Episode 17: Meticulous Meanderings in a Mineshaft Maze
I emerge to a fabulous view of the moutain valley in the grip of winter. I'm gonna love this place.
Then down the mountainside to the jungle area to make a farm. This little area of Jungle extends west and although I haven't F3'd the exact location, I figure it should be close enough to my Smeltery area to operate while I'm there.
I set up a small area with 3 irrigation rows and crops on both sides. I plant mostly sugarcane, plus my few Jungle/Swamp crops like Pineapple, plus a few Forest/Plains Summer crops to see if it really *is* summer here, in which case the benefit from growing all year will outweight the biome penalty.
Unaccountably, I forget to take pics of the farm. I do take this pic as I head to a pool to collect water. The grass color has been made a very withered brownish green as a result of Serene Seasons winter.
From the Smeltery area, going all the way up to the future chateau and then back down to the farm is pretty inefficient, so I dig a staircase down. I plan to go down to mining level and then continue forward until I hit the connection between Smeltery and future chateau.
But - there's a complication. But then, I think, maybe not so bad? Because I also hit a mineshaft coming down from the future chateau, and this is pretty close - maybe I can just connect up and save some work?
(actual spoiler here, not just formatting)
Save some work, hah!
I don't like coming into mineshafts or caves from below so I cut to the side to go in close to level.
There's a complication there too. But my shuriken manages it.
I'm playing hardcore in a world I don't want to lose (not yet, anyway) and, because I don't do much caving I'm not good at it. So I take a super-paranoid approach. I progress along a ledge I build two blocks up from the mineshaft floor, building the ledge (and raising the ceiling) as I go. Minecraft mobs are quite dumb - although skeletons could shoot me and creepers blow me to kingdom come, they don't recognize that they could get closer because they can't pathfind to my actual location. So they just sit where they area and are much easier to manage.
This fellow doesn't even notice I'm there until I hit it with my sword. Then it approaches and starts shooting, but it's too late.
This approach is very slow, though, and this mineshaft is rather - big and complicated. I keep finding more and more mineshafts.
And then I find - there's not one mineshaft system here, there's multiple intersecting ones (because they're taking out each others roofs and floors). I should have stopped here, I really should have, but I was feeling kind of stubborn, and, actually, there is one thing here I really want - cobwebs for string. So I keep going.
When I enclose areas I clear them out. This is partly for the resources but also to indicate what sections I'm done with. By this point I'm hopelessly disoriented from the direction changes and the up-and-down.
What a mess. And that's a really dangerous drop, because there well might be something waiting at the bottom.
I find a minecart after a while -
Completely stuffed with Harvestcraft foods, many rather exotic. (One of the items there is Nether Star bread, and, yes, it needs a Nether Star to make.) I love Harvestcraft, really, I do, but this is ridiculous. I suspect it's crowding out other more useful and thematic contents.
Although - I suppose food in the Chateau area won't be a problem for quite a while. This chest could feed me for multiple seasons, I think.
It's just never-ending!
Of course I'm finding resources, and I'm digging them out when I clear areas because who knows if I'll ever come back to any specific passage.
One skeleton knocks me off my ledge, which puts me briefly in danger as now the other denizens can pathfind to me, but I finish it and get back up fast enough.
Safety measures working - that Creeper *could* walk right up to me and blow me away, but it doesn't even try and I shuriken it to death without trouble.
How long is this going to go on?
And then THESE guys show up to further complicate my life. Why didn't I quit? Sunk cost fallacy, I guess.
It goes up, too? So far I've only been on two levels and there are at least 5.
The super safe approach is so slow I start giving up on it when there's just one passage.
But it's still not enough. I have spent over 2 hours of real time on this endless mineshaft maze - and I still haven't found a connection to my earlier stairwell, even though it has to be there. And finally, I am defeated by my inventory jamming - even with my double-chest sized backpack. I don't want to leave a dropchest because - I may never find it again. So, finally, I give up.
I do stuff some of the ultra-fancy foods into my lunchbox. And I have an entire stack of string, so I can make bows and crossbows to my heart's context. I do leave some things in the chest to make room; I don't want to but I have to.
So back to the stairs. That jungle opening looks distressingly creeper-like.
But when I get to mining level, I check F3 and realize I've overshot. I started further east than I realized. I should have turned sideways at some point.
So I tunnel south for a while (to make sure the chateau connection is down to mining level) and then back west.
And now inventory jam forces me to make a dropchest. I can find this one, though.
And there's my main passageway. Finally! And this entire misadventure-with-string-consolation is over, although it's chewed up a good chunk of the winter I was planning to use for construction.
Next episode: finally, some construction.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
And then I find - there's not one mineshaft system here, there's multiple intersecting ones (because they're taking out each others roofs and floors). I should have stopped here, I really should have, but I was feeling kind of stubborn, and, actually, there is one thing here I really want - cobwebs for string. So I keep going.
It is possible there is only one mineshaft based on the screenshots; mineshafts can "self-intersect" since while the floor is considered to be part of the structure the actual bounding box only includes the interior space; I fixed this in TMCW by modifying the intersection check to include the floor (minY - 1):
Otherwise, intersecting mineshafts often intersect in much weirder ways, like coming across cut-off fence posts embedded in the floor (this can make them impassable if they are in the middle and aligned with the supports), or corridors overlapping with a 1-2 block offset (may also be impassable without mining through the floor/ceiling; whether a wooden platform is present depends on which piece was placed first); you'll know for sure if there is more than one if you find multiple main rooms (the large rectangular room with a dirt floor).
The average mineshaft is also quite large - averaging about 1,250 blocks of corridors (250 supports), plus, crossings and stairways; this results in an average of about 290 rails, 5 minecart chests, and 2.4 cave spider corridors*; they can range in size from just the main room (nothing else at all, which affects one in several hundred mineshafts, I fixed this by adding multiple retries at generating a proper structure, much as the game does to ensure a stronghold always has a portal room) to around 3 times the average size (the largest known mineshaft in vanilla has 3,665 blocks of corridors. Of course, complexes of multiple structures can get far larger, a while ago i explored one with 9 separate mineshafts totaling over 13 km long and most mineshafts in 1.6.4 are part of multiple complexes; in fact, just today I found one with at least 3).
*Due to an interesting quirk in generation there can be up to 2 cave spider spawners in a corridor, sometimes even directly adjacent to each other, this does not occur in 1.6.4-1,12.2 due to structure saving recording whether a spawner was placed (1.13 broke this, likely due to its multithreaded chunk generation, other effects include different halves of village buildings generated at different heights and shipwrecks with different wood types, both along chunk boundaries. I also "broke" this by disabling structure saving for mineshafts, which causes major performance issues on very large worlds, especially given how common they are in 1.6.4 when further away from the origin (prior to 1.13 the chance is scaled by distance/80 when within 80 chunks of the origin).
Also, the mobs not coming towards you may be due to the fact they aren't allowed to pathfind over rails, a mechanic added in 1.6 (I partly reverted this by allowing them to pathfind to a player if they are not in a minecart, vanilla also allows pathfinding if they are already on/in a rail, e.g. being pushed there by other mobs).
It's night, so I work in the Smeltery area. First I put away all the stuff that I picked up in the mineshafts, which takes a while with a doubled inventory. In the meantime I keep processing Iron ore through the Smeltery. I have 4 stacks of Iron Ore including another I just got in the mineshafts, so there's a lot to process. I'm also roasting cobble to smoothstone in my furnace bank.
One of the things I wanted from string was a Silky Jewel, the Tinker's item than can add Silk Touch to a tool. This needs 32 string - but I've got that now. I make the pick head here, but I wanted paper for the binding for the extra modifier - and I didn't think to bring paper from the Seljuk base. I can make 3 from leftover cane, but I need four for the binding, so I end up not making the pick yet.
Come morning I head up to the contruction site.
The first order of business is replacing the Soapstone cobble with the Soapstone brick I want for the structural element. I'm cursing myself for using cobble for the outline, because this is a relatively slow process since I have to keep switching what's in my hand. I'm also putting Soapstone brick walls on the outside. I had orginally intended from this to create a little relief and texture but I realize this can also be the security perimeter once I knock down some areas outside that are too high.
I don't do much as I want to get sugarcane for paper so I can build my Tinker's Silk Touch pick, which is very useful with smoothstone builds as I can pick up misplaced or changed blocks without having to re-roast.
On the way I check the corner here, which I think works, except that filling in the hill will be a fairly high priority after all - the overhang looks bad.
The sugarcane has grown quite well, some up to three. I was in that mineshaft mess for multiple Minecraft extended days, but even so this is better than I got in an entire season at the Seljuk base. After dealing with very limited sugarcane growth in my previous journal and up til now in this it's almost a shock to see fast-growing sugarcane like you usually see in vanilla.
The summer crops I planted have grown well too. It is indeed perpetual summer in Jungle. On my next trip to the Seljuk base I'll get a bunch of other summer crops to grow here. That will take care of any long-term food issues here (since in the short term I can raid those industrial level fridges in the mineshaft posing as minecarts).
Then I dig the improved stair down towards the Smeltery area, turning right before the main connection and coming down alongside, so I have direct access to the farm, and for that matter trips west.
And now I can make the Silk Touch Tinker's pick I want, using the sugarcane I just harvested to make paper for the Writable binding. This reduces the durability, but it will still be high, and it allows another modifier, which I use for increased speed. A good trade, IMO.
The next day I work on the building perimeter; swapping the cobblestone markers to Soapstone brick, putting walls on the outside, digging outside so the walls keep out mobs; placing Marble where the walls will start, and removing the dirt markers I'd left for the window locations.
By evening I'm almost but not quite done securing the location. Unfortunately the llamas won't wander onto the site proper once I'm done.
