LinkOlaran

Finally finished digging the pit for the mob trap, started to build the floors now. Can't say for sure just how much ore I have collected, but I know it's a lot >.> at least 3-4 stacks of iron, I know that for sure. Slow going building the tower, though. Since the collection canal isn't included in the blueprint on the topic for the trap, I had to download the save and build it by eye, which was annoying (look at one part, count blocks, switch out of the finished tower save to my save, build, recheck, proceed to next part, etc etc). Still, up by... dunno how many floors exactly. Not bothering to count, might make me depressed to see how far I have to go >.> Took a quick adventure around to gather sand first, though. Probably have enough for... 4-5 stacks of tnt, which is good. I also made a diamond shovel which I'll devote to sand harvesting. Maybe a waste of a diamond, but then again... that shovel = 1025 sand blocks. 1025 sand blocks = 256 blocks of tnt >.> that could be a very, very large mine, far more than a diamond pick could probably dig up... (diamond pick is 1025 blocks worth of mining, 256 blocks of tnt... assuming a 3x3x3 block is blown out per tnt block, that'd be... 6912 blocks blown out, making that shovel save me... 7 picks, 21 diamonds? o.o) Guess it is worth it. Note, never did the math till just now. Heh, I should wire up a tnt trap or something for lols. After I get the tnt I want, I'm going mining for a bit, then maybe starting a new world again for a little bit of a break. Probably seriously try a winter world this time, should be... difficult. And Maze, gold/diamond/redstone is only available really deep down, so you'll have to either dig a mineshaft down to bedrock and mine outward from there, or try to find a cave system that goes down that deep/nearly that deep and mine the rest of the way, and search from there. Gold doesn't have much practical use right now though, armor/tools made from gold only have the same amount of uses as wood, if I recall. Of course, there's the golden apple (heals 10 hearts), but that requires 8 blocks (72 gold ore) and an apple (which can only be found in dungeons, which can be rare to find to begin with), so... stick with hunting for diamonds, but diamonds and lava tend to go together, they're both found in the same area in terms of depth, so be careful and bring a bucket of water if you can, otherwise keep a stack of blocks to block off the lava flows if possible. Redstone is good too, if you want to build stuff with circuits and such, but that's complex enough that I won't even touch it, lol >.< Right, back to building for me. Got a ways to go just to get back to sea level, then up to skyline... should have more than enough cobblestone, though.

Yeah, minecart tracks can go up and down hills, they'll automatically make a sloped track piece when you do what you described. Just keep in mind that, assuming you're using powered minecarts to push your carts around, that a passenger cart that you're riding in will have troubles with going uphill if you only have the one powered cart - I believe that making and placing another powered minecart behind the first one will add their power together and be able to go up hills better, but I'm not sure. I tend to only use powered carts for pushing my storage carts around, and use the booster idea (youtube it, there should be plenty of vids, or I can post a link) for my passenger carts. Animals (and probably mobs too, haven't seen it yet) can and will hijack passenger carts left out on open track though, so be cautious about where you put them >.> I guess you could just store those carts in a chest or something if you wanted. I've lost a few carts to animal hijacking before, forcing me to make a new cart just to find out that they bailed out halfway between stations and I ram into my old cart on the way there >.< In other news, my mob trap pit is now down to bedrock. Gonna start doing branch mines to see if I can find some diamonds, plus I hit a second lava flow that I'm slowly converting into more obsidian. I'll post a pic of my results for ore digging up this pit after. I'm quite surprised at how much one can find :P Went from 84 diamonds stockpiled to 6, though. Plus I dug up some more diamonds that I've been storing separately from my original stock.

Well, I learned the hard way that (at least I think) water elevators using boats to go up/down need to be enclosed. And not have outcropping platforms up where you're going. *gets into boat, goes up waterfall* *hits outcropping platform at the top, boat breaks* *falls to death with diamond pick and 20 buckets, most full of lava* Recovered everything, at least >_> almost lost a bucket, but that just went flying to the other side of the pit. Already put in a ladder system (which is what I had before, at which point a friend mentioned using the boat idea, which I just had to try... *cough*) Anyway, back to digging, once I take out more frustration on passing cart-hijacking animals.

