I'm glad that I'm not the only one that does this. I'll admit that it's slightly annoying when I go someplace like a Mesa, Desert, or Plains on a public server to find that there's are multiple hills that have had their upper layers shaved off flat. Whenever I want dirt, I'll grab it from underground. If I want hardened clay, I'll hollow out part of a hill.
Yep I'm similar. Back before they added sandstone beneath deserts I would see lets plays where a huge section of desert is denuded of its sand down to the stone below and just looked awful. I can't understand how people live with that. I'll carefully remove a sandy beach peninsula and make it blend into the ocean floor.
"If you don't understand the bigger picture, writitng a program is difficult. That's true with any computer programming language, not just java. If you're typing code without knowing what it's about, and the code doesn't do exactly what you want it to do, then your just plain stuck." - Dr Burd
Owner/Admin of the amazing and awesome super custom modded Ninjacat Server!
In one respect it's odd I care so much about the looks of a world nobody else will probably ever play in. Most of the time I could shred the landscape and never come back to the area and literally nobody would ever see it, including me. But somehow just *knowing* there's a messed-up section nags at me and spoils the game. When I can't just shave something off (usually I can't; Badlands is unusually favorable for it) I also hollow out hills or drop shafts to y=11 and branch mine.
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Before I go home, I want to finish off a bit more exploring so I won't have to come back later. North of the island I've been exploring is a Tropical Island I'd partially explored in Episode 34. I land to finish it off.
Then there's a little bit of ocean above that.
I head back to the Magical Oasis but night falls on the way so I spend the night lawnmowering around. The one-and-a-half hour lawnmowering a few episodes back was pretty annoying but an overnight exploration isn't a problem.
Shortly after dawn I'm at the river mouth to reach the Arabian Nights build. I'd had some trouble getting out so I moor the boat to dredge a little more before I go in.
This costumed fellow comes up for trick-or-treat (I played this on Halloween). Unfortunately his idea of a treat is my brains so I have no choice but to brain him. I realize now I forgot to shift away from my staff to my sword but it was adequate for the job.
Then I reboard the boat and sail it in. All my dredging has finally worked and I zip right in to the tower. From here I Nexus over to the Winter Tower to look at the map and start processing all my stones.
The map is proceeding nicely now that I'm pushing on finishing it. Aesthetically it seems like I should fill in some more on the bottom but while I'm working on this new build it would be easier to just explore up there. I'll probably just do whichever strikes my fancy the next time I go exploring.
There's a lot of processing to do, and hauling rocks down to the Infernal Furnace in the basement for smelting is a bit inconvenient now. Maybe I should just put in a conventional furnace bank next to the mirror - I do have enough coal.
I spot the gather golem off-course and stuck again, as happens a lot. Except it's not him - it's the Alchemy golem, which has for some reason left the alchemy room inside the tower and is jumping around on a ledge outside. I go over to push him off and SMACK SMACK SMACK I start taking damage! This is seriously weird - nothing is attacking me. Some kind of bug, possibly related to why the golem is out here (I didn't think they could open doors and in any case there's a Warding Stone that should keep him in).
I can't get him back inside by pushing so I snap him up with the golem bell. I replace him at the Alchemical Furnace, and, as I suspected, he's trying to get at a jar 3 blocks above the floor. Somehow he decided to not be able to get at it from the outside rather than not be able to get at it from the inside and got outside to not be able to do anything there. Maybe he was just hot from standing next to the furnace all the time and wanted some fresh air. I move the jar and he goes back to work.
So I've got Greenshist and Red Clay for the dome. For the tower I want to use three different materials but I only have enough Greywacke and Smoothstone. I need one more, and I figure I can just mine some Andesite at Fallingwater.
Preparing to head there, I realize I've not unloaded Spunkie so I Nexus over to the Magical Oasis to drop off the clays and Greywacke.
From the dropshaft, I've previously gone east and south towards the Komantite Underground Biome. Now I choose to go north, which will go through a lot of Andesite (I know this by my above-ground travels). Eventually this could connect up with the long east passage from the winter tower. I normally like to have long underground passages and use them to get around hassle-free, as some of the players in Dulciphi's world may have noticed. No need for that now but - habit.
