Tectonic in FTB Evolution 2

Same as in the All the Mods 11 0.8.0-beta guide

Tectonic is a world generation mod that reshapes how terrain looks and feels. Instead of vanilla's terrain, you get huge continents, deep oceans and mountain ranges that can climb close to the build limit. If you love exploring, this mod changes what every trip into the wild looks like.^[1]

The pack ships Tectonic 3.0.27, the NeoForge 26.1 build. It is a v3 release, so the mod has an in-game config screen that explains what each field does.^[1][2]

What you'll notice in the world

• Continents are thousands to tens of thousands of blocks wide. The oceans between them hold smaller islands, up to around a thousand blocks across, which use vanilla's mountain shaping and can form traditional mountain rings.^[1]
• Oceans are much deeper than vanilla, and deep oceans can reach into the deepslate layer. They also have more varied terrain, with overhangs and valleys.^[1]
• Mountain ranges can stretch for tens of thousands of blocks. Where the terrain is too tall for normal rivers, underground rivers carve through it and connect to the surface rivers. Very deep down you can find lava tunnels.^[1]
• Biome-specific shapes include jungle pillars that can extend upwards of a hundred blocks tall, very large badlands canyons, rolling desert dunes, and 2-3 tiered plateaus.^[1]
• Valleys form where plateaus surround some Cherry Groves and Pale Gardens. Wetlands sit close to sea level in some forest, jungle and taiga biomes, with frequent ponds and lakes.^[1]

Working with other biome mods

Tectonic works with mods that add their biomes through Terrablender or Biolith, such as Biomes O Plenty, Regions Unexplored and Nature's Spirit. It also ships a Terralith-compatible version, and if Terralith is installed the ocean islands can spawn Calderas and Volcanoes.^[1]

Same as in the All the Mods 11 0.8.0-beta guide

Good news: Tectonic doesn't give you anything to craft. It's a world generation mod that reshapes the terrain, so your first steps are about exploring the world and knowing what to expect.^[1]

Unverified No Tectonic items, crafting recipes or quests are confirmed for this pack, so there is no first-items crafting order to follow for this mod.

What you'll notice first

• Terrain forms into continent-like landmasses, thousands to tens of thousands of blocks wide. Between them you'll find oceans with smaller islands, up to around a thousand blocks across.^[1]
• Oceans are much deeper than in vanilla, and deep oceans can reach into the deepslate layer. Vanilla ocean monuments generate deeper to compensate, so don't expect them at the usual depth.^[1][3]
• Mountain ranges are the big highlight. They can stretch for tens of thousands of blocks and climb close to the build limit.^[1]

Travelling safely

Where mountains are too towering for normal rivers, the rivers continue underground and link back up to the surface ones. That lets you follow a river by boat without interruption. Very deep underground there is also a rarer variant with lava instead of water, so be careful down there.^[1][3]

Plateaus sometimes have smoother ramps, which makes climbing them in survival easier. Some jungles have pillars that can reach upwards of a hundred blocks tall, and some badlands have very large canyons.^[1][3]

Same as in the All the Mods 11 0.8.0-beta guide

Tectonic is a world generation project that changes how terrain is shaped. The sources describe terrain, caves, oceans and biome layout, and they don't describe any machines, multiblocks, power, fluids or automation. So this section is about how the terrain systems work and which settings steer them.^[1]

Continents, islands and oceans

Terrain forms into continent-like landmasses that are thousands to tens of thousands of blocks wide. Between them sit smaller islands, up to around a thousand blocks across. These islands use vanilla's mountain terrain shaping, so traditional mountain rings can show up. With Terralith installed, they spawn Calderas and Volcanoes.^[1]

Oceans are much deeper than in vanilla, and deep oceans can reach into the deepslate layer. They also have more varied terrain, with overhangs and valleys. Vanilla Ocean Monuments generate deeper to match.^[1]

