Minecraft Forums

“An author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it." - Colette, a French novelist

This quote is one of my favorites, because it means that as we develop as artists, we start to understand the real value of our own work as opposed to our own glorification of it. We think about it objectively, and are humbled by it. And when we realize it isn't good, we are willing to destroy it and start over with something better. Over time, I started seeing the Starlight from a similar perspective. That's why I've made so many changes to it this season. I knew it needed work, and that its aesthetic quality was far from great. Hell, I still think that! Nonetheless, I've tried to change as much of the construction as feasible to make it more aesthetically pleasing, and I think this is most evident back in sessions 104-105 when I completely rebuilt the four spires. But even up to now, there was one outdated element that we finally tackle today... the backroom!

...But first, we needed to make a trip to Candyland, the massive mesa we found in session 158. I was all out of clay, and for this session we would be using a lot of it! In order to visualize how much of a journey and chore that is, though, allow me to present you with the following video. This is what it's like traveling between Candyland and Starlight HQ:

Say goodbye to that dated jungle porch! I didn't hesitate to tear that entire thing down; the same goes for the actual backroom:

And we'll change it to this:

In place of the old jungle porch will be an actual backroom. I've often felt that there were more potential options for transportation around the Starlight, because sometimes moving around can be cumbersome. For example, if I am on the back porch and want to access the Alchemy Dome, I have to go up to the second floor of the Starlight, and all the way around through the Power Museum just to access it. I used this example because this was one of the schematics I altered today. The new backroom will incorporate another way to access the Alchemy Dome:

Modernizing parts of the Starlight called for the demolishing of others. Say goodbye to this Bay Balcony - the outdated aesthetic is now in the way!

Building the new hallway from here became a little tricky. I generally don't use clay as the main building block in many builds because there aren't many stair/slab options that work well with it, from a construction perspective (i.e. meshing the outside aesthetics would be tricky). Additionally, because we had a few different colors to juggle, I was perplexed on just how to proceed. I decided to go for a glass roof:

I halted on the continuation of this for now, since I got stuck trying to figure out an aesthetically appropriate way to bring the different blocks together. I therefore moved on to the next new installation of the backroom: a pathway down to the bottom-most storage rooms. If I'm at the very bottom of the old storage rooms and I want to access the Alchemy Dome, I generally go through the powerhouse chamber of the Power Museum, accessing it from the bottom floor. Though, there is a far more convenient way to do that: connect a staircase!

Another reason for this is because the bottom level is actually very disconnected from the rest of the Starlight, meaning that it basically is out of the way. By installing a staircase directly to it, we're connecting it back to the build!

I also had an idea that I wanted to attempt executing using this staircase. Wouldn't it be cool to see a staircase through a window? You may notice that I've never introduced this particular aesthetic, so it would be a welcome addition to the headquarters! I had to work around the Armory though, and in the process changed the backing of the chests to black clay:

I went ahead and finished the rest of the Armory as well to match. The result was subtle but welcome:

I refined this area to create a neat-looking room from the outside.

That secret room behind the staircase is something of a new feature for Starlight HQ. This room might be an interesting expansion opportunity for later on.

We weren't yet done wreaking havoc on old Starlight impositions. I had some trouble finding ways to connect this new staircase down to the bottom level of the old storage rooms. I found that the only feasible way to do so was to completely destroy one of the middle layers:

In case you forgot, in session 169 we moved all our storage down to the Starlight Resources Facility. This means that all these chests are empty (which is why these storage rooms are considered "old" - the chests are all empty).

Since there was some inconsistency between where the staircase and storage room would meet, I decided to bend it around, like so:

A puppy window:

Being back down here, in these old storage rooms, I was reminded much of my Season 1 building endeavors. My style has shifted so much between Seasons 1 and 2 that truly bringing the Starlight into the modern age would require so much more renovating than I initially thought. This was something I always somewhat knew in the back of my head, but only now have confronted it visually. But then another idea popped into my head. Maybe the Starlight isn't meant to be updated. Maybe it's supposed to be a part of history - to remind me of the old era. After all, the purpose of this world is to reflect personal symbolism. The problem though is that when I go to renovate like today, it becomes cumbersome trying to incorporate elements never originally intended. That's why this renovation is particularly messy. The other thing is that the renovations typically clash with the existing parts of the Starlight.

Let's be honest here; the Starlight Castle's design is far from coherent. The rooms are mostly divided, and frankly there is no true theme throughout the entirety of the build. Sure, I put a focus on using elements like clay and wood instead of quartz or Nether brick, but those are hardly limitations when it comes time to build. The construction's high point is that it is extremely customizable, meaning that renovating is generally easy. But you know why it's easy? Because there isn't much of a foundation to begin with. It's not like the Nether Temple, which has a fluent and complete design throughout. Even the Power Museum, which almost falls prey to the same problems, has a theme. It's "futuristic" in design, focusing on quartz and clay while actually have a theme (i.e. the X-Men styled hallways). The Starlight does not have that, which is what will always keep it from being complete.

Regardless, I did take this opportunity to get rid of all those pesky torches, instead hiding glowstone under the carpet throughout the halls:

^ This is a perfect example of trying to make things work in the Starlight Castle. I think I did a decent job incorporating these renovations, but that's taking into account the realization that there isn't supposed to be a theme.

The final design is a little rocky, slightly incoherent, but overall a satisfying improvement over before. There are now more options for convenient travel around the Starlight, while official access to the Farmlands has now been removed (but that's because the Farmlands are obsolete). One day, maybe we'll live up to Colette's quote fully, but for now I'm just happy we're taking baby steps.

Starlight Lock Override project

The final project for the day was in digging out a hallway off of the old mass storage halls. This hallway would extend out into the bay, as seen below.

And into the bay we go!

The Aqua Lounge entrance hall is where we left off last time. It is the official entrance (and actually, only entrance) to what will become the Aqua Lounge - an old idea that first originated in my old world from 2012. In that world, I built the Aqua Lounge in April 2013 - just two months prior to the world's corruption. It was one of the last constructions built in that world; let me show you some pictures of it!

Aqua Lounge v1.0 (April 2013)

So that was the old Aqua Lounge. In regards to design, I was planning to incorporate a similar setup this time. I wanted a main open lounge with a giant window (which would actually work well this time because of how water reacts to windows in 1.9), with ports on both sides that would lead to other stylistic lounges. Obviously, I'm going to be updating the aesthetics to match that of Techtropolis today, but hopefully you at least have a bit of an idea as to what kind of construction this is going to be. It's an aesthetic construction with subtle amenities.

My initial idea was to use packed ice on this hall because of the fact that we couldn't begin building the Aqua Lounge until we were all the way into the water. Therefore, it would take some time to get to it. What better way to do so than with an ice rink?

Some flowers and clay helped complete the aesthetics of this hall. Note that as I work on the Aqua Lounge, I'm going for a look that is nearly akin to the Starlight Castle, which is partly why I paid so much attention to its aesthetic style last session. The Aqua Lounge is simply an addendum to the Starlight, because the construction is dependent on it (since there is no other entrance to it).

In constructing the entrance spire, I had begun the vigorous process of "soaking" all the water out by filling all the water blocks with dirt, as you can see here:

The difficult of building underwater isn't so much related to the difficulty of survival (since that isn't a problem with proper armor), but rather visibility limitations. Even with Respiration III, I have a hard time being able to see what blocks are being placed where (that's with Brightness on Bright and my monitor's brightness peaked). I thought about using night vision potions, but because of how long this construction could take because of said limitations (plus the process of removing all the water), I think I'd end up using a lot of potions. But then I figured; why the hell make potions if I'm never going to use them?

This jungle wood platform would be coated with carpet when we go to decorate.

