring until recently):
The top half was taken immediately after I reached the stronghold while the lower half was after I stopped playing for the day:
I also found something that I haven't found for close to a week, a vein of 5 amethyst ore, bringing the total I have in my Ender chest to 17, or a net gain of 2 over 29 days of caving (most of the amethyst I've found recently has come from dungeon and mineshaft chests, with 2 found today):
Also, this is a full-size rendering (3575x1907 pixels) of the entire area that I've explored over the past 29 days, excluding the upper-right; over this period I've explored about 3168 chunks underground, based on the difference in world size after deleting all chunks without a torch within 1 chunk below sea level (from 12477 to 15645, an average increase of 109 chunks per play session):
Here are surface and underground renderings of the trimmed world made with Minutor (I used this tool on a copy to delete unexplored chunks), both full size (2960x2736 pixels/blocks); the underground rendering was taken at layer 38 as it shows many of the largest caves better:
This is the longest animation that I've ever made of my explorations underground - 30 days:
Over the time I found/did the following:
Play sessions spent caving: 30
Structures/caves found (by number):
63 normal dungeons
42 ravines
21 mineshafts
9 large caves (larger than vanilla, not including giant caves)
8 large cave systems (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
3 double dungeons (one combined with a normal dungeon for 3 spawners)
3 giant caves (>50000 in volume)
3 large ravines (larger than vanilla)
3 maze cave clusters
2 fossils
2 ravine cave clusters
2 vertical cave clusters
1 circular room cave cluster
1 colossal cave system
1 combination cave system
1 network cave region
1 vertical cave system
1 witch hut
(167 individual structures/caves)
Highest terrain found (y=128 or higher, highest peak in an instance of a biome):
145 (Flower Forest)
135 (Winter Forest Mountains)
134 (Mountainous Desert Hills)
Other:
3 zombies in diamond armor
1 skeleton in amethyst armor
1 skeleton in diamond armor
Colossal cave system stats:
-872 280 (volume: 236737)
Mining stats:
Blocks mined over 30 sessions/116 hours spent caving:
percent /session /hour
Coal ore: 64701 68.6548 2156.70 557.77
Iron ore: 22864 24.2612 762.13 197.10
Redstone ore: 2807 2.9785 93.57 24.20
Gold ore: 2483 2.6347 82.77 21.41
Lapis ore: 965 1.0239 32.17 8.32
Diamond ore: 380 0.4032 12.67 3.28
Amethyst ore: 41 0.0435 1.37 0.35
Total ore: 94241 3141.37 812.42
Rails: 5990 199.67 51.64
Cobwebs: 3228 107.60 27.83
Moss stone: 3088 102.93 26.62
Ore+other: 106547 75.5636 3551.57 918.51
Spawners: 164 5.47 1.41
Stone mined: 26378 18.7074 879.27 227.39
Total blocks: 141003 (pickaxe) 4700.10 1215.54
144231 (+cobwebs) 4807.70 1243.37
Notes:
- Percentages for ores are relative to total ore
- Percentages for ore+other and stone are relative to total blocks mined with an amethyst pickaxe
(only used while caving. Spawners are not counted in any totals)
- Total blocks is all blocks mined with an amethyst pickaxe plus cobwebs (mined with shears)
13141 mobs killed, 438 per play session
176851 XP gained, 5895 per play session
The most notable difference with regards to what I previously did over 121 play sessions is the number of mobs killed per session, up from 351 to 438, an increase of about 25%, and the number of mineshafts and related resources; 21 mineshafts over 30 days compared to 60 over 121 days, an increase of 41%, with similar increases in the number of rails, cobwebs, moss stone (dungeons), and spawners (dungeons are not part of mineshafts but they are much more likely to generate connected to a mineshaft than the equivalent length of cave due to the size and shape of the corridors being much more ideal).
Interestingly, the amount of ore I mined per play session was nearly identical - 3141.37 vs 3141.58, with the hourly rate being slightly lower; the distribution was biased towards more coal (+1.6%) and lapis (+3.7%) and less of everything else with amethyst seeing the biggest decrease, from 1.84 to 1.37 per session, a decrease of over 25% (from counting ores exposed in caves the relative amounts can vary quite a bit over sizable areas, especially in TMCW due to the much greater variation in caves and altitude distribution). I did not find any ruby or emerald, with 153 and 92 mined respectively over the entire lifetime of the world (the latter is far rarer than what I've found in vanilla, where I've found about 1/5 as much emerald as diamond in my first world; I've only explored under a significant part of a single emerald-containing biome, Forest Mountains, plus a bit around the edges of Extreme Hills).
I've found what may be the largest complex of intersecting ravines that I've ever found - possibly ever, in any world including test worlds; I'm not sure how many there are and will have to map them after I'm done exploring the area but there have to be at least 6-7, and as many as 10, with 7 being the most that I've ever found, earlier in this world, as well as the most ever found in vanilla (my first world would have 7 intersecting ravines if several hadn't been cut off by water; there is also a seed that was claimed to have 8 but there are actually only 7, while if you use the seed for my first world in TMCWv4 there are 9 intersecting ravines near -50, -1070, as noted here). One of the ravines is also extremely large, around 300 blocks long and 20 or more blocks wide, easily the largest ravine that I've found since playing on this world again (surprisingly, most of the ravines that intersect are normal-sized; by contrast, the time I found 7 intersecting ravines most of them intersected a single massive ravine, rather than other smaller ravines).
