Pressurized Depths

By
Link15

Adds pressure and heat to Minecraft's caves and nether, and adds progression based "pressure armor"

Overview image:

Description:

Pressurized Depths

This mod changes Minecraft from a simple mining game into a high stakes, high skill, and resource management mining game.

Core Concept

Pressurized Depths adds pressure and heat to the overworld and nether. For the overworld, pressure and heat starts below y 48. While the entire nether has extreme pressure and heat. The player can use pressure armor and different tools to aid in the survival of the ever increasing heat and pressure.

The reason why this mod is so difficult is because base Minecraft is too easy. The base game can be beaten in about 17 seconds in a tool assisted speedrun. Additionally, the progression of Minecraft is way too simple. There's only wood -> stone -> iron -> diamond -> netherite. Only 5 tiers of progression, and you can get most of them done in 30 minutes or less. This mod is meant to not only fix most of the progression of Minecraft, but also elevate the skill requirement for it as well.

Core Mechanics

Pressure Safety

This stat is your resistance to the pressure. Once the player goes below y 48 or enters the nether, without pressure armor, the player rapidly loses it. The player has a base pressure safety of 100. Each tier of pressure armor slows its loss. However, the lower you go, the faster and faster you lose it either way.

Once the player's pressure safety goes to 0, they start taking damage exponentially based off their depth.

Heat

This stat increases with or without pressure armor, but with pressure armor, each tier increases the amount of heat you can retain before reaching the maximum heat for that tier. The first tier of pressure armor has 100, while the last tier has over 1k (If I remember correctly). Once your heat reaches the maximum for that tier, your pressure armor rapidly loses durability.

You can cool your heat with water blocks, or cooling tools.

Armor Slowness

Whenever wearing any piece of pressure armor, you gain slowness. This is because by the 8th tier, you have over 2 rows of armor bars. The slowness is meant to be a small defect of the armor so that other modded armors aren't worthless in comparison. However, once you go below certain thresholds for depth, you lose the slowness. This is because every once in a while, the next tier will give even more slowness. However, the first tier gives slowness 2, while the 8th gives slowness 4. Once the player reaches y 48, for example, the 1st tier no longer has slowness, but the 8th still has slowness 3.

Immersive Audio System

The mod includes audio for the pressure armor creaking when in pressure zone, low pressure, high heat, depth reached, reaching y 20, reaching y -20, and a song when pressure is low

Special Blocks (Underground Hazards & Boons)

These blocks spawn naturally, can’t be moved or broken, and create environmental hotspots:

Cooling Stone — Lowers heat; chance to restore pressure
Heating Stone — Raises heat; chance to remove pressure
Depressurizer Stone — Fast pressure recovery; minor cooling
Pressurizer Stone — Faster pressure loss; minor heating

Each block type can be used for 100 ticks before transforming to the next in a cycle:

Cool → Heat → Depressure → Pressure → Stone

Crafting Components

The underground craftables expand significantly:

Double Ingots/Nuggets (Copper → Echo Shards)
Copper-Coated / Tempered Glass
Quartz-based glass tiers
Cooling Packs
Fire / Infernal / Flame upgrades for Nether heat

Cooling & Heat Management

Cooling With Water

Entering water:

Removes the water block, works with flowing water
Reduces heat by 10
25% chance to restore 1 pressure safety

Cooling Items:

Water Container

Made with 4 of any logs

Can stack

When filled:

On use:

Acts like entering water

Reduces heat by 10

25% chance to restore 1 pressure safety

With one filled, you can combine with empty to refill in crafting grid for faster restock