Hit the top of the diamond layer on my pit, although I just about fell into a cave system right after that. Complete with lava, which I just finished bucketing out and storing it in a cave near the pit. Gonna dig the rest of the way down and hunt for diamonds after that. Also, downloaded a save file with the completed tower in it, to examine the trap room and see how well it works. I can say that I can see 11.5k items/hr with this trap is possible, I had several hundred items in my invy within a few minutes, and I was running back and forth between the trap room to watch it working, and the collection canal (which slowed it down, probably). Gonna be a pain actually building it, though... Also, I'm starting to hate every single animal near the pit now. I'm using a water elevator to get in and out of the pit, and those damned animals keep either breaking my boat, or knocking it off the top so I have to swim down the waterfall. I'm killing every animal on sight now because of this >.>

I severely underestimated the sheer amount of mining required for this mob tower -.- According to the mining guide on the Minecraft forums (http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=28299), sea level is at block 63 (bottommost bedrock is block 0). So, considering this mob tower is 25x25, that means I'll have to dig out a 25x25x63 cube for the tower (or 23x23 if you don't mind the wall of the tower not being uniform). That means I need to move 33,327 blocks for this tower, assuming no caves, and I think I saw one on the edge >.< I think I'm about halfway down now (the fact my 0,0 coord was mostly over water helped a bit, took out a fair sized chunk of work, but I also had to take time to remove the water via filling it up with gravel...) Anyway, it's going well, although I've gone through... 6-8 diamond picks so far. Have over 11,000 cobblestone stored in chests, probably closer to 12,000 now. Getting a good amount of iron/coal, though. Plus pork/hides from the cows/pigs that keep falling into the pit (which always makes me lol when I see it, since it's so random). I think an animal hijacked my main cart, though. I have two passenger carts at the top of the pit (one on the booster track, one on main track), and the one on the main track is gone. Dunno if I purposely put it in a chest (I do have one there, but I don't remember if it's the same one). Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if a pig took a joy ride back to my island station with my minecart. Back to mining I go, I suppose. And before someone recommends tnt, I had 19 blocks when I started, I used that up pretty fast >.< thought about luring creepers into the pit and purposely blowing them up to speed up mining, but they don't spawn fast enough to bother with. If I had a way of luring them into the pit without them falling and dying, maybe... but having them spawn at the bottom don't work at all :P Once I get down to diamond level (blocks 10-16 from the bottom, I think...) I'll do a branch mine out and try to pick up as many as possible. I think my diamond stockpile is going to dry up before I hit that layer, though. Gonna have to switch to iron, which sucks, but at least I have plenty of that to use.

Just popping in quickly to say that I've built my minecart system all the way to my 0,0 coord, and I've started construction on the same mob tower Peronix's tower is based off of. I had to store my minecarts once I got here, though, since the animals keep freaking hijacking them >_> Only slight problem is my 0,0 coord is mostly in the water, but I have a crapton of gravel, so I'll use that and fill in the area. Oh, and Aeon, that video was amusing. I liked the background music to it :P almost completely positive it's a remix of Link to the Past's dark world overworld theme. Should be interesting to see if I have enough supplies to actually build this monstrosity of a mob trap, though. I know I don't have enough glass, only a stack and a third or so. Gonna need to dig up a beach or something.

It actually only takes about 15-17 seconds to mine obsidian with a diamond pickaxe (50-60 seconds with anything else according to wiki, and you don't get anything that way). Still, it feels like forever. We're probably spoiled by everything else only taking a second or two to mine :P (besides redstone for some odd reason). Finally fixed Fail Lake's currents, and I have my epic bridge built. Behold! (yes, I realize it isn't that spectacular looking, but the time that went into it was considerable >.>) Everything works up to the next station, which you can see on the hill in the distance. That one has lots of storage too, so I'm in the process of moving everything out of my spawn point base, and carting it to that station, where it'll all sit till I have my house built, hopefully near the mob tower that I'll build eventually. All connected with minecart tracks, hopefully. I actually enjoyed building the minecart station. It's the first time I tried making a roof that wasn't just flat (and making the building a big box). Of course, I also spent half the time chasing down obnoxious mooing cows and falling into a cave system that happens to be right below the station, but still :P I enjoy building things. Hopefully, I'll have the bridge up and running to get onto the mainland again (what you can see in the uppermost picture is actually an island the far station is on), and from there, the 0,0 coordinate. I'll be scouting out a spot for a house near it as well. Still don't know what style I want, though... I do have 512 blocks of mossy cobblestone, so I might use that for at least part of it.