Here are screenshots of the ravines that I've explored so far, as well as a large cave and some others:
This is the largest ravine, which is around 300 blocks long based on the distance I traveled from end to end; you can also see another ravine intersecting it near the top-center, which I haven't explored yet (or the large ravine, just along the side as shown below):
A large cave connects to the ravine:
Another smaller large cave:
The following are screenshots of the many ravines and ravine intersections that I've explored so far, with at least several more that I haven't explored yet:
Here you can see down to lava level from the bottom of a surface ravine, with two double-stacked ravines below:
The ravine on the left connects to the ravine shown above, with a deeper ravine below it:
There are three ravines visible here, the two shown in the last screenshot and a third which is partly visible above the center; there is also a fourth ravine further down the ravine that goes off the top-center edge, which connects to the giant ravine, while the lava-level ravine connects to a chain of 3 more ravines (if I've counted right there are 10 ravines; I've also found several more nearby which turned out not to intersect the main complex):
I also found a desert temple, the second one that I've found in this world; like many things in TMCW they are more interesting - this one had two skeleton spawners as well as trapped chests in addition to the normal pressure plate trap (there are 12 possible variations of spawners and traps; some may be vanilla while others have skeleton and zombie spawners, zombie spawners only, or only trapped chests):
Note that there are four extra TNT under the trapped chests, making them more dangerous than they already are if you set them off:
This was the "good" loot I took from the temple, the most valuable item by far being the single amethyst:
In addition, the same Winter Forest where I found a mountain reaching y=135 had an even taller mountain further to the northwest, reaching y=153, making it the highest terrain that I've found since playing on this world again (for perspective, the highest possible terrain is a bit under y=192, the height limit for terrain in TMCW, while if you count non-terrain features like trees they could nearly reach the world height limit if it happened in a Mega Forest, where the trees reach up to 64 blocks tall):
I also found a maze cave system as well as a ravine cave system, the first ones that I've found since playing again, which I plan to explore after I'm done with the ravines.
I once found a world with 6 to 7 ravines in a row in 1.5.2. Interesting times.
It is still entirely possible for this to happen in newer versions since there have been no changes to ravines other than their placement (which chunks have ravines); on average a ravine generates every 50 chunks (about 7x7 chunks), with each one being 85-112 blocks long (average 98 or about 6 chunks). For example, this is a map of ravines within 1280 blocks of the origin in my first world, with the locations of 5+ intersecting ravines marked (not all may actually be fully generated as this doesn't consider water, which disrupts them. However, you can exploit the fact that any seed with the same lower 48 bits will produce the same caves but a different land/ocean map, which also applies to TMCWv4):
For comparison, this is the same seed in TMCWv4, with 9 intersecting ravines near the top-center:
After 6 days I've fully explored what turned out to be 10 intersecting ravines, the most that I've ever seen in any world or seed, as mentioned before, as well as all the caves, mineshafts, and several other isolated ravines around them:
For scale, this map is 354x384 blocks or 22x24 chunks and also shows a large cave and a ravine cave system and ravine cave cluster that also intersected the ravines (other ravines and large caves within the area are not shown). The largest ravine had a volume of 118,000 blocks while the large cave was about 48,000, just below the threshold for being classified as a "giant" cave (50,000 or more in volume):
Here is an animated rendering as I explored the area over 6 play sessions; including other ravines within the area I've now found a total of 56 normal ravines and 4 large ravines, up from 42 and 3 before:
Here are more screenshots of the ravines:
This is the ravine that leads south from the middle of the large ravine:
The other ravine that intersect the large ravine, leading to the rest of the complex:
One of the ravines that I didn't explore yet as of my previous update:, which leads to yet another ravine above, which in turn leads to two more ravines that I showed before:
The last ravine that I fully explored was the large ravine, which had quite a lot of mobs packed close together near the end:
These are all of the large ravine, which is too long to be seen from end to end even on 16 chunk render distance (if it were straight, even with a bend in the middle it went out of render distance at 8 chunks):
Also, these are screenshots of the ravine cave system, which is made up of many small ravine-like caves, as well as a couple medium-sized large caves I found:
Also, this is what my map wall looks like, now with 7 out of 9 maps created and at least partly filled in in a 3x3 area around the origin (3072x3072 blocks):
Notably, I've reached the ocean for the first time in this world; if you look closely at the far upper-left, below the desert (the gray square in it is the desert temple I found), you can see a small darker blue area (compared to the other watery areas, the area to the east of the desert is a Lake biome) with beaches adjacent to it (sand next to Bushlands and and gravel next to Winter Forest).
Just so I don't have to read the entire thread...you've done all this exploration on foot? How long as it taken you to do all this?