We'll have to clear this mound.

Done!

I should note at this point that my block choices are not final. But like anything else, I need to have a foundation before I can focus on the details. By the end, I want the Aqua Lounge to be aesthetically complex. But right now, I want to use as few night vision potions as possible.

^ That looks somewhat cool, doesn't it?

All out of night vision potions. Time to go make more!

After some experimenting, I came up with an intricate arrangement for the roof, which may or may not work. Though it looks like it should end up looking cool by the time we're finished:

That pole would remain, as this would be something of a dance floor area.

The final section was the red lounge. Since this area was more isolated than the main lounge, I could more coherently build a roof consistent with the floor. This would allow me to implement a chandelier (a feature I want to incorporate).

And just like that, the main lounge was ready to be dehydrated!

As I began placing dirt blocks to remove the water, I had an epiphany. "Wait," I thought. "Isn't this what sponges are for?" Alas, all those sponges found in session 183 would finally have some use! After drying them out, I opted for these as opposed to the pre-1.8 method of removing water. This was much faster! Take a look at the clearing in the video below:

I absolutely love the raining effect that the Aqua Lounge provides, with it being underwater and such. Now it's time to decorate! Let's look at how the roof turned out:

It doesn't look terrible, but I can already see plenty of spots that could use some improvement. Though, before tackling this, I think we should finish the area off with the giant glass window.

I think I've finally mastered the art of using these sponges properly.

Decoration Phase

Overall, today was a huge first step in this project, and I'd love to hear your opinions of its current design. I have many more ideas for how I want to change the area up (because the goal with this project is to avoid "flat walls", i.e. keep the designs dynamic), but we'll leave that for another day.

Day 2,000

Day 2,100

Day 2,300

Day 2,400

Day 2,500

Day 2,600

Day 2,700

Day 2,800

Day 2,900

Day 3,000

Last session, we took a huge first step in constructing the Aqua Lounge. But today, we take the first step in installing some of the necessary features of the construction. One of the big goals of the Aqua Lounge was to make it so that I would never need to use it. In other words, the construction is meant to be a luxurious addition to Starlight HQ as opposed to a necessary one. I was mindful of that going in, which is why the features I've decided to add will not be necessary to Starlight HQ, but rather provide convenience. We'll go by section.

First thing I added was animated lights:

...But since that meant mobs could spawn (and they did), I removed these lights.

The Bar

Fishing Room / Pantry

Squid Shooter

Today's endeavors would involve an overdue addition to the completed Starlight Resources Facility... a snow farm! Yes, it's been on the agenda for quite a while. I first obtained snow back on the North Shore Adventure in session 182, but here I am ten sessions later finally making something of it! The snow farm would be located in Mushroom Cove... right here to be exact:

I tried a few different tactics, because the goal was to ensure that the snowballs went directly into the hoppers.

Unfortunately, every time I spawned a snow golem, it would not lay snow on the hopper. Conversely, if I placed the golem atop a fence post or iron bar, it would fall through it. I therefore just did things the easy way... I wasn't too hung up on elaborating this design.

Some of the snowballs would make it in, but for the most part I'd have to throw them in myself, batches at a time. These would lead to their storage unit, right in the walls of the second layer of the storage cellars.

Even though my goal wasn't to build an elaborate design, I did still want a contraption. I didn't want to use my good diamond swords to harvest mass amounts of snow. So, I designed a system that basically allowed me to use alternate methods.

When you stand on the pressure plate, a clock is activated that will shoot out one stone shovel from the dispenser after you use one up completely. Obviously, this assumes you don't stop using the stone shovel while on the pressure plate, because if you did then you'd end up with one more stone shovel than needed. The clock is very simple:

The pressure plate activates the piston, which allows the clock to be set in motion. The repeater I'm standing on is the one that activates the dispenser. Now, obviously, this is too short a timer. The goal is to time it for the time it takes to use up an entire stone shovel. What I ended up with was, admittedly, a mess of repeaters:

Later down the line, I might change this into a hopper timer just because that's a lot of repeaters that could have potentially been used elsewhere. But I'm okay with it for now - it does what I need it to so that's the important thing.

With the snow farm completed, I went ahead and gathered a few stacks of snow blocks. While I was down here, though, I figured it would be worth the trouble of expanding the chicken farm storage. This is because it was full! That makes sense though; the chicken farm was one of the first farms added to the Starlight Resources Facility, in session 154. Because of this, I didn't design it as efficiently as the later farms because I didn't anticipate just how much I would get from it. The problem is that I have the leaves stored right beneath the chicken farm storage. Where the chicken farm storage is on the first layer of the storage cellars, the leaves storage is on the second layer. So there was only one obvious solution: move the leaves!

Expanding the chicken storage from here was not difficult, since I've done it now with almost every other farm. I just had to do a little digging.

Alas, the expanded chicken farm storage has been expanded! So now, we have it on both layers of the storage cellars. From left to right, we have chicken, feathers, and eggs being stored here. In time, this second layer will also fill up. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Now that I've finished up some SRF updates, it was time to move back into the Aqua Lounge for the rest of today's session. Before working on our main project, though, I needed to finish a feature that we didn't finish last session. And no, I'm not talking about the furnace indicator light! By golly, that project really boggled my mind, and I still need a break from that. No, I meant the transport system between the squid shooter and the pantry. How else would we actually obtain the drops we get from the shooter?

I set up an automatic unloader akin to the others we installed last session. This one would connect to one of the hoppers at the squid shooter.

The railway runs beside the hallway leading to the squid shooter to keep things close together. I added a small line of hoppers stretching from one of the other unloaders so that I could install this one adjacent to the other, as you can see in the above picture. The transport from the fishing shack is to the left, while the transport from the squid shooter is to the right.

^ Use that button to call the minecart from the squid shooter to unload its contents.

Alright, so it looks like all of the unfinished bits have been completed. I wanted to get those out of the way so that I could focus on today's main project: the guest bedroom in the Aqua Lounge! That's what I wanted to use the snow blocks for. And that's what connects off the other side of the main lounge. Take a look:

The first thing I wanted to add to this room was a window so that you could watch the sunrise as you woke up. What a great view, too!

Next was a fireplace. What would a bedroom be without a cozy fireplace to keep warm under the cold waters?

A bedroom was not the only thing this area would be good for, however. Do you recall in the last session that we didn't have any endpoint for the water breathing potions? Well, that changes today. Off of the bedroom would be a snugly fit water-breathing-potion-storage unit. Wow, that was a mouthful.

Do you see that hopper in the distance? We need to bring it closer to us!

I had to manuever the wires a bit so that I could get the blocks to fit in. Additionally, we would need to install a hopper system that lets the potions travel abroad all these chests.

The end result is a nice little storage system for one type of potion!

Ever thought of using sponges for decoration?

Now it's time for a good night's rest under the sea.

I'm trying this new thing where I reference other sessions that might be relevant to the current session. If you're just joining, for example, you might see some things in this session in which you might ask, "Wait, when did you build that?" Well, this new section will attempt to address that question!

Chicken farm - Session 154

Mushroom Cove - Sessions 171-172, 178

Wool storage room - Session 175

Aqua Lounge - Sessions 190-191

When Starlight Arcade was first conceived in session 163, my plan was always to construct two arcade games. And to be honest, I planned the both of them at the start of this construction. Though, I've continued to put them off because I anticipated the work it would take to build these games. After all, an arcade game is an inherently more complex redstone construction because it isn't just one contraption; it's a system of contraptions. "Color Conundrum" was a success because I learned so much throughout the building of it, but I still felt that arcade games had so much more potential. So today, it's time to build the second arcade game, Aim High!

