What do you look for in a good starting seed?

[Builder Bob]

Hey folks,

 

I'm curious about what features you have to have to put a lot of time into a new seed.  What do you have to have?

 

Starting out, I look for a good supply of cat tails, stone that can be made into tools, some trees etc.  Later, I need to be able to find some iron and hopefully the components to make leather.

 

 

[CalebRaven]

If I can find an area with a Commodities and either a Survival Goods or Treasure Hunter that are close by to each other, that's pretty grand. I can keep myself in bronze tier forever that way, as well as pick up other materials that might not be in the local biomes.

[Muffins]

Sedimentary rocks. A lot of resources are only found in sedimentary areas and not in igneous areas. Coal, salt, limestone (for lime/leather), chalk etc are never found in igneous rocks. Borax and sulphur I've only ever found in sedimentary rocks too. If you're in a sedimentary area you might find several layers of different sedimentary rocks before hitting granite etc but in you're in an igneous area I've found it to be granite or andesite all the way to the mantle.

[Yeetiee]

It really depends on what you want to do. I tend to start a new world with some plan for construction. Most recently I wanted to build small castle with slate roof and some light stone for walls so I looked for a seed with plains or small hills with slate nearby. I got nice monolitic granite structures which proved priceless with the amount of stone needed for bricks (it turned out flattening those rocks is so much easier than making regular quarry). Unfortunately, the closest rocks used for mortar were half a day trip to the west. So I guess you cant have all the things needed on site.

[allstreets]

I tend to look for somewhere that looks nice - or interesting - that has enough space for building and farming. Most games I settle close to where I spawn, unless it seems like it'll be too cold in the winter...I like having to do a lot of exploring to find chalk/slate/etc, as it gives me a chance to see interesting new sites while also making me creative with the initial resources on hand in terms of building a starter house.

[Troy]

If I can't find enough reeds to craft at least a couple of handbaskets by the end of the second day, I start over with a new seed. I could keep moving until I find them, but that's more time than I want to spend hunting for the extra inventory slots I need to get started on actually playing the game. It just isn't fun for me. That's the only thing I consider essential for a good seed.

[BenLi]

Depends on the stage of the game.

Start of the game - reeds, food, tool suitable stones.

Development stage - some sedimentary rock layers with its resources. Limestone/chalk, bauxite(!), slate. Borax, salt - resources in the layer.

Advanced stage - rift stable area with all PoIs close enough for permanent housing. Close enough = up to 1k blocks away. PoIs (points of interest) such as traders, resources, easy stone path building paths to the PoIs (no mountains/rough terrain). Abundant terra pretta available.

Very advanced stage - as much xlocators as possible close to the housing area leading to as much resources as possible. Say - up to 500-600 blocks away from the house.

[RobinHood]

I watch also for nice climate zone, I love the Swamp-Cypress / Redwood-Zone (8000-11.000 blocks are fine, if the place is fine by other  reasons maybe also 5000/6000 or 12.000). In Default World/Climate Settings in a multiplayer game I'm now 11000 Blocks southwards from the spawn. Winters not too cold or only very short, and summers not too hot - more than 39°C are bad also. I can made aggriculture in the whole year - only for peanuts I use a greenhouse in the winter months.  

[Maelstrom]

My only must haves in a new world are reeds/papyrus and knappable stones on day one.  Everything else is just a matter in finding it. 

I like to end day one with a large number of knappable stones and a couple stacks of clay for night time crafting purposes.  gotta put those potentially dangerous night time hours to good use.