I've played on this world for about 28.2 days over 178 sessions (156 spent caving), averaging about 3.8 hours per session, and walking a distance of about 3,597 km (about 28.7% of the distance to the old Far Lands), though at a rate of only 1.47 m/s or about a third of your walking speed of 4.3 m/s:
Also, the actual area that I've explored is still smaller than a single level 4 map, which isn't that large at all, even if explored on foot; if you walked through every one of 16384 chunks you'd be able to cover it in about 17 hours (a level 4 map is 2048x2048 blocks or 128x128 chunks so you'd have to walk 2048 blocks 128 times):
This is the result of using a tool called "Minecraft Map Auto Trim" on a copy of the world,. which is set to delete all chunks without a torch below sea level within a 1 chunk radius (I removed naturally generated torches from mineshafts and strongholds, replaced with redstone torches in TMCW). For comparison, a level 4 map is 16384 chunks:
Here is a full-size map of the trimmed world, which is 3024x2736 pixels/blocks:
A slice of the underground at layer 32; many of the larger caves and ravines that I've found can easily be seen, including the ones I most recently found, in the far upper-left corner:
Most of the distance that I've walked is a true testament to the sheer number of caves underground; in my first world (vanilla 1.6.4) I've walked about 18,691 km (50% further than to the Far Lands), enough to cross the world nearly 3,000 times (more if you consider that the average width is less):
More impressive is the amount of mining that I've done, with nearly half a million ores mined in this world alone; I've also found 273 dungeons and 83 mineshafts with a total of 613 mob spawners (plus 2 in a desert temple and 9 in a stronghold, which I added to these structures to spice things up), and crafted 157,132 torches:
These are also just two of the many worlds that I've had over more than 7 years (TMCWv4 is from before I started playing on it again):
Only a couple days after I saw a zombie in full diamond armor I saw a skeleton in full diamond armor, along with two zombies in full iron armor at the same time - mobs are really crazy on this version of the game (this is nothing new in TMCW though - I even saw two mobs in diamond armor in the same day before):
This is probably not as crazy as what I found a while later - a triple dungeon, the first time that I've ever found one:
Technically, this is a double dungeon because one of the dungeons was a "double dungeon", a variant which was 2 spawners, each spawning a different mob, and 2-3 chests and can be recognized by the chiseled stone bricks in the floor; either way, I've never found a triple spawner dungeon before. I also found a total of 7 dungeons, including 6 normal dungeons and one double dungeon, likely an all-time record for one day. Two of the other dungeons were also creeper dungeons, for a total of 3 in one day (one of the spawners in the triple dungeon was a creeper spawner):
I also found a total of 14 different things today, in large part because I found a network cave region, which covers an area about 300x300 blocks, or 1/10 of a level 3 map, with some caves extending even further (as shown on this map, which is 25x25 chunks or 400x400 blocks), so I covered a huge area in a single day, around 4 times what I'd normally cover; the cave clusters (small clusters of several caves of various non-vanilla types) are associated with the network cave region (they also generate less commonly elsewhere), which also allow mineshafts and large caves and ravines to generate within them, unlike other types of special cave systems (all types exclude normal caves):
Notably, I've been finding an average of 3.57 dungeons per day over the past week, more than double the long-term average of 1.67 that I found the first time I played on this world, part of this may be due to the lower density of caves in the area I've been exploring (dungeons rarely generate in the interiors of denser cave systems since there isn't enough space). I even double-checked the code just to make sure that I didn't mess anything up (I replaced the hard-coded dungeon count of 8 with a variable so you can change their frequency in Superflat), though I didn't see anything out of the ordinary while testing (the exact same dungeons found in the original world generated near spawn).
Here is an animation of what I've explored over the past 7 days, you can see just how much ground I covered on the last day:
Also, I've decided to try something a bit different for a while; I recently made a rendering of my first world and I noticed that I've nearly fully explored the northwestern corner of the continent (on the far left) and while I've stopped playing on it for the time being this makes me want to finish exploring that area, so I've decided to alternately play on both worlds until then, so I won't be posting as much here (still a lot more often than for my first world though):
In addition, as of today I've officially been playing on the same version for 7 years (including modded versions. The last link in my signature was originally titled "I have played the same version of Minecraft for four years", as that was true at the time of posting).
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 likely set a new all-time record for the most cave spiders ever killed in a single day, 173, out of a total of 646 mobs killed (not a record), meaning that more than one in four mobs was a cave spider. This was largely the result of a mineshaft generating inside a large cave, with several spawners fully exposed, which spawned torrents of spiders (it doesn't help either that spawners spawn mobs much faster in TMCW):
You may also notice that I didn't find a single diamond out of 3249 ore and 4248 resources mined, not including several in minecarts; it is relatively uncommon for me to not find any, I've also not found any amethyst ore for the past few days, though I've accumulated a surplus of 8 since I started playing again, with several found in mineshaft and dungeon chests (I started with 15 in my ender chest and currently have 23, plus 46 in a chest at my main base - barely more than a stack in total despite spending more than 500 hours caving).
In an unusual occurrence part of the mineshaft caught fire shortly after I found it; normally if this is going to happen it will have gone out long before I come upon it (it takes about 3 days to explore an area the size of the loaded chunks) but I came upon the mineshaft while exploring the network cave region; it was at the end of one of the caves extending far out and I was able to cover a long distance very quickly (the tunnels in network cave regions are up to 176 blocks long, or 352 from end to end where two or more intersect a circular room):
I also came across the first clearly larger than usual ravine since I started playing again; it was about 200 blocks long, or about twice the average ravine in vanilla, which are 85-112 blocks long, with a second normal-size ravine intersecting it and reaching the surface (first screenshot):
Here are some other caves that I recently found, including the one with the mineshaft where I killed a record 173 cave spiders:
Here is a list of everything that I've found so far since I started playing on the world again, averaging more than 7 per day; as noticed before, I've been finding dungeons at a much faster rate, along with mineshafts, nearly one per day, which has helped contribute to the number of dungeons found (the size and shape of mineshaft corridors are more favorable for valid dungeon locations than caves):
A rendering of the entire area that I've explored so far; I've gotten pretty close to my base (lower-left), with the record mineshaft just below the two lava lakes near the upper-right, and most of the area between these points covered by a network cave region:
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 seen your posts on the Minecraft subreddit before and I'm really impressed with all your work. Do you do anything special to make caving feel less monotonous?
The only thing I might do differently is that I only explore the world by caving, other than the immediate area around spawn and finding a stronghold to get to the End. Also, I keep seeing people claiming that caving is so boring and monotonous when I think that is hardly the case; how often you do run into hostile mobs while caving? I've averaged more than 400 per play session since I started playing on this world again (thanks to various tweaks I made, like reducing the size of the "safe zone" around the player) and many of the battles are certainly interesting, especially when you have like 50 mobs coming after you at once (which is not really much of an exaggeration, I once killed around 600 in a single giant cave), many with armor and highly enchanted gear (and that's just on Normal difficulty).
