anyone know a good seed for 1.21.0-pre.3?

[Yakkob]

I've already tried quite a few attempts, the absolute furthest I've got was a copper anvil and some bronze tools plus also a sailboat. is it normal to need to travel a few thousand blocks to find tin or iron ore? or am I just being an idiot? 

[Thorfinn]

I don't know that it's necessary, but I do anyway. Depends on the rock strata you spawn in. And what you are asking for is not seed-based, anyway. But is having to travel a kilometer or two unrealistic?

[EDIT]

Oh, and I meant to ask. Pre-3?

Edited July 26, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Yakkob]

I guess but ain't there places like England that have both tin and copper ore right near each other? also one time I traveled like 3 or 4 days straight trying to find hematite/limonite/magentite and still couldn't find any? meanwhile IRL I can take a 15 minute walk to some old gravel pits behind my house and find shit tons of (admittedly not high grade) iron ore of some kind (I don't exactly what kind it is, I spent most of high school fighting the system and geology is not my strong area) and even the odd chunk of native copper every now and then... yes I'm a blacksmith IRL...

[Yakkob]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

Oh, and I meant to ask. Pre-3?

yeah because I ain't updated to 1.21.0-rc. 1, I don't know if seeds are different each version like minecraft?

Edited July 26, 2025 by Yakkob

[Thorfinn]

3 hours ago, Yakkob said:

I guess but ain't there places like England that have both tin and copper ore right near each other?

Yes, but the seed doesn't do that. Check it out. Pick some seed you can remember, like your name, and generate a world. Type "/gm 2" and give yourself a prospecting pick and a steel pick. Type "/gm 1" and use the propick. Screenshot your numbers. Go back into creative and dig to the mantle, noting where you encounter ores. Exit out and create a new world with the same seed and repeat, using the exact same propick locations, and the same exact location for your mineshaft. The ores are generated at run time, and, at least last I checked, were not seed based. I don't remember offhand if the prospecting permilles were seed based, but I don't believe they were, either. In any event, a good seed does not give you the same ores.

Seed is pretty much your basic landforms. It is not like that other game in that respect.

[Yakkob]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

Seed is pretty much your basic landforms. It is not like that other game in that respect.

so its entirely normal to travel for dozens of miles just to reach the bronze age? are there roads that increase your move speed? are there horses? or carts? or do you just take 2 or 3 months to build a basic house? I feel like I'm missing something?

[Thorfinn]

I'm usually bronze in 3-5 days. Yes, that includes traversing several thousand blocks. There are roads, yes, but you have to build them. Look up "stone path". Personally, I only use them in my homestead, not speeding up travel cross country. Sprinting is quite quick enough for me. There is a rideable elk, but it will take a matter of months to get one. No carts yet. But a single stack of tin ore is way more than you will use in the entire game, so it's not like a cart would help there anyway.

[Thorfinn]

I should mention there are a lot of people who don't bronze rush, and enjoy the copper or even pottery age for an extended time. Since it's a sandbox, your pace is up to you, mostly. The only real important thing is getting food cached before winter, and not even that is necessary if you are a good hunter or are willing to do the winter as a nomad.

[Zane Mordien]

21 hours ago, Yakkob said:

so its entirely normal to travel for dozens of miles just to reach the bronze age? are there roads that increase your move speed? are there horses? or carts? or do you just take 2 or 3 months to build a basic house? I feel like I'm missing something?

You typically don't need to travel more than 1000 blocks to find copper and tin. There is some luck involved but most of it is just knowing how to find it. My first world I traveled far and wide to find ores, but nowadays I usually find everything i need close to my base. Exceptions are things like limestone, chromite and borax. 

[Yakkob]

35 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

Exceptions are things like limestone, chromite and borax.

so in other words, I do need to travel half a dozen miles?

[Zane Mordien]

10 minutes ago, Yakkob said:

so in other words, I do need to travel half a dozen miles?

Depends on the seed. You might start in chalk or limestone or you may have to search for it. Unless you luck into borax then you dont need limestone to make leather. Chromite and borax are generally late game resources since they are needed for advanced backpacks and steel. Neither of which you need to do any of the story content. 

[Zane Mordien]

I just checked and the seed does dictate the reading of the prospecting pick. I created the exact same seed and went to (0,whatever, 0) and prospected and it gives the same reading.

On 7/26/2025 at 12:28 PM, Thorfinn said:

I don't remember offhand if the prospecting permilles were seed based, but I don't believe they were, either. In any event, a good seed does not give you the same ores.

 

[Zane Mordien]

5 hours ago, Yakkob said:

so in other words, I do need to travel half a dozen miles?

Here this seed gives you obsidian and cassiterite at the 0,0 point. This is one of my favorite seeds because I like the basalt. Looks like Sulfur and copper are nearby as well and if I remember right bears and wolves aren't right on top of the spawn point.