Since the area isn't quite secure, I spend the night in the Smeltery working on improving my Tinker's Armory armor. This allows a modifier called Resistance, which is (I think) equivalent to half a Protection. A common theme with mods is creating uses for materials which tend to stack up in Minecraft, and this has a high cost to do that - each level uses four blocks Obsidian, four blocks of Iron, and an ingot of gold as a casting plate. Normally iron gets pretty meh once you have diamond, unless you're into minecarting.
I already have a lot of Iron blocks from all the Iron I've been collecting, and enough gold, so I mine up Obsidian. I get to level 6 on my chestplate by the end of the evening, equivalent to Protection 3.
Spiffy looking armor. I guess my Smeltery area needs some pizzazz, though.
Next day I finish the perimeter and install a trapdoor step for a securable entrance.
I hang around after dark and swat 2 zombies, but then I realize I don't have a good way to collect drops afterwards. So I just head back to the Smeltery.
On the way back I explore the mineshaft connecting to the stairs to the chateau area to see if I can link up with all my explorations. It takes a bit to find it because I'd covered up the entrance with the stairs and there was only a little quarter-block notch left.
Break the fence blocking my safe area off, grab my sword, dash forward and
Hey! I have already been here! Why didn't I see the connection?
And that's why. Before I mined out the blocks to get back in here, that looked almost like a mineshaft crossbar (there had been fences I'd just chopped out). The only clue was that one of the wood planks was actually a stair, and I just hadn't noticed. It was even pretty close to the farm entrance; I don't remember the blow-by-blow details but I must have seen it pretty early.
I try making a crossbow, but I don't have enough paper for the paper binding I want so that has to wait until tomorrow.
In the meantime I collect some more obsidian. But now the lava is 2 deep and I lose an obsidian into it. So I try bucketing lava out from underneath and obsidianizing it in a little hole.
It's pretty slow.
Next day I raise the walls some more and cover part of the hill under the southeast corner with a dirt shell, and try the window treatments. I realize that my planned frame would connect to the security walls and try shortening it.
I run up and down the hill several times trying to imagine what it would look like and eventually decide:
What the heck, just go ahead and connect it.
Then I grab some sugarcane from the farm and make paper which I then use to finish a crossbow. But when I start to make a bolt for it to shoot I realize -
I don't have any feathers here for the fletching. Well, one, actually, but that's not enough; I need two. I can't think of any birds near here. There are the Better Creatures Turkeys and Pheasants just north of the Seljuk base; I have a lot of pumpkins for seeds now so I could set up a turkey farm. I'm reluctant to make that long trip - maybe 15 minutes round trip, but I can think of three other things I'd like to do that need the trip, so I'll just deal with it.
I clean up my inventory and march off through my tunnels.
Next episode: projects in the old base
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Normally iron gets pretty meh once you have diamond, unless you're into minecarting.
I'm surprised you didn't mention taking rails from mineshafts, since they provide me with all the rails I need so many times over it is ridiculous - averaging about 4 stacks, or nearly an entire mineshaft's worth, every play session (sometimes a lot more - recently I collected 3,700 rails over a one week period and once collected over 2,000 over two days). This thread also alludes to the abundance of rails in mineshafts; "Making minecart tracks is useless... All I have to do is go down into the cave system and break the tracks in the mineshaft".
Granted, mineshafts are/were less common within 1280 blocks of the origin (1.13 removed this, with the same base frequency as since 1.7, which is 40% that of earlier versions) but I was still averaging about 10 times more rails collected than used in what has to be one of the most extensive rail networks made in Survival (about 25,000 rails used, at the same time I've collected over 268,000, and enough iron to craft another 2.4 million, so I've basically used less than 1% of the iron equivalent, put another way, one could spend 100 times less time caving than I have and make the same amount of railways. This is exactly the point I tried to make in this post, where somebody kept claiming that I spend all my time caving because I need to in order to collect necessary materials).
I do use quite a bit of iron for anvils though, which I use 2-3 times per day with over 100 used up, though they have only consumed about 5 sessions worth of iron, spread out over more than 1,400, and I've ended up with more iron in storage than mined ore can account for due to all the iron found in chests and even drops from zombies (notably, 1.9 nerfed the amount of minerals in mineshaft chests, no idea why as I've calculated it to be less than 1% of the total iron I've collected, even the 1000-odd diamonds I've probably taken from them are only about 5% of the total, without Fortune, and you are already underground and can usually find the ores themselves in the walls so it isn't like looting surface structures)..
The reason I didn't mention rails is that I've never used them. Normally I travel by water, which is as fast as minecarts but vastly easier to set up (most of the time I don't need to; I'm travelling over ocean). In my current situation that won't work and I did think about a minecart system, but in this mod set, I have Davinci's Vessels, which include airships also as fast as a minecart (and faster if coal-powered). In the near future
I try to get a tunnel ice boat working but I'm having serious problems
.
When I was clearing tunnels to mark what I'm done with I was taking rails and ended up with about two stacks, At some point I'll probably go back and finish the mineshaft complex, and then I'll try to think of a use for them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The first order of business is replacing the Soapstone cobble with the Soapstone brick I want for the structural element. I'm cursing myself for using cobble for the outline, because this is a relatively slow process since I have to keep switching what's in my hand.
I approve. Something I've noticed with myself is I very seldom use cobblestone for building. I used to use it by default in my oldest world, where the texture pack changed the look of it. In my newer worlds (using either no texture packs, or ones that mostly mimic default), I tend to use stone bricks instead are a rule.
How come you couldn't just remove the cobblestone at once and then replace it with bricks after though? Or maybe put the bricks in your offhand?
But having to change what you're holding is just a usual thing when building.
Also, seeing that snow next to a jungle seems hard to process for me. I know it's because of the seasons but it's still a bit visually awkward for me.
I think if permanently warm areas like jungle or desert had a "transitional edge" like a spare jungle or just a buffer of plains where it didn't snow, it'd look a bit less awkward, but at that point you're having to adjust your own terrain mod for a separate mod and that's end endless endeavor so I'd understand why that wouldn't be a concern.
Yeah, after I did that I realized I probably could have done it with the replacement block offhand.
Just to be clear, I never intended to use Soapstone cobble in the build; I was just using it to mark the wall locations; but I should have used something softer like wood. Normally I use gravel, but that won't work on a hill.
I have recently made changes to Geographicraft which will make snow-jungle less common; I moved Jungle from Warm Climate (where vanilla has it) to Hot Climate (in pre-1.18; Desert, Savanna, and Badlands). But that won't completely block it; it could still happen at a Hot-Warm junction with Hot Jungle and Warm Extreme Hills. The problem there is that Extreme Hills is overloaded; it's the mountainous biome in both Hot and Cool climates. There really should be separate mountain biomes for Warm and Cool climates. When I'm playing with biome mods sometimes I move Extreme Hills to Cool climate because biome mods generally provide some mountain biomes that are good for Warm climate.
To beat a dead horse, this would be a non-problem if decorations could be tied to climate noise and not biomes; but of course there IS no climate noise in pre-1.18, so it's a moot issue.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
It's interesting watching the subtle differences in what others do. For example, if I were going to make a house there, the terrain terraforming would have likely come first, with the house after. No outlines or filling after after.
The snow next to jungle wasn't a suggestion of a change to make, by the way, so I hope it didn't come off that way (though it seems you already made the change beforehand). I realized this would be an issue with temperate to warm regardless of where jungles were which is why my idea of an "edge-like" buffer came from, but changing one mod to appease another is going down a slipper slope. Without seasons, it wouldn't be an issue.
I think 1.18 might handle it with separate mountain biomes for climates, though it might not be strict about it. I have noticed though that in temperate or colder locations they seem to be snowy or ice peaks more often, and in warm or hot they seem to lean more towards stony peaks. Or rather I should just say warm because I have little experience with them in formal hot regions. In that case it seems they at least sometimes (or always?) skip the "peaks" and just have the biome itself be the "mountain", such as that badlands spot I found. I'm not sure what happens with desert (maybe it can't and it always transitions to badlands for high terrain?)
I trudge the long, long way to the Seljuk base. By the time I get there it's day. I grab some Eclogite smoothstone out of the furnaces (reason #1 for the trip) and the Rice and Ginger seeds which I'd left in the in the mining level chests for some reason.
Then upstairs to build two fenced enclosures for birds across the river to the north. (Reason #2 for the trip) I build them for trapping, with some fences coming up to raised dirt outside. If mobs get in who cares.
And into the forest to track some turkeys!
Turns out to be easier to lure Better Creatures' Turkeys and Pheasants than normal Chickens, because they move faster. I was particularly proud of the stunt that got me this; I had a Turkey and a Pheasant both following me and I managed to get each into the proper enclosure by walking out onto the separating fence. That's my magic trick for the day.
Eventually I get 5 turkeys and 3 pheasants; do the 3 possible breedings, and then kill one turkey, getting the 2 feathers I need for fletching. I also quickly realize this will be very convenient for eggs, since they are being laid in one place. In addition, the Better Creatures lay rates seem not to have been nerfed by Hunger Overhaul like the chicken lay rate, so I'm getting them faster.
I also collect a bit of ice with my new silky pick to test ice boating in the tunnel. The transit time is just too long. Even so, it's probably not worth it, but there is an accomplishment element - and maybe a carnival ride element.
I grab some more summer seeds from my seed chest (reason #3 for the trip). Then down to mine level to make a crossbow bolt.
I end up using a Pig Iron bolt because it's got almost 2x as many shots as the Iron one, plus it does another half point of damage. (Reason #4 for the trip.)
Then I crank up the crossbow with 3 levels of Haste. It still has a 3 1/2 second draw time, though.
And now - testing time!
It gratifyingly one-shots a skeleton and a zombie. I now feel confident enough to dash out to grab the drops.
While I'm waiting for another zombie to approach, the game hangs for a second and suddenly everything is in spring colors. That was the shortest-feeling winter ever. Thanks, confusing mineshaft maze! (well, not really)
The new crossbow also one-shots a spider.