Of course, there is also that fact that from some as-still unknown reason Mojang ruined the underground in 1.7, making it much less varied, while the opposite is true of my own mods, including more variations of caves and underground structures. I've also seen people who enjoy branch-mining - if anything is monotonous it has to be that and I certainly think it is (this is one reason why amethyst ore is more common below cave lava level so it is easier to find by branch-mining, while being much rarer when caving) - but some others don't; for example, this is a comparison of one of my worlds compared to somebody else who mainly branch-mined (all the isolated areas on their world, on the right, are unexplored mineshafts as the mapping tool used only shows caves with torches in them, which I removed or replaced with redstone torches in my own worlds so they don't show up. You can see just how vast their branch-mine is from the size of the biomes - thousands of blocks long with probably hundreds of parallel tunnels).
There was also somebody else who built giant cubes/towers out of the resources they collected (unfortunately all their images expired), and another person who had placed more torches that I had in my first world (at the time), and similar replies which gave me the impression that I'm not so unique, so while not common there are others who enjoy the sort of playstyle that I have, and without the benefits of mods or older world generation either.
I probably mainly differ by the fact that I don't do much else other than caving after the "end-game" (prior to then my gameplay is more or less typical for a player who prepares to reach the End, make a set of "end-game" gear, and build a proper base); my usual routine is to go caving until I run out of space, then I return to drop everything off and restock on food and wood, then immediately go back to where I left off, or to one of multiple "return points" I have marked down, with occasional interruptions to bring the resources back to my main base, as well as building the occasional secondary base and railway linking it to my other bases and walls around villages I come across. In my first world I also spend some time on gathering materials to trade for emeralds, which I use to buy diamond gear for repairs (not necessary, just like caving I do this mostly for fun).
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?
These renderings of the caves were made with the CaveFinder utility, with the individual caves rendered using its debug mode which generates separate maps for large caves (mainly to verify that they were generated correctly, but I left in a command-line option to enable it). For scale, the first map is 256x256 blocks while the others are 400x400 blocks, with the checkerboard being 1 chunk per square (the circular area represents the maximum range a cave can cover):
This is another rendering with only "special" caves shown, you can see that there is actually another "large" cave which isn't shown on either of the individual cave renderings below, or listed by CaveFinder as it isn't large enough, but is shown here since it is a "special" cave (not a "normal"/"vanilla"-type cave; "large" caves are generated separately and vary greatly in size with the smallest ones indistinguishable from vanilla caves). Additional (normal) caves and a ravine around the area they intersect make them merge them together more than suggested here. The separate areas near the bottom are ravine and maze cave clusters, the latter of which connected to a ravine leading from the giant cave:
The first cave was quite eventful to explore, with a nearly overwhelming number of mobs - 1300 killed over two play sessions while exploring it and associated caves and mineshafts; here are various screenshots I took while exploring it:
Much of a mineshaft was fully exposed inside the cave, thankfully with no cave spider spawners in this part (either way, I explore such mineshafts first so mobs don't rain down from them)
A swarm of naturally spawned cave spiders, one of my additions to make things more interesting (why are they called cave spiders if they don't actually spawn in caves?)
There were multiple skeletons with Flame bows (extremely rare in vanilla/my first world, even with my change to making inhabited time start at half the maximum)
Notably, there was low-level lava exposed to the sky at one point where a ravine intersected the cave - around 60 blocks below the surface:
Here are screenshots taken after I finished exploring the cave; there were also 3 ravines intersecting it, all more or less normal size (if any were larger than usual they didn't stand out, or get detected by CaveFinder):
As if that wasn't enough, I almost immediately found yet another giant cave, not as large but still very large by vanilla standards:
These were the results of the two play sessions spent exploring the bigger cave and associated areas, totaling 7632 resource blocks mined, 6527 ore mined, 1300 mobs killed, 14 mob spawners (3 dungeon and 11 cave spider), and 13989 XP collected (quiet a lot of the XP dropped by mobs in the cave despawned or was blown up by creepers):
Notably, I've reached the large ravine next to my base, which has at least 3 other ravines intersecting it (I have not explored it yet; even though it was right next to my base I would only explore it directly if no caves happened to lead to it underground after exploring everything else around it):
Here is an animated sequence of underground renderings from the past few days (I've been saving these from every time I've played since I started playing again, currently at 17 days and 18 frames including the initial frame so far):
Aside from caves, I found more interesting terrain, this time in a Winter Forest, including a floating island at y=135:
In addition, several days earlier I found a quadruple cave spider spawner, all within the same area and close enough to activate at the same time (I mined one before I saw the others):
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 found one of the rarest items in the game - an enchanted golden apple, only the 4th one that I've found so far out of 247 dungeons and 15 mineshafts (I only added them to mineshafts, as well as temples, in TMCWv4.5, which removed their crafting recipe, so I only counted the mineshafts that I've since explored, with a total of 75 explored so far. Either way, this makes them considerably rarer than in current vanilla versions, where if 247 dungeons average 1.5 chests each (close to exact in TMCW, which makes 20 attempts each at placing 1 or 2 chests, compared to vanilla which only makes 3 attempts each of 2 chests, the actual number is also slightly higher since "double dungeons", which are 5% of dungeons, have 2-3 chests) and each chest has a 1/32 chance of an apple I would have found close to a dozen; for comparison, I previously calculated a 1/121 chance per chest in TMCW, which is still valid as I haven't made any changes to dungeon loot since then. Apples in mineshafts are rarer, 1/71 per chest in vanilla but each one has around 5 chests based on a count I once made, averaging about one apple for 15 mineshafts, 5 for 75, and 17 total from dungeons and mineshafts based on the vanilla chances (aka my playstyle makes things found by caving not that "rare", unless you look at the time spent on acquiring them or relative to other resources):
Also, a skeleton dropped a bow with Power III, Flame, Punch I, and Infinity, possibly the most highly enchanted item that I've ever gotten as a drop (I only picked it up as my bow was getting low on durability, which I repair with bows dropped by skeletons; otherwise, the only drops I regularly pick up are helmets, which I don't have as part of my normal armor, which have included Projectile/Blast/Fire Protection IV and/or Respiration II-III and Aqua Affinity, as well as Protection III; it is also possible to get Protection IV on a gold helmet at level 22, the maximum on Normal, while Hard goes up to 30):
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 finished exploring the large ravine next to my base, which tuned out to be one of 5 intersecting ravines (the most that I've ever found in vanilla, but in this world I found as many as 7, which intersected one of the largest ravines I've found*), including one which ran nearly straight below the largest ravine, with the bottom dropping as low as y=5, nearly enough to expose lava to the sky. The ravine itself wasn't actually as large as it appeared at first glance due to the second ravine below it but it was still about twice the size of the largest ravine possible in vanilla (a bit less due to extending above the surface); it was 212 blocks long and up to 16 blocks wide, compared to 112 and 15 for the largest vanilla ravine (a ravine of this size in TMCW will be slightly larger in terms of volume as the ends are deeper, with less of a decrease in height from the middle to the ends):
*Technically, my first world has 7 intersecting ravines but you can only get them by manipulating the seed due to water cutting some of them off.
