Harder Branch Mining
by Two Guys
Harder Branch Mining makes digging straight down into the ground slower and more tiring as the player goes deeper, a Forge mod for 1.21.1 that discourages branch mining and encourages caving.
What it does
Tools gain a deeper-digging penalty. Below a configurable height, which defaults to Y=48, the break speed of each tool falls off until it reaches its lowest value near depth 5, while ore blocks remain available. Horizontal mining can be tuned separately from vertical mining, and whether ore blocks are affected at all can be switched on or off.
Each tool is set through a semicolon-separated configuration string, where one entry gives the tool, the dimension, the starting height and a speed divider. For vertical digging, a divider close to the baseline leaves speed nearly unchanged, a slightly higher one slows it a little and a value of 2.0 halves it. Older builds treat the divider as a fixed amount, while newer builds treat it as a percentage slowdown, so a value below one cuts speed to that share. Settings can be changed during play, and the defaults work without any adjustment.
Harder Branch Mining is published for Forge only, with files for 1.20 – 1.21.1, and needs Forge but no other mod. It runs on client and server. The code is open source under the MIT License, and the source code and issue tracker are public.
Key features
Depth-based slowdown
Digging downward gets slower as the player reaches greater depths, starting at a configurable height.
Separate horizontal and vertical settings
Horizontal and vertical mining each have their own difficulty values, so either direction can be tuned alone.
Per-tool configuration
Each tool, dimension and starting height can be set individually through a single configuration string.
Ore block toggle
Players and server owners can choose whether ore blocks are affected by the depth penalty.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Use cases
Who it’s for: Server owners and players who want digging to take more effort at depth, and who prefer caves to straight mining shafts.
How it compares
Eternium Tools is a Forge mod for 1.20.1 with an MIT License, and it is not open source in its own rules. Harder Dense Mining covers 1.20.1 – 1.21.1 on Forge and NeoForge under All rights reserved, so it is a different license and loader set. Primo's Mining Pickaxe is a Forge mod for 1.20.1 released under the MIT License, focused on a single tool rather than depth-based speed.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harder Branch Mining | Forge | 1.20 – 1.21.1 | Client and server | 2024-08-28 |
| Eternium Tools | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2026-01-18 |
| Harder Dense Mining | Forge and NeoForge | 1.20.1 – 1.21.1 | Client and server | 2026-07-26 |
| Primo's Mining Pickaxe | Forge | 1.20.1 | Client and server | 2024-02-02 |
Questions
Does Harder Branch Mining need any other mod?
Does the server need Harder Branch Mining?
Which Minecraft versions does Harder Branch Mining support?
In the catalog
Harder Branch Mining is one of 3,545 Optimization mods on ModsFinder, and one of 1,441 Optimization mods for Forge. 32,366 mods support Minecraft 1.21.1.
More from Two Guys
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What the author says
Harder Branch Mining gives you tools to make branch mining more difficult in various ways and to encourage caving. You can control the horizontal-- setting how hard it is to mine at a given depth. You can control the vertical-- setting how hard it is to mine downwards. You can control the depth mining starts becoming…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/harder-branch-mining
- Owner
- Two Guys
- Published
- 2024-08-28
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2024-08-28
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15