This route gets through the annoying cave just north of my earlier mine. After that I encounter a more normal frequency of caves like this. A few I try to light up and one I actually succeed. Looking at this pic I see several Metallurgy metals so I'll probably come back to collect more.
Mining along I encounter a small void below me, which is odd since I'm at y=11 and everything below me should be lava. It turns out to be the smallest mineshaft I've ever seen.
I spot this Mithril Ore, which I eagerly take. Except - it's not Mithril, it's Platinum! Platinum is the rarest Overworld ore in Metallurgy and is part of two of the top alloys in Metallurgy. I've never seen it in survival play. Actually, when I was coding and testing ore ubification last year, I'd become seriously concerned there was something wrong with my conversions because I couldn't find any. I spent hours digging at y=11 in creative test worlds until I finally found ONE Platinum and could relax.
I also adapt a new strategy I should have started a long time ago. With the Hand, I don't have to worry about filling my inventory so I can ignore item drop ores (which I need to switch picks for) on the way out. Then I switch to my item drop pick and head back, collecting all the drop ores on the way.
I continue hundreds of blocks until finally I hit a cave that actually blocks my way. I've got enough Andesite now (by far), so I turn and head back.
Back at the Winter Tower I head over to the mirror drop site. As I've mentioned, the Infernal Furnace has become something of a bottleneck - both from its relatively slow rate and from the need to haul things up and down the mineshaft. My mirror drop storage is full of coal from mining so I make a bank of vanilla furnaces and load them up.
I head downstairs, load some more stone into the Infernal Furnace, process some ores, and pick up some Marble and Soapstone I've roasted up. Then back upstairs for the Andesite roasting in the furnace bank, and then it's off with my supplies to the Magical Oasis.
I'd been planning to do the second tower with 1/2 Greywacke, 1/4 Andesite, and 1/4 Soapstone, and I'm all ready to go, but I start having second thoughts right before I start putting it up. The Andesite and Soapstone will both match the tower I just put up. Half matched and half unmatched seemed OK for the dome but I'm still a little uncomfortable. On top of that Soapstone has a flat texture, and because Greywacke doesn't have a brick form, this tower will have to be all smoothstone.
So, right before starting on the second tower, I lose my nerve and decide to find another patterned smooth stone first.
Next episode: prospecting
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I'm going to explore the nearby land regions looking for useful patterned grey stone for the next tower base. My #1 goal is Dacite, although there are a couple of others I might make do with.
First I head out west, through the Dunes. There's actually a creeper waiting for me but I move fast enough to just avoid it. Soon I'm over the Dunes and in a small plains. Beyond that is a Jungle and a large lake.
The Jungle (Warm climate) is next to a Highlands Tall Pines (Snowy climate). The climate system was designed to reduce this but it's not perfect, as you see here. It's pretty rare, though - I think this is the first time I've seen it in this world.
The lake connects to a Flying Mountains, made more dramatic by the Black Granite stones. I've actually seen a different part of this biome before, in Episode 33. This is a more "classic" Flying Mountains than the lone spire next to the FallingWater build, with deep canyons separating complex mountains. It's pretty appealing.
Well, OK, this is a bit crazified. Boy, that would be a hassle to build under!
Right north of here is Outback which is not good for stone hunting. I turn south. Unfortunately I forgot to get a map pic to show more of what's going on.
Right to the south is the Tall Pines I showed earlier. The parts I see have Komantite, which I already have.
By now I've explored this area of the continent to the edge of my map and up to the Outback. I turn south.
On the map it looks like there's some water and then another continent. However, I can see they join off-map. I stay on my existing maps because I don't want to generate any more until I finish my 5x5 wall map.
On the other side is more Tall Pines. Here I spot some Gabbro. This is one of my least favorite stones as it has a rather flat texture and somehow the slightly purplish color always ends up looking not right when I use it. After some thought, though, I decide to take some just in case. I'm actually kind of kicking myself for not digging the Red Granite a few episodes back. I could get there fairly easily, but I'm bound to use it and I could have saved myself a trip. I cut into one of the hills, block off the entrance, and then spend the night chopping out about six stacks.
In the morning I cut out and keep exploring.