Ah, I recognize the texture mod, or at least the creatore of it. Doku makes the RPG texture pack, if I recall correctly. And those textures sure look like SNES quality rpg textures to me >.> Link to the forum topic: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=25676 Overall, it's a really nice texture pack, although I never tried it myself :P I like the original textures for some reason. Guess I'm nostalgic or something, even though I've only been playing a bit over a week. Right, quick update on my progress. Mined more diamonds before I exited the massive pools of lava cave I had spend the previous 4 hours mining obsidian in, and went dungeon delving after I dropped by base to drop off loot. Up to 9 buckets now, so I should be able to fix Fail Lake and get a move on with my cobblestone bridge and minecart system. Got another bundle of iron ore/ingots as well from dungeons and mining, so that's even better. I should be well over the needed amount by now. If anyone's interested, I suppose I could post a pic of my base, but it's nothing special. It is, after all, made of dirt >_> hell, it's one room, lol. Just a bunch of chests, but it does look interesting from a distance with the tree farm on top of it. ... If I didn't need the wood, I should so light it on fire.

I don't know Shiny, but I'll note it reminds me heavily of the graphics of Link to the Past... maybe a coincidence, but I know there's at least one Zelda texture pack out there. I'll take a look, I bookmarked one last night to look at actually.

I have lit myself on fire. Multiple times. Once, was with a flint and steel trying to light my way through the black of night without a torch... but I didn't mean to turn myself into the actual torch >_> another time was just an hour ago, where lava lit me on fire through a wall. Yes, a wall. I still don't know how it happened, all I know is I was mining my obsidian and poof, flames. They died quick though, since I had water everywhere. Speaking of obsidian, that lava flow that I started mining, according to xray, goes on for several map chunks. So it ain't a lake, it's a freaking river. And it goes everywhere. I have 288 obsidian blocks now, I'm giving up before my diamond pick breaks. If I need more though, I know where to go at least :P Picking through the cave to locate some diamonds, then I'm heading to the surface and trekking back to base. I'll probably have to toss something to hold all the crap I picked up, though.

I have two and a half stacks of obsidian already >_> still not done, and there's two other lava pools about 5 seconds walk away from here. I think I'll leave them alone though, the length of time it takes to mine one block is driving me up the wall. Hopefully, once I get my buckets in order, I can fix Fail Lake... *cough* and build a halfway decent railway bridge across it that lets me boat under it. But yeah, the ghasts... good god, those will be annoying. At least fire is a bit more visible than arrows, so hopefully it'll be somewhat easy to dodge. Getting the feeling that a bucket of water would be of use down there, though. Considering how many times one will light their ass on fire >.>

