Spawning in boring terrain.

[sage199 2]

So one of my favorite things about terra firma craft is the mountains it creates. They are huge behemoths and I just love to look and them and build in them and try to traverse around them. However when I updated to .79 I noticed that I just get the most boring spawns. I like to have three main things in my spawns. An average biome temp below 8, rainfall of 500 or higher, and mountains/ hilly terrain. However in .79 I never seem to get all three. Usually just two or one. Did something in the world generation change? I've created several dozen worlds and all have had this problem. Is there anything I can do to change this?

[kaldskryke 27]

I think you've just been unlucky. There's nothing that would make your preferred combination unlikely.

 

From what I understand of the generation code, the terrain shape (plains/hills/mountains) is determined by the biome. The same kind of algorithms that generate the biome "map" is re-used to determine rock layers, rainfall, evt, and tree "coverage". But they're all independent "maps", they don't interact with each other. So there's no reason why mountainous terrain would be less likely to have high rainfall.

 

Just keep trying new seeds.

[sage199 2]

Well I have been doing this for over two hours now. Either I am the most unlucky person in the world for the new update screwed up the world generation. I've generated countless worlds and they are some of the most bland worlds I have ever seen in Minecraft. Most worlds have a low rainfall so you get that terrible looking grass stuff. Little elevation difference so there is barely any change in world. Maybe two different types of trees if you are lucky. Before each world was unique, everything was different for each world, but now they are god awful, lifeless, and drab.

*edit: I was just reading through the change log and there were "Very heavy modifications to worldgen"  so what ever was changed about world gen has in my opinion made it much worse. I really do hope that they fix it soon because I simply don't want to play in these new worlds. They have nothing that hold my attention. 

[Regnilse 21]

I have noticed that there seems to be a lack of rivers, a river btw would go perfictly with the new lake biome, and personaly I feel like there is way to many lava pools, hot springs and surface caves around. Beyond that though I've enjoyed the world gen.

[Terex 108]

I've not really come across seeds with impressive mountains or rivers myself. In b78 they were perfect. Would also like to know if there is hope for some tweaks to bring back some old features.

[Fafnir 5]

So one of my favorite things about terra firma craft is the mountains it creates. They are huge behemoths and I just love to look and them and build in them and try to traverse around them. However when I updated to .79 I noticed that I just get the most boring spawns. I like to have three main things in my spawns. An average biome temp below 8, rainfall of 500 or higher, and mountains/ hilly terrain. However in .79 I never seem to get all three. Usually just two or one. Did something in the world generation change? I've created several dozen worlds and all have had this problem. Is there anything I can do to change this?

 

You may give this seed a try, the spawn is dry but near to the north the average biome temp is 8.5  and rainfall is 500.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Well I have been doing this for over two hours now. Either I am the most unlucky person in the world for the new update screwed up the world generation. I've generated countless worlds and they are some of the most bland worlds I have ever seen in Minecraft. Most worlds have a low rainfall so you get that terrible looking grass stuff. Little elevation difference so there is barely any change in world. Maybe two different types of trees if you are lucky. Before each world was unique, everything was different for each world, but now they are god awful, lifeless, and drab.

 

It sounds to me like you keep spawning in the plains areas close to the equator. If when trying new worlds you could take note of the Z coordinate, that would be very helpful. If you actually travel a bit north to around -15,000 Z, the lush green areas with lots of trees and mountains are still there in the majority of worlds.

[Ankokou 1]

I actually joined after noticing a the terrain was far less interesting than .78

Was something overlooked? It's so dull I was wondering if there was a bug or something.

 

Trying to find a nice world for our server we spawned over 20 and in several traveled over 10k blocks in multiple directions, we noticed:

 

No mountain ranges. No one found anything we would describe as a range or mountainous biome, like more than two individual mountains even kinda nearish to eachother. Yes including around -15,000 in multiple worlds (and even if it had been, why have some latitudes prone to lots of dull, flat biomes and others intended to be far more interesting? It makes for unvaried terrain within thousands of blocks at a time.)

