UBC is free to use in packs as long as you a) don't charge money b ) give attribution and c) provide a link to UBC on Curse, Planet Minecraft, or here.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I head east from my impromptu mine, along the north edge of the map. I soon pass into a Glacier.
From the Glacier I spot the Eerie biome again, and a Frost Forest in the distance. I jump down into the Eerie which has a deep blue-purple sky.
In the (BoP) Frost Forest this changes quite abruptly to light blue-gray. For some time I've almost exclusively been seeing Highlands biomes even though about half of my biomes are BoP now. The reason is that I explored the coasts here way back in Episodes 31-34 and the chunk wall prevention feature of Climate Control locked in the biomes for some distance beyond where I was. This biome is far enough away that it wasn't locked and so it can be a BoP biome.
Next is an Ice Plains.
From here I catch a distant glimpse of an attractive Glacier ridge. This is the kind of effect I think Mojang was aiming for with the M biome system.
Slightly to my surprise I hit Ocean. I expected the landmass would be even wider up here than at the coast below, but I guess it's actually just a Large Island.
My boat is on the other side of the island so I turn around and go back again, parallel to the top but further down. I go through the Ice Plains and Eerie again; the Glacier is entirely to the north on this run.
2 passes done; looks like I need slightly more than 1 horizontal pass to finish it off.
I head back again, through largely the same biomes. I do have to go north again at the far end of the island to map all the nooks and crannies.
On the way back, on my final pass, I spot a Red Granite ravine. I'd been kicking myself for not getting the Red Granite earlier so i consider dropping down and quarrying from there. But I don't see any exciting ores down there, so I decide to do another vertical mineshaft and branch mine.
After mining a bit at the bottom I hit this large cave/ravine system. Those ores look tempting, but they turn out to be just saltpeter and silver. Sometimes these lava caves allow me to explore one branch at a time, but this system is complex and that doesn't look easy, so I just return to the branch mine. I know a lot of people enjoy combat in Minecraft but I'm not one of them; at this point it just distracts me from my building and exploration goals.
Soon I'm back to my boat, and head back out. Again, as long as I'm here I want to finish off those unexplored sea areas so I don't *have* to come back here. I get what's left on this map and one pass on the map to its right.
By that time it's dark and I decide to spend another night lawnmowering. I move onto the map to the south, which is one north of spawn. I've crisscrossed this map a number of times but there are still substantial strips left undone.
Earlier I'd found it gets tiresome getting large stretches of ocean mapped at once. I'm finding now, however, that leaving these strips and blobs wastes a lot of time because I have to boat from one unmapped region to another. So in the future I'll work harder at keeping my unexplored regions in large lumps.
Shortly before dawn I pass this large survival island out in the ocean. It's a real survival island, almost 1000 blocks from the nearest land and too far to swim to real land in almost any direction. These are very rare in vanilla oceans but reasonably common if you have BoP coral reefs and kelp forests. It occurs to me that you could use CC and BoP to generate a survival island start. You start with an all-ocean world and CC's start rescue will dump you on one of these islands. Then you switch to more normal world parameters and there will be real land elsewhere, just not at your start. I've got to test that.
I use the day to clean up that little spot on an island I'd missed in the upper right, and to explore the snow island near the center of this map.
When I'm done with that I'm ready to go home but night has fallen. If I head to the Magical Oasis I'll get there at night, so I snooze first and then head over.
Looks good, needs a little more decor on or in front of that tower wall. The Disney Aladdin palace with the big plain walls works in a cartoon but not so much here. Maybe I'll put a dock and a small guard tower at the base.
I moor my ship at the base of the newer, larger tower rather than going all the way in to my old dock. It's substantially easier this way, saving some steering around the sharp bend at the end.
Then it's over to the Winter Tower to check my maps. Substantial progess and the map wall looks better and better, although I still have a lot to do.
Next episode: rock processing and starting on some auxiliary towers.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Question, Zeno, are you planning on doing any more sort of technical stuff soon? I'm wondering if the palace is going to be purely decorative, or if you're thinking of putting something functional in there.
I like the idea of doing something functional, but I haven't had any bright ideas on what to do. The one idea I've had is wall maps, because the domes can fit in a lot of 6x7 (IIRC) maps pretty easily. Part of the issue is that I don't really need for much anymore, and with the Mystcraft book nexus there's really no need to duplicate anything - all of my Overworld bases are only four clicks from each other. I did have an idea for a wild madcap base with everything floating in midair, made safe with visually minimal safety devices, but I'm not too inspired for it right now.
Another issue is that I really need to get Underground Biomes converted to 1.8, and I should start a new world once I do that. (I also have a really cool idea for my next world, which will remain secret for now.) I'm not finishing this up in the immediate future, but all the same my time is limited and I already have a lot of projects. So the prospect of some cool new project reminds me that there's other things I won't have time for if I tackle something new.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I like the idea of doing something functional, but I haven't had any bright ideas on what to do. The one idea I've had is wall maps, because the domes can fit in a lot of 6x7 (IIRC) maps pretty easily. Part of the issue is that I don't really need for much anymore, and with the Mystcraft book nexus there's really no need to duplicate anything - all of my Overworld bases are only four clicks from each other. I did have an idea for a wild madcap base with everything floating in midair, made safe with visually minimal safety devices, but I'm not too inspired for it right now.
Another issue is that I really need to get Underground Biomes converted to 1.8, and I should start a new world once I do that. (I also have a really cool idea for my next world, which will remain secret for now.) I'm not finishing this up in the immediate future, but all the same my time is limited and I already have a lot of projects. So the prospect of some cool new project reminds me that there's other things I won't have time for if I tackle something new.
Ooooh, I like the sound of a secret project. I'm sure that will be cool to play/read.
Back in the Winter Tower I head out to the mirror drops to start roasting rocks and putting things away. After my last big expedition I was surprised how little was in it but now I'm surprised at how *much* is in it after a comparatively short trip. I've got 2 and a half double chests of stuff. I should have realized mining produces a lot more stuff than exploring. I throw some rocks in the furnace bank and busy myself putting things away. As I'm putting things away I'm finding my storage is becoming inadequate. I don't have carefully organized storage and now that my chests are filling up it's starting to be a hassle finding places to put things. Obviously I should re-organize soon.