Caves generally have a fairly large number of already exposed mineral veins if you wanted to go that route. If you just want to make a mine, then I always dig a shaft in the back of my house (hopefully walling it off partway so I don't fall in it in my own stupidity, which happens quite a bit), and digging out branches from the main shaft. Depending on what pattern of mining you use, you can usually cover most/all possible spots veins could be. I tend to dig a main branch off the shaft, then dig a tunnel every two squares off of it, that generally covers most of the blocks and it's quicker than mining a massive hole. If you do put the main shaft in your house though, keep it well lit so mobs down spawn down there. Would suck if something came up >_> Also, use ladders (7 sticks arranged in an H form) to climb in and out. You can use one ladder every other block and still climb it. I generally use shovels almost as much as I do pickaxes. I always bring some of both (although more picks than shovels) whenever I go cave digging. The less time I spend digging up dirt and gravel is more time I have to find minerals before I get exploded by a creeper or something. Axes are the tool I find the least use for, since one or two good tree harvests from saplings and I'm set for weeks in game >.> those and [garden tools], but the same sort of thing applies (a few wheat harvests lasts quite a long time, plus even a large ish farm only needs 2-3 [garden tools]/harvest once you get the seeds), plus I have a crapton of pork stored already. I'm still mining out that obsidian in the pic in my last post. Turns out there's a fourth layer underneath the three visible ones, and there's a possibility of a fifth if I'm lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it). Still planning on digging around for diamonds after I get this pool of lava mined out, though. Also, this: http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/22/minecraft-halloween-update-preview-meet-the-ghasts/ If the link doesn't work, go to Notch's tumblr site and the most recent post should have the link as well. Anyway, we get a first look at how ghasts operate here, plus how the portals will be built. Good thing I started mining obsidian, lol. I didn't even know about this update when I did either. Anyway, back to obsidian mining.

Furah, the only method that I stumbled across on GameFAQs a day or two ago for finding your 0,0 map chunk was fairly simple to use. First, you need Cartograph, or I'm assuming any other mapping program that spits out an image file of your map like this: http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1917/world200.png This is my current world 2, the one I'm working on now. Note the red dot is my own 0,0 coord, but Cartograph didn't make it red for me, I did that myself with Paint :P The method is fairly simple, though it might be bad if you tried to load your world without replacing the file you remove for generating the map. And yes, I purposely left the image as a link (hopefully) because it's fair sized. I'll note that you should probably back up your saves first, just in case :P First, go to your saves folder (C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Minecraft or something similar), and bring up your world you want to find the 0,0 coordinate for. Once you're in that world's folder, go into the folder named 0 (the number, of course). From there, the 0 folder again (so your path would be Minecraft\saves\World #\0\0 or so). There should be a file there called c.0.0.dat or something similar (I noticed my world 1 has three files here, I would assume that's because I've explored in that general area already - just move the one that has 0.0 in the name). Remove that file temporarily (just cut/paste it out into the saves folder, so you can find it in a minute). Then run Cartograph, get it to map that world. Once it's generated, rename it World-# 0,0.png or something so you know what it is. Then move the .dat files back into the 0 folder, and make Cartograph map the world again. Now bring both maps up in paint, and find the one tile that is black on the 0,0 map and colored in on your normal map. That's your 0,0. Well, hopefully. The process works at least. I'm just assuming for now, since I haven't traveled to my 0,0 coord yet, that it actually is it >.> Still, it's better than nothing. If anyone else has information that proves or disproves what I said, go ahead and post :P I'd rather make sure this tidbit of info I found was right or not. Anyway, my own Minecraft adventures... well, let's start with my current dilemma, which lead me to what I'm doing now: Apparently, my fail bridge that I didn't like and tore down also replaced all the source water tiles on the surface. After fiddling around and raging at it for an hour, I figured out that I can (very slowly) replace the water tiles manually, or at least I hope. Problem is, I used up all my iron bars on rails (and all future bars are going into that or carts as well), so I needed a source of buckets: Just ignore the sheep, he followed me down the mineshaft I dug to get down here. And yes, dungeon delving is how I'll get my buckets. I'm on peaceful right now (since I'm still uber pissed off at that damned fail lake and really don't need any distractions like exploding green... whatsits). Anyway, after my first (bust) dungeon with no chest, things have been going well. Using xray to find dungeons because I'm a cheapass when I get annoyed, but at least I'm navigating there manually... >.> And getting lost constantly, but that's besides the point. In the cave system I'm in now (that I entered to follow down closer to a dungeon, I found three large lava lakes, plus a couple waterfalls, which gave me the idea of mining obsidian while I was here (plus one lava pool was half obsidian when I got there, so how could I resist?) Anyway, I made an infinite spring with the water there (just in case I need it), made a spare bucket since the nearby dungeon only gave me one, and got to work mining. You can see the blocks I have so far, plus this lava pool alone is at least two if not three blocks deep. This means a crap ton of obsidian mining, but ah well. I don't even know what I'll do with it, honestly. I have a few more dungeons marked, but let's hope I don't get distracted with lava again locating those ones :P I'll probably get some diamonds while I'm down here too, I'm down at the level where they start appearing. I'll also note that I have named my lake Fail Lake, for those who are interested. Whether I fix it or not, that it will be named for all eternity. And yes, I even put up a sign welcoming people to 'Fail Lake', which I laughed at for a few minutes before moving along and doing something that's actually constructive. Quick edit: wanted to mention the reason for the water being there by the obsidian in that picture. I find that the water moves ahead to occupy newly opened tiles fast enough to turn any lava that might be on the other side into more obsidian before the block I mined out gets incinerated by said lava. So long as I'm careful about where I'm mining, I usually get every single block now. Dunno if it's anything special, but hey, if it helps someone, my task is done :P

