
Surface Samples
A small mod that adds surface mineral indicators, intended to be used with worldgen mods that add large deposits of ore to your world.
Screenshots






About this Mod
Surface Samples

Surface Samples is a simple mod to do a simple thing: add small indicator blocks that worldgen mods can use as markers for ore deposits. I created this with EnderLanky's fantastic Large Ore Deposits mod in mind, but you can use it with any mod that allows you to specify blocks as markers. You could even use them solely as decoration for creative builds. The samples drop nuggets of their respective ores when right-clicked or destroyed, and are waterloggable, and snowloggable with Snow! Real Magic.
THIS MOD DOES NOT IMPACT WORLDGEN, FOR THESE TO APPEAR NATURALLY YOU WILL NEED A WORLDGEN MOD LIKE LARGE ORE DEPOSITS.
There are ore samples for all vanilla and create ores, including nether variants for gold, quartz, and netherite. I've also included a non-nether variant of quartz, which by default drops Sky's Overworld Quartz shards.
There are blockstate variants for sandy and red sandy environments, these live under the flavour blockstate, the values are stony, sandy, and red_sandy I've included example configs for Large Ore Deposits here. When placed by hand, the sample blocks will automatically detect the block under them. Sadly this doesn't work for worldgen, you'll have to specify the blockstate for that.

It also adds in four other blocks:
- Crystallised redstone, which is a concentrated block of redstone that acts as a hybrid between a redstone block and redstone ore
- Glowquartz, which is intended to be used as an early-game alternative to glowstone
- Polished glowquartz, which has a different look and a higher light level
- Glowquartz lamp, a redstone lamp equivalent
Intermediary items have been added for glowquartz, crystallised redstone, and andesite samples (since having a small sample drop an entire block felt strange).
All blocks and items have Create integration out of the box.
To change the drops of the samples, you can use a datapack, targeting data/surfacesamples/loot_table/blocks
This mod was created for a private SMP I am setting up, and so will likely get intermittent updates, but feel free to suggest changes or ore samples you'd like to see on the github issues page, I'll try to get to them one way or another :)
Inspiration from this mod stems from oitsjustjose's Geolosys and Vintage Story's ore samples.
This is my first venture into minecraft modding, I hope you like it as much as I do :3

If you want to use this in a modpack be my guest! It'd be polite to credit me, but don't feel like you have to. If you use it in a video though, I'd appreciate credit. And if you use it to make something even cooler, show me!
Attribution/Credits:
- Large Ore Deposits for inspiring me to make this mod in the first place
- Quartz sample textures taken from Sky's overworld quartz
- Snippets of code from Kaupenjoe's fantastic tutorial series
- Zinc ore texture from Create
- Andesite chunks, glowquartz shard, and crystallised redstone shard textures adapted from Malcomriley's Unused Textures
- Glowquartz & crystallised redstone block textures also assembled from malcomriley's item sprites
- Sample pickup behaviour inspired by Geolosys and Vintage Story
- Sample model inspired by Vintage Story
Regarding Creativity
I do not and never will use AI in my creations. The code, models, and artwork in this may not be perfect, but they are mine, as are any modifications I've made to the sources listed above.
Available Versions
How to Install Surface Samples on Your Server
Order Server
Order a Minecraft Java server with at least 4 GB RAM (6 GB recommended).
Set neoforge Loader
In the panel under "Egg", select the neoforge loader and matching Minecraft version (1.21.1).
Install Mod
Open the mod browser in the dashboard and search for "Surface Samples". Click "Install" – done! Alternatively, upload the .jar via SFTP to the /mods folder.
Compatibility
Mod Loaders
Minecraft Versions
1.21.1
Server-side
✓ RequiredRecommended RAM
6 GB(min. 4 GB)Frequently Asked Questions
Surface Samples server crashes on startup – what to do?
Most common cause: wrong neoforge version or insufficient RAM. Check the server log (latest.log) for "OutOfMemoryError" or "Mixin" errors. With Mado Hosting: ensure at least 4 GB RAM is allocated and the loader matches the mod version (1.21.1). You can switch loaders with one click in the panel.
Is Surface Samples compatible with neoforge?
Surface Samples officially supports neoforge for Minecraft 1.21.1. The Mado dashboard automatically detects incompatible loader combinations.
Server lagging with Surface Samples – how to optimize performance?
Recommended RAM: 6 GB (per 5 players). Use /spark profiler to check if Surface Samples 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 Surface Samples with just one click on your server.