Before I use my new magic axe, I'd like to enchant it. I don't have XP farms per se because I find them a pretty extreme exploit. Killing zombies at the grinder is acceptable from a exploit standpoint, but it gets old. Normally I get a lot of XP from ranching to sell to villages but - no villagers, and ranching for XP is exploit-y too.
So, I figure I'll go on a big mining expedition. To make it possible to have a really big expedition, I want to use another Thaumcraft item - the Traveling Trunk. It's basically an animated pet trunk. What with all the different ores from Metallurgy and Thaumcraft, I'm really going to need the extra slots.
After a night's sleep and offing a few wandering monsters, I head downstairs to pick up some things I need for the infusion
Ack! There's a zombie at the center of my base!
I switch to my sword and start whacking him. He multiplies into two zombies! And my sword blows don't seem to bother them much. I realize I've fat fingered *F*1 (hide the interface) instead of "1" (my sword slot) so I've been slapping the zombies with something innocuous. I switch and start carving them, but they still get me down to 2 1/2 hearts before I kill them. Close!
But where did he come from? I figure he might have come from the area I just cleared - maybe I missed a spot. So I build a wall across the corridor and hope that's it.
A Traveling Trunk infusion requires four different Essentia, and that takes some work to obtain. Then one of the components is a Wood Golem, which is not a problem in itself but I just can't get it on the pedestal. I spend several minutes trying over and over and it just won't go on.
A little real-world research indicated the Golem needs to be "virgin"; i.e. never placed in the world. I thought it was, but just in case I make another (actually 2 for recipe balance). I try to put it on the pedestal and - still no dice. Finally I try shift-clicking it on and -
it works! Finally! Everything else can be clicked onto a pedestal, but a Golem needs to be shift-clicked. A tap of the wand and some special effects later, and my hungry chest has become Trunkie the Traveling Trunk.
(here jumping down a hill after me. Not the best shot, but the best shot I had.)
Trunkie does indeed follow me around, and he's kind of cute, but it turns out he has a lot of trouble with single doors and sometimes corridors. More of an outdoor pet, I guess. Fortunately there's an upgrade that will allow me to pick him up and have his contents stay inside (normally contents fall out - sensitive stomachs, I guess), so I make and install it and we're ready to go.
I head west, to where most of the continent is. If I ever build a base there I can use the corridor as a transportation option.
The Migmatite/Soapstone underground biomes go on for some distance but eventually I come to a Gneiss zone. Gniess looks nice in the ground but the pattern is too strong for it to fit in most builds.
I find that Trunkie has problems from being placed in narrow places. If he's intersecting a solid block, he takes suffocation damage. I have to dig out 3x3 rooms to place him safely.
Soon I come to a large lava lake and use my water bucket to obsidianize it.
Eventually I come to where the Steppe begins.
Trunkie and my inventory are nearly full and I'm almost to 30, so it's time to go back. Notice I have a lot of Terra and Ordo shards; as expected going through a Cold (ordo) Forest (terra).
This is how far I got. Yes, that's a mithril ore in the view.
I head home and get to 30 from furnace experience. I plop the axe on my enchantment table:
Another excellent workhorse item, with a bonus of being able to whack a zombie or skelly very convincingly if ambushed.
Next episode: My new axe in action, and something I didn't want to find.
I step out to see my first weather of the game. I suspect one of my mods is shutting off weather, with Thaumcraft the most likely culprit. In my last game I had all my current mods except Thaumcraft and Metallurgy and weather was normal (I won't say "fine" because the rain gets annoying sometimes). Thaumcraft alters the weather to create "flux weather" so it's obviously a prime suspect for the suspicious absence of precipitation.
Just as in the real world, precipitation is nice when it's rare. I'm actually enjoying the snow.
I head for the tree with cave spiders I saw in the plain, near where I found the horses. I plan to expose and light the cave spider spawner so I can convert it to a string farm later.
The denizens are predictably unhappy at my arrival. I endure a bite to get a torch down and reduce the rate of future spawns. Then I pull out my normal axe and whack him to death.
I use my normal axe to chop out the bottom and expose the spawner. No more spiders now until I want them.
Now I use the Axe of the Stream to down the tree. It chops the most distant wood block, not the one you're aiming at, so in practice trees are effectively chopped from the top down. But the Greatwood tree is so huge I chop for what seems like a minute before all the chopped wood and saplings come pouring down. I get 2 and a half stacks of Greatwood from this.
I forgot my shears so I have to leave about a half-dozen cobwebs floating in midair.
As long as I'm out here, I want to do some exploring. I explore more of the Steppe, encountering more of the dangerous caves I saw to the south. After crossing some hills, I come to a large lake and boat across.
On the other side is a Highlands Sahel sub-biome of the desert I'd found before. But over the next hill:
AAAAAHHH! TAINT!
The purple, for those not familiar with Thaumcraft, is a Tainted Biome, a biome of magic gone bad. Animals and monsters in it are powered up and made evil, and it can grow these Taintacles to attack you. Worse, it spreads while you're nearby. There's a Thaumcraft item to block it, but I can't make it yet and it's pretty hard to make in large enough quantities to block it. Thaumcraft itself makes them rather small, about the size of sub-biomes, but Climate Control + Thaumcraft makes them come out as full biomes.
So I leave. Quickly.
Here's my map after I've run a bit. The green area right behind me is the tainted area. I'll have to stay away from there for the foreseeable future. I'm not actually sure how I missed it on my node exploration back in Episode 10; I must have walked pretty close to it but I only had one map so there's no record.
From there I basically explore just north of where I've already explored.
Past the Sahel is an inland Estuary. I take the opportunity to go boating and find some nodes out on the water.
North of that is a Woodlands, probably the same Woodlands where I found the cows. I find wolves here, which will be very useful once I have enough bones. Right now I have about 6.
I'm far tougher than when I found the cows so I proceed through.
Here is a Highlands large Birch I think you can see why the vanilla large Birches in Birch Hills M, which are interesting compared to most vanilla trees, are kind of disappointing once you get used to Highlands trees.
The Woodlands is adjacent to a Roofed Forest, probably the same I saw from the coast in my circumnavigation. This looks pretty foreboding in the Halcyon Days texture pack. In vanilla the brighter green, fluffier wood, and candy-colored mushrooms look a little too cartoonish to exude an air of danger.
Soon I transition into the Cold Taiga north of my base. I get through this fairly uneventfully until almost at the coast:
I run into a large outdoor lava pool - the biggest I've ever seen. I obsidian it up promptly so it won't start a fire. I thought I'd modded these lava pools to use Underground Biomes stone rather than vanilla but apparently not. Gotta work on that.
I turn south towards home and spot a node up in the trees. That happens from time to time. I pillar up and use it to refill my wands but
I forget that my iron capped wand will drain a node to zero even thought I've done the research to leave a little. Draining a node to 0 permanently damages it. I'm a pretty ecologically minded guy and in about 4 months playing Thaumcraft this is the first time I've ever done it. I feel awful.
After a little struggling with the big hills and river just north of my base, I'm home. I need to build a travel route through that - I go to that triple node spot a lot, and I'l probably go more in the future because that wisp spawner will be my only reasonable source of Auram Essentia and Essentia drops for Salis Mundus.
I take a shot of my tower behind my altar. I realize from this angle the tower is a bit like an taotie, or chinese stylized monster mask, with the windows eyes and the upper balcony ears. Well, that's working out.
An here's my spawn map now - a little better filled in that before. Although with that tainted biome it may be a long time before I completely fill this out.
