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.
Those two volcanoes are just perfect. Beautiful. The way they've spawned within range of each other there couldn't be any more realistic and I love them just as they are. Great shots btw.
As I cross into the next map, I spot another of the Highlands Islands: the Tropical Island.
I land to pick up some coconuts (actually cocoa beans) and palm tree wood.
I cross the island and board my boat on the other side. This island is indeed an island.
Nightfalls while I'm at sea but I don't particularly care. Shortly after that I spot land to port. I continue along the coast.
I have no intention of landing at night, but even if I did this little reception party of three skeletons would change my mind. I also have a creeper swim out toward my boat but of course it can't begin to to keep up.
This map is 2 north of spawn. When I reach the end I had been planning to continue on around. But, I've found what I'm looking for apart from a village, and for a village I want to look at why I'm seeing so few village spawns. I saw plenty running CC alone, and while I'd suspected a bug in Thaumcraft, Thaumcraft alone doesn't seem to "disappear" villages. So, maybe it's some interaction, or perhaps really, really bad luck. So I turn south, for home.
Around dawn I spot new land. I wonder at first if it's connected to my continent, but as soon as I get to the next map to the south (which includes part of my home continent) I see it's not. It seems small, and with a comparatively complicated coast, so I suspect this is one of the medium islands CC creates now.
It connects to another landmass, but this has woods and snowy zones on the coast, so it's not a good candidate for village. I sail on.
Soon I'm back on my home map - although well out at sea.
I try to make it home before dark, but I don't make it in time.
One last outside snooze.
In the morning I head in. My Greatwood trees are helpful in spotting the exact location. One final hill and:
Home Sweet Home.
Next episode: time to start using the goodies I collected!
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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.
First I plant one of my saplings. I'd actually planted my spare before I left and it's sprouted already - but without a node. So good for looks but not functionality. I'll chop it (I have another spare) but I want to try to get a pic first.
Next I want to plant my mana beans. They need to go in a magical biome, so Magical Forest or Eerie. For convenience, I don't want to plant them in a totem-generated Eerie away from my base, so they'll go in the mini Magical Forest Biomes my Silverwoods have made. I'll also need to light them with a Thaumcraft Lamp of Growth because otherwise they grow extremely slow.
I like the idea of putting them on the Silverwoods but I just can't figure out a way to do it attractively and symmetrically. I don't actually need them to be symmetrical for the altar function but I want it. The Magical Forest biomes are also very small so they would have to be right next to the altar.
Eventually I decide I can't place them nicely above ground and I'll have to dig out a chamber below. I think about direct access from the ground but that's not appealing either. So I decide to dig another room below the tower and then dig a tunnel from there.
But first, a swarm of zombies drops off the hill and attacks my front door! Again, I have no idea where they came from. But one of them has chain, so I open the door hoping for a trophy - and luck out! I have a chain breastplate! Into storage for later
I dig another room for the tower with the same basic plan - same shape, and 5 blocks high. I don't bother decorating yet, though. The area turns out to have a big ice deposit in it which I accidentally break with my high-speed diamond pic, producing a seriously inconvenient flood. I can't manage to snap up the water with my bucket and eventually have to go to the floor above and cut down to drain it.
That done, I dig a tunnel over to exactly under the altar and place four silverwood columns. My magical Forest plan has not worked out quite right; the biomes don't quite reach to the center. Whoops. I actually have *7* beans, not the 5 I thought I had.
I then need a Lamp of Growth. I do the research, and it needs to be infused from an Arcane Lamp. I spend quite a bit of time trying to infuse an Arcane Lamp before learning that that's been changed from 1.6 and now they're just crafted.
The Lamp of Growth needs a six-item infusion so I have to expand my altar. I put in four more pedestals along the spiral arms. The Silverwoods you see are the new ones, which have sprouted, but neither has a Pure Node so I'll have to chop them and replant at some point.I need Pure Nodes for the Magical Forest biome so the mana beans will grow.
The infusion goes without a hitch and I place the Lamp of Growth in the middle of the mana beans with a bottle of Herba essence to fuel it.
I've been doing very little with Bibliocraft but all my jars of Essentia are starting to get clutter-y so I build some potion shelves to put them on. As it turns out the labels always face east so I then had to move them to the west wall.
Before I chop down the node less silverwoods I get a pic of my altar. Thanks to the Greatwood tree the taotie of my tower even has hair now!
After this I chop down one silver wood, getting a sapling, allowing me to chop the other dud silver wood too and replant both of them.
Next episode: More home improvement.
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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.
Episode 37: Analyzing Armor and Building a Bridge Crossing a Canyon
I forgot to put my exploration maps up on my wall! And, I'm using a variant land mass config, and I want to see how it's working. So:
That was quite a trek! I didn't realize it at the time, but looking at that wall I'm virtually certain there are some land masses in those oceans I've gone around. I'll go back to fill them in later. Oceans look like they're coming out fairly small, but given the limitations of vanilla mapping and typical player preferences, that's probably a good thing.
However, I want to put off further major exploration until I figure out why villages are so rare.
Next, I've had an idea (hardly groundbreaking) for all that extra Metallurgy metal: Armor displays! I use Bibliocraft to make a couple of armor stand and tool displays (for weapons). Then I head downstairs to see what I'm easily able to spare. I have five metals: Steel, Damascus Steel, Promethium, Shadow Steel, and Vyroxes. For looks, I want to make them in pairs, so I skip the steel for now.
Upstairs I put them in the first level I built, because it's got four doors, one of which is an outside door, and no significant current use.
Vyroxes and Prometheum:
Damascus Steel and Shadow Steel:
Yeah, they were pretty obviously designed to be trophies. And they look good. There's an obvious trend where the rarer/more powerful metals get fancier designs.
It looks like I'll use that wisp spawner near the triple node for a wisp essence source. But, currently, getting there requires climbing down to the river to the northwest, climbing over the mountain past that, and then going up and and down a couple of hills, with some ravine traps on the way. So I want an easier way there. I figure I'll start with a bridge over the river to the mountain.
I look for a way across the river. The best looks like a little bit to the south.
I head back in to pick up some stones I've been roasting. As I come in the door:
AH THERE'S A CREEPER IN MY TOWER! oh wait, it's just the Vyroxes armor set, which out of the corner of my eye, looks rather like a creeper with that green patterning.
I pick up some stones and head back. I decide on using soapstone - I want a lighter stone, but chalk is too soft (one stray creeper and bye-bye). It's still soft enough I need two layers.
I want to be able to look down as I cross so I use a trick with walls: I put walls on each side down at ground level and then I'll put a railing two blocks up. Since walls count as 1 1/2 blocks high, that means the space is functionally only 1.5 blocks high and I don't fit through. But, there's minimal obstruction looking down. This looks a bit odd on a view balcony but on a bridge it'll just look like a bridge with a railing.
I forgot to bring snow for the railing so I head back to pull some from the tower storage.
AH THERE'S A CREEPER IN MY TOWER! oh wait, it's still just the Vyroxes armor set,
Ha ha.
I *know* it's an armor set but there's just a split-second of visceral panic.
While I'm there I check on the mana beans. Some are ready to harvest, but even fully grown they still usually drop only one bean. So it's going to be a long slow process growing them.
Back at the bridge, I put up some snow railings:
Could use a little more decor. I had been thinking about packed ice spikes so I head over to the mountain to collect some. While there I test routes towards the spawner and discover the mountain is steep enough that straight over the top is easiest.
I Silk Touch some packed ice from ground formations and one misformed spike. I don't want to change my view.
I try putting some ice on top but it doesn't work. I try making the spikes extensions of the railing supports:
Now I'm thinking the rail supports should be packed ice all the way down and may even go down to an arched support underneath. Well, I'll stew on ideas and maybe come back later. The bridge is nice to cross:
I head back home to put back the building supplies.
AH THERE'S A CREEPER IN MY TOWER! oh wait...
dang, I gotta move that thing
Next episode: working on some problematic terrain and on the wisp spawner.
(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?
Before I set off for the Wisp spawner, I want to clean up some of the terrain. I'm basically concerned with overhangs where a creeper explosion might destroy the ground and cause a lethal plummet. I also want to fix some apparent spawning grounds near by.
I head out to traipse up the hill to the west, roughly from where I've had zombies drop into my yard. As I head out the door, I get attacked by a skeleton and a couple of zombies from the *other* nearby spawning ground.
I don't have any particular trouble with them but then I realize - dang it, a couple more whacks at my non-repairable traveling/Nether boots. You can see the bridge entrance above the zombie here - this is a particularly problematic spawn area since it's on the path to the bridge.
I look around up on the hill but I can't see any likely spawning areas. I consider building a bridge here too but there's not a good spot.
There is a snow overhang over a large drop, which I dig out.
I head over to the area where the skeleton and zombie came from (and other things in the past). But first I switch to my war gear (steel boots and helm) so I won't damage my traveling boots. I start digging a thin layer of overhanging snow but soon spot the spawning issue - a cave
I head in and dispatch a few guards. It's a relatively short cave with no branches. I come back out and finish digging up the overhang layer.
