Minecraft General

[Dupin]

I just got Minecraft. Played around a bit in classic and now gonna try Survival mode, which is much different from what I read. Any tips for a noob on how to start? :rolleyes:

Play on Normal or Easy from the beginning, so you don't end up like the sorry newbs above.

 

Build a little house, get some wood by mining trees, make a wooden pickaxe, mine stone, make a stone pickaxe, start mining and exploring. Look for coal from the beginning, it is normally in caves near the surface. Stay in your house at night, or at least make a chest and put your stuff in it. The game gets moving pretty fast. You basically just explore and build and do whatever you want.

 

Check the Wiki for crafting recipes, watch Seananners' vids on Youtube if you need a visual example.

 

And be sure to walk close to those green things with no arms :twisted:

[LinkOlaran]

Fiddling around with the recently updated Biome Mod right now. Also installed the marble mod as well, which introduces marble blocks into the game (in three flavors, available here: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=79760). Trying to get a world with a fair number of deep chasms while still having some nice areas up above to build on, although I'm getting increasingly irritated at starting in/next to snow and/or desert biomes, so I'm adjusting the temperature to mostly eliminate them.

 

Also, the replacewaterwithlava true/false part of the settings lags me like hell because of said snow biomes (ice+lava = lots of melting = lots of lag). Still, it might be a new challenge, considering how very little water is available... might consider trying it for real at some point. Right now though, my original idea. Also implemented Cadde's ore settings in the Biome Mod, although I have very little idea of what exactly it did yet >_> I'll find out, I suppose.

 

Oh, and I replaced my in game character skin, finally >.> a Link one, of course :P

 

 

Ah, and for Gio:

 

More or less, this is what I do to start:

 

1. Find a bunch of trees, punch one down. Make a crafting bench and a wooden axe and pick (recipes are on the wiki), use up axe chopping down some more wood (I've seen people get by pretty easily with about a dozen raw wood blocks at the start, but I tend to just go till the wooden axe breaks :P)

 

2. Find a coal deposit, and mine it out along with some of the surrounding stone to make stone tools later. Use the coal and some more sticks to make torches to make your eventual home safe from mob spawning while you're away.

 

3. Locate a starting place for a shelter. The easiest method is digging a hole in the side of a cliff, but be wary of mobs possibly sitting on top of your entrance and jumping onto you in the mornings when you exit. Put a door on your entrance (when you place it, place it while you're outside looking in, I've noticed that skeletons can't shoot through if the door is facing like that, but the reverse they have a chance to, or at least they did in older versions)

 

After you have a hole to protect yourself at night with, it's your choice to do whatever you want. I personally try to make sure to kill as many spiders as I can to obtain a bow and two fishing rods as soon as I can. I also try to get some sand collected to smelt down into glass using a furnace (different fuels and how long they last are listed on the furnace wiki page, but the two I use are coal = 8 items smelted, and processed wood = 1.5 items smelted). Glass is always good for looking out of your hidey hole in the morning to survey the surroundings, rather than a hole in the wall a skele could shoot through >.>

 

There's so much to do in this game, it's impossible to list all the starting stuff, lol >.> just make sure to have a shelter by nightfall, that's when the mobs spawn. Also, only creepers and spiders will survive the sunrise, zombies and skeletons will burn up (and drop their respective loot) once it gets bright enough, but they won't burn if they're in water or hiding under a tree/in a cave. Spiders also go unaggro, assuming they weren't already actively trying to kill you (in which case you need to stay out of sight long enough for them to lose interest, but I don't bother with that). Oh, and quick/easy defences are pitfalls/trenches (at least two blocks deep) and cactus walls (can't put them directly next to one another, also need to be placed on a sand block)

 

Sorry for the extremely long post >_> Oh, and SeaNanners is epic. So is X, but I started watching SeaNanners first, so he's better in my eyes :P

[Skull]

Another minecraft LPer that I like is "paulsoaresjr" I actually prefer him to both Seananners and X. Although they're all really good in their own way.

 

Edit: Also, I'll upload my main map if anyone's interested. Let me know.