I've been thinking about the Thaumcraft Taint biome from your latest journal entry... In particular I'm wondering about the way that an area the size of an entire biome spawned already completely tainted. With taint spread, that area could become much, much larger, couldn't it? And, if so, getting to the tainted node at the centre might be impossible from the outset? I'm wondering if maybe there is another way to do it. I think the default Thaumcraft method is to randomly spawn a node as Tainted, then have the taint effects spread outward from there. Is that still how the taint biome is created in CC? I mean is there still a tainted node at the centre that can be destroyed (for example if you had a powersuit with a jetpack and a lot of potions, etc.)? Also, if a biome became tainted (either by flux or by taint spreading), does CC recognise that and.. um. Sorry lol I'm having a hard time wording my question here. Basically I'm trying to find out if entities set to spawn only in a Tainted Biome will spawn in an area that becomes tainted in a Climate Control world. Actually, another way to ask my question might be to ask you about the area around the two silverwood trees in that last picture. Does that register as a magical forest biome (in the F3 screen)? If so then there's no worries about spawns.
PS. That last picture of your tower behind the silverwood trees is great. Coming along very nicely
I use ExplorerCraft because I like the vanilla feel. Plus,map walls. Of course, it's what I want, I wrote it!
The x64 textures are great, but Halcyon Days isn't compatible with the Optifine I need to run them. I've thought about changing to a x64 texture pack, but I'd like to keep a very similar feel and I didn't find one on casual inspection.
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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.
It used to be possible (I did this in 4.0.5) to control taint by sectioning it off; the fibrous taint cannot spread through a number of blocks, including fences, torches, and water. By breaking it into sections, you can manually hunt out the taint blocks, and clear an area.
The biome itself, apparently, does not spread unless there are taint blocks inside it near the edge. And depending on the config, it might not spread into new chunks (only fill out the existing chunk).
(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?
It used to be possible (I did this in 4.0.5) to control taint by sectioning it off; the fibrous taint cannot spread through a number of blocks, including fences, torches, and water. By breaking it into sections, you can manually hunt out the taint blocks, and clear an area.
The biome itself, apparently, does not spread unless there are taint blocks inside it near the edge. And depending on the config, it might not spread into new chunks (only fill out the existing chunk).
I thought about doing that. But can't it spread through caves and mineshafts too? The CC+Thaumcraft taint zones are also normally much bigger than the ones Thaumcraft makes alone, although that particular zone didn't look too big (I've seen some really big taint zones on flyarounds).
I shut off tougher negative node effects, because Hungry nodes are just too arbitrary and lethal for Hardcore, but taint spread is still on.
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.
I've been thinking about the Thaumcraft Taint biome from your latest journal entry... In particular I'm wondering about the way that an area the size of an entire biome spawned already completely tainted. With taint spread, that area could become much, much larger, couldn't it? And, if so, getting to the tainted node at the centre might be impossible from the outset? I'm wondering if maybe there is another way to do it. I think the default Thaumcraft method is to randomly spawn a node as Tainted, then have the taint effects spread outward from there. Is that still how the taint biome is created in CC? I mean is there still a tainted node at the centre that can be destroyed (for example if you had a powersuit with a jetpack and a lot of potions, etc.)? Also, if a biome became tainted (either by flux or by taint spreading), does CC recognise that and.. um. Sorry lol I'm having a hard time wording my question here. Basically I'm trying to find out if entities set to spawn only in a Tainted Biome will spawn in an area that becomes tainted in a Climate Control world. Actually, another way to ask my question might be to ask you about the area around the two silverwood trees in that last picture. Does that register as a magical forest biome (in the F3 screen)? If so then there's no worries about spawns.
PS. That last picture of your tower behind the silverwood trees is great. Coming along very nicely
Taint zones are made differently in CC. Tainted is actually a biome, and it has a weight (in the configs). If that range of numbers comes up in the random number generator, the biome is created as tainted. That particular spot was created CC-style, because it has the Magical Forest trees. There isn't necessarily a Tainted node inside and even if there is it didn't make the zone. I've never actually seen a Thaumcraft-style tainted area in my flyaround tests although in flyaround there's probably no time for spread. Since I shut off the more negative node effects (to stop the Hungry nodes) I don't think Tainted nodes will spread Taint (I'd prefer they did, but I'm not going to have Hungry node doomtraps).
Once taint exists, it will spread by Thaumcraft rules. At least it *should*; I didn't deliberately alter it although I haven't tested it. Hmm, maybe I should try to block that section off just for testing purposes. Likewise, Tainted spawns should happen too but I haven't tested that either.
Yes, the Silverwood trees next to my Altar did generate Magical Forest biomes. But it's just in an 8x8 area around the trees. It wouldn't even begin to protect my base if the taint were to spread that far.
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.
Taint zones are made differently in CC. Tainted is actually a biome, and it has a weight (in the configs). If that range of numbers comes up in the random number generator, the biome is created as tainted. That particular spot was created CC-style, because it has the Magical Forest trees. There isn't necessarily a Tainted node inside and even if there is it didn't make the zone. I've never actually seen a Thaumcraft-style tainted area in my flyaround tests although in flyaround there's probably no time for spread. Since I shut off the more negative node effects (to stop the Hungry nodes) I don't think Tainted nodes will spread Taint (I'd prefer they did, but I'm not going to have Hungry node doomtraps).
Once taint exists, it will spread by Thaumcraft rules. At least it *should*; I didn't deliberately alter it although I haven't tested it. Hmm, maybe I should try to block that section off just for testing purposes. Likewise, Tainted spawns should happen too but I haven't tested that either.
Yes, the Silverwood trees next to my Altar did generate Magical Forest biomes. But it's just in an 8x8 area around the trees. It wouldn't even begin to protect my base if the taint were to spread that far.
ah ok so that's a good sign. That means that Thaumcraft can override CC biome placements and still have its desired effect.
It's worth mentioning that 'biome Taint from Flux' and 'Taint Biome spread' are separate settings to the 'HardMode nodes' in the config. So.. what should happen is that you will get Taint spreading outwards from a tainted node and the affected area will then start to produce the fibrous taint, tainticles, swarms, spores, etc. Essentially, if a pure node can make a Magical Forest, a tainted node should be able to make a tainted "biome". Obvioulsy it will start about the same size as the small area around your pure node-containing Silverwood Trees but, unlike the Magical Forest, the Taint biome will spread out and continue to actively spread as long as the tainted node remains - and yes Taint definitely spreads through caves and water. You could try doing a little test by spawning a tainted node in any random biome. See what happens. If it does create taint and the taint spreads, you might not need to have Taint Biomes added by CC separately at all.
I plant 3 Greatwood saplings, two of them near nodes, which in the past was important to their growth. I head downstairs and embark on a heavy Thaumcraft research program. Partly it's to get things like Infusion Enchanting so I can choose my enchantment rather than taking random ones. Partly it's to research things like Runic Shielding
(that's a complicated research) so I can understand how my ring works. I also research several golem controllers, and scepters and staves, which are specialized wands.
Poking around in my chest I realize that cactus dye has Sensus, so I *do* have a farmable source of Sensus after all.
I enlarge my cactus farm. I'm going to do it manually as I figure golems would get injured.
There's a problem coming up, though, I have no good source for Salis Mundus, and almost all of the non-golem recipes need some. Salis Mundus has a difficult recipe, requiring Etherial Essence, which comes only from Wisp drops and destroyed nodes. In my 1.6.4, you could also use mana beans, but I haven't found any of those. Wisps are hard to get - my only reasonable shot would be the Wisp spawner near the triple node but even that seems not to have spawned any wisps while I've been there.
Given how much I explore I could afford to destroy some nodes, but my ecological instincts abhor that. Yeah, it's an enormous world, there are millions, maybe billions, of nodes, it's single player and nobody else will ever need them - but I just hate permanently damaging a world.
Well, for now I want to improve my altar a bit to tackle some more dangerous infusions. I'm going through my chest for candle making supplies when
WHOMP! Something hits me! Hard, too.
Another zombie - from a different direction than the last invader. I pull out my sword and dispatch him. I head down the corridor he came from - and find another! I'm thinking maybe there's a hole in the roof like in the Catacombs episode so I'm checking the celing and I hear SSSSS.
C***.
Now they start coming from all over - a slime, multiple zombies, a skelly. I'm trying to find some corner I can catch my breath in and start planning a cordon sanitaire but I can't get rest anywhere! I even have zombie come out of my enchantment room - which is a dead end!