But not a witch! I'm going to have to look at my previous journal to see if I did anything different. It might be not having the Astral Sorcery boosts. So not quite as useful as I hoped.
And finally a little more monster mashing to celebrate sunrise.
The snow has melted enough in most areas to fix my base area map. But not in the Birch Forest M area; that biome is apparently still in winter.
I take my stuff and head back to the future chateau base, but this time overland to add to my maps - and because it's less boring. It's fun to look at landscapes; not so fun to look at an endless-seeming tunnel.
But now I'm getting some rainspawning in the RTG Forest. This guy is easy enough but I have to watch for Creepers.
I had been planning to add on to this map on the north. But this areas is Taiga, and it's still snowing. So I abort and head south to try to fill in the gap, at least some of which is warm.
I have spawning problems here too.
Including a dreaded Creeper. Fortunately the crossbow one-shots it.
When I get to the Extreme Hills area, it's still snowing. This will mess up my maps for a while, but a snowy region in Extreme Hills isn't too bad and I forge ahead. I want to get this dome.
At sunset, just as I'm crossing a pass to be able to get to the Jungle area with my farm, the rains stops and the sun comes out. I sleep with the sunset view in the pass.
I can *get* to the Jungle area, but it's not that easy.
At my farm, I make a new irrigation ditch and plant my Summer seeds.
I'm thinking of trying some Jungle furniture in the Chateau - it might be an interesting contrast with the cold palette - so I chop a small jungle tree for some saplings. But I don't get any. I don't feel confident about chopping the Jungle Giants in hardcore. But I spot a half-height Jungle Giant and chop *that*, getting 6 saplings.
Which I plant for tree farming. In the Extreme Hills, just to see what they look like.
Down to Smeltery level to put things away.
I need to organize my storage here. This is actually intended as junk drawer for the moment, but all my chests here seem kind of junky. I'm kind of putting off organization as I expect I'll do a lot of things in the Chateau once it's more usable.
Next episode: Chateau progress and an aesthetic experiment.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I'm collecting Obsidian for some Tinker's improvements, some of which take a lot. For example, you can make a tool not use any durability, but it takes 40 Obsidian. Originally I'd just been digging it up from the obsidianized part of the pool I'm using for the Smeltery, but I got to two deep sections and now I'm grabbing buckets of lava from underneath and then using the Smeltery to convert them to Obsidian.
It doesn't work as well as planned.
I mean, it *is* working, if a bit slow because I have an awkward work flow. I'm not going to get killed by getting lit in my base, annoying as it is.
Come dawn upstairs to raise the walls.
A problem I hadn't thought about is coming up - the interior walls are very plain. Maybe I can fix it with decor later, although it's hard to decorate walls in Minecraft. Maybe I can copy the decorations outside, although they take up a lot of space.
I'd thought I'd have to scaffold up for the outside window decorations since I didn't build them while I was at window level, but I can just hop up as I'm building the fences because I'm standing on fences.
Some of the Harvestcraft foods that were placed in the mine are just insane. I need to sort through them and save the ones with effects like these for special occasions.
I was concerned the side and rear views (first level shown here) would look a little bland because they don't have the bays of the front. But I think this works.
At one point I fall off the wall but it's a good thing because I missed a spot for the perimeter in the basement. I quickly fill it in.
I finish the first story walls around dusk. Now I turn to putting in a ceiling for the first floor (also the second floor ceiling).
My plan is to leave a large section open in the middle where the entrance is to function as a grand entrance hall
This would be the view from one of the side areas, which would become rooms of a sort, although not separated by a wall. I have to imagine the ceiling in place; I want to decide it's a good idea before I do it. I think it will be interesting and not claustrophobic.
I've developed an ambitious decorative idea for the floor, but I haven't worked out the details in my head yet.
While that brews in my head, I crank up my chestplate to Level VIII Resistance, the maximum, which should be equivalent to Protection IV. This armor piece is now *slightly* better than Netherite; .08 more armor and 0.5 more toughness. I'll be making similar pieces over time (each needs 32 Obsidian, 32 Iron *blocks*, and some gold for the Level VIII, so it will be a while.
Next day, back to the Chateau. I build a first effort at a grand staircase - always a problem in Minecraft; it's just so hard to make stairs look good without a phenomenal amount of space. And, geez, I can't even count right and have to correct the location.
I've gotten my idea to initial construction stage, although I'm still working on some details. As so often, when I'd casting about for fancy decoration, I fall back on pixel art. My idea is a floor than looks like a sky (with the Blue Schist) with clouds (Marble) it it. The clouds will fit into the 2x2 spaces; the detail is exactly how to do the clouds.
After roasting up some more Blue Schist - I'm running out - I develop a plan. The two wings are mirror images of each other. The clouds are L-shaped, rotating compared to their neighbor in a simple pattern (go along any line of clouds and they rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise).
I revise the grand staircase, and this is the resultant view from the entrance. Now I'm thinking maybe I'll subdivide the first floor after all, with some kind of decorative walls around the foyer area. This should be a flashy entrance and the lower floor will probably be workspace (certainly there'll be a kitchen) and hard to make look really good.
Here's a view from the wall. With a wall around the foyer it won't be so grand, but it won't be cramped, and it will be hard to use such a huge room without it looking cluttered.
Once again a lovely sunrise is the reward for working through the night. But, this isn't so much of a reward, because right after I walk up a Creeper walks from behind the wall to the left and starts to explode. I move back, but not far enough, and it goes off. No pic, because I was far enough back that I took no damage and Damage Screenshots didn't activate, and I certainly wasn't going to piddle to take a pic with a Creeper on fuse, but it knocked a few blocks out of the wall. I stuff up the gap fast so nothing else gets in and then run upstairs to look and see if there's anything else outside.
Good thing, too, because there's another Creeper atop a small hill there.
Come day I repair the damage, but this is a problem. I don't know why the Creepers don't path to me when I'm two blocks up in a mineshaft but do when I'm on the other side of a wall. But either I can't use the first floor windows at night, or I have to fence the hill top, which is a pain and generally ugly. A bad choice.
Now I want to work on the floor. But my idea for that involves using stones I found on the tunnel connection, so I have to go back there.
On the way I check on my farm. Things are growing very quickly in the endless Jungle summer. It feels like this tomatoes are growing even faster than in real summer in their appropriate biome.
The Jungle saplings I planted have grown and I think they look rather nice in Extreme Hills-shifted color. I harvest but I don't replant as I'm not sure how much Jungle wood I'll need.
Then I head in to the tunnels. About halfway through (ugh, so much walking) I find my big drop chest, with several stacks each of Dacite and Green Schist, two materials I want for the floor. But I also wanted some Basalt - not for right away, but for my plans for the ceiling of the second floor. I don't remember another drop chest - did I forget? So I continue on.
Eventually I find a small drop chest I'd made before I made the big push to connect my bases. With no Basalt. So, I guess I just didn't mine that much.
I've gone most of the way to the Seljuk base, and I'd like to breed the cows and birds there, so I just continue on.
When I arrive it's dark. I swat a couple of zombies, including this little fellow, and then go to bed.
Next episode: Animal issues.
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I like you have had what is essentially a supervisor llama these last few episodes. It's funny.
I would add an attached stable of sorts on one of the sides of the building (if there's room) for it if I were in that position.
I'm liking what I see what the house so far. So much that it makes me realize neither of my hardcore worlds actually have me set with a grand house. That's fine; they work for what I want of them and I'm actually liking the smaller, simpler house in my more recent of the two worlds, as the village feels more intimate and functional in a way as a result. After doing all that exploring though, the builder half of me is wanting to do something a little larger after seeing you do this (the large open area near the entrance got me wanting to). Hm. I have that nearby village I want to rebuild, but unless I want to move myself one village over (I don't), then I'm not sure why I'd build it there. Maybe I could simply make one of my future away settlements a bit larger, as odd as that may seem.
Haha, supervisory llama, yes, and it continues for quite some time!
There's not a lot of room on the sides and it's pretty rugged too, but I'll take another look at it if and when I get horses, which may not be for a very long time. All the overworld chests are just crammed with food and I've yet to see a horse armor. Maybe in the Nether, but in a Hardcore world used for demonstrating terrain generation a Nether trip is a low priority at best. If I had to make a grand plan, it would be explore the upcoming summer, do more building and figure out a way to do airships next winter; more exploring the next summer, and then on the third winter maybe I'll go to the Nether.
I've been playing a lot this past week and I am WAY ahead of my posting (about 10 episodes, yow) and I think this build comes out very well, although it's certainly taking a lot of time.
If I were trying to integrate villagers into a large flashy build I'd go for a manor model - put them in servant's quarters nearby, built to fit in with the main build. You could try building a "rich person's house" but there is a limit to how much bigger and prettier you can make one house without it looking out of place in a village setting.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Yeah, if I wanted something super big and grand (I don't), it wouldn't fit in unless the settlement itself was going to be pretty big and fancy too.
In Azura, my first hardcore world and second most recent world, I went with a rather "standard" size for everything as far as my village goes. And for me, that would be small relatively, since I usually has larger locations.
For Gaia, my most recent word, I went even smaller, making things far, far smaller than I usually do. I thought I'd be less attached to this world as a result, but I wasn't. If anything it's more intimate and I like it for that, but since I'm spending less time building, and less time caving or doing risky things like progressing with the natural Minecraft "main goals" (due to my extra restrictions), I started exploring more and that became the purpose of that world.
Like a lot of things, I want to do them (especially when I see someone else doing something, such as here), but never know where to make them fit in. I doubt I'll be making another village soon. Well.... maybe not. Things can change fast...
I'm surprised you're that far ahead. When I get that far ahead, it makes me feel overwhelmed. When i was one adventure trip ahead and had to post it as like five or six updates, it made me want to procrastinate on it. I can be an update or two ahead, but more than that and I feel like I need to get caught up.
