In areas of the world where the Weirdness/Ridges noise is particularly low (below about -1.25), Sulfur Caves will begin spawning on the surface.
Steps to Reproduce
Create a world with seed 934598 and teleport to 0, 70, 0.
(Previous seed/coords before partial fix in 26.2-snap-6: 121825627925 / -100, 100, -130)
Cause
Sulfur Caves are set to generate between -1.1 and -0.95 weirdness values. No other biome uses weirdness values below -1, so Sulfur Caves can take over surface biomes when the weirdness value gets low enough. This can easily be fixed by changing the weirdness range to be -1 to -0.95.
Linked issues
is duplicated by 2
relates to 2
Attachments
Comments 18
The following paragraph explains how this scenario happens:
Sulfur Caves generate below Weirdness -0.45 at Depth ~0.5, and as weirdness gets further negative, the depth range expands. (e.g. Weirdness = -1 : Depth = 0.2 ~ 0.8)
Eventually, at around W = -1.25 ~ -1.4, the depth range is pretty much 0.0 ~ 1.0, making it generate from the surface all the way down to bedrock (in simple terms). With such extreme weirdness values, the terrain would usually slope down quickly because of sinkholes. Even though this may happen, Sulfur Caves are still likely to generate on the edges of these sinkholes. However, these sinkholes can be prevented via the generation of certain biomes, such as the Grove and Mushroom Fields, causing the generation of very big areas of exposed Sulfur Caves. When the sulfur caves biome generates on the surface, it generates grass (On Java Edition), like most other biomes. And if you add in some Seedfinding, you can “easily” find large patches of sulfur caves generating in the place of normal biomes. And as of 26.2-snapshot-2, not only can Mushroom islands now border "land biomes" (Sulfur Caves), but Sulfur Caves can now generate on the surface of almost any player’s Minecraft World.
(Note 1:) Depth is approximately based on the Terrain height, so if an ocean generates with a very low weirdness value, the Sulfur Caves would generate on the ocean floor and not at sea level.
(Note 2:) This information has been discovered by the Minecraft@Home Discord community and then compiled by me. If Mojang sees this, please know that the seedfinding community is really enjoying this unique terrain generation.
Enjoy this new information! :)
Instead of blocking it, we decided to embrace the fact that they can peek through the surface and include sulfur cave features on the surface as well. Its a really rare occurence, so we thought it would be best if it feels like a rare find for the players. After the fix the area in 934598 seed should look like on the attached image
Also, please include removing the sulfur dripstones on the surface… It’s kind of illogical for them to generate like that without the dripstone growth mechanic in real life.
Usually you don’t get it generating cool though, unfortunately: because the surface biome starts generating >8 blocks or so above the surface and there’s the separate sinkhole terrain bug, most of the time the biome generates in an ugly water ring anyways with little fun surface expose.
Efhraim: stone growths, yes. Sulfur forms from hot gases escaping the holes. Can generate in all directions.
Apollo: yes, maybe. You would get a cool ring i reckon. Seed?
Thank you for helping us improve Minecraft! We saved your files: