by OathBros: danaphanous, zann10thousand, Compsogbrickus, and Corax
A public build of this map has been released already, you can find the new thread here! I will continue to post updates as I work on expansions every 2 weeks here:
This map combines elements of Survival, Adventure, Puzzles, Exploration, and Command Block Technology seamlessly into one fresh new experience. Prepare to be challenged, as the normal Minecraft mechanics have been dramatically altered, and in some cases completely rewritten by command block running behind the scenes!
To name some features:
I have tripled the amount of new creatures that spawn in the world, most of them custom with new drops and behaviors! Some of them very useful!
I have added real Seasons to Minecraft: there is Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter!
As the seasons change throughout the 25-day year so do the creatures that spawn, the daylight cycle, Crop growth, precipitation, meteor showers, duststorms, game difficulty, temperature, animal breeding, and daylight cycling!
I have also added a custom tech tree alongside the normal one with some very useful new space age items and technologies.
As you survive on the asteroids your physical abilities will slowly start to improve up to a certain point. You will run and walk faster, swim faster, your attack speed will increase, your health will improve, you will take less damage from falls, and your breath underwater will last longer! This is to simulate your body changing and adapting to its new environment!
I have programmed an AI companion to travel with you in your Biosuit and it is quite the chatterbox! The AI will comment on your situation, give you advice, spot and comment on new creatures and scan them, and even help you come up with new crafting recipes to try as you find new items!
You can also craft physical upgrades to your Biosuit giving you some nifty new abilities like a glider, jetpack, night vision goggles, armor, and augmented limbs!
You cannot visit the nether or end but all the creatures from these dimensions will spawn in different seasons and have drops making the blocks from their dimensions renewable.
The result is a new kind of survival, reimagined completely, for an alien new world. You'll have to figure out everything from the beginning, and there is a LOT to discover! This is an entirely fresh experience, and adapting to life in this world will be both a challenge and a joy that should fill you with memories of your first days playing survival Minecraft when everything was new and fresh!
This map has been under development for more then a year already and is expanding all the time! It is currently in Public Beta, meaning that it is open to play and has many hours of content, but we are still working on it and releasing expansions with new content every 2 weeks for current players to check out! See the "Updating" section for details on how to experience the new updates without restarting your map!
New Biomes and Strange Terrain:
I worked days to bring you fantastical terrain fitting of an exotic new world. Explore layered terrain that fully utilizes the 256-block limit. Unique Asteroid-biomes, shadowed realms, new plant life, and enormous custom caverns with unique life and ecosystems! The nether and end do not exist and cannot be visited but you can still get the critical blocks from these dimensions as new drops from mobs or by finding deposits in the world. My builders and I are creating dozens of unique new biomes in addition to the default ones, and we are adding more all the time! The map is enormous for a space map, 10,000x10,000 blocks! This is because I recognized the potential that the elytra and jetpack have given, allowing players to venture much further then before in survival! Trust me, you will be exploring and finding new things for days...if you so choose.
Seasons and New Weather Patterns!
The first major thing that this map adds to survival, is real live seasons! The asteroid system goes through 4 distinct "seasons" each year, which is 25 days. The spring has crazy rain squalls with intermittently clear skies and pouring rain the next minute. This season is "easy" difficulty with many peaceful and useful new creatures and crop growth rates are much higher then normal. Summer on the other hand has hot, clear skies with much longer days then nights and occasional sandstorms and meteor showers. It doesn't rain and new creatures arrive during this season that like the hot climate. After summer comes fall with the resumption of rain. The world becomes cooler and plants grow more slowly. Many new creatures arrive during this time. Finally comes winter, snow falls everywhere, the days are dark and twilit as the asteroid system is far away from the sun, and dangerous monsters come out to play!
To add to the seasonal variety every season has many unique new creatures I created with new drops. Crop growth, precipitation, meteor showers, duststorms, game difficulty, temperature, animal breeding, and daylight cycling all change as well. It is advised that you plan your activities around the seasons as many things are only available during certain ones and even the things that spawn from spawners can change allowing multi-purpose mob farms!
Many New Creatures and Drops!
The seasons and unique areas are loaded with custom creatures. These guys are a product of my new experimental mob system that I developed and are a step beyond normal map customization looking and behaving entirely new rather then just variants or boring old overpowered versions of old mobs. I have more then doubled the number of creatures found in the game already and am adding more all the time to new biomes or areas as I create them!
I have new insects, new flying creatures, new water creatures, new cave creatures, and new surface creatures! I have new riding creatures and even some rare boss monsters guarding dungeons! All of them have new drops to discover, both common and rare, and many of them spawn out in the world everywhere like normal mobs during certain seasons rather then needing spawners--though there are custom dungeons as well.
Also, some creatures have new abilities that you can discover such as helping with crop growth, changing the weather, attracting lightning, and grinding stone into gravel! Mob farming on this map is incredibly complex as a result and has huge potential! Many of the new drops are useful as new renewable sources of existing items or for use in new crafting recipes using the Synthesizer in your ship! Unique items can be recognized as shiny versions of existing items and can be used in new crafting recipes or as the item they replace.
Examples of new mob combinations: Bear Archer, Wolf Rider, Squid Head, Slime Queen
Examples of creatures that look/behave like entirely new animals: Firefly, Fire-Ant, Wood Sprite, Sea Urchin, Mud Crab, Sand Wraith, Sorcerer, Fish
Companion Biosuit AI with Gradually Expanding Technology Tree!
The Biosuit Mark 12.3b is a full-fledged AI and will be your constant companion through this adventure! He will be the source of advice, encourage you to explore, give you ideas for new crafting recipes gradually as you explore and obtain new items, and comment on all the new creatures as you see them.
I've made him very chatty with hundreds of comments already so even if you are playing single-player you won't feel alone!
This map contains my version of a custom crafting tech tree and I'm planning dozens of new items, modules, redstone components, and more! I'm putting a new spin on it though. Rather then just give you the crafting recipes in some spreadsheet, or tell you them ingame and make you remember them, new recipes in this game are gradually discovered as you obtain new items or prereq. ingredients! Some are even alien technology discovered through ruins or completely options rewards for finding new areas!
Sounds confusing right? No not at all! As you discover every new crafting recipe a quick info-note detailing the discovery will appear in the holodeck back at your ship automatically! Now if you forget the recipe, there is an in-game way to look it up again and learn about the new item! The best part about this is I don't have to publish the full list somewhere tempting you to cheat on discovering them! (I'll leave it up to players to share discoveries with each other though as there is an extraordinary amount of hidden secret features on this map!)
New modules/components that change survival!
There will be build-able machines and modules which dramatically change and extend normal survival! This allows for progression that can potentially last many years!
Synethesizer:This is the core of the new tech and crafting tree. It comes installed in your ship lander and will assemble complex new items or other ship/suit upgrades from raw ingredients you gather. It is one-of-a-kind on this Expedition and is far too advanced of a technology for you to replicate it. Hints and instructions to new recipes will be unlocked as you obtain certain new items and will displayed in chat. In addition, the things to discover and new synthesizer recipes will be be stored in the holodeck computer if you forget and want to read them again later!
Holodeck Computer: A virtual reality interface that can be entered at will inside your computer. Here you can view the credits wall, change the game options, or read up on the information you've collected on new creatures or new crafting recipes! There is also a holographic creature display so you can see virtual versions of the creatures you've encountered and plan how to fight them. Some have tough new abilities you'll need to overcome!
Recycler: Allows you to convert many dead-end crafted items like old armors, tools, and other items into raw ingredients automatically! Removing many worthless items like crappy armors and tools dropped form mob farms! Because of this it adds many sources of new renewable items and can be used to automate in mob farms! Disenchanter: Can be used to automatically remove enchantments from items detected on top of itself and will give xp. It can also reset work penalties from working on the anvil, store xp gathered by the player in bottles, and scan new items you find to reveal hidden enchantments!
Meteor Shield Rail-Gun Unit: meteors wrecking your base? Craft the meteor shielding railgun. An automatic turret that will detect incoming ghast fireballs and meteors and obliterate them with railgun-launched projectiles! In the case of meteors there is a small chance to drop rare meteor metals as well allowing for automatic collection of the rare meteor metals!
Block Breaker: This one is for you technical players. Enjoy this new tool that opens up a new world of automation seen only in mods like industrial-craft! The block breaker, once installed, will destroy any block beneath itself including bedrock or barriers. You can use it to break into impenetrable secret ruins, or automate things like cobblestone generators or flint manufacturing! It mines just like a player with the appropriate tool!
Creature Killer: To open up new options for compact mob farming or just to protect your base, craft the creature-killer, which will apply withering effects to all nearby creatures!
All manufacturable new blocks/modules can be placed or moved at will and work automatically opening up worlds of new automation! Many more are planned, comment me ideas if you have one!
Player and Bio-suit Upgrades!
Player stamina upgrades: As you survive on the asteroids your physical abilities will slowly start to improve up to a certain point. You will run and walk faster, swim faster, your attack speed will increase, your health will improve, you will take less damage from falls, and your breath underwater will last longer! This is to simulate your body changing and adapting to its new environment! Player physical upgrades are time-based and gradually change with the turn of the seasons. I currently have them capped at around 2-5x normal depending on the stat so you don't get too OP, but it's a fun feature to feel your character level up over the first few years! This is a fun alternative to simply putting on OP diamond armor or enchants which is currently disabled on this map. You can only wear the biosuit in Space Expedition as it is critical for your survival and studies!
Even though you can only wear your biosuit, with some work it will soon become more valuable then any suit of armor ever would! You can craft many upgrades to make it better with the materials you find and it comes with a book with many features such as questions about the seasons, toggle-able abilities, and even music options you can listen too on the go! Here's a list of some upgrades:
Armor Rating Upgrades: There are 5 materials that you can find that will increase your armor rating up to a certain point (some better then others). The beginning biosuit comes with some useful enchants like feather falling I, Depth strider I, respiration 1, and aqua affinity 1, but no armor. That, you'll have to craft as you find the right materials. No more diamond armor in 15 minutes on this map!
Night Vision Goggle Upgrade: craft a night-vision upgrade to your visor that will allow you to engage/disengage night vision at will for better spelunking and swimming!