So most "mountains" are alone, The majority are quite tall and narrow, not really sprawling and actually quite small. They can be quite sceneic but large mountains seem to be very rare. The couple large mountains we did find were spectcualar looking.

No rivers. At all. No one found even one river in all our searching.

Shallow lakes. Most bodies of fresh water were only one or two blocks deep. Large lakes appear rarely, lake "complexes" with massive branching lakes like .78 don't appear to exist. Cattails are not spawning but I beleive that is a known bug?

Lots and lots of flat. Most biomes seem to have very similar algorithms that produce a lot of samy flat terrian dotted with small low hills.

No "rolling" hills, (just a flat expanse dotted with small hill mounds and the ocasional tall, narrow, mountain.)

A ludacris number of ravines. I have no idea if it's intended but it feels like there is one every 500 blocks or less.

Huge biomes at times. I mean the biomes in TFC are big and I like it that way but when I've traveled 5k blocks in some direction I'd like to find maybe some different trees or something. Not all worlds were like this but many were.

The new beach types look great and feel natural, no complaints there.

 

 

Honestly though it's been enough to make us want to roll back if not for many of the great new features added to gameplay. (So overall despite agressively boring terrain we do like the features of this latest verion better.) 

 

Edit:

Ah, but of course attempt 21 produced a mountains biome.

It contains three large seperate mountains surrounded by almost complately flat land dotten with maybe four small narrow mountains.

It's the most interesting terrain I've seen in this version but still pales in comparion to the prior version if only because I know from experence as soon as you get away from those mountains it's dull for miles.

[kaldskryke 27]

Cattails not spawning is a bug and will be fixed by the next version bump, which I hope will be soon.

 

I don't know if Ravines are more frequent than before, but they sure are more noticeable. In build 78 it was fairly common for the "dirt layer" to cover up ravines. In Build 79 there has clearly been an effort to ensure that no gravel or dirt spawns where ravines reach the surface. It's great because the old ravines could be very dangerous - walking on the dirt roof could cause it to fall, killing players even though there was no obvious indication there was a ravine there. Furthermore, it helps prevent falling block lag when chunks are generated. The downside, if you would call it that, is that ravines are so much more visible.

 

I'm finding plenty of rivers.

 

I haven't found a lot of mountain ranges either, yet.

[Bunsan 323]

My issue is the mountains look terrible. They are unrealistic shapes, floating islands and generally defy any physics, even tfc's. I am fairly new to tfc, I maybe it has aways been like this. I'd love the worldgen to be more like ATG with more progressive and smother terrain changes with abrupt mountain spires being a rare find, not default.

[landryx 36]

More progressive and smother terrain changes, mostly for help sheeps to not die from high fallen drops . (since they only spawn in high mountains biomes.)

[gloryofarioch 4]

I think you're just unlucky. My seed has lots of mountains and cool terrain. I am 15 kilometers from the equator though.

[kaldskryke 27]

More progressive and smother terrain changes, mostly for help sheeps to not die from high fallen drops . (since they only spawn in high mountains biomes.)

Not true. The can also spawn in boreal forests. http://wiki.terrafirmacraft.com/Climate

[landryx 36]

ah alright, cool then! thank you

[Ankokou 1]

Cattails not spawning is a bug and will be fixed by the next version bump, which I hope will be soon.

 

I don't know if Ravines are more frequent than before, but they sure are more noticeable. In build 78 it was fairly common for the "dirt layer" to cover up ravines. In Build 79 there has clearly been an effort to ensure that no gravel or dirt spawns where ravines reach the surface. It's great because the old ravines could be very dangerous - walking on the dirt roof could cause it to fall, killing players even though there was no obvious indication there was a ravine there. Furthermore, it helps prevent falling block lag when chunks are generated. The downside, if you would call it that, is that ravines are so much more visible.

 

I'm finding plenty of rivers.

 

I haven't found a lot of mountain ranges either, yet.

 

Thank you for confirming, and they've even fixed it. I really do like some of the tweaks this patch.

And for the tip on the ravines. While I still don't agree with the number that appear at least I understand why I'm seeing more. Because yeah, the prior version they were deathtraps.