It would appear that the DDOS attack is continuing, considering Notch's last post on his tumblr thing: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1365758140/the-ddos-attack-continues-ill-just-get-back-to#disqus_thread Shame that some idjits find it amusing to do this, but that's humans for you, I guess. In other news, I've been slowly gathering gunpowder (and craploads of everything else) via direct combat with mobs at night. After falling into creeper craters on my beach several times and getting my ass kicked (although I haven't died yet), I'm slowly but surely filling the craters back in. Slowly. The minecart station is coming along very, very slowly. Since I have no idea how to attach boosters to a diagonal track (and the island is northwest of the station), I'll have to use a larger zig zag (10 blocks west, 10 blocks north, etc), or test and see if a longer booster track = longer length of time cart moves. At least it's simple experimentation. Also, in my half asleep state last night, I thought of something. Would it be possible at all to wire up the mob tower with redstone torches (one would probably need several hundred of them, but still...), and turn the mob tower into an animal farming tower during the day? One would have to have dirt floors throughout, though... not to mention the titanic task of wiring such a beast of a tower >.> Dunno how much use wiring up even part of the tower would be for animal farming, but it was an interesting thought.

Right, dizzle, got around to watching your vid (dialup internets, remember :P). I must say, I liked the lava floor quite a bit, it's really nice looking - although for me, I'd always be wary of accidentally breaking the glass (or if a creeper magically managed to get up there), lol. As for your question, grass will grow on dirt tiles only if it's well lit and it's connected to a dirt block that already has grass. so, you'd probably have to run a line of dirt blocks from outside on ground level, all the way up to the very top, and wait a while. That's how I got my underground grass room done. If you have the grass path going up wider, it supposedly moves faster or something, but that'd make it tough to get in and out, so... stick with the one and focus on something else for a while. It should get up there eventually. You'll be able to watch and make sure it's working by checking in time to time, since the grass will slowly inch it's way up the dirt blocks you put in. And yeah, you can remove the dirt path after the grass gets up to the top. And yes, redstone dust is really common, and wiring stuff is complex enough that I probably won't bother with it >.> looking at the redstone circuitry page on the wiki just made my head spin. It took me a good 4 hours or so just to wire up that loot indicator to the water trap on my old save, after all. Quick update on my own world. Up to 3 records now (two gold, one green), and my beach has turned into something that resembles the moon. Started construction on my cart tracks to my 0,0 coord, but it's going to be a very long journey, I think... might set up a few stations along the way so I have a place to stop if it gets dark on my way to and from the place. Creating a stone bridge while sitting in my boat is an annoyance, to be sure. I'm trying to just crouch on the already built pieces and build from there now, which seems to be working. now I just need to get the track to the island that's just to the northwest of where I started the tracks... Have a stockpile of 30 ish diamonds right now though, so that will do for tools for the time being. I have a large amount of iron left, and good amount of tracks, but I doubt it's enough to make it all the way over yet. EDIT: Peronix posted before I finished typing mine, but I wanted to respond to your pics. Smart idea for the lava incinerating unwanted drops, to start with :P the tower as a whole looks bloody complex to build, but I should be able to pull it off eventually. I notice the cacti sitting in the corners. I'm assuming those are for spiders mostly? I'm not sure, but I imagine spiders would be the annoying one to kill with the lava since they're lower to the ground. I've seen an animal farm using the exact same lava/water killing technique, and the chickens never die from it since they're so small. Well, I kinda need to get my minecart system to be able to carry me over to the 0,0 coord first anyway, so I suppose I shouldn't focus too much on the construction of the tower :P I have at least a chest full of cobblestone for building material, but I bet the stone bridges for the tracks will eat that up fairly quick. I'll try to kill as many creepers as I can manually so I have some tnt to help with the clearing for the base of the tower as well, so I have something to do at night besides cower in a temp base >.> at least if I die, I'll be able to find my way back via the tracks.