Augmented Limbs Upgrade: tired of that weak mining speed and attack speed? Upgrade your suit so it has the augmented limbs ability, a robotically-assisted power module attached to your arms and legs! Engage and disengage it at will engage to have a permanent buff to your attack speed and mining speed while on long exploration journeys. Gone are the days of slow coal mining, you can strip mine super fast while out exploring for new resources, no beacons required!
Scanning and Translation Circuit: Surprisingly enough you soon find you were not the first to visit this system. What happened to the previous visitors? You will find traces of them about including an alien written language! If you collect enough samples you can translate it and begin to do some archaelogy! Learning about these mysterious aliens. The suit comes equipped with a translation circuit that can automatically translate alien writings you acquire so you can read them!
Auto-Glider Upgrade: you can craft an Elytra glider that will unfold from your suit when you hold a remote. This system not only allows for gliding but is superior to the normal Elytra since you don't have to go into your inventory and waste time equipping it. If you fall off a cliff, simply press the item slot of the remote to instantly unfold it! Unfolding the glider comes at the cost of removing your armor, so choose wisely!
Auto-Jetpack Upgrade: you can craft a jetpack upgrade to go with your glider that will consume fuel stored in your inventory to give you rocket boosts to regain height! This allows for infinite flying (if you pack the fuel) and you can soar amongst the asteroids! The jetpack boost occurs automatically if you press the key to switch the glider remote into the offhand and lasts around 5 seconds. You can also take off on flat ground and are protected from taking damage from ceilings by the automatic safety shutoff system! NOTE: This module was invented in 1.10 before the introduction of rockets. It still is very useful in 1.11 but with the addition by Mojang of rocket-boosting there is another option. The jetpack still enables much finer control then rockets though and the ability to take off on flat ground and run aerial obstacle courses with ease! It is also better at boosting horizontal speeds and has a longer duration.
Storyline and Missions! Dungeons and Ruins!
We have just begun to work on this feature now that the mechanics are all working. You soon find you are not alone in this system. Semi-intelligent monsters inhabit dangerous dungeons that yield great rewards if you raid them and conquer the boss! You will also find strange ruins and writings as you explore, that eventually allows you to uncover a dark story from the past...
There will be crises as you adapt to life on the asteroid and the AI will comment on them and give you advice and suggest activities. All will not go as planned giving you missions and a purpose as you try to overcome the accidents that befall you and follow the emerging storyline...
About EPIC 204278916
This map is named after the real star system named EPIC 204278916, which recently shot into the spotlight of astronomy and the fantasies of sci-fi writers in mid-2016 when it was found to exhibit very strange dimming and brightening patterns. The system is in the upper scorpius subgroup 400 light year from earth. That's a bit far for early earth pioneers, but pretty close as far as systems go.
So about EPIC 204278916: The star is REALLY young, about 5 million years estimated. It is a rare class of stars designated as YSO Dippers for their very unusual and irregular cycles of dimming and brightening. This is based on observations with the Kepler space telescope. EPIC is special because it has a ridiculous range of brightness. One observation saw it dim by almost 65% for a full 25 days!
Dimming of stars is how we've been detecting exoplanets if you've been following the news. We see a regular small dip in brightness we know it's an object and by the character of the light, size, and gravity we can make guesses about it's composition. But even a gas giant like jupiter will only dip a star by around 1% because usually big planets can't orbit close enough to their star without getting consumed, so something truly MASSIVE must be blocking our view of the star. And the fact that the dimming is periodic means it is orbiting. What could it be?
The only two currently feasible hypotheses for this behavior is:
A. a HUGE, dense belt of asteroids, comets, or dust orbiting close around the star
B. Alien superstructures such as the theoretical Dyson Sphere where a civilization builds a giant partial sphere to collect their star's energy and expand into space.
This map is set in the future when Earth pioneers first are able to visit this strange system and observe a massive asteroid and comet field swirling densely about the small sun. The gravity of the asteroids is so much that together the entire belt holds together an atmosphere, similar in density to the one on Mars. And life exists there! But is this the only strange thing about this system? That's what you'll find out on your adventures here! Good luck!
Alpha V1.0.2, The Balance Update - released October 26, 2016
meteors and ghast fireballs can no longer strike the landing ship
entities can no longer enter the ship through the hatch: if they try the built-in ship protection system activates killing them with a zapping sound and animation.
Creepers can’t even get close to the ship now, if they do they are removed from the game and disappear, so now so there is no chance of them ruining the ship.
The perimeter of the ship now has better lighting to prevent monster spawns
added new biosuit book. To use the book simply open it and click on a question to ask the biosuit and he will answer. Questions so far: what time is it? What day of the year is it? Tell me about the season…The biosuit will now answer you giving you this info anytime as testers have asked. The first page of the book gives info to help players learn how to interact with the biosuit and realize that you can click grey underlined text in chat to continue the conversation.
added back animals breeding in fall
made winter 1 day shorter and fall 1 day longer
added health regen after sleeping in the medical bay bed
fixed a skeleton AI glitch in fall and winter
single falling meteors now strike a bit closer to players so the crash sites can be found, have a power level of 2 (can destroy a few bits of stone), and a rare chance to leave a bit of fire behind
all meteor strikes now have a high chance to leave smoke behind if they damaged terrain helping in spotting the crash sites. This will only render if you are within 32 blocks like all minecraft particles but it should still help.
improved between-season messages and added a louder message alert sound to draw attention to them. Normal comments and chat interaction still has the quiet “ping” sound.
improved insect spawning a little making them a bit more common and less failed spawns
added new messages for custom items as hints for how to use the synethesizer! If you find the right items the game should now give you enough clues to make the recycler and disenchanter along with several other things
The Technical Update #1 (Alpha V1.1) - Released November 4, 2016
fixed health, speed, and attackSpeed going over in year 4 winter
removed scarab beetle random single spawns
name-tagged Squid Head, Shulkers now last year-round
changed drops and drop rates of several creatures
improved sorcerer turret and added new Lightning attack ability
made summer dust storms more common and random
improved directions for disenchanter and recycler modules making it clear they can be moved by mining them.
biosuit now comments on more natural areas as well as all current dungeons and ruins with a note to come back for ones that are unfinished after the Dungeons and Ruins Update.
added flying enderpearls
added grappling hook
added elytra upgrade + activation remote
added jetpack upgrade
added jetpack and Elytra remote activation flight mechanics and fuel consumption system
added jetpack ground and ceiling protection safety systems
added 7 Biofuel synthesizer recipes
added warp crystals
added block-breaker
added shield generator module
added clues to the new crafting all the machines
The 1.11 Update: (Alpha V1.2) - Released December 20, 2016
updated the map to 1.11!
fixed various multiplayer bugs
lowered chance of dust storms
made meteor shower strikes more local and random with multiple players
updated credits wall
updated game options in holodeck: mob briefing can now be turned on/off meaning you can make meteors still fall (for metal chances) but not damage terrain. Particle weather can now also be disabled if it is causing lag on your computer.
changed biosuit message tone sound to a deeper pitch to make it more distinguishable from the normal sounds
filled in old spawn chunks area with stone
enclosed spawn chunks in barrier
added new creature comments for 4 new 1.11 creatures!
added meteor metals drop from shield module interception
added 4 new custom potions from native fruits!
added new iron nugget 1.11.1 item to the recycler system!
added Night Vision Goggle Bio-suit Upgrade
added Limb Augmentation Bio-Suite Upgrade
added cheap replacement recipe for lost Bio-suit jetpack/glider remotes
added recipe catalogue information files
added creature catalogue information files
added holographic creature display
The Dungeons and Ruins Update: (Alpha V1.3) - Released January 11, 2017
Improved Terrain along all asteroid edges adding contour and texture to cliffs and edges
The mesa asteroids have been moved: they will be back with a LOT of changes next update!
Fixed all broken spawners from 1.11 (report them if you find any more!)
Revamped the Introduction and story messages! Added a walking tour that players can’t miss!
Finished ruin: Abandoned Village
Finished ruin: Obsidian Ruins
Finished dungeon: Ice Maze Caverns
Added new ruin: Stone Labyrinth
Added new ruin: Flooded Library
Added new ruin: The Hideout
Added new ruin: Greenhouse
Added new ruin: Observatory
Added Fungal Spider Nest
Added Web Spider Nest
Added Magma Cube Nest
Added Fungal Zombie Asteroid
Added Bat Cave
Added loot-carrying Spider Cacoons, Bat Nests, and Rock Crevices
Added Cave Kiwi
Added new custom potion
Added 5 new one of a kind treasure items to find in the ruins!
Added 4 secret synthesizer recipes to be found in ruins
Added 10 Alien Tomes to be found in the ruins (currently inactive till the next update)
Added wild llamas, horses, and polar bears
Added New Dungeon Bosses: White Walker King, Husk Baron, Sorcerer, Mega Cube
Added splash title messages when you encounter a dungeon boss
Added splash title messages when you enter new ruins
Added local radar display map in the holodeck
Redesigned the holodeck and updated the Wall of Fame!
Winterberry and Cave Kiwi are now renewable fruits
New local mob varieties added to many areas!
Several new useful, rare creature drops!
Fixed the Stim Draught Custom Potion (broke in 1.11)
As you survive over the first 5 years, now extra Feather falling, respiration, and depth strider are added as your character levels up over the first 5 years, maxing at III for each enchant. This is in addition to the previous passive improvements to speed, health, and attack Speed
The biosuit book has new functions! Please check the recipe chest in the holodeck to receive your replacement! It now has translation and music features!
