Create Ore Excavation Mod

Create Ore Excavation is an addon for the Create mod that introduces a hidden layer of infinite ore veins beneath your world. Rather than mining ore blocks by hand, you locate these invisible veins using the Ore Vein Finder, then set up a Drilling Machine powered by rotational force to extract resources automatically and indefinitely. This guide covers everything you need to know to get your first drill running.

Unlike standard ore mining, veins in this mod are chunk-based — they are invisible properties attached to individual chunks rather than physical blocks in the world. Only one vein can exist per chunk, and they generate with a small random chance, so exploration and scouting with the Vein Finder is your first step before committing to any build.

Ore Vein Finder

The Ore Vein Finder is your essential scouting tool. Right-clicking while holding it scans the current chunk you are in and prints the results directly to chat, listing every ore vein and fluid reservoir it detects. Since veins have no physical presence in the world, this is the only way to know what a chunk contains.

Use F3+G to render chunk boundaries.

Based on your distance from a ore vein chunk, the results will be printed in multiples of 25. If the message says Found traces of: <ore> (~25 blocks away), it means you are very close to a vein. Move to the nearby chunks one-by-one and scan them until one of them prints Found in Chunk: <ore>.

The chat output for each chunk tells you:

• Found in Chunk: the ore type of the vein in that exact chunk, or "Nothing" if empty.

• Found nearby: any other veins within scan range.

• Found traces of: the nearest vein of each type and its approximate distance in blocks, even if it's outside the scan radius.

We have detected a chunk with an ore vein and flattened out the area to make it easy for us to build a drilling system.

The Drilling Machine

The Drilling Machine is a multiblock structure that extracts ore from the vein assigned to whichever chunk it sits in. It does not need to be placed on top of any specific block or at any particular height — it can go anywhere within the chunk, on any surface. As long as the chunk has a vein and the machine's requirements are met, it will produce ore continuously.

Drill Heads

Before the Drilling Machine can run, a Drill Head must be inserted into it. Simply craft a drill head using the recipes provided below and right-click on the drilling machine with it, to attach the drill head to the drilling machine.

• Iron Drill: The basic drill head, sufficient for most standard ore veins. Craft it using Iron Ingots in the pattern shown above. This is your starting point for coal, copper, iron, and similar common ores.

• Diamond Drill: A mid-tier drill head crafted from Diamonds surrounding an Iron Drill. Required for harder ore veins that the Iron Drill cannot handle. Check the JEI Drilling Machine recipe for your target vein to confirm which tier is needed.

• Netherite Drill: The highest-tier drill head, crafted from a Diamond Drill combined with a Netherite Scrap and a piece of Blackstone. Required specifically for Hardened Diamond veins and any other veins configured to demand it. Netherite Drill recipes also require a constant lava supply pumped into the fluid input face for certain ore veins— without it, the machine will not drill.

Rotation Input

Rotation Input Face

Input rotational power here

This face of the machine is where rotational force is supplied. Connect any Create rotation source here — cogwheels, a shaft from a waterwheel, a steam engine output, or anything else in your network. The machine requires a minimum of 30 RPM to operate and runs optimally at 256 RPM.

Fluid Input

Fluid Input Face

If fluid is required, use this face

The side face (copper-coloured) is the fluid input. For most standard ore veins, this face is not used. However, certain vein recipes — most notably those requiring the Netherite Drill — demand a fluid such as lava to be continuously pumped in. Connect a fluid pipe from your Create fluid network directly to this face.

Ore Output

Ore Output Face

Collect output ores here

The bottom/front dark-wood face is where extracted ores exit the machine. Place a Brass Funnel or Andesite Funnel here to pull items out into a chest, belt, or processing line. Without an output, the machine fills its 16-item internal buffer and stops drilling.

Summary

That is pretty much it! Once you find a chunk with your required ore vein, you can place down a drilling machine anywhere in that chunk. Provide rotational input and an ore output mechanism. Fluid input is rarely required. Once everything is set in place, your drilling machine will output ores infinitely.