Before building this, I wanted to follow through with completing the arcade itself. By this, I was largely referring to the ceiling. I've purposefully left it unfinished because I wanted to build an animated light snake in the roof. This would activate upon entering the arcade and deactivate upon leaving. The first project of the day started with these glowstone lights. A tripwire was added to the entrance to activate them.

I used a variation of a T-flip flop that didn't involve pistons to make the tripwire act as a lever (on when you enter, off when you leave).

I'm standing on the input wire from the tripwire. The output wire is near the top-left corner.

A repeater snake is used to create the animation. However, a timer must also be used to control just how long that snake is. If you followed along on session 188, the same timer system we used on Color Conundrum will be used again here. This means a RS (NOR) latch is required:

When the latch is activated, so is the timer that resets it:

A piston is used to cut off the light snake when you leave Starlight Arcade, connected to the timer:

And just like that, the arcade interior was complete!

Aim High!

The entry port for "Aim High!" was built way back when in session 163, so that's out of the way. But, the shooting platform and everything beyond that was not. I know that you don't yet know what this arcade game will entail, but allow me to show you the aesthetic construction while you play the guessing game:

I'm sure that by this point you've conjured up some ideas...

The game works by eight pistons attached to clocks of varying speeds. These pistons block eight buttons, all of which must be activated with arrows in order to win the game. The goal is to keep all eight buttons activated at the same time - this will complete the output circuit that ends the game, opening a piston gate and allowing you to exit the shooting platform. A simple concept, yes, but I didn't anticipate the mess of redstone that this would become. Let's get into this...

Like "Color Conundrum," I used an RS (NOR) latch to turn the game on and off:

The input signal to turn the game on comes from the left (the pressure plate from the shooting dock). It will activate both visible redstone torches, which will start the clock that activates the game.

This master clock went through several iterations, as you can see. But it connects to the various other redstone wiring units that control each of the pistons. The pistons will extend and retract at varying speeds, while you try your hand at activating all the buttons. Make sure to "aim high" above the button you want to hit! The redstone lamps will tell you if the buttons are activated.

Next step is priming the game for when it's off.

Because all pistons need to be extended while the game is off, I need to keep all the wires activated. This is why I added a repeater like you see above. In addition to keeping the pistons activated, this also keeps the circuits even more varied. And, this brings about the opportunity to compose a circuit differently from Color Conundrum. Instead of creating a pulse, for example, we're cutting it. To do that, this clock needed a piston:

When the game is off, the wire to the right will be full active, meaning that the clock will also be fully active. The andesite block behind that pillar of sand is our target block for a piston. Basically, a piston needs to retract and expand at a specified amount of time to create a clock. Designing this took a lot of trial and error for me:

^ It didn't take long for me to realize why that wouldn't work.

Say hi to our green friend! Despite what you see there on the left, focus ahead on the piston's placement. I used a clock that, when activated from the input pressure plate, will retract the piston just before the wire going into the game deactivates, creating movement in the otherwise static redstone signal:

Another RS (NOR) latch variation is attached to the end of the clock to further control the piston's movement:

Having completed that, the main challenge was still ahead: designing the output circuit that ends the game. Each of the eight buttons has to correspond to a different circuit. I was careful to build the piston clocks around the center beam as opposed to across it. This is because I would need that space for the output circuit. After some deliberation, I initially thought that pistons would be the key:

But after realizing why that wouldn't work, the true solution was much simpler, and far more intuitive:

The way this would work, is that each button would deactivate only one hopper. The goal would be to get the items from the top hopper to the bottom hopper, which can only happen if all eight buttons are activated. Once the items reach the bottom hopper, a comparator would activate, sending the minecart to the top to deposit the items back into the system. Simultaneously, this comparator would activate another RS (NOR) latch, which would activate the exit gate back at the shooting platform.

After quickly realizing that I couldn't attach a comparator to the hopper minecart, I determined that the exit pressure plate back at Starlight Arcade would activate the minecart. After all, the only purpose of activating it is to bring the items back up, so it doesn't really matter when it's activated.

Once the items reach the bottom hopper, the comparator attached to it will activate this RS (NOR) latch:

The output signal to the right there travels underneath the bay to activate the exit gate, allowing you to exit the game:

Just like in Color Conundrum, we would still need a pressure plate in the exit chamber to turn off the game, because this wire only activates the exit gate. So in other words, we still need a wire that connects to all the other wires. This of course was not hard to install, because I just needed to run repeaters off of each RS (NOR) latch and connect them together, since all would be activated (or reset) through one pressure plate.

In the center of what you see above is the redstone wire that resets the game. The repeater runs right into the redstone wire. In the picture, this wire is active, indicating that the game is off (evident by the fact that all wires around it are also active). This means that stepping on the exit pressure plate would currently have no effect. But when the wire is inactive and the game is on, activating this repeater will re-activate the wire. This will change the state of the RS (NOR) latch and reset the game. The same exact thing happens on the RS (NOR) latch that activates the exit gate (so, it "resets" it by closing the exit gate).

To finish things off, I wired up the pistons on the other side of the tower:

And now it's time for clean up.

Say hello to Aim High HQ:

Testing / Bugs

I encountered only two major bugs during the testing phase of "Aim High!" And both of them were related to the hopper system, not to mention annoying as hell.

The first bug is present here:

During the game, when this hopper is activated like it is in the picture, the items will still be dropped into the minecart. What this means is that no item will remain in the hopper long enough for the comparator signal to activate. The fix for this bug was accomplished with one piece of redstone dust:

By activating the bottom button, the minecart is sent for a ride, allowing the items to collect in the final hopper prior to the minecart's return. This also presents the illusion that all buttons need to be pressed at the same time (because, if you hit the bottom button last, the items will already be in the minecart so they'll have to go through the system again from the top), when in reality you just need to hit it second to last (unless, of course, you have all the buttons activated).

Second bug was slightly more complicated. Through one test, I found that the piston triggering the exit gate was being re-triggered a number of times. Why? Well, when the game ends, that does not necessarily mean that all the arrows have despawned. What happened was the items were running through the system multiple times before the arrow on the bottom button finally despawned (because remember that's what will activate the RS (NOR) latch that resets the game). To fix this, I needed to install a safety lock on that top hopper, like so:

Since there are now two redstone signals activating that first hopper, shooting the top button won't send the items through a second time, meaning that the game is a one-shot (the intended goal). The next step was in determining how and when to activate this safety lock. Obviously, it needs to be off while the game is in progress so that the items can get through the system. But, that's the only time it should be off. Therefore, the safety lock needs to be active both when the game is off, and when the comparator on the bottom hopper is triggered. So, both of those wires were connected to the following RS (NOR) latch:

Some trial and error led me to the following redstone wire configuration:

Because the repeater runs straight into the latch (as opposed to redstone dust), the RS (NOR) latch pictured is a dependent latch because it relies on an input signal in order to function properly. Pictured above are two input signals: (1) the master clock signal that is off when the game is active, and (2) the signal coming from the comparator attached to the bottom hopper. Recall that once the comparator activates the RS (NOR) latch controlling the exit piston gate, the input signal pictured above (activated) will remain active until the exit pressure plate is stepped on. In short, this all means that the safety lock is only ever off if two factors are met: (1) the game is on, and (2) the items have not activated the comparator. This of course means that they can still travel through the system twice, as discussed in the first bug, as long as the comparator does not activate and the game is therefore still in progress.

Above is another picture of the same thing. In the top-left is the wire that indicates the safety lock is on; bottom-left is the wire coming from the comparator. All input signals are to the right.