[Neos_Matrix]

And be sure to walk close to those green things with no arms :twisted:

 

I call them "Aberrant Spectres". :thumbup:

 

Anyways, I finished my mob trap. 25x25 blocks, but the sad thing is, the mobs are too smart to walk into it. Waste of time imo :wall:

[Tim]

on my new world, I haven't been able to find not ONE spot of Lava yet. I might need to use the xray thing to find it because its getting a bit absurd. Also going to start making TNT traps. >:3

 

How does a TNT pressure trap work?

 

 

[Pressure Plate]

[ Sand / Gravel]

[TNT Box]

 

?

[LinkOlaran]

I only tried making tnt landmines once, but putting a pressure pad right onto a tnt block works fine. The pad pops off and goes into item form when it's activated, although I didn't notice it breaking in the explosion either (wooden pressure pad at that).

 

 

Still trying to find a decent world. The amount of deserts I start in is astounding to the point I adjusted the temperature/moisture settings of the Biome Mod to (hopefully) almost completely disable them. And I'm still spawning in them -.- It's either that or snow biomes (or both) that I always start in. Hoping that I'll start far away from both and have cliffs nearby soon. If only Minecraft would stop breaking and refuse to generate worlds after a certain unknown number... (when I hit the empty slot, it takes me to the world generation screen, but the progress bar never appears). Whenever it stops generating worlds, I usually have to remove the modded jar file from the bin folder, and put in the backup old one, generate a world, then switch it out again (hopefully, I've been taking the vanilla Minecraft jar file and reloading the Biome and marble mods into them up till now, but I assume just switching in the previously not working one will work too... >.<)

 

 

EDIT: *spawns two more worlds* *both start in deserts* FUUU go the [bleep] away, stupid deserts -.- seriously, the chance of a desert being created now is very near nill, and they're still spawning... that does it, cactus aren't that useful. Adjusting temp/moisture so they can't spawn at all. If I get one after that, then it's haxing.

 

EDIT 2: Thought it couldn't get any worse, then it did. Minecraft must've managed to corrupt at least one of it's files, since it started blackscreening and crashing, regardless of me putting the default, non edited jar file back in or not. Had to redownload everything, which took another half hour -.- I got it working now, though. Mods and all.

[Skull]

 

House I spent the last 8 hours gathering resources for and building? No, that probably wasn't important to me.

[LinkOlaran]

Dude, that just sucks >.< shame there wasn't much of anything salvageable... although I see a chest and a crafting bench survived. I noted the bricks, so... was it a fireplace or lava? >.<

 

Guess I should be really careful putting one in any wooden house I build... although I tend to build cave fortresses more often, heh. Well, at least one good thing, wood is fairly easily to replace... still sucks that it happened, though.

 

 

Finally got Minecraft working properly. Corrupted itself again, luckily I thought to back up the newly redownloaded files and zip them in case of this situation. After a bit of effing around, I have a new world. Currently sitting in a 2x3x2 box with doors, completely dark outside, no torches since I couldn't find any freaking coal. Again. I hear zombies, spiders, and... cows. Guess which is bothering me the most right now >.>

 

 

... How many effing spiders are on my roof? Jeebus >.<

[Skull]

It was a fireplace. I though I gave myself enough of a buffer between the flame and the wood, but I must have messed up somewhere. I'll just go back to my main base and pick up some more supplies, it's not a problem. I have two tree farms so it's not a huge loss. Just kind of annoying that I was almost done and then lit the entire thing on fire.

[Giordano]

Thanks for the advice guys. The recipes on the wiki really, really helped. I started venturing into caves but get attacked by mobs constantly. Either I suck or how do you guys survive going deep in mines? (Besides bring armor and food)

[Skull]

Lots and lots of light. It's more important than food and armor in my opinion. Always over light areas and make sure you don't leave areas behind you in the dark.

[LinkOlaran]

With caves, you have to be extremely cautious >.> mobs can spawn and hide just about anywhere (big rooms with ledges above you are your biggest problem, they can and will hide up there and either drop down, or in the case of skeles, shoot you).

 

I'd start getting used to combat above ground first before I ventured into caves, though. Knowing how to dispatch everything will make it easier to handle. So long as you don't get too swarmed, you should be able to take anything down with a bow. Sword though, that's a bit more difficult, you'd have trouble with spiders and skeletons.

 

Basically, when I go into caves, I bring supplies to last me a fairly long time (stack of 64 raw lumber, coal, extra swords/arrows, any iron bars I might have to make more tools, and the rest food, most likely). I tend to advance slowly in areas I'm not completely sure about, but once I have a base of operations (crafting bench, maybe a couple furnaces, and at least one big chest) set up and walled in with doors/glass to see around the area, I start moving a bit faster. Always keep your eyes and ears open if there's any dark unexplored areas around you. I tend to explore the surrounding area first, then come back to mine everything just to make sure no nasties decide to sneak up on me while I'm mining. I always tend to try to make the lighting as bright as I can, to avoid mobs spawning in the lit areas - with the recent updates and Notch changing the spawn code more, I'm not sure what the optimal lighting is anymore, but I tend to put a torch down every 3-4 blocks. Be extra cautious around lava, since one hit from even a zombie is all it takes for you and everything in your invy to be incinerated :P I either pour water on it if I have a bucket (makes obsidian), or I flat out avoid it and don't stay very close to it.

 

If there're too many mobs in one area, retreat and slowly come back. Chances are, some of them followed you, but not all. Try to thin the ranks a bit and only have one-two aggro on you at once, you'll survive a lot easier that way. Oh, and if there're skeletons and anything else there, you could try to get the skele to accidentally shoot the other mob. This can have some... bad consequences though, since creepers will explode >.> funny as hell to watch the mobs infighting, though.

 

Oh, and if you think you might die, make absolutely sure you know how to get back. Death only means losing stuff if you can't get back in time. I died... hm, not sure how far away it was, but it took me a good 20 min of sailing to get back in the general area. I'm guessing from that, that the timer for dropped items only starts when the map chunk the items are on is loaded, but I'm not 100% sure. The timer is about 5 min, from my experience, and I know I took a lot longer than that to get back. Good thing too, since I had a diamond pick and a watch on me, not to mention my only bow >.<

 

And yes, if you just started, you're probably not that used to combat yet :P don't worry too much about it, keep at it and you'll be able to handle just about anything. Just don't get cocky, that always ends badly. I should know >_>

 

Cave delving can be annoying with all the mobs, I admit :P usually worth it though, if you manage to get down deep enough to get diamonds.

 

Hope I helped somewhat. If all else fails, just keep at it. You'll get into those caves eventually.

[Aeon_]

Well I'm an idiot. Made a creeper statue made completely out of TNT (my skin it is a creeper bomb) and accidentally set down a pressure plate and stood on it. Needless to say, TNT flew everywhere and the 'shockwave' killed me and demolished my items. BUT. I had set it on a TNT that made everything fly towards my tower. It destroyed half of my carthouse, and had at least made 5 separate holes in my base. It also ripped my moat to shreds, as well as my cactus wall. Strangely, my watchtower was almost completely fine, despite being in front of the base. Luckily, all I lost from that was 3 sand and glass blocks. Where my front door once stood, there is now a 10 block wide hole.

 

On a lighter note, how would I go about making a water elevator? I'm trying make one nearby, but so far it's been a PITA. I've also made a (2 railed so far) cannon made completely of obsidian aside from the firing controls. Sadly, I've made it too high up so it barely hits anything. But it still looks completely badass. Should I call it Bessie? Or railgun?

[Napalm]

So I started looking for some trees in Minecraft, when all of a sudden I realized I was lost. So I started trying to find my way back to my base, without realizing I was actually getting further and further away. My first night was spend on a huge ass natural tower. I didn't want to die and respawn because I had over 2 sets of iron bars and a diamond pickaxe and sword. So I continued exploring for an hour and a half, until I decided it was time to go back home. Another hour and a half later I was back at the tower. Manly tears were shed when I finaly found the tower (seriously, I got very lost after that point). So the sun sets, and I think its a good idea to climb the highest tree on the highest mountain near the tower to see if I could find my base. Guess what? I fell from the tree and died. Lost everything. So I'm back at my base, and I can't even find the tower or the mountain.