Here is a rendering of the ravines, you can see that one is nearly aligned with the largest ravine (in green, potentially exposed to the surface; this is not from the actual world but made with the CaveFinder utility), with the others near the ends and near the middle:
Here are screenshots taken after I explored them; as mentioned above, the most notable feature is the double-stacked ravines which would be around 60-65 blocks deep if the ground was deep enough (as seen in this screenshot the large ravine, to the lower-right, extends a good amount above sea level, this is also why the depth is listed as only 33 above, as it ignores parts above sea level and below lava level):
A triple ravine intersection, with one mostly aligned with the large ravine above it:
Another view of the triple intersection, showing the deeper ravine better:
Another ravine, with a mineshaft, intersects the eastern end of the large ravine:
Several views down the length of the largest ravine:
This was taken while standing at the deepest point of the lowest ravine, showing an elevation of y=5, 58 blocks below sea level:
Also, if you thought that the caves I found earlier were big I've found a cave which is just insanely huge, possibly the largest one I've found in this world so far:
The second look I got of the cave, from a different cave intersecting it:
Later, I came out at the area exposed to the sky in the screenshots above:
Then I saw this:
The cave is also easily visible on the map as several gray pixels to the south and east of my location (I haven't gone up to the surface to see what is up there):
If you are wondering, this shows just how large caves can get in TMCW; this one has a volume of 685000 blocks, compared to 250000 for the largest (measured) cave I've found 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?
-1144 23 184 (length: 342, width: 48, volume: 199065)
Parts of the cave also went well above sea level (CaveFinder only measures the volume between layers 4-62), with the highest point at y=84 (83 at feet level), so when considering the overall volume of the cave and other caves/ravines merging with it it was likely nearly as large (the other cave only had a few narrow tunnels intersecting it):
Here are screenshots I took at 8 and 12 chunks (9-10 would probably be enough with fog turned off); the first one was taken during the day before I explored it:
Here are additional screenshots of the surface and inside:
Also, there was an interesting land formation above the cave, a continuation of the Flower Forest that has an extremely large mountain further east:
In addition, I saw a skeleton in full amethyst armor while exploring the cave, the rarest type of armor that a mob can spawn with, with a one in 5000 chance among all skeletons and zombies on Normal difficulty (there is a 1 in 1000 chance of armor being amethyst and a 20% chance of a mob having armor at maximum global difficulty, which is permanently reached after the first 100 hours (it can be reached after 75 hours during a full moon). For comparison, the chance of diamond is one in 1667 mobs, while in vanilla the chance of any armor being diamond is one in 2333 and one in 15551 when including a 15% chance of armor at maximum regional difficulty):
I also found a vertical cave system, the first "special" cave system that I've found since I started playing on this world again; these cave systems can easily be recognized by the fact their caves spiral up and down instead of being mostly horizontal; and a "large" cave which was quite long:
This is a side view of a vertical cave system in MCEdit, which I'd generated by itself for a clear view:
These are all of the same cave, which was quite long (the most common variant of large cave can get up to 336 blocks long, though this is rarely apparent as they tend to loop around on themselves, and the main tunnel branches into two smaller branches at 50-75% of the total length. The largest variant of cave has the same initial maximum length but generates in such a way as to be equivalent to a normal cave which is up to 462 blocks long; the total length of the main tunnel and all branches can also be as much as 924 blocks):
Also of note, I found two "double dungeons" in the same day, each with a 5% chance of generating in place of a normal dungeon, so this is quite rare (even rarer would be finding a "double double dungeon", with a total of 4 spawners of 2-4 types of mobs and 4-6 chests); one of them spawned zombies and endermen, the latter of which are automatically hostile if you come within 8 blocks (a new addition in TMCWv4.5 so endermen dungeons are more of a threat, not that you can't just hide under a 2 high ceiling as with any endermen, and endermen spawned from spawners are also less likely to drop ender pearls).