While this all worked well, a lingering problem still existed. Because of how I fixed the first bug, if you step on the exit pressure plate before the item has been received by the hopper minecart, then the exit piston gate will just return to its retracted state, meaning that it would be open the next time you played the game. This problem could be fixed either by shortening the length of time it took for the minecart to travel back and forth between the top and bottom hoppers or changing the way I reset the exit gate piston. Because the former was unlikely to happen, I insisted on adding a hell of a lot of repeaters along the wire, like so:

What I figured was: "Hey, if it takes a certain amount of time for that comparator to shut off, then maybe I can just delay the time it would take for the game to turn off (and in turn the latch to reset)." And that was how that was fixed. Voila.

(also, I should note that "items" became "item" - only one item was necessary in the system as it kept things less complicated)

Introducing the completed Starlight Arcade:

In ending session 193, I blew up a chunk of stone behind the Starlight Resources Facility lobby. Just what secret project will this become?

The full monstrous 110-picture album of all screenshots from this session can be found here.

If you're just joining, you might see some things in this session in which you might ask, "Wait, when did you build that?" Well, this spoiler will attempt to address that question!

Starlight Arcade arena - Session 163

Color Conundrum - Session 188

Starlight Resources Facility lobby - Session 178

I can't even tell you how many times that water has completely destroyed my redstone setups. Thankfully, nothing was beyond repair but it's still a frustrating side effect of building underwater. In this case, though, the frustration is worth it as I think the Aqua Lounge has shaped up to become Season 2's best quality project. Today, everything comes full circle as the process of constructing the lounge reaches its peak.

The first thing I added was nothing more than a small amenity. This grid of item frames represents the concept of abstract art - it has no purpose, but its sense of meaning is up to you. You can manipulate the items in any way you wish, to create a variety of pictures that suit you.

The third and final hallway to extend off of the fishing room was going to take a different aesthetic approach to the other hallways. Instead of lining the walls with flower pots, I decided to fill the backing with water and make that visible with glass. This is because the hallway's purpose is to get us through the underwater mountain and back out to the open water. Therefore, I wanted to give off the illusion that the water was coming from the bay.

The big project at the end of this hall is comprised of two main things: an aqua dome and a one-way gate to the bay. Well, it isn't exactly one-way, so to speak, but upon leaving you would receive a key you could use to get back inside. Without the key, you would not be able to access the Aqua Lounge from the bay. The reason for this is because I wanted to encourage exploration of the bay within the Aqua Lounge, given its focus on water-related features. Because of the lounge's increased water breathing potion production and ease of access to the bay, it became easier than ever to explore the depths of the waters in search of clay, squids, or other things. Theoretically, you could now explore all the way around Techtropolis Island without ever popping above the surface, and that kind of exploration is what I'm attempting to promote with the Aqua Lounge.

This small room would be the fork-in-the-road between the bay gate and the aqua dome.

I set up the piston gate, activated via the button, but that's as far as I got going into the session. This is because I wanted to set things up and complete the aesthetic elements of the sessions prior to the redstone-heavy elements, which of course leads us to the beloved underwater dome...

I first had to measure the number of blocks to the surface, so that I could make the dome the appropriate size. I wanted the top layer to be one block beneath the surface so that the dome wouldn't pop up above the water. This allowed me only a nine-block radius (can't be ten because it needs to be an odd number).

The dome itself was not difficult to build, but it was definitely time consuming. Sponges were not enough to clear out all the water in this one, but I suppose now would be as good a time as ever to detail just how I used them.

See, sponges clear a large amount of water, but unless you conquer all of the water source blocks, the water will just flow back into a lake. Therefore, the best way to use sponges is to first partition the different sections of water, like so:

In order to effectively use sponges, you need to be able to move quickly. In this way, you don't make too many partitions, like so:

Placing the sponges quickly before the water flows back is key to removing large amounts of water.

In combination with dirt, I did clear the dome in around thirty minutes. The next step was to make it look presentable.

When this tree ended up being a large tree, I immediately conjured up the idea of making a small room inside of it. This of course would be a basic room, but it would nonetheless be a neat amenity. I expanded on this idea.

The little tree house would be home to a chest containing random items and a crafting table, as these would not be found anywhere else in the Aqua Lounge. So in a way, this afterthought actually is a necessary element to the construction!

The finished aqua dome looks comfortable and cozy, I'd say. What do you think?

Bay Gate

Decorating and Detailing

All photos (including more trial and error from the bay gate feature) can be viewed here.

Since the conception of Starlight HQ, there has always been an end goal in mind. That is how everything has begun for everyone since the dawn of mankind. The definition of an end goal is subjective, sure, and it often changes as time evolves and as we evolve. Having said that, though, Starlight HQ has had a specific goal to accomplish throughout Season 2. It wasn't the Starlight Plaza, the Mob Processing Hub, or even the Starlight Resources Facility. No, even beyond all that, the goal of Starlight HQ has always been that it would become an entity within itself. Starlight HQ was founded, since its very beginnings in 2013, under the belief that a survival base could be so much more than a haven of relief from the dangers of the outside world. It could contain secrets. It could hold the keys to prophecies. It could become its own enemy. You see, these are the types of ambitions that Starlight HQ has, and while we are nowhere near fulfilling that goal, we are well on our way to establishing the premise that will build it.

All of this begins with the secret of Stonewall. Many ages ago, a desolate civilization had spawned with the intent on creating a world that held similar ambitions to Starlight HQ. However, these ambitions fell through because the civilization had created a haven so powerful that it collapsed on itself. It became self-aware of itself to the point where it brought the entire civilization to ashes. This haven was called kuli aleilm (كلي العلم), which means "omniscient." Little is known about what exactly happened to the base during its destruction, whether or not there were third parties, or whether or not any remnants of it still exist today. However, one thing is known: it was located at Stonewall Territory.

This is only a brief summary of the full myth, for the full one will be uncovered in the season finale. This myth, however, expands to illustrate a notion that Starlight HQ and in fact every "territory" in Techtropolis is destined for a connection to the gods. In order to so, the secret of Stonewall must be fulfilled and upheld by that territory. My goal since the beginning of this season has been to fulfill the promises of that secret. You may not know the secret yet, but I reckon you'll find out before it's fully revealed. Stonewall Territory's purpose is to provide the foundation for which that prophecy will be fulfilled. And you guessed it - that's where we're headed pretty soon.

Before that happens, though, we need to make sure that Starlight HQ is fully primed for its v2.0 debut as we fulfill the prophecy of Stonewall. You see, that is ultimately the capstone project that will complete the headquarters, which means that everything else needs to be complete before that. While the completion of the Aqua Lounge last session was a great start, there is still one major feature of that build that needs to be completed. And that would be the setup of the grandiose fireworks display that will be presented on the season finale!

The hub was reworked from the old wool storage room, as you can see. You enter it not from the Starlight Pavilion, but instead from the following vertical hatch located just across from the Aqua Lounge entrance hall:

Conveniently, this is positioned appropriately to the hub:

After some design tweaks, I think I settled on something that matches the Starlight Castle's aesthetics...

Inside of this hub will be two levers - one lever acts as the activation of the display, while the other acts as a lock that protects accidental activation. Security, right? Wouldn't want to accidentally overload my work laptop with lag now, would I?

The next big step was running a single redstone wire from the hub all the way down into the bay. This took a lot of time and redstone, sure, but this was nothing compared to what I had to do next...

Pictured above is a randomizer - one of exactly thirty four that will comprise the entire display in the bay. The randomizer is a fairly simple redstone contraption; it works by transferring one of nine different items back and forth between the dropper/hopper (which means a clock is required). Eight of these items would be stackable, while the ninth one would not be (such as a sword). Because the ninth item is not stackable, it acts as a full stack and therefore will send a stronger output through the comparator to the dispenser. The specific item that the dropper chooses to send up is random, and with thirty four of these there is sure to be a dynamic display of lights!