I actually sat down with MapWriter and starting making maps of these worlds. The average distance between two ravines on the contenents I explored was around 200 blocks, even less if you counted surface caves.

I'm really supprised to hear you are finding rivers though.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said none in 20 worlds with several people flying in a straight line in different direcitons for 10k blocks. Now it's more like 25 since I was exploring contenents on my own in SSP. I found one with the best tree variety I've ever seen (including .78) and the best stone variety I've found in .79 that will probably end up being our seed.

[Maga 99]

The OP's logic is flawed. If all of the terrain was exciting then none of it would be. It is the difference between smooth and sharp, light and dark, good and evil that allows us to recognize and appreciate both of them for what they are. I imagine that if exciting terrain was made more common people would complain about having a hard time exploring. Such is life.

[Terex 108]

The OP's logic is flawed. If all of the terrain was exciting then none of it would be. It is the difference between smooth and sharp, light and dark, good and evil that allows us to recognize and appreciate both of them for what they are. I imagine that if exciting terrain was made more common people would complain about having a hard time exploring. Such is life.

 

You missed the point. He likes mountains as do I. For a while it seemed to us that mountains no longer generate as they used to. This is not exciting. But in fact they still do, but only at mid to high latitudes (not at equator). 

[Maga 99]

I recently ran to -2000 getting my stash of 700 pumpkins and I saw large mountains dotted sporadically the whole way, granted in the north the spiky gravity defying ones are more common but that's not to say the lower latitudes don't are just boring little hills.

[lordfriend 1]

I also tried generating several world, none of them has a large range of mountains, Most of the time I spawned at an latitude between -6000~ -14000, there were plain terrain and several very high mountain alone, but not the large mountains and highland. Rivers are also very rare.

[Thrainn 2]

I'm not sure if it is just plain bad luck for us, but I too have yet to find something like this in build 79:

Found this on build 78 back in April.

[Terex 108]

You should try my mountain seed in the other forum.

[lordfriend 1]

I'm not sure if it is just plain bad luck for us, but I too have yet to find something like this in build 79:

Found this on build 78 back in April.

 

This is a little small comparing with the large mountains in B78， In B78, The large mountains are which you need to walk hundreds of blocks to pass around.

[Thrainn 2]

This is a little small comparing with the large mountains in B78， In B78, The large mountains are which you need to walk hundreds of blocks to pass around.

Well, this shot WAS made in B78. Of course there may be really vast mountain ranges too, but I just like the very look of this one; I've not yet found something like that in B79 ...Please read my whole post before answering

[Ankokou 1]

You should try my mountain seed in the other forum.

 

I did actually, found it had the same trouble every seed from TFC has; occasional spectacular mountains (in this seeds case, if I remember correctly, 4-5 distinct large mountains nearish to each other but separated by near-flat terrain with a few narrow spires scattered around.Each mountain so far apart only two could be in the furthest views draw distance at once) surrounded by the same boring flat terrain dotted with mounds as the rest of .79What I liked about earlier versions was more variety. There is nothing wrong with some biomes being 'worse looking' because it helps with that variety but when nearly every biome is the same flat terrain dotted with 'hill' mounds and the occasional mountain or lake it just feels like the only difference is a palate swap of trees and stone types. (The one distinctly different biome I found was a very flat tropical forest. I did not go far enough south to find a desert.)

 

Still, loving many of the new features, we just wish the land we were using them in wasn't dull.

[TonyLiberatto 364]

I think the ideal solution would be to have the options before world generation, so we could choose the kind of terrain we like. Same as in Vanilla we have large biomes and super flat.

We need more options in TFC, like:

Oceania - Huge oceans and a whole bunch of Islands.

Continental - Huge continents with small oceans.

Mountain - Mountains everywhere.

Plains - mostly flat with just a few mountains.

Some mix of those.

For me I like the new terrain, It facilitates exploring and makes easy to use a horse or to build roads. I live in Florida witch is mostly only 3 feet above the sea level. 

I just have no idea how hard that would be to code or if anyone would want to the work.