-852854117

[Thorfinn]

Interesting. Wonder when that happened. I was absolutely certain that it didn't work that way when I checked. Then again, somewhere around 1.19, /wgen regen 1 would put back whatever surface copper nuggets you had just picked up. Exact same place. Same with crops, but water was a little wonky. So maybe that was when it changed?

[Zane Mordien]

@Thorfinn I started somewhere at the end of 1.18 and the release of 1.19 so somewhere in there I think you are right. I thought I found the same prospecting readings and surface deposits in the seed I use to check out the new RCs. It was bugging me so I checked and it was the same, but when I go back to my 1.18 world it does not have the same readings as a 1.21.0 pre 3. It changed somewhere between 1.18 and 1.21 pre 3. I'm almost motivated enough to load several old releases to see exactly when it changed. Not that it is important, but I want to know!

[Maelstrom]

The ore generation is a "level" of world generation that is randomized each time a world is generated, regardless of seed.  While the rock strata may be the same the heat map that determines ore density changes for each instance of a world despite world settings and seeds.  This has been thoroughly investigated long before I started playing in 1.14.

Edited July 28, 2025 by Maelstrom

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

The ore generation is a "level" of world generation that is randomized each time a world is generated, regardless of seed.  While the rock strata may be the same the heat map that determines ore density changes for each instance of a world despite world settings and seeds.  This has been thoroughly investigated long before I started playing in 1.14.

Create the seed i posted and check it out. I don't think thats the case anymore.  Unless it is somehow tied to my computer. 

[Maelstrom]

There is some difference.  In the exact same coords I got slightly different readings.

Version 1.20.10  /  Seed = -13

-42 , -402 
Test World 1: poor cassiterite 0.09, very poor chromite  0.23, very poor sphalerite 0.19
Test World 2: poor cassiterite 0.10, very poor chromite  0.18, very poor sphalerite 0.17

-35 , -473
Test World 1: ultra high cassiterite 0.33, miniscule hematite
Test World 2: ultra high cassiterite 0.32, miniscule hematite

While the numbers are very close there is enough deviation to support the long held evidence that the heat map is not seed dependent.  The bolded numbers are definitely not due to rounding.  But the numbers are small enough that I will understand that the same seed and the exact same game settings may result in such similar heat map that it might as well be the same.   I think more testing is necessary to prove how much deviation there is and what causes such deviation.

For instance in that same seed -13 but with slightly different game settings (120% ore generation and world height of 320) the numbers for the first location is
Poor cassiterite 0.07, very poor chromite 0.13, very poor sphalerite 0.15.

As you can see those numbers are even more different than when the two test worlds had identical default game settings for a standard playstyle.

[Zane Mordien]

36 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

-42 , -402 
Test World 1: poor cassiterite 0.09, very poor chromite  0.23, very poor sphalerite 0.19
Test World 2: poor cassiterite 0.10, very poor chromite  0.18, very poor sphalerite 0.17

1.21 Pre 3

 

37 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

-35 , -473
Test World 1: ultra high cassiterite 0.33, miniscule hematite
Test World 2: ultra high cassiterite 0.32, miniscule hematite

1.21 Pre 3

52 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

While the numbers are very close there is enough deviation to support the long held evidence that the heat map is not seed dependent. 

I do not understand what evidence that is, because that looks very seed dependent. I created the same seed and got the same results with some small deviation. If you keep taking samples in the same spot all the way to bedrock there is deviation in the readings on the same world. I could collect hundreds of sample points and do some statistical analysis of it and calculate the mean and standard deviation, but well that seem unnecessary. The formula in the program has some variance I guess that creates these types of readings instead of it just giving the exact same number every time you take a sample.  If it wasn't seed dependent, it would be just some other random ore reading on every world creation and not the same ores with a small variation.

[Krougal]

I've been playing with the same one from 1.20 and possibly 1.19 as well and it has been generally good.

The interesting thing is even with different settings and different world-gen mods, I get different results, but it has generally been good to me.

With the rock strata changing mods (the broken one if you fix it yourself and another one, I forget exact names) I got large areas of basalt with lots of obsidian as well, of course finding decent soil was a challenge. Oak too. Without the strata mods it was limestone and granite.

Now in 1.21RC1 and with no world-gen mods, I actually got a really great spawn. In andesite, which I prefer for building. Granite and chalk (nice for floors for contrast) and slate (for roofs, because no bamboo in the north  ). Peri and others mixed in. Everything you could want in a few KM, Copper, tin, borax, chromite and the big one: bauxite.

I haven't looked for iron, but there's always tons of iron in my experience. Haven't seen Ilmenite, but then haven't really looked for it and it's an end-game material anyway so I care less if I have to travel to find it.

