Do you still have the dimension tab of the first empty dimension you made? In that case can you do shift-right click on it and give me the output of that? It is a bit long but you should also find it in your log files so that's easier to copy/paste here.
BTW. Did you also delete your world? Because this does look as if you were entering a pre-made dimension that you created using other parameters first (in a previous version of rftools) and then reenter later. Some of the random generation things have changed.
I wish it was that simple... but although I did not actually delete any of the worlds I created using older versions of your mod, the world containing this dimension was brand-new and created using Beta 5.
In any case, here's the output form the dimension tab:
Code:
Terrain: TERRAIN_NORMAL
Base block: Cobblestone
Tendril block: Stone
Base fluid: Molten Steel
Feature: FEATURE_CAVES
Feature: FEATURE_NONE
Feature: FEATURE_TENDRILS
Sun brightness: 1.5
Star brightness: 1.5
Celestial angle: 0.2
I created a new world just to test this very bug. First thing I noticed is that the dimension was labeled "Id 8" in the dialing device. I was in the dimension with ID 7, I'm fairly sure, when I opened the previous world up a few minutes earlier. A minor bug, this is; probably inconsequential.
The shift-click output of the realized (empty) dimension tab in this world is as follows:
Code:
Terrain: TERRAIN_NORMAL
Base block: Cobblestone
Tendril block: Stone
Base fluid: Molten Steel
Feature: FEATURE_CAVES
Feature: FEATURE_NONE
Feature: FEATURE_TENDRILS
Sun brightness: 1.5
Star brightness: 1.5
Celestial angle: 0.2
This looks exactly like the random features in the dimension in the other world. Interesting... I did not exit out of Minecraft between leaving that world and creating this one- could that have something to do with this and with the above "Id 8" thing?
Upon exploring this dimension, I find the same glitchy tendril slices as in the other dimension, but no dirt or grass to be seen outside of the tendrils.
So, I closed Minecraft entirely, then made yet another world from scratch, and created another dimension from an empty dimension tab in it. This time, it was assigned to Id 2, as I would expect for the first RFTools dimension in a world, but once again was filled with cobblestone terrain, stone tendril slices, and oceans of molten steel. As in the previous world, I did not see any remotely normal-looking terrain- it was all cobblestone, molten steel, Chromaticraft crystals, GeoStrata vents, and the occasional Thaumcraft node. The right-click output from the tab is identical to those posted above, except the "Feature: " lines are in a different order.
I generated another dimension in this world with the same dimlets as the third dimension I created in my first Beta 5 test world (two Digit Zeros), and got a dimension with the same features (stone tendrils and lakes of glue and flux goo).
So it looks like RFTools is caching used dimension IDs in memory, and not properly clearing that cache when leaving a world. However, the algorithm you use to select random features and such seems to be pseudorandom, with its seed determined by the contents of the dimension tab. This first of these bugs seems very minor, although the source probably lies deep in your code somewhere. The second one, though, looks to me like it could be fixed by seeding whatever random number generator you're using with some combination of the dimlets used and the world seed. Or just forget the seed and let Java come up with one for you, to ensure that everything that's supposed to be random actually is, abandoning any sort of consistency.
And I still don't know what to think about those tendril slices. I did find one in the last world I generated, amid numerous regular tendrils. However, in the cobblestone and molten steel dimensions, there were no regular tendrils at all- only slices.
Side note: Whenever I use a matter transmitter to go to a new dimension, I end up glitching into the ground. Not a big deal when I'm in creative mode, but could be annoying in survival. Especially if the platform is the only thing between you and a lake of molten steel. Increasing the player's y-coordinate a bit would probably fix it.
Why wouldn't you want a random dimension to cost exactly what it would have if it had been assembled manually from its component dimlets? Or am I misunderstanding the problem?
Currently, the cost of a dimension is determined exclusively by the actual dimlets used in enscribing it. This is a useful feature because it lets you know exactly what a dimension will cost as soon as you hit the button in the Dimension Enscriber, before you actually put any RF into it. This way, if you find out that the dimension is too much for your power system to handle, you can just hit the "Extract" button and scrap it without committing any resources, power, or disk space at all.
Under the current system, to my understanding, the actual properties of the dimension are not determined until the dimension is fully built, so if the cost was based on the actual properties of the dimension, there would be no way to tell if your power system could handle it until you paid the (potentially substantial) creation and time costs. If the dimension turned out to be too expensive, you'd have spent that time and RF for nothing, and may scrap the dimension tab to get the dimlets back. This also leaves the never-to-be-used dimension on the server, but impossible to power- an annoyance for server admins with limited disk space and to other players using RFTools's teleportation devices (note that all existing matter receivers, including those generated in RFTools dimensions that have never been visited, appear on the Dialing Device), no doubt.
As for the problem of players randomly winding up with cheap-to-run dimension full of valuable resources, I'm not sure there's much need to worry about it until people actually playtest the mod. If it turns out that players who don't power through TE and RFTools progression in order to start generating random dimensions as quickly as possible typically already have a reliable supply of diamonds and such by the time they get an overpowered dimension, I don't see much reason to change it.