Here is an updated list of everything that I've found so far; I've been averaging about 6 types of caves/structures found per day, and an animation of what I explored over the past 5 days (I've continued to save frames from each day, now up to a total of 23 over 22 days):
Structures/caves found (by number):
48 normal dungeons
32 ravines
16 mineshafts
7 large caves (larger than vanilla, not including giant caves)
5 large cave systems (the sort of swiss cheese cave found prior to 1.7)
3 double dungeons (one combined with a normal dungeon for 3 spawners)
3 large ravines (larger than vanilla)
3 maze cave clusters
2 giant caves (>50000 in volume)
2 ravine cave clusters
2 vertical cave clusters
1 circular room cave cluster
1 combination cave system
1 fossil
1 network cave region
1 vertical cave system
1 witch hut
(129 individual structures/caves)
Highest terrain found (y=128 or higher, highest peak in an instance of a biome):
145 (Flower Forest)
135 (Winter Forest Mountains)
134 (Mountainous Desert Hills)
Other:
1 skeleton in amethyst armor
1 skeleton in diamond armor
1 zombie in diamond armor
1 Notch apple
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 found one of the rarest types of caves/cave systems; a colossal cave system, which is similar in size and structure as a cave system in my first world, one of the largest and densest cave systems that I know of in vanilla:
For comparison, this is the cave system in my first world, at -800, -1050 in the seed "-123775873255737467" in vanilla 1.6.4, with the image on the right being at y=20 (this is directly equivalent to y=13 in TMCW, with additional caves added near sea level to extend cave systems up higher in accordance with normal caves being 7 layers deeper):
These generate once every 8192 chunks and at least 640 blocks (circular) away from the origin, with at least one guaranteed to generate within 1056 blocks (+/-); for comparison, this is the same as strongholds and twice as common as a giant cave region, the rarest type of cave, and 2-4 times rarer than other types of special cave systems and the largest sizes of caves and ravines (individually, not combined). This is the second one that I've explored so far, more or less consistent with the area that I've explored outside of the near-origin "exclusion zone" (I've actually found three so far but didn't explore the second one, which is to the south of the easternmost part of the map to the east), and the closest one to the origin.
Interestingly, despite its size it had a lower volume than the largest cave that I've found so far, though a far greater surface area and much longer time taken to explore (around 10 hours):
There was also a large cave with a volume of about 37,000 on the southern edge of the cave system (not associated with it; colossal cave systems only have "vanilla" type caves with nothing else allowed to generate within 6 chunks of the center, though they can extend inwards):
Also, I found a fossil, the 9th one that I've found in this world, and a zombie in diamond armor while exploring it:
The cave system was also quite infested with mobs, as usual, and quite dangerous due to all the drops off of random floating platforms, often into a lava sea below (I had once incident where a skeleton with a Punch bow neatly knocked me down, with some nice parkour action following):
Here are more screenshots, some taken while exploring it (it wasn't really safe to take screenshots before completely lighting it up and getting rid of the exposed lava):
Here are screenshots of the large cave, which was part of a "large cave cluster" consisting of 2-4 large caves of various sizes (since a recent update CaveFinder will now list cave clusters separately if none of the caves have a volume of at least 25000 but the entire cluster is at least 15000 + caveCount * 5000, or 25000-35000):
Here is an animated rendering over 4 days, with the equivalent of about 3 play sessions spent exploring it (I explored a bit on several previous days, with most of it explored within 2 days):
Interestingly, I've also completed a large loop of interconnected caves extending from where I started exploring northwards to a network cave region (I might have explored the colossal cave system back then if I hadn't found it, at the time I just saw it was a new cave system and placed a marker for returning to later; as it is, I actually reached the marker from the other direction). This then lead down a long ravine, then I came across two giant caves before going southwards into the ravine complex by my base, then another giant cave further south before heading eastwards into the colossal cave system from the opposite direction I'd originally found it from:
The yellow dot on the far right is where I started exploring and the green dots are return points, where there are more caves to explore further on; the colossal cave system is circled by the red path, with paths leading into it from both sides. The dotted red line leading from a return point near the upper-left corner to the stronghold to the west (actually, northwest; west is to the lower-left in this perspective) indicates my next objective - to try to find a way to the stronghold by exploring interconnected caves underground, which probably won't follow such a direct path (this would be the first stronghold that I've found in such a manner, albeit I already found it before using eyes of ender).
In addition, this is what I brought back to my main base when I made a trip back to bring back all the resources I'd accumulated since the last trip - a total of 38460 items, including 35147 minerals:
In total, I collected the following resources and other items:
Also, I've found myself in an interesting predicament; when I started playing I had 15 spare amethyst in my ender chest (plus 46 more in a chest at my main base) - which is the same number that I currently have, with my stockpile being used faster than I can find it over the past week or two (the colossal cave system didn't have any at all, I believe I last found one in a minecart chest), likely in part due to the much greater number of mobs I've been encountering (in part due to changes to mob spawning in TMCWv4.5), enough to destroy an entire iron/chain helmet in a single play session (these have 241 durability, the same as a chestplate; for comparison, amethyst armor has 4500 durability with each unit restoring 1124 so this means I have to repair my armor about once every 4-5 days, with my sword repaired about as often based on 1171 durability per unit and Unbreaking III).
Because of this, I decided to put Unbreaking III on my chestplate and leggings, which increases their repair cost from 35 to 42 levels; I can't put it on my boots since they already cost 44 levels and they would become too expensive (max of 49 levels for amethyst gear, 39 for everything else). However, I increased the effectiveness of Unbreaking on armor from 1.43x to 2x with Unbreaking III (this is still half the effectiveness as on tools, which get 4x the lifetime) so this reduces the frequency of repairs by 1/3 (2 vs 3 units consumed over the same time, saving one unit every 4-5 days). If this still isn't enough I can always resort to bringing the Fortune pickaxe I used to mine amethyst when branch-mining with me.