With the yard a little more secure, I load Trunkie up with migmatite cobblestone (soapstone is too soft for a spawner area) and head over to the wisp spawner.
I carve up the obsidian totems surrounding the spawner because I figure they'll get in the way.
I plan to build a big cobblestone box to keep the wisps in where I can kill them. They fly, and can and do run away in open terrain. I actually started on the box earlier but only built a little.
The wisps apparently won't spawn in daylight and I build the walls without harassment. I do see a creeper wandering outside (I've been creeper bombed twice nearby) so there's a spawning area to be dealt with at some point.
I build the roof and the wisps start spawning. Two spawn before I get inside and I have a bit of a fight going in.
They spawn slowly - 1 every minute or two - but that's OK, at least for now, because it can take a while to kill them. One of the first two must have spawned well before the roof was finished.
The first few I kill with my lightning wand but it runs out of juice and I switch to my bone bow. After I've gotten about 10 wisp essences I decide to head home. I cut a door on the corner towards home to get there a little faster (my traditional approach is actually from the far side but as soon as I step out I recall why I came the long way - there's a cliff on this side.
I build a quickie ramp to get down. I'll put in a straighter staircase later, with safety railings. Right beneath this is a cave I partially lit but which still might be the source for the creeper spawns.
Here's my loot - 11 wisp essences. Some have hard-to-get essentias like Alienis and Exanimus and it's tempting to use them for that but for now I want some higher-powered items so they're going into Salis Mundus.
Next episode: Some higher-powered Thaumaturgy with my new loot.
I have a lot of possibilities to head for. Better wands, infusion enchanting, flying gear, enchanted bauble - a welter of choices. Finally I decide on the flying gear, the Thaumostatic Harness. This will let me explore and photograph some of the more rugged Highlands terrain, and can also protect me from falls (always an issue with these hidden ravines - one misstep and *splat*, time for a new world.
I do use 1 Salis Mundus to make a Primal Charm, though, because you need that to unlock research. I also start roasting some wood for charcoal, which I can extract Potentia from, as the Thaumstatic harness uses Potentia as it flies.
I haven't researched the Thaumstatic Harness and don't even have the research option. I guess I need the Arcane Levitator (a very simple research) but that doesn't do it. Then I try Boots of the Traveller, and bam, there it is.
A moderately difficult research, but I've gotten the hang of the new research system.
Ironically, I don't actually need Salis Mundus for this one and could have made it some time ago.
The materials to make it are easy to get, but it needs a lot of Essentia, so I head upstairs to start extracting what I need.
While that's going, I collect more wood. I'd been trying to convert my yard to an Autumn woods feel but it feels kind of messy. So I decide to go back to an all-spruce yard. Now that I have an Axe of the Stream, it's no longer inconvenient to chop Spruce. (With a vanilla axe, the Autumn Woods trees are great because they never grow too high for an axe).
Of the two replacement Silverwood saplings, one has sprouted - but without nodes - and the other refuses to sprout. I hypothesize it's the snow blocking it and clear the snow.
I also place Stones of Warding in front of my doors so the monsters can't walk in when I open the doors. I have no idea why I didn't remember this sooner. I could have done this weeks ago.
Lastly, I need *9* pedestals for this infusion so I have to build and install four more, still on the spiral.
Finally everything's collected/crafted/extracted/built and i set it all up. It's a High Instability infusion, so I'm a little concerned, but I have plenty of extra Essentia for minor problem and a big candle room, so I rap my wand and off I go.
With 9 items and over a hundred Essentia, the infusion takes a LONG time. But, my precautions seem to have worked and I have no problems - and a Thaumstatic Harness!
A take a quick test flight to make sure it's all working. The sky's the limit now!
Now I want to beef up my wand some. I'm already starting on the research path to a Primal Staff but for now I'm aiming for the traditional "top wand": a Silverwood core with Thaumium Caps.
I've done the Silverwood research and I've got most of the Essentia but I need some Ordo. I dig up some sand to smelt into glass to extract to Vitreus Essentia to centrifuge to Ordo. (a typically complicated Thaumcraft process.)
Oh yeah. Gotta scan that Harness.
After researching them, the Thaumium caps need three Salis Mundus each and that seems a bit steep, so I guess I'll just settle for gold caps.
I don't even have enough Aer Vis in my wand to even make that, though, so I head out to refill.
I head for the area where I chopped the Greatwood tree. On the way I detour to search for other nodes in the Cold Taiga near home, but I don't find any.
I get to the meadow where I found the horses long ago (there's a huge Terra node there). I still haven't tamed a horse and now it would be for show or decor - they can't fly on the harness. I was so excited when I found them but I never used them.
After I tap the Terra node, I head over to some other nearby nodes, including an Aer node. I spot the cobwebs from the Greatwood tree floating in midair and smack myself (metaphorically) for forgetting about them and not bringing my shears.
I tap out the Aer node and a Sinister node nearby but I still need some Ignis. So I head further east to the Aer/Perdito/Tempestas node that was the first I found as there's an Ignis node right next to it.
This is just vanilla Minecraft terrain here but variety is the spice of life and after weeks of boating, snowy zones, and indoor magicking it seems fresh and inviting again.
After I finish refilling my wand at that node pair I head home along the coast, looking for nodes.
This terrain is pretty hilly and the Thaumstatic Harness comes in very handy. On those times I'm climbing a hill and get blocked by a 2-high jump I don't have to dig a staircase; a second of flying and I'm up. Boots of the Traveller will make that even easier; I need to make some. I also jump off a few cliffs; the Thaumstatic Harness protects me from fall damage, so going down is even easier. I don't find many nodes, though.
I'm in sight of home - but not quite there - when night falls one more time. I pillar up onto a tree and wait until it's quite dark to look for node glow but I don't see any.
Back home I set up my Silverwood wand core infusion. It's moderately complex, but runs without problems.
My Mana Bean farm gets expanded and rearranged a little (grown beans were blocking my movement in my first layout). It's a lot of work, but my bean supply is growing. Actually now I'm starting to be limited by the fact that two of my four corner trees still haven't sprouted with nodes, so those areas are still Cold Taiga and won't support Mana Beans.
This setup is not golemizable but I'm doing it not for mana beans in general but for Essentias I have trouble getting - Exanimis, Auram, Vitium, and Permutio. So I'd rather run it manually so those beans don't get replanted.
After I make my gold wand caps, I'm ready to make the wand itself. I anticipated I'd have to refill my wand again to make it but that's not the case.
The Silverwood wand is a big step forward because it's got enough Vis storage to jar and move nodes. So now I can start planning for a node room. Right above my work area would be nice but - oh yeah - all those mineshafts - so -
I head upstairs to switch to my war gear (basic steel helmet and boots). While up there, I check for Endermen outside since it's dark but I see none.
Back downstairs, I want to clean out the mineshaft immediately above my downstairs work area. Not only is that where I'd like to put my node room, I'm thoroughly sick of the moaning and groaning and squishing sound. I mine a tunnel from one level up on my dropshaft and very soon reach an upper mineshaft.
I see no baddies and break in, right near the mineshaft end. I travel a short distance, turn left, and continue to a 4-way intersection over the 4-way downstairs. I use a Paving Stone of Warding to block the intersection. I look around for a hole the mobs might have been using to drop in on me and..
There it is. It's been there for weeks. How embarrassing!
Back at the four-way I step in to look down the side and SSSSSSSS. I jump back in time to avoid the boom. Turns out a creeper is lurking to the left. I chop out a block of the pillar so I can shoot it - and it retreats down a corridor. I come closer looking for an angle and SSSSSSSS. I jump back *again* and find *another* creeper had been lurking down a different corridor. I get one shot off on it and then *it* retreats down a different corridor. After several rounds of this hide-and seek I get them both, go in that way, and find all the corridors soon terminate in dead ends.
Forward through the intersection is just a wall. I turn left and go in a bit but then a skeleton comes out.
I whale on him with my sword for a while, puzzled why he's not dying - until I realize I'd missed the hot key and I'd been beating him with a torch. But at that point a second guard shows up so I retreat down the corridor and switch to my bow and kill them with that.
A zombie then shows up and manages to vault over the Warding - I'm not sure how. I then head back down the corridor and find the mineshaft connects to a cave and ends. To the left (back towards base) it goes down and then up in two different directions. I head up and then
I get jumped by a spider. I kill it, but then decide to go back to my rule of never advancing down a corridor if something could come up behind. Because of the angles and the large cave size, it would be a bit of trouble to block up either path so I head back to the mineshaft and block off the connection to the cave in this direction.
The other direction turns out to be the cave behind the zombie dungeon. I'm at level 28, and out of things I want to clear in the immediate area, so I activate the spawner and whack zombies until I get to level 30.
I'll do one more standard enchant before switching to Infusion Enchanting, which is generally more efficient on levels. I make a helmet, using Quicksilver (from Metallurgy), by far my best available metal - it's more enchantable than even Angmallen, but more than 3 times as durable. I get -
Protection (which I'm short on with my top gear), Respiration, and Unbreaking - a great basic helm. Thorns shows up for the third time, which is a waste, since I've already got 2 Thorns armors on, but I guess that's how it works with these ultra-enchantable metals.
