The main difference here is that Skylands generates more biomes than floindev. Additionally, it generates more kinds of ore and in greater amounts. And now, starting with version 3.0, it uses different parameters for the noise used when generating islands, creating islands with much greater height, terrain variation, wild land formations, and even larger caves!
Among these, the largest additions are those of extra biomes and lakes! Biomes include regular grasslands, which are most like the surface world, snow biomes that have dirt_with_snow instead of dirt_with_grass as well as frozen lakes, desert biomes, which have desert sand and desert stone, as well as generate cacti and dry shrubs. Finally, there is my own original addition, the volcanic biome, which is composed mostly of obsidian, gravel, and lava lakes. If moreblocks is installed, it will also have coal stone; otherwise, regular stone will be used. Furthermore, in version 0.8 of this mod, the volcanic biome has triple the chance of generating diamonds.
As of version 2.5, skylands now incorporates a humidity-temperature based biome system, using the same engine from paramat's [watershed] mod. Additionally, it has all the biomes from watershed: taiga, tundra, snowy plains, grasslands, drylands, deciduous forests, savanna, rainforests, and desert. Volcanic biomes are generated independently, so they can appear anywhere. However, the dry grass and icy dirt textures from watershed have been changed to a more "classic" look that is in keeping with the base game. Furthermore, I have also included Jordach's wheat field biome from Big Freaking Dig! Look for it near deciduous forests.
Now in version 4.0, i have two more biomes, one major and one minor. The minor one is the sandstone biome, which is covered with sand in low humidity areas, with a layer of sandstone beneath, making for naturally obtainable sandstone. The major biome addition is the Heaven biome. Spawning by default at altitudes above 8000 nodes, it's a long road to get there, but well worth it: golden trees with potent golden apples appear, as well as healing springs that recover your health just by standing in them. Plus, it has a first for this mod: pregenerated buildings made of unique Quartz nodes and other new stone varieties, modeled after the Greek Parthenon. 4.0 also introduces stairs support, with several varieties of stairs.
Now with version 3.0, the reason of the islands' floating nature is explained by the presence of a brand new ore: Cavorite! This ore, based on the material of the same name that was featured heavily in H. G. Wells' book The First Men in the Moon, makes everything above it virtually weightless in the book. While Cavorite currently has no use in Minetest, the next version of this mod will introduce a few uses for it, including upgrading tools to make them faster. Also in version 3.0, if Mesecons is installed, silicon appears as an ore.
In version 4.2, Cavorite can be crafted into handles for tools by placing two lumps of the ore vertically on the crafting grid. Put any of the default tools at the top of the grid with two handles lined up directly below to upgrade tools. Upgraded tools dig 50% faster and have a 33% shorter punch interval when attacking entities. However, they also only have 75% of the durability of their normal counterparts.
In 0.8, the lakes can be anywhere from small ponds with a radius as low as 4 blocks to huge basins with a radius of 15-20 blocks. Much effort had been made to reduce spillage, but there still will be occasions when water or lava will leak out of the sides or the base.
However, version 2.0 generates much more natural lakes based off of paramat's highlandpools mod. Also, that same engine was optimized for even faster performance late in the 3.x development cycle.
Note that this mod used env:set_node in v.0.8, so it used to take a while to generate chunks. Unlike the original flolands, islands now generate between y=700 and y=33,000.
Contrarily, the version 2.0 onward uses the voxel manipulator engine used by floindev to generate chunks at high speed, capping around 4 seconds on a slower PC.
Changelog:
Spoiler
- Island generator switched to voxelmanip, increasing speed dramatically
- Lake generator switched to highlandpools mod to create more natural bodies of water
- Lakes can now be water, lava, or ice-topped with water underneath
- Volcanic biome now generates two brand new nodes, cinder and cinder_block
- Moreblocks and moreores support expanded
- Ore generation now occurs in clusters, making it much more like the surface world
- More kinds of surface flora
- Volcanic biomes have perpetual fires dotted about that can be put our like regular fire
- Biome engine moved to humidity/temperature
- Watershed biomes added
- Wheat Field biome added
- Other tweaks under the hood
- Huge code cleanup and modular design with code split up between several .lua files
- Island structure has undergone a large makeover, and now uses noisier noise to create much more varied landscapes and land formations
- Caves are now up to twice the size that they were in previous versions
- Cavorite and Silicon added as ores. Cavorite implementation is incomplete
- Fixed a few bugs involving volcanic biomes
- Islands are no longer limited by vertical chunk boundaries (thanks paramat)
- Noise parameters now create much more 3D islands than before (also with paramat)
- Sandstone and Heaven biomes fully implemented
- Lake generator optimized and improved
- stairs support added
- Many new nodes
- Marble and Granite now appear in veins when technic is installed
- Zinc, Chromium, and Uranium also appear if technic is installed
- Cavorite can now be crafted into tool handles that can upgrade default tools
Dependencies: moreores?, moreblocks?, mesecons?, technic? default, fire
GitHub: https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/skyla ... ree/master
Download [3.1]: https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/skyla ... master.zip (unzip and rename to 'skylands')
Legacy versions:
[0.8]
GitHub: https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/skyla ... ersion-0.8
Download: https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/skyla ... ersion-0.8
[2.5]
GitHub: https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/skyla ... ersion-2.5
Download: https://github.com/HeroOfTheWinds/skyla ... ersion-2.5
Now for some screenshots! Just for this mod, I dealt with the drawtime and turned on smooth lighting even though I'm using a laptop.
Spoiler

Large vertical island formation leading to another large island:

Example of 3.1's new terrain formations:

Combined effect of the larger caves and sprawling undersides of the islands:

Wheat Field Biome:

Frozen lake in the snowy plains biome with pine trees all around:

Rainforest/Jungle biome:

Dry plains:

Mini-islands rising from above a deciduous forest biome:

Savanna with new acacia trees:

Example of several ore clumps found close together:

Volcanic biome overshadowed by parts of the island:

Large natural lake:

Overhead view of a medium size island with three different biomes:

Cavorite and Silicon ores:

Heaven Biome:
