Minecraft General

[LinkOlaran]

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.

[Dizzle229]

He just stands there...

 

Anyways, everything else I was going to say is here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stY5oR7ugdc

[Peronix]

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.

 

TNT randomly destroys or dislodges the blocks around it. Basically how TNT works is that if contained, it will destroy a 3x3x3 of stone around itself. Sometimes you'll get most of the stone, sometimes not so much. So I mine two out on the center, place the tnt, light it, plug the hole, stand back and it will blow a 3x3x3 tunnel in front of me. Usually if there is much valuable ore to be found in that 3x3x3 block, It will more than likely be exposed by the hole I dig for the TNT. If not, not much of the ore will be lost anyway, if it is even destroyed. Though TNT is slightly more powerful for dirt, and even moreso for gravel. So your tunnel won't be perfect no matter what, because there is lots of dirt and gravel scattered beneath the surface.

 

Honestly I've only hurt diamond with TNT once, and then I still got the diamond anyway. :-P Seriously since I started mining with TNT, now I have an entire stack of diamonds and then some. Though because of my insatiable hunger for TNT, a small island near my base no longer has a beach :grin:

[Zilla]

He just stands there...

 

 

Like half the Creepers I have seen just stand still at times, sometimes in a cave they are just there watching me. Sometimes they wait outside the entrance of my base... I guess they just want a hug.

[Dupin]

Dizzle, to make grass, you have to bring it up. Make a wooden hoe (half a pickaxe) and "mine" the grass down below, then plant it up above. It will spread to adjacent squares, so you won't have to worry about having a huge dirt area down below.

 

Oh, and nice lava :P

[Dizzle229]

Thanks!

 

AND THANK YOU FOR APPRECIATING THE LAVA IT COST ME EVERYTHING

[Dax]

That lava is pretty damn awesome. I ENJOY IT.

 

And you've given me an idea, I'm gonna make watchtowers around the general area in which my base is in. :thumbup:

[LinkOlaran]

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.

[Dax]

Built my first watchtower, thinking I might smash it and start over, looks pretty bad. :-|

[LinkOlaran]

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.

[Peregrine]

http://twitter.com/notch/status/27923285752

 

O_o;;

 

Just think of the possibilities. Player/Clan owned worlds and whatnot. It would be interesting if Notch gave the option for a password to these 'server portals', too.

 

Picture for the above twitter status if the site is down. (Took a while with a few refreshes for me.)

 

[Peronix]

Phew, I finally finished expanding my mob trap. Good god that took a long time. Not as long as it could have though since I used TNT for much of the excavation. Anyway, it now has 26 floors and extends all the way down to the bottom of the world. Pics:

 

[hide]

 

The underbelly. Lots of drops.

 

Drops flow into this point. It's important to make the drops flow at least 24 blocks away from the spawning floors, as nothing will spawn in a 24 block radius of you. The lava shown is so that you can make stacks of 1 of items you want, so you'll pick those up and the rest will slide past you into the lava (provided you remove the block). That's pretty much what I do for all of the drops besides gunpowder now. String is useless, same for feathers, already have a large chest stuffed with arrows, etc.

 

Sacrificed one floor for the cool catwalk. I was going for a factory look.

 

Behind that window in the background. It's connected to a small tower which visits all the floors along the way.

 

One of the floor enterances. Half blocks to prevent mobs from spawning there. They also won't spawn on glass, but didn't want to use that.

 

And finally a shot of the outside. I know, it looks ugly. IDK maybe I'll eventually figure something out to look pretty.

 

[/hide]

 

Phew. I really need to figure out youtube. Kind of hard to show something in pictures sometimes...

[LinkOlaran]

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.

[Peronix]

The lava actually kills spiders fine. But I noticed mobs would occasionally glitch into the corners of the glass somehow... once a creeper did that, and I tried to clear him out manually and... it did not end well :razz: The cacti seem to have stopped that problem, though I still can't figure out why I'll occasionally find spiders in the center. They're prone to glitching, I think.

[Furah]

 

I wanted Notch to add drugs to the game, but then I thought no after I realised the joke "the creeper only wants a hug" will become "the creeper only wants a toke."

[Aeon_]

Why does the website have to be down. <_<

[Furah]

 

That's why.

[Shiny]

4Chan can't handle the awesomeness that is Minecraft.

[Dax]

4Chan can't handle the awesomeness that is Minecraft.

 

Have you bought it yet? You pirate, you.

[Shiny]

4Chan can't handle the awesomeness that is Minecraft.

 

Have you bought it yet? You pirate, you.

 

Yeah, about a week ago. I'm going to a minecraft LAN with my friends this weekend. They were waiting for me to buy it :mrgreen:

[Aeon_]

 

That's why.

Now that is just typical. <_<

[LinkOlaran]

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.

[Furah]

Well it's back up. :D

 

[spoiler=The real reason the servers were down.]

 

 

Wishing there was a legit way to find chunk 0,0. I want to build myself a big collection system to get the necessary amounts of gunpowder to do lots of TNT mining. It's so much fun.

[LinkOlaran]

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

[Poppet]

Oct 22 2010

 

The final papers have been signed!

Woo! We had a meeting today where we signed the final papers for the new company! All the details are worked out, everyone is on board, and things are looking good! Woo!

Employment contracts have been drafted and prepared for everyone. :D

 

Well hopefully get the office signed next week, but until we can move in there (early next year), weve got a temporary place we can stay.

 

What else..

 

Oh yeah, were working on setting up a straight credit card purchasing option for people who rather not use paypal, I think were pretty close to having that deal finalized with our bank. I should be able to start implementing that soon after the Halloween update.

 

Ive also signed up for a DDoS protection service, and took the chance to upgrade the server hardware to a much more powerful beast. I havent migrated things over to that server yet, but thats coming soon.

 

Coding wise, Im officially behind schedule now, but I fully intend to deliver. My schedule is clearing up nicely, and Im learning to say no to people who want to talk to me. I just blame it on having an important update to do.

 

 

Dizzle Notch indirectly hates you.

 

Also going to get when the credit card payment comes.