^ Here you see that all but one of these items are stackable. The stone sword will be the item that determines whether or not a firework is shot out.

I had to install not just one, but thirty four of these machines underneath the bay. But first, I had to plot out each individual location, like points on a graph. To do this, I made pillars in the bay:

Then, after each pillar, I jotted down the coordinates:

There is one more on the back, making for thirty four total points. If you notice, there is a pattern with each column. There are three rows of fireworks, all of which are roughly seven to nine blocks apart, and each point on the row is slightly offset to create dynamics.

After completing that, I had to commence the rigorous process of digging out and installing every single randomizer under all of those points.

^ Here, one of the pods is directly adjacent to the Aqua Lounge. I had to work around the wiring creatively.

The full process took several hours, between digging, plotting, installing, and filling every machine. However, the good news is that it's all done now, and the display is ready to be turned on! Well, almost...

This is the central clock that powers each tick. However, because multiple redstone repeaters are used to transmit power across the entire bay, there is an even larger delay and thus more randomization. I have yet to fill all the dispensers with various fireworks, but I can't wait to see this display take off in the finale!

The completion of the fireworks display marks the completion of the Aqua Lounge.

Click the spoiler to learn more about the Secret of Stonewall...

The Secret of Stonewall

The secret project we started in session 193 has only been expanded on briefly between 193 and 195 (mostly setting up the lobby for it). But today, our main focus is on that project. In fact, our only focus is on completing that thing. Why? Well, because it is a huge project actually - a parkour course! However, unlike Totem Run (which is your standard aerobics course) and Fall Damage (which is an airborne control course), this course is based entirely on a redstone machine that will allow many other cool features to be possible. For example, this course features several nonlinear sections in which you have to press buttons to open other sections of the course. But the biggest feature of this course is that every single moving part is controlled by one clock. That one clock separates into several smaller clocks, but everything can be toggled with just one switch. The name of this course? Landing Pad.

Part of the reason that I wanted to complete Starlight Arcade was because I knew that having experience with those two arcade games would allow me to compose Landing Pad with much less trouble. Between this course and Starlight Arcade, the latter was still a more redstone-heavy project. But that's due to several factors, the first being that I needed to complete this project in one session as opposed to having three or four. Originally, I had pushed Landing Pad to next season because I didn't think I would be able to fit it in, but after cutting some original parts of it out I realized I'd be able to do it (given I had enough experience with redstone). Getting that redstone experience required me to build Starlight Arcade. So now you see how everything starts to connect.

The other thing is that most of Landing Pad's redstone is the same. The course has some moving pistons connected to clocks, while it has some pistons that move upon hitting buttons. Those are mainly the two features of the course, so the entire system is much less complex than Starlight Arcade because there are a limited variety of contraptions. Having said that, Starlight Arcade did give me the experience of creating a complete circuit (i.e. toggling the games on and off), which is obviously an important feature. Landing Pad still required a separate redstone signal that would reset every single latch, so there's that. In short, the redstone of Landing Pad was extensive, but not difficult because I did all my learning through Starlight Arcade. That's why I was able to complete the entire course in this one single session. It still took somewhere between 10-12 hours in total to build, but imagine how much longer it would have taken if I didn't know what I was doing.

So let's dive into the construction, shall we?

First up was the clock itself - a very simple and basic clock, but fast enough to create tension on the course! As you suspected, there is in fact a redstone torch to the right of the block that repeater is running into (in the above picture). The clock is activated by an RS (NOR) latch which is activated by the pressure plate shown in session 195.

My original plan was that the course would be comprised of twelve individual challenges. Each would be part of a different circuit (so once you completed one, it was turned off and the next one would turn on). This was because I knew I could potentially reduce lag doing this. However, I opted not to do this because it meant that essentially I had twelve courses instead of one. I wanted Landing Pad to feel like one self-sustaining course, so I chose to connect it all together. Additionally, the total number of challenges rose to fourteen.

Having said that, here is the first challenge: First Shimmy!

Completing the shimmy leads you into the first of two main arenas:

This arena would be something of a haven, because although you don't return here during a later part of the course, there is a shortcut that opens up from here later on.

I began building a wall for the second challenge: Piston Wall. The concept of this one was simple: three pistons would alternate in and out of the wall, and you would have to time your jumps right to get across. This challenge was the first real challenge of the course.

The back wooden wall would be the groundwork for the third challenge: Ladder Limbo! This challenge is a combination of ladder and fence parkour.

^ This button represents the first activated gate in the course. Do you see how the stone brick blocks up top have to retract in order for you to get above the fences? Well, first you have to step on this pressure plate to activate the following T-flip flop:

Once the gate opens, you'll backtrack and make your way to the next challenge!

Challenge four, the free fall, is another timing challenge. This course utilizes lava a lot in adding a danger element, but obviously that wasn't added until near the end of the session. In creating the free fall, I wanted to build a separate timer that would connect to a 2x2 piston platform (the circumference of the free fall). Your goal in this challenge would be to time your jump so you would land on the platform while it was extended - otherwise you will land in the lava!

The timer for this challenge was built off of the signal coming from that first RS (NOR) latch, and it's much slower than the original timer.

Challenge five is ominously titled the Don't Jump Challenge, called such because the entire roof of the challenge will be a lava layer! In this challenge, your goal is to shimmy your way between the moving pistons in an effort to not get pushed up into the lava.

I had to play around with the timing on this one to get something that wasn't too difficult; this is now the third clock in the course, connected from the same wire crafted in the making of challenge four.

Following this, the pace would change a bit as you approached challenge six: the jump pads! Yes, you guessed it, these are the same jump pads use in Etho's world (though I'm unsure if he is the original creator). They are used in various ways in this next challenge:

There are a total of three jump pads. I designed this so that the third jump pad would be visible from the main arena, as you can see here:

Building these chambers took a bit of time because I had to size the gaps appropriately, but it all got done with little trouble. I should note that the third jump pad, which looks deceptively identical to the second, requires the use of different tactics to succeed!

In the next section you would attain a speed potion for the seventh challenge: Temple Run. Let me show you why:

The entire ground in this challenge will become lava, with only three blocks popping out of it (alternating of course). In building this challenge, I had to build another RS (NOR) latch that had a separate timer attached to it because this one needed to be much slower! Why an RS (NOR) latch you ask? Well, the input signal in this case is coming from our clock at the very beginning. However, because that pulse is too fast, using an RS (NOR) latch allows me the creative freedom to treat that pulse only as an input signal. This means that the timer pictured below is the actual clock, while the input signal is just there to reset that clock.

The Temple Run incorporates the second activated gate in the course. I'll skip the next part then because I want to leave that little surprise for you when it comes time for you to play the course, but basically the charade that follows the Temple Run leads you into this elevator on the other side of the diorite wall in the first main arena:

This elevator brings us to challenge eight: the Cube Matrix. My goal with this challenge was to make less of an action-oriented challenge and more of a puzzle-oriented one, to change up the pace a bit. So there isn't a danger element to this challenge, but there is some thinking involved.

Pictured above is a pulse extender of sorts. The power for the Cube Matrix comes from the same clock that has powered everything else in this course. However, because I needed timers of different lengths for this particular challenge, I had to come up with a quick way to change the timing without building anything too elaborate. The result was this.

These are just some mock-ups of the puzzle created in the Cube Matrix, and I won't actually show the completed version because I'd rather you try it yourself upon playing (the version in the video is also just the mock-up).

Once you have conquered the cube, you're sent out into the ninth challenge, which is actually the second main arena of the course. Before diving into the challenge, let's look at this new haven:

As you can see, this haven's challenges would be based around the jump pad in the center that is also powered by the original clock.