Changed the recipe tech tree. There are now recipes you can only get in dungeons, 2 are unfinished and if you find the items just wait for the next update to activate them. Also recipes are more concise and tell you when a new one has been added to the holodeck
The Multiplayer Update (Alpha 1.4) - Released January 25, 2017
fixed bug: magma cubes can spawn from intercepted meteors
fixed bug: seeds can automatically plant on existing crops
fixed bug: particles show when you engage the augmented limbs and night vision goggles
fixed bug: mob spawning in holodeck and command center
fixed bug: rare off-season hive spawning
fixed bug: outdated info in books
fixed bug: rain in wrong seasons from server idling
fixed bug: simultaneous single meteors in multiplayer
fixed bug: multiplayer spawning issues including: mob doubling, spawning too close to one player, etc.
fixed bug: fire ant, scarab beetle, hermit crab, and sea urchin shell persistence after death
added feature: death markers and piles - upon death the game now marks your death position with a name-tag, piles your items in a pile, gives them 10 minutes instead of 5 before despawning, and gives them invulnerability
added feature: new animated holograms for sprites
added feature: seasons and time do not start till you leave the holodeck for the first time on a new game
added feature: one-time location, creature, and recipe messages will save between updates now
added: new recycler item: - bones. Along with seed planting, this allows for fully automatic farming of seed crops!
made recipe info files refresh immediately when upgrade modules are clicked for the first time while in holodeck
made walking tour comments public and more concise for out-loud and multiplayer reading
made intro music and walking tour only start when you press <click to start intro>
made the button underneath the ship hatch open AND close the hatch
improved the look of the sorcerer boss
Upcoming Releases:
The Creature Update : I am planning on overhaul to my spawning, loot systems, and adding even more custom creatures including daytime/nighttime monsters. Creatures that only spawn during certain weather, and all the new 1.11 creatures!
The Technical Update #2: I will add in many new proposed machines and techs to the custom crafting tree, adding more early game options to work towards. This is to give multiple uses to new custom materials and also to add excitement and goals to the first year and later years.
More Asteroids updates 1-3: this will be a series of mini-updates that will add many new asteroid biomes and clusters to discover and explore out in the void with the jetpack/elytra. They will contain ruins, dungeons, new creatures, and new items!
Public Beta Release: Planned for soon after the end of January, 2017. The map will go into public Beta where anyone can play and the basic storyline and features will be finished. I will continue to add many patches and updates for a while though as I want to keep developing the map! I have a huge void to fill after all!
This map includes my characteristic feature of updateable maps. This means I give you a file package, you insert them into the regions folder of your save, and you'll get all the new stuff and bugfixes in your in-progress maps! No restarting will ever be required!
Check out the first ever multiplayer Let's Play by PureSp1r1t and Lezandria,
featuring the Alpha Version of Space Expedition as they test the map!
Their map will be updated automatically as development continues:
Want to help with this Project? Details below!
If anyone is interested in doing some building or art for the map project let me know, I still occasionally accept helpers. What I need now is many, many new asteroids and worlds. I have thousands of blocks of void space to fill and many new asteroid clusters I need to create for far-out dungeons and extended exploration with the jetpack/elytra. If you are a skilled or aspiring builder and want to help, take a look at my screenshots on the main page and design your own asteroid biome, ruin, or dungeon and message me a link! If I like it, I may let you help and I will put you in the credits! If you help, you will need to get a Discord account as we use that for communication.
To apply to be an Alpha Tester or Builder please fill out this form and comment on the thread below:
IGN: <enter your in-game player name> Desired Role: <Alpha Tester, Builder, etc.> Preferences: <For builders only, tell me what kinds of things you would most enjoy working on> Credentials: <Have you done work in the past? If so put some links to projects you are proud of here in a spoiler. This is not required but if you have done good work in the past I'm more likely to give you complicated projects on the list>
Do you like this map? Leave a LIKE below to let others know you support this idea!
Let's help make this map a reality!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
we will get there as soon as we can! The main hold-up right now is it's basically just me working on the terrain. MCEdit work is a one-man job and most of my old builders are too busy atm. But I got a TON of new areas done today! Screenshots upcoming! You will see some timing scoreboards dislayed on the right in all my screens. This is for testing purposes and validating the seasonal changes, it won't be part of the final game so ignore them.
Today I did some more work on the layered dark oak forest asteroid, which is one of the larger ones. It's near the icy biomes! I layered terrain in a way that there is a lower and upper forest/area and a big shadowed world beneath.
Also worked on some new asteroids to "step" toward the jungle which is on the far outskirts of the Dark Oak area. THough I will enable Elytra, and eventually an expensive custom jet-pack that can be crafted, in the beginning I wanted to reduce the monotonous and ugly bridging, hence some smaller asteroids act as stepping stones to bigger areas for the near zones. I'm thinking also of allowing a less-expensive escape device that can be taken as you explore and will act as a warp to home command when activated. This would reduce the time-consuming backtracking, but dunno if it's necessary given you'll eventually have some nice ways to fly around anyway. thoughts?
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Update #2: finished importing most of the important biomes now! Not all of these asteroids/islands are finished but I've done the basic shape carving, just need to pretty them up and add texture to the cliffs. Here's a few teasers of different areas that are starting to look pretty good!
1. Savannah islands + Nearby desert: there was a pretty cliffside village I kept for now, may remove later, haven't decided if I'm going to work villagers into the lore but it seems like it could work.
2. A very dense cluster of oak/birch forest asteroids!
3. The mesa landmass. Pretty rough, but I've cut the canyons and shaped it, just need to texture and work on the bottoms
4. Snowy Pillars: wanted an area with some spires for variety
5. Finished landscaping the barren asteroids. This area is inspired by the mushroom island biome and only has mycelium and mushrooms colonizing it
Many areas will eventually have dungeons to make exploring more fun but they aren't added yet. Also the dispersion of ores is all custom, so you'll have to refine your mining methods based on the asteroid. As you said, it is turning more into a floating island rather then asteroid look because I have to add plants which can only be on top, but they are pretty similar in theme. I can scatter in some more barren ones for variety.
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Looking really cool so far! I am a fan of having a warp home. Would be pretty neat if we could build warp stations so we could warp between islands. Elytra is fun to use but they break pretty quickly since it uses a durability ever few seconds. All aboard the hype train!
I've been working on some big projects, might have gone overboard with the detail on this landscape, but I think it will be worth it in the end! Still lots more work to do. Just finished a massive impact crater as well, took several hours to make it look natural. :D, worked on landscape scarring in a few other areas as well but the giant impact crater is definitely the most visually striking. I also finished the cluster of mineral asteroids that I had envisioned hanging over the edge of the main asteroid. It makes the scene from spawn more visually appealing and feel more sci-fi. Lots of new biomes and asteroids too! I'm gonna work on importing a couple biomes with giant trees, maybe custom next. I think those would look pretty.
I would say I'm over the halfway point on terrain. It's definitely looking closer to what I had originally envisioned. After I finish that I'll be back to details and work on a few more mechanics command block side and then we'll put out the early alpha release! Alpha release will mainly focus on the completion of the landscape within a 512 block radius and a fully implemented custom survival system. The adventure and story elements, and biosuit AI will probably still be under development at this time, but I want to let you guys start testing early since you're excited. Just keep in mind the final will have a LOT more polishing and features command-block side.
Anyway, one things for sure, even if it's buggy this map is gonna be sick to play survival on. It's looking really beautiful to me. Can't wait to test it myself, feels very spacey and novel!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
sorry for the wait on updates! I haven't had much time to work on the map over this weekend.
I've moved on to my next feature project though! Custom Caverns! Still just in the beginning stages so they look a bit bare, but I had the idea to make a cave-like biome with unique underground plants/features. This will included stalagmites/stalactites as well as some luminescent blocks like sea lanterns for the cave water. Glowstone is a bit too bright but I'll try to find other valid blocks to add some backlighting. Otherwise you can't really see and appreciate the bigger caverns. For plants I was thinking vines, occasionally ferns, and little/big mushrooms. Drop ideas if you think of anything cool you'd like in the new cave biomes! They will vary a bit based on the above-ground biome. For instance, icy areas my have ice caves. Haven't decided if I'll create custom mobs but maybe!
Here's some preliminary pictures, but I'm just getting started on this part of the terraforming. More to show soon!
stalagmite/stalactites for caves will be specific types of stone. I like the look of granite but maybe occasionally diorite flowstone as well? It has to show up from a distance whatever I use.
jungle biomes often have caves with vines below, extending on that idea here in this little cave, throwback to cave-in! Really enjoying this project!
luminescent sea lantern test in large cavern:
If anyone wants to design a little cave and send it to me, I may take some inspiration from it or even include it!
I know several of you were wondering about the time frame for this map so I'll include a worklist here. Here are the remaining items on my list for alpha version. No idea how long each one will take but since I've gone overdrive with terraforming a few weeks have been added to compensate.
Remaining Items till Alpha 1.0 Test Release:
5% - The custom cavern and cave-biome project
5% - scatter some custom ruins and dungeons
5% - Need to create several ship modules to extend survival. I'd like to at least include my ideas for the recycler and synthesizer which will enable back-crafting of armors and tools into resources (further extending mob farming) and also the creation of new kinds of basic items like new metals needed for the new items.
3% - Add more biosuit comments and a basic introduction to the map for when you spawn in
2% - I need to work in several remaining biomes which may become larger asteroids or part of existing ones, these include: Mega Taiga, Taiga, and the custom Giant Oak Forest which I'm working on.
2% - I want to have a few custom crafting recipes included in basic alpha though final release will have a lot more: at least the Elytra and Jetpack for mobility. They are too fun not to have.
1% - Need to create spawning algorithms and drops for several new custom seasonal mobs and add rare drops
1% - Need to fill in some empty areas with smaller asteroid clusters like the mineral asteroid project
1% - want to create a couple new weather effects including: meteor shower, and sandstorm
Total work remaining: 25%
Believe it or not the command-block stuff is the quickest but I'm working on the terraforming for now as I want a really nice-looking world for the alpha-testers to play on at least since the fancier features will not be finished. My idea for alpha is to have most of the terrain and the seasonal survival mechanics working. The story, quests, and events will come later. Hopefully this is enough for you survival fans to enjoy and you can give me feedback and suggestions about what things would make the map even better!
Beta Version and Final Release will include many more features including:
- storyline
- many more biosuit comments, quests, and walkthroughs to make him a complete companion AI
- dozens of new space-age crafting recipes and drops
- A quest-mode that the biosuit can walk you through
- addition custom mobs including rare events and boss-like mob spawns
- more asteroids including ones far away out into the void. You will eventually be able to create a system scanner module for your ship that will help in searching the system for new areas and supplies that aren't close.