Strangely that ultra-elaborate helm becomes just a shell on my head.
Next episode: back to the shafts.
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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.
lol @ that hole in your ceiling. And at the realisation you were weilding a torch against a skele in hardmode and lived to laugh about it. I'm laughing 'cause of course I've never done anything like that myself. Especially not accidentally wielding a bucket of water against a cave spider, realising my mistake and then fumbling the right mouse button which places the water and then having that water subsequently wash me off a cliff to my death lol. Congrats on ep 40 btw. You're getting nigh on invincible now
That's gorgeous! And I've found that Minecraft does have too many rivers anyway - along with ravines. If this is your setup for the next journal, I'm very keen to see how it plays. ..it's making me want to play it.
With my souped-up gear I head to the center room of the mineshaft complex. I pillar up the side to break into one of the two unexplored mineshaft coming out the middle of the side. I look in, and - big surprise - there's a mineshaft above *that*. Plus plenty of ice around to make placing torches tricky. So I pillar up to another side to the level of the upper mineshaft, tunnel in, and connect up to the upper mineshaft, dispatching one skelly in the process.
I silk touch out a bunch of ice, fill in holes in the floor, put in some torches and build a staircase down to the floor of the center room. But only a short distance down I'm confronted by:
Bleah. You see what I'm dealing with. I return to the central chamber and build a stair up to the *other* mineshaft into this maze. I break in and am confronted with another big room complex, which I forgot to take a picture of.
I gamely start mining out ice, filling in floors, and then putting in torches. There are so many holes in the floor that I run out of cobble and wood fill and have to chop the mineshaft supports for materials.
This a view from the center, looking away from my base. I can't really even count how many mineshafts are involved in the complex - at least seven.
In one corner I hear a huge spider racket and confront a gravel blockage. Anticipating a spider spawner, I cautiously dig through:
But it just connects to yet another mineshaft - with plenty of ice, of course. After a lot of work securing it (but no mobs), i find this connects to the section of tunnel in Episode 29 I ignored due to flooding. From this angle I'm better able to get at it now so I clean up and connect through.
Then I head back to the big open area pictured above. I block off part and break in to the mineshaft to the left, sniping with a skelly in the process. As I'd guessed, this connects to the area in Episode 29 from the *other* way around, so I have a mineshaft ring all the way around the center room, frequently doubled.
I'm really getting tired of clearing and filling ice at this point. I continue to where I'd explored in Episode 29, crack a blockage I'd put in, and try to push further. I hadn't seen many mobs before but I quickly fight two skeletons and a zombie.
At this point I honestly got lost and couldn't say exactly where I was. I kill some slimes and a couple of zombies.
Finally, lured by the glow of mana shards, I break my cardinal rule about not advancing unless my back is secure.
Sure enough, while fighting this unfine unfellow I get smacked from behind. I finish the first zombie, turn around, and it's a zombie in full chain. Well, I should count my blessings. Had it been a creeper, this game would probably be over (that's why I have that rule; I really should have kept to that rule.)
Well even in chain a zombie is no problem except
My sword breaks.
I could have taken him out with my bow but I've gotten in the habit of conserving arrows because I'm not getting all that much flint so I just didn't think about it. So I run for home. Except remember how I'd gotten kind of lost? I head down two dead ends before I find my way out of the maze.
I figured chain boy would have lost me by now but due to the detours he's kept up. So I pull out my pick and off him (not a sword, but good enough).
By this point I've picked up almost 4 *stacks* of ice so I am entirely ready for a break from mineshafts and mobs.
Next episode: a new sword!
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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.
Now that I have Salis Mundus for Infusion Enchantments I'm ready to start on that. Infusion enchantments let you pick your enchantments, at the cost of various items and quite a bit more hassle in general. It can only be done on Thaumium gear for the most part, but I have enough from treasure chest and could make plenty anyway.
My plan for now is to make a Sword of the Zephyr, a special Thaumcraft sword, and give it Looting 1. I'd been planning more, but I don't have Aer to make more Salis Mundus.
First I have some upkeep. I check on the Mana Bean farm and a lot of beans have grown. I harvest 27 beans from 18 pods. Pretty slow growth rate - 50% increase per harvest. The Lamp of Growth has also exhausted its Herba Essence supply so I refuel it and spin down some Arbor to get more.
i step outside to check on the farms and I get attacked by a baby zombie. I don't have a sword but I do have a diamond pick and a figure it'll be enough. But:
It almost kills me? Only as I write this do I realize it had glowing red eyes - it was a souped up Furious Baby Zombie. I'm still surprised it almost killed me - gotta mark them as seriously dangerous.
I set up the Infusion - but somehow I have a brain fart and put the items for the Looting infusion rather than for the SotZ infusion I wanted. The infusion steals 5 levels from me before I abort it. Ouch!
I correct my goof and the infusion goes off without a hitch.
I swap to the essentia for the Looting infusion and that works too, other than having used twice as many levels as needed.
Based on Empour's excellent journal I was inspired to add Spice of Life to my mods. This is a mod that requires you to eat a variety of foods. If you only eat one food, you get less and less nutrition until eventually you get none at all. I dislike having all these foods but no reason to eat them (I have enough raw beef to last me into 2015 already) so this seems like an appealing mod. At start it would be pretty rough to have to haul a lot of different food around but Trunkie can spare 6 slots or so.
Of course now I need a lot of foods now. One thing I could make (but haven't) is cookies. I got a couple of cocoa beans off some palm trees back in my big exploration trip so I head out to the farm to plant them on some palm wood I also brought.
I set them up so the golems can work them. Except I can't plant the cocoa beans! I'm trying to figure out if there's a biome requirement, a bug in Highlands, or some other restriction when SSSSSSS
I jump away and apparently take no damage myself but there's an annoying hole right between the farm and the altar. I've been putting off fencing my yard because a ) it's really hard with the hill right next to it and b ) I figure it won't look good with the altar - but I just can't have this. So I go downstairs to get two stacks of fences I've chopped out of mineshafts (no kidding, and I have 1 1/2 more too) and start plopping them down.
I only fence the lower area for now. This won't stop zombies from dropping in at the front door but it should stop most creepers - every creeper I've ever seen try to get into the yard has been coming in from the forest.
I doesn't look great, but I can still get good pics of the altar if I choose my angles carefully.
Next Episode: Time for an Expedition!
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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.
<3 Thanks for the mention! I'm glad to hear you got something out of my creation.
Incidentally, I'm thinking of adding Climate Control to my mods- Reading your journal(for the third time, no I'm not crazy, thank you- it's just a great read), I feel like all of the customization from it is something I'd like, a lot. About that, though, before I do add it- Will I have any issues with my existing world, such as impossibly-rectangular-cliffs, biome shifting, or other weirdness? I don't really mind either way, IRCs are a sight in and of themselves. It's mostly biome shifting I'm worried about(beta 1.7 to beta 1.8 anyone?). It's worth note I have my Highlands biome size set to 6, because I didn't know Highlands LB exists and wanted large biomes because vanilla ones are just too small for me.
Oh, another thing- Do Explorercraft maps work on bibliocraft map stands? I've been meaning to ask this for a while, but always forgot when I had the opportunity.
Oh, also, culinary suggestion! Thaumcraft adds this really neat food type, called the Triple Meat Treat. It's made with Chicken, Pork, and Beef nuggets with some sugar. I haven't made them in a long time(Hunger overhaul nerfs them to the point of uselessness), but I know that the nuggets are obtainable from cooking raw meat in the infernal furnace. I don't know if you can find them in the thaumonomicon, but if you could, I imagine it would be under the infernal furnace.
<3 Thanks for the mention! I'm glad to hear you got something out of my creation.
Incidentally, I'm thinking of adding Climate Control to my mods- Reading your journal(for the third time, no I'm not crazy, thank you- it's just a great read), I feel like all of the customization from it is something I'd like, a lot. About that, though, before I do add it- Will I have any issues with my existing world, such as impossibly-rectangular-cliffs, biome shifting, or other weirdness? I don't really mind either way, IRCs are a sight in and of themselves. It's mostly biome shifting I'm worried about(beta 1.7 to beta 1.8 anyone?). It's worth note I have my Highlands biome size set to 6, because I didn't know Highlands LB exists and wanted large biomes because vanilla ones are just too small for me.
Oh, another thing- Do Explorercraft maps work on bibliocraft map stands? I've been meaning to ask this for a while, but always forgot when I had the opportunity.
Sorry, but you can't install CC onto a Highlands world without the hideous chunk borders almost everywhere. Highlands uses a completely different generation system from vanilla - rather than discrete fractally-distributed chunks of biome, it creates gradients of temperature and rainfall and then places biomes where they "belong". The CC trick for avoiding chunk walls is very specific to the vanilla-style world creations and can't work with any other (not ATG either). Both Highlands-style and ATG-style generation make good worlds with many virtues - but compatibility with CC is not among them.