One of the things I can do is sell some excess stuff I've accumulated for trading at Lazy River Landing. So I head over there.
I check on the fishing golem setup and the gather golem is jammed because the chest is full. I finally manage to bring myself to start throwing away saddles now that I have an entire double chest full of them. That and some rearranging into a spare chest and soon he's happily gathering again.
It's been long enough since the last outside-the-walls survivors got zombified (in Lazy River time) that they're starting to have kids again. I'm sure he'll be a fine addition to the town when he grows up.
I try putting Frugal, the Vis-saving enchantment, on one of my foci. I may have just wasted my time and effort, because the stats for power usage don't change (0.07 before and after). It's possible it helps but the hoverhelp doesn't show it; I'll test that the next time I use it.
I'm annoyed by some groans outside of the walls and have to trash some zombies, including a baby zombie who drops this zombie brains, indicating he was actually a furious baby zombie. But he was so distracted by the sweet succulent smell of villager flesh he never even tried to hit me.
After some more trading I head back to the Winter Tower to resume roasting rocks and putting things away. This takes a surprisingly large amount of time, because, after all, two double chests is a lot of stuff and I have a fairly large base to distribute it it.
One morning I come out and get shot at by this skeleton hanging out under some of the trees. That won't do, so I take him out. There are some zombies about too, and I thrash them as well, although one annoyingly lights me in the process. I spot yet another skelly hanging out under the trees and head over to take him out.
Slightly distracted by this lovely view.
Shortly after all this is done my stones are done and I Nexus back over to the Magical Oasis to start on planning the minaret.
I'd had second thoughts about switching from grey neutrals to brown neutral for this tower, but I didn't want to have yet another episode where I say "oops, changed my mind, you'll have to wait longer for the build". So I decided to go ahead. I'd been thinking about the palette, and I settle on a red granite base with eclogite and quartzite accents.
The next issue was the pattern. I'd observed that the pattern I've been using needs to be large to look good, and these walls are only going to be 4 blocks wide, plus two more wrapping around to the adjacent sides. I think that will be too small for the chevron pattern. I've had the idea of using the color pattern for just individual blocks so I try doing that in a paint program. Bad idea. Not only is it incredibly time-consuming, requiring over an hour of fiddly counting, it looks horrible (actually it looks like it would be good on a really large area, but not this). So that's out.
As a final idea I try some relatively conventional "bathroom tile" - type tilings. I eventually go with a somewhat complicated one in which my accent colors sometimes, but not always, touch, to provide a little extra variety.
You can see the 6-circle is pretty squarish and one of the less-perfect circles. The inside is actually a perfect square. The outside is better, of course. I'm building in brick as part of my usual experimentation; the last tower went up in smoothstone only so now I'm going to try brick-only to compare.
I figured the tiling would be easy to place but it turns out about as hard as the chevron pattern I've been using. Since the blocks have no shape (unlike the chevron) it's hard to keep track of where in the pattern I am. It's a repeating pattern, unlike with the chevron, and normally those are easy, but the repeating element is large enough that I can't just glance and see where I am.
It's slow going and tedious and I'm already feeling ready to be done with this. I look up to see how much further I have to go.
Ugh. Gonna be a long day
Next episode: finishing the tower.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I'm feeling disappointed at this point. Most of my concerns are coming true. The minaret looks wider than I'd like and I think the color of the new tower is clashing with the old ones. By itself it's actually very nice but - it's not by itself.
However, I'm stubborn, and so far these towers end up looking better when they're done, so I forge ahead.
As I'm building up, I'm keeping my goals in mind - a lower altitude balcony for a view of the Magical Forest and a panoramic view from the top. This view seems really good for the lower level, so I place a floor block inside to mark where I want to build it. I don't want to build it yet as I want to make sure the tower as a whole works first.
After a while I get into a system for building that makes it go faster. As I laid out the pattern, each wall has the opposite accent colors of the opposite wall. So on each wall I do one layer of accent color opposite the ones already placed on the opposite wall, then a layer of Red Granite, then a layer of accent colors match the next layer that *should* go on the opposite wall. When I rotate around to the opposite wall that second layer is then a model there, then I put on a new layer, etc. It's still a little slow since I'm juggling three different stone types, and it's a tall tower, but it's better.
Eventually I get up to the dome of the taller tower where I plan a connecting door. I go around and into the tower dome and cut the 4x4 area for the double door.
Initially I put the doors flush with the inner wall but that doesn't look right, so I recess them one block. It still needs some framing but I haven't got any bright ideas right now. I'm finding the dome pattern is causing a problem in that the domes are the largest rooms in the complex and should be focal point but with the same pattern on floor, walls, and ceilings, they aren't working as "rooms". The floors I can add a layer to on the inside but for my next dome I'm going to try a completely different design where the sides are distinct from the top.
The minaret colors may clash with the tower grays but they go fine with the domes, and the three together are creating the kind of monolithic feel you get from an interior window in a large cathedral or such, which is a good sign.
I stop to build my panoramic view platform right as I reach the height of the top of the taller tower. I had planned to build a little higher buy I am royally sick of block-counting patterns at this point and I need some payoff, if there's payoff to be had. I build a platform one block out from the tower in all directions.
This sunset view provides immediate payoff. So much so that I even consider aborting my plans to make a really big palace, because my future planned towers will block this view. Well, that's a decision I can put off.
I'm using the "fences below feet" security system here. Outside of the view deck I place fences right below foot level.
Then right above the view deck I place blocks. To get over the fences I'd have to go a 1/2 block up, but the ceiling won't let me, so there's no way I can fall out. This looks odd on a house balcony but at this altitude I think it will be fine, and it permits fantastic views where you see nothing whatsoever of the balcony and ceiling. Also you can walk between diagonal fences on the level of the fence, but when you are one above you can't and will always go up that 1/2 block (very weird, but that's how the mechanics work). So this system lets me use fences without having to add (often ugly) horizontal connections I'd need for a convetional fenced balcony.