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Zann and I just finished a big workday here's some new pictures! Landscaping is very close to completion. We are getting into more detailed work now and have finished the rough work on almost every major asteroid. Just need a few more little ones to fill in the space now!
Completed: Mega Taiga, Taiga, and the custom Giant Oak Forest biomes (2%)
Partially Completed: Need to fill in some empty areas with smaller asteroid clusters like the mineral asteroid project (0%) Partially Completed: The custom cavern and cave-biome project (2%)
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
This looks absolutely amazing. I love that crater, the caves and the custom forest! (Don't wanna go in those woods, even during daytime... Who knows what monstrosities are waiting in there? ) And look at that tiny little space ship in the middle of it all.
I thought your Exiled custom areas were amazing, but even those pale in comparison to this. Can't wait to be able to explore this map
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I wrote about my adventures on the Alpha version of the OathBros/Caplex Build Team's map Space Expedition in my blog! (Discontinued)
For my experiences of the Beta versions of that same map, I started a YouTube series, which (due to prior knowledge from the Alpha) ended up being very fast paced and highly focused on showing off as much of the custom stuff as I can.
really appreciate it guys! We are working hard to finally bring this map up to alpha standards so there is plenty of content even for the first version. I'll be dropping frequent update descriptions, screenshots, and ticking items off my checklist!
IMPORTANT: In other news, there will be enough command blocks and special work that I think I should first release the alpha build of the map as an exclusive release for only a few people so any potential bugs get flagged BEFORE a lot of people start playing. If you are interested in being in this early crowd please let me know! I will accept the first 10 people that ask me: Lezandria, Brizol, zann10thousand, and the youtuber TheGamingCrafters (Yankeesrcool) have already messaged me, but I'll take 6 more to bring it up to 10. Yubachu has been commenting a lot so if he wants it he'll automatically get a spot.
The perks of playing the exclusive alpha are:
You will get access to the map and get to play it 2 weeks before anyone else
You are allowed to design your own small asteroid or dungeon which I will add to the map somewhere. (if you want)
You will be including in the credits of the map (I was thinking to do player heads and signs)
I will also personally update and fix your map in case of any bugs you encounter so you can keep playing on it through all of the updates as they come and get all the new content as it comes in your alpha world all the way up to final release. I am designing this map so that updates are very easy and you can do it on your own even if you feel savvy enough.
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
We now have a new beach biome, which is way better then normal and has some palms, etc. I wanted something to spice up the desert asteroid, which just looked...plain. I also did quite a bit more work on terrain features. Here's some pictures of an arch I worked in, because there weren't enough of them occuring naturally, and also a legitimate mountain with a volcanic pool.
Been working on the cave biomes some more as well. Here's a few teaser pics of unfinished caverns. I don't know if I'll share the final pictures of them, they look really nice, but it's cool to leave some areas a surprise.
Completed: Smaller Asteroids (1%) Partially Completed: The custom cavern and cave-biome project (1%)
Total Alpha Work Completed: 81%
See original article spoiler for the remaining work list.
Gonna start back in on the command block work this week! I could spend forever on terrain but what I have is probably fine for Alpha Version. Just need to finish up my caves.
The new and improved lagoon or beach biome. Dunno, just liked how this looked.
Arch
2 new WIP Cave Biomes, one transitional, one cavern lake:
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Hey guys! Hope everyone is doing great, I just wanted to let you know that I am one of the alpha testers, just wanted you guys to know who I am a little, so if you ever need to ask me something, msg me on my YT TheGamingCrafters! Hope to see you guys there! Also is it only me or is Dan a beast at making this map xD
Tired of nothing but terrain pictures? Well today was super exciting as I get back into the custom command block work! I went to work on creating some new custom creatures in vanilla MC starting with the basic methods: armors, ability changes, etc. Then I had a bunch of new ideas about how to spice it up and create even more unique things, and had several breakthroughs figuring out how to do all sorts of crazy stuff that I hadn't seen before! Someone else might have done it somewhere but if so I haven't seen it around. I'm proud to say that Space Expedition will feature my very own custom mob system! Which after its invention, I whittled down to only 4 command blocks needed to maintain every custom creature I may create! I'm sure some of you guys who play maps have seen the lagginess that can happen in custom boss fights and stuff so I tested hard to make sure my designs not only looked good, but run really well with little lag.
In my system I can create all sorts of amazing things that go beyond just custom armors, heads, and potion and attribute buffs.
I can also create extremely varied particle auras using any effect in the game, particle trails, cosmetic mob layering, custom facial features, weapon type invulnerabilities, and hitbox armors that make it if you hit certain parts of the mob no damage is done! This allowed me to make certain creatures only vulnerable in certain ways or in certain parts of their body.
For particle effects I chose to use a system I invented with tagged riding lingering clouds, the new feature from 1.9 so that the mobs carry their own effects and auras after creation without me needing to have loads of command blocks that apply them when you get close. I can create as many combinations of particles as I want too, use other entities as armor, texture with any block or item in the game, etc. This stuff has been done before with a lot of command blocks but I don't think it's been done this elegantly. I only have 4 command blocks and all they do is check the world for a couple tags once a second to ensure that the auras, armors, and cosmetics disappear when the base mob dies. Otherwise it looks weird to have things floating around lol. This allowed me to create some cool death animations too with pieces of the mob flying apart and the particle auras slowly dissipating after death without needing any command blocks at all to control it. Just wisely choosing my combinations. This means I can have a lot more of them without lag then a normal map and combined with my custom spawning mechanics means these guys will appear out in the wild without spawners naturally as the seasons progress. Making them as native as the normal mobs!
I've already made a lot of cool custom creatures! Pictures and descriptions incoming! These guys may change but this is my list after the first few days of inventing. Please give me suggestions if you think of a cool creature you'd like to see in the map, I'm still working on them full-throttle! It was super hard to get nice pictures because I worked hard on making them animated and still shots don't really do them justice. But I tried to capture some nice mug shots and dynamic shots. Hopefully it gives you guys the idea. These are all from my custom mob test world which is fireproof and flat. I think they will look that much cooler spawning naturally in the forests and biomes of the asteroid world! I've already tested a few and they look great! Every one has it's own unique drops, some real minecraft stuff, and others custom and may have uses in my new crafting recipes.
First off, I've added a lot of new insects to add ambience and novelty to the world. These guys only appear in certain seasons and I will not spoil when though you may be able to guess based on theming.
First off, the glowing butterfly or wood sprite. This beautiful insect leaves a glowing trail behind it as it slowly flies through the forest. It has 2 drops so far.
Then we have the firefly. Literally a fiery fly, which is a little ball of flame and leaves a spark trail as it flies. It has 1 drop.
Really not sure what to call this but I made it for the lols. It's a flying cocoa pod! Haha xD Not sure if I'll keep it, it is proof of concept. It leaves a slight smokey streamer behind it so you can tell it's moving. It was too sneaky otherwise, since it looks exactly like the real block! The drop is, you guessed it! The cocoa pod just falls to the ground if you kill it and lands just like a normal block. It falls as an actual BLOCK in the world not an item drop. I found a way to do that, not sure if it's useful but it was fun! This allows me to make drops for things that have no item equivalent like pumpkin stems, pods, etc.
No pictures for these guys as they are another of the masters of disguise, I would need a video to show how they work because a picture is confusing. They are the:
Fire Ant and Scarab Beetle. Both are smaller then the size of cocoa pod and crawl on the ground. To make them a little easier to spot I gave them a small particle aura as well. The fire ant has a wisp of smoke and the scarab beetle purple floaty particles. The scarab beetle can be a loner but both like to live in hives. Watch out for them because I programmed them to be impervious to the bow and any melee weapon with a special armor. The idea being they are tiny and armored and the arrows and swords just bounce off them! They do have drops but they are tricky to get because of this. I was able to get their drops through instant damage potions or harvesting them with TnT that I lit. Basically only AOE that the game knows that you caused. For instance if a creeper kills them they will not drop anything. If killed by AOE they drop their shells though and each have a unique 2nd drop as well. They don't do much damage. I thought this fair since they are a nasty surprise when first encountered and you discover your sword is ineffective! They also bounce your arrows back at you. That was an accident, but it was pretty funny.
I also made a lot of bigger normal mobs too. For my big unique mobs they are all over the place as I had inspiration and was thinking of the different biomes.
First we have Queen Slime. They have one drop besides slime balls. It's basically a weirder version of the slime I created by combining them. Pretty easy to make but funny to watch hop around. I gave her a particle aura where she sweats purple and black flecks just for variety. I might change it.
Then we have the Spider Rider. These guys look derpy but are super nasty. I've been killed by these several times already just testing the attack patterns. And I didn't even need to buff them! The mob combination together has a lot of drops. Not including armors you have 3 unique drops and 2 normal drops you can get. Some are pretty rare.
Then we have the White Walker. I gave them a winter theme. Creepy to look at, they hide their face behind a veil of snow. They are equipped with slowing cold arrows and deadly weaponry and are excellent crack shots with punching bows. Engaging them with swords is pretty hard as the first arrow will blast you back away. Not to mention the AOE attack which afflicts you with some effects if you get too close to their snow veil. They also freeze over water as they walk near it so crossing water is ineffective! They will follow! They have 3 normal drops and 2 unique drops.
lastly we have the Squid Head. He's kind of creepy to look at. Not very hard to fight. You can find them fishing near streams, but they don't like being watched! They have several normal drops including ink and one custom one.
I am also planning boss mobs which will be much harder, at the moment all the above ones are normal mobs, though some have nasty aim and weaponry and tactics. So give me some ideas of things if you want!
Lastly I have a pretty deadly custom creature that I worked pretty hard on. It's like a mid-tier boss and it is a rare spawn out in the wild in a certain season. It's based on the idea of a dust devil and called a Sand Wraith. These guys look like billowing clouds of falling black ash and smoke. Almost like one of my local weather effects.
But when you get close it begins to slowly move your way and the core of the cloud flames up and it shoots sprays of fireballs at you! On top of that engaging it is tricky because if you engage with melee only a part of the core of the cloud is vulnerable to sword strikes, the rest is like hitting air and when you enter the dust cloud you are afflicted with blindness from the thick ash! You can think of them like a mini-boss. They have 2 normal drops and one unique one that is pretty rare as a drop from anything else but common from this guy.