I tried a few different aesthetics, but I wanted to stay true to the course's theme colors: brown, white, and blue.

The main difference with this arena is that you do actually come back here to access other parts of the course. As you can see in the above picture, there are three different doors that will each present a different challenge. Once you complete A, you unlock B. And once you complete B, you unlock C. That's how this section works.

The key to all of this is in RS (NOR) latches. Each pressure plate/button is attached to an RS (NOR) latch that controls the next gate, which means that it will only toggle it once until you reset the course at the very end. This is also good because it means you don't have to restart every challenge when you die (because there's no way you'll one-shot the course on your first go).

So, the ninth challenge is the jump course, which is just a simple timing challenge that requires you to hit this plate:

Hitting this plate, as referenced by the sign, will unlock Test A, which is the tenth challenge.

The clock used in this challenge is the fastest in the course, because the goal is not to time your jumps, but to get across the bridge before the blocks retract. It's a very fast-paced short challenge that requires you to be quick on your feet (or, in this case, fingers).

Speak of the devil...

The pressure plate will activate Test B, challenge eleven, which is arguably one of the most tension-filled parts of the course because of its destructive nature:

As you can see, the contraption crushes you and gives you very little breathing room as you struggle to race to the end of the hall. I originally tried using slime blocks to do this, but I quickly realized that pistons can only move six at time, as evidenced here:

So, I ended up just doing this the louder way:

Pressing the button on Test B does not actually open the door for Test C. It opens something else that I won't spoil - that something else is what opens the door for Test C!

Test C, challenge twelve, is among the most unique part of the course. It alters the behavior of the redstone that runs the course in ways no other part of the course does. And yes, Test C will **** you off if the rest of the course does not.

It's a tripwire room! The goal in this challenge is to not touch any of the wires. This challenge was ingeniously designed, if I do say so myself, in that every wire is connected to the same circuit without interfering with the rest of the course. If you touch any wire, the door to Test C closes and you're locked in. Not only that, but the pressure plate at the end of the course is deactivated and thus it will not open the gate to the final two challenges. How do you escape this?

You have to kill yourself using this convenient suicide chamber. When you do that, you'll respawn at the start of the course. Thankfully though, this checkpoint will have opened:

And thus you will be able to return to where you started on Test C. However, because the door will still be closed, you'll have to go through the process of opening it again before you can attempt the test once more. You get to do all of that every single time you touch a wire. How fun is that?!

Test C is actually one of my favorite parts of the course because it is considerably different from the rest of the course. It isn't the hardest part of the course either, which is a plus because it adds to the replay value of the course - a goal here.

Assuming you do successfully complete Test C and activate the last gate, you'll be taken through here:

The thirteenth challenge is another jump pad, the one-shot, because it's tight and you're going to need some air control. Can I take a minute to note that while digging around the one-shot I found this:

- Adding that onto the list of things to use later on!

Back on track, the one-shot's purpose is to take you above the second arena so that you can complete the fourteenth and final challenge: the final shimmy. And this one's a doozy:

Connected to the same clock that controls the speed of the first challenge and the jump pad inside the second arena, this basic jump timing challenge differs from the others in that the three pistons do not alternate. This means that while they're extended, you're on top of them. And while they're retracted, you're in the air jumping to the next one. This challenge relies on your ability to time that process so eloquently. Otherwise, you fall down back into the arena:

See, I was originally going to fill the bottom of this challenge with lava, but recall that my goal here is not to make a very difficult course, but rather a difficult course with a high replay value. To do so meant to balance the elements so that no one part is too annoying. During my testing, I found that the Temple Run and Final Shimmy were the most annoying parts of the course, with Test A actually coming in close behind. So it's possible I'll revise those parts. The Don't Jump Challenge isn't as bad as you think after I adjusted the timing (it's one of my favorite parts actually), while Test C is easy if you pay attention and go slow. The rest of the course is extremely fun for me and I'm hopeful you'll agree when it comes time for you to play it!

The ending of the course has not yet been built, but the pressure plate that resets the course has. Remember all those RS (NOR) latches we built that controlled like every gate? All we have to do is connect a repeater to all of them to be reset by this pressure plate.

In designing Test C, due to the way it reacts to both the gates to Test C and the final challenges, it effectively resets itself, meaning that I just had to connect the reset wire to this setup here (to left):

When it was time to add the lava at the end, I used up that entire lava lake we found while designing Test A.

After testing the course a bit, I found it to run beautifully. It offers such a different experience to Techtropolis and Minecraft in general that I'm happy to add it onto Starlight HQ's expanding features list. The official ending related to the Secret of Stonewall hasn't yet been designed, but be rest assured we'll get to that and for now I'm just glad I got this incredible machine finished. This is, in my opinion, one of the biggest highlights to the impending Starlight HQ 2.0.

To start out today, I audited all of Starlight HQ to work on inconsistencies in the features. The first and most prominent of these was the zombie XP farm built way back in Season 1 (session 36 originally, but rebuilt in session 66) more than two years ago. As you may know, this farm is not redstone-operated like the more modern farms in Techtropolis. Instead, it was comprised of a giant stone brick tower that sticks out of the Power Museum, allowing the zombies to fall until they are only half a heart from death. However, one problem that never was resolved involved the baby zombies. These baby zombies often got stuck in the zombie tower when they were introduced in 1.6. Back in session 81, I added a small waterway the separated the baby zombies from the rest of the system. However, when I went back to look at it today, I realized why I continued to hear the baby zombies:

They didn't drown! So I installed a new system that drowned the baby zombies:

That was easy. But then I did some more digging and noticed this:

I don't know why I designed the tower like that. I really do not. But anyway, that is now also fixed. In a way, the zombie XP farm received some upgrades today! But that got me thinking... I don't even know if this farm will exist forever. Honestly, after the Mob Processing Hub was built this farm became obsolete in every way.

Recall that the zombie XP farm was the only XP farm throughout all of Season 1, and just one of two mob farms (this was from June 2013 to November 2014). Now we have eight total hostile mob farms. The Mob Processing Hub (built in June 2015) not only adds two new and improved redstone-operated XP farms (both of which are from mobs that have way more useful drops - spider and skeleton), but it also includes a third darkroom mob spawning platform that naturally includes zombies as well. After the Blaze Blaster was built last November, the Mob Processing Hub became obsolete for XP, but not for drops (since it still provides string, bones for bonemeal, and arrows, as well as lots of interesting armor and bow drops). From a construction standpoint, the zombie XP farm would not matter if it was hidden from the rest of the base. But look at any picture of Starlight HQ and you cannot miss that giant and arguably ugly stone brick tower that just sticks out from what is otherwise a reasonably coherent structure.

There's no need for false modesty here. I've already considered options for revising the entire zombie XP farm for next season, but I figured it is worth talking about because I actually worked on it today. I think you'll agree that it is currently the only hostile mob farm that no longer has any purpose, so instead of removing it I have some ideas for how to change it...

But obviously that's for another day. Today's main project was actually in completing the aforementioned Blaze Blaster. For those of you just joining (or if you need a bit of a refresher), the Blaze Blaster was built originally in sessions 160-161, but it was torn down and rebuilt in session 186. Now in session 197, it's time to complete the aesthetics. Here is the Blaze Blaster as you last remember it:

Recall this video in which I worked on the Blaze Blaster's features:

It works by moving blaze from the bottom of the funnel up to the top via minecart, where they are dropped into an automated crushing system which crushes them down to half a heart. This has so far proven to be the best XP farm in Techtropolis because of how efficient it is. But its aesthetics needed to be finished. Another trip to Candyland would have to be in session!

I started by tearing down all the walls and opening up the middle section a bit. The goal here was to isolate the entire glass window so that the field of view was not obstructed by any blocks.

