Yeah, trading 1 emerald for 4 redstone isn't cheap, really, but it is sustainable. Once (on a different limited-resource map) I traded up 3 stacks of redstone, then lost them all when I went into the Nether and hit an angry mob of pigmen
I did some testing last night, and getting a witch hut on the map might be easier than I thought. The data about the hut location is in the TEMPLES.DAT file, and I may be able to just copy and paste that directly in the folder (since my map currently doesn't have one). I'll test it and see how that goes, let you know if it works.
I've also started a Let's Play / Director's Commentary on this map, here is episode 1!
I haven't beat the map yet, but having been to the End a couple times I can tell it's great! Maybe it could be made even better with some command block witchery below the spawn platform.
It may be just me, but I feel that the bed being in the starting chest is too easy. Part of the original challenge of SKyblock Survival was making an island capable of having non-hostile mobs spawn on it. Wolves and ocelots are not needed for any resource that I know of.
Other than that, this seems like a great map.. thought when I first tried to get to the island from the bedrock platform, I was teleported really high in the sky and fell past the island. Second time I was teleported onto the tree.
These problems make me curious about the possibility of a hardcore version of this map.
Good news about the witch hut! In watching your video, reviewing some of the goals about taming dog, cat, horse, etc. brought a question to mind regarding animal spawning. In my current Skyblock (2.1) map I've managed to get some animals to spawn in (multiple sheep, pigs, chickens but just one cow). After the initial animal spawning, no more have occurred in a long time and I assumed it was because of the passive mob cap (at 10 or 11 for single player if I understand the spawning rules outlined on the wiki). Well, I've reduced the number of animals I have to 2 sheep, pigs, chickens each and 1 cow, so 7 total and still no new animals have spawned. I have lots of villagers but that shouldn't contribute to the passive mob cap (should it?). I'm at a loss for what to do to get that second cow if spawning won't start again and am concerned this would impact the dog, cat, horse goal. Any tips, hints, help in this area would be appreciated.
It may be just me, but I feel that the bed being in the starting chest is too easy. Part of the original challenge of Skyblock Survival was making an island capable of having non-hostile mobs spawn on it. Wolves and ocelots are not needed for any resource that I know of.
Yeah, I thought about whether to include the bed. I guess with the bedrock spawning platform we've ultimately solved the respawning problem, but wanted to have a backup. Maybe I'll leave it out of future updates.
And no, you can't get resources from wolves and ocelots, that's why I made a bonus challenge that requires them
Other than that, this seems like a great map.. thought when I first tried to get to the island from the bedrock platform, I was teleported really high in the sky and fell past the island. Second time I was teleported onto the tree.
Yeah, the command block is actually using a "/spreadplayers" command (with a tiny radius) instead of a "/tp" command, so you may (rarely) miss the island, or occasionally spawn on top of the leaves. Press it again and you'll hopefully get a better drop point. (I'm doing it this way because /tp would warp you inside blocks if you've built up a house, /spreadplayers will always put you on TOP of whatever structure or blocks you've built up.) That's actually the only reason I left the bedrock block under the island, so you'd always have a chance to land on solid ground, even if you cleared everything else out.
Good news about the witch hut! In watching your video, reviewing some of the goals about taming dog, cat, horse, etc. brought a question to mind regarding animal spawning. In my current Skyblock (2.1) map I've managed to get some animals to spawn in (multiple sheep, pigs, chickens but just one cow). After the initial animal spawning, no more have occurred in a long time and I assumed it was because of the passive mob cap (at 10 or 11 for single player if I understand the spawning rules outlined on the wiki). Well, I've reduced the number of animals I have to 2 sheep, pigs, chickens each and 1 cow, so 7 total and still no new animals have spawned. I have lots of villagers but that shouldn't contribute to the passive mob cap (should it?). I'm at a loss for what to do to get that second cow if spawning won't start again and am concerned this would impact the dog, cat, horse goal. Any tips, hints, help in this area would be appreciated.
Not sure why you couldn't get any more, maybe you had some Zombie chicken jockeys stuck in your mob spawner? (BTW, I don't think that chickens from zombie jockeys can lay eggs, I had to breed them and get "normal" chickens.)