Well, when I'm playing heavily I can easily rack up 1 or 2 episodes played and written per day, and I normally publish 1 every other day, so they can stack up fast for me. I write my episodes shortly after playing them, so I'm pretty much always "caught up". This morning I had 8 "in the can" and a long exploration from yesterday to write up; I just wrote 2 more episodes and there's material for one more from that expedition (so actually 11, not 10). The main reason *I* don't like to get too far ahead is that I can't react to comments or information - right now if I got some advice or information from somebody here, it would be eleven episodes - three weeks of posting - before my play could change. For example "supervisory llama" is hilarious and would be a great running gag but I don't generally have the pics for it.
It's kind of hard for me to stop playing once I get into it - in general I tend to grab onto one project and push on it until I get tired of it. I've gotten caught up in a lot of projects that interest me - the build, my usual exploration, getting a system to use airships safely in this hardcore context, and playing around with ice boats. Collectively they keep pulling me in. I think I have at least one more episode before I can get myself to take a break.
I'm pretty sure this is the furthest ahead I've ever gotten. I think my previous record was 8 episodes, which I deliberately piled up in my Return to Minecraft journal so I'd have enough time to play with RTG revisions. It wasn't nearly enough, unfortunately.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Hm, maybe my updates are too long? Or maybe I take too many pictures/describe too much? I feel like I'd just saying "I went out and explored, here's what I saw, bye" if I cut it much shorter though, haha.
Maybe mine are fine and I'm just that different to how you do yours. Kind of like how MasterCaver is even more spread with his, and then they tend to big stat data dumps. I guess we all have our way of doing updates.
I'm really surprised if you write them and then sit on them that long, although I presume it's not normal you are quite as far ahead as you are now. I had those five updates to do (and that was really just one adventure, albeit many actual play sessions) and I... I was overwhelmed with it a bit. That's why it took a little longer to get started on it.
Oh and the supervisor llama was because a lot of your recent building progress pictures had a llama in them, like it was supervising or at least watching (but I'd still totally give it a home if it was me).
I awaken to a bright green spring morning - with a bright green Creeper. But my crossbow one-shots
Creepers so it's not much of an issue.
From the colors it feels well into spring but the Birch Hills area is still snowed in, so I guess not.
I breed the cows and birds. Unfortunately, since I'm not spending much time here, the calfs and chicks haven't grown. I'm particularly distressed about the cows because I want to start enchanting. I kill a few of the adult cows, and then realize it was a mistake because it will slow my breeding even further.
Then I set off for the chateau base, overland, because walking through pretty scenery is fun and walking through endless tunnels is boring.
The Serene Season color changes for Spring aren't that drastic, but they certainly bring a different feel. The forest seems greener and lusher. Also, have the Seljuks improved their wall? It looks fancier.
As I'm walking past the Savanna M landmark the game hangs briefly and then everything redisplays. I suspect a transition from early spring to mid-spring. But I'm not sure.
I've walked past this lone hill on the great plains southwest of the Savanna M formation on several occasions, but it looks different somehow.
I try going to the south of the Roofed Forest but since it's not precipitating I go actually into the forest, also an intense green from spring.
RTG Roofed Forest does good loom. I come close, but I don't go in.
I spot some turkeys and decide to try to lure them to the Chateau base area, which at this point is just a biome away. But I have to revise my statement earlier that it's easier to lure Better Creatures turkeys than vanilla chickens. They do move faster, but they seem more - distractable?, at least on more rugged terrain. I am trying to lure 4, but only one make it to the Extreme Hills area and eventually I leave it in the pass to the valley below the chateau.
Even at a 1/3 of its eventual height the Chateau looks promising. The white walls have a different feel from what I was originally envisioning, though. Also, while the snow in the Extreme Hills isn't melting yet, the grass looks a lot greener, so I do think it's mid-spring.
It's getting late, so I use the farm entrance to go to the Smeltery area (easier than climbing the hill.
I want to work on my armor, but I'm not sure how: Pig Iron or Iron, and which modifiers to use. I finally decide to put 5 levels of Reinforced on my Pig Iron leggings, to see if that slows them being eaten. Each level has a 20% chance of blocking a durability loss. If it works with being eaten 5 levels reduced durability loss to zero, creating a significant exploit.
But oops! Reinforced is one of those traits where each *level* consumed a modifier, and I can only put 2 on. So the other 3 levels - which I already made - are wasted. Grrr. A whole night of Obsidian collecting, and then some.
That said, the exploit seems to work. Sometimes when I hear the chomping noise my leggings don't lose any durability. It's not so much of an exploit, though, because 5 modifiers is a *lot* - normally you only get 3, and it's difficult to get more. Cornucopia armor is more of a reasonable price.
Then I start making a Tinker's helmet, but run out of time because it's dawn.
To start a test of a tunnel iceboat system, I place an ice block under a torch 3 blocks up. I'll check tonight to see if it melted.
Then I start laying out my pattern for the floor. This isn't representational but I am using colors evocative of terrain - green for grass, grey for stone.
I can't figure a way to incorporate the stair down so the connection to the Smeltery area is banished to a corner of the entrance.
I still want an enchantment table, but I only have 30 leather of the 45 needed. Plus the Tinker's Armory add-ons need more leather. I'm going to get in trouble for this, but one option is - Llamas. Which breed with - hay BALES, seriously? I'd better get some serious wheat going.
I plant 14 in another row in the farm. Wheat grows in Summer, so it will be fine.
I go into the mineshaft to collect the foods there and get -
Lost. I eventually resort to blocking areas off. It takes several minutes to find a way out.
Another load of roasted stone, and I get a little more than half the floor done. But now I'm almost out of what I brought, so I'll have to branch mine in those areas to get more. Bah.
I also made the staircase look less goofy with upside-down stairs on the bottom. At least it looks structurally sound.
Come morning I have to snipe a Creeper.
But the view makes it nicer.
I impatiently check on my Wheat.
It's growing, but I'm not breeding llamas today.
Now I try widening my tunnel connecting the Smeltery and Chateau for a very short test of underground ice boating. I hit an unexpected complication when I uncover a lava pool on the way.
Ready?
Whoosh! This is fun!
But this isn't. As soon as I exit the boat, I'm suffocating. I'm down 5 (!) hearts by the time I bust out.
I chop out some blocks so there is a shelf all the way around where the boat would stop and try it again. Same result, other than I get out faster because I'm ready for it.
Well, this will take some time, so I should experiment *after* I get the rocks to finish my floor pattern.
While I'm going through this I hear a thunderstorm, which suggests I'm in late spring, although I've been staying up a lot lately and it might be just that.
So, back through the connecting tunnel. The first area is the Dacite one and I cut a branch there uneventfully.
Then I try the Green Schist area but my first pass runs back into Dacite.
The second cuts into caves from underneath twice, but nothing comes through before I block them up. I don't feel like caving right now and this is a long way from either base, close to the middle of the connection.
While the stones I've collected are roasting up, I work on a system for the ice boat. What seems to work is a one high shelf all around where the boat stops and a 3 block ceiling. I'll work on extending it when I get more ice.
Next episode: Floor Finishing
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Then I start laying out my pattern for the floor. This isn't representational but I am using colors evocative of terrain - green for grass, grey for stone.
I almost thought that was some sort of thin layer of permafrost on natural terrain until you mentioned otherwise, so if that's what you're going for, I'd say you did well.
But this isn't. As soon as I exit the boat, I'm suffocating. I'm down 5 (!) hearts by the time I bust out.
I would have panicked.
I always found ice boats... odd. Not to say you can't use them since they are there (maybe I will one day), but the behavior of boats going so fast on ice (and even being usable on land at all) just seems strange to me.
However, I've never gotten stuck inside a block or wall, just an instant of clipping into the ceiling and taking a single tick of damage, still annoying enough that I fixed it, but it took Mojang until 1.16 to do so (I also made other improvements to dismounting, e.g. boats place you further away so you don't collide with the boat and push it away, and dry land is preferred over water). Also, I wouldn't consider a death from this a legitimate death since it is due to a game bug.
I always found ice boats... odd. Not to say you can't use them since they are there (maybe I will one day), but the behavior of boats going so fast on ice (and even being usable on land at all) just seems strange to me.
Oh, I was TOTALLY panicking. I was thinking what Master Caver says below that this death would count as a game bug death and I'd probably be justified in going to backup BUT my most recent backup was several episodes back and actually prior to my last post so I was trying to break out and trying to decide the ethics of a recovery and freaking out about losing multiple episodes of play and remembering I couldn't get out of the tree in my previous journal all at the same time and it was dragging on and then POP, I was out, phew.
I agree it's weird, but it is actually fun when it works, and it does have a useful game purpose.
Nooooo!
Oh well, as long as you make more than you started with, it's a net increase, I guess? I can't complain when I use animal farms (though not llamas).
The costly hay bales are the game trying to discourage it, haha.
I won't spoil, but I do my best to avoid any llama deaths in upcoming episodes.
However, I've never gotten stuck inside a block or wall, just an instant of clipping into the ceiling and taking a single tick of damage, still annoying enough that I fixed it, but it took Mojang until 1.16 to do so (I also made other improvements to dismounting, e.g. boats place you further away so you don't collide with the boat and push it away, and dry land is preferred over water). Also, I wouldn't consider a death from this a legitimate death since it is due to a game bug.
I think in this case I was placed inside the wall to the left. I figured I'd be placed in a "safe" location like from a bed but it didn't. In upcoming episodes I get it down to a single thwack but I can never figure out why. I don't think I allotted for being placed 1/2 a block and maybe I can fix the problem now but
I encountered a different serious problem and gave up and although later I found a fix for *that* problem I won't try it again for quite some time, if ever.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
However, I've never gotten stuck inside a block or wall, just an instant of clipping into the ceiling and taking a single tick of damage...