Found one hell of a mining vein last night, right next to diamonds I located using x-ray >.> Estimated 3 diamonds (since I already had em mined before I noticed the other ore nearby), 52 redstone dust, 14 iron ore, and 18 coal. All the veins were either adjacent or diagonal to one another, and the redstone/coal veins were only one vein each, I think. There were 3-4 iron veins, though. (hope I got the code right again...) Anyway, not shown are the diamonds since I mined the already, and two iron veins - one directly behind and slightly above the coal, and another underneath the redstone. First time I've ever seen different ore veins so clustered in one spot. Honestly, mining is more entertaining now, since I'm constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure nothing's coming up behind me... >.> Still trying to get the green record, though. No luck yet, although I'm finding plenty of zombies outside for some reason. Once I get my last few diamonds in this area that I saw and gather a fair amount of iron, I'll start on my track system to the 0,0 coord. Eventually, anyway >.> Also: I lol'ed quite a bit. This happened while I was testing minecarts on a different world - I knew animals (and mobs) can ride minecarts, but it's still hilarious to actually see.

Well, decided to get to mining and gathering iron ore for rails to make a minecart system over to my 0,0 map chunk. Up to... 107 ish iron bars right now, plus some redstone dust so I can make a compass, and 4 diamonds thus far. I decided to use my stock of tnt to expand my mineshaft on the diamond layer of the map and continue digging down there. For the sheer hell of it, I decided the last night that passed by to try to obtain a record from a creeper. After getting blown up twice (first time right under my house at that, so I had to yet again fill in the part that was destroyed), and turned into a pincushion by the hordes of skeletons, I have the yellow record. Go me >.> Gonna get back to mining now, I suppose. I'll make my first diamonds into a pick to ease the mining for more of em.

My main suggestion is making sure nothing can get on top of it and hide there. Prevents creepers and spiders from camping up there and dropping on you when you leave. Also note that zombies can climb ladders, so... put doors in, at least :P Speaking of zombies, my water trap was a bust. A zombie followed me into the safe waiting part and murdered me >_> Add to that, I wasn't getting many kills at all, so... the topic I found that Peronix's trap is based off of, I'll be building that. I figured out how to find my origin map chunk (coordinates 0,0), so now I just need to get a massive amount of iron, and build a minecart system from my spawn point/base all the way over there. Also, I thought TNT destroys ore as well as blowing everything else up. Was I wrong on that assumption? Wouldn't surprise me if I was, really :P I have 6 blocks of TNT right now, so if it doesn't destroy ore, I'll use it for mining. I need to get a temporary trap for gathering arrows and such, so maybe I'll set cacti out and about for killing stuff. I AM on a beach, after all... just gotta be careful that the cactus doesn't disintegrate my loot.

Well, got the nerve to start playing again, and the first thing I do is get lost while I'm hunting for bacon and iron. I am not surprised >.> I'm not losing my base due to my fail this time though, so I used x-ray to figure out where the heck I was. Way to the south, apparently. There's some clay nearby, so I'll nab that while I'm here and head home before it gets dark. At least I'm armed and don't have to dig a grave and bury myself to survive now, lol. Also, a creeper randomly activated quite a while ago and blew a nice sized crater right in front of my house. I dunno, but maybe it had something to do with the skeleton nearby, since I wasn't anywhere near close enough to get a creeper to explode. Really odd. Then, the next day, another creeper exploded and sent me flying off a small cliff. At least I survived, another first. Still no freaking iron to be found. I might have to start digging...

