Mega Fossils

Mega Fossils are underground structures added by Jaden's Nether Expansion to the Nether. They generate in three Nether biomes, Soul Sand Valley, Black Ice Glaciers and Withered Abyss, and come in two forms: a bare fossil remnant, and a campsite with skeletons, a Vessel and brushable loot. Players mainly visit them for the archaeology loot in the campsite, which includes bone, Wraithing Flesh, Stridite and armor trim templates.

The structure is rare in the pack. A 26 km² survey of the Nether found none. Expect to search several biomes before finding one.

Generation

Mega Fossils generate in the Nether dimension. They are part of a single structure set, netherexp:mega_fossils, which places both forms with a weight of 6 for the fossil and 1 for the campsite. About six out of every seven placements are bare fossils, and one in seven is a campsite.

The in-game placement spacing is 5 chunks with a separation of 1. This is wider than the mod's default spacing of about 3, because Fear Nightfall's Sparse Structures setting thins out structures across the pack. Both forms place underground, between Y 32 and two blocks below the top of the terrain, with a maximum distance of 15 blocks from their start point. The campsite is set to blend its edges into the surrounding terrain (beard thin adaptation). The bare fossil form has no terrain adaptation.

Layout

A Mega Fossil uses one of four small fossil pieces, picked with equal weight. The fossil pieces have no block processors, so they contain no suspicious blocks and no loot.

A campsite uses one of four camp pieces. Three of them, camp_1 to camp_3, have equal weight (15 each). They run the Mega Fossil processor list, which converts soul sand into suspicious soul sand. The fourth piece, camp_4, has weight 1 out of 46 and runs a separate processor that uses beast skull loot tables instead.

The processor list has two capped rules. The first converts up to six soul sand blocks into suspicious soul sand, each carrying a roll on the common loot table. The second converts up to four more, each carrying a roll on the rare loot table. Each converted block becomes a suspicious soul sand block that can be brushed for its loot.

Inhabitants

Campsites use monster spawn overrides that place a skeleton (weight 3) and a Vessel (weight 5) inside the structure. Each entry has a minimum and maximum count of 1. Fossil pieces place no mobs.

The Vessel is the more dangerous of the two. It fires a volley of 16 to 20 bullets per attack, has a 110-tick attack window, and is fire-immune. It counts as a skeleton for other mods, and it is afraid of piglins. The skeleton is an ordinary skeleton. A skeleton that dies on soul soil can also convert the ground beneath it into Fossil Ore, with a chance of 0.02 per conversion.

Loot

The best loot comes from brushing the campsite's suspicious soul sand. Each brushed block makes one roll on its loot table. The common table can give Wraithing Flesh (3 to 4), Stridite (2 to 4), quartz (1 to 8), arrows (4 to 9), bone (1 to 4), skeleton skulls, a Spirit armor trim template, and Spectre and Marionette pottery sherds. The rare table can give Wraithing Flesh (6 to 8), gold ingots (3 to 6), leather (2 to 4), quartz (1 to 8), spectral arrows (4 to 9), skeleton skulls and a Spirit armor trim template.

The processor list caps the common rolls at six and the rare rolls at four, so a single campsite can yield up to ten loot rolls in total. The bare fossil form has no suspicious blocks and gives no loot from this structure.

Mega Fossil netherexp:mega_fossil

Biomes (3): Soul Sand Valley, Black Ice Glaciers, Withered Abyss

Mega Fossil Campsite netherexp:mega_fossil_campsite

Biomes (3): Soul Sand Valley, Black Ice Glaciers, Withered Abyss

Mobs placed in the structure: Skeleton, Vessel

Tips

Locate the Vessel before approaching the campsite. Its volleys of 16 to 20 bullets come in a 110-tick attack cycle, so break line of sight when it begins an attack and close the distance between volleys. Deal with the skeleton separately, since it is a standard skeleton.

Because the structure is rare, search widely across Soul Sand Valley, Black Ice Glaciers and Withered Abyss rather than returning to a single area.