If that's what caused it, yes, I noticed that before too, but like you said, I'd always take one instance of small damage and that was it. I usually ran into it dismounting a horse in a stable with a perhaps slightly too low ceiling.
I won't spoil, but I do my best to avoid any llama deaths in upcoming episodes.
Now see, how do you avoid spoilers when discussing things over half a dozen sessions back? I have trouble not spoiling things one or two sessions ahead.
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Curse PremiumEpisode 17: Meticulous Meanderings in a Mineshaft Maze
I emerge to a fabulous view of the moutain valley in the grip of winter. I'm gonna love this place.
Then down the mountainside to the jungle area to make a farm. This little area of Jungle extends west and although I haven't F3'd the exact location, I figure it should be close enough to my Smeltery area to operate while I'm there.
I set up a small area with 3 irrigation rows and crops on both sides. I plant mostly sugarcane, plus my few Jungle/Swamp crops like Pineapple, plus a few Forest/Plains Summer crops to see if it really *is* summer here, in which case the benefit from growing all year will outweight the biome penalty.
Unaccountably, I forget to take pics of the farm. I do take this pic as I head to a pool to collect water. The grass color has been made a very withered brownish green as a result of Serene Seasons winter.
From the Smeltery area, going all the way up to the future chateau and then back down to the farm is pretty inefficient, so I dig a staircase down. I plan to go down to mining level and then continue forward until I hit the connection between Smeltery and future chateau.
But - there's a complication. But then, I think, maybe not so bad? Because I also hit a mineshaft coming down from the future chateau, and this is pretty close - maybe I can just connect up and save some work?
(actual spoiler here, not just formatting)
I don't like coming into mineshafts or caves from below so I cut to the side to go in close to level.
There's a complication there too. But my shuriken manages it.
I'm playing hardcore in a world I don't want to lose (not yet, anyway) and, because I don't do much caving I'm not good at it. So I take a super-paranoid approach. I progress along a ledge I build two blocks up from the mineshaft floor, building the ledge (and raising the ceiling) as I go. Minecraft mobs are quite dumb - although skeletons could shoot me and creepers blow me to kingdom come, they don't recognize that they could get closer because they can't pathfind to my actual location. So they just sit where they area and are much easier to manage.
This fellow doesn't even notice I'm there until I hit it with my sword. Then it approaches and starts shooting, but it's too late.
This approach is very slow, though, and this mineshaft is rather - big and complicated. I keep finding more and more mineshafts.
And then I find - there's not one mineshaft system here, there's multiple intersecting ones (because they're taking out each others roofs and floors). I should have stopped here, I really should have, but I was feeling kind of stubborn, and, actually, there is one thing here I really want - cobwebs for string. So I keep going.
When I enclose areas I clear them out. This is partly for the resources but also to indicate what sections I'm done with. By this point I'm hopelessly disoriented from the direction changes and the up-and-down.
What a mess. And that's a really dangerous drop, because there well might be something waiting at the bottom.
I find a minecart after a while -
Completely stuffed with Harvestcraft foods, many rather exotic. (One of the items there is Nether Star bread, and, yes, it needs a Nether Star to make.) I love Harvestcraft, really, I do, but this is ridiculous. I suspect it's crowding out other more useful and thematic contents.
Although - I suppose food in the Chateau area won't be a problem for quite a while. This chest could feed me for multiple seasons, I think.
It's just never-ending!
Of course I'm finding resources, and I'm digging them out when I clear areas because who knows if I'll ever come back to any specific passage.
One skeleton knocks me off my ledge, which puts me briefly in danger as now the other denizens can pathfind to me, but I finish it and get back up fast enough.
Safety measures working - that Creeper *could* walk right up to me and blow me away, but it doesn't even try and I shuriken it to death without trouble.
How long is this going to go on?
And then THESE guys show up to further complicate my life. Why didn't I quit? Sunk cost fallacy, I guess.
It goes up, too? So far I've only been on two levels and there are at least 5.
The super safe approach is so slow I start giving up on it when there's just one passage.
But it's still not enough. I have spent over 2 hours of real time on this endless mineshaft maze - and I still haven't found a connection to my earlier stairwell, even though it has to be there. And finally, I am defeated by my inventory jamming - even with my double-chest sized backpack. I don't want to leave a dropchest because - I may never find it again. So, finally, I give up.
I do stuff some of the ultra-fancy foods into my lunchbox. And I have an entire stack of string, so I can make bows and crossbows to my heart's context. I do leave some things in the chest to make room; I don't want to but I have to.
So back to the stairs. That jungle opening looks distressingly creeper-like.
But when I get to mining level, I check F3 and realize I've overshot. I started further east than I realized. I should have turned sideways at some point.
So I tunnel south for a while (to make sure the chateau connection is down to mining level) and then back west.
And now inventory jam forces me to make a dropchest. I can find this one, though.
And there's my main passageway. Finally! And this entire misadventure-with-string-consolation is over, although it's chewed up a good chunk of the winter I was planning to use for construction.
Next episode: finally, some construction.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
It is possible there is only one mineshaft based on the screenshots; mineshafts can "self-intersect" since while the floor is considered to be part of the structure the actual bounding box only includes the interior space; I fixed this in TMCW by modifying the intersection check to include the floor (minY - 1):
public boolean intersects(MineshaftBoundingBox bb) { return this.maxX >= bb.minX && this.minX <= bb.maxX && this.maxZ >= bb.minZ && this.minZ <= bb.maxZ && this.maxY >= bb.minY - 1 && this.minY - 1 <= bb.maxY; }Otherwise, intersecting mineshafts often intersect in much weirder ways, like coming across cut-off fence posts embedded in the floor (this can make them impassable if they are in the middle and aligned with the supports), or corridors overlapping with a 1-2 block offset (may also be impassable without mining through the floor/ceiling; whether a wooden platform is present depends on which piece was placed first); you'll know for sure if there is more than one if you find multiple main rooms (the large rectangular room with a dirt floor).
The average mineshaft is also quite large - averaging about 1,250 blocks of corridors (250 supports), plus, crossings and stairways; this results in an average of about 290 rails, 5 minecart chests, and 2.4 cave spider corridors*; they can range in size from just the main room (nothing else at all, which affects one in several hundred mineshafts, I fixed this by adding multiple retries at generating a proper structure, much as the game does to ensure a stronghold always has a portal room) to around 3 times the average size (the largest known mineshaft in vanilla has 3,665 blocks of corridors. Of course, complexes of multiple structures can get far larger, a while ago i explored one with 9 separate mineshafts totaling over 13 km long and most mineshafts in 1.6.4 are part of multiple complexes; in fact, just today I found one with at least 3).
*Due to an interesting quirk in generation there can be up to 2 cave spider spawners in a corridor, sometimes even directly adjacent to each other, this does not occur in 1.6.4-1,12.2 due to structure saving recording whether a spawner was placed (1.13 broke this, likely due to its multithreaded chunk generation, other effects include different halves of village buildings generated at different heights and shipwrecks with different wood types, both along chunk boundaries. I also "broke" this by disabling structure saving for mineshafts, which causes major performance issues on very large worlds, especially given how common they are in 1.6.4 when further away from the origin (prior to 1.13 the chance is scaled by distance/80 when within 80 chunks of the origin).
Also, the mobs not coming towards you may be due to the fact they aren't allowed to pathfind over rails, a mechanic added in 1.6 (I partly reverted this by allowing them to pathfind to a player if they are not in a minecart, vanilla also allows pathfinding if they are already on/in a rail, e.g. being pushed there by other mobs).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumEpisode 18: Fencing and Farming
It's night, so I work in the Smeltery area. First I put away all the stuff that I picked up in the mineshafts, which takes a while with a doubled inventory. In the meantime I keep processing Iron ore through the Smeltery. I have 4 stacks of Iron Ore including another I just got in the mineshafts, so there's a lot to process. I'm also roasting cobble to smoothstone in my furnace bank.
One of the things I wanted from string was a Silky Jewel, the Tinker's item than can add Silk Touch to a tool. This needs 32 string - but I've got that now. I make the pick head here, but I wanted paper for the binding for the extra modifier - and I didn't think to bring paper from the Seljuk base. I can make 3 from leftover cane, but I need four for the binding, so I end up not making the pick yet.
Come morning I head up to the contruction site.
The first order of business is replacing the Soapstone cobble with the Soapstone brick I want for the structural element. I'm cursing myself for using cobble for the outline, because this is a relatively slow process since I have to keep switching what's in my hand. I'm also putting Soapstone brick walls on the outside. I had orginally intended from this to create a little relief and texture but I realize this can also be the security perimeter once I knock down some areas outside that are too high.
I don't do much as I want to get sugarcane for paper so I can build my Tinker's Silk Touch pick, which is very useful with smoothstone builds as I can pick up misplaced or changed blocks without having to re-roast.
On the way I check the corner here, which I think works, except that filling in the hill will be a fairly high priority after all - the overhang looks bad.
The sugarcane has grown quite well, some up to three. I was in that mineshaft mess for multiple Minecraft extended days, but even so this is better than I got in an entire season at the Seljuk base. After dealing with very limited sugarcane growth in my previous journal and up til now in this it's almost a shock to see fast-growing sugarcane like you usually see in vanilla.
The summer crops I planted have grown well too. It is indeed perpetual summer in Jungle. On my next trip to the Seljuk base I'll get a bunch of other summer crops to grow here. That will take care of any long-term food issues here (since in the short term I can raid those industrial level fridges in the mineshaft posing as minecarts).
Then I dig the improved stair down towards the Smeltery area, turning right before the main connection and coming down alongside, so I have direct access to the farm, and for that matter trips west.