Next, I worked on the entrance. As you may know, there is a hallway that connects the Nether Hub to the Blaze Blaster. I used nether brick stairs to create a striated pattern:

There was almost a casualty here...

In working on the walls, I had to reorder some of the redstone because I didn't originally anticipate that I'd build this high up, as seen below:

With the black clay frames completed, I had a few different ideas for how I wanted to design the walls. But all of those ideas revolved around using lava.

Ideally, I want both of these sections to have lava walls (the walls in the back and in the front as you can see in the above picture). However, I was initially indecisive on how to do them because I didn't want them to look the same.

^ I decided that these walls would be cyan glass, because it made more sense given the structural nature of this section. Besides, what I decided to do for the next section was so much better...

The fences!! My oh my did this take a sinister turn! I am absolutely in love with how these fences blend with everything else. What do you think of them?

Next I needed to make a stop at the Alchemy Dome. It was time to restock all the potions!

I had nearly every single brewing stand working - the Blaze Blaster is not going to run out of potions for quite some time I think.

After restocking, an enchanting room had to be added, right here:

And across from that...

Have you met Frenemy? Well he now has an official home :).

The final aesthetic feature of the Blaze Blaster involved the wiring of an animated light snake similar to the one in Starlight Arcade. The difference however is that this one would remain active indefinitely, providing something of an ambience to the hub. I initially designed the snake to work like so:

But after some experimenting, I quickly found a far more efficient way to achieve the same result:

The clock must control both sides, which is why I decided to build the apparatus underneath the hallway. It just makes the most sense to me.

I've added a little entrance to this chamber in the event that something goes wrong with the machine:

And voila, the completed result!

Where I thought this was the end of the session, I was shocked to see this upon checking the Blaze Blaster for maintenance:

What you're seeing is the result of the Blaze Blaster being too slow! Quite simply, one minecart on the track is not enough to keep up with the load. This makes sense, because this means there is only ever one blaze going through the crusher at a time. How to fix this? Well, let's just say I spent another couple hours on this one...

Completed Blaze Blaster gallery:

The completion of the Blaze Blaster was only the first part of this eventful session, however. The second part, which will not be described in detail, involved the creation of the next two Stonewall Scavenger Searches around Starlight HQ. The first was built in session 195.

There are now two more scavenger hunts to create, as well as many other small things to complete, before Starlight HQ is officially ready for the end of this season. Until next time...

A video showcasing the complete Blaze Blaster is coming and this session will be updated once released!

The Secret of Stonewall has been fully integrated into Techtropolis.

Now we've reached the final chapter of the season. That means we need to make sure Starlight HQ is fully prepared for its 2.0 debut on session 200 as we step into the next era of the world's progress. In order to account for everything, I did a complete audit over the entire base to make sure I had everything just the way I wanted it. Along the way, I fixed things that didn't belong and added things that I wanted to add. This process was necessary for two reasons: (1) Starlight HQ is so big that I would not catch everything if it weren't for an organized audit, and (2) this is the last session that we will be at Starlight HQ prior to the season finale.

Wait, what? That's right. You've been waiting for eight months; I've been waiting for two years. I have not revisited Stonewall Territory since I first discovered it back in session 108 (this was in November 2014). So therefore you're probably wondering: why is it such an integral part of this world? Why have I created a mythology around this location? My friends, all your questions will be answered in due time. But right now, we need to complete Starlight HQ 2.0. This starts with the audit:

Most sections of the audit actually got checked out very quickly; builds like the Nether Temple and Aqua Lounge were finished so eloquently that there was nothing that needed to be added. The only thing I didn't successfully complete in the Aqua Lounge was the furnace indicator light (you can view my failed attempts in session 191). But this is a minor detail. Overall, the Nether Temple and Aqua Lounge are two of my favorite builds throughout this entire season, and in fact throughout this entire world. The two builds are so unique in nature that they stand out as highlights of Starlight HQ. I'm equally proud of them both and hope to continue building unique things like them in the future.

The Starlight Castle, while aesthetically incoherent (discussed more in session 189), was mostly finished in the sense that its goals for the season were fulfilled. I'm still not entirely satisfied with the Starlight Castle - it's a great build that holds a lot of history, but it nonetheless does not fit well with the newer parts of HQ due to the fact that I built it while still being relatively new to the game (2013). Thus, I didn't quite have the same eye for aesthetics as I do today, and therefore I can look at the castle and say with certainty that it has a lot of problems. As discussed in session 189, many of these problems come from the compactness of everything. Normally, compactness is good, such as with redstone builds and what not. However, in this case, compactness leaves little room (pun intended) for development. And sure enough, nearly every attempt I made at renovating Starlight Castle this season was compromised due to me running into some other build. Though, I had to work with what I had and I'm satisfied with that. I cannot simply redo Starlight Castle because it is the very centerpiece of HQ - to remake it I would have to literally redesign HQ, which at this point is not the goal.

The Power Museum is the one build that I knew would not get completed this season. By this, I'm referring to the lighting. As of right now, the Power Museum is the only build in Starlight HQ that still has torches for its primary source of lighting. I've done a good job of incorporating other sources of lighting throughout the rest of HQ, but the Power Museum is still the primitive part of the base.

The Power Museum still received major changes this season. Aside from the Alchemy Dome, much of the Powerhouse level (lower level, pictured above) was changed significantly. For one, we changed all stone brick into quartz in session 117. Our multi-functional mob farm received a slew of enhancements in session 177, and several new pathways/functions were established in session 185 (along with the Hall of Armor). So even though the Power Museum received little attention on the surface, it was a key player in many projects and I have completed everything I planned for it this season.

The plaza faction (often referred to as simply Starlight Plaza) was a huge addition to Season 2, and it saw progress from the conception of the fountain in session 106 to the completion of a fully-fledged arcade in session 193. Throughout the entire season, the Starlight Plaza gave us many things: the Nether, Starlight Arcade, a home for our horses, a designated fishing shack, as well as several pathways through other parts of HQ. It is also the home to Starlight Station, which was originally built in the latter half of Season 1. However, in session 188 its lighting was changed to remove all torches, bringing the build up-to-date with the rest of HQ. Going through the plaza to check off items on the audit was no problem at all. Aside from hiding all of the lighting in the grassy parts of the plaza, it is officially finished for v2.0.

Speaking of the Nether, development of the plaza faction gave us an opportunity to expand HQ into another dimension: the Nether Hub. This allowed us opportunities to create pockets across the world that could be connected to Starlight HQ. This hub, while completed for the purposes of this season, will be even further expanded next season to encompass more sections of Techtropolis and more efficient methods of transportation.

The Mob Processing Hub was one such construction connected to HQ via the Nether hub. It was an earlier project from Season 2 (sessions 128-140, inclusive), but it wasn't actually completed until session 184 when all lighting was done. Because of this, I marked it right off the audit since session 184 tied everything up.

The witch farm was also marked off the audit very quickly, because there isn't much to it. Having said that, though, one thing that can always be improved over here is the lighting/flooding of the 128x128 block radius surrounding the farm. Arguably, the outside aesthetics of the farm could do with significant work, but that is not at all a focus right now for me. Therefore, the witch farm is complete.

Descending into the Starlight Resources Facility, I found several things that needed to be done. Let's start with the Mob Resources Division (referred to as the Mob Processing Unit on the audit):

While completed, there are two things to address here. First was simple - I can't tell you how many times I've fallen into the animal holes in the breeding cockpit. Of course, the only way out is to break blocks, which leads to escaping animals causing chaos. To alleviate this problem, I installed four stoppers over top of them. This will prevent any potential unwanted nonsense.

Second problem was, in fact, a problem that I didn't know existed before today.

