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Mikita Wiśniewski

VoxeLibre Refugee’s Guide

This guide is designed for VoxeLibre (what used to be MineClone 2) players who wish to migrate to Mineclonia or get to know Mineclonia after playing VoxeLibre.

Background

Mineclonia originated as a fork of VoxeLibre (back when it was still called MineClone 2) to prioritize stability, multiplayer performance, and a strict philosophy of being a faithful Minecraft clone. Both projects remain somewhat similar, but they have diverged significantly in their development goals. VoxeLibre has rebranded and shifted its focus toward “pushing beyond” Minecraft by adding unique features, original artwork, and custom content like hammers. As a result, Mineclonia was left as the only active Minecraft clone for Luanti, with a focus on implementing core mechanics like accurate redstone and mob AI as closely as the engine allows.

Why?

The primary incentive for moving to Mineclonia is its focus on being lightweight and stable. Many players report higher FPS on Mineclonia compared to VoxeLibre, although it may be much less noticeable outside of low-end hardware and multiplayer servers.

Technically, Mineclonia has implemented several features to match modern Minecraft versions that diverge from VoxeLibre’s implementation. For instance, Mineclonia features an Overworld depth of 128 nodes to match Minecraft 1.18+, whereas VoxeLibre is still limited to 64 nodes. Mineclonia also has a custom Lua map generator that is compatible with Minecraft seeds and produces matching terrain.

Furthermore, Mineclonia prioritizes cloning accuracy over original content. It retains original mobs like the Creeper (which VoxeLibre rebranded to “Stalker” for copyright reasons) and does not include custom items like the hamburger or shepherd staff found in VoxeLibre. Mineclonia also implements a custom redstone API (mcl_redstone) designed for accuracy, while VoxeLibre’s redstone is closer to Mesecons with its unlimited signal length/strength and other unique mechanics.

How?

Migrating a VoxeLibre world to a Mineclonia one is pretty straightforward, though there are downsides and upsides to the process.

Things to consider

Treat the following as a mental checklist. If you can’t mark one or more of these for yourself, you may not want to follow through with the switch.

  1. I’m aware that VoxeLibre is fully maintained, despite its release cycle being longer than Mineclonia’s.

  2. I don’t have any community mods enabled on the world I want to migrate, or I checked the ones I care about for Mineclonia compatibility in advance.

  3. Mineclonia’s goals suit me better than VoxeLibre’s, I would like to play a Minecraft clone rather than an inspired derivative.

  4. My gameplay doesn’t depend on features exclusive to VoxeLibre, or I found modded replacements for them.

  5. (If your world was created in an MCL2/VL version later than 0.86.0) I’m willing to deal with possible breakages encountered in the process.

Some incorrect reasons to switch from VoxeLibre over to Mineclonia may include:

  • The VoxeLibre people didn’t fix this annoying bug! (They are working on the same volunteer grounds as Mineclonia devs and contributors do; also, did you report it first?)

  • The VoxeLibre people rejected my awesome suggestion! (If it’s not from Minecraft Java or Bedrock edition, Mineclonia devs will be even less interested in it; consider turning it into a mod request or making such a mod yourself)

  • I heard that VoxeLibre is outdated and I have to upgrade! (It isn’t; some content and mechanics may feel smoother in Mineclonia or in VoxeLibre, but both projects are maintained with different release cycles)

Migrating a world

  1. In the Luanti main menu, go to the About tab and click Open User Data Directory.

  2. Open the worlds folder and enter the directory of the world that you wish to migrate.

  3. Open the world.mt file within that folder using your favorite text editor.

  4. Change the line gameid = mineclone2 (or voxelibre) to say gameid = mineclonia.

  5. Save the file and back up the world directory, i.e. by copying it under a different name.

  6. Restart Luanti; the world should now show up in the Mineclonia world listing, from where you can join it.

Upon migration, items unique to VoxeLibre (e.g. the Hamburger or Shepherd Staff) will be rendered as “unknown nodes” or “unknown items” since they do not exist in Mineclonia. Additionally, Mineclonia will automatically replace the old bedrock layer and the void beneath it with newly generated terrain down to the new Y level of -128. This may cause minor oddities in world generation, such as duplicated End Portals or shifted underground structures, but it shouldn’t affect any player-made buildings.