Best Mystcraft Server Ages? Help with Symbols:

[UgLounge]

So I plan to create three or so Mystcraft ages on my server, and disabling Age creation for players.
I would like to have essentially three worlds of this nature:

Mining World: No caves, flat. Mainly for quarries.
Skylands: Exploration and building.
Cave World: Manual mining and building for players.

When I experimented with Ages in Single Player the Ages were all very small; is there a way to make them larger or are they automatically larger in SMP? What symbols should be used for these worlds? Also, no Dense Ores.

 

[darkinnit]

What do you mean by the Ages were all very small? Can you describe what's happening? Each age should be a full limitless world, just like the overworld/nether etc. Unless you've been making "End World"s (like "The End" in vanilla minecraft)?

I've made a Skylands and Cave World so I can give you some ideas, but I think first we need to sort out your "small ages" problem

 

[UgLounge]

What do you mean by the Ages were all very small? Can you describe what's happening? Each age should be a full limitless world, just like the overworld/nether etc. Unless you've been making "End World"s (like "The End" in vanilla minecraft)?

I've made a Skylands and Cave World so I can give you some ideas, but I think first we need to sort out your "small ages" problem

Well when I was generating Ages in Single Player it was creating essentially End-like worlds. As in a very limited terrain area.

I just now created another age in Single Player and it came out as a large world; although rather odd. I used Standard Terrain, Standard Lighting, Villages, and possibly some other symbols.
The world was almost layered, as if everything was an overhang over another world.

 

[darkinnit]

Sounds like you got a cave world in that last one. Also you might be falling foul of (what I think is) a bug in Ultimate Single Player. See my thread here, it has a workaround:
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/thr...-ages-in-single-player-only-workaround.14138/

 

[UgLounge]

I see.

So in your opinion; for those three world types; what would be the best Symbol set for each world?

 

[darkinnit]

Here's the settings I used. (R) means required for a stable age and (O) means optional. "Clear modifiers" is currently only required due to a bug in Mystcraft, so it might not be required in the next update.

Skylands Pages:
(R) Standard terrain
(R) Native Biome Controller
(O) No seas
(R) Standard Lighting
(R) Normal Weather
(O) East
(O) Rising
(O) Full Length
(R) Normal Sun
(O) East
(O) Setting
(O) Full Length
(R) Normal Moon
(R) Normal Stars
(O) Skylands
(O) Star Fissure
(O) Boundless sky
(O) Villages
(R) Clear modifiers

This creates a Skylands that uses overworld style biomes. Because of the floating islands, you may prefer to use "Small Biomes" or "Tiny Biomes" instead of "Native Biome Controller", but then you need to specify at least three biomes to use ("Native Biome Controller" requires no biomes and just uses the default list). No seas does exactly what is says on the tin, and helps prevent "lake" islands. I chose Standard Lighting and Normal Weather as I wanted it to be like the overworld, but in the sky. Same for the East Rising Full Length Normal Sun and East Setting Full Length Normal Moon, this ensures the sun and moon behave as they do in the overworld. If you don't put all those pages in for the sun and moon, you can end up with a sun during the "night" or with them both going round at the same time etc. You could always set this to a Noon Zero Length Normal Sun if you want perma-day, or just "Dark sun" if you want perma-night. Skylands is actually an optional symbol for a stable age, but it's required if you actually want it to be Skylands I throw a star fissure in there in case a creeper takes out the linking book. Boundless sky removes the horizon effect from the skybox so you don't have a line where the land used to be. Villages is up to you, they do look a bit odd with cobble towers going down into the abyss.