Like I said, a single picture is hard to do justice. These look way better moving around as intended but I hope to give you an idea. Just to maintain the surprise I may not post screens and descriptions of everything. It's a little more fun to discover their drops and spawning patterns yourself and try to farm them!
Zann and I currently have a big work day planned thursday so you may hear about more terrain progress and another Cave Biome update then. The command block work I pretty much have to do myself.
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Just wait until you see how things change with seasons. This is just some creatures to spice it up. There are a LOT of things that change with the seasons, including as I hinted in the OP: animal breeding, plant growth rates, length of night/day and unique weather patterns.
Glad you are enjoying the update! Since I have 4 seasons to fill up I have a lot of creatures to create, and it's super fun! So far, at minimum, I'll need at least 7 more to fill spots. I was thinking to create at least 1 new peaceful creature, 2 hostile/neutral, and 1 rare boss spawn for each season. I was taking inspiration from the way the game Don't Starve changes stuff up during the seasons and has random events, if you've played that game. This is in addition to normal minecraft mobs that spawn when they usually wouldn't such as Slimes during spring rain storms and blazes during the summer. In addition to the new general spawning, some areas will have dungeons with spawners like other maps do. I did like the idea that certain unique creatures will only spawn in one cave for instance, so I'll make some areas like that to make exploring worth it and fun.
Anything that spawns from the command block modifications or custom spawners will have some new drops as well and I made sure the looting enchantment works with them. It won't multiply their new drops but it will increase the chances you get the rare ones, so I'd recommend getting it and experimenting early! Right now you only get the custom drops if you kill the creatures directly or indirectly. For instance through potions you throw, your weapons, flame from your weapons, or tnt that you light (tested and yes that works for the mobs with sword and arrow resistant armor so keep that hint in mind )
I'll post some more screenshots after tonight, next on the work list are Cave Biomes and dungeons! Glad you are excited about the new project! It seems like every new part of the map I work on I have ideas that make it better then I originally envisioned haha.
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Today I added a swamp biome area. It was the last one missing. It looks pretty cool with a lot of twisty arches and odd terrain. Also added many new small terrain features and asteroids. The terrain is now officially done. It'll be custom stuff like unique trees, caves, or dungeon work from this on out.
I also spent a lot more time with the custom creatures today! Got a lot more now and many new kinds! Also worked on designing all the unique drops to go with them. Most are theming but I tried to make them useful.
If you want to be surprised by these guys then disregard the spoilers, but if you want to see pictures here's some!
Here's the abridged version:
I created two new water mobs: turtles, fish
I redesigned the wood sprite to act and look differently
I created a class of raiders that ride different mobs and change based on the seasons
I created a new boss: the sorcerer
I designed a couple dozen new custom drops for all the new creatures
I changed up the sprite center, to a glowing ball instead. He was easier to locate then using the glowing feature. I'm gonna give him a few interesting passive abilities.
One of my big breakthroughs was the creation of new water mobs. One of the reason you don’t really see any custom water creatures in maps is because any normal mob dismounts as soon as it gets in the water and then swims to the surface. The only exceptions are guardians and squids but you are limited since you can’t put other mobs on them. I saw all sorts of complaints online asking Mojang to “fix” it, but I’m pretty sure that it’s an intentional feature. Anyway, instead of griping about it like everyone else I tested everything until I found something that worked. Was able to make some pretty nice looking turtle and fish mobs as I result complete with little jets of bubbles as they swim and everything haha. It's hard to get a good shot in the water but the little fish turn and dart around and the turtles settle on the bottom or skim the top. I used dragon eggs for their shells and your weapons cannot damage the shell, you have to get under them to do any damage, just like in real life. This worked with my existing system it just took some clever finesse.
I designed a new boss. I put all my coolest auras together to create a sorcerer. I hate him already. I gave him a shulker face turret support and I’m so sick of getting clipped and floating into the air helpless while he grins at me. xD His aura makes him basically invulnerable to projectiles forcing you to melee or use blast damage. I also added the same projectile resistance to the Sand Wraith since he's technically air, arrows won't do much.
I also created a new class of riding mobs. I picked cool animals, themed them with custom armors and faces, and loaded them and their mounts up with sweet loot. Both the mounts and the rider have a rare drop that takes some time to find. They change based on the seasons and have better armor and gear as the year progresses. They are so nasty. I was killed many times testing them. But I do test without armor so it’ll be a little better in-game. Super cute guys though, you almost feel bad fighting them haha.
Mostly Completed: custom creatures project (1%)
Completed: Smaller asteroids and terrain features (1%)
unfortunately as cool as the new creatures I've designed are, and I'm glad I did them! Since it wasn't in the original plan I had only put that section down for 1%. So we're at 82% completion now. xD I think you guys will be glad for this week though. The new mobs add great ambience and feel.
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Hey! I was just checking in to see any new updates were happening and I was wondering when you think the release date would be, it seems like you have gotten so much done! Not trying to push you, just wanted to know so I could get a shcedule going! Thanks! TheGamingCrafters
by OathBros: danaphanous, zann10thousand, Compsogbrickus, and Corax
A public build of this map has been released already, you can find the new thread here! I will continue to post updates as I work on expansions every 2 weeks here:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/maps/2802453-space-expedition-journey-to-epic-204-experience
How is this map unique?
This map combines elements of Survival, Adventure, Puzzles, Exploration, and Command Block Technology seamlessly into one fresh new experience. Prepare to be challenged, as the normal Minecraft mechanics have been dramatically altered, and in some cases completely rewritten by command block running behind the scenes!
To name some features:
The result is a new kind of survival, reimagined completely, for an alien new world. You'll have to figure out everything from the beginning, and there is a LOT to discover! This is an entirely fresh experience, and adapting to life in this world will be both a challenge and a joy that should fill you with memories of your first days playing survival Minecraft when everything was new and fresh!
This map has been under development for more then a year already and is expanding all the time! It is currently in Public Beta, meaning that it is open to play and has many hours of content, but we are still working on it and releasing expansions with new content every 2 weeks for current players to check out! See the "Updating" section for details on how to experience the new updates without restarting your map!
New Biomes and Strange Terrain:
Seasons and New Weather Patterns!
To add to the seasonal variety every season has many unique new creatures I created with new drops. Crop growth, precipitation, meteor showers, duststorms, game difficulty, temperature, animal breeding, and daylight cycling all change as well. It is advised that you plan your activities around the seasons as many things are only available during certain ones and even the things that spawn from spawners can change allowing multi-purpose mob farms!
Many New Creatures and Drops!
I have new insects, new flying creatures, new water creatures, new cave creatures, and new surface creatures! I have new riding creatures and even some rare boss monsters guarding dungeons! All of them have new drops to discover, both common and rare, and many of them spawn out in the world everywhere like normal mobs during certain seasons rather then needing spawners--though there are custom dungeons as well.
Also, some creatures have new abilities that you can discover such as helping with crop growth, changing the weather, attracting lightning, and grinding stone into gravel! Mob farming on this map is incredibly complex as a result and has huge potential! Many of the new drops are useful as new renewable sources of existing items or for use in new crafting recipes using the Synthesizer in your ship! Unique items can be recognized as shiny versions of existing items and can be used in new crafting recipes or as the item they replace.
Examples of new mob combinations: Bear Archer, Wolf Rider, Squid Head, Slime Queen
Examples of creatures that look/behave like entirely new animals: Firefly, Fire-Ant, Wood Sprite, Sea Urchin, Mud Crab, Sand Wraith, Sorcerer, Fish
Companion Biosuit AI with Gradually Expanding Technology Tree!
The Biosuit Mark 12.3b is a full-fledged AI and will be your constant companion through this adventure! He will be the source of advice, encourage you to explore, give you ideas for new crafting recipes gradually as you explore and obtain new items, and comment on all the new creatures as you see them.
I've made him very chatty with hundreds of comments already so even if you are playing single-player you won't feel alone!
This map contains my version of a custom crafting tech tree and I'm planning dozens of new items, modules, redstone components, and more! I'm putting a new spin on it though. Rather then just give you the crafting recipes in some spreadsheet, or tell you them ingame and make you remember them, new recipes in this game are gradually discovered as you obtain new items or prereq. ingredients! Some are even alien technology discovered through ruins or completely options rewards for finding new areas!
Sounds confusing right? No not at all! As you discover every new crafting recipe a quick info-note detailing the discovery will appear in the holodeck back at your ship automatically! Now if you forget the recipe, there is an in-game way to look it up again and learn about the new item! The best part about this is I don't have to publish the full list somewhere tempting you to cheat on discovering them! (I'll leave it up to players to share discoveries with each other though as there is an extraordinary amount of hidden secret features on this map!)
New modules/components that change survival!
Synethesizer: This is the core of the new tech and crafting tree. It comes installed in your ship lander and will assemble complex new items or other ship/suit upgrades from raw ingredients you gather. It is one-of-a-kind on this Expedition and is far too advanced of a technology for you to replicate it. Hints and instructions to new recipes will be unlocked as you obtain certain new items and will displayed in chat. In addition, the things to discover and new synthesizer recipes will be be stored in the holodeck computer if you forget and want to read them again later!
Holodeck Computer: A virtual reality interface that can be entered at will inside your computer. Here you can view the credits wall, change the game options, or read up on the information you've collected on new creatures or new crafting recipes! There is also a holographic creature display so you can see virtual versions of the creatures you've encountered and plan how to fight them. Some have tough new abilities you'll need to overcome!
Recycler: Allows you to convert many dead-end crafted items like old armors, tools, and other items into raw ingredients automatically! Removing many worthless items like crappy armors and tools dropped form mob farms! Because of this it adds many sources of new renewable items and can be used to automate in mob farms!
Disenchanter: Can be used to automatically remove enchantments from items detected on top of itself and will give xp. It can also reset work penalties from working on the anvil, store xp gathered by the player in bottles, and scan new items you find to reveal hidden enchantments!
Meteor Shield Rail-Gun Unit: meteors wrecking your base? Craft the meteor shielding railgun. An automatic turret that will detect incoming ghast fireballs and meteors and obliterate them with railgun-launched projectiles! In the case of meteors there is a small chance to drop rare meteor metals as well allowing for automatic collection of the rare meteor metals!