 

This file was 4 MB before I started exploring.

[Giordano]

With caves, you have to be extremely cautious >.> mobs can spawn and hide just about anywhere (big rooms with ledges above you are your biggest problem, they can and will hide up there and either drop down, or in the case of skeles, shoot you).

 

I'd start getting used to combat above ground first before I ventured into caves, though. Knowing how to dispatch everything will make it easier to handle. So long as you don't get too swarmed, you should be able to take anything down with a bow. Sword though, that's a bit more difficult, you'd have trouble with spiders and skeletons.

 

Basically, when I go into caves, I bring supplies to last me a fairly long time (stack of 64 raw lumber, coal, extra swords/arrows, any iron bars I might have to make more tools, and the rest food, most likely). I tend to advance slowly in areas I'm not completely sure about, but once I have a base of operations (crafting bench, maybe a couple furnaces, and at least one big chest) set up and walled in with doors/glass to see around the area, I start moving a bit faster. Always keep your eyes and ears open if there's any dark unexplored areas around you. I tend to explore the surrounding area first, then come back to mine everything just to make sure no nasties decide to sneak up on me while I'm mining. I always tend to try to make the lighting as bright as I can, to avoid mobs spawning in the lit areas - with the recent updates and Notch changing the spawn code more, I'm not sure what the optimal lighting is anymore, but I tend to put a torch down every 3-4 blocks. Be extra cautious around lava, since one hit from even a zombie is all it takes for you and everything in your invy to be incinerated :P I either pour water on it if I have a bucket (makes obsidian), or I flat out avoid it and don't stay very close to it.

 

If there're too many mobs in one area, retreat and slowly come back. Chances are, some of them followed you, but not all. Try to thin the ranks a bit and only have one-two aggro on you at once, you'll survive a lot easier that way. Oh, and if there're skeletons and anything else there, you could try to get the skele to accidentally shoot the other mob. This can have some... bad consequences though, since creepers will explode >.> funny as hell to watch the mobs infighting, though.

 

Oh, and if you think you might die, make absolutely sure you know how to get back. Death only means losing stuff if you can't get back in time. I died... hm, not sure how far away it was, but it took me a good 20 min of sailing to get back in the general area. I'm guessing from that, that the timer for dropped items only starts when the map chunk the items are on is loaded, but I'm not 100% sure. The timer is about 5 min, from my experience, and I know I took a lot longer than that to get back. Good thing too, since I had a diamond pick and a watch on me, not to mention my only bow >.<

 

And yes, if you just started, you're probably not that used to combat yet :P don't worry too much about it, keep at it and you'll be able to handle just about anything. Just don't get cocky, that always ends badly. I should know >_>

 

Cave delving can be annoying with all the mobs, I admit :P usually worth it though, if you manage to get down deep enough to get diamonds.

 

Hope I helped somewhat. If all else fails, just keep at it. You'll get into those caves eventually.

Ahh, thanks. Hadn't thought about actually building a base inside. :oops:

 

Combat seems pretty straight forward, but its just the surprise attacks these creepers do that throws me off. :-( The intensive lighting method will be my next.

[Zilla]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6P1GsPJAnY

[Skull]

Building a mother [bleep]ing cannon.

 

On a separate hacked world though, no way I'm gathering all those resources just to [bleep] [cabbage] up

[LinkOlaran]

So, from what I remember (and now double checking) from Cadde's Ore Vein mod (which the creator of the Biome Mod included the list of settings to change in the biomesettings txt file to emulate), the mod is supposed to make it so that the veins of ore up near the surface are small, but the further down you go, the larger they get. I know they get larger. A lot larger. 97 coal vein right after a 59 iron vein >__> not a clue how deep I am, although I thought I heard lava a second ago. My inventory is running out of space, lol.

 

I didn't download this to make things easier, though... I'm hoping it's just focusing all the tiny veins of ore into bigger ones like I recall the description saying, and not just making more ore/map chunk. If I go down and find a crapton of diamonds, I might just delete this world and revert the settings back to the old one :S I'll admit, it is fun seeing these massive veins of ore, though... hm...

 

Oh, and I'm going to be trying to make a massive tree to make a house in/on. Already have 700 ish blocks of raw lumber, and 30 something saplings to build branches with. Hope I can make my way back to my spawn after I finish off this cave (trying to get down deep enough for redstone/diamond to make a compass). Oh, and I am playing on peaceful for now. More interested in building than fighting right now :P

[Peronix]

I haven't tested it thoroughly myself, but from the description oreveins is supposed to at least make veins rarer while increasing their size. From what I can tell looking around below in MCEdit veins aren't always big like that and diamond dosen't appear to be affected at all.

[LinkOlaran]

I just downloaded a hookshot mod (kinda... expected, given my name :P) and was using Minutor to find a dungeon for a string to make it with (since I'm on peaceful atm). I ran into an iron vein that had 258 ores in it. Seriously >.> looking at Minutor though, it seems to function like it states, there aren't as many veins as before, but the ones that're there near the bottom are massive for coal and iron. The difference is less noticeable (but still there) for redstone and gold, and diamond didn't seem to shift much at all, but they do look a tiny bit bigger.

 

Onto trying to get to a 3rd dungeon, since the first two had no string. I see another huge ass iron vein in my way, plus three titanic coal veins somewhere a bit further underneath the dungeon I'm aiming for now which I'm not bothering to get (nearly full inventory).

 

EDIT: Dear god it's everywhere:

 

 

... I need more picks. >_>

[Giordano]

:drool:

 

I followed your advice and made great progress. Found lots of coal, iron, even gold and diamond! What an adventure!

 

Is the teleporter to the Nether still possible? You need like a huge crafting table it seems. :/

[LinkOlaran]

261 iron ore there. Plus I fell into another cave and there's coal, iron and redstone down there >_>

 

And the nether gates are completely possible to make in single player (fairly sure they're still disabled/glitchy on multiplayer, but I'm not sure). You need to make a frame of obsidian with a gap 2x3 (2 across, 3 high, also means it needs... 14 blocks of obsidian, although I've heard you can go without the corner blocks to save 4 and it still works - make sure the frame is a complete circle, and the base is connected to form a box). After that, take a flint and steel and ignite the portal. Keep in mind that (I've heard anyway) it's possible for ghasts and maybe zombie pigmen (not sure on pigmen, but I know I've heard of ghasts doing this) spawning near your normal world end portal, so try to enclose the gate in a small room so they can't spawn (ghasts need a 5x5x5 area to spawn in, I believe).

 

Oh, and the sounds in the Nether that the ghasts make are supposed to make you piss your pants. Lucky me, I went in on peaceful >.> only saw/heard them in X and later SeaNanners' Nether realm vids, decided that I probably won't be going in there on anything but peaceful after that, lol.

 

Back to trying to find that dungeon, then I'll investigate the cave I found.

[oreocookie987]

[spoiler=Quote]

And the nether gates are completely possible to make in single player (fairly sure they're still disabled/glitchy on multiplayer, but I'm not sure). You need to make a frame of obsidian with a gap 2x3 (2 across, 3 high, also means it needs... 14 blocks of obsidian, although I've heard you can go without the corner blocks to save 4 and it still works - make sure the frame is a complete circle, and the base is connected to form a box). After that, take a flint and steel and ignite the portal. Keep in mind that (I've heard anyway) it's possible for ghasts and maybe zombie pigmen (not sure on pigmen, but I know I've heard of ghasts doing this) spawning near your normal world end portal, so try to enclose the gate in a small room so they can't spawn (ghasts need a 5x5x5 area to spawn in, I believe).

 

The design of using only 10 blocks works, just leave out the corners.

[LinkOlaran]

Figures. The third dungeon I go to has the string I need, and while I'm digging up the mossy cobblestone, I find a hole leading to another cave. Upon exploring it, this is what I find:

 

 

This can't be a coincidence. Third dungeon, right under the room with the hookshot, I find all this water?

 

... I think I found the Minecraftian Water Temple.

 

>__>

 

(okay, I know it isn't that spectacular looking, but I still find the fact that this is right under the room I made the hookshot to be hilarious. Gives me some practice with it, at least >_>)

[Orpheus]

How do you get the hookshot?