Cave Age Pages:
(R) Cave World
(R) Single Biome
(R) Extreme Hills Biome
(O) No seas
(O) Mineshafts
(O) Caves x3
(O) Ravines x3
(O) Strongholds
(O) Dungeons
(R) No Weather
(R) Dark
(R) Dark Moon
(R) Dark Sun
(R) Ender Starfield
(O) Black
(O) Cloud Color
(O) Scorched Surface x6
(R) Clear Modifiers

With this one you don't need to make it single biome, you could use the "Native Biome Controller", I just preferred a single biome for consistency. The "No seas" page is more important here, although it does not remove all water, it does lower the water level from y64 to about y34, making the caverns more spacious. I throw in some Mineshafts, Strongholds and Dungeons (all optional). Caves is also not needed (without it you will still get huge caverns), the caves symbol just carves out some cave tunnels in addition to the huge caverns. The cave symbol stacks for different cave layouts, so I threw three in there. I'm not sure if Ravines stacks like caves does, but I threw three in there too and didn't get any ill effects. I set "No weather" because there's no point in having weather or rain if everyone's below the surface. "Dark" is an alternative to "Standard Lighting" and adds to the atmosphere of the cave world, but you might prefer "Standard Lighting" or "Bright" (note "Bright" looks fully lit, but does not prevent mob spawning - you'd need "Single Biome", "Mooshroom Island Biome" to prevent mobs). I set a Dark Moon and Dark Sun to hide the moon and sun as it would look weird to have a sun and moon passing by in the distance whilst underground. I set Ender Starfield just to add to the dark effect, but you could also just use the "Normal Stars" instead. Black clouds just hides the clouds (again no need for them). Then lastly, as Mystcraft cave worlds still have a surface (unfortunately), I set six scorched surface pages to ensure that anyone trying to sneak out onto the surface is suitably punished (Quantum armour keeps them alive for a few minutes, but it's still reasonable damage - you could always set more scorched surface pages).

 

[darkinnit]

Woops, forgot the Mining age:

(R) Flat
(R) Single Biome
(R) Desert Biome
(R) Standard Lighting
(R) No Weather
(O) Noon
(O) Zero Length
(R) Normal Sun
(O) Rising
(O) Zero Length
(O) Normal Sun
(R) Dark Moon
(O) Star Fissure
(O) Crystals
(O) Obelisks
(O) Yellow
(O) Red
(O) Cloud Colour
(O) Yellow
(O) Red
(O) Fog Colour
(O) Red
(O) Sky Colour
(O) Yellow
(O) Red
(O) Sunset Colour
(R) Clear Modifiers

This one I went a bit more custom with, but if you look at just the Required pages, it's a Flat, Single Biome, Desert, with Standard lighting, no weather, a Noon Zero Length Normal Sun and a Dark Moon. This creates a nice boring flat world perfect for setting up quarries. I chose desert because sand is always useful for glass. No weather and zero length sun (constant day) to make it easier for solar power (some may consider this overpowered). As long as you don't add any Cave, Ravine or Mineshaft pages, ground will be completely solid (well, apart from Xycraft Quartz Crystals!). Note the moon is required, so I set a dark moon, but you could always set a regular moon if you want to see a moon in the day. I added a second sun, stuck still on the horizon, but it's optional. Star Fissure again, in case the linking book gets lost/destroyed. I added Crystals here to allow people to harvest them for making their own mystcraft linking portals and obsidian obelisks just for some more decoration/resources. Red + Yellow combines to Orange for Orange Clouds, Sunset and Fog against a Red sky. Again, just aesthetic changes, you could customise to your own liking, that's what Mystcraft is for!

I want to add that I did not put a star fissure in the Cave World Age, because it makes a hole all the way to the surface, which kind of breaks the atmosphere of the cave world.

 

[UgLounge]

I couldn't find a Native Biome Controller Symbol/Page, and when I pieced together the book; the Age generated. What I got was a floating 4x4 or so single layer of Marble floating in the Sky.
This was done on a server this time around. Thats all that was there as well. I'll try again just defining three biome types. Does the order of the pages matter?

 

[darkinnit]

How are you searching the Symbols/Pages? I find it's best to use the creative mode inventory (not NEI), go to the Mystcraft tab (don't search) and get the "Notebook (Creative)" and place it in the writing desk. Native Biome Controller should be there.