Seed is: 44573915
Config:

Spoiler

 

{
  "gameMode": "survival",
  "playerlives": "-1",
  "startingClimate": "temperate",
  "spawnRadius": "25",
  "graceTimer": "1",
  "deathPunishment": "keep",
  "droppedItemsTimer": "3600",
  "seasons": "enabled",
  "daysPerMonth": "9",
  "harshWinters": "true",
  "blockGravity": "sandgravel",
  "caveIns": "off",
  "allowFallingBlocks": true,
  "allowFireSpread": true,
  "lightningFires": false,
  "allowUndergroundFarming": false,
  "noLiquidSourceTransport": false,
  "playerHealthPoints": "35",
  "playerHealthRegenSpeed": "1",
  "playerHungerSpeed": "1",
  "lungCapacity": "40000",
  "bodyTemperatureResistance": "0",
  "playerMoveSpeed": "1.5",
  "creatureHostility": "aggressive",
  "creatureStrength": "1",
  "creatureSwimSpeed": "2",
  "foodSpoilSpeed": "1",
  "saplingGrowthRate": "1",
  "toolDurability": "1",
  "toolMiningSpeed": "1",
  "propickNodeSearchRadius": "8",
  "microblockChiseling": "stonewood",
  "allowCoordinateHud": true,
  "allowMap": true,
  "colorAccurateWorldmap": true,
  "loreContent": true,
  "clutterObtainable": "ifrepaired",
  "temporalStability": true,
  "temporalStorms": "sometimes",
  "tempstormDurationMul": "1",
  "temporalRifts": "visible",
  "temporalGearRespawnUses": "20",
  "temporalStormSleeping": "1",
  "worldClimate": "realistic",
  "landcover": "0.975",
  "oceanscale": "5",
  "upheavelCommonness": "0.3",
  "geologicActivity": "0.05",
  "landformScale": "1.0",
  "worldWidth": "51200",
  "worldLength": "51200",
  "worldEdge": "traversable",
  "polarEquatorDistance": "25000",
  "storyStructuresDistScaling": "0.15",
  "globalTemperature": "1",
  "globalPrecipitation": "1",
  "globalForestation": "0",
  "globalDepositSpawnRate": "1",
  "surfaceCopperDeposits": "0.12",
  "surfaceTinDeposits": "0.007",
  "snowAccum": "true",
  "allowLandClaiming": true,
  "classExclusiveRecipes": true,
  "auctionHouse": true,
  "playstyle": "surviveandbuild",
  "worldHeight": 256
}

Obviously some settings are personal preference, I don't know if changing the world size will change the results or not.

 

Whatever Tyron did in the worldgen in 1.21RC1 it is way better than 1.17 onwards.

Map with markers (Don't look if you intend on trying the seed but don't want to ruin the joy of exploration). This is about 1.5-2km around the spawn. Since I have gotten burned so many times by shitty worldgen, I pause time and do a fly around in creative mode with a scanner and look for the important features and overall layout. I think that is an ocean in the NE, but I am not positive. Didn't see any coral, bummer. I mostly mark clay and peat. Traders. The black markers are cave entrances so my dumbass doesn't fall into them (although most of them I have found by falling into them) when I run by chasing some wolf or deer. The borax was small deposits but it wasn't very deep, my first was pretty close to surface under a mountain.

Spoiler

 

Edited July 29, 2025 by Krougal

[Maelstrom]

Tangential to the conversation.   I found this after mining my first copper.  3rd tool I smelt is ALWAYS a pro-pick and I found this on my fifth reading.

Just wish I had 10 tin nuggets.  Hopefully I'll find some of that soon.

[Thorfinn]

Wonder if how much gets removed by cavern generation is the difference. Not the ore itself, as I think it's supposed to look at what the rock is, and not actually count the ore nodes, but a large cave system might get rid of enough of the high-probability rock? Just spitballing here.

If you dig to the mantle, you don't find ore discs at the same locations, do you, @Zane Mordien? I'm absolutely certain you did not back whenever I tested. And that meshed with what @Streetwind said about ores, too. Not just the surface ores, but also the deep ores. Or at least that's what I understood him to say.

When I started playing, I don't remember the seed being nearly that determinative. It was the change in the /wgen regen 0 behavior that made me start wondering whether it might not be worthwhile to save a "last access" field in the database so it could prune anything that had not changed and hadn't been loaded recently. 

[Zane Mordien]

8 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

If you dig to the mantle, you don't find ore discs at the same locations, do you, @Zane Mordien? I'm absolutely certain you did not back whenever I tested.

I didn't check that. I don't think the actual ore nodes are set by the seed, but I guess it could be as well. I might try and check that tonight. 

Edited July 29, 2025 by Zane Mordien

[Krougal]

Well the rock strata seems to be fixed, so I don't think the ore distribution is going to vary "that" much.