Spawn in stony peaks, with a jungle and savanna nearby. On the mountain and surroundings are tons and tons of iron, coal, a few emeralds, and a massive cave. In 10 minutes I had full iron armor and tools.
70 iron isn't really that much; I mine an average of 800 iron every single day - for months and even years on end (TMCWv5 represents all the caving I did last year; World1 is a 4 month period from when I last played on it, with the overall equivalent of more than 3 years of daily sessions):
I mine more than three thousand ores per play session, per day. Multiply that by the number of days in a year and you get well over a million ore mined per year, which is very likely accurate for at least the past year, since 1.6 came out with the block of coal
(perhaps the most astounding fact is that 1.6 was released nearly 10 years ago and I still play the same way)
If this sounds impossibly extreme, even just the spawn chunks of an average seed in 1.6.4 contains nearly 5,000 iron exposed in caves (back then there were many threads complaining about how easy it was to collect crazy amounts of resources by caving; "Well, I can just walk around or dig for 10 minutes, find a cave system, and walk out 10 minutes later with a stack of iron and 3 stacks of coal", which is entirely consistent with my rates, considering also that this would be more of a peak rate in a fresh area than a long-term sustained rate):
If anything, the changes to ore distribution in 1.18 makes caving pointless since you can just mine iron and coal from the surface of mountains, and they reduced ore exposure in caves, where the average concentration anywhere underground in 1.17 and earlier is only equal to the peak concentration in 1.18, with only half as much iron ore per chunk (for comparison, my triple height terrain mod tripled the amounts of all ores to maintain the same density for a given amount of caves explored, with rarer ores adjusted to give the same relative amount of ores per chunk above cave lava level as vanilla. TMCWv5 also has more and far larger caves than vanilla 1.6.4 (which itself had more than 1.7-1.17), yet this, along with advantages like larger ender chests and a vein miner enchantment didn't have much impact on hourly rates, which are only a few percent higher, a bit less if modded ores are excluded (amethyst, ruby, and about 2/3 of emerald), and is actually lower if you include blocks from mineshafts and dungeons - Mojang claims to have reduced air exposure because they thought that bigger caves would make them too easy to find).
Keep in mind that as of 1.17 there are also giant iron and giant copper ores. Found some in one seed recently.
I find way more copper than I do iron
I never have problems finding enough copper, the problem here is what do we need copper for in the game? it only has a small number of uses compared to iron.
If anything iron should have been more common than copper, that would have been the valid replacement for Iron Golem Farms, with the only renewable sources of iron being from naturally spawned and mob spawners periodically dropping these items, as well as Villager trades, where players actually have to interact with a build rather than just AFKing and expecting everything to fall into their lap.
For the life of me I'll never understand why Mojang insists on their bogus design choices, if they are to nerf AFK farms or even abolish them, there needs to be a suitable replacement for them, this is the direction to take the game in which will actually improve the game for everybody, not just the majority of players.
Having to use a non RNG seed for ideal ore generation, is for the lack of a better term, stupid, in my opinion.
We shouldn't have to cheese world seeds for this, all worlds should have all the resources a player would need and then some,
unless a player is deliberately making a restrictive world for the sake of increasing difficulty for hardcore maps, which is one reason I think
custom worlds should be brought back, so players have that option. Being able to set a world border in bedrock edition would be nice too.
I should also mote that the presence of "iron veins" actually makes it harder to find otherwise because it is concentrated in small areas (the Wiki does not say how common they are, just "rare" but says they can contain up to 2000 ore - the amount in an average of 37 chunks, meaning that just to offset it you'd need 37 chunks with no other iron deposits, or 74 chunks where half the iron is in an "iron vein" and the other half is is the old "blobs", as the Wiki now calls the old veins) - I have absolutely no doubt that it is not possible to consistently mine the 3-4 stacks of iron ore I find every hour; just the fact that iron is only half as common overall and spread across twice the underground depth (1/4 the per-layer density on average) is all I need to know, even with no actual experience caving or even playing in 1.18.
That said, I looked at the Wiki and iron is MUCH more common in Bedrock Edition (so much for feature parity, some claim it is because "Java vs C++" but that is absolutely not the reason, literally the only change is to some numbers, like how many times a loop runs, while the ore deposits themselves are the same):
In Java Edition, iron ore generates in three batches. The first batch attempts to generate 40 times per chunk in blobs of 0-13, from levels 128 to 320, being most common around level 255 and becoming less common towards either end of the range. The second batch attempts to generate 6 times per chunk in blobs of 0-13, from levels -24 to 54, being most common around level 15 and becoming less common towards either end of the range. The third batch attempts to generate 3 times per chunk in blobs of 0-5, evenly from levels -63 to 64.