I have to take a break to chop some more wood as this is consuming more wood than I'd expected. I find a small cave near the towers and light it up, hoping it's been the source of the occasional troublesome day spawn I've had to deal with.
Above the view deck I'd planned a steep conical roof, alternating planks going straight up with stairs going in one for a 2 to 1 pitch. I have some trouble with odd behavior of corner stairs and end up having to warp it a bit.
Finally it's done and I take a selfie atop the spire. Then I drop down to look at the tower from the ground
Once glance and my earlier misgivings melt away. The height makes it look plenty slender, and even the deviations from my conical top created a dome/cone hybrid which looks pretty interesting. The whole effect is similar to some Moghul towers I've seen. It does look like it needs something along the tower, but that's already planned.
The view from the top is everything I could have wished for. This is an actual shot from the balcony, not flying at that height, and as you can see there's nothing on the screen but view. And it's exactly the kind of feel I was hoping for, looking like a beautiful oasis in a barren yet scenic desert.
The view of the Magical Forest itself is not as good because it's too high but - I planned for that. I head down to build the lower balcony, using the same fencing system.
This is also a really-from-the-balcony shot, and it's perfect too. Unlike the view from the tower top, this view would survive my planned expansions.
Next I head out to see how the complex looks from various directions.
The view coming in from the ocean is great too. If I carry out my expansion plans there will be more domes and minarets, even higher, behind these. That, at least, will make a great sight.
And this view from the Dunes side would be a welcome sight after struggling through the barren and rugged desert.
So, after some earlier misgivings, I'm very happy with the minaret. It solidifies both the islamic and fantastical feels I was looking for, and provides absolutely amazing views for me to enjoy.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Looks pretty good Zeno. I think it's going to turn out very interesting. A little bit too 'busy' with all the patterns for my taste, but I'm not the best builder in the world either. You might try putting a fence on top of the minaret to make it a little more pointy.
(In regard to a mod that gives realistic animal genetics):
Would you really rather have bees that make diamonds and oil with magical genetic blocks?
... did I really ask that?
I'm planning to move on from this world before too long so I'm thinking about what I should try to wrap up. Right now I'm thinking about finishing the following projects before I finish up:
1) Explore out the 5x5 map wall
2) Finish the Arabian Nights Palace
3) Finish the trophy hall
I'm even developing an idea for the final episode (hint: fun homey stuff). But that's a bit off. Of the projects, the one I most want to finish is the map wall, which will have an advertising/demonstration function for Climate Control/Geographicraft. It's also probably the biggest project, although there's a lot left for the palace too.
So, that means: lots more exploration for the rest of the journal.
It seems appropriate to do the continent with the Arabian Nights palace next. What magical lands does it rule, anyway? So:
Through the Desert Arches I go, towards the north.
I head north through known Dunes and Sahel to the next map to the north.
This map is in the upper left corner of my map wall. This all looks to be part of a big continent. My rough plan is to explore the area in the upper left here on one trip, and then take a boat over to the upper right and explore that separately.
I decide to head to the far left and start there.
I cross known Jungle and Flying Mountains (the green sections) and then a Woodlands Mountain.
From the top of the Woodlands Mountain, near the edge of the map, I spot a Highlands Steppe.
In the distance, I spot what looks like a village. It's off the map to the west, but I head over to great the villagers.
Except it's not a village, but a tiny Silkglades with willow trees that from a distance are shaped rather like houses with windows.
Mildly embarassed at my observational skills, I turn north. I spot some donkeys, and then get forced back into a Woodland Mountains.
From there, I pass into a Moor
With a village. From a distance it looks good but once again the Moor ponds have messed up many of the houses. I move on.
Continuing north, I spot:
An Ocean? I'm pretty surprised by this as I expected this to be a big continent. Climate Control produces fewer deep inlets than the old 1.6 vanilla generator did, so this is unexpected. I turn and head east along the coast to get around it.
The coast goes quite a ways back east, through yet more Woodland Mountains, including this spectacular cliff. I'm getting pretty annoyed with all these Woodland Mountains as they are a pain to get around in with the high mountains and big trees.
Finally, when the inlet has continued so far the continent is reduced to a moderately narrow neck, it finally turns north.
This biome is, believe it or not, Lowlands.
The coast continues north for a while and at this point I'm going to miss mapping some of the water. I need everything explored for map wall aesthetics, so I have to decide how to get the Ocean mapped. I could go get supplies to build an Archimedes' ship, or I could just make a vanilla boat. I decide the area is small enough it's not worth the extra effort to make the Archimedes' ship, so I head out in a vanilla boat.
I head back to the west edge of the map and the north along the edge to see how wide the inlet is.
Well, it's not an inlet at all. It looks like it covers the entire northwest of this map, and. from my knowledge of CC generation, the large continent is actually multiple smaller continents overlapping. So much for prejudgement, I guess.
When I get back to land I leave my boat to explore the planned area.
This part is a Taiga adjacent to Highlands Redwood Forest. I head east near the top of the map. My plan is to go to that explored arm that almost reaches the top and then turn around. I do so, but right about where I'm going to turn around:
Something starts smacking me! I look around for the source - and see nothing. And I'm still getting smacked! I run to a nearby hill and jump up it. Thankfully, the damage stops. I look back again and
...nothing…
(Twilight Zone music plays)
I'm somewhat unnerved by this. If I were playing a later Thaumcraft, I'd blame warp, but I'm not so I can't. I could wander around in the hollow where I was attacked or whatever to see what was going on - maybe - but I doubt I can resolve it, so I just move on.
I turn back and start west and south, weaving a little.
I hit some BoP Spruce Woods and then this odd Savanna - Spruce Woods junction - another example of something that's supposed to be blocked by the climate system, but isn't *always*.
The Savanna adjoins this somewhat crazified mountainous region. I'm expecting Extreme Hills or something but it turns out to be the sub-biome Mesa. IME Mesas are not generally crazified like this so I'm somewhat surprised. Usually they're a nice scenic addition.
