Can you combine ethereal ng and everness?

[NameNotQuality]

Hello, I was planning to enable ethereal ng on my singleplayer world, which has everness enabled. But, while trying to search up if there can be any breakage, I was forced to ask the question here if I want an answer. So:

Will enabling ethereal ng with everness too cause any breakage? Will it be able to crash the world, or will there just be minor terrain glitches?

And how does everness/ethereal even work? Does it add biomes to some sort of array of the mapgen, so it knows which ones to create? Or does it actually generate blocks itself?

I think this question is important because probably most people would want the best of both worlds, so an answer in this forum post would also help the others trying to search it up. Thank you very much if you answer!

[Blockhead]

As of 2024-06-11, using the latest master version of both mods: yes, and you shouldn't need to configure ethereal to turn off "Clear Default Biomes and Decoration" (ethereal.clear_default_biomes). In my quick test, biomes for both mods were still present. Only a more detailed test could tell you about slight incompatibilities like potential crafting recipe overlaps or bad mapgen; it would probably be best for anyone who wants to play with both to do that themselves and report any issues that occur.

[NameNotQuality]

I used my phone and can confirm that both mods' biomes are generating. So, does that mean that they just import their biomes to some sort of array of the mapgen, so it knows what landscapes to create?

And about crafting recipe overlaps, I just checked it using (something that I just found now) QA-block which you probably know about. Ethereal's and everness's willow_wood, willow_wood 3, bamboo_block, and bamboo_block 3 are conflicting, which are about creating the block with 2 slabs and 4 stairs, so there are basically no overlaps, but I don't think they would break the game anyway.

But can there be any major breakages like crashes and glitches not related to mapgen? Because the game is playable imo even when there are minor mapgen glitches or 2 implementations of bamboo, but I just don't want lagging or crashing.

[Blockhead]

I used my phone and can confirm that both mods' biomes are generating. So, does that mean that they just import their biomes to some sort of array of the mapgen, so it knows what landscapes to create?

They both use the biome API to register_biome. As long as one does not delete the biomes of the other then they can both co-exist - and which they clearly don't delete biomes because the biomes are visible.

And about crafting recipe overlaps, I just checked it using (something that I just found now) QA-block which you probably know about. Ethereal's and everness's willow_wood, willow_wood 3, bamboo_block, and bamboo_block 3 are conflicting, which are about creating the block with 2 slabs and 4 stairs, so there are basically no overlaps, but I
don't think they would break the game anyway.

Yes I'm familiar with the QA block, it's quite useful, and it could help you check if all the expected biomes are present as well, in the table minetest.registered_biomes

As for those particular "overlapping" recipes, it seems that those items are just named the same after the mod prefix part of the name; it's basically inevitable. It's possible to alias one type of bamboo to another, but probably not desirable and might instead cause more issues. It's the kind of small thing were "fixing" may actually make matters worse, at least without even more work.

But really these two mods contain very similar biomes as well. It may be better in some cases where there are very similar biomes to disable the biome from one of the mods. I didn't realise how similar they were with both having bamboo biomes and crystal biomes; and the "silk shovel" and "crystal shovel" and so on. But I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of both mods, so you can also leave both on unless you know for sure it's just duplication.

One thing you may find is that the biome distribution Voronoi diagram is not very good, because ethereal and everness both expect to be the only present biomes. Minetest places biomes based on heat and humidity at a given point; if two mods register biomes with identical heat and humidity points, that will cause a problem. Or even if they are just very close, you may get areas where similar biomes are kind of competing for space.

But can there be any major breakages like crashes and glitches not related to mapgen? Because the game is playable imo even when there are minor mapgen glitches or 2 implementations of bamboo, but I just don't want lagging or crashing.

Although I know you probably are asking because you would like to just play and have fun, I think you are perhaps expecting and worrying too much. Expecting too much because these are different mods that, while it would be great if they were completely compatible, may not be. Worrying too much, because you haven't mentioned any crashes yet. Glitches and crashes are not the end of the world, often they can be easy to fix. I get that they're not very fun though.

As I hinted at earlier,

Only a more detailed test could tell you about slight incompatibilities like potential crafting recipe overlaps or bad mapgen; it would probably be best for anyone who wants to play with both to do that themselves and report any issues that occur.

you are probably best playing this combination of mods as a kind of beta test rather than expecting 100% compatibility as they are. If any problems arise, you can mention them here and you can ask everness and/or ethereal to help things from their side. You never know, Tenplus1 or SaKeL might appreciate finding a weakness.

Well, there is the risk that the issues aren't properly solvable from inside either mod because they only happen in the presence of both despite both mods being quality. That is where you would need a third mod as a compatibility layer; that mod would depend on both ethereal and everness. It would address issues like the distribution of biomes, redundant items like bamboo, that sort of thing. But it's only hypothetical. Whether it's needed at all is questionable. It may depend on just how much you want these two mods to work together and the modding skills of anyone who wants it to happen.

My advice? Try to enjoy playing the game as it is with both mods installed. Report problems here and we can assess if the issue is with one of the mods or a problem with combining them. If that ends up being too stressful and you would rather not continue, that's fine.

[NameNotQuality]

They both use the biome API to register_biome. As long as one does not delete the biomes of the other then they can both co-exist - and which they clearly don't delete biomes because the biomes are visible.

So if they both register biomes, then that's awesome because all these mods are basically collections of blocks, items and biomes, so probably nothing to worry about in terms of bugs in result of conflict.

One thing you may find is that the biome distribution Voronoi diagram is not very good, because ethereal and everness both expect to be the only present biomes. Minetest places biomes based on heat and humidity at a given point; if two mods register biomes with identical heat and humidity points, that will cause a problem. Or even if they are just very close, you may get areas where similar biomes are kind of competing for space.

Right, I think I saw parts from an everness biome sticking out of an ethereal biome (specifically the pools from mineral waters biome, which are visible in the everness picture right now, being placed on some blocks in an ethereal biome I'm not sure about). It's possible to disable the specific competing biome in the settings though, so it's the same fix as for removing possibly similar ones.

Although I know you probably are asking because you would like to just play and have fun, I think you are perhaps expecting and worrying too much. Expecting too much because these are different mods that, while it would be great if they were completely compatible, may not be.

What do you mean that I'm expecting too much? I wasn't saying that both mods are completely compatible, and even told about 2 bamboo variants existing, which would only be 1 if these mods would have features to work with each other. There's even a reason why I started a question here in the first place; it's because I'm not sure if these mods even like each other sometimes.

Worrying too much, because you haven't mentioned any crashes yet.

I was asking if any major breakage can occur because I didn't understand these mods fully, really care about my world, and didn't want to encounter a predictable problem later, if there would be one.

you are probably best playing this combination of mods as a kind of beta test rather than expecting 100% compatibility as they are.

Right, I wasn't expecting perfection, on example with that bamboo, minor mapgen glitches like the biomes mixing, which I noted earlier, etc.. But I'll rather play with slight problems than think about not being able to get ethereal.

My advice? Try to enjoy playing the game as it is with both mods installed. Report problems here and we can assess if the issue is with one of the mods or a problem with combining them. If that ends up being too stressful and you would rather not continue, that's fine.

Yea, I'll try to enjoy the game with the mod enabled. I feel confident now because of what I realised in the 1st sentence of this message, and because I actually like to do world backups generally before enabling another mod, whether its light or game changing for reverting back if the mod does weird stuff.

Code: Select all

nnq@FastPenguinHacker ~ % cp -r .minetest/worlds/Maintest2 backup/minetest/Maintest2

Thank you very much for your help!