Yeah, 11 is a pretty low passive mob cap, but it should be enough. For a full battery of animals, you'll need:
2 pigs
2 cows
2 chickens
2 sheep
2 mooshrooms
1 horse
1 cat/ocelot
1 dog/wolf
So let's say you have all of them except the wolf, which puts you at 12 (over the cap). Two ideas to get under the cap:
Collect eggs until you can store away several stacks, then kill your chickens. Later you can toss the eggs to respawn your chickens.
Kill your cows to get under the cap. Later you can breed and then sheer mooshrooms to get normal cows (or just stick with a pen full of mooshrooms, since they can give you milk, leather, and beef).
In my testing on this map, I was able to get all animals at once (keeping the minimum of each to allow more to spawn).
Not sure why you couldn't get any more, maybe you had some Zombie chicken jockeys stuck in your mob spawner? (BTW, I don't think that chickens from zombie jockeys can lay eggs, I had to breed them and get "normal" chickens.)
Interesting point about the chicken jockeys. I've certainly seen a few chickens without their jockey in addition to some chicken meat in the output of my mob grinder so the chicken jockey thing is a definite probability. That also reminds me I've seen a few chickens in the Nether that probably came to be from baby Zombie Pigmen. That wouldn't impact this as well would it given it's in unloaded chunks? All told, looks like I have a lot of grinder exploration to do as well as investigating the rather extensive grounds I've managed to lay down.
Come to think of it, given what has thus far proven to be quite a challenge to get the necessary animals, I'm concerned that once I manged to get what I need I'll just face the possibility of loss of animals due to glitching. I've had issues with all the animals getting out due to glitching through their pen walls so glitching through the floor seems a real possibility at some point. Besides putting in multiple layers of flooring and/or having the animals swimming in water that flows toward a center point I'm unsure what other or better steps can be taken to help protect from glitching so as to ensure these animal goals can be fulfilled. If you plan for your video(s) to be a LP of your End of Skyblock map, perhaps you could cover this when you get to the animal portion.
I haven't beat the map yet, but having been to the End a couple times I can tell it's great! Maybe it could be made even better with some command block witchery below the spawn platform.
Nice job!!
I definitely learned from my first trip to the End on this map, I think I'll approach it differently next time!
Come to think of it, given what has thus far proven to be quite a challenge to get the necessary animals, I'm concerned that once I manged to get what I need I'll just face the possibility of loss of animals due to glitching. I've had issues with all the animals getting out due to glitching through their pen walls so glitching through the floor seems a real possibility at some point. Besides putting in multiple layers of flooring and/or having the animals swimming in water that flows toward a center point I'm unsure what other or better steps can be taken to help protect from glitching so as to ensure these animal goals can be fulfilled. If you plan for your video(s) to be a LP of your End of Skyblock map, perhaps you could cover this when you get to the animal portion. Yeah, (passive and hostile) mob glitching has been a serious problem in 1.7.9, usually when logging in or moving between dimensions. I nearly always have at least one animal out of its pen when I log in.
Several times I have had groups of hostile mobs fall through the mob farm on to my island when I log in (creepers, witches, skeletons).
I don't know the answer to this, other than I'm not going to construct my mob farm directly above my main island this time. I need to figure out a better animal pen design, as well. So far, I've just been killing off the wandering animals and breeding some new ones.
Yeah, (passive and hostile) mob glitching has been a serious problem in 1.7.9, usually when logging in or moving between dimensions. I nearly always have at least one animal out of its pen when I log in.
Several times I have had groups of hostile mobs fall through the mob farm on to my island when I log in (creepers, witches, skeletons).
I don't know the answer to this, other than I'm not going to construct my mob farm directly above my main island this time.
Yes, that's been my exact experience as well. The worst for me is the unexpected creeper around the corner or the ominous occasional floating gunpowder entities. Dirt protection is a high priority for me so the solution with the grinder away from the base next time is a must. Probably something like the killing floor at a low level in a roofed building with the drop tube(s) coming through the ceiling and the roof covered in water flowing from the center toward the edge to ensure any glitched mobs that fall down are washed away into the void.
I tried just copying the Temple.dat file from my test world to a copy of my Skyblock superflat, and unfortunately it didn't appear to work:
(These should be all witches)
So it looks like that bug report is correct, that witch huts don't "work" on superflats. (As long as my test coordinates were correct, which I believe they were).