Finally I just block off a tiny area around my Arcane worktable using gravel. I make some Paving Stones of Warding, which won't let mobs cross, and which I figure will work well for temporary easy-to-move barriers.
As soon as I take down the gravel they're after me again.
I put up the Warding Stones but it doesn't stop them.
Watching the parade coming at me I realize they're using the torches to jump over. I knock down the torches and *now* they have to stop. Now i can use the stones for a moving blockade - put down a line, advance forward, put down a new line, pull up the old line, rinse and repeat.
Where the creeper went off there is indeed a hole in the ceiling to - yet another mineshaft, of course. I don't know if it was there before or if the creeper made it. I spent many hours down here with no trouble at all, so I don't *think* this was it, although I'm not sure. Of course I block it up anyway.
I leave the Paving Stone barriers right around my research/crafting/ore processing area so at least I won't get whacked by zombies while I'm going through my chests again.
I want a break before I go investigate this invasion mess so I go ahead and make the candles for the infusion altar. I've been trying to think of uses for all these metals I've got. It's far more than I need or can enchant. Well, I could at least use them for shovels so I try making a Damascus steel shovel. It works spectacularly! Too fast, almost - like a diamond pick in the Nether. I finish the spiral with candles, and then put the rest of the candles in niches on the side of the room.
Nice structure to the candle room. The walls need decoration, and the candles need to have some color, but I haven't yet been inspired so I'll leave it here for now. If anybody has an bright decor ideas, please post!
Next episode: On the offensive!
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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 back to the big central room of the mineshaft complex to see if the mobs are coming from there.
They could be, it seems. But I just can't find out where they could be coming from. Finally I decide to crack into the mineshaft above where they're coming from and see if I can figure it out up there.
It seems normal at first. I go in and turn left and:
It's a mess. There are two mineshafts running alongside and intersecting each other, and some torches have melted the ice walls creating water flows. That zombie is apparently too confused to come after me.
One mineshaft turns. I follow it to until I reach a watery/icy spot right next to my base and light it all up. The other has too much water and I just block it up.
I start mining the exposed ores and I - you knew it - break into ANOTHER mineshaft. Sigh.
Well, I'm on the offensive now, so I head in. It goes on for a while and then split three ways.
Near the split I encounter a skelly but otherwise I'm not harassed. One of the corridors I light up to the end. The other two I block up for now.
I still have more to explore in this part but now it's all leading away from my base area except for the messy water corridor, so I head back to base and try to break into Grand Central Station, the multi-corridor intersection I've been avoiding for two weeks.
Grand Central Station is right. I had thought there were 4 corridors. There are actually *5* : 3 parallel and intersecting corridors, intersecting 2 parallel corridors . All 20 blocks from my initial dropshaft.
Rather than give a blow-by blow of the campaign, I'll describe the eventual resolution:
1 corridor is a watery mess and I just block it off. 1 corridor ends shortly. 1 corridor turns, interects a short cave, and then ends. 1 corridor goes some distance, then goes up into some ice, so I block it off. The last goes for some distance and eventually I just block it off rather than continuing.
There's a fair amount of combat but all fairly routine
Except for this skeleton target shooting me out of the dark. He was annoying.
Just in this area is so much stuff Trunkie is full. So, it's time to head back to the processing area (all of 30 blocks away), to crush, alloy, and smelt all this stuff.
I still haven't found where those invaders were coming from, but at least with my wards they're not bothering me.
Next episode: Preparations and a new direction.
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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.
After a long time working at home and on magic, I was thinking about a new direction. Sticking with my idea for Tarot guidance, I tried a reading which certainly suggested a big trip. I have been doing some changes to Climate Control to add in 1.6 -> 1.7 conversions without chunk walls, and a test for side effects in my current world would be useful.
Moreover, in-game I've kind of exhausted what I can do right here. For the more high-powered magic, I need a lot of Salis Mundus, and my only potential source is setting up a wisp farm at the spawner and for some reason that doesn't appeal to me right now. I could also use some Mana Beans, and of course I'd really like to find a village.
Given the size of the continent I'm on and the biomes on the coast, I'm unlikely to find a village or Magical Forest (for Mana Beans) on this continent, unless it's in the unexplored area to the south. For testing Climate Control, I'd like to head out into the oceans to see the effects of my current landmass settings. So my plan is to explore the rest of the coast of the continent and then strike out to adjacent maps and see what's in the water.
For this, I'm going to need a LOT of map supplies. I make a whole bunch of markers for nodes and other discoveries:
I learned from my last journal to have colors planned out. So I've got six primary colors for the nodes, plus purple for Taint, pink for Villages (I wish) and gray for Obsidian Pillars.
My automated sugarcane farm has been running quite a while and has built up a lot of sugarcane. In addition, I'd planted some upstairs in the wheat farm as I really had enough wheat. That covered the 11 full-size blank maps in the corner.
Here's my map wall before setting out. I have enough blank maps to do a ring around this if I'm so inclined, although that will be a LOT of exploration.
Meanwhile the Greatwood trees have sprouted, and they look good!
Next morning I take to the ocean. I travel just south of my previous exploration limits to increase my map area. I pass into the map to the east and then travel south along the coast to where my previous exploration stopped.
Fairly soon the coast hooks in front of me, exposing a hot area. These are generally the best for villages, so I prepare to disembark.
Where I disembark is a Hungry Node. Fortunately I'd shut off the near certain-death aspects of Hungry Nodes in the Thaumcraft configs as otherwise this journal would already be over. I didn't suspect it until I was too close to escape. As it is it just ate my boat.
I explore a lot of Savanna, Desert, and Highland Sahel - but no villages. After I've pretty much covered the areas likely to have a village I reboard my boat.
Here's a pic of most of what I explored, taken while I was on an offshore island. The land also extended a bit on the map to the right, but no villages there either. The greenish area on the top of the peninsula is a Extreme Hills area.
From there I travel along the coast to the area I'd previously explored. I get some nice scenery from a black granite area in a Badlands, plus another Meadow, but not places likely to host a village.
At this point I strike off to the East. In a surprisingly short distance I encounter land and a HUGE problem:
This, folks, is what chunk walls look like in the newer versions of Climate Control. They look like - perfectly normal terrain! Which is the point. But in *THIS* case it disguised a bug. Instead of using the setting in the world-specific config file, CC was generating according to the settings in the general config file - which were set to generate vanilla terrain. But of course I didn't know this at the time…
So in I went, exploring this Roofed Forest, and Extreme Hills, a Tundra, carefully exploring a large Plains for villages, avoiding another Extreme Hills, crossing a swamp, using a river to cut through a Forest, thoroughly exploring a Savanna and Desert area for villages, taking lots and lots of pretty pics - until, suddenly I realized "hey where's the Highlands terrain?"
Even then I wasn't *sure* it was wrong. The very short ocean crossing was suspicious, 8 or so vanilla biomes in a row was very suspicious - but I'm running mixed Highlands/vanilla terrain, and short ocean crossings do happen with my current settings. But some testing in a creative re-creation quickly showed this new continent was wrong.
Because Climate Control "protects" biomes near where you've explored, my home continent was all correct, or nearly so. But, I hadn't made a backup before I struck out across the ocean. So, I had to roll back to the very beginning of this episode. I did consider keeping the newly generated vanilla terrain, but a major purpose of this journal was to test smaller-scale land structures. If I'd kept the vanilla chunk, not only the biomes I'd explored would still be vanilla-style, but also a couple of biomes around it, and that would be quite a large hunk of vanilla generation, enough that my map wall would not reflect the settings. So, to the backup I went.
One image from the terrain that didn't exist, though
Vanilla 1.7 terrain gets a lot of flak, but it's actually quite nice. When you see the same kinds of terrain over and over again, because of the huge size of the climate zones, they don't look nice, but the problem is "familiarity breeds contempt". To me, playing in a mostly-Highlands world with more reasonably sized climate zones, this was really nice.
Next episode: the real coast of the next landmass to the east.