I'm now done with the upper section of what I wanted to map. I should have gotten more of the strip on top, but that's where I had the Twilight Zone invisible monster attack and I got a bit distracted.
I need to pick up that little strip of ocean. But first, I snooze to this lovely sunset.
The boating is uneventful and soon I return to roughly where I set off the first time. From there I head south to map out the open area towards the south of the map.
This has a lot of Badlands, my old favorite from my very first journal. I try to do some surface quarrying from here, but end up collecting only a few stacks of Greywacke. There are some Underground Biomes junctions and the hills aren't as "shaveable" as they were in the Badlands where I got the Greenschist and Greywacke earlier.
After this I pass through a number of different biomes, including Forest, (flooded) Outback, more Woodland Mountains, Sahel, and Savanna. As this is already very long, I'll skip pictures, apart from this Oasis in the Dunes:
I approach the Arabian Nights palace from the Sahel to the north. I'm curious what it looks like from there. The answer turns out to be: not much. I have to get pretty close before I see it.
It's nice when I finally see it. Of course the Magical Forest Oasis itself is already quite striking against all the desert. It's interesting, though, that it seems I really do need that extremely high tower to stand out properly in the forest. My plans involve more buildings perhaps 30 blocks up from the existing ones and I was thinking they'd look too tall, but from this angle at least it could be excellent.
Then it's back to the Winter Tower for a map wall view:
Coming along, if somewhat slowly. The fact that the upper continent is long and stringy is a surprise but: I love surprises when exploring! I think it's great that after hundreds of thousands of blocks of exploration I still find surprising and interesting geography.
My next exploration target is the big unexplored land area on maps 1 and 2 on the top. It's large, and will take a lot of work, although it looks to be mostly snowy and that tends not to generate as much journaling and photos.
But first, I'm going to do a bit of mining.
Next episode: to the mines.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's really incredible that you've managed to explore enough to map that much land. Your home continent seems like the biggest around, for sure, and even that pales in size compared to the amount of stuff around it. I'm excited to see what's in the two big empty areas, as well as what secrets could lie inside of the unexplored continents. Shame to hear that you'll be ending this soon, though... You've managed to survive this long, in hardcore mode, so long that you've basically completed the game at this point.
Something to note, though, I don't think you've ever actually gone to the end yet, and I think killing the dragon would make for an excellent finisher to the journal. Just an idea.
Also, I have to ask, after you've brought this journal to a close, do you intend to do another, once you've moved on to... Whatever it is you plan to do next? I'll miss your writing if you don't, it's been fun to read this as you play.
I have been reading this for a very long time, specifically since you took a long break during your large boat exploration. I am a big fan and you have inspired me to play Minecraft more.
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BTC 1FhCLQK2ZXtCUQDtG98p6fVH7S6mxAsEey
We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
This is not the algorithm. This is close.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
5/20/2012
Posts:
77
Location:
Ylisse
Minecraft:
San_David
Member Details
I can't help but second Empour's opinion here. I mean, that's a 10,000 by 10,000 space, and you've almost explored every single centimeter of it! The time that you've put into it is incredible, not mentioning the fact that you've brought us all along for the journey.
Also, I do hope that, if you do another journal after this one, it would be a 1.8 journal. It seems pretty likely (after all, you do like to test your own mods within these journals), and, admittedly, I have no idea how far the modding scene for 1.8 has progressed, so it would be interesting to see other 1.8 mods.
Thanks for all the support folks! Yes, I fully intend to do another journal after this and it will be in 1.8, to test and show off my mods. The reason I'm planning to wrap it up is precisely because I intend to port UBC to 1.8 over winter break. That'll be my last big mod (ExplorerCraft and Geographicraft (previously Climate Control) are already in 1.8). After that I'll want to play in 1.8.
Yeah, exploring all this is a lot of work. I didn't realize earlier, because my system of changing what I do whenever I get tired or bored cloaks it, but lately I have been pushing to finish and I really notice when I spend hours on an expedition and it only covers a small chunk of the map (like this). If I do finish it I think it'll be the largest 1.7+ SSP wall map ever journaled in terms of area covered.
Going to the end is an interesting alternative ending.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I have a plan for a new journal. It's very ambitious, although the sheer scale of the ambition might make it a less interesting read. Assuming all my plans go right, I'll probably start it early next year.
I've looked at available mods for 1.8, and it's a very limited set compared to 1.7. There are very few of the "big" mods available - Thaumcraft is almost the first, and it's kind of in beta mode. The other problem is less of the biome mods - Highlands is betaish, BoP alphaish, and EXBL isn't being converted at all AFAIK. I'll want a lively varied world for my next game. I'll probably use Mo Creatures to at least get some faunal variation. I think the only decoration mod is MrCrayfish's Furniture Mod so I'll have to switch from my beloved Bibliocraft. I'm also planning to change texture packs, for variety.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
(In regard to a mod that gives realistic animal genetics):
Would you really rather have bees that make diamonds and oil with magical genetic blocks?
... did I really ask that?
You could just stay in 1.7.10 for a while, until there's a bunch of "must-have" mods updated to a later version.
From a play point of view that would be fine; but I'm also a modder so I have other goals, including showing my stuff works in 1.8. Roughly estimate the timeline, I'm not sure I *can* wrap this up in time but we'll have to see. Converting UBC to 1.8 is a big project too.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I applaud your patient 'bring things forward' attitude in regards to mod updating. As a mod maker yourself it doesn't make sense to delay updating just because very few others have IMO.
I don't think there are many changes in 1.9 that will make that jump quite as big a hurdle as 1.7-1.8 right? What are your impressions?
I'm hardly cutting-edge, trying to bring stuff forward to 1.8 now. Some mods updated earlier, and Azanor has been the point man bringing his A+ mod over.
1.8 is a big shift, but something else has happened. The modding community just feels a lot less enthusiastic than it was 2 years ago when I started. Something is missing and I'm not sure what it is. It's me too - I'm not spending as much time modding as I used to. Partly it's personal life cutting back on my free time but there's some ineffable else no longer driving me on.
