Ore Radar

Ore Radar

A handheld radar that finds the nearest block of a selected type—such as iron ore, ancient debris, or a modded ore—and guides you to it with:

• See-through outlines showing the vein
• An arrow indicating direction, distance, and height difference
• A beep that gets faster as you get closer

Scanning is handled by the server, which sends each player only what they’re allowed to see. The radar never loads chunks, and all players’ scans share a small time budget per server tick.

Downloads and installation

Modded servers: Install the mod on the server and every client. Players without the mod cannot load chunks containing a Charging Station: Forge turns them away at login, while Fabric and NeoForge let them join but leave holes in the world. For unmodded clients, use the Paper plugin instead. In singleplayer, install the mod as usual. Team Reborn Energy is bundled with the Fabric jars.

Paper servers: Install only the plugin. Players connect with vanilla clients. A player who has the mod installed can still join; the mod simply stays idle.

Crafting

Ore Radar                  Charging Station
.  L  .                    I  L  I
I  G  I                    C  B  C
R  C  R                    I  I  I

L = Lightning rod          I = Iron ingot
G = Glass pane             C = Copper ingot
I = Iron ingot             B = Block of redstone
R = Redstone
C = Compass

Using the radar

• Use (right-click) to open the radar screen. Choose a target, search using @mod or #tag, right-click to mark favourites, and toggle outlines, the arrow, and the beep.
• Open the ⚙ settings tab to adjust colours, HUD position, beep sound and volume, and whether the radar works from your hands, hotbar, or inventory.
• Sneak + use on a block to track that block.
• Sneak + use in the air to turn the radar off or on.
• Press the Open Ore Radar key to open the screen without right-clicking. The key is unbound by default.

Charging: A full radar lasts one hour of searching; the item bar shows the remaining charge. Recharge it in a Charging Station using redstone, coal, charcoal, glowstone dust, or energy supplied through compatible cables and chargers. FE is supported on Forge and NeoForge; Team Reborn Energy is supported on Fabric.

Paper controls

On Paper, the radar is a compass. Right-click it to open a chest menu. The needle points toward the nearest match, matching blocks glow, and the action bar displays distance and charge.

The Charging Station is a lodestone with its own menu: put the radar on the left and fuel on the right.

Server configuration

Settings are in config/oreradar-server.toml. On Paper, the file is at plugins/OreRadar/oreradar-server.toml. Each setting has a comment, and /oreradar reload applies changes.

Categories

The [categories.*] sections define the radar screen’s tabs and the blocks radars are allowed to track. A new configuration contains only ores. Example categories for stone, wood, nature, fluids, and utility blocks such as spawners and chests are included as comments; remove the # at the start of a table’s lines to enable one.

To add a custom tab:

[categories.loot]
name = "Loot"
icon = "minecraft:chest"
blocks = ["minecraft:chest", "minecraft:trapped_chest", "#minecraft:shulker_boxes"]

Other settings

• allowAll = true allows tracking every block. In a large modpack, each player with the mod will then receive about 1 MB of data when joining and after each reload.
• denyList lists blocks and #tags that can never be tracked. The #oreradar:untrackable tag is also always excluded.
• groups combines blocks found together into one target. For example: [["#c:ores/zinc", "create:zinc_ore"]]. Ore tags already create one target per ore, and datapacks’ Vein Mining groups are also read by the mod.
• [features.*] can disable outlines, the arrow, or the beep for everyone. precisionBlocks controls the arrow’s precision; 16 means it points to the chunk.
• [radar] includes maxRadius (96 blocks) and dimensionsDeny, such as ["minecraft:the_end"].
• [energy] includes enabled = false to make radars free, plus capacity and drainPerSecond to set battery life.
• [station] includes fuels, which sets the value of each fuel item.

Players’ personal settings are in config/oreradar-client.toml and can also be changed in the ⚙ tab. Players can reduce settings, but cannot enable features the server has disabled.

Commands

• /oreradar info — available to everyone
• /oreradar reload — operators only
• /oreradar target <players> <spec|clear> — operators only
• /oreradar charge <players> <amount|full|empty> — operators only

On Paper, the plugin also adds:

• /oreradar give <player> [radar|station]
• oreradar.use permission — everyone
• oreradar.admin permission — operators

Paper notes

• The radar is a compass with CustomModelData 7701, so a resource pack can give it a custom model. The plugin does not send a resource pack.
• Only the plugin can read the contents of a Charging Station. Before removing the plugin, take the radar and fuel out; otherwise, they will only be recoverable after reinstalling the plugin.
• Folia is not supported.

License and building

Ore Radar is licensed under the MIT License. To build from source, see BUILDING.md on the GitHub page.

Disclaimer

This description was mostly generated by AI. The author revised each claim; Claude handled the Markdown structure and spelling corrections.

Note from the author

Thank you for coming here. It means a lot!

I’ve been trying to find a way to express my gratitude towards the community and found giving back a bit from all of the knowledge the FOSS culture made available, in creating goodies and utilities to ease off our lives, to be a good approach.

I am a doctor by trade, but my country does not pay well for it. So, on my free time, I’ve gone into development.

I don’t charge for my projects and sincerely don’t intend to, so please consider donating, if you like the mod! I can take requests and commissions, too!

I am by no means well-versed in Java, so, while I learn and improve on the language, these mods have generated code. The idea, creation, and testing were done by me, and my wife, though.