The bug turned out to be that when I reloaded the world without quitting to desktop CC went back to using the generic configs. So it didn't affect just starting and running, which is why I'd missed it. The problem manifested when I had to pause the game for family obligations. It took me a while to figure this all out but it was fairly easy to fix once I had.
With the bug fixed, I redid what I'd done in my base pretty much as I'd done it the first time.
This time I just beeline for the new region. I plan to explore the coastline and if it's basically the same there's no reason to re-explore the interior. Eventually I'll fill out my maps but no hurry.
The coast from the hook going east seems exactly the same. I do decide to cross the land to the east just to add a little to my maps by not retracing what I've already explored on the coast..
I do find a lone well way up and exactly on the crest of a narrow ridge. Not a very logical place for a well, but there it is.
I do come across two "lava traps" - lava pools below the surface, so if you fall in you can't easily get out. Just on general principles, I use my water bucket to obsidianize them. To my surprise, this makes some of the sand fall - literally one block from me! Now that would have been an ironic death.
I get to the water, board my boat, and proceed south and then west as the coast turns. Everything is very similar to what I remember the first time. Climate Control did indeed protect these areas and maintain the biomes that should have generated.
When I finish exploring the coastline it's almost dark. But, I'm in a boat, and expecting a fair distance ocean trip, so I head on out. I quickly reach where I'd seen the bogus vanilla terrain and - still water. Whew!
I do soon find a different kind of terrain, snowy (which is what I'd found was supposed to be there in testing). It's not likely to have a village, so I keep boating.
Boating around the snowy landmass, I come to the edge of the map and continue over. On the next map, the snowy coast turns south but I continue east as I'm not particularly interested in that land mass. I cross the entire next map and see no land other than one tiny island as I'm leaving the snowy coast behind.
At the east end of the map I turn north. Just barging off in some direction is a terrible way to explore in Minecraft. If you find something it can be an enormous distance from where you started and linear expeditions look terrible on map walls. Most of the time a spiral search works far better; that's what I planned for and that's what I'll do.
Shortly after crossing into the next map to the north (2 big maps east of spawn) I find land again. And once again it's snowy, so not of great interest on this trip. However, it does have a Highlands biome - Glacier - so I know Climate Control is working for both the land/ocean arrangements (because there's actually an ocean) and for biome choices.
Glacier is a very attractive biome for backdrops and I do enjoy boating past it. This snowy landmass goes on quite a ways though, almost the whole length of the map. It's pretty terrain, but not what I'm looking for.
Finally that coast turns left and goes off the map. I continue north, sticking to my spiral search plan and after only a few hundred blocks I encounter some temperate terrain - Woodlands. This continues north to the next map, now 2 east and 1 north of spawn. I go along a long hilly coast but don't disembark to explore, except to mine a few mana shard ores (Thaumcraft) I spot at the coast. While I might find a village or a Magical Forest here I figure my odds are better to continue the (much faster and easier) ocean exploration and come back later if needed.
I do spot an offshore island apparently with Woodland Mountains. It's very pretty, and because of the smallish size might be easier to build on that a full-blown biome. I mentally flag it for later.
And now I spot something I'm very happy to see - another Silverwood tree. This wasn't a major expedition goal, but if I can get a sapling out of it, I cant finish the structural design for the Infusion Altar.
It's almost dark, so I land and get some sleep.
Next episode - a Silverwood tree, plus more good stuff!
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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 over to chop the Silverwood and then realize I only have my Axe of the Stream. That will chop down the entire tree, including the nodes, which I don't want to destroy. I consider making a axe here but then decide I don't really need the wood, just some saplings:
So I chop off all the leaves and leave the wood. I get two saplings, so now I'm set for my Infusion Altar plan - I even have an extra.
I explore a short distance on land but very soon come to a snowy region and return to boating. The snowy region goes on about 1000 blocks. At that point I notice some temperate land out to sea and head over to investigate. It turns out to be a small island, but it's next to a temperate landmass (which may or may not connect to the snowy area I was boating past. I get off and explore some plains.
I don't find any villages, but I do find my first free-standing pure node of the game.
It's fairly big and useful too, with over 30 each of aer/ignis/perdito.
I explore on land for a while and find several nodes but no village. After a while I spot a Dunes ahead.
I try to continue (since hot is the best climate for villages) but soon the Dunes are right up against the ocean and I have to take to my boat again.
But shortly, perched up against the Dunes cliffs, I see:
Magical Forest! Excellent!
Perched on the edge of the looming Dunes, it creates a great Arabian Nights oasis effect.
The picture doesn't do it justice. I'll have to go back someday to get some better ones.
I look around for a while trying to find some Mana Beans. Initially I find no Mana Beans, although I do find some vishrooms, oversized magical mushrooms. I actually don't know their purpose. One actually makes me sick when I'm standing next to it, although I'm not seriously harmed.
I do eventually find a mana bean and collect it.
I'm a little cautious as the large trees do occasionally produce enough shade to spawn mobs in daytime. I drop torches in some of the darker regions to make the place a little safer; I plan to come back. I do actually get attacked by two zombies at one point.
I end up getting five mana beans. When beans drop, they drop with a random aspect, so this ends up occupying 4 slots in my inventory (I got a duplicate). Trunkie is certainly coming in handy!
The Magical Forest abuts a Highlands Sahel on the other side. This maintains the Arabian Nights feel although it's not so spectacular.
I take one last shot before I head off into the Sahel to look for villages.
Next Episode: more exploration
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RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
I'm hopeful exploring the Sahel because it's the one Highlands biome I've found with villages, but I don't find one.
I come across another Flying Mountains and can't resist a picture.
There's also a Highlands Savannah and an Outback in this hot climate zone, but still no villages.
Highlands Savannah is similar to a vanilla Savanna, even to the angled acacia limbs. The trees are rarer. Highlands has the biome because it added it well before Vanilla did in 1.7 IMO the Highlands savannah is more attractive, with a better color and a nicer shape to the trees.
Eventually I'm forced back into the water by another Dunes region.
The Dunes is then followed by an Extreme Hills on a peninsula. I go around and on the other side find myself in a strait:
The strait seems to lead into a very large bay. I feel like some land exploration, so I go ashore at the junction of a Taiga and a Cliffs.
I head north, into an Autumn Forest. From there I decide to continue my circle and head east. I start going into a Roofed Forest, which I've not had much trouble with in the past, but I quickly get zombies coming at me from two directions.
That's actually kind of hazardous, especially if it happens again some distance in with no place to retreat to, or if I need to sleep. Worse, my Angmallen Haste 3 boots have too many enchantments to be repairable, and they're almost worn out; if I get into a running fight they're toast. So I beat a hasty retreat to the Autumn Forest.
I continue north, planning to go around the Roofed Forest, but to the north I find:
Woodland Mountains. Pretty to look at, but also subject to daytime spawns, and extremely difficult to get around it. So I'm basically forced to go back and give up on a land crossing
Here's a map with the hot area in the lower left (with some marked nodes), the inlet I followed in, and the path through dense forests with the Roofed Forest on the right.
Being me, I don't retrace my steps but travel alongside my previous explorations to get more on my maps and do more exploring.
I get an upclose look at a grove of Redwood Trees. I don't think I could chop one of those down without an Axe of the Stream. Certainly would be great for a treehouse!
In addition to the Taiga I landed in, I also pass through a Meadow and collect cotton and lavender.
Oddly, I find one tiny patch of Highlands Savannah here, with a single Acacia. It's out of place, because Tundra is cool climate and Acacia is hot climate so they shouldn't be so close. It's not a chunk error because it has smooth boundaries and no chunk walls.
As I near where the coast should be I hit some jumbled hilly terrain, with some parts that might be Dunes. So maybe that's part of how the hot zone Savannah got there.
Finally I board my boat, sail back through the strait, and continue along a snowy coast to the east edge of the map. Here's a map of my explorations in this episode.
Next Episode: Volcano!