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 haven't made any progress in reaching the stronghold over the past 3 days (for all I know it is isolated from the global "super network", though I know for a fact it intersects at least one ravine which I saw while exploring it; cave density is lower within a 6 chunk radius of strongholds) but I did find another giant cave and saw two zombies in diamond armor; the first point I started exploring from, which lead to a relatively small but very dense cave system, turned out to be a dead end so I went to another return point further east, which has so far lead to a couple cave systems and the most recent giant cave that I've found, as well as a mineshaft which may go further west than the first point; there is also what appears to be a quite large and dense cave system to the north, with very extensive areas of lava, but I'm not going to explore it at this time:
The giant cave was the third largest cave that I've found over the past few weeks, with a volume of about 75,000 and covering a 93x99 block area:
Also, this is what the cave looks like with the width set to the minimum, showing that they are just normal vanilla-type tunnels with a much greater length and width:
Here is another rendering but with curviness set to 0 so the tunnels are all straight, except where they branch at 90 degree angles; unlike vanilla caves they branch twice, with a total of 7 separate tunnel segments (the "length" given by CaveFinder is measured from the start of the main cave to the end of a secondary branch, which can be up to 462 blocks; the total length of tunnels is greater as there are two primary branches and four secondary branches, which can total up to 924 blocks in length in the longest caves, with the main cave 168 blocks, 2 primary branches 126 blocks each and 4 secondary branches 126 blocks each):
Of interest, this is what the cave looks like with the maximum width and length values; it had a volume of over a million blocks, even larger if it didn't cut off at lava level (only air blocks between layers 4-62 are counted), and covers a 322x314 block area (no single cave is ever likely to be this large since the tunnels are never straight for long; the largest naturally generated cave that I've found in any seed had a volume of about 685,000):
-504 22 -712 (length: 462, width: 77, volume: 1039876)
Here are screenshots from exploring the first cave system:
Here are screenshots from the giant cave, including another zombie in diamond armor only two days after the last one:
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?
Fascinating! I love the screenshots!
The mineshaft I found last time lead to some caves which in turn lead to a relatively wide ravine with the stronghold in it, completing my goal of reaching it by only exploring interconnected caves; I've since explored another mineshaft and more caves (leading to yet another mineshaft which I will explore next) on a path that may eventually lead back to the map to the south (which I've mostly been exploring until recently):
The top half was taken immediately after I reached the stronghold while the lower half was after I stopped playing for the day:
I also found something that I haven't found for close to a week, a vein of 5 amethyst ore, bringing the total I have in my Ender chest to 17, or a net gain of 2 over 29 days of caving (most of the amethyst I've found recently has come from dungeon and mineshaft chests, with 2 found today):
Also, this is a full-size rendering (3575x1907 pixels) of the entire area that I've explored over the past 29 days, excluding the upper-right; over this period I've explored about 3168 chunks underground, based on the difference in world size after deleting all chunks without a torch within 1 chunk below sea level (from 12477 to 15645, an average increase of 109 chunks per play session):
Here are surface and underground renderings of the trimmed world made with Minutor (I used this tool on a copy to delete unexplored chunks), both full size (2960x2736 pixels/blocks); the underground rendering was taken at layer 38 as it shows many of the largest caves better:
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 the longest animation that I've ever made of my explorations underground - 30 days:
Over the time I found/did the following:
The most notable difference with regards to what I previously did over 121 play sessions is the number of mobs killed per session, up from 351 to 438, an increase of about 25%, and the number of mineshafts and related resources; 21 mineshafts over 30 days compared to 60 over 121 days, an increase of 41%, with similar increases in the number of rails, cobwebs, moss stone (dungeons), and spawners (dungeons are not part of mineshafts but they are much more likely to generate connected to a mineshaft than the equivalent length of cave due to the size and shape of the corridors being much more ideal).
Interestingly, the amount of ore I mined per play session was nearly identical - 3141.37 vs 3141.58, with the hourly rate being slightly lower; the distribution was biased towards more coal (+1.6%) and lapis (+3.7%) and less of everything else with amethyst seeing the biggest decrease, from 1.84 to 1.37 per session, a decrease of over 25% (from counting ores exposed in caves the relative amounts can vary quite a bit over sizable areas, especially in TMCW due to the much greater variation in caves and altitude distribution). I did not find any ruby or emerald, with 153 and 92 mined respectively over the entire lifetime of the world (the latter is far rarer than what I've found in vanilla, where I've found about 1/5 as much emerald as diamond in my first world; I've only explored under a significant part of a single emerald-containing biome, Forest Mountains, plus a bit around the edges of Extreme Hills).
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 found what may be the largest complex of intersecting ravines that I've ever found - possibly ever, in any world including test worlds; I'm not sure how many there are and will have to map them after I'm done exploring the area but there have to be at least 6-7, and as many as 10, with 7 being the most that I've ever found, earlier in this world, as well as the most ever found in vanilla (my first world would have 7 intersecting ravines if several hadn't been cut off by water; there is also a seed that was claimed to have 8 but there are actually only 7, while if you use the seed for my first world in TMCWv4 there are 9 intersecting ravines near -50, -1070, as noted here). One of the ravines is also extremely large, around 300 blocks long and 20 or more blocks wide, easily the largest ravine that I've found since playing on this world again (surprisingly, most of the ravines that intersect are normal-sized; by contrast, the time I found 7 intersecting ravines most of them intersected a single massive ravine, rather than other smaller ravines).