In Bedrock Edition, iron ore generates in three batches. The first batch attempts to generate 90 times per chunk in blobs of 0-13, from levels 80 to 319, being most common around level 232 and becoming less common towards either end of the range. The second batch attempts to generate 10 times per chunk in blobs of 0-13, from levels -24 to 56, being most common around level 16 and becoming less common towards either end of the range. The third batch attempts to generate 10 times per chunk in blobs of 0-5, evenly from levels -63 to 72.
A simple calculation (multiplying the average vein size by the count) gives an average of 306.5 for Java and 675 for Bedrock, with more of the latter likely to actually exist due to the lower range for ores that generate high up (this chart shows no iron above about y=224 so terrain doesn't get much higher than that); if you exclude the ore that generates above the surface there are 46.5 and 90 respectively (for Java the actual number somebody found was 53.5). Even this is only about half the iron you'd expect to find based on the ore generation in previous versions if you scaled it up to twice the ground depth:
This was from a 100 chunk area of a modded world with the same ground depth as 1.18, with ores scaled up so about twice as much of everything was exposed in caves (in particular, rarer ores); vanilla 1.6.4 has 20 attempts of a vein averaging about 5.8 each per chunk between layers 0-63 (total of 116, it is actually closer to 90 due to non-stone blocks) while "double height terrain" had 40 attempts over 0-127, resulting in about 220 ores per chunk (this was from a world I'd explored, mining out around 8% of the original ores based on other worlds; the average can be expected to be higher than 180 (90 x 2) since there is less influence from bedrock at the bottom of the world, which is also just a single layer, and the near-surface layers. This also gives slightly more diamond than in vanilla 1.6.4 despite its range being a bit lower; cave lava level was lowered to y=6 so there is more exposed).
No, this did not double the rate at which I collected ores, in fact, it was quite a bit lower than what I find today, likely due to my caving efficiency steadily increasing over time (I played on DHT more than 9 years ago; the overall daily average in my first world is 2523 per session but as shown before it was 3105 the last time I recorded it, with a similar session length). Otherwise, what matters is how quickly you can go through caves and how common ores are in the walls; Mojang seems to think that double the underground = double the ore collection (which is true if you look at per-chunk rates but that doesn't offset the fact you have to explore twice the volume; it is no different than exploring twice the area before 1.18. Likewise, TMCWv5 has over twice the volume of caves and 33% more exposed surface area / ores per chunk as 1.6.4, yet my rates were very similar, with any difference being attributable to a "vein miner" enchantment, itself only offsetting part of the relatively small amount of time I spend on actually mining ores).
5608735352828856812
Spawn in stony peaks, with a jungle and savanna nearby. On the mountain and surroundings are tons and tons of iron, coal, a few emeralds, and a massive cave. In 10 minutes I had full iron armor and tools.
Who needs an iron farm?
Can confirm ore seed has ores.
70 iron isn't really that much; I mine an average of 800 iron every single day - for months and even years on end (TMCWv5 represents all the caving I did last year; World1 is a 4 month period from when I last played on it, with the overall equivalent of more than 3 years of daily sessions):
(perhaps the most astounding fact is that 1.6 was released nearly 10 years ago and I still play the same way)
If this sounds impossibly extreme, even just the spawn chunks of an average seed in 1.6.4 contains nearly 5,000 iron exposed in caves (back then there were many threads complaining about how easy it was to collect crazy amounts of resources by caving; "Well, I can just walk around or dig for 10 minutes, find a cave system, and walk out 10 minutes later with a stack of iron and 3 stacks of coal", which is entirely consistent with my rates, considering also that this would be more of a peak rate in a fresh area than a long-term sustained rate):
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/discussion/2529746-how-many-ores-do-caves-expose
If anything, the changes to ore distribution in 1.18 makes caving pointless since you can just mine iron and coal from the surface of mountains, and they reduced ore exposure in caves, where the average concentration anywhere underground in 1.17 and earlier is only equal to the peak concentration in 1.18, with only half as much iron ore per chunk (for comparison, my triple height terrain mod tripled the amounts of all ores to maintain the same density for a given amount of caves explored, with rarer ores adjusted to give the same relative amount of ores per chunk above cave lava level as vanilla. TMCWv5 also has more and far larger caves than vanilla 1.6.4 (which itself had more than 1.7-1.17), yet this, along with advantages like larger ender chests and a vein miner enchantment didn't have much impact on hourly rates, which are only a few percent higher, a bit less if modded ores are excluded (amethyst, ruby, and about 2/3 of emerald), and is actually lower if you include blocks from mineshafts and dungeons - Mojang claims to have reduced air exposure because they thought that bigger caves would make them too easy to find).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Keep in mind that as of 1.17 there are also giant iron and giant copper ores. Found some in one seed recently.