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RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
There *are* villages. But for some reason they are extremely rare. To be honest, I actually cheated in the creative copy I made to check the bogus vanilla generation and went south looking for a village. I did eventually find one - at Z=20,000. I haven't figured it out - it seems to be some kind of interaction, probably Highlands + CC. I get villages at normal rates with CC alone or with CC+Thaumcraft. When I was doing my test flyarounds they weren't so hard to find, so something has changed.
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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.
Congrats to comic book and strip author Alison Bechdel for her MacArthur Genius Fellowship! No personal connection whatsover, but I've enjoyed her work for 25 years and my alliteration alludes to a long-running gag theme in her Dykes to Watch Out For serial comic strip.
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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 pass onto the next map to the east. I'm now 2 maps north and one map west of spawn. The snowy coast I've been passing continues to the west, but changes to a temperate zone with a Woodlands.
This is in a Black Granite region, always great for pics (although problematic for digging).
The Woodlands goes on for about 1 biome width, and then the terrain reverts to snowy. It's getting dark. I was considering another night boat, but I come upon a tiny island right at nightfall.
I take a snooze, enjoying the view.
Come morning I resume my trip. The snowy coast continues to about the middle of the map, and then turns to the north. I follow, and it's a long coast. After about 1000 blocks, I'm approaching the north edge of the map. I've decided I don't want to explore another map to the north and I'm just about to turn around when:
A volcanic island! This is another of my experiments gone right. The biome is one of several islands from Highlands, but when I first created them, as sub-biomes, they seemed small - and downright desultory for the Volcanic Island, which came out as basically a small pile of gravel. Highlands uses them mostly to make the oceans less bland. But I'm pretty OK with the oceans in Climate Control, so I tried to repurpose them as full-sized biomes out in the deep ocean, much like Mushroom Islands. It worked spectacularly well, so that's how Climate Control makes them if Highlands is running.
This is the first time I've seen a Volcanic Island honestly, even in Creative flyaround. I've seen one once, but it was in a world with CC parameters set up to spawn me on the Highlands by almost completely removing all other land.
Fortuitously part of the island is composed of Rhyolite stone from Underground Biomes Constructs, which is actually a stone made of volcanic ash. Pure coincidence, but a nice one.
I do have to admit these volcanos are more fun in Creative than in Hardcore. They're very steep and also pretty dangerous, obviously. In Creative you can fly around and look up close but that's not an option here. So I just look from my boat. But when I have a Thaumstatic Harness, I'll be back!
I go all the way around the island.
Towards the end I spot another volcano, this one connected to the snowy coast I'd been passing. The Volcanic Islands are *supposed* to be way out at sea so I'm going to want to check that.
I land and pillar up to get a nighttime shot of this one.
In the morning I head east. Here's the explorations on this map:
Next Episode: Returning home.
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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.
heh i see you havent lycanite mobs installed?, with LM lava become very dangerous , not only for player, for world too ( as and local weather and stormfronts by coros).. magical fire burn and erase gigantic area... nature overhaul partially decide this problem
So, I figure I'll go on a big mining expedition. To make it possible to have a really big expedition, I want to use another Thaumcraft item - the Traveling Trunk. It's basically an animated pet trunk. What with all the different ores from Metallurgy and Thaumcraft, I'm really going to need the extra slots.
After a night's sleep and offing a few wandering monsters, I head downstairs to pick up some things I need for the infusion
Ack! There's a zombie at the center of my base!
I switch to my sword and start whacking him. He multiplies into two zombies! And my sword blows don't seem to bother them much. I realize I've fat fingered *F*1 (hide the interface) instead of "1" (my sword slot) so I've been slapping the zombies with something innocuous. I switch and start carving them, but they still get me down to 2 1/2 hearts before I kill them. Close!
But where did he come from? I figure he might have come from the area I just cleared - maybe I missed a spot. So I build a wall across the corridor and hope that's it.
A Traveling Trunk infusion requires four different Essentia, and that takes some work to obtain. Then one of the components is a Wood Golem, which is not a problem in itself but I just can't get it on the pedestal. I spend several minutes trying over and over and it just won't go on.
A little real-world research indicated the Golem needs to be "virgin"; i.e. never placed in the world. I thought it was, but just in case I make another (actually 2 for recipe balance). I try to put it on the pedestal and - still no dice. Finally I try shift-clicking it on and -
it works! Finally! Everything else can be clicked onto a pedestal, but a Golem needs to be shift-clicked. A tap of the wand and some special effects later, and my hungry chest has become Trunkie the Traveling Trunk.
(here jumping down a hill after me. Not the best shot, but the best shot I had.)
Trunkie does indeed follow me around, and he's kind of cute, but it turns out he has a lot of trouble with single doors and sometimes corridors. More of an outdoor pet, I guess. Fortunately there's an upgrade that will allow me to pick him up and have his contents stay inside (normally contents fall out - sensitive stomachs, I guess), so I make and install it and we're ready to go.
I head west, to where most of the continent is. If I ever build a base there I can use the corridor as a transportation option.
The Migmatite/Soapstone underground biomes go on for some distance but eventually I come to a Gneiss zone. Gniess looks nice in the ground but the pattern is too strong for it to fit in most builds.
I find that Trunkie has problems from being placed in narrow places. If he's intersecting a solid block, he takes suffocation damage. I have to dig out 3x3 rooms to place him safely.
Soon I come to a large lava lake and use my water bucket to obsidianize it.
Eventually I come to where the Steppe begins.
Trunkie and my inventory are nearly full and I'm almost to 30, so it's time to go back. Notice I have a lot of Terra and Ordo shards; as expected going through a Cold (ordo) Forest (terra).
This is how far I got. Yes, that's a mithril ore in the view.
I head home and get to 30 from furnace experience. I plop the axe on my enchantment table:
Another excellent workhorse item, with a bonus of being able to whack a zombie or skelly very convincingly if ambushed.
Next episode: My new axe in action, and something I didn't want to find.
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 step out to see my first weather of the game. I suspect one of my mods is shutting off weather, with Thaumcraft the most likely culprit. In my last game I had all my current mods except Thaumcraft and Metallurgy and weather was normal (I won't say "fine" because the rain gets annoying sometimes). Thaumcraft alters the weather to create "flux weather" so it's obviously a prime suspect for the suspicious absence of precipitation.
Just as in the real world, precipitation is nice when it's rare. I'm actually enjoying the snow.
I head for the tree with cave spiders I saw in the plain, near where I found the horses. I plan to expose and light the cave spider spawner so I can convert it to a string farm later.
The denizens are predictably unhappy at my arrival. I endure a bite to get a torch down and reduce the rate of future spawns. Then I pull out my normal axe and whack him to death.
I use my normal axe to chop out the bottom and expose the spawner. No more spiders now until I want them.
Now I use the Axe of the Stream to down the tree. It chops the most distant wood block, not the one you're aiming at, so in practice trees are effectively chopped from the top down. But the Greatwood tree is so huge I chop for what seems like a minute before all the chopped wood and saplings come pouring down. I get 2 and a half stacks of Greatwood from this.
I forgot my shears so I have to leave about a half-dozen cobwebs floating in midair.
As long as I'm out here, I want to do some exploring. I explore more of the Steppe, encountering more of the dangerous caves I saw to the south. After crossing some hills, I come to a large lake and boat across.
On the other side is a Highlands Sahel sub-biome of the desert I'd found before. But over the next hill:
AAAAAHHH! TAINT!
The purple, for those not familiar with Thaumcraft, is a Tainted Biome, a biome of magic gone bad. Animals and monsters in it are powered up and made evil, and it can grow these Taintacles to attack you. Worse, it spreads while you're nearby. There's a Thaumcraft item to block it, but I can't make it yet and it's pretty hard to make in large enough quantities to block it. Thaumcraft itself makes them rather small, about the size of sub-biomes, but Climate Control + Thaumcraft makes them come out as full biomes.
So I leave. Quickly.
