Ores are no longer plain cubes, but real deposits embedded in the rock, independent from it.
DownloadDeposits exist in 3D space. A cluster of fragments embedded in the rock, each one unique, shaped by the ore type.
The fragment can be mined directly. Or the rock cleared to reach it. But mind the fall.
It acts as an overlay on the existing world. It reads the chunk data and sits on top, never touching ore rarity.
In depth
The mod adds no ore: it re-reads what's already there. At a regular interval it scans the loaded chunks around players, one 16×16×16 section at a time, and immediately skips those that hold none. Zero cost where there's nothing.
In the sections that qualify, each ore block, vanilla or modded, is replaced by its original host block, sampled from the neighborhood (stone, deepslate, netherrack, modded terrain). Neighboring cells are grouped into clusters: a deposit zone.
On each zone, the mod then builds the three-dimensional deposit: cores, fusions and ramifications, shaped by the ore type, each fragment unique. The shape is new, but the location, depth and rarity stay exactly what the world had already generated.
The result is baked into the section geometry, like any block: occlusion, culling and render distance are handled natively by the engine.
As long as a fragment rests on a block, it stays fixed. Deprived of that support, it becomes a physical entity: it breaks loose from the rock and falls, piece by piece.
So it can be mined directly, or dug all around to make it fall, then each piece picked up off the ground with a right click.
Each fragment's surface takes the texture of the item obtained by mining it: what surfaces is exactly what gets harvested.
Since nothing is generated from scratch, ore rarity, height and distribution stay those of vanilla and the installed mods. Compatibility holds for every ore found, including in existing worlds, dungeons and pre-generated structures.
Every ore is handled automatically, with no list to maintain, and across all dimensions (Nether, End, modded dimensions). Tested on large modpacks: All The Mods 11, Aether, Terralith.
Everything is configured in the mod options, including the optional regeneration of the items' 2D icons so they match the extracted ore's three-dimensional look.
On conversion, the original ore is remembered block by block. From the options, everything can be restored exactly: the world recovers its precise vanilla ore, without the slightest loss, and the mod removes cleanly.