^ Recall that when this system was built back in session 171 (where this picture came from), it was the output storage for three farms: (1) cows, (2) mooshrooms, and (3) mushrooms. Now, because of this, the hoppers on the top layer run into each other because every item had a spot in the sorting system (from left to right: leather, steak, brown mushrooms, red mushrooms). However, today I found a problem with this system. Note that the hopper descending from the mooshroom grinder is located directly above the hopper on the very right up top. Coincidentally, the storage for red mushrooms is also on the very right. Now, when I went to shear mushrooms from the mooshrooms, I found that the mushrooms were actually getting caught in the perpetual motion of the hoppers running into each other. In other words, they were not sorting properly into their correct spot.

The solution was simple: I switched the red mushroom storage with the brown mushroom storage (second from right). This was because mushrooms coming from the mushroom farm did still sort properly (as they were being fed through the system horizontally as opposed to vertically). By changing where the red mushrooms sorted, I was able to account for the behavior of all hoppers. So this problem was fixed!

Just some decorating on my end...

So here's the problem with the cactus farm: It provides way too much cacti! In fact, I've filled the entire chest allocated to green dye in the dye storage room because it works so fast. This is a problem because I'm now out of allocated storage space for green dye. Therefore, I need to install a method of de-activating the cactus farm when I don't need to use it. The answer was using pistons to control whether or not the blocks kill the cacti.

On the top layer, I installed pistons vertically. But I couldn't do that on the bottom layer. So, I removed the four inner cacti and instead installed pistons on the walls (this is no problem because I already have reached maximum efficiency with this farm for what I need).

When the farm is on, the cacti will grow as normal and the blocks will break the ones that grow.

When the farm is off, the cacti will grow but no blocks will be adjacent to the new cacti that grows. Therefore, the farm will remain idle until it is turned back on.

The next part of the Starlight Resources Facility is something that I admittedly forgot about for a bit. I became so wrapped up in other projects that I unfortunately neglected one of the bigger ones... the tree farm! That's alright though, because the point of this audit is to not forget anything. If you recall from session 187, we finished two walls of the tree farm and most of the storage wall. But that meant the entire back wall, which is the largest of the four, is still incomplete. So I had to tackle that, starting with how it would be designed.

I decided that there would be six pillars, akin in design to the others. The two outside pillars are where I started. See this in progress here:

The four inside pillars would have designs similar to the others, but they would look just a bit different...

I went through several attempts on the corners to compose something that blended well. The result was a bunch of logs stacked upon each other:

The back wall, while an intense project, was only the first of three for the tree farm. Second part was finishing the storage wall. This took less time, but I had to make sure I accounted for details. Missing just one detail could bring the whole thing down.

I went with black clay to outline the individual storage cells because I felt it would best contrast with the different colors. While I originally planned to use wood of some sort, the problem is that any wood I use would clash with at least one of the cells. Using black clay would best differentiate the individual cells on the wall while also separating them from the rest of the wall itself.

Check out that view! Who is to say this won't be made accessible later on?

I had to complete the entrance finally. Doing so meant ripping out the walls, which are surprisingly close to the sugar cane farm! This is a positive example of compactness, unlike the Starlight Castle.

I started with several combinations of clay blocks, only to be dissatisfied with all of them.

The finalized result was Nether brick surrounding light blue clay. And the final feature was a piston door akin to the one used as the entrance for the Starlight Castle. This marked the completion of the tree farm!

I mentioned this in several other sessions, but my final goal with Starlight Castle is to remove that old storage room still infected with torches. You know, this one:

In order to remove it, I first had to empty it. Even after the storage migration in session 169 (in which 80% of our storage was moved down to the Starlight Resources Facility), much of the smaller, more miscellaneous items still existed up here. They could not stay here since this entire room was going to be demolished, but I realized that the only true solution was to create permanent storage spots for all these items.

We all have storage chests that look like this, don't we? Well, I had to go through the process of emptying them all. Now, I could have just moved them elsewhere, such as in the Aqua Lounge entrance hall where all of the chests are empty (except the one pictured above). But that's not a solution. Take a look at the picture above. How many of those items can already be stored in the SRF? Let's see... cobblestone, gravel, carpet, wood, sandstone, packed ice, clay, flowers - all of these already have spots in the SRF. So, in order to assign new storage, I first organized all the storage I could.

Items like sugar, flint, string, spider eyes, ferns, and ender pearls did not ever have designated storage. While string and spider eyes were stored at the Mob Processing Hub, they still needed a home here at HQ. So, along with spicing up the storage cellars with ferns and grass, I added a row of chests alongside the cactus storage for these items.

If you have a keen eye, you'll recall that this storage bank still had an open slot upon completion back in session 172. Well, this open slot has been filled with pumpkin pie - previously stored upstairs! Pumpkin pie, as you know, is crafted with eggs, sugar, and pumpkin - all of these are in reasonable vicinity with this chest.

A place for paper was installed directly beneath the sugar cane farm. This mill would hold both paper and books, although it isn't technically the designated spot for books (there isn't a spot for these).

I went on several trips around Techtropolis to trade with as many villagers as I could. I sat at the wheat/carrot/potato farm and attained large amounts of these items because they're fairly cheap and therefore the best options for trading right now. I needed lots of emeralds for the big renovation to the old storage room in Starlight Castle - you know, the one right beneath the Pillar of Life that was originally built as the main storage room in session 14.

After all trading was done, I didn't attain nearly enough emeralds (this was in accordance to trading I've done throughout the entire season). However, that's alright because I can just get more throughout next season. I followed through with my plan to take down the old storage room:

This room would become something called the Starlight Room - the centerpiece of the base and the very location in which the Secret of Stonewall will be fulfilled. Take a look at the Pillar of Life from down here:

Along with this room, the Starlight would receive a few other changes as well...

Along with completing the look of the doorbell room, I also added another entrance to the Starlight from underneath the main entrance. I hooked up the wiring for the lock too, which means that both entrances adhere to the state of the lock. However, this new entrance does not have a lock override like the above entrance has. This is okay since the bottom entrance is by no means a main entrance. More often than not, I plan to use it as an exit.

Entrance to the Starlight Room from the castle was also changed. No longer would you access it directly via the staircase on the first floor. No, you've have to travel through the Adventure Arsenal and ascend a different flight of stairs. You'll see why in a moment...

And so it was that the Starlight audit was complete, effectively finishing Starlight HQ 2.0 for the season.

There's just one more thing... the Starlight Room... the trading... the Stonewall Scavenger Searches... what do they all lead up to?

Gaze upon the final part of Starlight HQ 2.0. The Starlight Room will house four beacons which will send beams up through the Pillar of Life. Each beacon (represented by the four Stonewall talismans) will emit a different source of power directly from the gods. This is how the connection to the gods is established; what has yet to be seen, however, is whether or not this connection is welcome by the gods. The goal of Starlight HQ was to reach this point (discussed in session 195); we are now only one step away from the final battle that determines how it all ends.

Welcome to Stonewall Territory - a dark, mystical, barren, and aromatic array of cold forests that was the result of kuli aleilm's destruction. It is not a place you ever want to visit, for today we not only recreate the same battle that took place here thousands of years prior (albeit on a much smaller scale), but we remind ourselves that nothing can last forever. Even when all seems to go well, circumstances are what truly determine outcomes because they are the outcomes.

Allow me to show you a close-up of the contraption that activated the Withers:

No further banter is necessary. This is the first real Wither fight I've ever engaged in, making this all more enticing from my perspective.

Watch the full battle, mostly uncut:

While it came with its toll of sacrifices, the final battle is almost over but it might not end the way I anticipated originally. Being that I am one who tries very hard to stick to plans, Season 2 might have a different ending than I was hoping for...