Block Breaker: This one is for you technical players. Enjoy this new tool that opens up a new world of automation seen only in mods like industrial-craft! The block breaker, once installed, will destroy any block beneath itself including bedrock or barriers. You can use it to break into impenetrable secret ruins, or automate things like cobblestone generators or flint manufacturing! It mines just like a player with the appropriate tool!
Creature Killer: To open up new options for compact mob farming or just to protect your base, craft the creature-killer, which will apply withering effects to all nearby creatures!
All manufacturable new blocks/modules can be placed or moved at will and work automatically opening up worlds of new automation! Many more are planned, comment me ideas if you have one!
Player and Bio-suit Upgrades!
Player stamina upgrades: As you survive on the asteroids your physical abilities will slowly start to improve up to a certain point. You will run and walk faster, swim faster, your attack speed will increase, your health will improve, you will take less damage from falls, and your breath underwater will last longer! This is to simulate your body changing and adapting to its new environment! Player physical upgrades are time-based and gradually change with the turn of the seasons. I currently have them capped at around 2-5x normal depending on the stat so you don't get too OP, but it's a fun feature to feel your character level up over the first few years! This is a fun alternative to simply putting on OP diamond armor or enchants which is currently disabled on this map. You can only wear the biosuit in Space Expedition as it is critical for your survival and studies!
Even though you can only wear your biosuit, with some work it will soon become more valuable then any suit of armor ever would! You can craft many upgrades to make it better with the materials you find and it comes with a book with many features such as questions about the seasons, toggle-able abilities, and even music options you can listen too on the go! Here's a list of some upgrades:
Armor Rating Upgrades: There are 5 materials that you can find that will increase your armor rating up to a certain point (some better then others). The beginning biosuit comes with some useful enchants like feather falling I, Depth strider I, respiration 1, and aqua affinity 1, but no armor. That, you'll have to craft as you find the right materials. No more diamond armor in 15 minutes on this map!
Night Vision Goggle Upgrade: craft a night-vision upgrade to your visor that will allow you to engage/disengage night vision at will for better spelunking and swimming!
Augmented Limbs Upgrade: tired of that weak mining speed and attack speed? Upgrade your suit so it has the augmented limbs ability, a robotically-assisted power module attached to your arms and legs! Engage and disengage it at will engage to have a permanent buff to your attack speed and mining speed while on long exploration journeys. Gone are the days of slow coal mining, you can strip mine super fast while out exploring for new resources, no beacons required!
Scanning and Translation Circuit: Surprisingly enough you soon find you were not the first to visit this system. What happened to the previous visitors? You will find traces of them about including an alien written language! If you collect enough samples you can translate it and begin to do some archaelogy! Learning about these mysterious aliens. The suit comes equipped with a translation circuit that can automatically translate alien writings you acquire so you can read them!
Auto-Glider Upgrade: you can craft an Elytra glider that will unfold from your suit when you hold a remote. This system not only allows for gliding but is superior to the normal Elytra since you don't have to go into your inventory and waste time equipping it. If you fall off a cliff, simply press the item slot of the remote to instantly unfold it! Unfolding the glider comes at the cost of removing your armor, so choose wisely!
Auto-Jetpack Upgrade: you can craft a jetpack upgrade to go with your glider that will consume fuel stored in your inventory to give you rocket boosts to regain height! This allows for infinite flying (if you pack the fuel) and you can soar amongst the asteroids! The jetpack boost occurs automatically if you press the key to switch the glider remote into the offhand and lasts around 5 seconds. You can also take off on flat ground and are protected from taking damage from ceilings by the automatic safety shutoff system!
NOTE: This module was invented in 1.10 before the introduction of rockets. It still is very useful in 1.11 but with the addition by Mojang of rocket-boosting there is another option. The jetpack still enables much finer control then rockets though and the ability to take off on flat ground and run aerial obstacle courses with ease! It is also better at boosting horizontal speeds and has a longer duration.
Storyline and Missions! Dungeons and Ruins!
We have just begun to work on this feature now that the mechanics are all working. You soon find you are not alone in this system. Semi-intelligent monsters inhabit dangerous dungeons that yield great rewards if you raid them and conquer the boss! You will also find strange ruins and writings as you explore, that eventually allows you to uncover a dark story from the past...
There will be crises as you adapt to life on the asteroid and the AI will comment on them and give you advice and suggest activities. All will not go as planned giving you missions and a purpose as you try to overcome the accidents that befall you and follow the emerging storyline...
About EPIC 204278916
So about EPIC 204278916: The star is REALLY young, about 5 million years estimated. It is a rare class of stars designated as YSO Dippers for their very unusual and irregular cycles of dimming and brightening. This is based on observations with the Kepler space telescope. EPIC is special because it has a ridiculous range of brightness. One observation saw it dim by almost 65% for a full 25 days!
Dimming of stars is how we've been detecting exoplanets if you've been following the news. We see a regular small dip in brightness we know it's an object and by the character of the light, size, and gravity we can make guesses about it's composition. But even a gas giant like jupiter will only dip a star by around 1% because usually big planets can't orbit close enough to their star without getting consumed, so something truly MASSIVE must be blocking our view of the star. And the fact that the dimming is periodic means it is orbiting. What could it be?
The only two currently feasible hypotheses for this behavior is:
A. a HUGE, dense belt of asteroids, comets, or dust orbiting close around the star
B. Alien superstructures such as the theoretical Dyson Sphere where a civilization builds a giant partial sphere to collect their star's energy and expand into space.
This map is set in the future when Earth pioneers first are able to visit this strange system and observe a massive asteroid and comet field swirling densely about the small sun. The gravity of the asteroids is so much that together the entire belt holds together an atmosphere, similar in density to the one on Mars. And life exists there! But is this the only strange thing about this system? That's what you'll find out on your adventures here! Good luck!
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Alpha Testing is Currently in Progress!
Builders: danaphanous, zann10thousand, gwendylyon, Compsogbrickus, Corax
In-Dev Testers: James96, Brizol, Lezandria, zann10thousand
Alpha Testers: Rodabon, BethelAbba, Yubachu, Lezandria, Brizol, TheGamingCrafters (YT), SirRaynor, Corax, PureSp1r1t, rabidgoodra27
Changelog:
Alpha V1.0.2, The Balance Update - released October 26, 2016
The Technical Update #1 (Alpha V1.1) - Released November 4, 2016
The 1.11 Update: (Alpha V1.2) - Released December 20, 2016
The Dungeons and Ruins Update: (Alpha V1.3) - Released January 11, 2017
The Multiplayer Update (Alpha 1.4) - Released January 25, 2017
Upcoming Releases:
The Creature Update : I am planning on overhaul to my spawning, loot systems, and adding even more custom creatures including daytime/nighttime monsters. Creatures that only spawn during certain weather, and all the new 1.11 creatures!
The Technical Update #2: I will add in many new proposed machines and techs to the custom crafting tree, adding more early game options to work towards. This is to give multiple uses to new custom materials and also to add excitement and goals to the first year and later years.
More Asteroids updates 1-3: this will be a series of mini-updates that will add many new asteroid biomes and clusters to discover and explore out in the void with the jetpack/elytra. They will contain ruins, dungeons, new creatures, and new items!
Public Beta Release: Planned for soon after the end of January, 2017. The map will go into public Beta where anyone can play and the basic storyline and features will be finished. I will continue to add many patches and updates for a while though as I want to keep developing the map! I have a huge void to fill after all!
This map includes my characteristic feature of updateable maps. This means I give you a file package, you insert them into the regions folder of your save, and you'll get all the new stuff and bugfixes in your in-progress maps! No restarting will ever be required!
Check out the first ever multiplayer Let's Play by PureSp1r1t and Lezandria,
featuring the Alpha Version of Space Expedition as they test the map!
Their map will be updated automatically as development continues:
Want to help with this Project? Details below!
If anyone is interested in doing some building or art for the map project let me know, I still occasionally accept helpers. What I need now is many, many new asteroids and worlds. I have thousands of blocks of void space to fill and many new asteroid clusters I need to create for far-out dungeons and extended exploration with the jetpack/elytra. If you are a skilled or aspiring builder and want to help, take a look at my screenshots on the main page and design your own asteroid biome, ruin, or dungeon and message me a link! If I like it, I may let you help and I will put you in the credits! If you help, you will need to get a Discord account as we use that for communication.
To apply to be an Alpha Tester or Builder please fill out this form and comment on the thread below:
IGN: <enter your in-game player name>
Desired Role: <Alpha Tester, Builder, etc.>
Preferences: <For builders only, tell me what kinds of things you would most enjoy working on>
Credentials: <Have you done work in the past? If so put some links to projects you are proud of here in a spoiler. This is not required but if you have done good work in the past I'm more likely to give you complicated projects on the list>
Do you like this map? Leave a LIKE below to let others know you support this idea!
Let's help make this map a reality!
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Looks better than No Man's Sky! Hope to get a world download soon so I can test this awesome looking map
we will get there as soon as we can! The main hold-up right now is it's basically just me working on the terrain. MCEdit work is a one-man job and most of my old builders are too busy atm. But I got a TON of new areas done today! Screenshots upcoming! You will see some timing scoreboards dislayed on the right in all my screens. This is for testing purposes and validating the seasonal changes, it won't be part of the final game so ignore them.
Today I did some more work on the layered dark oak forest asteroid, which is one of the larger ones. It's near the icy biomes! I layered terrain in a way that there is a lower and upper forest/area and a big shadowed world beneath.
Also worked on some new asteroids to "step" toward the jungle which is on the far outskirts of the Dark Oak area. THough I will enable Elytra, and eventually an expensive custom jet-pack that can be crafted, in the beginning I wanted to reduce the monotonous and ugly bridging, hence some smaller asteroids act as stepping stones to bigger areas for the near zones. I'm thinking also of allowing a less-expensive escape device that can be taken as you explore and will act as a warp to home command when activated. This would reduce the time-consuming backtracking, but dunno if it's necessary given you'll eventually have some nice ways to fly around anyway. thoughts?
