Midnight Surveyors: Three Views Beneath the Hill

A hillside gives very little away. Set down a tripod, take a reading, then try another position: a few marks on paper begin to suggest where there is room beneath it.

Midnight Surveyors gives you a reason to study the ground before opening a new tunnel or planning a cellar. Copper instruments, wax recording plates and a layered chart turn exploration into a small field expedition. The interesting choice is where to take your next reading.

Set up a small field camp with a clear view between the instruments. The surrounding terrace is a separate vanilla build.

Take three different views

Start with a Nightglass Theodolite, Moonmark Reflector, Hollowbell Receiver, blank Wax Echo Plates and amethyst shards. You will also need a Blackwood Charting Table and a blank Duskline Chart to combine the results. These are ordinary crafting-table recipes.

Three copper ingots, a spyglass, a compass and two sticks make the Nightglass Theodolite.

1. Place the reflector and a theodolite with a clear sightline between them, at least four blocks apart. Use the Surveyor’s Height Rod on the reflector to lower the marked layer; crouch while using it to raise the layer.
2. Choose Calibrate baseline at the theodolite. Put a receiver within four blocks and keep a blank plate and an amethyst shard in your bag.
3. Choose Sound ground, or use the Deepknock Hammer on the calibrated instrument. Stay nearby while the receiver listens, then Collect plate.
4. Repeat from two other positions around the same reflector. Keep its depth unchanged and spread the viewpoints into a broad triangle.
5. Use one recorded plate on the charting table to select that site. Carry the matching plates and a blank chart, then choose Combine readings.

You can pack and move the same equipment between readings. Recalibrate after moving it, and check the position guidance before paying for another sounding. Our almost straight line of instruments produced no chart; moving a viewpoint sideways gave the readings a useful triangle. The rejected combination kept the blank paper.

Each completed sounding uses one amethyst shard and records one blank plate. If you cancel before it finishes, the receiver returns both materials. Collect or cancel a held plate before packing the receiver.

Read what the map actually knows

Switch between layers to see what you have measured. This short clip reads an existing chart; it does not take a new sounding.

The chart separates layers by height. Teal marks show measured open space, ochre marks show places you have witnessed, and blank cells remain unknown. Read the allowance around each mark: rock between the instruments and the target can make the result less precise.

It is a map of observed spaces, not a guarantee of a doorway. It does not reveal ore types or chest contents. Take a safe route to a marked place, carry your original chart and use Witness Chalk, or choose Witness this place at a Witness Hatch. Repeating the same point will not earn another confirmation.

Place a Homeward Beacon before setting off and choose Remember home. Using the Height Rod away from a reflector tells you the direction and distance back. You still choose the walking route.

Try the Old Watchshaft

The Old Watchshaft is a craftable, two-level practice building. Place it in a clear seven-by-seven area with six blocks of height available, then survey it from outside and compare the chart with its rooms.

Walk inside after surveying the Watchshaft and compare the chart with its two rooms.

During our earlier visit, we walked up both stairs, reached the upper room, returned downstairs and left by the existing eastern approach. Saving and reopening kept the placed instruments, recorded work and inventory intact.

To light the rooms, hold a vanilla torch, crouch and use a full stone floor or wall. Remove your decorations before packing the kit: it waits while objects remain inside, on top or attached.

The Watchshaft comes from its crafted kit. The hillside terrace and approach in our scene are a separate build made from ordinary blocks; the mod does not generate that surrounding landscape or a ready-made cave entrance.

Bring the findings back to Orin

Bring your findings back to Orin and keep the earlier charts for comparison.

Orin Holloway waits beside Orin’s Survey Cabinet. Ask him when a baseline has changed, your viewpoints are poorly spread or you have yet to witness a mapped place.

After two different confirmations, bring an unfinished Clearfall Lens, two glass blocks and one amethyst shard to the cabinet and choose Finish lens. Fit it to your theodolite before the next sounding. Earlier charts keep their old measurements, so filing both charts gives you something useful to compare. Our later chart narrowed the search areas around existing marks.

A more precise survey narrows the area around existing marks. Unmeasured areas remain blank.

For a building project, the Cellarkeeper Board checks the central five-by-three-by-five space of your carried chart and reports clear, solid and excluded cells. It leaves the ground alone. Our surveyed volume still contained solid blocks, which made the result useful before committing to a cellar.

You can also make a Folded Survey Copy at the cabinet using a blank copy and one paper. It preserves the known contour at that moment; later surveying does not silently update it or give its reader your personal confirmations. Our playthrough used one player on Windows; network sharing has not been reviewed for this beta.

Download beta 0.1.8 for Minecraft Java 26.1.2 from Files. The reviewed setup uses Fabric Loader 0.19.5, Fabric API 0.155.3+26.1.2 and Java 25. Put the mod and compatible Fabric API in your Fabric profile’s mods folder.

Created by Modonix Studio. Made with Modonix.

To make your own variation, download the editable project and open it in Modonix Development Studio.