Divergent Underground

Divergent Underground is one of the modules in a series of modifications that fundamentally change and expand various crafting aspects in Minecraft. This mod strikes a balance between moderate realism and simplicity, seamlessly integrating into the vanilla game style.

Stones and Minerals

The mod replaces standard stone blocks with items for all natural rock formations. This solution is driven by the pursuit of greater realism and aesthetic appeal, as well as simulating weight mechanics without actual implementation. Players will have to either compress stones back into blocks (2x2 recipe), make more trips, build a minecart system, or leave some materials behind to avoid cluttering their inventory.

All stones can be converted into cobblestone using a simple 2x2 recipe, with cobblestone variants added for andesite, diorite, and granite.

Ores and Gems

In addition to stones, all ore blocks are also replaced with item counterparts. By default, the mod adds direct smelting of ore items, similar to ore blocks, but this feature can be disabled in settings to change smelting progression or use alternative ore processing methods.

Since gemstones in nature don't appear in polished form, their drops are replaced with uncut versions (this can also be disabled in configuration). Uncut stones need to be processed using a chisel, which provides a small amount of experience. The recipe supports any tools with the "toolChisel" tag from OreDictionary, but a simple chisel has also been added.

All ore and gem blocks also drop corresponding stones. If other mods require the use of specific ore blocks, they can be obtained using the Silk Touch enchantment, or pack developers can add simple recipes via CraftTweaker.

Stratification and Hardness Mechanics

Divergent Underground adds four stratigraphic layers to the Minecraft underground. The deeper you go, the darker the stones become. This is achieved through overlays and doesn't add new textures, supporting resource packs.

Each hardness level slows down mining speed by a certain amount (default: 0X, 1.5X, 3X, and 5X). These values can be changed in the configuration file. If you don't like the slowdown idea but want to keep the graphical changes, this feature can be completely disabled. With slowdown enabled, higher-tier tools will be required to harvest resources from blocks.

Additionally, blocks exposed to air have reduced hardness values. This means surface blocks and cave walls are easy to mine, while strip mining will be difficult until the player obtains a higher-level pickaxe.

Stone can also (optionally) change its hardness depending on surrounding blocks through the compression mechanism. This means stone areas exposed to light or cave walls will soften over time after initially mining their surface layers.

Important: slowdown and compression mechanics only affect generated blocks!

Compatibility with Other Mods

Divergent Underground currently supports ores and gems from the following mods:

As each mod is installed, all ore items automatically support any new ore processing mechanisms.

This mod does NOT unify ores or ingots from other mods, does NOT add or change block textures, and does NOT add ore generation.

Ore and stone blocks are "wrapped" and replaced in the world with Divergent Underground types. This means if you have another mod that unifies ore generation, Divergent Underground will drop the same types.

Future Hazards

The next module for Divergent Underground will aim to make mining more interesting by adding various hazards. These will include: coal explosions, boulders, falling rubble, unstable stones, and more!