OreSpawn 4 Player and Server Guide

OreSpawn Player And Server Guide

OreSpawn 4 documentation: OS4 index | Player guide | Legacy OS3 documentation

Exact fields for the installed build are documented in config/orespawn-guide/.

The Short Version

OreSpawn is an engine used by other mods. On its own it changes nothing. Mods such as Mineralogy give it rocks, ores, and sensible default settings.

For a normal game:

1. Open OreSpawn... while creating the world.
2. Choose Recommended Defaults unless you want to customise geology.
3. Open Help & Guide for a plain-language tour of the controls.
4. Press Done, then create the world normally.

Hover over unfamiliar controls for a short explanation. The same explanations are collected in Help & Guide, so a setting can be learned either while editing it or one topic at a time.

There is no requirement to use rock strata. Ore-only mods can use OreSpawn to place ores in ordinary vanilla stone while every geology control remains idle. When no provider supplies rocks, Configure Rock Strata... starts with a balanced editable set of vanilla stone, deepslate, granite, diorite, andesite, tuff. Calcite and dripstone keep their special vanilla placement unless a player deliberately adds them. You can remove the starter rocks or add blocks from installed mods before creating the world.

Mods can also offer new biomes and world materials without enabling strata. Use Biomes & World Materials to inspect installed dimension palettes, surface blocks, aquifer fluids, snow, and ice. The picker only accepts real installed registry entries. Missing optional compatibility biomes are skipped safely instead of breaking world creation.

What The Main Controls Mean

• Template selects a complete setup supplied by OreSpawn, a mod, or a pack.
• Sky creates broad rock layers and geological regions called geomes. The surface biome influences a geome without forcing identical borders.
• Cyano (Legacy) uses the older classic Mineralogy layer engine.
• Formation Reach controls how far rock formations extend sideways.
• Layer Thickness controls their vertical thickness.
• Waviness bends layers; Edge Detail roughens their boundaries.
• Continuity controls how often a formation keeps its identity across a region.
• Manage Vanilla Ores lets OreSpawn replace vanilla ore features with the configured OreSpawn rules. Leave it off to keep normal Minecraft placement.
• Fluid Deposits appears after strata are enabled or when a mod or pack supplies a rule. Press Add to choose water, lava, or a fluid block from an installed mod. These are covered underground deposits, not exposed vanilla lakes. Solid Cover controls the roof thickness, while Solid Shell prevents a deposit from opening into a cave at its sides or underside.
• Biomes & World Materials controls broad biome regions and what their surfaces, underground water, snow, and ice are made from. Augment mixes new biomes into the existing source; Replace creates a complete provider style. Namespace scope protects other biome mods unless a pack deliberately opts them in.

World Materials applies across an entire dimension. Aquifer Fluid changes the normal below-sea-level fluid, while Deep Aquifer can use a second fluid below a chosen Y level. Snow and ordinary ice can also be replaced. Use Fluid Deposits, not World Materials, for occasional underground lakes or pockets.

Rocks, Ores, And Other Mods

The material picker lists blocks from installed mods by full registry ID, for example minecraft:calcite or examplemod:slate. Safe Only hides doors, machines, and other blocks that are poor choices for underground terrain.

Ore richness changes attempts per chunk. Each richness step halves or doubles the installed default while preserving depth and deposit shape. Patterns decide whether a deposit is compact, vein-like, clustered, cloud-like, or below a fluid. Hosts decide which blocks, tags, or configured rock families it may replace.

Removing a rock from generation does not unregister its block or recipes. It only prevents that rock appearing in newly generated terrain.

Existing Worlds And Servers

Each world stores its final choices in:

<world>/serverconfig/orespawn-worldgen.json

Changes normally affect only chunks generated afterward. Existing terrain is not rewritten. Ore and flat-bedrock retrogen must be enabled deliberately; rock strata are never retro-generated.

For a dedicated server, copy the whole world including that file and install the same mods. Alternatively, place a prepared global profile at config/orespawn-worldgen.json before creating a new server world.

The server console commands /orespawn status, /orespawn reload, and /orespawn dump-biomes help pack authors diagnose active providers and IDs.