Click to enlarge pictures:
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Update #2: finished importing most of the important biomes now! Not all of these asteroids/islands are finished but I've done the basic shape carving, just need to pretty them up and add texture to the cliffs. Here's a few teasers of different areas that are starting to look pretty good!
1. Savannah islands + Nearby desert: there was a pretty cliffside village I kept for now, may remove later, haven't decided if I'm going to work villagers into the lore but it seems like it could work.
2. A very dense cluster of oak/birch forest asteroids!
3. The mesa landmass. Pretty rough, but I've cut the canyons and shaped it, just need to texture and work on the bottoms
4. Snowy Pillars: wanted an area with some spires for variety
5. Finished landscaping the barren asteroids. This area is inspired by the mushroom island biome and only has mycelium and mushrooms colonizing it
Many areas will eventually have dungeons to make exploring more fun but they aren't added yet. Also the dispersion of ores is all custom, so you'll have to refine your mining methods based on the asteroid. As you said, it is turning more into a floating island rather then asteroid look because I have to add plants which can only be on top, but they are pretty similar in theme. I can scatter in some more barren ones for variety.
Click to enlarge pictures:
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Looking really cool so far! I am a fan of having a warp home. Would be pretty neat if we could build warp stations so we could warp between islands. Elytra is fun to use but they break pretty quickly since it uses a durability ever few seconds. All aboard the hype train!
Thanks guys for the support!
I've been working on some big projects, might have gone overboard with the detail on this landscape, but I think it will be worth it in the end! Still lots more work to do. Just finished a massive impact crater as well, took several hours to make it look natural. :D, worked on landscape scarring in a few other areas as well but the giant impact crater is definitely the most visually striking. I also finished the cluster of mineral asteroids that I had envisioned hanging over the edge of the main asteroid. It makes the scene from spawn more visually appealing and feel more sci-fi. Lots of new biomes and asteroids too! I'm gonna work on importing a couple biomes with giant trees, maybe custom next. I think those would look pretty.
I would say I'm over the halfway point on terrain. It's definitely looking closer to what I had originally envisioned. After I finish that I'll be back to details and work on a few more mechanics command block side and then we'll put out the early alpha release! Alpha release will mainly focus on the completion of the landscape within a 512 block radius and a fully implemented custom survival system. The adventure and story elements, and biosuit AI will probably still be under development at this time, but I want to let you guys start testing early since you're excited. Just keep in mind the final will have a LOT more polishing and features command-block side.
Anyway, one things for sure, even if it's buggy this map is gonna be sick to play survival on. It's looking really beautiful to me. Can't wait to test it myself, feels very spacey and novel!
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Looking awesome! can't wait for this map
sorry for the wait on updates! I haven't had much time to work on the map over this weekend.
I've moved on to my next feature project though! Custom Caverns! Still just in the beginning stages so they look a bit bare, but I had the idea to make a cave-like biome with unique underground plants/features. This will included stalagmites/stalactites as well as some luminescent blocks like sea lanterns for the cave water. Glowstone is a bit too bright but I'll try to find other valid blocks to add some backlighting. Otherwise you can't really see and appreciate the bigger caverns. For plants I was thinking vines, occasionally ferns, and little/big mushrooms. Drop ideas if you think of anything cool you'd like in the new cave biomes! They will vary a bit based on the above-ground biome. For instance, icy areas my have ice caves. Haven't decided if I'll create custom mobs but maybe!
Here's some preliminary pictures, but I'm just getting started on this part of the terraforming. More to show soon!
jungle biomes often have caves with vines below, extending on that idea here in this little cave, throwback to cave-in! Really enjoying this project!
luminescent sea lantern test in large cavern:
If anyone wants to design a little cave and send it to me, I may take some inspiration from it or even include it!
I know several of you were wondering about the time frame for this map so I'll include a worklist here. Here are the remaining items on my list for alpha version. No idea how long each one will take but since I've gone overdrive with terraforming a few weeks have been added to compensate.
Remaining Items till Alpha 1.0 Test Release:
5% - The custom cavern and cave-biome project
5% - scatter some custom ruins and dungeons
5% - Need to create several ship modules to extend survival. I'd like to at least include my ideas for the recycler and synthesizer which will enable back-crafting of armors and tools into resources (further extending mob farming) and also the creation of new kinds of basic items like new metals needed for the new items.
3% - Add more biosuit comments and a basic introduction to the map for when you spawn in
2% - I need to work in several remaining biomes which may become larger asteroids or part of existing ones, these include: Mega Taiga, Taiga, and the custom Giant Oak Forest which I'm working on.
2% - I want to have a few custom crafting recipes included in basic alpha though final release will have a lot more: at least the Elytra and Jetpack for mobility. They are too fun not to have.
1% - Need to create spawning algorithms and drops for several new custom seasonal mobs and add rare drops
1% - Need to fill in some empty areas with smaller asteroid clusters like the mineral asteroid project
1% - want to create a couple new weather effects including: meteor shower, and sandstorm
Total work remaining: 25%
Believe it or not the command-block stuff is the quickest but I'm working on the terraforming for now as I want a really nice-looking world for the alpha-testers to play on at least since the fancier features will not be finished. My idea for alpha is to have most of the terrain and the seasonal survival mechanics working. The story, quests, and events will come later. Hopefully this is enough for you survival fans to enjoy and you can give me feedback and suggestions about what things would make the map even better!
Beta Version and Final Release will include many more features including:
- storyline
- many more biosuit comments, quests, and walkthroughs to make him a complete companion AI
- dozens of new space-age crafting recipes and drops
- A quest-mode that the biosuit can walk you through
- addition custom mobs including rare events and boss-like mob spawns
- more asteroids including ones far away out into the void. You will eventually be able to create a system scanner module for your ship that will help in searching the system for new areas and supplies that aren't close.
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Zann and I just finished a big workday here's some new pictures! Landscaping is very close to completion. We are getting into more detailed work now and have finished the rough work on almost every major asteroid. Just need a few more little ones to fill in the space now!
Completed: Mega Taiga, Taiga, and the custom Giant Oak Forest biomes (2%)
Partially Completed: Need to fill in some empty areas with smaller asteroid clusters like the mineral asteroid project (0%)
Partially Completed: The custom cavern and cave-biome project (2%)
Total Alpha Work Completed: 79%
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
This looks absolutely amazing. I love that crater, the caves and the custom forest! (Don't wanna go in those woods, even during daytime... Who knows what monstrosities are waiting in there? ) And look at that tiny little space ship in the middle of it all.
I thought your Exiled custom areas were amazing, but even those pale in comparison to this. Can't wait to be able to explore this map
I wrote about my adventures on the Alpha version of the OathBros/Caplex Build Team's map Space Expedition in my blog! (Discontinued)
For my experiences of the Beta versions of that same map, I started a YouTube series, which (due to prior knowledge from the Alpha) ended up being very fast paced and highly focused on showing off as much of the custom stuff as I can.
really appreciate it guys! We are working hard to finally bring this map up to alpha standards so there is plenty of content even for the first version. I'll be dropping frequent update descriptions, screenshots, and ticking items off my checklist!
IMPORTANT: In other news, there will be enough command blocks and special work that I think I should first release the alpha build of the map as an exclusive release for only a few people so any potential bugs get flagged BEFORE a lot of people start playing. If you are interested in being in this early crowd please let me know! I will accept the first 10 people that ask me: Lezandria, Brizol, zann10thousand, and the youtuber TheGamingCrafters (Yankeesrcool) have already messaged me, but I'll take 6 more to bring it up to 10. Yubachu has been commenting a lot so if he wants it he'll automatically get a spot.
The perks of playing the exclusive alpha are:
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Woohooo! I would love a spot! Do i need to message you personally or is this fine? This map is gonna be sweet.:)
No need, I just added you to the list!
5 spots left!
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Accomplished a bit more over the weekend!
We now have a new beach biome, which is way better then normal and has some palms, etc. I wanted something to spice up the desert asteroid, which just looked...plain. I also did quite a bit more work on terrain features. Here's some pictures of an arch I worked in, because there weren't enough of them occuring naturally, and also a legitimate mountain with a volcanic pool.
Been working on the cave biomes some more as well. Here's a few teaser pics of unfinished caverns. I don't know if I'll share the final pictures of them, they look really nice, but it's cool to leave some areas a surprise.
Completed: Smaller Asteroids (1%)
Partially Completed: The custom cavern and cave-biome project (1%)
Total Alpha Work Completed: 81%
See original article spoiler for the remaining work list.
Gonna start back in on the command block work this week! I could spend forever on terrain but what I have is probably fine for Alpha Version. Just need to finish up my caves.
The new and improved lagoon or beach biome. Dunno, just liked how this looked.
Arch
2 new WIP Cave Biomes, one transitional, one cavern lake:
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Hey guys! Hope everyone is doing great, I just wanted to let you know that I am one of the alpha testers, just wanted you guys to know who I am a little, so if you ever need to ask me something, msg me on my YT TheGamingCrafters! Hope to see you guys there! Also is it only me or is Dan a beast at making this map xD
Tired of nothing but terrain pictures? Well today was super exciting as I get back into the custom command block work! I went to work on creating some new custom creatures in vanilla MC starting with the basic methods: armors, ability changes, etc. Then I had a bunch of new ideas about how to spice it up and create even more unique things, and had several breakthroughs figuring out how to do all sorts of crazy stuff that I hadn't seen before! Someone else might have done it somewhere but if so I haven't seen it around. I'm proud to say that Space Expedition will feature my very own custom mob system! Which after its invention, I whittled down to only 4 command blocks needed to maintain every custom creature I may create! I'm sure some of you guys who play maps have seen the lagginess that can happen in custom boss fights and stuff so I tested hard to make sure my designs not only looked good, but run really well with little lag.
In my system I can create all sorts of amazing things that go beyond just custom armors, heads, and potion and attribute buffs.
I can also create extremely varied particle auras using any effect in the game, particle trails, cosmetic mob layering, custom facial features, weapon type invulnerabilities, and hitbox armors that make it if you hit certain parts of the mob no damage is done! This allowed me to make certain creatures only vulnerable in certain ways or in certain parts of their body.