Want to know what's really creepy? A friend of mine that I got addicted to this as well showed me a screenshot of her playing earlier today. Guess what was in the background >_> It looked almost exactly like the picture on the wiki, just from a little bit more to the left, and there was a pig on a tree in the background. Really, I dunno if it was a screenie she took or not, but I believe her. And that really makes me nervous... And that damned chicken was in the screenie she showed me too. I'm killing every one of them I see from now on. The music alone is enough to get me paranoid, lol. Never mind the sound effects of the various monsters, or the possibility of being stealth killed yet again by a creeper >.< I'm constantly looking around now, and I turn my view distance up to far before I head out of my house to make sure there's nothing lurking nearby before I leave. Creepers like hiding straight below my house (it's up on a hill that I knocked all the ledges off of so nothing can get up on top of it, so it's a drop down from the ladder). ... Talking about skeletons reminds me of my first few encounters with them. Such as the one with it sitting up in a tall tree (how the hell it got there I don't know, there was a cliff nearby, maybe it jumped from there) and pelting me with arrows until I built a tower up the trunk to get at it. Or the one where a skeleton got stuck on my front door and was shooting through it. Or whenever they find an area I dug out and left a small ledge for them to hide under from the sun... I really don't like skeletons. Oh, and thanks for the compliment :) I really enjoy reading (and watching vids whenever I can) of other people playing this, it's really fascinating how... different our worlds can be. I got lucky with this spawn, it had a coal vein in the floor of my house and one just outside, but looking at the x-ray map viewer, there are no dungeons for a large distance in every direction... plus no iron that I've seen yet, but I haven't ventured terribly far from my spawn yet.

... I can safely say that the Herobrine article creeped me right the hell out. Jeebus, the thought of seeing this... urgh, don't want to think about it lol. Started a new world, made myself a house made of dirt with trees growing out of the roof. Currently in the process of digging a mineshaft and collecting material for building the water trap I had in my other save. Also, monsters are freaking everywhere on this save. literally seeing at least a dozen a night, got enough string for three bows already. At least I won't lose it this time. Just need a crapton of feathers and I should be good. I'm venturing out into the night more and more now, getting used to combat again. I still hate skeletons, but at least creepers are a little less... threatening. I'll probably regret that statement eventually >.> I need iron, though. Hopefully I'll locate some somewhere... and preferably not having to venture into a cave, I'm not ready for that yet. Furah, I've actually seen some obsidian generators before, and attempted it a few times myself. It takes ages to mine, even with a diamond pick >.< I use an infinite water source for that, though. .... I'm slightly afraid of playing Minecraft now because of that wiki page. Wonderful.

I'm guessing Neo either means that, or how to set up water + lava for you to mine cobblestone from, Furah. If it's the cobblestone generator.. well, the only knowledge I have is from the lava article on the Minecraft wiki: "If a horizontal lava flow collides with water, Cobblestone is created, but if a vertical lava flow collides with water, the water is removed.. In Alpha v.1.0.6_03 Obsidian is created from water colliding with a lava spring. This "technique" can be used to manipulate water and lava or to harvest cobblestone and obsidian." This explains how the two need to meet, but how on earth you mine the stone without incinerating yourself or the stone, I haven't a clue >.< there should be vids on youtube or something for creating one, though. And Peronix, I am so checking that trap out. I'm curious as to how the monster spawning process works to begin with (created a new world, and I'm literally seeing several dozen critters a night rather than 4-5/night like in my main world), and making a trap like this... a very, very, very large project by hand. Might have to go to peaceful difficulty to pull it off, though. Unless I spend several hours carting stone, glass, wood, etc to the 0,0 spot first, then start building... very interesting. Googled monster spawning "0,0", and I'm on the Minecraft forum now. Considering the title of the topic (Mob Spawning Science), I'm guessing it's the right topic. If it isn't, ah well. Still something interesting to read. ... If I can get this done, and manage to stockpile a bunch of TNT, I will be a very happy miner.