• continents_scale scales continents horizontally. Lower values give larger continents and more ocean between them.^[3]
• ocean_offset skews terrain towards or away from oceans. Lower values give more oceans. Above -0.45 deep oceans won't spawn, and above -0.2 oceans won't spawn at all.^[3]
• ocean_depth and deep_ocean_depth use a scale where 0 is sea level and -0.5 is 64 blocks below sea level.^[3]
• noise_scale, noise_multiplier and noise_offset control the islands. Lower noise_scale gives larger islands, and a higher noise_offset favors normal islands over mushroom islands.^[3]
• monument_offset shifts vanilla ocean monuments to fit the deeper oceans.^[3]

Mountains and surface terrain

The big highlight is the mountain ranges. They can stretch for tens of thousands of blocks and climb high enough to approach the build limit. The mod also adds canyons in some badlands, dunes in most deserts, plateaus, valleys and wetlands.^[1]

• vertical_scale stretches terrain above sea level. Doubling it doubles the surface height at a given point.^[3]
• elevation_boost increases the effect of vertical scale on mountainous terrain, so mountains and plateaus grow faster than lowlands.^[3]
• erosion_scale mainly affects mountains. Lower values give thicker mountain ranges and more terrain between them.^[3]
• ridge_scale mainly affects rivers and the terrain around them, like plateaus. Lower values give wider rivers.^[3]
• flat_terrain_skew sets where plateau terrain turns into flatter terrain. Positive numbers favor flat terrain and negative numbers favor plateaus.^[3]
• min_y and max_y set the minimum and maximum build and generation height. The old Increased Height setting set max_y to 640.^[3]

Caves and underground rivers

Caves come in cheese caves (the large, expansive ones), spaghetti caves (medium tunnels) and noodle caves (narrow and claustrophobic), and each type has its own toggle. Lowering cheese_additive or noodle_additive makes those caves bigger. The carvers_enabled option decides whether old caves and ravines still generate.^[3]

Caves stop generating at a depth set by depth_cutoff_start. A value of 0.1 cuts caves off about 12 blocks below the surface, and 0.5 cuts them off about 64 blocks below. depth_cutoff_size sets how gradually they close over, and 0.0 cuts them off immediately.^[3]

In mountains too tall for regular rivers, the terrain is carved so rivers continue underground. They link up with the regular rivers, so you can follow a river without interruption. With the mod version installed, they get extra glow lichen and rare lantern areas. Very deep down you can also find a variant with lava instead of water.^[1]

• underground_rivers lets rivers that reach mountain ranges continue underground, which makes boat exploration smoother.^[3]
• river_ice adds ice to underground rivers under snowy biomes, and river_lanterns adds rare hanging lanterns.^[3]
• lava_tunnels controls the rare lava tunnels at the bottom of the world.^[3]

Climate and biome layout

Separate scale, multiplier and offset options shape temperature and vegetation (humidity). A higher temperature_offset gives more deserts and warm biomes, and a lower one gives more taiga and cold biomes. A higher temperature_multiplier makes biome temperatures more extreme. The vegetation options work the same way for humidity.^[3]

Tectonic works with mods that add biomes through Terrablender or Biolith, including Biomes O Plenty, Regions Unexplored and Nature's Spirit. Terralith has its own compatibility version, shipped in the mod version of Tectonic.^[1]

Things to watch out for

Unverified The pack's actual Tectonic settings could not be confirmed, because no config files for this mod were available. The option descriptions above are the mod's own tooltips, so the values this pack uses may differ.