The order of the pages does matter, I find you need the Terrain symbol (e.g. Flat/Standard/Void/etc), then the Biome controller symbol (e.g. single/native/large etc) then the Biomes (e.g. Forest/Desert/ocean). Similarly for the sun/moon, you need the direction and length before the sun or moon symbol. For colouring the sky you need the colours before the sky colour symbol and so on.

See this page of the wiki for writing ages: http://binarymage.com/wiki/doku.php?id=writing:writing
And this page of the wiki is a great reference for seeing what each symbol does and what symbol is from which category: http://binarymage.com/wiki/doku.php?id=writing:symbols

I usually take the Creative Notebook and some blank notebooks and copy pages out into a "Terrain" Notebook, a "Biome Controllers" Notebook, "Biomes" Notebook, "Celestial" Notebook and so on. Then I put each Notebook in the tabs down the left of the writing desk to help navigate the pages more easily.

 

[UgLounge]

How are you searching the Symbols/Pages? I find it's best to use the creative mode inventory (not NEI), go to the Mystcraft tab (don't search) and get the "Notebook (Creative)" and place it in the writing desk. Native Biome Controller should be there.

The order of the pages does matter, I find you need the Terrain symbol (e.g. Flat/Standard/Void/etc), then the Biome controller symbol (e.g. single/native/large etc) then the Biomes (e.g. Forest/Desert/ocean). Similarly for the sun/moon, you need the direction and length before the sun or moon symbol. For colouring the sky you need the colours before the sky colour symbol and so on.

See this page of the wiki for writing ages: http://binarymage.com/wiki/doku.php?id=writing:writing
And this page of the wiki is a great reference for seeing what each symbol does and what symbol is from which category: http://binarymage.com/wiki/doku.php?id=writing:symbols

I usually take the Creative Notebook and some blank notebooks and copy pages out into a "Terrain" Notebook, a "Biome Controllers" Notebook, "Biomes" Notebook, "Celestial" Notebook and so on. Then I put each Notebook in the tabs down the left of the writing desk to help navigate the pages more easily.

I see. I was using a Book Binder and getting the pages from the Creative Tab like you stated. I'll try using a Writing Desk and being sure the Symbols are in proper order.

 

[keybounce]

...
The order of the pages does matter, I find you need the Terrain symbol (e.g. Flat/Standard/Void/etc), then the Biome controller symbol (e.g. single/native/large etc) then the Biomes (e.g. Forest/Desert/ocean).
...

See this page of the wiki for writing ages: http://binarymage.com/wiki/doku.php?id=writing:writing

And this page of the wiki is a great reference for seeing what each symbol does and what symbol is from which category: http://binarymage.com/wiki/doku.php?id=writing:symbols

-- snip --

I'm checking in here, because over at the mystcraft forums we had someone with questions after reading this thread and trying to follow what was said here.

In case anyone else comes here: This seems to be documenting behavior in Mystcraft 0.10.0, and as such, is out of date.

New behaviors:
1. Biomes come BEFORE the biome controller now. Not after. If you use them after, in 0.10.6, you should get floating islands with those other biomes.

2. There will always be some randomness. 0.10.0 through 0.10.3 had none; every version before that (0.8 / 0.9) and later have the expected randomness. Note that 0.10.6's randomness is considered "reasonable"; 0.10.4 was excessive.

3. "Required" -- no pages are required anymore. However, the less you specify, the more randomness there is; some random "thingie"s have a chance of instability. (Example: Coal tendrils).

4. Cave worlds now generate with the sea down at Y=31 without needing the "no seas" page. I was not aware of that issue (seas at Y=63 in a cave world) ever showing up (I never ran into it).

If anything, I suspect that "No seas" in a cave world today (0.10.6) should do exactly what it says on the tin...

 

[darkinnit]

Yep, I was referring to the old Mystcraft behaviour, the post is from March after all . Thanks for the update, the floating island Biomes sound interesting, I'll have to check out the latest version and have a play.