1.9 looks like it will be much less of a hurdle for 85% of modders. The visible structural changes in 1.9 seem to be ones involved with combat and AI, which don't affect many modders. The question will be how much under-the-hood changes we get, which we won't know until people start deobfuscating the code. It'll probably be better than 1.8, just because 1.8 was so drastic, with major changes to blocks, items, world locations AND - most substantively - removing custom rendering.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
UBC is free to use in packs as long as you a) don't charge money b ) give attribution and c) provide a link to UBC on Curse, Planet Minecraft, or here.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Episode 176: Snows and Sailing
I head east from my impromptu mine, along the north edge of the map. I soon pass into a Glacier.
From the Glacier I spot the Eerie biome again, and a Frost Forest in the distance. I jump down into the Eerie which has a deep blue-purple sky.
In the (BoP) Frost Forest this changes quite abruptly to light blue-gray. For some time I've almost exclusively been seeing Highlands biomes even though about half of my biomes are BoP now. The reason is that I explored the coasts here way back in Episodes 31-34 and the chunk wall prevention feature of Climate Control locked in the biomes for some distance beyond where I was. This biome is far enough away that it wasn't locked and so it can be a BoP biome.
Next is an Ice Plains.
From here I catch a distant glimpse of an attractive Glacier ridge. This is the kind of effect I think Mojang was aiming for with the M biome system.
Slightly to my surprise I hit Ocean. I expected the landmass would be even wider up here than at the coast below, but I guess it's actually just a Large Island.
My boat is on the other side of the island so I turn around and go back again, parallel to the top but further down. I go through the Ice Plains and Eerie again; the Glacier is entirely to the north on this run.
2 passes done; looks like I need slightly more than 1 horizontal pass to finish it off.
I head back again, through largely the same biomes. I do have to go north again at the far end of the island to map all the nooks and crannies.
On the way back, on my final pass, I spot a Red Granite ravine. I'd been kicking myself for not getting the Red Granite earlier so i consider dropping down and quarrying from there. But I don't see any exciting ores down there, so I decide to do another vertical mineshaft and branch mine.
After mining a bit at the bottom I hit this large cave/ravine system. Those ores look tempting, but they turn out to be just saltpeter and silver. Sometimes these lava caves allow me to explore one branch at a time, but this system is complex and that doesn't look easy, so I just return to the branch mine. I know a lot of people enjoy combat in Minecraft but I'm not one of them; at this point it just distracts me from my building and exploration goals.
Soon I'm back to my boat, and head back out. Again, as long as I'm here I want to finish off those unexplored sea areas so I don't *have* to come back here. I get what's left on this map and one pass on the map to its right.
By that time it's dark and I decide to spend another night lawnmowering. I move onto the map to the south, which is one north of spawn. I've crisscrossed this map a number of times but there are still substantial strips left undone.
Earlier I'd found it gets tiresome getting large stretches of ocean mapped at once. I'm finding now, however, that leaving these strips and blobs wastes a lot of time because I have to boat from one unmapped region to another. So in the future I'll work harder at keeping my unexplored regions in large lumps.
Shortly before dawn I pass this large survival island out in the ocean. It's a real survival island, almost 1000 blocks from the nearest land and too far to swim to real land in almost any direction. These are very rare in vanilla oceans but reasonably common if you have BoP coral reefs and kelp forests. It occurs to me that you could use CC and BoP to generate a survival island start. You start with an all-ocean world and CC's start rescue will dump you on one of these islands. Then you switch to more normal world parameters and there will be real land elsewhere, just not at your start. I've got to test that.
I use the day to clean up that little spot on an island I'd missed in the upper right, and to explore the snow island near the center of this map.
When I'm done with that I'm ready to go home but night has fallen. If I head to the Magical Oasis I'll get there at night, so I snooze first and then head over.
Looks good, needs a little more decor on or in front of that tower wall. The Disney Aladdin palace with the big plain walls works in a cartoon but not so much here. Maybe I'll put a dock and a small guard tower at the base.
I moor my ship at the base of the newer, larger tower rather than going all the way in to my old dock. It's substantially easier this way, saving some steering around the sharp bend at the end.
Then it's over to the Winter Tower to check my maps. Substantial progess and the map wall looks better and better, although I still have a lot to do.
Next episode: rock processing and starting on some auxiliary towers.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Question, Zeno, are you planning on doing any more sort of technical stuff soon? I'm wondering if the palace is going to be purely decorative, or if you're thinking of putting something functional in there.
I like the idea of doing something functional, but I haven't had any bright ideas on what to do. The one idea I've had is wall maps, because the domes can fit in a lot of 6x7 (IIRC) maps pretty easily. Part of the issue is that I don't really need for much anymore, and with the Mystcraft book nexus there's really no need to duplicate anything - all of my Overworld bases are only four clicks from each other. I did have an idea for a wild madcap base with everything floating in midair, made safe with visually minimal safety devices, but I'm not too inspired for it right now.
Another issue is that I really need to get Underground Biomes converted to 1.8, and I should start a new world once I do that. (I also have a really cool idea for my next world, which will remain secret for now.) I'm not finishing this up in the immediate future, but all the same my time is limited and I already have a lot of projects. So the prospect of some cool new project reminds me that there's other things I won't have time for if I tackle something new.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Ooooh, I like the sound of a secret project. I'm sure that will be cool to play/read.
Began playing during Alpha 1.2.6.
Episode 177: Rousted to Roast Rock
One of the things I can do is sell some excess stuff I've accumulated for trading at Lazy River Landing. So I head over there.
I check on the fishing golem setup and the gather golem is jammed because the chest is full. I finally manage to bring myself to start throwing away saddles now that I have an entire double chest full of them. That and some rearranging into a spare chest and soon he's happily gathering again.
It's been long enough since the last outside-the-walls survivors got zombified (in Lazy River time) that they're starting to have kids again. I'm sure he'll be a fine addition to the town when he grows up.
I try putting Frugal, the Vis-saving enchantment, on one of my foci. I may have just wasted my time and effort, because the stats for power usage don't change (0.07 before and after). It's possible it helps but the hoverhelp doesn't show it; I'll test that the next time I use it.