There's an Ice Plains here with a couple of rivers which make exploring it a breeze. The boots are so fast on ice it's like a carnival ride.
I spot an annoying ubification bug where occasionally ores are transformed to the wrong stone. This is the great curse of modding - having to debug. I literally have cold sweats about some bug ruining somebody's world. This, fortunately is just mildly annoying.
Normally it's a pretty rare problem and happens in very small area. Here, for some reason, I see these out-of-place Quartzite ores over a fairly large area. After I played this session, I regenerated the world in creative and TP'd over. On the regeneration it looked like the areas were generating with Quartzite instead. So the problem may be that the stones are generating wrong, not the ores. I do some caching, so it's possible; but when I look at the code I can't see where it would be happening. I'll come back later when I have more time.
A little further on - still in Tall Pines! - I spot exactly what I was most looking for, Dacite.
Same as before, I cut into a hill, block myself in, and start quarrying.
Here, though, I encounter a cave, and it has a guardian. I dispatch it easily enough, and then poke in to see if I can light it up. I'm near a dead end, so I can go in with my "safe back" rule, but quickly it splits in two different directions, so I retreat and block it off.
With my Dacite collected, I take the Frozen Rivers back to the ocean, swim over to the Dunes, and then cross them back to the Magical Oasis.
I like the look of the tower from above. Obviously I need some towers quite a bit higher to give a good presentation from the Dunes side. I hadn't realized that mountain to the north is actually arches - I'll have to plan for that when building view locations.
I Nexus back to the Winter Tower and put the Gabbro and Dacite in to roast. While that's going on, I look at my options for the Platinum I got last episode. Platinum can alloy with Orichalcum to make Celengil and with Kalendrite (a Nether metal) to make Amordrine. I don't have any Kalendrite, but I do have Orichalcum, so I use half my Platinum for that and save the rest.
I get 8 Celengil dust, and use two for the sword. My level is 46, so I go ahead a do a max enchant - Celengil has a very high enchantability. I get a lot of enchants, but not particularly useful ones - Looting III, Unbreaking III, … and Bane of Arthropods V. Oh well, at least it looks nice.
I goof around a little until my Dacite is done roasting and then Nexus back to the Magical Oasis for the next tower - finally!
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Those flying mountains look like the old 1.1 Extreme hills. Do you know if they are generated that way -- the negative height variation -- or if they just actually decorate the biome with big hunks of rock in the air (like the Bryce structures)?
(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?
Flying Mountains are generated that way, with high multipliers on the terrain noise functions, as are almost all of the Highlands mountains.The terrain noise is easily able to produce those below sea level areas in any biome; it's just that with most biomes the base level and the variations are tweaked to keep almost everything above sea level. Flying Mountains are tweaked in the opposite direction to produce largish water areas in spite of generally elevated terrain.
The Rock Mountains biome is the only Highlands biome with mountains which are created as rock decorations.
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Thanks. In all of my journals, I've worked hard at getting a pretty and interesting world. The world as is comes from a combination of Highlands, BoP, and Climate Control. When you see an "OMG, that's pretty" screenshot, it's mostly the doings of Highlands. In this last episode, and for that matter most of them since I started on the Arabian Nights build project, there's been very little BoP because the area was mostly generated before I added BoP.
BoP I use mostly to increase the variety of biomes, and to increase the variety of moods. Highlands is so relentlessly beautiful I find it's good to have some other stuff. BoP has pretty too, but it also a lot more has spooky and grimy and barren and cheery. CC makes the landmasses and climate zones playably sized, but you can't see it in the screenshots other than the map wall, which is very distinctive. However, although you don't see it in the screenshots, it makes a huge difference playing "on the ground".
Edit: I forgot Underground Biomes also adds to the mountains and cliffs shots. I use a larger Underground Biome size than the default as I find that reduces the tendency for shots to be "cut up" with different stone types.
Now that I've got all the materials I want, I start by building a pillar to the desired height and an outline of the dome above.
This one is getting up there.
I check the look and they might be too close for looks but I decide to stick with my plan for towers that touch (mostly for functionality)
I'm going to use three stones for my four color map: Greywacke, Andesite, and Dacite. I'll use Greywacke for 2 of the colors and Andesite and Dacite for 1 each. Greywacke will form the background with the complex shapes.