I'm not quite giving up yet, though. I have a couple more things to try.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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I'm really psyched to see this, since I love Skyblock and have been hoping for a new version with the new Minecraft features.
One thought on a possible workaround for the Witch thing: maybe put a few pieces of redstone dust in one of the chests, like maybe the one in the nether? I was thinking that if you put, say, three iron bars and 9 redstone in a chest, that's enough stuff where you kind of have to make a choice: do you want to make some pistons, or do you want to make a second (possibly replacement) bucket?
Basically I just want to see some support for redstone stuff with appropriate challenges.
Likewise, an alternate to the bed in the starter chest might going the route of the original Skyblock and putting 12 string in the starting chest. Again, that make you make a choice: you can make a bed for a safe spawn point, or make a fishing rod so you can eat? Although, like you said, the "respawn platform" really does fix the respawn problem.
Well, you can already get small amounts of redstone via (normal) witch spawning, or via villager trading. I think Ganda1f was looking for massive quantities for giant redstone contraptions. I still think villager trading provides a decent enough supply for most needs.
I do have a challenge that mentions automating a farm with a sticky piston, involving some redstone is implied. But you are right, it could be more explicit.
I think I will probably leave the bed out if/when I need to release an update.
BTW, here is episode 2 of my "Director's Commentary" Lets Play:
Nicely done, train - I've never played skyblock, but I'll have to give this one a try. Your Let's Play is interesting as well - looking forward to more episodes.
As far as villagers in 1.8 are concerned, it isn't going to be as big a problem as you might think - in addition to trading with them to get them in the mood, you can also feed them. If there is a farmer, he will harvest and replant crops and share them with the others to get "in the mood". If not, if you toss food to a villager, he will also get "in the mood". And in 1.8, each villager starts with two trades each, and one of those is almost always player item for emeralds. And since they reset the iron golem and zombie pigment drops back to automatic, iron and gold farming in 1.8 will be the same. One thing that makes it all REAL interesting, though, is the addition of slime blocks! Especially with the changes to slime blocks with sticky pistons in the latest snapshot!
Nicely done, train - I've never played skyblock, but I'll have to give this one a try. Your Let's Play is interesting as well - looking forward to more episodes.
As far as villagers in 1.8 are concerned, it isn't going to be as big a problem as you might think - in addition to trading with them to get them in the mood, you can also feed them. If there is a farmer, he will harvest and replant crops and share them with the others to get "in the mood". If not, if you toss food to a villager, he will also get "in the mood". And in 1.8, each villager starts with two trades each, and one of those is almost always player item for emeralds. And since they reset the iron golem and zombie pigment drops back to automatic, iron and gold farming in 1.8 will be the same.
One thing that makes it all REAL interesting, though, is the addition of slime blocks! Especially with the changes to slime blocks with sticky pistons in the latest snapshot!
Thanks! I wasn't aware you could simply feed them to get them "in the mood", that would definitely simplify things. Yes, we will have to come up with some fun slime block challenges for the 1.8 version!
A couple of misc updates: I confirmed that [MC-3524] is still a problem in 1.7.9, witch huts don't "work" properly on superflat worlds (they spawn normal mobs, not witches). Here is a superflat generated swampland world, the hut generates normal mobs:
I manually edited the LEVEL.DAT using NBTExplorer to change "generatorName" from "flat" to "default", and now that same location generates only witches:
So putting a witch hut on the Skyblock map isn't going to work. (If I were to manually edit the world type, the "mainland" would come back once you got far enough away from the island.)
Finally, here is episode 3 of my director's commentary/let's play:
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This looks fantastic, thank you! I'm very happy to see this updated, as before I was, when playing the original, spawning in a single of each tree to give myself the variety of wood in game, but felt even just doing that removed a lot of the fun, just knowing I had already gone onto cheat mode to do it.
May I make a suggestion on the witches problem? Give players the option of a superflat world/the one you have now, where they can't reach mainland at all, or give them the edited version you just tested with, with the type changed to the regular world, so they can access witches in that version if wanted. This might be helpful to the less tech-saavy minecrafters who don't feel comfortable editing the level.dat. (Plus, don't a fair number of players enjoy the goal of reaching the mainland in Skyblock?)