I know exactly what you mean about vanilla biome sizes being too small for Highlands. My first journal was intended to show off Highlands+UB, and I rejected the small biome sizes because I'd see vistas with multiple incompatible biomes. So I went with HighlandLB, which basically fixes the jumbled vistas, but which results in very large biomes. The large biomes accentuate the grandeur Highlands gets but there's a whole lotta trecking when you're looking for something. Episode 6 in my first journal is the one that gives the best feel for wandering around a Highland LB world; there's also some explorations in episode 11 and episode 2. However, *that* world was pretty safe - I spent several days wandering about in Episode 2 without armor, and without having to worry about getting attacked.
Explorercraft maps become vanilla maps on the Bibliocraft map stand. I was thinking about asking Nuchaz about making them compatable, but never got around to it.
Thanks for the triple meat treat tip.
Edit: I do have to say the vistas were prettier in my 1.6.4 Highlands LB world than they are in the current one. I'm not really sure why. The current world is great - I'm not complaining - but the earlier one was even better.
I'm okay with IRCs, I guess. I have not really explored much- I'll be able to flatten them if they bother me too much. As I said above though, will my snowy forest magically become a savanna? I mean, I love Savanna's grass color, but I don't want biome shifting to happen.
It's possible that size 5 will give the perfect biome size, but I have yet to test it. I just found in the config that 6 was the standard for Large Biomes worlds, so I went with that out of experience.
There shouldn't be any biome shifting unless you change the biome IDs. 5 might work for Highlands generation or might not - the transition biomes are much smaller than the main biomes. Thinking back to my true Highlands world, I can't think of any spots that would look goofy at half the biome size except for an offshore island, and I think they don't obey the gradient rules and can always come out goofy.
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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.
There's four things I'm aiming for in this expedition:
First, I want to fill up my new Silverwood wand.
Second, I want to Jar a node or two for Vis I need at home (Aer/Terra/Ignis)
Third I want to get an emerald for a Excavation Wand Focus
Fourth, I want a platform for a fishing golem.
My plan is to go to a region I spotted at the start of the big exploration, an Extreme Hills region about 2000 blocks south and 1000 block west of spawn. There's a closer Extreme Hills, on the coast west of me. But, I like spaced-out bases to use my world, and I'm hoping to find some nice nodes out on the water. Also, the nearby location didn't inspire me but the much longer coast where I'm going offers good possibilities.
I'm a little far from the ocean for a fishing golem to work properly in my current base (he won't be loaded). But if I'm mining near the ocean, and later building a base, he'll be fine.
First it's time for Node in a Jar research. Tricky with the holes - but a fun puzzle, as usual.
My wand has refilled a little due to my amulet and I should be able to make another Salis Mundus - but I can't. My Frugal enchantment does not seem to be working.
I have a plan for building platforms in the ocean to check out nodes. I need a bucket of lava, however, so I trudge off to the old lava-filled ravine to get one.
I load up Trunkie with building supplies for a base, glass for a node jar, food, and assorted sundry items and I'm off!
Well, one last intruder to kill in the yard first.
As usual, I travel a route slightly different from my previous ones to expand my mapped area.
So, my idea for an ocean platform is to put down a lily pad, place a block next to it, then place lava next to *that* and have it cobblestone the water underneath. This will get me a solid water-level block without having to dive to place it from underneath. Not original, I'm sure.
And it works! But the nodes are pretty disappointing. I find four in all - two very close together - and they're all overwhelmingly Aqua. The best one is aer/ignis/aqua - but only 23 aer and 22 ignis. Not something that would be a star in my tower. I don't have nearly enough Vis for a jar yet anyway with these weak nodes.
I arrive at the coast, a Stone Beach with a plethora of exposed ores. I don't really need them, but I yield to greed for a bit and mine extensively on the way up. I snooze on the size of the cliff.
Except - it's not Extreme Hills! It's a Highlands Cliffs. Cliffs is, as you might expect a mountainous biome with parameters tuned to produce lots of cliffs. It also has cobblestone boulders strewn everywhere, and valley sub-biomes very similar to Roofed Forests. Aesthetically, it's an improvement over Extreme Hills - it has a certain grandeur, a unique appearance from the boulders, and more variety from the intermittent valleys. Plus, it's supposed to have emeralds as well. So, a major improvement.
I haven't seen the Valleys from the ground before. From the air I was disappointed with them - they looked out-of-place somehow. But from the ground I think they look great.
Why the Stone Beach? Well, in various discussions I've participated in, there have be a lot of complaints about "ugly beaches" - the sand stretches extending up hills and mountains next to the ocean. So, I tried having Climate Control replace Beaches with Stone Beaches on more rugged terrain, and I liked the effect, and that's what happened here.
I'm really thrilled with this landscape. I'm thinking about what kind of grand castle I want to build here. and start searching the coastline for a location.
Next episode - Digging and Disappointment
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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 discover the Valley sub-biome is really like the Roofed Forest, because a zombie comes after me out of it. I kill him easily enough but since it's day..
Dangit, he lights me.
After I deal with that reconsider where I want to build a base. Near a nice node would be awesome. So I start exploring along the coast, looking for nodes.
There are lots of piggies about so I butcher some to add to my food variety. I don't have carrots to raise them anyway. You'll notice the boulders are converted to UB stones - that was a fair amount of work, but worth it.
Between the Stone Beach (basically Extreme Hills), and the, well, cliffs, it's pretty hard to get around. With a little planning, I can still get up most places, but my Thaumostatic Harness is invaluable for those short hops I just can't manage. It also lets me drop down without taking damage, and that's a help too, as well as a considerable comfort when I'm near some of the more dangerous drops.
I travel most of the length of the coast, eventually reaching the desert to the south. I find only one node, which I forgot to record, but it is way up on the top of one of the tallest cliffs and so not all that useful.
I get in my boat and travel along the coast, but I don't find any nodes out on the water until just before I get to the desert on the other side I find two. They're not too great but better than nothing so I decide to build a base here. I travel a little further to find a place where it's not a huge climb up to the top.
I build a small dock leading to a fishing house to serve as a starter base. There's another node ashore but it's not too useful either. As you can see, I'm right next to the desert. Pretty view, actually.
The stack of spruce logs turns out to be too little for the house so I climb up the hill to chop and replant a few trees.
The fishing house ends up kind of blah. I made the beginner's mistake of using only one material (really, I should know better) and the symmetry isn't appropriate for a lower-end build. My overseer's shack on my Lora plantation build looked much better. Well, it keeps the mobs out. I get ready to fish a little - and realize I forgot to bring string. Doh!
I build a fenced walkway to the hill, cut a small room, put a door on in case something's wrong with my fences, and start a dropshaft. There's a nice set of Underground Biomes stones here - Eclogite, one of the more interesting base stones with a combination of reddish and greenish tones; Slate, which is really good for severe and modern builds; and Dolomite, a fairly decorative sedimentary stone.
I get all the way to the bottom without obstacles. I start a tunnel going east (towards home, and crossing thing biome). As I grind across, I find all kinds of stuff - coal, redstone, iron, diamonds,
Mana Shards
Even a couple of big caves which I skip for now at least.
But - no emeralds.
I grind all the way to the end. I've built two depot chests to dump all my Eclogite cobblestone but even with Trunkie my inventory is bulging at the seams. And still, no emeralds. So I pull out my copy of the Highlands code to see if everything is right - and it isn't. The emerald placement is done with pre-Ore Dictionary code which won't place the emerald ore in UB stone. So, actually, there's no emeralds in these Cliffs after all.
Now I can patch that the same way I fixed the surface boulders *but* that won't remake *this* Cliffs. So, no emeralds here and not much reason to keep mining. I'm already unable to bring back everything I want. Mournfully I triage to determine what goes home with me, head upstairs, and launch my boat for home.
Home looks nice poking above the trees but I'm not happy. I've accomplished a grand total of zero of my objectives. Thoroughly disappointing. I have a double inventory of valuables and 28 levels of experience, but not the thing I wanted.
Next episode: More Quicksilver enchantment, some more wand foci, and exploring some local terrain.
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 decided to set up a golem egg collector after having had my chicken ranch lay fallow for some time. I pull some eggs out of storage and pitch them at the wall in the chicken pen to get some chicks with time to grow.
I didn't do a good job of collecting Vis in my wands on my trip - I'd expected to find more nodes and since I was trying to fill my new wand my new wand is missing Terra, which I didn't see, and my old want is still low on Ignis and Terra. But I do have enough to squeeze out 2 Golem Controllers.
I need two in order to have a balanced recipe to convert them into Gather Golem Controllers. Getting supplies for this is much easier.
I set up a standard golem egg collector system. I dig a hole in the ground, put in the chests, and then place the golem with the chest as home. Now he'll pick up the eggs. Later I'll use them for Limus essentia or hook it to an egg dispenser for a supply of chickens.
Downstairs I move my research table near the Infernal Furnace so I'll collect experience the furnace drops. I'd been planning to have a Brain in a Jar to collect it put it's going to be a while before I have enough Exanimis.