I immediately like the palette I've chosen. The patterned gray stones look very nice. I'm not convinced about the arrow pattern, but on the other tower it looked better at the tower got taller so I'll build more and see.
Typically I keep checking the look of the build as I continue. Usually I'm using these visual checks for making decisions although here I'm pretty much committed to finishing this complex build according to plan. I'm quite glad I stopped to look for different stones as the two towers are clearly distinct as is but if I hadn't had the Dacite and had used Soapstone I think they would have looked too similar and I would have had a problem with the boundary being indistinct.
Finally the tower proper is done and it looks like a distinct improvement on the first one. I put a Birch plank floor on top and an Arcane Lamp for lighting and take a break in real time before tackling the dome.
Since it worked for the tower, I'm trying the same scheme of 1 stone for two colors and 1 each for the other two. In this case I'm using Greenschist for my main stone and Blueschist and Red Hardened Clay for the other two. It seems the Blueschist doesn't have enough contrast with the Greenschist but I decide to continue and hope for the best.
Feeling inspired, I once again tackle the problem of connecting the patterns on top and bottom. I try to hand-draw a pattern again, and this time I make changed to the top and bottom patterns when necessary. This time I succeed at bridging the two patterns. Yay math!
I run into a problem with the blocks that are supposed to be in-between the levels. On the first dome I used two half-slabs to put a block in between. However, Hardened Clay has no half-slabs. So, either I put those blocks at one of the adjacent levels (making the shape slightly bumpier) or I swap reds I need to place there to green or blue (messing up the pattern slightly). After a while I go with a bumpier shape and a more consistent pattern.
Gonna have great views when this is done!
I keep grinding upwards. It's still hard, but it's distinctly easier on this dome than on the first. Part is practice - I'm learning how it works. Partly, though, it's much easier to stay oriented with 3 colors than with two. The rarer colors serve as "landmarks" I can use to re-orient when I get disoriented. With only 2 colors it was all just "two" ambiguous.
As I continue I'm finding a definite pattern to this pattern. From afar it looks pretty good but from up close it's kind of odd. The brick seems to help when I'm close so the next tower will go up in brick if possible. Unfortunately sedimentary stones and hardened clays have no brick form so I've got some choices coming up.
For the final tiers I work through the night. At this point I fall to the inside so I don't need to stop for the night. As it works out, all the top tiers stones that are supposed to be "in-between" layers are green or blue, so I avoid my earlier dilemma and do them all with half-slabs. I finish with another checkerboard spire shortly after dawn. I tried to get it done by dawn for a pic but just couldn't manage.
Selfie time! Oh, and nice view from up here.
Final conclusion:
The plans are working. The adjacent towers are visually acceptable and I'll be able to get around without going up and down to the ground all the time. I can stick a number of the towers together to get a palatial feel. Varying the palettes allows the towers to remain visually distinct even when touching.The 2-1-1 color palette adds visual interest and is more buildable than a 2-2 color palette. It's not perfect in every way, though. The new dome shows I want all patterned stones - flat textures work distinctly less well for this pattern.
As I plan for the later towers, I check out the arches I saw in the mountain. One turns out to be faux, with another mountain right behinds it. Two are real. However, the faux one is the closest and it looks like it will be difficult to capture views through the arches from stuff built on the hill.
Now that I'm getting a build that will be nice to look *at* it's time to try to figure out how it'll be nice to look *from.
Next episode: more planning and quarrying.
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I'm trying to understand the pattern on the towers. It seems to be mostly L-shapes, but not entirely, and I'm not really sure how the L's are supposed to fit together, or if it's supposed to be semi-random.
(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?
The towers remind me of that colorful cathedral in Russia. Or maybe Taj Mahal? It also looks arabic.
Yes, clustered big onion domes is reminiscent of St. Basil's Cathedral. Islamic was actually the goal, which would include the Taj. However, I'm trying for a wild fantastical look quite different from the calm and delicate Taj. I'm planning to try some minarets to accentuate the Islamic feel, but I haven't started yet even though I'm playing a couple of episodes ahead.
