Antivyris

If you do some legwork and test a few blasts, you can figure out it's average diameter. Since usually when I use a barrel I'm intending to get all the blocks (but I play single player), I start off by carving out a base. This base consists of essentially a bowl where the bottom layer of the blast would actually end. That way, when it blows, I don't have a jagged bottom, rather a flat bottom. A dozen or so blasts ago, I figured out how to do the walls too, giving me a quite easy pickup. Of course, I have a room right off the "bowl" with about 4 double chests and a single. The single holds my stuff while I gather to keep an organized inventory. Took about 2-3 blasts to figure out the bowl, about 4 more to figure where the walls go, and about 8 more to get the setup just right. Enjoy and Experiment!

Copied from my post in general, but as someone said, they are suggestions and probably should go here as well, hence why the post looks like a reply than a default topic. While it might not adhere 100% to real-world geology, I think the gem system could be used as a complicated prospecting method if tweaked right. Say, agates would only appear near Kaolinite, and the larger the agates the closer you are to a vein. This would make sluicing sand a viable option. The gem-radius would be a lot larger, but in being larger it would give you more room you'd have to search. It would, however, hopefully elimate what I think is the wretched method of 'mine 1000 blocks, prospect walls, repeat'. Perhaps also include sluicing useless rock pieces as well, so you can tell what's below you/around you, the straight-down mining is a bit unrealistic. As to the pocket castles, perhaps packaging could come in here? I mean, I can see someone carrying 32 dirt (No, not talking square meters of dirt, just talking perspective-like), but not able to access it all. Say, dirt stacked to 4, but you could cube dirt in the crafting grid and compact 4 down into 1, and four of that farther down into one. With this, you could implement rope (from straw) and burlap (from straw) specifically to tighten the blocks down. That way you can still carry as much as you normally could, but you'd need resources to do so and you can't just unpack it all in your inventory. As to storing, I like the idea previously of piles, I could envision a multiblock structure made rope and sticks, creating an inventory you can put things like rock, dirt, limestone, ore, etc in. Like a very large 'box', but visual growing pile? Of course, the first part above would increase the amount of gems lying around, but I'd never be one to pass up (even if entirely useless) sacrificing them to a diety. Could be mechanic to change your 'fate', making less rain, more rain, you'd never know, much like older civilizations that just sacrificed things when stuff wasn't going their way. Which, we all know actually didn't really do anything, but we can just call it creating coincidences. I mean, if the weather gets better because I sacrificed 64 huge rubies, who's to say I didn't help, even if in my own head? I understand the aversion to magic, but that doesn't mean we can't have some good old superstition, even if it does nothing except help us get rid of gems in some way other than fire. Another alternative to the gem issue would be to give us a small multicultural that we can just throw/place them in, much like the storage idea above. (I would totally carve out a cat statue behind it. Just saying.) On the idea of the burlap and rope above, a single-use bedding to set spawn would be nice, with the downside of perhaps being a horrible nights sleep, waking you up very tired, slow, hungry, and thirsty? Even cavemen slept through the night. You could even make it take a lot of straw just to balance it (because it probably would take a lot). Things like that I personally believe would add challenge by increasing not only the length, but the actual usefulness of the stone-age. Also, following some of the ideas of surface deposits, something interesting to add to world-gen (which, I know this is probably crazy), would be tectonic plates. You 'could' look in massive ravines that are likely part of fault lines for surface deposits, but these areas would have greatly increased cave in chances. One thing, though, that might alleviate the need for surface metal, and perhaps take us closer to ancient roots would be a page from another mod, Tinker's Construct. They have ore-gravel, this would make rivers the bounty they really were, albeit trying to track the ore up the river most likely a nightmare. Would give a proper place to use a gold pan as well, or a sluice for increased chance at that metal. Still small pieces, but hey, I know a lot of us have gone a bit crazy looking for copper now? Just some ideas. Some probably harder to code than others, or would break other things, but it's more to spark quality of life ideas that add challenge.

I believe there is a config setting that you can do in InventoryTweaks to add certain inventories to the mod that aren't there by default. It's not an easy config though btw.

While it might not adhere 100% to real-world geology, I think the gem system could be used as a complicated prospecting method if tweaked right. Say, agates would only appear near Kaolinite, and the larger the agates the closer you are to a vein. This would make sluicing sand a viable option. The gem-radius would be a lot larger, but in being larger it would give you more room you'd have to search. It would, however, hopefully elimate what I think is the wretched method of 'mine 1000 blocks, prospect walls, repeat'. Perhaps also include sluicing useless rock pieces as well, so you can tell what's below you/around you, the straight-down mining is a bit unrealistic. As to the pocket castles, perhaps packaging could come in here? I mean, I can see someone carrying 32 dirt (No, not talking square meters of dirt, just talking perspective-like), but not able to access it all. Say, dirt stacked to 4, but you could cube dirt in the crafting grid and compact 4 down into 1, and four of that farther down into one. With this, you could implement rope (from straw) and burlap (from straw) specifically to tighten the blocks down. That way you can still carry as much as you normally could, but you'd need resources to do so and you can't just unpack it all in your inventory. As to storing, I like the idea previously of piles, I could envision a multiblock structure made rope and sticks, creating an inventory you can put things like rock, dirt, limestone, ore, etc in. Like a very large 'box', but visual growing pile? Of course, the first part above would increase the amount of gems lying around, but I'd never be one to pass up (even if entirely useless) sacrificing them to a diety. Could be mechanic to change your 'fate', making less rain, more rain, you'd never know, much like older civilizations that just sacrificed things when stuff wasn't going their way. Which, we all know actually didn't really do anything, but we can just call it creating coincidences. I mean, if the weather gets better because I sacrificed 64 huge rubies, who's to say I didn't help, even if in my own head? On the idea of the burlap and rope above, a single-use bedding to set spawn would be nice, with the downside of perhaps being a horrible nights sleep, waking you up very tired, slow, hungry, and thirsty? Even cavemen slept through the night. You could even make it take a lot of straw just to balance it (because it probably would take a lot). Things like that I personally believe would add challenge by increasing not only the length, but the actual usefulness of the stoneage. Also, following some of the ideas of surface deposits, something interesting to add to world-gen (which, I know this is probably crazy), would be tectonic plates. You 'could' look in massive ravines that are likely part of fault lines for surface deposits, but these areas would have greatly increased cave in chances. One thing, though, that might aleviate the need for surface metal, and perhaps take us closer to ancient roots would be a page from another mod, Tinker's Construct. They have ore-gravel, this would make rivers the bounty they really were, albeit trying to track the ore up the river most likely a nightmare. Would give a proper place to use a gold pan as well, or a sluice for increased chance at that metal. Still small pieces, but hey, I know a lot of us have gone a bit crazy looking for copper now? Alas, I think I'm rambling. Time to call this a post and hit the button.