Here are screenshots of the ravines that I've explored so far, as well as a large cave and some others:
A large cave connects to the ravine:
Another smaller large cave:
The following are screenshots of the many ravines and ravine intersections that I've explored so far, with at least several more that I haven't explored yet:
Here you can see down to lava level from the bottom of a surface ravine, with two double-stacked ravines below:
The ravine on the left connects to the ravine shown above, with a deeper ravine below it:
There are three ravines visible here, the two shown in the last screenshot and a third which is partly visible above the center; there is also a fourth ravine further down the ravine that goes off the top-center edge, which connects to the giant ravine, while the lava-level ravine connects to a chain of 3 more ravines (if I've counted right there are 10 ravines; I've also found several more nearby which turned out not to intersect the main complex):
I also found a desert temple, the second one that I've found in this world; like many things in TMCW they are more interesting - this one had two skeleton spawners as well as trapped chests in addition to the normal pressure plate trap (there are 12 possible variations of spawners and traps; some may be vanilla while others have skeleton and zombie spawners, zombie spawners only, or only trapped chests):
Note that there are four extra TNT under the trapped chests, making them more dangerous than they already are if you set them off:
This was the "good" loot I took from the temple, the most valuable item by far being the single amethyst:
In addition, the same Winter Forest where I found a mountain reaching y=135 had an even taller mountain further to the northwest, reaching y=153, making it the highest terrain that I've found since playing on this world again (for perspective, the highest possible terrain is a bit under y=192, the height limit for terrain in TMCW, while if you count non-terrain features like trees they could nearly reach the world height limit if it happened in a Mega Forest, where the trees reach up to 64 blocks tall):
I also found a maze cave system as well as a ravine cave system, the first ones that I've found since playing again, which I plan to explore after I'm done with the ravines.
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 once found a world with 6 to 7 ravines in a row in 1.5.2. Interesting times.
It is still entirely possible for this to happen in newer versions since there have been no changes to ravines other than their placement (which chunks have ravines); on average a ravine generates every 50 chunks (about 7x7 chunks), with each one being 85-112 blocks long (average 98 or about 6 chunks). For example, this is a map of ravines within 1280 blocks of the origin in my first world, with the locations of 5+ intersecting ravines marked (not all may actually be fully generated as this doesn't consider water, which disrupts them. However, you can exploit the fact that any seed with the same lower 48 bits will produce the same caves but a different land/ocean map, which also applies to TMCWv4):
For comparison, this is the same seed in TMCWv4, with 9 intersecting ravines near the top-center:
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?
For scale, this map is 354x384 blocks or 22x24 chunks and also shows a large cave and a ravine cave system and ravine cave cluster that also intersected the ravines (other ravines and large caves within the area are not shown). The largest ravine had a volume of 118,000 blocks while the large cave was about 48,000, just below the threshold for being classified as a "giant" cave (50,000 or more in volume):
Here is an animated rendering as I explored the area over 6 play sessions; including other ravines within the area I've now found a total of 56 normal ravines and 4 large ravines, up from 42 and 3 before:
Here are more screenshots of the ravines:
The other ravine that intersect the large ravine, leading to the rest of the complex:
One of the ravines that I didn't explore yet as of my previous update:, which leads to yet another ravine above, which in turn leads to two more ravines that I showed before:
The last ravine that I fully explored was the large ravine, which had quite a lot of mobs packed close together near the end:
These are all of the large ravine, which is too long to be seen from end to end even on 16 chunk render distance (if it were straight, even with a bend in the middle it went out of render distance at 8 chunks):
Also, these are screenshots of the ravine cave system, which is made up of many small ravine-like caves, as well as a couple medium-sized large caves I found:
Also, this is what my map wall looks like, now with 7 out of 9 maps created and at least partly filled in in a 3x3 area around the origin (3072x3072 blocks):
Notably, I've reached the ocean for the first time in this world; if you look closely at the far upper-left, below the desert (the gray square in it is the desert temple I found), you can see a small darker blue area (compared to the other watery areas, the area to the east of the desert is a Lake biome) with beaches adjacent to it (sand next to Bushlands and and gravel next to Winter Forest).
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?
Just so I don't have to read the entire thread...you've done all this exploration on foot? How long as it taken you to do all this?
TMC plays a lot and has played some worlds for years.
I've played on this world for about 28.2 days over 178 sessions (156 spent caving), averaging about 3.8 hours per session, and walking a distance of about 3,597 km (about 28.7% of the distance to the old Far Lands), though at a rate of only 1.47 m/s or about a third of your walking speed of 4.3 m/s:
Also, the actual area that I've explored is still smaller than a single level 4 map, which isn't that large at all, even if explored on foot; if you walked through every one of 16384 chunks you'd be able to cover it in about 17 hours (a level 4 map is 2048x2048 blocks or 128x128 chunks so you'd have to walk 2048 blocks 128 times):
Here is a full-size map of the trimmed world, which is 3024x2736 pixels/blocks:
A slice of the underground at layer 32; many of the larger caves and ravines that I've found can easily be seen, including the ones I most recently found, in the far upper-left corner:
Most of the distance that I've walked is a true testament to the sheer number of caves underground; in my first world (vanilla 1.6.4) I've walked about 18,691 km (50% further than to the Far Lands), enough to cross the world nearly 3,000 times (more if you consider that the average width is less):
More impressive is the amount of mining that I've done, with nearly half a million ores mined in this world alone; I've also found 273 dungeons and 83 mineshafts with a total of 613 mob spawners (plus 2 in a desert temple and 9 in a stronghold, which I added to these structures to spice things up), and crafted 157,132 torches:
These are also just two of the many worlds that I've had over more than 7 years (TMCWv4 is from before I started playing on it again):
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?