I find way more copper than I do iron
I never have problems finding enough copper, the problem here is what do we need copper for in the game? it only has a small number of uses compared to iron.
If anything iron should have been more common than copper, that would have been the valid replacement for Iron Golem Farms, with the only renewable sources of iron being from naturally spawned and mob spawners periodically dropping these items, as well as Villager trades, where players actually have to interact with a build rather than just AFKing and expecting everything to fall into their lap.
For the life of me I'll never understand why Mojang insists on their bogus design choices, if they are to nerf AFK farms or even abolish them, there needs to be a suitable replacement for them, this is the direction to take the game in which will actually improve the game for everybody, not just the majority of players.
Having to use a non RNG seed for ideal ore generation, is for the lack of a better term, stupid, in my opinion.
We shouldn't have to cheese world seeds for this, all worlds should have all the resources a player would need and then some,
unless a player is deliberately making a restrictive world for the sake of increasing difficulty for hardcore maps, which is one reason I think
custom worlds should be brought back, so players have that option. Being able to set a world border in bedrock edition would be nice too.
I should also mote that the presence of "iron veins" actually makes it harder to find otherwise because it is concentrated in small areas (the Wiki does not say how common they are, just "rare" but says they can contain up to 2000 ore - the amount in an average of 37 chunks, meaning that just to offset it you'd need 37 chunks with no other iron deposits, or 74 chunks where half the iron is in an "iron vein" and the other half is is the old "blobs", as the Wiki now calls the old veins) - I have absolutely no doubt that it is not possible to consistently mine the 3-4 stacks of iron ore I find every hour; just the fact that iron is only half as common overall and spread across twice the underground depth (1/4 the per-layer density on average) is all I need to know, even with no actual experience caving or even playing in 1.18.
That said, I looked at the Wiki and iron is MUCH more common in Bedrock Edition (so much for feature parity, some claim it is because "Java vs C++" but that is absolutely not the reason, literally the only change is to some numbers, like how many times a loop runs, while the ore deposits themselves are the same):
A simple calculation (multiplying the average vein size by the count) gives an average of 306.5 for Java and 675 for Bedrock, with more of the latter likely to actually exist due to the lower range for ores that generate high up (this chart shows no iron above about y=224 so terrain doesn't get much higher than that); if you exclude the ore that generates above the surface there are 46.5 and 90 respectively (for Java the actual number somebody found was 53.5). Even this is only about half the iron you'd expect to find based on the ore generation in previous versions if you scaled it up to twice the ground depth:
This was from a 100 chunk area of a modded world with the same ground depth as 1.18, with ores scaled up so about twice as much of everything was exposed in caves (in particular, rarer ores); vanilla 1.6.4 has 20 attempts of a vein averaging about 5.8 each per chunk between layers 0-63 (total of 116, it is actually closer to 90 due to non-stone blocks) while "double height terrain" had 40 attempts over 0-127, resulting in about 220 ores per chunk (this was from a world I'd explored, mining out around 8% of the original ores based on other worlds; the average can be expected to be higher than 180 (90 x 2) since there is less influence from bedrock at the bottom of the world, which is also just a single layer, and the near-surface layers. This also gives slightly more diamond than in vanilla 1.6.4 despite its range being a bit lower; cave lava level was lowered to y=6 so there is more exposed).
No, this did not double the rate at which I collected ores, in fact, it was quite a bit lower than what I find today, likely due to my caving efficiency steadily increasing over time (I played on DHT more than 9 years ago; the overall daily average in my first world is 2523 per session but as shown before it was 3105 the last time I recorded it, with a similar session length). Otherwise, what matters is how quickly you can go through caves and how common ores are in the walls; Mojang seems to think that double the underground = double the ore collection (which is true if you look at per-chunk rates but that doesn't offset the fact you have to explore twice the volume; it is no different than exploring twice the area before 1.18. Likewise, TMCWv5 has over twice the volume of caves and 33% more exposed surface area / ores per chunk as 1.6.4, yet my rates were very similar, with any difference being attributable to a "vein miner" enchantment, itself only offsetting part of the relatively small amount of time I spend on actually mining ores).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
its real im getting a lot of iron