Are you considering breaking the confetti pattern on some of the towers, or is that gonna be a theme for the whole build?
I'd been planning on using the pattern with different stone variants throughout, but I'm not committed. I have considered a spiralish pattern like the one I used in Dulci's world, hoping for a more impressive interior. That would accentuate the similarity to St. Basil's Cathedral, which isn't my goal, but that's a pretty marvelous building so it certainly wouldn't be bad.
I'm trying to understand the pattern on the towers. It seems to be mostly L-shapes, but not entirely, and I'm not really sure how the L's are supposed to fit together, or if it's supposed to be semi-random.
I'm working from this aperiodic pattern (the square one). The idea is to get a complex never-repeating tiling (characteristic of fancy Islamic tiling) on a square grid (meaning doable in Minecraft). It should be very nearly all L-shapes; most of the deviations are mistakes on my part, although the first dome plan did have more slop in it. There are also spots where mapping a flat pattern onto the dome distorts the Ls.
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Thinking about how to have places to look out from my build, I consider a minaret. Minarets are (normally) for a call to prayer to the population, so they're actually *supposed* to have someplace high up to look out from. It would also accentuate an Arabian Nights feel, which is good, especially since the cluster of onion domes also evokes St. Basil's Cathedral (as Mr. Wriggly pointed out). That's a great building and look, but not my goal here.
Some minarets have multiple places to look out from and that suits my purposes as well. My rough idea is to have one view platform above the onion domes for a panoramic view and a view of the domes, and another below the domes for a more natural view of trees and hills. Normally minarets are separate from the main building, but I'm liking the system of connecting from tower to tower so I once again want the spire of the minaret to graze an onion dome.
The next issue is size. I need a tower with a circumference that is a power of two for the pattern to wrap (it's not actually perfect even then, but close enough). 7 is an option; looking at smaller circles I see I could also use 6 and 4. Smaller is better for a minaret, but a 4 is so small I won't be able to build a proper door. 6 is actually not very round but an even number will align with the existing (even-sized) towers better so I decide to go with that.
Finally there's color. I'm liking the general idea of grey towers and brightly colored roofs, but that leaves out a couple of interesting stones in mostly neutral colors like Quartzite and Red Granite. So I decide to try doing the minarets in non-gray neutral so I can use as wide a variety of UB stones as possible.
But, this means I'll need to *get* those stones so - back to the boat for prospecting and quarrying.
I look for the Quartzite/Chert column I spotted in Episode 170, but I miss it.
Rather than hunting around for it I continue on, with the plan of doing a little more exploring on this trip.
After a while I spot a Black Granite/Chert column and stop to quarry the Chert (I already have some Black Granite).
Inevitably there's a cave, which I fall into once due to the fact that caves are almost indetectable in
Black Granite. I block off the cave with dirt.
I'd forgotten a feature of Underground Biomes: chert often drops flint instead when you mine it. So I have about a stack of flint when I'm done.
After I've gotten the Chert, I head for the island where I quarried back in Episode 171 because I remember a section of the Rock Mountains is Quartzite.
This Quartzite is a different rock column and has different intrusive stones. Most of the "base" stones in Underground Biomes have two different rock columns like this. This decision pre-dates me but I assume it was done for a little bit of variety so you don't *always* have the same column once you know the base stone. As it is there are only two so if you're really dedicated you could know "it's either this or that" once you know the base stone.
Recently I recoded it so it's possible to change that - my idea was to have the stone sets randomized for each world, the way each world has a different set of Mesa layers. I haven't bothered to actually do the coding, though, partly because even I don't remember the column sets after programming them and playing with them for over 2 years.
I dig a 2-block shaft down, using the trick of standing in the middle of the two block so I'll never fall into something nasty by accident.
On the way I encounter Dolomite, a sedimentary stone I want. But, I'd discovered at the last quarry that I'd forgotten to unload Spunkie before the trip so I don't have a way to carry it back. I could send it through the Hand but there's additional juggling for that which isn't necessary because sedimntary stones needn't be roasted. There's Dolomite easily accessible at Fallingwater so I'll just get it there later when I have room in Spunkie.
At the bottom I do routine branch mining.
