I'd like to share my ideal Dense Ores mining world (and mining method) with you all. Using this, I can essentially mine indefinitely, or even return to the world later and continue. Note: I am currently still playing on FTB Ultimate due to my world's dependence on the RedPower mod.
The symbols I use are:
Mushroom Island Biome, Single Biome, No Seas, Cave World, Caves, Ravines, Mineshafts, Bright Lighting, [
Any weather], [
Any sun/moon/stars], Boundless Skies, Dense Ores, Charged, Scorched Surface, Clear Modifiers.
Breakdown:
- Mushroom Island Biome, Single Biome: No mobs spawn under a Mushroom Island biome so that's one less hazard to deal with. Unfortunately, by choosing this biome you miss out on any biome-specific ores, like vanilla emeralds, or Gregtech bauxite.
- No Seas, Cave World: Generate a cave world, but without the usual water at y=32 and below, which means no flooded caves. Makes the underground easier to navigate.
- Caves, Ravines, Mineshafts: Spelunking is the fastest way to grab lots of ores quickly. Adding these symbols guarantees plenty of exposed ores.
- Bright Lighting: Eliminates any need for placing torches, especially as the biome guarantees no hostiles will ever spawn naturally (cave spiders still spawn from the mineshaft spawners, though).
- [Any weather], [Any sun/moon/stars]: Weather and celestials need to be specified to avoid extra instability, which we will have enough of already. Use whatever you want - you'll probably never see the surface anyway.
- Boundless Skies: I like to throw this in to get rid of the fog effect.
- Dense Ores, Charged, Scorched Surface: By specifying Charged and Scorched Surface (which only affect the surface where we will never go), you reduce the instability from Dense Ores somewhat, with no inconvenience to yourself. It does not appear possible to eliminate instability completely however. More adventurous world-builders may want to try adding Meteors as well.
- Clear Modifiers: It's good practice to add this page at the end of any book you write, to eliminate any dangling modifiers that might cause instability. If you don't have this page, don't worry about adding it.
In my experimentation, I find that Dense Ores seems to spawn decay no matter what you try and do to prevent it. Fortunately, my mining technique mitigates the effects of decay, allowing me to mine almost indefinitely. And I'm about to reveal my big secret:
Just keep moving.
That's it. That's as simple as it gets. Decay spawns as single blocks in newly-generated chunks, and spreads. Decay cannot spread in chunks that don't exist yet. If your current mining area is getting a little too uncomfortable, just up and move to an ungenerated area, and start mining again. If you're mining underground, pick a direction and keep mining that way. Don't linger in an area for too long otherwise the decay will catch up with you. I carry an Overworld linking book on my hotbar at all times, just in case.
(For your convenience, links to the relevant wiki articles have been provided below)
I carry an
Ender Pouch whose matching
Ender Chest at my home base is linked to my
ME Network (
Applied Energistics), which lets me dump the spoils of my mining into my base's storage system via the pouch whenever my inventory fills up. I carry a Silk Touch tool, currently a
Diamond Drill enchanted via a book, with which to mine the ores for later processing. The drill drains power from my
Modular Powersuit, which does need to be periodically recharged due to this - to solve this issue I carry a second Ender Pouch whose chest in my base sits on top of a
Universal Charger from the Power Converters mod. Thus, placing my Powersuit (or any IC2 tool or Universal Electricity compatible item) into the Ender Pouch causes it to be recharged from my base's power supply, no matter where I am. With a decent stock of food, and the mobility provided by the jetpack module in my Powersuit, I can easily mine a large amount of resources from the Dense Ores world while staying ahead of the decay.
Thoughts on automation
I have considered this, and concluded that it may be possible in a world with decay, but not with a BC Quarry. I noticed that decay does not spawn above level 64 (but will spread above that level), and likewise I did not observe it spawning low down either (below level 32), but there may have been decay spawning that I could not see. I considered placing a quarry up near the surface, safe from decay for a while, but all the ores would be consumed by decay before the quarry reached low enough.
Given that I did not encounter any decay in the lowest levels until very late in its spread, I considered a quarrying machine that could run sideways, staying ahead of the decay. A RedPower frame quarry would be fast and produce high yields depending on size, but there were several problems here: 1) No RedPower in the latest modpacks (though not a problem for anyone still on <=1.4.7); 2) keeping it powered would be a chore, without an intricate system of passing BT Batteries through Ender Chests; and 3) frame quarries are intricate devices that need to be constructed in-place, by which time the decay would have spread to a dangerous level.
But then another tunnelling machine came to mind, one that can be placed down and set in motion with only a minute or so of preparation. A Railcraft Tunnel Bore could be the desired automation solution. Ideally it would be placed at y=8 or similar in a Dense Ores world without Caves/Ravines/Mineshafts, towing a World Anchor cart and several chest carts behind it, and be well-stocked with rails, gravel and coal coke. There are still caveats here though. There is no way I can see to get the items out of the world as they are mined (why is there no Ender Chest minecart?) - you would need to periodically enter the world and chase down the tunnel bore, hoping that decay had not caught up with it first. The speed of the tunnel bore would probably not be enough to outpace most types of decay, either. You might get away with it in a world with only the slowest decay type.
All is not lost! I see a possible way to mine out a Dense Ores world where the primary threat is meteors instead of decay. If it is possible to make a Dense Ores world that is decay-free but has Meteors instead, it may be possible to install a BC Quarry underneath an
MFFS Forcefield, which would reform its protective shield even after obliteration by a meteor strike. Power for both the quarry and the forcefield system could be supplied from a safer world via one or more
Energy Tesseracts (keeping in mind the 25% loss and 100MJ/t limit of a Tesseract), and items retrieved via an Item Tesseract or Ender Chest. The details of the forcefield setup, including required forcefield shape and Forcicium supply, are left as an exercise for the reader.