Worldgen mods

[Echo Weaver]

I'm putting together a more heavily-modded game, and I'd like to try out one of the big worldgen mods. The ones that keep popping up are VanillaPlus and Terra Prety.

What do folks think of them? Is there a reason to choose one or the other?

[vinnland]

I tried all of them. 50% of my games use VanillaPlus, 50% use  Plains and Valleys.

Plains and Valleys is great.

[Kyassady]

i really like trerra pretty

love that i can get a lot of high montains and a loto o valeys and plains...... highly configurable!

[Echo Weaver]

8 hours ago, vinnland said:

Plains and Valleys is great.

I don't really understand the worldgen mods that favor a specific kind of terrain. Don't we want all kinds of terrain? What makes Plains and Valleys great?

(No subtext here -- I'm really this clueless. )

4 hours ago, Kyassady said:

i really like trerra pretty

love that i can get a lot of high montains and a loto o valeys and plains...... highly configurable!

Do you have any particular way you configure it other than default?

Edited September 18, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[Kyassady]

17 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Do you have any particular way you configure it other than default?

 

from the mod page: 

World Height: 320 ... (384 is also quite dramatic, for people who want to see more intense landscape with fewer flat regions.)
Landform Scale: 300%... (200% is also good for players with lower render distance or who want to see variety more quickly while traveling.)
Upheaval: 30%

i prefer with 20% upheaval... less steep mountains.....

[Echo Weaver]

20 minutes ago, Kyassady said:

i prefer with 20% upheaval... less steep mountains.....

Yeah, I don't think really high mountain ranges are a primary goal of mine. But I did some flying around in creative on a backup of my primary game to see how disjoint the landscape would be with worldgen parameters changed to support oceans. The answer was really not too bad at the seam where worldgen changed, but the vanilla landscape really doesn't look that great from above. I don't necessarily think I need mountains any higher than vanilla, but more believable and smoothed landscape in general would be great.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

I don't really understand the worldgen mods that favor a specific kind of terrain. Don't we want all kinds of terrain? What makes Plains and Valleys great?

I don't use worldgen mods that alter the terrain like this, but the reason I could see for using them is if a player prefers a specific type of terrain over others. So for players who prefer large swaths of open space, a mod like Plains and Valleys that specializes in that type of terrain would be an attractive choice. 

[Echo Weaver]

2 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't use worldgen mods that alter the terrain like this, but the reason I could see for using them is if a player prefers a specific type of terrain over others. So for players who prefer large swaths of open space, a mod like Plains and Valleys that specializes in that type of terrain would be an attractive choice. 

I think I've played enough now to have an opinion on vanilla worldgen, and I'm not wild about it. It's really noisy, and flying around recently in creative to check out the effects of worldgen settings changes underscored to me how unnatural the landscape looks at height. (Obvs, we don't play at that height, so everyone's mileage may very.)

I think I'll try out VanillaPlus in my next game. That one seems to be trying to be mostly vanilla but smoother.

 

[vinnland]

12 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

I don't really understand the worldgen mods that favor a specific kind of terrain. Don't we want all kinds of terrain? What makes Plains and Valleys great?

(No subtext here -- I'm really this clueless. )

Do you have any particular way you configure it other than default?

In a sense, yes. but it depends on how you play. 

I like building mega bases. And so i need lots of flat land.

[Kiroshiko]

Just wanted to share this: don't use Terra Prety with heavily modded playthroughs on 1.21.0. It messes up resource spawning like beehives, oak trees and other kinds of resources, including structures. At least that's my experience with it.

[clevermagpie]

On 9/21/2025 at 4:19 PM, Kiroshiko said:

Just wanted to share this: don't use Terra Prety with heavily modded playthroughs on 1.21.0. It messes up resource spawning like beehives, oak trees and other kinds of resources, including structures. At least that's my experience with it.

This is significant and anecdotes like this are why I've avoided it.

I haven't seen any specific details related to why it does this though. Do you have any more information? I like worldgen mods because vanilla looks like garbage to me, but game balance is important if you wanna avoid fiddling with stuff too much.

Currently I use plains and valleys + conquest + rivergen, bees are very very rare but I can still find them.

[pigfood]

On 9/21/2025 at 10:19 PM, Kiroshiko said:

Just wanted to share this: don't use Terra Prety with heavily modded playthroughs on 1.21.0. It messes up resource spawning like beehives, oak trees and other kinds of resources

IME, that's 100% nonsense. Terrain mods don't effect resource spawns beyond their expected effect on local climate.

Elevation does effect climate and spawn conditions. Quite a lot of spawns depend on elevation.

Edited January 10 by pigfood