I think that for anyone who really wants tons of redstone or glowstone, villager trades are the best way to do that on this map. If they eventually fix the "witch huts on superflat" bug, maybe I'll add one somewhere.
Got my 4th episode uploaded. Let's just say... I'm glad that I'm not playing in hardcore. At least I got a chance to test my spawning pad
For anyone who has made it to the end and beat the dragon: what did you think about the items I put in the reward chest? Are those useful items? Am I being too generous? Is giving you some extra of those normally rare resources a violation of the fundamental premise of the Skyblock map?
I think that for anyone who really wants tons of redstone or glowstone, villager trades are the best way to do that on this map. If they eventually fix the "witch huts on superflat" bug, maybe I'll add one somewhere.
How do you spawn villagers, anyway? Do you have to spawn zombies, then use the potion/golden apple trick? Because that seems like a of hassle and that it'd take a really long time...
any thoughts of a mod version of this map. Maybe use just NEI mod and Hardcore Questing Mode mod to creat Quest and reward system? Maybe ExAliquo and ExNihilo that are mods I think are designed for Skyblock maps. But no more. to try and keep a Vanilla feel.
I've also started a Let's Play / Director's Commentary on this map, here is episode 1!
Other than that, this seems like a great map.. thought when I first tried to get to the island from the bedrock platform, I was teleported really high in the sky and fell past the island. Second time I was teleported onto the tree.
These problems make me curious about the possibility of a hardcore version of this map.
Yeah, I thought about whether to include the bed. I guess with the bedrock spawning platform we've ultimately solved the respawning problem, but wanted to have a backup. Maybe I'll leave it out of future updates.
And no, you can't get resources from wolves and ocelots, that's why I made a bonus challenge that requires them
Other than that, this seems like a great map.. thought when I first tried to get to the island from the bedrock platform, I was teleported really high in the sky and fell past the island. Second time I was teleported onto the tree.
Yeah, the command block is actually using a "/spreadplayers" command (with a tiny radius) instead of a "/tp" command, so you may (rarely) miss the island, or occasionally spawn on top of the leaves. Press it again and you'll hopefully get a better drop point. (I'm doing it this way because /tp would warp you inside blocks if you've built up a house, /spreadplayers will always put you on TOP of whatever structure or blocks you've built up.) That's actually the only reason I left the bedrock block under the island, so you'd always have a chance to land on solid ground, even if you cleared everything else out.
Not sure why you couldn't get any more, maybe you had some Zombie chicken jockeys stuck in your mob spawner? (BTW, I don't think that chickens from zombie jockeys can lay eggs, I had to breed them and get "normal" chickens.)
Yeah, 11 is a pretty low passive mob cap, but it should be enough. For a full battery of animals, you'll need:
Interesting point about the chicken jockeys. I've certainly seen a few chickens without their jockey in addition to some chicken meat in the output of my mob grinder so the chicken jockey thing is a definite probability. That also reminds me I've seen a few chickens in the Nether that probably came to be from baby Zombie Pigmen. That wouldn't impact this as well would it given it's in unloaded chunks? All told, looks like I have a lot of grinder exploration to do as well as investigating the rather extensive grounds I've managed to lay down.
Nice job!!
I definitely learned from my first trip to the End on this map, I think I'll approach it differently next time!
Come to think of it, given what has thus far proven to be quite a challenge to get the necessary animals, I'm concerned that once I manged to get what I need I'll just face the possibility of loss of animals due to glitching. I've had issues with all the animals getting out due to glitching through their pen walls so glitching through the floor seems a real possibility at some point. Besides putting in multiple layers of flooring and/or having the animals swimming in water that flows toward a center point I'm unsure what other or better steps can be taken to help protect from glitching so as to ensure these animal goals can be fulfilled. If you plan for your video(s) to be a LP of your End of Skyblock map, perhaps you could cover this when you get to the animal portion.
Yeah, (passive and hostile) mob glitching has been a serious problem in 1.7.9, usually when logging in or moving between dimensions. I nearly always have at least one animal out of its pen when I log in.
Several times I have had groups of hostile mobs fall through the mob farm on to my island when I log in (creepers, witches, skeletons).
