Insane Ore Spawn in 1.18 – Find Diamonds Now!

So what kind of things do you need to know to get the maximum treasure for your time? Well depending on which ore you’re after you might need to know what biome to seek out, the height spans and random distributions of the ore and whether it generated buried

Or not – and the size of the various blobs that are generated. So to begin to get an understanding of what all of that means, let me first go through how the game generates an ore. First, it might only do so in certain biomes, in which case all positions outside that biome

Are discarded. Then, each distribution has a frequency to it. So for instance, the game might make 20 attempts per chunk to generate a vein. The game then picks a random x and z coordinate in the chunk and will attempt to pick a height.

It’ll do so according to a height range and random distribution. In previous versions of the game, most ores generated in uniform distributions – which means there’s equal chance of finding the ore anywhere within the height range. So if an ore generates uniformely between height 32 and height 64, that means I can

Dig at any height between those values and have the same chance of finding it. The other type of distribution is a triangular distribution – which is much more common in the caves and cliffs world generation. In this distribution, the ore is much more common towards the center of the triangle

– so in order to maximize the chance of finding an ore, you’ll want to dig at the center height for that distribution. Going halfway towards the end of the triangle means you’re half as likely to find the ore

There – so in an extended mining session, you should expect to come away with about half as much ore. Once it has picked a height, the game will then try to generate a blob of a certain size. The larger, the more blocks, obviously… but these blocks only generate if they’re

Replacing a stone type. If you randomly landed in the air or water, you wont get any ore at all… so even if we tried to generate 100 times per chunk, we’d never see any of it if all our attempts were done at height 300 and above, since none would ever hit the terrain.

This also matters at the very bottom of the world, where if the ore hits bedrock, that bedrocks stays and you don’t get an ore. The types of blocks that can be converted to ores are stone, granite, andesite and diorite

Which make the stone ore types and deepslate and tuff, which make the deepslate ore types. There’s one more factor. Some ores generate buried – this means that if they’re generating next to air, there’s a chance they might simply not generate.

An ore that generates 50% buried has a 50% chance to not generate next to air. Why do some ores generate buried? Because the new caves in this version are so much larger that otherwise you’d see much more of them while simply running around caves… so buried ores balance the fact that you now

See so much more surface area in caves. But some ores, like redstone, are not buried at all – so those might be more efficient to get from caving than from mining! That’s a lot to think about! And that’s why there’s now so much more strategy to mining.

This version also adds large ore veins, so if you’re trying to find a really huge amount of iron or copper, those are definitely the best thing to look for. Now lets get into the specifics of where the different ores generate – and let’s do it

In a sort of tech tree order, so let’s start with coal. The game makes 20 attempts per chunk at generating coal with a triangular distribution between heights 0 and 192, centered around height 96 and 50% buried. It also does 30 attempts per chunk at generating coal higher up in a triangular distribution

Between 136 and 320 – the center of that is 228 so basically this means there’s more coal the higher up you get in a mountain… but also there’s less terrain there, so you’ve got to balance those two factors.

Another noteworthy thing here is that the distribution ends at 0 – there is no coal in the depths, so you better stock up on coal before you dig down deep – or you’ll risk running out of torches. Copper generates in large ore veins mixed with granite above height 0, so if you want

The motherlode go searching for those. If you can’t find one you can also look for a lush cave, where the game generates large blobs of copper in the same distribution as the regular one. The game makes 16 attempts per chunk to generate blobs of copper ore in a triangular distribution

Between -16 and 112 and it’s not buried, so mining or caving around height 48 can both be viable strategies to maximizing your yield of copper. Moving on to iron, that generates in large ore veins mixed with tuff below height 0,

So keep your eyes open for that if you want to end up swimming in iron ore. In addition there are several distributions of iron – the game does 90 attempts per chunk at placing iron in a triangular distribution between 80 and 384.

The center of that is 232, so basically there’s more iron the heigher up you get in a mountain. Note that most of these attempts will hit air though, so while 90 attempts per chunks sounds like a lot, it’s not quite that much.

There’s also 10 attempts per chunk for a triangle between -24 and 56 – which is centered around height 16 and 10 attempts per chunk for smaller blobs uniformly distributed between -64 and 72. What does all of that mean?

You’ll still find some surface iron at ground level, and some iron in the deep, but if you’re branch mining or caving the best height is around positive 16. If you’re just starting out or need some quick iron however, a very viable strategy is to

Simply climb a mountain or hill and try to snipe some quick surface iron. Let’s talk about gold! There are 4 attempts per chunk at generating gold in a triangular distribution between -64 and 32. The center of that is at -16 and it’s 50% buried, so -16 is a good height to be branch

Mining at if you’re looking for gold. There’s also a uniform distribution of buried gold near the bottom of the world between height -64 and -48, but this only generates once every 2 chunks. The extra gold in badlands still exists too – there the game makes 50 attempts at placing

Gold uniformly between 32 and 256, so badlands at any height are still an absolute gold mine – literally. We’re going to get to the good stuff – diamonds… but before we do that, let me take a quick

Moment to ask you to please swing a pickaxe at the like button too – it helps the video spread to more people, so I do appreciate it. Thank you. So let’s get to the bling! All diamonds generate in a triangular distribution between -144 and 16, which means the lower

The better when mining for diamonds. There are 3 distributions, one of small blobs that generate 7 times per chunk, one of mid-size blobs generating 4 times per chunk and one large type generating once every 9 chunks

– but keep in mind that a number of these will end up below the bottom, so you won’t actually get that many. They’re all buried to some degree, so branch mining is the way to go and one more thing

To keep in mind is that the new lava table is at height -54 – so there’s now a choice – mine at height -60 just above bedrock for the best chance at diamonds, or mine at height -53 for a decent chance at diamonds and faster speed since you don’t need to worry about

Dealing with lava. Lapis now generates in blobs just like any other ore – before they used to generate spread out. There’s one triangle between -32 and 32 that has 2 attempts per chunk, and also a fully buried uniform distribution between -64 and 64 of 4 attempts per chunk. So what does that mean?

If you’re branch mining, the optimal height is probably around height 0, but anywhere below height 64 is still pretty good… and then it’s probably a good idea to stay above height 8 so you don’t need to mine through the deepslate. If you’re caving, you definitely want to stick around height 0.

Redstone generates uniformly between -64 and 15, 4 times per chunk, and also an additional triangle from -96 to -32 of 8 attempts per chunk. None of these are buried, so caving for redstone is an excellent idea.

If you want to branch mine for redstone, lower is better so at the very bottom of the world is a good idea if you’re also looking for diamonds… but it might also be worthwhile to go above height 8 to avoid deepslate mining.

Our last ore is possibly the one that has also changed the most. Emerald still generates in mountain biomes – including all the new ones. The height has changed entirely though – it’s now a triangle between -16 and 480, which means you get more of them the heigher up you go in mountains.

You’ll also find them in larger blobs than 1 now. The game makes a whopping 100 attempts per chunk at placing these, but since the distribution ranges so far above the world, most of them are going to fail. Still, there’s definitely more emerald now, and since it’s not buried climbing a mountain

Is actually the best way of finding them now. A notable thing about this is that with a triangular distribution going so high up, the chance of emerald ore generating low down is really really low… so deepslate emerald ore is now truly the rare gem of the Minecraft world.

That was a lot of information about mining – it truly has a lot more depth to it in the caves and cliffs update. I hope you learned something and that you found this useful. And if you did, here’s another suggestion you might like!