For particle effects I chose to use a system I invented with tagged riding lingering clouds, the new feature from 1.9 so that the mobs carry their own effects and auras after creation without me needing to have loads of command blocks that apply them when you get close. I can create as many combinations of particles as I want too, use other entities as armor, texture with any block or item in the game, etc. This stuff has been done before with a lot of command blocks but I don't think it's been done this elegantly. I only have 4 command blocks and all they do is check the world for a couple tags once a second to ensure that the auras, armors, and cosmetics disappear when the base mob dies. Otherwise it looks weird to have things floating around lol. This allowed me to create some cool death animations too with pieces of the mob flying apart and the particle auras slowly dissipating after death without needing any command blocks at all to control it. Just wisely choosing my combinations. This means I can have a lot more of them without lag then a normal map and combined with my custom spawning mechanics means these guys will appear out in the wild without spawners naturally as the seasons progress. Making them as native as the normal mobs!
I've already made a lot of cool custom creatures! Pictures and descriptions incoming! These guys may change but this is my list after the first few days of inventing. Please give me suggestions if you think of a cool creature you'd like to see in the map, I'm still working on them full-throttle! It was super hard to get nice pictures because I worked hard on making them animated and still shots don't really do them justice. But I tried to capture some nice mug shots and dynamic shots. Hopefully it gives you guys the idea. These are all from my custom mob test world which is fireproof and flat. I think they will look that much cooler spawning naturally in the forests and biomes of the asteroid world! I've already tested a few and they look great! Every one has it's own unique drops, some real minecraft stuff, and others custom and may have uses in my new crafting recipes.
First off, I've added a lot of new insects to add ambience and novelty to the world. These guys only appear in certain seasons and I will not spoil when though you may be able to guess based on theming.
Then we have the firefly. Literally a fiery fly, which is a little ball of flame and leaves a spark trail as it flies. It has 1 drop.
Really not sure what to call this but I made it for the lols. It's a flying cocoa pod! Haha xD Not sure if I'll keep it, it is proof of concept. It leaves a slight smokey streamer behind it so you can tell it's moving. It was too sneaky otherwise, since it looks exactly like the real block! The drop is, you guessed it! The cocoa pod just falls to the ground if you kill it and lands just like a normal block. It falls as an actual BLOCK in the world not an item drop. I found a way to do that, not sure if it's useful but it was fun! This allows me to make drops for things that have no item equivalent like pumpkin stems, pods, etc.
No pictures for these guys as they are another of the masters of disguise, I would need a video to show how they work because a picture is confusing. They are the:
Fire Ant and Scarab Beetle. Both are smaller then the size of cocoa pod and crawl on the ground. To make them a little easier to spot I gave them a small particle aura as well. The fire ant has a wisp of smoke and the scarab beetle purple floaty particles. The scarab beetle can be a loner but both like to live in hives. Watch out for them because I programmed them to be impervious to the bow and any melee weapon with a special armor. The idea being they are tiny and armored and the arrows and swords just bounce off them! They do have drops but they are tricky to get because of this. I was able to get their drops through instant damage potions or harvesting them with TnT that I lit. Basically only AOE that the game knows that you caused. For instance if a creeper kills them they will not drop anything. If killed by AOE they drop their shells though and each have a unique 2nd drop as well. They don't do much damage. I thought this fair since they are a nasty surprise when first encountered and you discover your sword is ineffective! They also bounce your arrows back at you. That was an accident, but it was pretty funny.
I also made a lot of bigger normal mobs too. For my big unique mobs they are all over the place as I had inspiration and was thinking of the different biomes.
Then we have the Spider Rider. These guys look derpy but are super nasty. I've been killed by these several times already just testing the attack patterns. And I didn't even need to buff them! The mob combination together has a lot of drops. Not including armors you have 3 unique drops and 2 normal drops you can get. Some are pretty rare.
Then we have the White Walker. I gave them a winter theme. Creepy to look at, they hide their face behind a veil of snow. They are equipped with slowing cold arrows and deadly weaponry and are excellent crack shots with punching bows. Engaging them with swords is pretty hard as the first arrow will blast you back away. Not to mention the AOE attack which afflicts you with some effects if you get too close to their snow veil. They also freeze over water as they walk near it so crossing water is ineffective! They will follow! They have 3 normal drops and 2 unique drops.
lastly we have the Squid Head. He's kind of creepy to look at. Not very hard to fight. You can find them fishing near streams, but they don't like being watched! They have several normal drops including ink and one custom one.
I am also planning boss mobs which will be much harder, at the moment all the above ones are normal mobs, though some have nasty aim and weaponry and tactics. So give me some ideas of things if you want!
Lastly I have a pretty deadly custom creature that I worked pretty hard on. It's like a mid-tier boss and it is a rare spawn out in the wild in a certain season. It's based on the idea of a dust devil and called a Sand Wraith. These guys look like billowing clouds of falling black ash and smoke. Almost like one of my local weather effects.
But when you get close it begins to slowly move your way and the core of the cloud flames up and it shoots sprays of fireballs at you! On top of that engaging it is tricky because if you engage with melee only a part of the core of the cloud is vulnerable to sword strikes, the rest is like hitting air and when you enter the dust cloud you are afflicted with blindness from the thick ash! You can think of them like a mini-boss. They have 2 normal drops and one unique one that is pretty rare as a drop from anything else but common from this guy.
Like I said, a single picture is hard to do justice. These look way better moving around as intended but I hope to give you an idea. Just to maintain the surprise I may not post screens and descriptions of everything. It's a little more fun to discover their drops and spawning patterns yourself and try to farm them!
Zann and I currently have a big work day planned thursday so you may hear about more terrain progress and another Cave Biome update then. The command block work I pretty much have to do myself.
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
OMG this is looking AMAZING. I didn't think you would do this much amazing command block stuff!
Just wait until you see how things change with seasons. This is just some creatures to spice it up. There are a LOT of things that change with the seasons, including as I hinted in the OP: animal breeding, plant growth rates, length of night/day and unique weather patterns.
Glad you are enjoying the update! Since I have 4 seasons to fill up I have a lot of creatures to create, and it's super fun! So far, at minimum, I'll need at least 7 more to fill spots. I was thinking to create at least 1 new peaceful creature, 2 hostile/neutral, and 1 rare boss spawn for each season. I was taking inspiration from the way the game Don't Starve changes stuff up during the seasons and has random events, if you've played that game. This is in addition to normal minecraft mobs that spawn when they usually wouldn't such as Slimes during spring rain storms and blazes during the summer. In addition to the new general spawning, some areas will have dungeons with spawners like other maps do. I did like the idea that certain unique creatures will only spawn in one cave for instance, so I'll make some areas like that to make exploring worth it and fun.
Anything that spawns from the command block modifications or custom spawners will have some new drops as well and I made sure the looting enchantment works with them. It won't multiply their new drops but it will increase the chances you get the rare ones, so I'd recommend getting it and experimenting early! Right now you only get the custom drops if you kill the creatures directly or indirectly. For instance through potions you throw, your weapons, flame from your weapons, or tnt that you light (tested and yes that works for the mobs with sword and arrow resistant armor so keep that hint in mind )
I'll post some more screenshots after tonight, next on the work list are Cave Biomes and dungeons! Glad you are excited about the new project! It seems like every new part of the map I work on I have ideas that make it better then I originally envisioned haha.
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Today I added a swamp biome area. It was the last one missing. It looks pretty cool with a lot of twisty arches and odd terrain. Also added many new small terrain features and asteroids. The terrain is now officially done. It'll be custom stuff like unique trees, caves, or dungeon work from this on out.
I also spent a lot more time with the custom creatures today! Got a lot more now and many new kinds! Also worked on designing all the unique drops to go with them. Most are theming but I tried to make them useful.
If you want to be surprised by these guys then disregard the spoilers, but if you want to see pictures here's some!
Here's the abridged version:
I created two new water mobs: turtles, fish
I redesigned the wood sprite to act and look differently
I created a class of raiders that ride different mobs and change based on the seasons
I created a new boss: the sorcerer
I designed a couple dozen new custom drops for all the new creatures
One of my big breakthroughs was the creation of new water mobs. One of the reason you don’t really see any custom water creatures in maps is because any normal mob dismounts as soon as it gets in the water and then swims to the surface. The only exceptions are guardians and squids but you are limited since you can’t put other mobs on them. I saw all sorts of complaints online asking Mojang to “fix” it, but I’m pretty sure that it’s an intentional feature. Anyway, instead of griping about it like everyone else I tested everything until I found something that worked. Was able to make some pretty nice looking turtle and fish mobs as I result complete with little jets of bubbles as they swim and everything haha. It's hard to get a good shot in the water but the little fish turn and dart around and the turtles settle on the bottom or skim the top. I used dragon eggs for their shells and your weapons cannot damage the shell, you have to get under them to do any damage, just like in real life. This worked with my existing system it just took some clever finesse.
I designed a new boss. I put all my coolest auras together to create a sorcerer. I hate him already. I gave him a shulker face turret support and I’m so sick of getting clipped and floating into the air helpless while he grins at me. xD His aura makes him basically invulnerable to projectiles forcing you to melee or use blast damage. I also added the same projectile resistance to the Sand Wraith since he's technically air, arrows won't do much.
I also created a new class of riding mobs. I picked cool animals, themed them with custom armors and faces, and loaded them and their mounts up with sweet loot. Both the mounts and the rider have a rare drop that takes some time to find. They change based on the seasons and have better armor and gear as the year progresses. They are so nasty. I was killed many times testing them. But I do test without armor so it’ll be a little better in-game. Super cute guys though, you almost feel bad fighting them haha.
Mostly Completed: custom creatures project (1%)
Completed: Smaller asteroids and terrain features (1%)
unfortunately as cool as the new creatures I've designed are, and I'm glad I did them! Since it wasn't in the original plan I had only put that section down for 1%. So we're at 82% completion now. xD I think you guys will be glad for this week though. The new mobs add great ambience and feel.
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
Hey! I was just checking in to see any new updates were happening and I was wondering when you think the release date would be, it seems like you have gotten so much done! Not trying to push you, just wanted to know so I could get a shcedule going! Thanks! TheGamingCrafters