My Mana Bean farm is coming along. I develop a strategy for no-brainer collection of the mana beans I want. I place a chest at the entrance and keep the desired mana bean stacks inside. When I feel like harvesting, I clear my hotbar into the chest, put the beans I want to keep in my non-hotbar inventory, and fill up the rest of my non-hotbar inventory (if needed, which isn't often since I haul around so much). Then I go harvest beans. Beans I want to keep get added to the stacks; beans I don't care about can only got to my hot bar where I can plant them. If i chop too many beans, they'll pop into my hotbar once I place some. I never have to check a bean's type. Works nicely for these purposes. Maybe later I'll try to design a golem-driven bean converter.
The Silverwood saplings just aren't growing so I decide to make a Hoe of Growth to finish the job. Fortunately this requires no Vis as both my wands are missing something at the moment. It's a simple infusion and goes quick and easy.
I hoe one of the saplings and abracadabra! I've got a Silverwood tree, and it's got the node I wanted. Great!
I hoe the other sapling and abracadabra! I've got a Silverwood tree - but no node. I chop it down with the Axe of the Stream, and it drops a sapling. So I plant that and -
I hoe the other sapling and abracadabra! I've got a Silverwood tree - but no node. I chop it down with the Axe of the Stream and - no sapling.
And now I'm out of saplings. So I'll have to get another Silverwood sapling on another expedition later. I will, however, be able to expand my mana bean farm thanks to the third tree with a Pure node.
I check on the egg farm and it's running a bit slowly. I grab some eggs to pitch against the wall to speed it up a bit. While I'm there I off a few chickens to get to level 30, and pitch some more eggs to replace them.
Level 30, boot time!
Blast protection is nice, but only 2 good enchantments, with Thorns, is not great. But, it'll do.
Now, I've just *got* to start filling my wands.
Next episode - some near-home exploration and wisp sniping.
Those two volcanoes are just perfect. Beautiful. The way they've spawned within range of each other there couldn't be any more realistic and I love them just as they are. Great shots btw.
I land to pick up some coconuts (actually cocoa beans) and palm tree wood.
I cross the island and board my boat on the other side. This island is indeed an island.
Nightfalls while I'm at sea but I don't particularly care. Shortly after that I spot land to port. I continue along the coast.
I have no intention of landing at night, but even if I did this little reception party of three skeletons would change my mind. I also have a creeper swim out toward my boat but of course it can't begin to to keep up.
This map is 2 north of spawn. When I reach the end I had been planning to continue on around. But, I've found what I'm looking for apart from a village, and for a village I want to look at why I'm seeing so few village spawns. I saw plenty running CC alone, and while I'd suspected a bug in Thaumcraft, Thaumcraft alone doesn't seem to "disappear" villages. So, maybe it's some interaction, or perhaps really, really bad luck. So I turn south, for home.
Around dawn I spot new land. I wonder at first if it's connected to my continent, but as soon as I get to the next map to the south (which includes part of my home continent) I see it's not. It seems small, and with a comparatively complicated coast, so I suspect this is one of the medium islands CC creates now.
It connects to another landmass, but this has woods and snowy zones on the coast, so it's not a good candidate for village. I sail on.
Soon I'm back on my home map - although well out at sea.
I try to make it home before dark, but I don't make it in time.
One last outside snooze.
In the morning I head in. My Greatwood trees are helpful in spotting the exact location. One final hill and:
Home Sweet Home.
Next episode: time to start using the goodies I collected!
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.
First I plant one of my saplings. I'd actually planted my spare before I left and it's sprouted already - but without a node. So good for looks but not functionality. I'll chop it (I have another spare) but I want to try to get a pic first.
Next I want to plant my mana beans. They need to go in a magical biome, so Magical Forest or Eerie. For convenience, I don't want to plant them in a totem-generated Eerie away from my base, so they'll go in the mini Magical Forest Biomes my Silverwoods have made. I'll also need to light them with a Thaumcraft Lamp of Growth because otherwise they grow extremely slow.
I like the idea of putting them on the Silverwoods but I just can't figure out a way to do it attractively and symmetrically. I don't actually need them to be symmetrical for the altar function but I want it. The Magical Forest biomes are also very small so they would have to be right next to the altar.
Eventually I decide I can't place them nicely above ground and I'll have to dig out a chamber below. I think about direct access from the ground but that's not appealing either. So I decide to dig another room below the tower and then dig a tunnel from there.
But first, a swarm of zombies drops off the hill and attacks my front door! Again, I have no idea where they came from. But one of them has chain, so I open the door hoping for a trophy - and luck out! I have a chain breastplate! Into storage for later
I dig another room for the tower with the same basic plan - same shape, and 5 blocks high. I don't bother decorating yet, though. The area turns out to have a big ice deposit in it which I accidentally break with my high-speed diamond pic, producing a seriously inconvenient flood. I can't manage to snap up the water with my bucket and eventually have to go to the floor above and cut down to drain it.
That done, I dig a tunnel over to exactly under the altar and place four silverwood columns. My magical Forest plan has not worked out quite right; the biomes don't quite reach to the center. Whoops. I actually have *7* beans, not the 5 I thought I had.
I then need a Lamp of Growth. I do the research, and it needs to be infused from an Arcane Lamp. I spend quite a bit of time trying to infuse an Arcane Lamp before learning that that's been changed from 1.6 and now they're just crafted.
The Lamp of Growth needs a six-item infusion so I have to expand my altar. I put in four more pedestals along the spiral arms. The Silverwoods you see are the new ones, which have sprouted, but neither has a Pure Node so I'll have to chop them and replant at some point.I need Pure Nodes for the Magical Forest biome so the mana beans will grow.
The infusion goes without a hitch and I place the Lamp of Growth in the middle of the mana beans with a bottle of Herba essence to fuel it.
I've been doing very little with Bibliocraft but all my jars of Essentia are starting to get clutter-y so I build some potion shelves to put them on. As it turns out the labels always face east so I then had to move them to the west wall.
Before I chop down the node less silverwoods I get a pic of my altar. Thanks to the Greatwood tree the taotie of my tower even has hair now!
After this I chop down one silver wood, getting a sapling, allowing me to chop the other dud silver wood too and replant both of them.
Next episode: More home improvement.
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.
That was quite a trek! I didn't realize it at the time, but looking at that wall I'm virtually certain there are some land masses in those oceans I've gone around. I'll go back to fill them in later. Oceans look like they're coming out fairly small, but given the limitations of vanilla mapping and typical player preferences, that's probably a good thing.
However, I want to put off further major exploration until I figure out why villages are so rare.
Next, I've had an idea (hardly groundbreaking) for all that extra Metallurgy metal: Armor displays! I use Bibliocraft to make a couple of armor stand and tool displays (for weapons). Then I head downstairs to see what I'm easily able to spare. I have five metals: Steel, Damascus Steel, Promethium, Shadow Steel, and Vyroxes. For looks, I want to make them in pairs, so I skip the steel for now.
Upstairs I put them in the first level I built, because it's got four doors, one of which is an outside door, and no significant current use.
Vyroxes and Prometheum:
Damascus Steel and Shadow Steel:
Yeah, they were pretty obviously designed to be trophies. And they look good. There's an obvious trend where the rarer/more powerful metals get fancier designs.
It looks like I'll use that wisp spawner near the triple node for a wisp essence source. But, currently, getting there requires climbing down to the river to the northwest, climbing over the mountain past that, and then going up and and down a couple of hills, with some ravine traps on the way. So I want an easier way there. I figure I'll start with a bridge over the river to the mountain.
I look for a way across the river. The best looks like a little bit to the south.
I head back in to pick up some stones I've been roasting. As I come in the door:
AH THERE'S A CREEPER IN MY TOWER! oh wait, it's just the Vyroxes armor set, which out of the corner of my eye, looks rather like a creeper with that green patterning.
I pick up some stones and head back. I decide on using soapstone - I want a lighter stone, but chalk is too soft (one stray creeper and bye-bye). It's still soft enough I need two layers.
I want to be able to look down as I cross so I use a trick with walls: I put walls on each side down at ground level and then I'll put a railing two blocks up. Since walls count as 1 1/2 blocks high, that means the space is functionally only 1.5 blocks high and I don't fit through. But, there's minimal obstruction looking down. This looks a bit odd on a view balcony but on a bridge it'll just look like a bridge with a railing.
I forgot to bring snow for the railing so I head back to pull some from the tower storage.
AH THERE'S A CREEPER IN MY TOWER! oh wait, it's still just the Vyroxes armor set,
Ha ha.
I *know* it's an armor set but there's just a split-second of visceral panic.
While I'm there I check on the mana beans. Some are ready to harvest, but even fully grown they still usually drop only one bean. So it's going to be a long slow process growing them.
Back at the bridge, I put up some snow railings:
Could use a little more decor. I had been thinking about packed ice spikes so I head over to the mountain to collect some. While there I test routes towards the spawner and discover the mountain is steep enough that straight over the top is easiest.