Tectonic changes world generation rather than adding items, and the sources here show no tiers for it. The one concrete detail is a data file in the mod's own jar that matters when you pick a world type.^[4]

World presets Tectonic marks as incompatible

Tectonic's jar includes a world preset tag named incompatible. It lists these presets from Terralith: terralith:all_skylands and terralith:amplified_large_biomes. The file only lists them, so it does not say what the game or the pack does with that list.^[4]

Everything for Tectonic lives in one file, config/tectonic.json. Below are the options you are most likely to want to tweak, with the exact values this pack ships. The mod is switched on with general.mod_enabled set to true, and changing that needs a game restart.^[5]

Continents and oceans

• continents.continents_scale is 0.13 here. Lower values mean larger continents with more ocean between them.^[5]
• continents.ocean_offset is -0.8. Lower values give more oceans. Above -0.45 deep oceans will not spawn, and above -0.2 oceans will not spawn at all, so this pack sits well below both limits.^[5]
• oceans.ocean_depth is -0.38 and oceans.deep_ocean_depth is -0.62. On this scale 0 is sea level and -0.5 is 64 blocks below it.^[5]
• oceans.monument_offset is -52, which shifts vanilla ocean monuments to match the deeper oceans.^[5]
• continents.erosion_scale is 0.25 (lower means thicker mountain ranges) and continents.ridge_scale is 0.2 (lower means wider rivers).^[5]

Terrain height and world limits

• global_terrain.vertical_scale is 1.06. It stretches terrain above sea level, and doubling it doubles the surface height at a given point.^[5]
• global_terrain.elevation_boost is 0, so mountains and plateaus are not boosted beyond the vertical scale.^[5]
• global_terrain.ultrasmooth is false. Turning it on smooths the terrain a lot, but at the cost of strange or broken generation in deep oceans and windswept biomes.^[5]
• global_terrain.min_y is -64 and global_terrain.max_y is 320.^[5]
• general.snow_start_offset is 128, which offsets the y-level where snow starts in cold biomes like taigas.^[5]

Caves

All the cave types are on: caves.cheese_enabled, caves.spaghetti_enabled and caves.noodle_enabled are true, and so is caves.carvers_enabled for old caves and ravines (needs a game restart to change).^[5]

• caves.cheese_additive is 0.27 and caves.noodle_additive is -0.075. Lower values make those caves bigger.^[5]
• caves.depth_cutoff_start is 0.1, which cuts caves off about 12 blocks below the surface. caves.depth_cutoff_size is also 0.1, so caves close over roughly 12 blocks.^[5]
• caves.ore_fix is false. When enabled it alters ore generation to suit a lowered min_y.^[5]
• global_terrain.lava_tunnels is true, so rare deep lava tunnels can generate at the bottom of the world.^[5]

Terrain features

• continents.jungle_pillars, continents.rolling_hills and continents.underground_rivers are all true. That means massive jungle pillars, smooth hilly plains, and rivers that continue underground when they reach mountains.^[5]
• continents.river_lanterns is true, so underground rivers will rarely have hanging lanterns. continents.river_ice is false, so underground rivers under snowy biomes get no ice.^[5]
• oceans.remove_frozen_ocean_ice is false, so Frozen Oceans keep their surface ice.^[5]
• continents.flat_terrain_skew is 0.2. Positive numbers favor flat terrain over plateaus.^[5]
• islands.enabled is true, with islands.noise_scale at 0.11.^[5]

Biomes and experimental options

• Temperature noise uses biomes.temperature_scale at 0.25, biomes.temperature_multiplier at 1 and biomes.temperature_offset at 0.^[5]
• Vegetation noise uses biomes.vegetation_scale at 0.25, biomes.vegetation_multiplier at 1 and biomes.vegetation_offset at 0.^[5]
• The three experimental toggles, experimental.alternate_continents_scaling, experimental.alternate_erosion_scaling and experimental.improved_jungle_pillars, are all false.^[5]

FTB Evolution 2 1.1.0 ships Tectonic 3.0.28. The mod has been in the pack since FTB Evolution 2 1.0.2 or earlier, so it is not a new addition in this release.^[6]

Tectonic 3.0.28

• Fixed a crash when opening the config presets screen. If you had trouble opening that screen on an earlier version of the mod, this is the fix.^[7]

Unverified The sources here include no FTB Evolution 2 pack changelog entries for Tectonic, so any pack-level changes to the mod between releases are not shown. Check the pack's own changelog for those.