Wetting and Drying

Rain soaks the ground, frost cracks stone, sun dries it out again, as fast as it does in reality.

Bare soil turns to mud in steady rain and cracks in a drought. Water lies in the hollows. Snow melts by the degree-day, icicles hang from the eaves, lime mortar washes out of old walls and adobe melts back into the earth unless it is plastered. Nothing here is a timer picked for gameplay: every rate comes from how the material behaves in the real world.

Beta: The mod is complete enough to play, but still young. It changes your world for good: ground turns to mud, walls wear and unsupported earth slides. Back up your world before adding it, and expect bugs. Please report anything odd in the comments.

One real year is 96 game days, about 32 hours of play. A wall whose mortar lasts 80 years in the open needs repointing after a long time; adobe in the rain is gone much sooner. Fast processes (mud, puddles, melting snow) run on the clock of the weather itself. Chunks outside the simulation distance do not age.

- Mud. Bare dirt soaks up steady rain and turns to mud; trodden paths let no water in and puddle first. Mud dries back to dirt in the sun.

- Puddles form in hollows and on paths, clay, stone and concrete; on grass only in long rain. They freeze in frost and dry up afterwards. Farmland under standing water floods.

- Drought. Dirt and clay crack into polygons after weeks without rain; the first rain closes the cracks.

- Slopes and landslides. Sand, gravel and soaked soil keep to their angle of repose and slide when it is too steep. Rain slowly washes bare slopes away.

- Frost heave. A trodden path on wet soil breaks up over a few winters of freezing and thawing.

- Crops suffer in a drought and drown with their roots under water.

- Snow melts by the degree-day: every degree above freezing melts a few millimetres of water a day, warm rain far faster, a torch or fire beside it quickly. Ice lasts weeks, packed and blue ice longer.

- Icicles grow under the edge of a roof on days that freeze at night and thaw by day. Above freezing they drip away; a large one may let go and fall, hard enough to hurt.

- Mortar washes out. Cobblestone, stone bricks, bricks, deepslate and tuff, in blocks, slabs, stairs and walls, wear through three stages: worn joints, cracked, loose. In the open a wall needs repointing after 60-100 years. Cracked masonry carries half the span; loose masonry carries only what rests on it.

- Frost cracks wet stone on every day that freezes and thaws. Paving laid on wet soil takes twice the frost.

- Settlement. Loaded masonry on mud or wet clay sinks unevenly and its joints crack.

- Sandstone, terracotta and concrete weather too: sandstone crumbles over centuries, fired clay and concrete spall in frost when wet.

- Adobe and packed mud lose 1-3 cm a year to rain: 10-30 years in the open. The bottom course on soil goes first, eaten by rising damp. Standing in water, adobe falls apart in a day.

- Salt crust. Walls on damp ground grow a white bloom of salts that crumbles them faster. A brush scrubs it off.

All of them are real methods and work the way they do in reality: not in rain, not in frost, and fresh work has to cure.

- The lime cycle. Burn calcite or dripstone to quicklime, slake it in water to putty, mix it with sand for mortar, with sand and straw for lime plaster, with water for limewash.

- Repointing. Trowel in the main hand, lime mortar in the other: the wall goes back a stage. Rain or frost on the fresh mortar washes it out again.

- Lime plaster goes on rubble, stone, brick, deepslate, tuff and cut sandstone, steps and copings included. It keeps the rain off the wall and lasts 10-30 years in the open.

- Earthen plaster (clay, sand and straw) is the old render of adobe and packed mud: dry in 1-2 weeks, renewed every 2-5 years.

- Patching adobe. Trowel and mud fill the hollows of worn adobe; the patch dries in a few days unless rain gets to it first.

- Limewash (brush in the main hand, the bucket in the other) whitewashes plaster, masonry or wood, keeps rain out and slows wear; it lasts a year in the open, three under a roof.

Soil, sand, stone, brick, wood and wool darken when wet and lighten as they dry; dew settles on open ground at dawn. Sponges soak up rain and dry in the sun.

All optional: Rot & Mold (moss and wear on the same walls), Serene Seasons (seasonal temperature and rain), Cold Sweat (NeoForge), Snow! Real Magic (what was under the snow comes back when it melts), The Roads More Travelled (its roads count as trodden ground), ProtoManly's Weather (rain is read where it actually falls; its own icicles are used), Jade and WTHIT (stage, curing, salt crust, limewash), Sodium and Embeddium (the wet look).

/climate moisture, /climate rain and the other /climate commands show what the mod sees at a block: moisture and why, the lie of the ground, drainage, puddle points.

 

AI Usage

The code, textures and models of this mod were made with the help of AI. The idea, design and all gameplay decisions are mine, and everything was tested by hand.

 

If you'd like to support the mod, you can buy me a tea ☕