I'm annoyed by some groans outside of the walls and have to trash some zombies, including a baby zombie who drops this zombie brains, indicating he was actually a furious baby zombie. But he was so distracted by the sweet succulent smell of villager flesh he never even tried to hit me.
After some more trading I head back to the Winter Tower to resume roasting rocks and putting things away. This takes a surprisingly large amount of time, because, after all, two double chests is a lot of stuff and I have a fairly large base to distribute it it.
One morning I come out and get shot at by this skeleton hanging out under some of the trees. That won't do, so I take him out. There are some zombies about too, and I thrash them as well, although one annoyingly lights me in the process. I spot yet another skelly hanging out under the trees and head over to take him out.
Slightly distracted by this lovely view.
Shortly after all this is done my stones are done and I Nexus back over to the Magical Oasis to start on planning the minaret.
I'd had second thoughts about switching from grey neutrals to brown neutral for this tower, but I didn't want to have yet another episode where I say "oops, changed my mind, you'll have to wait longer for the build". So I decided to go ahead. I'd been thinking about the palette, and I settle on a red granite base with eclogite and quartzite accents.
The next issue was the pattern. I'd observed that the pattern I've been using needs to be large to look good, and these walls are only going to be 4 blocks wide, plus two more wrapping around to the adjacent sides. I think that will be too small for the chevron pattern. I've had the idea of using the color pattern for just individual blocks so I try doing that in a paint program. Bad idea. Not only is it incredibly time-consuming, requiring over an hour of fiddly counting, it looks horrible (actually it looks like it would be good on a really large area, but not this). So that's out.
As a final idea I try some relatively conventional "bathroom tile" - type tilings. I eventually go with a somewhat complicated one in which my accent colors sometimes, but not always, touch, to provide a little extra variety.
You can see the 6-circle is pretty squarish and one of the less-perfect circles. The inside is actually a perfect square. The outside is better, of course. I'm building in brick as part of my usual experimentation; the last tower went up in smoothstone only so now I'm going to try brick-only to compare.
I figured the tiling would be easy to place but it turns out about as hard as the chevron pattern I've been using. Since the blocks have no shape (unlike the chevron) it's hard to keep track of where in the pattern I am. It's a repeating pattern, unlike with the chevron, and normally those are easy, but the repeating element is large enough that I can't just glance and see where I am.
It's slow going and tedious and I'm already feeling ready to be done with this. I look up to see how much further I have to go.
Ugh. Gonna be a long day
Next episode: finishing the tower.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
oops, double post
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Episode 178: Magical Minaret
I'm feeling disappointed at this point. Most of my concerns are coming true. The minaret looks wider than I'd like and I think the color of the new tower is clashing with the old ones. By itself it's actually very nice but - it's not by itself.
However, I'm stubborn, and so far these towers end up looking better when they're done, so I forge ahead.
As I'm building up, I'm keeping my goals in mind - a lower altitude balcony for a view of the Magical Forest and a panoramic view from the top. This view seems really good for the lower level, so I place a floor block inside to mark where I want to build it. I don't want to build it yet as I want to make sure the tower as a whole works first.
After a while I get into a system for building that makes it go faster. As I laid out the pattern, each wall has the opposite accent colors of the opposite wall. So on each wall I do one layer of accent color opposite the ones already placed on the opposite wall, then a layer of Red Granite, then a layer of accent colors match the next layer that *should* go on the opposite wall. When I rotate around to the opposite wall that second layer is then a model there, then I put on a new layer, etc. It's still a little slow since I'm juggling three different stone types, and it's a tall tower, but it's better.
Eventually I get up to the dome of the taller tower where I plan a connecting door. I go around and into the tower dome and cut the 4x4 area for the double door.
Initially I put the doors flush with the inner wall but that doesn't look right, so I recess them one block. It still needs some framing but I haven't got any bright ideas right now. I'm finding the dome pattern is causing a problem in that the domes are the largest rooms in the complex and should be focal point but with the same pattern on floor, walls, and ceilings, they aren't working as "rooms". The floors I can add a layer to on the inside but for my next dome I'm going to try a completely different design where the sides are distinct from the top.
The minaret colors may clash with the tower grays but they go fine with the domes, and the three together are creating the kind of monolithic feel you get from an interior window in a large cathedral or such, which is a good sign.
I stop to build my panoramic view platform right as I reach the height of the top of the taller tower. I had planned to build a little higher buy I am royally sick of block-counting patterns at this point and I need some payoff, if there's payoff to be had. I build a platform one block out from the tower in all directions.
This sunset view provides immediate payoff. So much so that I even consider aborting my plans to make a really big palace, because my future planned towers will block this view. Well, that's a decision I can put off.
I'm using the "fences below feet" security system here. Outside of the view deck I place fences right below foot level.
Then right above the view deck I place blocks. To get over the fences I'd have to go a 1/2 block up, but the ceiling won't let me, so there's no way I can fall out. This looks odd on a house balcony but at this altitude I think it will be fine, and it permits fantastic views where you see nothing whatsoever of the balcony and ceiling. Also you can walk between diagonal fences on the level of the fence, but when you are one above you can't and will always go up that 1/2 block (very weird, but that's how the mechanics work). So this system lets me use fences without having to add (often ugly) horizontal connections I'd need for a convetional fenced balcony.
I have to take a break to chop some more wood as this is consuming more wood than I'd expected. I find a small cave near the towers and light it up, hoping it's been the source of the occasional troublesome day spawn I've had to deal with.
Above the view deck I'd planned a steep conical roof, alternating planks going straight up with stairs going in one for a 2 to 1 pitch. I have some trouble with odd behavior of corner stairs and end up having to warp it a bit.
Finally it's done and I take a selfie atop the spire. Then I drop down to look at the tower from the ground
Once glance and my earlier misgivings melt away. The height makes it look plenty slender, and even the deviations from my conical top created a dome/cone hybrid which looks pretty interesting. The whole effect is similar to some Moghul towers I've seen. It does look like it needs something along the tower, but that's already planned.
The view from the top is everything I could have wished for. This is an actual shot from the balcony, not flying at that height, and as you can see there's nothing on the screen but view. And it's exactly the kind of feel I was hoping for, looking like a beautiful oasis in a barren yet scenic desert.