Here's my map after I've run a bit. The green area right behind me is the tainted area. I'll have to stay away from there for the foreseeable future. I'm not actually sure how I missed it on my node exploration back in Episode 10; I must have walked pretty close to it but I only had one map so there's no record.
From there I basically explore just north of where I've already explored.
Past the Sahel is an inland Estuary. I take the opportunity to go boating and find some nodes out on the water.
North of that is a Woodlands, probably the same Woodlands where I found the cows. I find wolves here, which will be very useful once I have enough bones. Right now I have about 6.
I'm far tougher than when I found the cows so I proceed through.
Here is a Highlands large Birch I think you can see why the vanilla large Birches in Birch Hills M, which are interesting compared to most vanilla trees, are kind of disappointing once you get used to Highlands trees.
The Woodlands is adjacent to a Roofed Forest, probably the same I saw from the coast in my circumnavigation. This looks pretty foreboding in the Halcyon Days texture pack. In vanilla the brighter green, fluffier wood, and candy-colored mushrooms look a little too cartoonish to exude an air of danger.
Soon I transition into the Cold Taiga north of my base. I get through this fairly uneventfully until almost at the coast:
I run into a large outdoor lava pool - the biggest I've ever seen. I obsidian it up promptly so it won't start a fire. I thought I'd modded these lava pools to use Underground Biomes stone rather than vanilla but apparently not. Gotta work on that.
I turn south towards home and spot a node up in the trees. That happens from time to time. I pillar up and use it to refill my wands but
I forget that my iron capped wand will drain a node to zero even thought I've done the research to leave a little. Draining a node to 0 permanently damages it. I'm a pretty ecologically minded guy and in about 4 months playing Thaumcraft this is the first time I've ever done it. I feel awful.
After a little struggling with the big hills and river just north of my base, I'm home. I need to build a travel route through that - I go to that triple node spot a lot, and I'l probably go more in the future because that wisp spawner will be my only reasonable source of Auram Essentia and Essentia drops for Salis Mundus.
I take a shot of my tower behind my altar. I realize from this angle the tower is a bit like an taotie, or chinese stylized monster mask, with the windows eyes and the upper balcony ears. Well, that's working out.
An here's my spawn map now - a little better filled in that before. Although with that tainted biome it may be a long time before I completely fill this out.
Next episode - an unanticipated invasion!
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.
PS. That last picture of your tower behind the silverwood trees is great. Coming along very nicely
why you do not use map writer? he is much more functional and beautiful...
why you do not use x64 ubc texture(soarer)? they are much more beautiful..
The x64 textures are great, but Halcyon Days isn't compatible with the Optifine I need to run them. I've thought about changing to a x64 texture pack, but I'd like to keep a very similar feel and I didn't find one on casual inspection.
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.
The biome itself, apparently, does not spread unless there are taint blocks inside it near the edge. And depending on the config, it might not spread into new chunks (only fill out the existing chunk).
* 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?
I thought about doing that. But can't it spread through caves and mineshafts too? The CC+Thaumcraft taint zones are also normally much bigger than the ones Thaumcraft makes alone, although that particular zone didn't look too big (I've seen some really big taint zones on flyarounds).
I shut off tougher negative node effects, because Hungry nodes are just too arbitrary and lethal for Hardcore, but taint spread is still on.
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.
Taint zones are made differently in CC. Tainted is actually a biome, and it has a weight (in the configs). If that range of numbers comes up in the random number generator, the biome is created as tainted. That particular spot was created CC-style, because it has the Magical Forest trees. There isn't necessarily a Tainted node inside and even if there is it didn't make the zone. I've never actually seen a Thaumcraft-style tainted area in my flyaround tests although in flyaround there's probably no time for spread. Since I shut off the more negative node effects (to stop the Hungry nodes) I don't think Tainted nodes will spread Taint (I'd prefer they did, but I'm not going to have Hungry node doomtraps).
Once taint exists, it will spread by Thaumcraft rules. At least it *should*; I didn't deliberately alter it although I haven't tested it. Hmm, maybe I should try to block that section off just for testing purposes. Likewise, Tainted spawns should happen too but I haven't tested that either.
Yes, the Silverwood trees next to my Altar did generate Magical Forest biomes. But it's just in an 8x8 area around the trees. It wouldn't even begin to protect my base if the taint were to spread that far.
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.
ah ok so that's a good sign. That means that Thaumcraft can override CC biome placements and still have its desired effect.
It's worth mentioning that 'biome Taint from Flux' and 'Taint Biome spread' are separate settings to the 'HardMode nodes' in the config. So.. what should happen is that you will get Taint spreading outwards from a tainted node and the affected area will then start to produce the fibrous taint, tainticles, swarms, spores, etc. Essentially, if a pure node can make a Magical Forest, a tainted node should be able to make a tainted "biome". Obvioulsy it will start about the same size as the small area around your pure node-containing Silverwood Trees but, unlike the Magical Forest, the Taint biome will spread out and continue to actively spread as long as the tainted node remains - and yes Taint definitely spreads through caves and water. You could try doing a little test by spawning a tainted node in any random biome. See what happens. If it does create taint and the taint spreads, you might not need to have Taint Biomes added by CC separately at all.
I plant 3 Greatwood saplings, two of them near nodes, which in the past was important to their growth. I head downstairs and embark on a heavy Thaumcraft research program. Partly it's to get things like Infusion Enchanting so I can choose my enchantment rather than taking random ones. Partly it's to research things like Runic Shielding
(that's a complicated research) so I can understand how my ring works. I also research several golem controllers, and scepters and staves, which are specialized wands.
Poking around in my chest I realize that cactus dye has Sensus, so I *do* have a farmable source of Sensus after all.
I enlarge my cactus farm. I'm going to do it manually as I figure golems would get injured.
There's a problem coming up, though, I have no good source for Salis Mundus, and almost all of the non-golem recipes need some. Salis Mundus has a difficult recipe, requiring Etherial Essence, which comes only from Wisp drops and destroyed nodes. In my 1.6.4, you could also use mana beans, but I haven't found any of those. Wisps are hard to get - my only reasonable shot would be the Wisp spawner near the triple node but even that seems not to have spawned any wisps while I've been there.
Given how much I explore I could afford to destroy some nodes, but my ecological instincts abhor that. Yeah, it's an enormous world, there are millions, maybe billions, of nodes, it's single player and nobody else will ever need them - but I just hate permanently damaging a world.
Well, for now I want to improve my altar a bit to tackle some more dangerous infusions. I'm going through my chest for candle making supplies when
WHOMP! Something hits me! Hard, too.
Another zombie - from a different direction than the last invader. I pull out my sword and dispatch him. I head down the corridor he came from - and find another! I'm thinking maybe there's a hole in the roof like in the Catacombs episode so I'm checking the celing and I hear SSSSS.
C***.
Now they start coming from all over - a slime, multiple zombies, a skelly. I'm trying to find some corner I can catch my breath in and start planning a cordon sanitaire but I can't get rest anywhere! I even have zombie come out of my enchantment room - which is a dead end!
Finally I just block off a tiny area around my Arcane worktable using gravel. I make some Paving Stones of Warding, which won't let mobs cross, and which I figure will work well for temporary easy-to-move barriers.
As soon as I take down the gravel they're after me again.
I put up the Warding Stones but it doesn't stop them.
Watching the parade coming at me I realize they're using the torches to jump over. I knock down the torches and *now* they have to stop. Now i can use the stones for a moving blockade - put down a line, advance forward, put down a new line, pull up the old line, rinse and repeat.
Where the creeper went off there is indeed a hole in the ceiling to - yet another mineshaft, of course. I don't know if it was there before or if the creeper made it. I spent many hours down here with no trouble at all, so I don't *think* this was it, although I'm not sure. Of course I block it up anyway.
I leave the Paving Stone barriers right around my research/crafting/ore processing area so at least I won't get whacked by zombies while I'm going through my chests again.