I Silk Touch some packed ice from ground formations and one misformed spike. I don't want to change my view.
I try putting some ice on top but it doesn't work. I try making the spikes extensions of the railing supports:
Now I'm thinking the rail supports should be packed ice all the way down and may even go down to an arched support underneath. Well, I'll stew on ideas and maybe come back later. The bridge is nice to cross:
I head back home to put back the building supplies.
AH THERE'S A CREEPER IN MY TOWER! oh wait...
dang, I gotta move that thing
Next episode: working on some problematic terrain and on the wisp spawner.
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.
* 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 head out to traipse up the hill to the west, roughly from where I've had zombies drop into my yard. As I head out the door, I get attacked by a skeleton and a couple of zombies from the *other* nearby spawning ground.
I don't have any particular trouble with them but then I realize - dang it, a couple more whacks at my non-repairable traveling/Nether boots. You can see the bridge entrance above the zombie here - this is a particularly problematic spawn area since it's on the path to the bridge.
I look around up on the hill but I can't see any likely spawning areas. I consider building a bridge here too but there's not a good spot.
There is a snow overhang over a large drop, which I dig out.
I head over to the area where the skeleton and zombie came from (and other things in the past). But first I switch to my war gear (steel boots and helm) so I won't damage my traveling boots. I start digging a thin layer of overhanging snow but soon spot the spawning issue - a cave
I head in and dispatch a few guards. It's a relatively short cave with no branches. I come back out and finish digging up the overhang layer.
With the yard a little more secure, I load Trunkie up with migmatite cobblestone (soapstone is too soft for a spawner area) and head over to the wisp spawner.
I carve up the obsidian totems surrounding the spawner because I figure they'll get in the way.
I plan to build a big cobblestone box to keep the wisps in where I can kill them. They fly, and can and do run away in open terrain. I actually started on the box earlier but only built a little.
The wisps apparently won't spawn in daylight and I build the walls without harassment. I do see a creeper wandering outside (I've been creeper bombed twice nearby) so there's a spawning area to be dealt with at some point.
I build the roof and the wisps start spawning. Two spawn before I get inside and I have a bit of a fight going in.
They spawn slowly - 1 every minute or two - but that's OK, at least for now, because it can take a while to kill them. One of the first two must have spawned well before the roof was finished.
The first few I kill with my lightning wand but it runs out of juice and I switch to my bone bow. After I've gotten about 10 wisp essences I decide to head home. I cut a door on the corner towards home to get there a little faster (my traditional approach is actually from the far side but as soon as I step out I recall why I came the long way - there's a cliff on this side.
I build a quickie ramp to get down. I'll put in a straighter staircase later, with safety railings. Right beneath this is a cave I partially lit but which still might be the source for the creeper spawns.
Here's my loot - 11 wisp essences. Some have hard-to-get essentias like Alienis and Exanimus and it's tempting to use them for that but for now I want some higher-powered items so they're going into Salis Mundus.
Next episode: Some higher-powered Thaumaturgy with my new loot.
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 do use 1 Salis Mundus to make a Primal Charm, though, because you need that to unlock research. I also start roasting some wood for charcoal, which I can extract Potentia from, as the Thaumstatic harness uses Potentia as it flies.
I haven't researched the Thaumstatic Harness and don't even have the research option. I guess I need the Arcane Levitator (a very simple research) but that doesn't do it. Then I try Boots of the Traveller, and bam, there it is.
A moderately difficult research, but I've gotten the hang of the new research system.
Ironically, I don't actually need Salis Mundus for this one and could have made it some time ago.
The materials to make it are easy to get, but it needs a lot of Essentia, so I head upstairs to start extracting what I need.
While that's going, I collect more wood. I'd been trying to convert my yard to an Autumn woods feel but it feels kind of messy. So I decide to go back to an all-spruce yard. Now that I have an Axe of the Stream, it's no longer inconvenient to chop Spruce. (With a vanilla axe, the Autumn Woods trees are great because they never grow too high for an axe).
Of the two replacement Silverwood saplings, one has sprouted - but without nodes - and the other refuses to sprout. I hypothesize it's the snow blocking it and clear the snow.
I also place Stones of Warding in front of my doors so the monsters can't walk in when I open the doors. I have no idea why I didn't remember this sooner. I could have done this weeks ago.
Lastly, I need *9* pedestals for this infusion so I have to build and install four more, still on the spiral.
Finally everything's collected/crafted/extracted/built and i set it all up. It's a High Instability infusion, so I'm a little concerned, but I have plenty of extra Essentia for minor problem and a big candle room, so I rap my wand and off I go.
With 9 items and over a hundred Essentia, the infusion takes a LONG time. But, my precautions seem to have worked and I have no problems - and a Thaumstatic Harness!
A take a quick test flight to make sure it's all working. The sky's the limit now!
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 done the Silverwood research and I've got most of the Essentia but I need some Ordo. I dig up some sand to smelt into glass to extract to Vitreus Essentia to centrifuge to Ordo. (a typically complicated Thaumcraft process.)
Oh yeah. Gotta scan that Harness.
After researching them, the Thaumium caps need three Salis Mundus each and that seems a bit steep, so I guess I'll just settle for gold caps.
I don't even have enough Aer Vis in my wand to even make that, though, so I head out to refill.
I head for the area where I chopped the Greatwood tree. On the way I detour to search for other nodes in the Cold Taiga near home, but I don't find any.
I get to the meadow where I found the horses long ago (there's a huge Terra node there). I still haven't tamed a horse and now it would be for show or decor - they can't fly on the harness. I was so excited when I found them but I never used them.
After I tap the Terra node, I head over to some other nearby nodes, including an Aer node. I spot the cobwebs from the Greatwood tree floating in midair and smack myself (metaphorically) for forgetting about them and not bringing my shears.
I tap out the Aer node and a Sinister node nearby but I still need some Ignis. So I head further east to the Aer/Perdito/Tempestas node that was the first I found as there's an Ignis node right next to it.
This is just vanilla Minecraft terrain here but variety is the spice of life and after weeks of boating, snowy zones, and indoor magicking it seems fresh and inviting again.
After I finish refilling my wand at that node pair I head home along the coast, looking for nodes.
This terrain is pretty hilly and the Thaumstatic Harness comes in very handy. On those times I'm climbing a hill and get blocked by a 2-high jump I don't have to dig a staircase; a second of flying and I'm up. Boots of the Traveller will make that even easier; I need to make some. I also jump off a few cliffs; the Thaumstatic Harness protects me from fall damage, so going down is even easier. I don't find many nodes, though.
I'm in sight of home - but not quite there - when night falls one more time. I pillar up onto a tree and wait until it's quite dark to look for node glow but I don't see any.
Back home I set up my Silverwood wand core infusion. It's moderately complex, but runs without problems.
My Mana Bean farm gets expanded and rearranged a little (grown beans were blocking my movement in my first layout). It's a lot of work, but my bean supply is growing. Actually now I'm starting to be limited by the fact that two of my four corner trees still haven't sprouted with nodes, so those areas are still Cold Taiga and won't support Mana Beans.
This setup is not golemizable but I'm doing it not for mana beans in general but for Essentias I have trouble getting - Exanimis, Auram, Vitium, and Permutio. So I'd rather run it manually so those beans don't get replanted.
After I make my gold wand caps, I'm ready to make the wand itself. I anticipated I'd have to refill my wand again to make it but that's not the case.
The Silverwood wand is a big step forward because it's got enough Vis storage to jar and move nodes. So now I can start planning for a node room. Right above my work area would be nice but - oh yeah - all those mineshafts - so -
Next episode: Time for some monster mashing!
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.
Back downstairs, I want to clean out the mineshaft immediately above my downstairs work area. Not only is that where I'd like to put my node room, I'm thoroughly sick of the moaning and groaning and squishing sound. I mine a tunnel from one level up on my dropshaft and very soon reach an upper mineshaft.
I see no baddies and break in, right near the mineshaft end. I travel a short distance, turn left, and continue to a 4-way intersection over the 4-way downstairs. I use a Paving Stone of Warding to block the intersection. I look around for a hole the mobs might have been using to drop in on me and..
There it is. It's been there for weeks. How embarrassing!
Back at the four-way I step in to look down the side and SSSSSSSS. I jump back in time to avoid the boom. Turns out a creeper is lurking to the left. I chop out a block of the pillar so I can shoot it - and it retreats down a corridor. I come closer looking for an angle and SSSSSSSS. I jump back *again* and find *another* creeper had been lurking down a different corridor. I get one shot off on it and then *it* retreats down a different corridor. After several rounds of this hide-and seek I get them both, go in that way, and find all the corridors soon terminate in dead ends.
Forward through the intersection is just a wall. I turn left and go in a bit but then a skeleton comes out.
I whale on him with my sword for a while, puzzled why he's not dying - until I realize I'd missed the hot key and I'd been beating him with a torch. But at that point a second guard shows up so I retreat down the corridor and switch to my bow and kill them with that.