The view of the Magical Forest itself is not as good because it's too high but - I planned for that. I head down to build the lower balcony, using the same fencing system.
This is also a really-from-the-balcony shot, and it's perfect too. Unlike the view from the tower top, this view would survive my planned expansions.
Next I head out to see how the complex looks from various directions.
The view coming in from the ocean is great too. If I carry out my expansion plans there will be more domes and minarets, even higher, behind these. That, at least, will make a great sight.
And this view from the Dunes side would be a welcome sight after struggling through the barren and rugged desert.
So, after some earlier misgivings, I'm very happy with the minaret. It solidifies both the islamic and fantastical feels I was looking for, and provides absolutely amazing views for me to enjoy.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Looks pretty good Zeno. I think it's going to turn out very interesting. A little bit too 'busy' with all the patterns for my taste, but I'm not the best builder in the world either. You might try putting a fence on top of the minaret to make it a little more pointy.
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..
Wow. That view is amazing. I also really like the spiral pattern on the minaret.
That is a nice view.
* Promoting this week: Captive Minecraft 4, Winter Realm. Aka: Vertical Vanilla Viewing. Clicky!
* My channel with Mystcraft, and general Minecraft Let's Plays: http://www.youtube.com/user/Keybounce.
* See all my video series: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-editions/minecraft-editions-show-your/2865421-keybounces-list-of-creation-threads
(In regard to a mod that gives realistic animal genetics):
Would you really rather have bees that make diamonds and oil with magical genetic blocks?
... did I really ask that?
Episode 179: What, Water Where?
I'm planning to move on from this world before too long so I'm thinking about what I should try to wrap up. Right now I'm thinking about finishing the following projects before I finish up:
1) Explore out the 5x5 map wall
2) Finish the Arabian Nights Palace
3) Finish the trophy hall
I'm even developing an idea for the final episode (hint: fun homey stuff). But that's a bit off. Of the projects, the one I most want to finish is the map wall, which will have an advertising/demonstration function for Climate Control/Geographicraft. It's also probably the biggest project, although there's a lot left for the palace too.
So, that means: lots more exploration for the rest of the journal.
It seems appropriate to do the continent with the Arabian Nights palace next. What magical lands does it rule, anyway? So:
Through the Desert Arches I go, towards the north.
I head north through known Dunes and Sahel to the next map to the north.
This map is in the upper left corner of my map wall. This all looks to be part of a big continent. My rough plan is to explore the area in the upper left here on one trip, and then take a boat over to the upper right and explore that separately.
I decide to head to the far left and start there.
I cross known Jungle and Flying Mountains (the green sections) and then a Woodlands Mountain.
From the top of the Woodlands Mountain, near the edge of the map, I spot a Highlands Steppe.
In the distance, I spot what looks like a village. It's off the map to the west, but I head over to great the villagers.
Except it's not a village, but a tiny Silkglades with willow trees that from a distance are shaped rather like houses with windows.
Mildly embarassed at my observational skills, I turn north. I spot some donkeys, and then get forced back into a Woodland Mountains.
From there, I pass into a Moor
With a village. From a distance it looks good but once again the Moor ponds have messed up many of the houses. I move on.
Continuing north, I spot:
An Ocean? I'm pretty surprised by this as I expected this to be a big continent. Climate Control produces fewer deep inlets than the old 1.6 vanilla generator did, so this is unexpected. I turn and head east along the coast to get around it.
The coast goes quite a ways back east, through yet more Woodland Mountains, including this spectacular cliff. I'm getting pretty annoyed with all these Woodland Mountains as they are a pain to get around in with the high mountains and big trees.
Finally, when the inlet has continued so far the continent is reduced to a moderately narrow neck, it finally turns north.
This biome is, believe it or not, Lowlands.
The coast continues north for a while and at this point I'm going to miss mapping some of the water. I need everything explored for map wall aesthetics, so I have to decide how to get the Ocean mapped. I could go get supplies to build an Archimedes' ship, or I could just make a vanilla boat. I decide the area is small enough it's not worth the extra effort to make the Archimedes' ship, so I head out in a vanilla boat.
I head back to the west edge of the map and the north along the edge to see how wide the inlet is.
Well, it's not an inlet at all. It looks like it covers the entire northwest of this map, and. from my knowledge of CC generation, the large continent is actually multiple smaller continents overlapping. So much for prejudgement, I guess.
When I get back to land I leave my boat to explore the planned area.
This part is a Taiga adjacent to Highlands Redwood Forest. I head east near the top of the map. My plan is to go to that explored arm that almost reaches the top and then turn around. I do so, but right about where I'm going to turn around:
Something starts smacking me! I look around for the source - and see nothing. And I'm still getting smacked! I run to a nearby hill and jump up it. Thankfully, the damage stops. I look back again and
...nothing…
(Twilight Zone music plays)
I'm somewhat unnerved by this. If I were playing a later Thaumcraft, I'd blame warp, but I'm not so I can't. I could wander around in the hollow where I was attacked or whatever to see what was going on - maybe - but I doubt I can resolve it, so I just move on.
I turn back and start west and south, weaving a little.
I hit some BoP Spruce Woods and then this odd Savanna - Spruce Woods junction - another example of something that's supposed to be blocked by the climate system, but isn't *always*.
The Savanna adjoins this somewhat crazified mountainous region. I'm expecting Extreme Hills or something but it turns out to be the sub-biome Mesa. IME Mesas are not generally crazified like this so I'm somewhat surprised. Usually they're a nice scenic addition.
I'm now done with the upper section of what I wanted to map. I should have gotten more of the strip on top, but that's where I had the Twilight Zone invisible monster attack and I got a bit distracted.
I need to pick up that little strip of ocean. But first, I snooze to this lovely sunset.
The boating is uneventful and soon I return to roughly where I set off the first time. From there I head south to map out the open area towards the south of the map.
This has a lot of Badlands, my old favorite from my very first journal. I try to do some surface quarrying from here, but end up collecting only a few stacks of Greywacke. There are some Underground Biomes junctions and the hills aren't as "shaveable" as they were in the Badlands where I got the Greenschist and Greywacke earlier.