And now I can make the Silk Touch Tinker's pick I want, using the sugarcane I just harvested to make paper for the Writable binding. This reduces the durability, but it will still be high, and it allows another modifier, which I use for increased speed. A good trade, IMO.
The next day I work on the building perimeter; swapping the cobblestone markers to Soapstone brick, putting walls on the outside, digging outside so the walls keep out mobs; placing Marble where the walls will start, and removing the dirt markers I'd left for the window locations.
By evening I'm almost but not quite done securing the location. Unfortunately the llamas won't wander onto the site proper once I'm done.
Since the area isn't quite secure, I spend the night in the Smeltery working on improving my Tinker's Armory armor. This allows a modifier called Resistance, which is (I think) equivalent to half a Protection. A common theme with mods is creating uses for materials which tend to stack up in Minecraft, and this has a high cost to do that - each level uses four blocks Obsidian, four blocks of Iron, and an ingot of gold as a casting plate. Normally iron gets pretty meh once you have diamond, unless you're into minecarting.
I already have a lot of Iron blocks from all the Iron I've been collecting, and enough gold, so I mine up Obsidian. I get to level 6 on my chestplate by the end of the evening, equivalent to Protection 3.
Spiffy looking armor. I guess my Smeltery area needs some pizzazz, though.
Next day I finish the perimeter and install a trapdoor step for a securable entrance.
I hang around after dark and swat 2 zombies, but then I realize I don't have a good way to collect drops afterwards. So I just head back to the Smeltery.
On the way back I explore the mineshaft connecting to the stairs to the chateau area to see if I can link up with all my explorations. It takes a bit to find it because I'd covered up the entrance with the stairs and there was only a little quarter-block notch left.
Break the fence blocking my safe area off, grab my sword, dash forward and
Hey! I have already been here! Why didn't I see the connection?
And that's why. Before I mined out the blocks to get back in here, that looked almost like a mineshaft crossbar (there had been fences I'd just chopped out). The only clue was that one of the wood planks was actually a stair, and I just hadn't noticed. It was even pretty close to the farm entrance; I don't remember the blow-by-blow details but I must have seen it pretty early.
I try making a crossbow, but I don't have enough paper for the paper binding I want so that has to wait until tomorrow.
In the meantime I collect some more obsidian. But now the lava is 2 deep and I lose an obsidian into it. So I try bucketing lava out from underneath and obsidianizing it in a little hole.
It's pretty slow.
Next day I raise the walls some more and cover part of the hill under the southeast corner with a dirt shell, and try the window treatments. I realize that my planned frame would connect to the security walls and try shortening it.
I run up and down the hill several times trying to imagine what it would look like and eventually decide:
What the heck, just go ahead and connect it.
Then I grab some sugarcane from the farm and make paper which I then use to finish a crossbow. But when I start to make a bolt for it to shoot I realize -
I don't have any feathers here for the fletching. Well, one, actually, but that's not enough; I need two. I can't think of any birds near here. There are the Better Creatures Turkeys and Pheasants just north of the Seljuk base; I have a lot of pumpkins for seeds now so I could set up a turkey farm. I'm reluctant to make that long trip - maybe 15 minutes round trip, but I can think of three other things I'd like to do that need the trip, so I'll just deal with it.
I clean up my inventory and march off through my tunnels.
Next episode: projects in the old base
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I'm surprised you didn't mention taking rails from mineshafts, since they provide me with all the rails I need so many times over it is ridiculous - averaging about 4 stacks, or nearly an entire mineshaft's worth, every play session (sometimes a lot more - recently I collected 3,700 rails over a one week period and once collected over 2,000 over two days). This thread also alludes to the abundance of rails in mineshafts; "Making minecart tracks is useless... All I have to do is go down into the cave system and break the tracks in the mineshaft".
Granted, mineshafts are/were less common within 1280 blocks of the origin (1.13 removed this, with the same base frequency as since 1.7, which is 40% that of earlier versions) but I was still averaging about 10 times more rails collected than used in what has to be one of the most extensive rail networks made in Survival (about 25,000 rails used, at the same time I've collected over 268,000, and enough iron to craft another 2.4 million, so I've basically used less than 1% of the iron equivalent, put another way, one could spend 100 times less time caving than I have and make the same amount of railways. This is exactly the point I tried to make in this post, where somebody kept claiming that I spend all my time caving because I need to in order to collect necessary materials).
I do use quite a bit of iron for anvils though, which I use 2-3 times per day with over 100 used up, though they have only consumed about 5 sessions worth of iron, spread out over more than 1,400, and I've ended up with more iron in storage than mined ore can account for due to all the iron found in chests and even drops from zombies (notably, 1.9 nerfed the amount of minerals in mineshaft chests, no idea why as I've calculated it to be less than 1% of the total iron I've collected, even the 1000-odd diamonds I've probably taken from them are only about 5% of the total, without Fortune, and you are already underground and can usually find the ores themselves in the walls so it isn't like looting surface structures)..
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumThe reason I didn't mention rails is that I've never used them. Normally I travel by water, which is as fast as minecarts but vastly easier to set up (most of the time I don't need to; I'm travelling over ocean). In my current situation that won't work and I did think about a minecart system, but in this mod set, I have Davinci's Vessels, which include airships also as fast as a minecart (and faster if coal-powered). In the near future
When I was clearing tunnels to mark what I'm done with I was taking rails and ended up with about two stacks, At some point I'll probably go back and finish the mineshaft complex, and then I'll try to think of a use for them.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I approve. Something I've noticed with myself is I very seldom use cobblestone for building. I used to use it by default in my oldest world, where the texture pack changed the look of it. In my newer worlds (using either no texture packs, or ones that mostly mimic default), I tend to use stone bricks instead are a rule.
How come you couldn't just remove the cobblestone at once and then replace it with bricks after though? Or maybe put the bricks in your offhand?
But having to change what you're holding is just a usual thing when building.
Also, seeing that snow next to a jungle seems hard to process for me. I know it's because of the seasons but it's still a bit visually awkward for me.
I think if permanently warm areas like jungle or desert had a "transitional edge" like a spare jungle or just a buffer of plains where it didn't snow, it'd look a bit less awkward, but at that point you're having to adjust your own terrain mod for a separate mod and that's end endless endeavor so I'd understand why that wouldn't be a concern.
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Curse PremiumYeah, after I did that I realized I probably could have done it with the replacement block offhand.
Just to be clear, I never intended to use Soapstone cobble in the build; I was just using it to mark the wall locations; but I should have used something softer like wood. Normally I use gravel, but that won't work on a hill.
I have recently made changes to Geographicraft which will make snow-jungle less common; I moved Jungle from Warm Climate (where vanilla has it) to Hot Climate (in pre-1.18; Desert, Savanna, and Badlands). But that won't completely block it; it could still happen at a Hot-Warm junction with Hot Jungle and Warm Extreme Hills. The problem there is that Extreme Hills is overloaded; it's the mountainous biome in both Hot and Cool climates. There really should be separate mountain biomes for Warm and Cool climates. When I'm playing with biome mods sometimes I move Extreme Hills to Cool climate because biome mods generally provide some mountain biomes that are good for Warm climate.
To beat a dead horse, this would be a non-problem if decorations could be tied to climate noise and not biomes; but of course there IS no climate noise in pre-1.18, so it's a moot issue.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
It's interesting watching the subtle differences in what others do. For example, if I were going to make a house there, the terrain terraforming would have likely come first, with the house after. No outlines or filling after after.
The snow next to jungle wasn't a suggestion of a change to make, by the way, so I hope it didn't come off that way (though it seems you already made the change beforehand). I realized this would be an issue with temperate to warm regardless of where jungles were which is why my idea of an "edge-like" buffer came from, but changing one mod to appease another is going down a slipper slope. Without seasons, it wouldn't be an issue.
I think 1.18 might handle it with separate mountain biomes for climates, though it might not be strict about it. I have noticed though that in temperate or colder locations they seem to be snowy or ice peaks more often, and in warm or hot they seem to lean more towards stony peaks. Or rather I should just say warm because I have little experience with them in formal hot regions. In that case it seems they at least sometimes (or always?) skip the "peaks" and just have the biome itself be the "mountain", such as that badlands spot I found. I'm not sure what happens with desert (maybe it can't and it always transitions to badlands for high terrain?)
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Curse PremiumEpisode 19: Pluck and Payoff
I trudge the long, long way to the Seljuk base. By the time I get there it's day. I grab some Eclogite smoothstone out of the furnaces (reason #1 for the trip) and the Rice and Ginger seeds which I'd left in the in the mining level chests for some reason.
Then upstairs to build two fenced enclosures for birds across the river to the north. (Reason #2 for the trip) I build them for trapping, with some fences coming up to raised dirt outside. If mobs get in who cares.
And into the forest to track some turkeys!
Turns out to be easier to lure Better Creatures' Turkeys and Pheasants than normal Chickens, because they move faster. I was particularly proud of the stunt that got me this; I had a Turkey and a Pheasant both following me and I managed to get each into the proper enclosure by walking out onto the separating fence. That's my magic trick for the day.
Eventually I get 5 turkeys and 3 pheasants; do the 3 possible breedings, and then kill one turkey, getting the 2 feathers I need for fletching. I also quickly realize this will be very convenient for eggs, since they are being laid in one place. In addition, the Better Creatures lay rates seem not to have been nerfed by Hunger Overhaul like the chicken lay rate, so I'm getting them faster.
I also collect a bit of ice with my new silky pick to test ice boating in the tunnel. The transit time is just too long. Even so, it's probably not worth it, but there is an accomplishment element - and maybe a carnival ride element.
I grab some more summer seeds from my seed chest (reason #3 for the trip). Then down to mine level to make a crossbow bolt.
I end up using a Pig Iron bolt because it's got almost 2x as many shots as the Iron one, plus it does another half point of damage. (Reason #4 for the trip.)
Then I crank up the crossbow with 3 levels of Haste. It still has a 3 1/2 second draw time, though.