A zombie then shows up and manages to vault over the Warding - I'm not sure how. I then head back down the corridor and find the mineshaft connects to a cave and ends. To the left (back towards base) it goes down and then up in two different directions. I head up and then
I get jumped by a spider. I kill it, but then decide to go back to my rule of never advancing down a corridor if something could come up behind. Because of the angles and the large cave size, it would be a bit of trouble to block up either path so I head back to the mineshaft and block off the connection to the cave in this direction.
The other direction turns out to be the cave behind the zombie dungeon. I'm at level 28, and out of things I want to clear in the immediate area, so I activate the spawner and whack zombies until I get to level 30.
I'll do one more standard enchant before switching to Infusion Enchanting, which is generally more efficient on levels. I make a helmet, using Quicksilver (from Metallurgy), by far my best available metal - it's more enchantable than even Angmallen, but more than 3 times as durable. I get -
Protection (which I'm short on with my top gear), Respiration, and Unbreaking - a great basic helm. Thorns shows up for the third time, which is a waste, since I've already got 2 Thorns armors on, but I guess that's how it works with these ultra-enchantable metals.
Strangely that ultra-elaborate helm becomes just a shell on my head.
Next episode: back to the shafts.
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 silk touch out a bunch of ice, fill in holes in the floor, put in some torches and build a staircase down to the floor of the center room. But only a short distance down I'm confronted by:
Bleah. You see what I'm dealing with. I return to the central chamber and build a stair up to the *other* mineshaft into this maze. I break in and am confronted with another big room complex, which I forgot to take a picture of.
I gamely start mining out ice, filling in floors, and then putting in torches. There are so many holes in the floor that I run out of cobble and wood fill and have to chop the mineshaft supports for materials.
This a view from the center, looking away from my base. I can't really even count how many mineshafts are involved in the complex - at least seven.
In one corner I hear a huge spider racket and confront a gravel blockage. Anticipating a spider spawner, I cautiously dig through:
But it just connects to yet another mineshaft - with plenty of ice, of course. After a lot of work securing it (but no mobs), i find this connects to the section of tunnel in Episode 29 I ignored due to flooding. From this angle I'm better able to get at it now so I clean up and connect through.
Then I head back to the big open area pictured above. I block off part and break in to the mineshaft to the left, sniping with a skelly in the process. As I'd guessed, this connects to the area in Episode 29 from the *other* way around, so I have a mineshaft ring all the way around the center room, frequently doubled.
I'm really getting tired of clearing and filling ice at this point. I continue to where I'd explored in Episode 29, crack a blockage I'd put in, and try to push further. I hadn't seen many mobs before but I quickly fight two skeletons and a zombie.
At this point I honestly got lost and couldn't say exactly where I was. I kill some slimes and a couple of zombies.
Finally, lured by the glow of mana shards, I break my cardinal rule about not advancing unless my back is secure.
Sure enough, while fighting this unfine unfellow I get smacked from behind. I finish the first zombie, turn around, and it's a zombie in full chain. Well, I should count my blessings. Had it been a creeper, this game would probably be over (that's why I have that rule; I really should have kept to that rule.)
Well even in chain a zombie is no problem except
My sword breaks.
I could have taken him out with my bow but I've gotten in the habit of conserving arrows because I'm not getting all that much flint so I just didn't think about it. So I run for home. Except remember how I'd gotten kind of lost? I head down two dead ends before I find my way out of the maze.
I figured chain boy would have lost me by now but due to the detours he's kept up. So I pull out my pick and off him (not a sword, but good enough).
By this point I've picked up almost 4 *stacks* of ice so I am entirely ready for a break from mineshafts and mobs.
Next episode: a new sword!
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.
Now that I have Salis Mundus for Infusion Enchantments I'm ready to start on that. Infusion enchantments let you pick your enchantments, at the cost of various items and quite a bit more hassle in general. It can only be done on Thaumium gear for the most part, but I have enough from treasure chest and could make plenty anyway.
My plan for now is to make a Sword of the Zephyr, a special Thaumcraft sword, and give it Looting 1. I'd been planning more, but I don't have Aer to make more Salis Mundus.
First I have some upkeep. I check on the Mana Bean farm and a lot of beans have grown. I harvest 27 beans from 18 pods. Pretty slow growth rate - 50% increase per harvest. The Lamp of Growth has also exhausted its Herba Essence supply so I refuel it and spin down some Arbor to get more.
i step outside to check on the farms and I get attacked by a baby zombie. I don't have a sword but I do have a diamond pick and a figure it'll be enough. But:
It almost kills me? Only as I write this do I realize it had glowing red eyes - it was a souped up Furious Baby Zombie. I'm still surprised it almost killed me - gotta mark them as seriously dangerous.
I set up the Infusion - but somehow I have a brain fart and put the items for the Looting infusion rather than for the SotZ infusion I wanted. The infusion steals 5 levels from me before I abort it. Ouch!
I correct my goof and the infusion goes off without a hitch.
I swap to the essentia for the Looting infusion and that works too, other than having used twice as many levels as needed.
Based on Empour's excellent journal I was inspired to add Spice of Life to my mods. This is a mod that requires you to eat a variety of foods. If you only eat one food, you get less and less nutrition until eventually you get none at all. I dislike having all these foods but no reason to eat them (I have enough raw beef to last me into 2015 already) so this seems like an appealing mod. At start it would be pretty rough to have to haul a lot of different food around but Trunkie can spare 6 slots or so.
Of course now I need a lot of foods now. One thing I could make (but haven't) is cookies. I got a couple of cocoa beans off some palm trees back in my big exploration trip so I head out to the farm to plant them on some palm wood I also brought.
I set them up so the golems can work them. Except I can't plant the cocoa beans! I'm trying to figure out if there's a biome requirement, a bug in Highlands, or some other restriction when SSSSSSS
I jump away and apparently take no damage myself but there's an annoying hole right between the farm and the altar. I've been putting off fencing my yard because a ) it's really hard with the hill right next to it and b ) I figure it won't look good with the altar - but I just can't have this. So I go downstairs to get two stacks of fences I've chopped out of mineshafts (no kidding, and I have 1 1/2 more too) and start plopping them down.
I only fence the lower area for now. This won't stop zombies from dropping in at the front door but it should stop most creepers - every creeper I've ever seen try to get into the yard has been coming in from the forest.
I doesn't look great, but I can still get good pics of the altar if I choose my angles carefully.
Next Episode: Time for an Expedition!
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.
Incidentally, I'm thinking of adding Climate Control to my mods- Reading your journal(for the third time, no I'm not crazy, thank you- it's just a great read), I feel like all of the customization from it is something I'd like, a lot. About that, though, before I do add it- Will I have any issues with my existing world, such as impossibly-rectangular-cliffs, biome shifting, or other weirdness? I don't really mind either way, IRCs are a sight in and of themselves. It's mostly biome shifting I'm worried about(beta 1.7 to beta 1.8 anyone?). It's worth note I have my Highlands biome size set to 6, because I didn't know Highlands LB exists and wanted large biomes because vanilla ones are just too small for me.
Oh, another thing- Do Explorercraft maps work on bibliocraft map stands? I've been meaning to ask this for a while, but always forgot when I had the opportunity.
Oh, also, culinary suggestion! Thaumcraft adds this really neat food type, called the Triple Meat Treat. It's made with Chicken, Pork, and Beef nuggets with some sugar. I haven't made them in a long time(Hunger overhaul nerfs them to the point of uselessness), but I know that the nuggets are obtainable from cooking raw meat in the infernal furnace. I don't know if you can find them in the thaumonomicon, but if you could, I imagine it would be under the infernal furnace.
I'll shut up now. >. >
Sorry, but you can't install CC onto a Highlands world without the hideous chunk borders almost everywhere. Highlands uses a completely different generation system from vanilla - rather than discrete fractally-distributed chunks of biome, it creates gradients of temperature and rainfall and then places biomes where they "belong". The CC trick for avoiding chunk walls is very specific to the vanilla-style world creations and can't work with any other (not ATG either). Both Highlands-style and ATG-style generation make good worlds with many virtues - but compatibility with CC is not among them.
I know exactly what you mean about vanilla biome sizes being too small for Highlands. My first journal was intended to show off Highlands+UB, and I rejected the small biome sizes because I'd see vistas with multiple incompatible biomes. So I went with HighlandLB, which basically fixes the jumbled vistas, but which results in very large biomes. The large biomes accentuate the grandeur Highlands gets but there's a whole lotta trecking when you're looking for something. Episode 6 in my first journal is the one that gives the best feel for wandering around a Highland LB world; there's also some explorations in episode 11 and episode 2. However, *that* world was pretty safe - I spent several days wandering about in Episode 2 without armor, and without having to worry about getting attacked.
Explorercraft maps become vanilla maps on the Bibliocraft map stand. I was thinking about asking Nuchaz about making them compatable, but never got around to it.
Thanks for the triple meat treat tip.
Edit: I do have to say the vistas were prettier in my 1.6.4 Highlands LB world than they are in the current one. I'm not really sure why. The current world is great - I'm not complaining - but the earlier one was even better.