I don't know the answer to this, other than I'm not going to construct my mob farm directly above my main island this time. I need to figure out a better animal pen design, as well. So far, I've just been killing off the wandering animals and breeding some new ones.
Yes, that's been my exact experience as well. The worst for me is the unexpected creeper around the corner or the ominous occasional floating gunpowder entities. Dirt protection is a high priority for me so the solution with the grinder away from the base next time is a must. Probably something like the killing floor at a low level in a roofed building with the drop tube(s) coming through the ceiling and the roof covered in water flowing from the center toward the edge to ensure any glitched mobs that fall down are washed away into the void.
(These should be all witches)
So it looks like that bug report is correct, that witch huts don't "work" on superflats. (As long as my test coordinates were correct, which I believe they were).
I'm not quite giving up yet, though. I have a couple more things to try.
One thought on a possible workaround for the Witch thing: maybe put a few pieces of redstone dust in one of the chests, like maybe the one in the nether? I was thinking that if you put, say, three iron bars and 9 redstone in a chest, that's enough stuff where you kind of have to make a choice: do you want to make some pistons, or do you want to make a second (possibly replacement) bucket?
Basically I just want to see some support for redstone stuff with appropriate challenges.
Likewise, an alternate to the bed in the starter chest might going the route of the original Skyblock and putting 12 string in the starting chest. Again, that make you make a choice: you can make a bed for a safe spawn point, or make a fishing rod so you can eat? Although, like you said, the "respawn platform" really does fix the respawn problem.
I do have a challenge that mentions automating a farm with a sticky piston, involving some redstone is implied. But you are right, it could be more explicit.
I think I will probably leave the bed out if/when I need to release an update.
BTW, here is episode 2 of my "Director's Commentary" Lets Play:
As far as villagers in 1.8 are concerned, it isn't going to be as big a problem as you might think - in addition to trading with them to get them in the mood, you can also feed them. If there is a farmer, he will harvest and replant crops and share them with the others to get "in the mood". If not, if you toss food to a villager, he will also get "in the mood". And in 1.8, each villager starts with two trades each, and one of those is almost always player item for emeralds. And since they reset the iron golem and zombie pigment drops back to automatic, iron and gold farming in 1.8 will be the same. One thing that makes it all REAL interesting, though, is the addition of slime blocks! Especially with the changes to slime blocks with sticky pistons in the latest snapshot!
Thanks! I wasn't aware you could simply feed them to get them "in the mood", that would definitely simplify things. Yes, we will have to come up with some fun slime block challenges for the 1.8 version!
A couple of misc updates: I confirmed that [MC-3524] is still a problem in 1.7.9, witch huts don't "work" properly on superflat worlds (they spawn normal mobs, not witches). Here is a superflat generated swampland world, the hut generates normal mobs:
I manually edited the LEVEL.DAT using NBTExplorer to change "generatorName" from "flat" to "default", and now that same location generates only witches:
So putting a witch hut on the Skyblock map isn't going to work. (If I were to manually edit the world type, the "mainland" would come back once you got far enough away from the island.)
Finally, here is episode 3 of my director's commentary/let's play:
May I make a suggestion on the witches problem? Give players the option of a superflat world/the one you have now, where they can't reach mainland at all, or give them the edited version you just tested with, with the type changed to the regular world, so they can access witches in that version if wanted. This might be helpful to the less tech-saavy minecrafters who don't feel comfortable editing the level.dat. (Plus, don't a fair number of players enjoy the goal of reaching the mainland in Skyblock?)
Thank you so much for updating the map!
I think that for anyone who really wants tons of redstone or glowstone, villager trades are the best way to do that on this map. If they eventually fix the "witch huts on superflat" bug, maybe I'll add one somewhere.
Got my 4th episode uploaded. Let's just say... I'm glad that I'm not playing in hardcore. At least I got a chance to test my spawning pad
For anyone who has made it to the end and beat the dragon: what did you think about the items I put in the reward chest? Are those useful items? Am I being too generous? Is giving you some extra of those normally rare resources a violation of the fundamental premise of the Skyblock map?
Looking forward to your feedback!
How do you spawn villagers, anyway? Do you have to spawn zombies, then use the potion/golden apple trick? Because that seems like a of hassle and that it'd take a really long time...