After this I pass through a number of different biomes, including Forest, (flooded) Outback, more Woodland Mountains, Sahel, and Savanna. As this is already very long, I'll skip pictures, apart from this Oasis in the Dunes:
I approach the Arabian Nights palace from the Sahel to the north. I'm curious what it looks like from there. The answer turns out to be: not much. I have to get pretty close before I see it.
It's nice when I finally see it. Of course the Magical Forest Oasis itself is already quite striking against all the desert. It's interesting, though, that it seems I really do need that extremely high tower to stand out properly in the forest. My plans involve more buildings perhaps 30 blocks up from the existing ones and I was thinking they'd look too tall, but from this angle at least it could be excellent.
Then it's back to the Winter Tower for a map wall view:
Coming along, if somewhat slowly. The fact that the upper continent is long and stringy is a surprise but: I love surprises when exploring! I think it's great that after hundreds of thousands of blocks of exploration I still find surprising and interesting geography.
My next exploration target is the big unexplored land area on maps 1 and 2 on the top. It's large, and will take a lot of work, although it looks to be mostly snowy and that tends not to generate as much journaling and photos.
But first, I'm going to do a bit of mining.
Next episode: to the mines.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's really incredible that you've managed to explore enough to map that much land. Your home continent seems like the biggest around, for sure, and even that pales in size compared to the amount of stuff around it. I'm excited to see what's in the two big empty areas, as well as what secrets could lie inside of the unexplored continents. Shame to hear that you'll be ending this soon, though... You've managed to survive this long, in hardcore mode, so long that you've basically completed the game at this point.
Something to note, though, I don't think you've ever actually gone to the end yet, and I think killing the dragon would make for an excellent finisher to the journal. Just an idea.
Also, I have to ask, after you've brought this journal to a close, do you intend to do another, once you've moved on to... Whatever it is you plan to do next? I'll miss your writing if you don't, it's been fun to read this as you play.
I have been reading this for a very long time, specifically since you took a long break during your large boat exploration. I am a big fan and you have inspired me to play Minecraft more.
We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
This is not the algorithm. This is close.
I can't help but second Empour's opinion here. I mean, that's a 10,000 by 10,000 space, and you've almost explored every single centimeter of it! The time that you've put into it is incredible, not mentioning the fact that you've brought us all along for the journey.
Also, I do hope that, if you do another journal after this one, it would be a 1.8 journal. It seems pretty likely (after all, you do like to test your own mods within these journals), and, admittedly, I have no idea how far the modding scene for 1.8 has progressed, so it would be interesting to see other 1.8 mods.
Thanks for all the support folks! Yes, I fully intend to do another journal after this and it will be in 1.8, to test and show off my mods. The reason I'm planning to wrap it up is precisely because I intend to port UBC to 1.8 over winter break. That'll be my last big mod (ExplorerCraft and Geographicraft (previously Climate Control) are already in 1.8). After that I'll want to play in 1.8.
Yeah, exploring all this is a lot of work. I didn't realize earlier, because my system of changing what I do whenever I get tired or bored cloaks it, but lately I have been pushing to finish and I really notice when I spend hours on an expedition and it only covers a small chunk of the map (like this). If I do finish it I think it'll be the largest 1.7+ SSP wall map ever journaled in terms of area covered.
Going to the end is an interesting alternative ending.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I have a plan for a new journal. It's very ambitious, although the sheer scale of the ambition might make it a less interesting read. Assuming all my plans go right, I'll probably start it early next year.
I've looked at available mods for 1.8, and it's a very limited set compared to 1.7. There are very few of the "big" mods available - Thaumcraft is almost the first, and it's kind of in beta mode. The other problem is less of the biome mods - Highlands is betaish, BoP alphaish, and EXBL isn't being converted at all AFAIK. I'll want a lively varied world for my next game. I'll probably use Mo Creatures to at least get some faunal variation. I think the only decoration mod is MrCrayfish's Furniture Mod so I'll have to switch from my beloved Bibliocraft. I'm also planning to change texture packs, for variety.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
You could just stay in 1.7.10 for a while, until there's a bunch of "must-have" mods updated to a later version.
* Promoting this week: Captive Minecraft 4, Winter Realm. Aka: Vertical Vanilla Viewing. Clicky!
* My channel with Mystcraft, and general Minecraft Let's Plays: http://www.youtube.com/user/Keybounce.
* See all my video series: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-editions/minecraft-editions-show-your/2865421-keybounces-list-of-creation-threads
(In regard to a mod that gives realistic animal genetics):
Would you really rather have bees that make diamonds and oil with magical genetic blocks?
... did I really ask that?
From a play point of view that would be fine; but I'm also a modder so I have other goals, including showing my stuff works in 1.8. Roughly estimate the timeline, I'm not sure I *can* wrap this up in time but we'll have to see. Converting UBC to 1.8 is a big project too.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I applaud your patient 'bring things forward' attitude in regards to mod updating. As a mod maker yourself it doesn't make sense to delay updating just because very few others have IMO.
I don't think there are many changes in 1.9 that will make that jump quite as big a hurdle as 1.7-1.8 right? What are your impressions?
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..
I'm hardly cutting-edge, trying to bring stuff forward to 1.8 now. Some mods updated earlier, and Azanor has been the point man bringing his A+ mod over.
1.8 is a big shift, but something else has happened. The modding community just feels a lot less enthusiastic than it was 2 years ago when I started. Something is missing and I'm not sure what it is. It's me too - I'm not spending as much time modding as I used to. Partly it's personal life cutting back on my free time but there's some ineffable else no longer driving me on.
1.9 looks like it will be much less of a hurdle for 85% of modders. The visible structural changes in 1.9 seem to be ones involved with combat and AI, which don't affect many modders. The question will be how much under-the-hood changes we get, which we won't know until people start deobfuscating the code. It'll probably be better than 1.8, just because 1.8 was so drastic, with major changes to blocks, items, world locations AND - most substantively - removing custom rendering.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.