Finally turned the difficulty back up to easy (then normal after a bit), hoping to get into a few scrapes with the local monsters. Not much luck, sadly. They seem to be avoiding me >.> I usually see a creeper or two fairly far away on a nearby beach, and maybe a skeleton or two a fair distance away, but not much of anything nearby. I'm thinking it's because there are a fair number of torches about, but... meh. I'm sure I'll regret the want to fight these critters eventually :P I know my luck with stuff like this, lol. Decided that, since I've never, ever seen a dungeon before, to use Minecraft X-ray to hunt a few down. Marked down a few, and I've build a small base that should be right above one. Hopefully. Not a clue what I'll find, but it's sure to be interesting. Just hope it's not 'interesting' in the way of finding out how badly lava burns or something >.> Think after the dungeon hunts I'll head back to my base and head down my main mineshaft down to the bedrock and try to find some more diamonds. I could use some more. Plus I might need a diamond for a record player if I get extremely lucky and get one from that dungeon. I want so badly to test TNT out, but I have one piece of gunpowder stored somewhere, that's it. Need to find more creepers... and preferably not exploding ones.

Just a room out of my underground cave base thing for animal spawning - so I don't have to risk hunting outside for pork :P or gathering feathers, for that matter. Feathers I need/want more right now for arrows, honestly. Simple process bringing grass underground, though it takes a few days. just make your dirt floor underground, connect it via more dirt blocks to the above ground grass covered blocks, light up the path down (grass needs light from torches), and wait. Some days I get nothing down here animal wise, other days there's at least a half dozen animals if not more >.> it's really random, but I found it useful. Just, if you do any underground farming (wheat), make sure to block it off with doors or something to keep spawned animals from wandering in and stomping everything dead. Speaking of, my wheat field is probably nearly ready... not like I need any more food, lol. Currently, I'm investigating a cave system somewhere nearby my base, although I honestly have zero clue where exactly it is >.> found plenty of iron so far, and some coal, so I've set up a small temp base for smelting and storage while I keep investigating (brought 3 stacks of raw lumber, so I won't be leaving till I'm ready to). Only thing of minor interest besides iron/coal that I found was one lava and waterfall near one another that I have yet to work my way down to. No obsidian nearby, though. Not like I can mine it anyway, I left my diamond pick at home >.< If I get too overly full of ores, I'll probably turn some of my iron bars into minetracks and a cart or two and figure out just how that works >.> should be amusing, since it took me like 4 hours to wire my base and house for my loot indicator for my mob trap, lol. Oh, and on the clay front: found... 124 clay bits (so 31 blocks) in my adventures that increased my map size from 4 mb to 15.5mb or something like that. Destroyed I dunno how many boats wandering around due to random glitches where the boat shoots out from underneath me when I exit and self destructs when it hits land >.< I did find a large number of reeds, though. That's good, it saves me the effort of having to farm a ton of them for bookcases and the like. Well, back to mining I go. Why this is so bloody addictive I dunno, lol. EDIT: Took the time to count the coal I have stored after smelting the iron ore I found in my most recent cave activity. 1012 pieces of coal stored o_o why I find so much I really don't know... in comparison, I have 138 iron bars right now, although I'm starting to fool around with minecarts now, so that'll probably decrease fairly fast.

Due to me being on dialup, I only can play survival single player :P I find that iron is a tiny bit difficult to find (unless you really go digging a lot, which I don't do as much), coal is freaking everywhere though (having like, 10 full stacks common for me). I've only found maybe 3-4 gold ore rocks so far, and 2 1/2 stacks worth of redstone dust. Maybe 8-10 diamonds, and those are really, really deep down, from what I've seen. I dug a shaft straight down from my spawn point, and started mining from down there. That's how I found the few diamonds I have :P although it takes a few picks to get down that deep. You could be cheap and download a map viewing program (the wiki has links, I believe) which can show you where ores are located - I personally have Minecraft X-ray for when I really need to find something, otherwise I'll explore and locate it myself. I found X-ray a bit glitchy though, it does serve it's purpose. Still trying to hunt down this blasted clay. I haven't found a single piece of it, I'm starting to think my map spawned without it -_- Oh, and I also have the Painterly texture pack installed. Looks very nice.