And now - testing time!
It gratifyingly one-shots a skeleton and a zombie. I now feel confident enough to dash out to grab the drops.
While I'm waiting for another zombie to approach, the game hangs for a second and suddenly everything is in spring colors. That was the shortest-feeling winter ever. Thanks, confusing mineshaft maze! (well, not really)
The new crossbow also one-shots a spider.
But not a witch! I'm going to have to look at my previous journal to see if I did anything different. It might be not having the Astral Sorcery boosts. So not quite as useful as I hoped.
And finally a little more monster mashing to celebrate sunrise.
The snow has melted enough in most areas to fix my base area map. But not in the Birch Forest M area; that biome is apparently still in winter.
I take my stuff and head back to the future chateau base, but this time overland to add to my maps - and because it's less boring. It's fun to look at landscapes; not so fun to look at an endless-seeming tunnel.
But now I'm getting some rainspawning in the RTG Forest. This guy is easy enough but I have to watch for Creepers.
I had been planning to add on to this map on the north. But this areas is Taiga, and it's still snowing. So I abort and head south to try to fill in the gap, at least some of which is warm.
I have spawning problems here too.
Including a dreaded Creeper. Fortunately the crossbow one-shots it.
When I get to the Extreme Hills area, it's still snowing. This will mess up my maps for a while, but a snowy region in Extreme Hills isn't too bad and I forge ahead. I want to get this dome.
At sunset, just as I'm crossing a pass to be able to get to the Jungle area with my farm, the rains stops and the sun comes out. I sleep with the sunset view in the pass.
I can *get* to the Jungle area, but it's not that easy.
At my farm, I make a new irrigation ditch and plant my Summer seeds.
I'm thinking of trying some Jungle furniture in the Chateau - it might be an interesting contrast with the cold palette - so I chop a small jungle tree for some saplings. But I don't get any. I don't feel confident about chopping the Jungle Giants in hardcore. But I spot a half-height Jungle Giant and chop *that*, getting 6 saplings.
Which I plant for tree farming. In the Extreme Hills, just to see what they look like.
Down to Smeltery level to put things away.
I need to organize my storage here. This is actually intended as junk drawer for the moment, but all my chests here seem kind of junky. I'm kind of putting off organization as I expect I'll do a lot of things in the Chateau once it's more usable.
Next episode: Chateau progress and an aesthetic experiment.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
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Curse PremiumEpisode 20: Skies above
I'm collecting Obsidian for some Tinker's improvements, some of which take a lot. For example, you can make a tool not use any durability, but it takes 40 Obsidian. Originally I'd just been digging it up from the obsidianized part of the pool I'm using for the Smeltery, but I got to two deep sections and now I'm grabbing buckets of lava from underneath and then using the Smeltery to convert them to Obsidian.
It doesn't work as well as planned.
I mean, it *is* working, if a bit slow because I have an awkward work flow. I'm not going to get killed by getting lit in my base, annoying as it is.
Come dawn upstairs to raise the walls.
A problem I hadn't thought about is coming up - the interior walls are very plain. Maybe I can fix it with decor later, although it's hard to decorate walls in Minecraft. Maybe I can copy the decorations outside, although they take up a lot of space.
I'd thought I'd have to scaffold up for the outside window decorations since I didn't build them while I was at window level, but I can just hop up as I'm building the fences because I'm standing on fences.
Some of the Harvestcraft foods that were placed in the mine are just insane. I need to sort through them and save the ones with effects like these for special occasions.
I was concerned the side and rear views (first level shown here) would look a little bland because they don't have the bays of the front. But I think this works.
At one point I fall off the wall but it's a good thing because I missed a spot for the perimeter in the basement. I quickly fill it in.
I finish the first story walls around dusk. Now I turn to putting in a ceiling for the first floor (also the second floor ceiling).
My plan is to leave a large section open in the middle where the entrance is to function as a grand entrance hall
This would be the view from one of the side areas, which would become rooms of a sort, although not separated by a wall. I have to imagine the ceiling in place; I want to decide it's a good idea before I do it. I think it will be interesting and not claustrophobic.
I've developed an ambitious decorative idea for the floor, but I haven't worked out the details in my head yet.
While that brews in my head, I crank up my chestplate to Level VIII Resistance, the maximum, which should be equivalent to Protection IV. This armor piece is now *slightly* better than Netherite; .08 more armor and 0.5 more toughness. I'll be making similar pieces over time (each needs 32 Obsidian, 32 Iron *blocks*, and some gold for the Level VIII, so it will be a while.
Next day, back to the Chateau. I build a first effort at a grand staircase - always a problem in Minecraft; it's just so hard to make stairs look good without a phenomenal amount of space. And, geez, I can't even count right and have to correct the location.
I've gotten my idea to initial construction stage, although I'm still working on some details. As so often, when I'd casting about for fancy decoration, I fall back on pixel art. My idea is a floor than looks like a sky (with the Blue Schist) with clouds (Marble) it it. The clouds will fit into the 2x2 spaces; the detail is exactly how to do the clouds.
After roasting up some more Blue Schist - I'm running out - I develop a plan. The two wings are mirror images of each other. The clouds are L-shaped, rotating compared to their neighbor in a simple pattern (go along any line of clouds and they rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise).
I revise the grand staircase, and this is the resultant view from the entrance. Now I'm thinking maybe I'll subdivide the first floor after all, with some kind of decorative walls around the foyer area. This should be a flashy entrance and the lower floor will probably be workspace (certainly there'll be a kitchen) and hard to make look really good.
Here's a view from the wall. With a wall around the foyer it won't be so grand, but it won't be cramped, and it will be hard to use such a huge room without it looking cluttered.
Once again a lovely sunrise is the reward for working through the night. But, this isn't so much of a reward, because right after I walk up a Creeper walks from behind the wall to the left and starts to explode. I move back, but not far enough, and it goes off. No pic, because I was far enough back that I took no damage and Damage Screenshots didn't activate, and I certainly wasn't going to piddle to take a pic with a Creeper on fuse, but it knocked a few blocks out of the wall. I stuff up the gap fast so nothing else gets in and then run upstairs to look and see if there's anything else outside.
Good thing, too, because there's another Creeper atop a small hill there.
Come day I repair the damage, but this is a problem. I don't know why the Creepers don't path to me when I'm two blocks up in a mineshaft but do when I'm on the other side of a wall. But either I can't use the first floor windows at night, or I have to fence the hill top, which is a pain and generally ugly. A bad choice.
Now I want to work on the floor. But my idea for that involves using stones I found on the tunnel connection, so I have to go back there.
On the way I check on my farm. Things are growing very quickly in the endless Jungle summer. It feels like this tomatoes are growing even faster than in real summer in their appropriate biome.
The Jungle saplings I planted have grown and I think they look rather nice in Extreme Hills-shifted color. I harvest but I don't replant as I'm not sure how much Jungle wood I'll need.
Then I head in to the tunnels. About halfway through (ugh, so much walking) I find my big drop chest, with several stacks each of Dacite and Green Schist, two materials I want for the floor. But I also wanted some Basalt - not for right away, but for my plans for the ceiling of the second floor. I don't remember another drop chest - did I forget? So I continue on.
Eventually I find a small drop chest I'd made before I made the big push to connect my bases. With no Basalt. So, I guess I just didn't mine that much.
I've gone most of the way to the Seljuk base, and I'd like to breed the cows and birds there, so I just continue on.
When I arrive it's dark. I swat a couple of zombies, including this little fellow, and then go to bed.
Next episode: Animal issues.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I like you have had what is essentially a supervisor llama these last few episodes. It's funny.
I would add an attached stable of sorts on one of the sides of the building (if there's room) for it if I were in that position.
I'm liking what I see what the house so far. So much that it makes me realize neither of my hardcore worlds actually have me set with a grand house. That's fine; they work for what I want of them and I'm actually liking the smaller, simpler house in my more recent of the two worlds, as the village feels more intimate and functional in a way as a result. After doing all that exploring though, the builder half of me is wanting to do something a little larger after seeing you do this (the large open area near the entrance got me wanting to). Hm. I have that nearby village I want to rebuild, but unless I want to move myself one village over (I don't), then I'm not sure why I'd build it there. Maybe I could simply make one of my future away settlements a bit larger, as odd as that may seem.
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Curse PremiumHaha, supervisory llama, yes, and it continues for quite some time!
There's not a lot of room on the sides and it's pretty rugged too, but I'll take another look at it if and when I get horses, which may not be for a very long time. All the overworld chests are just crammed with food and I've yet to see a horse armor. Maybe in the Nether, but in a Hardcore world used for demonstrating terrain generation a Nether trip is a low priority at best. If I had to make a grand plan, it would be explore the upcoming summer, do more building and figure out a way to do airships next winter; more exploring the next summer, and then on the third winter maybe I'll go to the Nether.
I've been playing a lot this past week and I am WAY ahead of my posting (about 10 episodes, yow) and I think this build comes out very well, although it's certainly taking a lot of time.
If I were trying to integrate villagers into a large flashy build I'd go for a manor model - put them in servant's quarters nearby, built to fit in with the main build. You could try building a "rich person's house" but there is a limit to how much bigger and prettier you can make one house without it looking out of place in a village setting.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Yeah, if I wanted something super big and grand (I don't), it wouldn't fit in unless the settlement itself was going to be pretty big and fancy too.
In Azura, my first hardcore world and second most recent world, I went with a rather "standard" size for everything as far as my village goes. And for me, that would be small relatively, since I usually has larger locations.
For Gaia, my most recent word, I went even smaller, making things far, far smaller than I usually do. I thought I'd be less attached to this world as a result, but I wasn't. If anything it's more intimate and I like it for that, but since I'm spending less time building, and less time caving or doing risky things like progressing with the natural Minecraft "main goals" (due to my extra restrictions), I started exploring more and that became the purpose of that world.
