
Balanced Ore Detector
Fully configurable Ore Detectors that do not break the balance of the game, and still make prospecting a challenge, without forcing you to hollow out the entire world.
Screenshots






About this Mod
Balanced Ore Detector (Fabric and NeoForge)
Old Minecraft worlds look like swiss cheese. The underground, especially around level 10, is hollow and ugly.
I have never liked it, and I decided to design various detectors to find ores without hollowing out the entire world.
These ore detectors do not print out the type and coordinates of the found ores, and they do not scan the entire world.
That would be cheating.
But they do help finding ores a little faster than mining.
They all operate by echo location. When they are used on a solid surface, they emit three loud bangs, which get reflected from certain blocks. Each detector emits different sounds which get reflected differently. The volume of the echo, and the time till it returns, depend on the distance of the block. The pitch and the particles that may appear help to identify the block.
There are two variants of each detector: basic and focused. The focused ones use a narrower beam, therefore they are better for deceting ores, but they are more expensive.
The Void Detector emits a sound that is reflected from non-solid blocks, like air, water, lava and some other partly transparent blocks.

The Coal Detector emits a sound that is reflected best from coal, copper, iron and quartz ores and from a few other things that are made of these materials.

The Iron Detector does not detect coal, but, in addition to copper, iron and quartz, it detects gold, redstone and lapis.

The Gold Detector is the most universal. It detects iron, gold, redstone, lapis, diamonds and emeralds, but unfortunately it is insensitive to coal and copper.

And the Diamond Detector is the best to find the most precious ores, diamonds, emeralds and ancient debris in the nether.

All detectors have long, but limited usability.

Every major feature of the mod is configurable in the Mod Menu.

Requires (Fabric)
- Fabric API
- Cloth Config API
- Optional, but recommended Mod Menu
Compatibility
Tech Reborn
Since 1.1.0
- the Coal Detector detects galena, tin, lead, ruby and sapphire,
- the Iron Detector detects galena, tin, lead, ruby, sapphire, silver and bauxite,
- the Gold Detector detects silver and iridium,
- and the Diamond Detector detects iridium, pyrite, cinnabar, sphalerite, tungsten, sheldonite, peridot and sodalite.
Applied energistics 2
Since 1.1.0
- Coal and Iron Detectors detect certus quartz too.
License
Standard MIT license. Feel free to learn from it and incorporate it in your own projects.
Source code
Available on GitLab or on GitHub.
The source code has lots of comments to help learning Minecraft modding.
Thanks
Thanks to Kaupenjoe for his excellent Modding By Kaupenjoe: Minecraft Modding 1.20.X for Fabric course.
See also
My other mods on Modrinth and on CurseForge.
Available Versions
How to Install Balanced Ore Detector on Your Server
Order Server
Order a Minecraft Java server with at least 3 GB RAM (4 GB recommended).
Set fabric Loader
In the panel under "Egg", select the fabric loader and matching Minecraft version (1.21.11).
Install Mod
Open the mod browser in the dashboard and search for "Balanced Ore Detector". Click "Install" – done! Alternatively, upload the .jar via SFTP to the /mods folder.
Compatibility
Mod Loaders
Minecraft Versions
1.21.11, 1.21.10, 1.21.9 (+13 more)
Server-side
✓ RequiredRecommended RAM
4 GB(min. 3 GB)Frequently Asked Questions
Balanced Ore Detector server crashes on startup – what to do?
Most common cause: wrong fabric version or insufficient RAM. Check the server log (latest.log) for "OutOfMemoryError" or "Mixin" errors. With Mado Hosting: ensure at least 3 GB RAM is allocated and the loader matches the mod version (1.21.11). You can switch loaders with one click in the panel.
Is Balanced Ore Detector compatible with fabric and neoforge?
Balanced Ore Detector officially supports fabric, neoforge for Minecraft 1.21.11, 1.21.10, 1.21.9. The Mado dashboard automatically detects incompatible loader combinations.
Server lagging with Balanced Ore Detector – how to optimize performance?
Recommended RAM: 4 GB (per 8 players). Use /spark profiler to check if Balanced Ore Detector consumes the most tick time. Common fixes: reduce server view-distance to 8-10, install "performant" or "starlight" as supplementary mods on Forge. With Mado Hosting, your server runs on NVMe SSDs with dedicated CPU cores for minimal latency.
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Install Balanced Ore Detector with just one click on your server.