I want a break before I go investigate this invasion mess so I go ahead and make the candles for the infusion altar. I've been trying to think of uses for all these metals I've got. It's far more than I need or can enchant. Well, I could at least use them for shovels so I try making a Damascus steel shovel. It works spectacularly! Too fast, almost - like a diamond pick in the Nether. I finish the spiral with candles, and then put the rest of the candles in niches on the side of the room.
Nice structure to the candle room. The walls need decoration, and the candles need to have some color, but I haven't yet been inspired so I'll leave it here for now. If anybody has an bright decor ideas, please post!
Next episode: On the offensive!
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.
They could be, it seems. But I just can't find out where they could be coming from. Finally I decide to crack into the mineshaft above where they're coming from and see if I can figure it out up there.
It seems normal at first. I go in and turn left and:
It's a mess. There are two mineshafts running alongside and intersecting each other, and some torches have melted the ice walls creating water flows. That zombie is apparently too confused to come after me.
One mineshaft turns. I follow it to until I reach a watery/icy spot right next to my base and light it all up. The other has too much water and I just block it up.
I start mining the exposed ores and I - you knew it - break into ANOTHER mineshaft. Sigh.
Well, I'm on the offensive now, so I head in. It goes on for a while and then split three ways.
Near the split I encounter a skelly but otherwise I'm not harassed. One of the corridors I light up to the end. The other two I block up for now.
I still have more to explore in this part but now it's all leading away from my base area except for the messy water corridor, so I head back to base and try to break into Grand Central Station, the multi-corridor intersection I've been avoiding for two weeks.
Grand Central Station is right. I had thought there were 4 corridors. There are actually *5* : 3 parallel and intersecting corridors, intersecting 2 parallel corridors . All 20 blocks from my initial dropshaft.
Rather than give a blow-by blow of the campaign, I'll describe the eventual resolution:
1 corridor is a watery mess and I just block it off. 1 corridor ends shortly. 1 corridor turns, interects a short cave, and then ends. 1 corridor goes some distance, then goes up into some ice, so I block it off. The last goes for some distance and eventually I just block it off rather than continuing.
There's a fair amount of combat but all fairly routine
Except for this skeleton target shooting me out of the dark. He was annoying.
Just in this area is so much stuff Trunkie is full. So, it's time to head back to the processing area (all of 30 blocks away), to crush, alloy, and smelt all this stuff.
I still haven't found where those invaders were coming from, but at least with my wards they're not bothering me.
Next episode: Preparations and a new direction.
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.
Moreover, in-game I've kind of exhausted what I can do right here. For the more high-powered magic, I need a lot of Salis Mundus, and my only potential source is setting up a wisp farm at the spawner and for some reason that doesn't appeal to me right now. I could also use some Mana Beans, and of course I'd really like to find a village.
Given the size of the continent I'm on and the biomes on the coast, I'm unlikely to find a village or Magical Forest (for Mana Beans) on this continent, unless it's in the unexplored area to the south. For testing Climate Control, I'd like to head out into the oceans to see the effects of my current landmass settings. So my plan is to explore the rest of the coast of the continent and then strike out to adjacent maps and see what's in the water.
For this, I'm going to need a LOT of map supplies. I make a whole bunch of markers for nodes and other discoveries:
I learned from my last journal to have colors planned out. So I've got six primary colors for the nodes, plus purple for Taint, pink for Villages (I wish) and gray for Obsidian Pillars.
My automated sugarcane farm has been running quite a while and has built up a lot of sugarcane. In addition, I'd planted some upstairs in the wheat farm as I really had enough wheat. That covered the 11 full-size blank maps in the corner.
Here's my map wall before setting out. I have enough blank maps to do a ring around this if I'm so inclined, although that will be a LOT of exploration.
Meanwhile the Greatwood trees have sprouted, and they look good!
Next morning I take to the ocean. I travel just south of my previous exploration limits to increase my map area. I pass into the map to the east and then travel south along the coast to where my previous exploration stopped.
Fairly soon the coast hooks in front of me, exposing a hot area. These are generally the best for villages, so I prepare to disembark.
Where I disembark is a Hungry Node. Fortunately I'd shut off the near certain-death aspects of Hungry Nodes in the Thaumcraft configs as otherwise this journal would already be over. I didn't suspect it until I was too close to escape. As it is it just ate my boat.
I explore a lot of Savanna, Desert, and Highland Sahel - but no villages. After I've pretty much covered the areas likely to have a village I reboard my boat.
Here's a pic of most of what I explored, taken while I was on an offshore island. The land also extended a bit on the map to the right, but no villages there either. The greenish area on the top of the peninsula is a Extreme Hills area.
From there I travel along the coast to the area I'd previously explored. I get some nice scenery from a black granite area in a Badlands, plus another Meadow, but not places likely to host a village.
At this point I strike off to the East. In a surprisingly short distance I encounter land and a HUGE problem:
This, folks, is what chunk walls look like in the newer versions of Climate Control. They look like - perfectly normal terrain! Which is the point. But in *THIS* case it disguised a bug. Instead of using the setting in the world-specific config file, CC was generating according to the settings in the general config file - which were set to generate vanilla terrain. But of course I didn't know this at the time…
So in I went, exploring this Roofed Forest, and Extreme Hills, a Tundra, carefully exploring a large Plains for villages, avoiding another Extreme Hills, crossing a swamp, using a river to cut through a Forest, thoroughly exploring a Savanna and Desert area for villages, taking lots and lots of pretty pics - until, suddenly I realized "hey where's the Highlands terrain?"
Even then I wasn't *sure* it was wrong. The very short ocean crossing was suspicious, 8 or so vanilla biomes in a row was very suspicious - but I'm running mixed Highlands/vanilla terrain, and short ocean crossings do happen with my current settings. But some testing in a creative re-creation quickly showed this new continent was wrong.
Because Climate Control "protects" biomes near where you've explored, my home continent was all correct, or nearly so. But, I hadn't made a backup before I struck out across the ocean. So, I had to roll back to the very beginning of this episode. I did consider keeping the newly generated vanilla terrain, but a major purpose of this journal was to test smaller-scale land structures. If I'd kept the vanilla chunk, not only the biomes I'd explored would still be vanilla-style, but also a couple of biomes around it, and that would be quite a large hunk of vanilla generation, enough that my map wall would not reflect the settings. So, to the backup I went.
One image from the terrain that didn't exist, though
Vanilla 1.7 terrain gets a lot of flak, but it's actually quite nice. When you see the same kinds of terrain over and over again, because of the huge size of the climate zones, they don't look nice, but the problem is "familiarity breeds contempt". To me, playing in a mostly-Highlands world with more reasonably sized climate zones, this was really nice.
Next episode: the real coast of the next landmass to the east.
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.
With the bug fixed, I redid what I'd done in my base pretty much as I'd done it the first time.
This time I just beeline for the new region. I plan to explore the coastline and if it's basically the same there's no reason to re-explore the interior. Eventually I'll fill out my maps but no hurry.
The coast from the hook going east seems exactly the same. I do decide to cross the land to the east just to add a little to my maps by not retracing what I've already explored on the coast..
I do find a lone well way up and exactly on the crest of a narrow ridge. Not a very logical place for a well, but there it is.
I do come across two "lava traps" - lava pools below the surface, so if you fall in you can't easily get out. Just on general principles, I use my water bucket to obsidianize them. To my surprise, this makes some of the sand fall - literally one block from me! Now that would have been an ironic death.
I get to the water, board my boat, and proceed south and then west as the coast turns. Everything is very similar to what I remember the first time. Climate Control did indeed protect these areas and maintain the biomes that should have generated.
When I finish exploring the coastline it's almost dark. But, I'm in a boat, and expecting a fair distance ocean trip, so I head on out. I quickly reach where I'd seen the bogus vanilla terrain and - still water. Whew!
I do soon find a different kind of terrain, snowy (which is what I'd found was supposed to be there in testing). It's not likely to have a village, so I keep boating.
Boating around the snowy landmass, I come to the edge of the map and continue over. On the next map, the snowy coast turns south but I continue east as I'm not particularly interested in that land mass. I cross the entire next map and see no land other than one tiny island as I'm leaving the snowy coast behind.