Can be turned back into logs, or refilled on use

Water Barrel tiers

Wooden Water Barrel

Use 8 of any logs

Unstackable when filled

Cannot be refilled, single use item

Instantly cools 50 heat

25% chance to restore 5 pressure safety

Can be combined with filled one to get more filled

Can be turned back into logs if not filled

Copper Water Barrel

Double Copper Ingot in the smithing table + Wooden Water Barrel

Stackable up to 4 when filled

Gives back empty on use

Instantly cools 75 heat

25% to restore 5 pressure safety

Iron Water Barrel

Double Iron Ingot in the smithing table + Copper Water Barrel

Stackable up to 8 when filled

Gives back empty on use

Instantly cools 100 heat

25% two times to restore 5 pressure safety

Gold Water Barrel

Double Gold Ingot in the smithing table + Iron Water Barrel

Stackable up to 16 when filled

Gives back empty on use

Instantly cools 150 heat

25% three times to restore 5 pressure safety

Diamond Water Barrel

Double Diamond in the smithing table + Gold Water Barrel

Stackable up to 32 when filled

Gives back empty on use

Instantly cools 200 heat

25% four times to restore 5 pressure safety

Cooling Pack

Stackable

use 6 iron nuggets and 3 double ice (Expensive, but great late game)

Removes 20% of current heat
Restores pressure based on heat removed
Returned as a used pack (convertible to nuggets)

Tiered Armor Progression

Pressure armor follows a long, rewarding progression path.

Each tier, extends pressure safety lifetime, and heat absorption (The rate of pressure safety loss decreases, but the amount of heat you can hold increases, making better cooling methods key to survivability and stability, while the benefits of cooling increases each tier)

The tiers include:

Overworld

Copper → Iron → Gold-Lined → Redstone-Stabilized
Diamond-Reinforced → Diamond → Emerald-Reinforced
Lapis-Enhanced → Echo-Stabilized → Obsidian-Enriched
Or

Lapis-Enhanced → Titanium → Obsidian-Enriched
Or

Lapis-Enhanced → Titanium → Adamantite

Each tier:

Extends safe depth
Increases heat limit
Strengthens protection
Adjusts slowness scaling

Nether Tiers

Depth behaves differently in the Nether.

Unlike expected, damage in the nether isn't increased, it's actually reduced, making unprepared nether travel dangerous, but not an instant kill. Additionally, nether tiers are designed to be easier to get, so all of the hard grind of the overworld is lifted for the nether (If proper tools are used, like Rupert's Drops)

Using a simple formula, players can determine their Nether Depth Limit based on their overworld one:

127 - (|Depth Limit| - |-64|)

Nether tiers include:

Netherwood Nailed
Netherrack Coated
Quartz Plated
Magma Covered
Blaze Resistant
Scrap Plated
Netherite Reinforced
Netherite Pressure Armor (Final Tier)

Each tier pushes survivability deeper, up to Y -256 equivalent.

Depressurizer Blocks

Above Y 48, these blocks accelerate pressure recovery:

Copper: +100%
Iron: +200%
Gold: +300%
Diamond: +400%

Special Items

Rupert’s Drop

Gains power the deeper you hold it
Once charging, do not let go
Charged form grants:
- +25 pressure safety
- 5 minutes Nether pressure immunity
  Pressure Resonator
- Reduces pressure loss by 50% for 2 minutes

Pressure Safety Reset Item

If your pressure bar breaks, type:

pressuremodfix

This gives you a one-use item that restores pressure safety to 100.

Advancements

The mod includes 47 advancements, primarily tied to armor progression and survival milestones.

Full release coming in the next couple months

Pressurized Depths has been under development for well over a year now, and the next update after 0.18.1 will be the "Pre-Full Release" version. This version might be named only "Pre-Full Release" or "Pre-Full Release-1" (2, 3, etc.) Depending on how confident I am with it's quality before the "Full Release". This mod has been completely developed by only me, and it takes time and a ton of effort to get this to be as good as it can be. I would love to make addons to this mod when I learn how to do them, but for now, I just want to get the base mod done. So far, and this will change as the days progress (but I won't update the number often), but this next update already has 208 changes from version 0.18.1 Which include:

Textures and visual assets

115

Recipes and crafting

New content and removals

Gameplay mechanics and balancing

Naming, organization, and tooltips

Bug fixes and corrections

Total

208