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's possible that size 5 will give the perfect biome size, but I have yet to test it. I just found in the config that 6 was the standard for Large Biomes worlds, so I went with that out of experience.
Aww, okay. Vanilla item frames for me, then.
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.
First, I want to fill up my new Silverwood wand.
Second, I want to Jar a node or two for Vis I need at home (Aer/Terra/Ignis)
Third I want to get an emerald for a Excavation Wand Focus
Fourth, I want a platform for a fishing golem.
My plan is to go to a region I spotted at the start of the big exploration, an Extreme Hills region about 2000 blocks south and 1000 block west of spawn. There's a closer Extreme Hills, on the coast west of me. But, I like spaced-out bases to use my world, and I'm hoping to find some nice nodes out on the water. Also, the nearby location didn't inspire me but the much longer coast where I'm going offers good possibilities.
I'm a little far from the ocean for a fishing golem to work properly in my current base (he won't be loaded). But if I'm mining near the ocean, and later building a base, he'll be fine.
First it's time for Node in a Jar research. Tricky with the holes - but a fun puzzle, as usual.
My wand has refilled a little due to my amulet and I should be able to make another Salis Mundus - but I can't. My Frugal enchantment does not seem to be working.
I have a plan for building platforms in the ocean to check out nodes. I need a bucket of lava, however, so I trudge off to the old lava-filled ravine to get one.
I load up Trunkie with building supplies for a base, glass for a node jar, food, and assorted sundry items and I'm off!
Well, one last intruder to kill in the yard first.
As usual, I travel a route slightly different from my previous ones to expand my mapped area.
So, my idea for an ocean platform is to put down a lily pad, place a block next to it, then place lava next to *that* and have it cobblestone the water underneath. This will get me a solid water-level block without having to dive to place it from underneath. Not original, I'm sure.
And it works! But the nodes are pretty disappointing. I find four in all - two very close together - and they're all overwhelmingly Aqua. The best one is aer/ignis/aqua - but only 23 aer and 22 ignis. Not something that would be a star in my tower. I don't have nearly enough Vis for a jar yet anyway with these weak nodes.
I arrive at the coast, a Stone Beach with a plethora of exposed ores. I don't really need them, but I yield to greed for a bit and mine extensively on the way up. I snooze on the size of the cliff.
Except - it's not Extreme Hills! It's a Highlands Cliffs. Cliffs is, as you might expect a mountainous biome with parameters tuned to produce lots of cliffs. It also has cobblestone boulders strewn everywhere, and valley sub-biomes very similar to Roofed Forests. Aesthetically, it's an improvement over Extreme Hills - it has a certain grandeur, a unique appearance from the boulders, and more variety from the intermittent valleys. Plus, it's supposed to have emeralds as well. So, a major improvement.
I haven't seen the Valleys from the ground before. From the air I was disappointed with them - they looked out-of-place somehow. But from the ground I think they look great.
Why the Stone Beach? Well, in various discussions I've participated in, there have be a lot of complaints about "ugly beaches" - the sand stretches extending up hills and mountains next to the ocean. So, I tried having Climate Control replace Beaches with Stone Beaches on more rugged terrain, and I liked the effect, and that's what happened here.
I'm really thrilled with this landscape. I'm thinking about what kind of grand castle I want to build here. and start searching the coastline for a location.
Next episode - Digging and Disappointment
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.
Dangit, he lights me.
After I deal with that reconsider where I want to build a base. Near a nice node would be awesome. So I start exploring along the coast, looking for nodes.
There are lots of piggies about so I butcher some to add to my food variety. I don't have carrots to raise them anyway. You'll notice the boulders are converted to UB stones - that was a fair amount of work, but worth it.
Between the Stone Beach (basically Extreme Hills), and the, well, cliffs, it's pretty hard to get around. With a little planning, I can still get up most places, but my Thaumostatic Harness is invaluable for those short hops I just can't manage. It also lets me drop down without taking damage, and that's a help too, as well as a considerable comfort when I'm near some of the more dangerous drops.
I travel most of the length of the coast, eventually reaching the desert to the south. I find only one node, which I forgot to record, but it is way up on the top of one of the tallest cliffs and so not all that useful.
I get in my boat and travel along the coast, but I don't find any nodes out on the water until just before I get to the desert on the other side I find two. They're not too great but better than nothing so I decide to build a base here. I travel a little further to find a place where it's not a huge climb up to the top.
I build a small dock leading to a fishing house to serve as a starter base. There's another node ashore but it's not too useful either. As you can see, I'm right next to the desert. Pretty view, actually.
The stack of spruce logs turns out to be too little for the house so I climb up the hill to chop and replant a few trees.
The fishing house ends up kind of blah. I made the beginner's mistake of using only one material (really, I should know better) and the symmetry isn't appropriate for a lower-end build. My overseer's shack on my Lora plantation build looked much better. Well, it keeps the mobs out. I get ready to fish a little - and realize I forgot to bring string. Doh!
I build a fenced walkway to the hill, cut a small room, put a door on in case something's wrong with my fences, and start a dropshaft. There's a nice set of Underground Biomes stones here - Eclogite, one of the more interesting base stones with a combination of reddish and greenish tones; Slate, which is really good for severe and modern builds; and Dolomite, a fairly decorative sedimentary stone.
I get all the way to the bottom without obstacles. I start a tunnel going east (towards home, and crossing thing biome). As I grind across, I find all kinds of stuff - coal, redstone, iron, diamonds,
Mana Shards
Even a couple of big caves which I skip for now at least.
But - no emeralds.
I grind all the way to the end. I've built two depot chests to dump all my Eclogite cobblestone but even with Trunkie my inventory is bulging at the seams. And still, no emeralds. So I pull out my copy of the Highlands code to see if everything is right - and it isn't. The emerald placement is done with pre-Ore Dictionary code which won't place the emerald ore in UB stone. So, actually, there's no emeralds in these Cliffs after all.
Now I can patch that the same way I fixed the surface boulders *but* that won't remake *this* Cliffs. So, no emeralds here and not much reason to keep mining. I'm already unable to bring back everything I want. Mournfully I triage to determine what goes home with me, head upstairs, and launch my boat for home.
Home looks nice poking above the trees but I'm not happy. I've accomplished a grand total of zero of my objectives. Thoroughly disappointing. I have a double inventory of valuables and 28 levels of experience, but not the thing I wanted.
Next episode: More Quicksilver enchantment, some more wand foci, and exploring some local terrain.
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 didn't do a good job of collecting Vis in my wands on my trip - I'd expected to find more nodes and since I was trying to fill my new wand my new wand is missing Terra, which I didn't see, and my old want is still low on Ignis and Terra. But I do have enough to squeeze out 2 Golem Controllers.
I need two in order to have a balanced recipe to convert them into Gather Golem Controllers. Getting supplies for this is much easier.
I set up a standard golem egg collector system. I dig a hole in the ground, put in the chests, and then place the golem with the chest as home. Now he'll pick up the eggs. Later I'll use them for Limus essentia or hook it to an egg dispenser for a supply of chickens.
Downstairs I move my research table near the Infernal Furnace so I'll collect experience the furnace drops. I'd been planning to have a Brain in a Jar to collect it put it's going to be a while before I have enough Exanimis.
My Mana Bean farm is coming along. I develop a strategy for no-brainer collection of the mana beans I want. I place a chest at the entrance and keep the desired mana bean stacks inside. When I feel like harvesting, I clear my hotbar into the chest, put the beans I want to keep in my non-hotbar inventory, and fill up the rest of my non-hotbar inventory (if needed, which isn't often since I haul around so much). Then I go harvest beans. Beans I want to keep get added to the stacks; beans I don't care about can only got to my hot bar where I can plant them. If i chop too many beans, they'll pop into my hotbar once I place some. I never have to check a bean's type. Works nicely for these purposes. Maybe later I'll try to design a golem-driven bean converter.
The Silverwood saplings just aren't growing so I decide to make a Hoe of Growth to finish the job. Fortunately this requires no Vis as both my wands are missing something at the moment. It's a simple infusion and goes quick and easy.
I hoe one of the saplings and abracadabra! I've got a Silverwood tree, and it's got the node I wanted. Great!
I hoe the other sapling and abracadabra! I've got a Silverwood tree - but no node. I chop it down with the Axe of the Stream, and it drops a sapling. So I plant that and -
I hoe the other sapling and abracadabra! I've got a Silverwood tree - but no node. I chop it down with the Axe of the Stream and - no sapling.
And now I'm out of saplings. So I'll have to get another Silverwood sapling on another expedition later. I will, however, be able to expand my mana bean farm thanks to the third tree with a Pure node.
I check on the egg farm and it's running a bit slowly. I grab some eggs to pitch against the wall to speed it up a bit. While I'm there I off a few chickens to get to level 30, and pitch some more eggs to replace them.
Level 30, boot time!
Blast protection is nice, but only 2 good enchantments, with Thorns, is not great. But, it'll do.
Now, I've just *got* to start filling my wands.
Next episode - some near-home exploration and wisp sniping.
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.