At the east end of the map I turn north. Just barging off in some direction is a terrible way to explore in Minecraft. If you find something it can be an enormous distance from where you started and linear expeditions look terrible on map walls. Most of the time a spiral search works far better; that's what I planned for and that's what I'll do.
Shortly after crossing into the next map to the north (2 big maps east of spawn) I find land again. And once again it's snowy, so not of great interest on this trip. However, it does have a Highlands biome - Glacier - so I know Climate Control is working for both the land/ocean arrangements (because there's actually an ocean) and for biome choices.
Glacier is a very attractive biome for backdrops and I do enjoy boating past it. This snowy landmass goes on quite a ways though, almost the whole length of the map. It's pretty terrain, but not what I'm looking for.
Finally that coast turns left and goes off the map. I continue north, sticking to my spiral search plan and after only a few hundred blocks I encounter some temperate terrain - Woodlands. This continues north to the next map, now 2 east and 1 north of spawn. I go along a long hilly coast but don't disembark to explore, except to mine a few mana shard ores (Thaumcraft) I spot at the coast. While I might find a village or a Magical Forest here I figure my odds are better to continue the (much faster and easier) ocean exploration and come back later if needed.
I do spot an offshore island apparently with Woodland Mountains. It's very pretty, and because of the smallish size might be easier to build on that a full-blown biome. I mentally flag it for later.
And now I spot something I'm very happy to see - another Silverwood tree. This wasn't a major expedition goal, but if I can get a sapling out of it, I cant finish the structural design for the Infusion Altar.
It's almost dark, so I land and get some sleep.
Next episode - a Silverwood tree, plus more good stuff!
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.
So I chop off all the leaves and leave the wood. I get two saplings, so now I'm set for my Infusion Altar plan - I even have an extra.
I explore a short distance on land but very soon come to a snowy region and return to boating. The snowy region goes on about 1000 blocks. At that point I notice some temperate land out to sea and head over to investigate. It turns out to be a small island, but it's next to a temperate landmass (which may or may not connect to the snowy area I was boating past. I get off and explore some plains.
I don't find any villages, but I do find my first free-standing pure node of the game.
It's fairly big and useful too, with over 30 each of aer/ignis/perdito.
I explore on land for a while and find several nodes but no village. After a while I spot a Dunes ahead.
I try to continue (since hot is the best climate for villages) but soon the Dunes are right up against the ocean and I have to take to my boat again.
But shortly, perched up against the Dunes cliffs, I see:
Magical Forest! Excellent!
Perched on the edge of the looming Dunes, it creates a great Arabian Nights oasis effect.
The picture doesn't do it justice. I'll have to go back someday to get some better ones.
I look around for a while trying to find some Mana Beans. Initially I find no Mana Beans, although I do find some vishrooms, oversized magical mushrooms. I actually don't know their purpose. One actually makes me sick when I'm standing next to it, although I'm not seriously harmed.
I do eventually find a mana bean and collect it.
I'm a little cautious as the large trees do occasionally produce enough shade to spawn mobs in daytime. I drop torches in some of the darker regions to make the place a little safer; I plan to come back. I do actually get attacked by two zombies at one point.
I end up getting five mana beans. When beans drop, they drop with a random aspect, so this ends up occupying 4 slots in my inventory (I got a duplicate). Trunkie is certainly coming in handy!
The Magical Forest abuts a Highlands Sahel on the other side. This maintains the Arabian Nights feel although it's not so spectacular.
I take one last shot before I head off into the Sahel to look for villages.
Next Episode: more exploration
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 hopeful exploring the Sahel because it's the one Highlands biome I've found with villages, but I don't find one.
I come across another Flying Mountains and can't resist a picture.
There's also a Highlands Savannah and an Outback in this hot climate zone, but still no villages.
Highlands Savannah is similar to a vanilla Savanna, even to the angled acacia limbs. The trees are rarer. Highlands has the biome because it added it well before Vanilla did in 1.7 IMO the Highlands savannah is more attractive, with a better color and a nicer shape to the trees.
Eventually I'm forced back into the water by another Dunes region.
The Dunes is then followed by an Extreme Hills on a peninsula. I go around and on the other side find myself in a strait:
The strait seems to lead into a very large bay. I feel like some land exploration, so I go ashore at the junction of a Taiga and a Cliffs.
I head north, into an Autumn Forest. From there I decide to continue my circle and head east. I start going into a Roofed Forest, which I've not had much trouble with in the past, but I quickly get zombies coming at me from two directions.
That's actually kind of hazardous, especially if it happens again some distance in with no place to retreat to, or if I need to sleep. Worse, my Angmallen Haste 3 boots have too many enchantments to be repairable, and they're almost worn out; if I get into a running fight they're toast. So I beat a hasty retreat to the Autumn Forest.
I continue north, planning to go around the Roofed Forest, but to the north I find:
Woodland Mountains. Pretty to look at, but also subject to daytime spawns, and extremely difficult to get around it. So I'm basically forced to go back and give up on a land crossing
Here's a map with the hot area in the lower left (with some marked nodes), the inlet I followed in, and the path through dense forests with the Roofed Forest on the right.
Being me, I don't retrace my steps but travel alongside my previous explorations to get more on my maps and do more exploring.
I get an upclose look at a grove of Redwood Trees. I don't think I could chop one of those down without an Axe of the Stream. Certainly would be great for a treehouse!
In addition to the Taiga I landed in, I also pass through a Meadow and collect cotton and lavender.
Oddly, I find one tiny patch of Highlands Savannah here, with a single Acacia. It's out of place, because Tundra is cool climate and Acacia is hot climate so they shouldn't be so close. It's not a chunk error because it has smooth boundaries and no chunk walls.
As I near where the coast should be I hit some jumbled hilly terrain, with some parts that might be Dunes. So maybe that's part of how the hot zone Savannah got there.
Finally I board my boat, sail back through the strait, and continue along a snowy coast to the east edge of the map. Here's a map of my explorations in this episode.
Next Episode: Volcano!
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.
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.
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.
This is in a Black Granite region, always great for pics (although problematic for digging).
The Woodlands goes on for about 1 biome width, and then the terrain reverts to snowy. It's getting dark. I was considering another night boat, but I come upon a tiny island right at nightfall.
I take a snooze, enjoying the view.
Come morning I resume my trip. The snowy coast continues to about the middle of the map, and then turns to the north. I follow, and it's a long coast. After about 1000 blocks, I'm approaching the north edge of the map. I've decided I don't want to explore another map to the north and I'm just about to turn around when:
A volcanic island! This is another of my experiments gone right. The biome is one of several islands from Highlands, but when I first created them, as sub-biomes, they seemed small - and downright desultory for the Volcanic Island, which came out as basically a small pile of gravel. Highlands uses them mostly to make the oceans less bland. But I'm pretty OK with the oceans in Climate Control, so I tried to repurpose them as full-sized biomes out in the deep ocean, much like Mushroom Islands. It worked spectacularly well, so that's how Climate Control makes them if Highlands is running.
This is the first time I've seen a Volcanic Island honestly, even in Creative flyaround. I've seen one once, but it was in a world with CC parameters set up to spawn me on the Highlands by almost completely removing all other land.
Fortuitously part of the island is composed of Rhyolite stone from Underground Biomes Constructs, which is actually a stone made of volcanic ash. Pure coincidence, but a nice one.
I do have to admit these volcanos are more fun in Creative than in Hardcore. They're very steep and also pretty dangerous, obviously. In Creative you can fly around and look up close but that's not an option here. So I just look from my boat. But when I have a Thaumstatic Harness, I'll be back!
I go all the way around the island.
Towards the end I spot another volcano, this one connected to the snowy coast I'd been passing. The Volcanic Islands are *supposed* to be way out at sea so I'm going to want to check that.
I land and pillar up to get a nighttime shot of this one.
In the morning I head east. Here's the explorations on this map:
Next Episode: Returning home.
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.