Advanced and dynamic geology based on plate tectonics

[Cervator]

We used to have randomly deposited basic minerals that just pop up just about wherever. We want to arrive at a dynamic system with a few major layer types, filled with a series of filler layers, veins, pockets, etc, similar to DF and RL geology. This way addon blocks can simply state what layer they should exist in and in what shape

This is not a simple system, but it is fairly independent so could be picked up early by a skilled contributor.

Relates somewhat to #140 as these veins and layers could hold a secondary resource

[Cervator]

Bumping this a bit - we've got a functional tectonic-based world map generator from laurimann that can make heighmaps importable with @nymtraveel's height map mode. Including plate age from the tectonic data could be a way to place minerals.

Relevant thread: https://forum.terasology.org/threads/mapgeneration.608/

[Cervator]

Another much, much, later bump! We have ore distribution now by @MarcinSc inspired by MC modder JRoush's algorithms (https://forum.terasology.org/threads/oregeneration.758/#post-8020)

https://github.com/Terasology/AnotherWorld

That version is unrelated to the tectonic maps, which still are separate from the game (have to use Laurimann's PlaTec generator separately to generate a map file we then can copy into Terasology)

I'm going to consider this issue specific to turning it up a notch and using the extra data in the plate tectonics maps to place differing minerals at a macro scale (where in the world should which go) rather than micro scale (where are the veins, pockets, and clusters of mineral blocks going to be placed in chunks).

Micro scale deposits should probably use the veins, pockets, clusters etc we currently have, through configuration details within the ore definition (likely a prefab)

Ideally this would include fetching said data, or depend on a separate effort to get said data. The quest continues! :-)

[Estevo-Aleixo]

does the PlaTec library output the plates? Or only a heightmap? I primarily want to get my hands on code, where do I look?

[Cervator]

Hi @Estevo-Aleixo - most the details should be in the http://forum.terasology.org/threads/mapgeneration.608/ thread. It has been a little while so I don't recall for sure, but I believe it is just the heightmap (we had talked about plate age as another set of data). Part of this effort might be to enhance that if needed :)