Like a lot of things, I want to do them (especially when I see someone else doing something, such as here), but never know where to make them fit in. I doubt I'll be making another village soon. Well.... maybe not. Things can change fast...
I'm surprised you're that far ahead. When I get that far ahead, it makes me feel overwhelmed. When i was one adventure trip ahead and had to post it as like five or six updates, it made me want to procrastinate on it. I can be an update or two ahead, but more than that and I feel like I need to get caught up.
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Curse PremiumWell, when I'm playing heavily I can easily rack up 1 or 2 episodes played and written per day, and I normally publish 1 every other day, so they can stack up fast for me. I write my episodes shortly after playing them, so I'm pretty much always "caught up". This morning I had 8 "in the can" and a long exploration from yesterday to write up; I just wrote 2 more episodes and there's material for one more from that expedition (so actually 11, not 10). The main reason *I* don't like to get too far ahead is that I can't react to comments or information - right now if I got some advice or information from somebody here, it would be eleven episodes - three weeks of posting - before my play could change. For example "supervisory llama" is hilarious and would be a great running gag but I don't generally have the pics for it.
It's kind of hard for me to stop playing once I get into it - in general I tend to grab onto one project and push on it until I get tired of it. I've gotten caught up in a lot of projects that interest me - the build, my usual exploration, getting a system to use airships safely in this hardcore context, and playing around with ice boats. Collectively they keep pulling me in. I think I have at least one more episode before I can get myself to take a break.
I'm pretty sure this is the furthest ahead I've ever gotten. I think my previous record was 8 episodes, which I deliberately piled up in my Return to Minecraft journal so I'd have enough time to play with RTG revisions. It wasn't nearly enough, unfortunately.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Hm, maybe my updates are too long? Or maybe I take too many pictures/describe too much? I feel like I'd just saying "I went out and explored, here's what I saw, bye" if I cut it much shorter though, haha.
Maybe mine are fine and I'm just that different to how you do yours. Kind of like how MasterCaver is even more spread with his, and then they tend to big stat data dumps. I guess we all have our way of doing updates.
I'm really surprised if you write them and then sit on them that long, although I presume it's not normal you are quite as far ahead as you are now. I had those five updates to do (and that was really just one adventure, albeit many actual play sessions) and I... I was overwhelmed with it a bit. That's why it took a little longer to get started on it.
Oh and the supervisor llama was because a lot of your recent building progress pictures had a llama in them, like it was supervising or at least watching (but I'd still totally give it a home if it was me).
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Curse PremiumEpisode 21: Spring Stepping
I awaken to a bright green spring morning - with a bright green Creeper. But my crossbow one-shots
Creepers so it's not much of an issue.
From the colors it feels well into spring but the Birch Hills area is still snowed in, so I guess not.
I breed the cows and birds. Unfortunately, since I'm not spending much time here, the calfs and chicks haven't grown. I'm particularly distressed about the cows because I want to start enchanting. I kill a few of the adult cows, and then realize it was a mistake because it will slow my breeding even further.
Then I set off for the chateau base, overland, because walking through pretty scenery is fun and walking through endless tunnels is boring.
The Serene Season color changes for Spring aren't that drastic, but they certainly bring a different feel. The forest seems greener and lusher. Also, have the Seljuks improved their wall? It looks fancier.
As I'm walking past the Savanna M landmark the game hangs briefly and then everything redisplays. I suspect a transition from early spring to mid-spring. But I'm not sure.
I've walked past this lone hill on the great plains southwest of the Savanna M formation on several occasions, but it looks different somehow.
I try going to the south of the Roofed Forest but since it's not precipitating I go actually into the forest, also an intense green from spring.
RTG Roofed Forest does good loom. I come close, but I don't go in.
I spot some turkeys and decide to try to lure them to the Chateau base area, which at this point is just a biome away. But I have to revise my statement earlier that it's easier to lure Better Creatures turkeys than vanilla chickens. They do move faster, but they seem more - distractable?, at least on more rugged terrain. I am trying to lure 4, but only one make it to the Extreme Hills area and eventually I leave it in the pass to the valley below the chateau.
Even at a 1/3 of its eventual height the Chateau looks promising. The white walls have a different feel from what I was originally envisioning, though. Also, while the snow in the Extreme Hills isn't melting yet, the grass looks a lot greener, so I do think it's mid-spring.
It's getting late, so I use the farm entrance to go to the Smeltery area (easier than climbing the hill.
I want to work on my armor, but I'm not sure how: Pig Iron or Iron, and which modifiers to use. I finally decide to put 5 levels of Reinforced on my Pig Iron leggings, to see if that slows them being eaten. Each level has a 20% chance of blocking a durability loss. If it works with being eaten 5 levels reduced durability loss to zero, creating a significant exploit.
But oops! Reinforced is one of those traits where each *level* consumed a modifier, and I can only put 2 on. So the other 3 levels - which I already made - are wasted. Grrr. A whole night of Obsidian collecting, and then some.
That said, the exploit seems to work. Sometimes when I hear the chomping noise my leggings don't lose any durability. It's not so much of an exploit, though, because 5 modifiers is a *lot* - normally you only get 3, and it's difficult to get more. Cornucopia armor is more of a reasonable price.
Then I start making a Tinker's helmet, but run out of time because it's dawn.
To start a test of a tunnel iceboat system, I place an ice block under a torch 3 blocks up. I'll check tonight to see if it melted.
Then I start laying out my pattern for the floor. This isn't representational but I am using colors evocative of terrain - green for grass, grey for stone.
I can't figure a way to incorporate the stair down so the connection to the Smeltery area is banished to a corner of the entrance.
I still want an enchantment table, but I only have 30 leather of the 45 needed. Plus the Tinker's Armory add-ons need more leather. I'm going to get in trouble for this, but one option is - Llamas. Which breed with - hay BALES, seriously? I'd better get some serious wheat going.
I plant 14 in another row in the farm. Wheat grows in Summer, so it will be fine.
I go into the mineshaft to collect the foods there and get -
Lost. I eventually resort to blocking areas off. It takes several minutes to find a way out.
Another load of roasted stone, and I get a little more than half the floor done. But now I'm almost out of what I brought, so I'll have to branch mine in those areas to get more. Bah.
I also made the staircase look less goofy with upside-down stairs on the bottom. At least it looks structurally sound.
Come morning I have to snipe a Creeper.
But the view makes it nicer.
I impatiently check on my Wheat.
It's growing, but I'm not breeding llamas today.
Now I try widening my tunnel connecting the Smeltery and Chateau for a very short test of underground ice boating. I hit an unexpected complication when I uncover a lava pool on the way.
Ready?
Whoosh! This is fun!
But this isn't. As soon as I exit the boat, I'm suffocating. I'm down 5 (!) hearts by the time I bust out.
I chop out some blocks so there is a shelf all the way around where the boat would stop and try it again. Same result, other than I get out faster because I'm ready for it.
Well, this will take some time, so I should experiment *after* I get the rocks to finish my floor pattern.
While I'm going through this I hear a thunderstorm, which suggests I'm in late spring, although I've been staying up a lot lately and it might be just that.
So, back through the connecting tunnel. The first area is the Dacite one and I cut a branch there uneventfully.
Then I try the Green Schist area but my first pass runs back into Dacite.
The second cuts into caves from underneath twice, but nothing comes through before I block them up. I don't feel like caving right now and this is a long way from either base, close to the middle of the connection.
While the stones I've collected are roasting up, I work on a system for the ice boat. What seems to work is a one high shelf all around where the boat stops and a 3 block ceiling. I'll work on extending it when I get more ice.
Next episode: Floor Finishing
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I almost thought that was some sort of thin layer of permafrost on natural terrain until you mentioned otherwise, so if that's what you're going for, I'd say you did well.
Nooooo!
Oh well, as long as you make more than you started with, it's a net increase, I guess? I can't complain when I use animal farms (though not llamas).
The costly hay bales are the game trying to discourage it, haha.
I would have panicked.
I always found ice boats... odd. Not to say you can't use them since they are there (maybe I will one day), but the behavior of boats going so fast on ice (and even being usable on land at all) just seems strange to me.
This is caused by the game placing you half a block above the ground when dismounting an entity:
MC-3328 Dismounting an entity places riding entity / player half block too high
However, I've never gotten stuck inside a block or wall, just an instant of clipping into the ceiling and taking a single tick of damage, still annoying enough that I fixed it, but it took Mojang until 1.16 to do so (I also made other improvements to dismounting, e.g. boats place you further away so you don't collide with the boat and push it away, and dry land is preferred over water). Also, I wouldn't consider a death from this a legitimate death since it is due to a game bug.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
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Curse PremiumOh, I was TOTALLY panicking. I was thinking what Master Caver says below that this death would count as a game bug death and I'd probably be justified in going to backup BUT my most recent backup was several episodes back and actually prior to my last post so I was trying to break out and trying to decide the ethics of a recovery and freaking out about losing multiple episodes of play and remembering I couldn't get out of the tree in my previous journal all at the same time and it was dragging on and then POP, I was out, phew.
I agree it's weird, but it is actually fun when it works, and it does have a useful game purpose.
I won't spoil, but I do my best to avoid any llama deaths in upcoming episodes.
I think in this case I was placed inside the wall to the left. I figured I'd be placed in a "safe" location like from a bed but it didn't. In upcoming episodes I get it down to a single thwack but I can never figure out why. I don't think I allotted for being placed 1/2 a block and maybe I can fix the problem now but
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
If that's what caused it, yes, I noticed that before too, but like you said, I'd always take one instance of small damage and that was it. I usually ran into it dismounting a horse in a stable with a perhaps slightly too low ceiling.
Now see, how do you avoid spoilers when discussing things over half a dozen sessions back? I have trouble not spoiling things one or two sessions ahead.