For a good while I am spared the usual cave annoyances but after a while I break into this big one. The lava makes it possible to have a safe break-in if I'm lucky - I can obsidianize part of the floor and the lava will shield me from mobs.
I'm not lucky. The cave is complex with a lot of spots to drop in. After swatting a couple more intruders (including a flaming bat that for a bit I think is a Firebat but turns out to be just an idiot bat that lit itself), I just seal it off and go back.
Next I decide to do some exploring/prospecting. I'm going to check out one of the landmasses at the top of my map, in the middle.
I land in a Woodlands, which turns out to be right next to a Redwood Forest.
On the other side of that is something I haven't seen before - a largely flooded Eerie (Thamcraft) Biome. It's a good color scheme for a swampy biome, actually. I dig up some easily accessible clay and then move one.
Next is an orchard, and then an Alps as I move into the snowy region to the north, and then Tall Pines.
In the Tall Pines I spot Rhyolite, which is another of my top target stones. Rhyolite is one of the "fancy" stones and is good for quasi-marble floors and decorative accents. I also think it will be very good for a tower in the Arabian Nights palace. So I cut in and start quarrying.
Initially I plan to just quarry without digging down to branch mine but the area is irregular and mixed with some Blueschist. It's enough hassle that I decide to do the two-wide dropshaft trick and branch mine at the bottom after all. My harness is almost out of Potentia so I refill it first.
On the way down I hit a Limestone layer. This is apparently in my mines somewhere but I don't remember where, so I decide to mine it.
I immediately run into an annoying intermod bug. As I'm quarrying the Limestone, some of it is dropping Thaumcraft Cinnabar Clusters instead. I'd noticed for quite some time that mining Cinnabar ore with my Pickaxe of the Core doesn't drop Cinnabar Clusters as it should, so what seems to have happened is that Thaumcraft is misidentifying Limestone as Cinnabar. I can't think of something I could have done to cause this so I'm guessing the bug is on Thaumcraft's side.
For the time being I initially switch to my Quicksilver Fortune pickaxe, which doesn't drop clusters. But after about a stack I have second thoughts, because my Quicksilver pickaxe is nearly perfect for ores but will be difficult or even impossible to repair at this point. I don't want to waste it on Limestone. So I abandon Limestone quarrying and dig on down to y = 11.
At Y=11 I do some routine branch mining without serious cave trouble. After I've gotten 6 stacks of Rhylolite I snooze because it's night, and then fly back up and dig out of the mine to resume my explorations.
Next episode: more exploring and back home.
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RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Yep I'm similar. Back before they added sandstone beneath deserts I would see lets plays where a huge section of desert is denuded of its sand down to the stone below and just looked awful. I can't understand how people live with that. I'll carefully remove a sandy beach peninsula and make it blend into the ocean floor.
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..
Someone people just have no couth!
In one respect it's odd I care so much about the looks of a world nobody else will probably ever play in. Most of the time I could shred the landscape and never come back to the area and literally nobody would ever see it, including me. But somehow just *knowing* there's a messed-up section nags at me and spoils the game. When I can't just shave something off (usually I can't; Badlands is unusually favorable for it) I also hollow out hills or drop shafts to y=11 and branch mine.
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 172 Delightful Deep Discovery
Before I go home, I want to finish off a bit more exploring so I won't have to come back later. North of the island I've been exploring is a Tropical Island I'd partially explored in Episode 34. I land to finish it off.
Then there's a little bit of ocean above that.
I head back to the Magical Oasis but night falls on the way so I spend the night lawnmowering around. The one-and-a-half hour lawnmowering a few episodes back was pretty annoying but an overnight exploration isn't a problem.
Shortly after dawn I'm at the river mouth to reach the Arabian Nights build. I'd had some trouble getting out so I moor the boat to dredge a little more before I go in.
This costumed fellow comes up for trick-or-treat (I played this on Halloween). Unfortunately his idea of a treat is my brains so I have no choice but to brain him. I realize now I forgot to shift away from my staff to my sword but it was adequate for the job.
Then I reboard the boat and sail it in. All my dredging has finally worked and I zip right in to the tower. From here I Nexus over to the Winter Tower to look at the map and start processing all my stones.
The map is proceeding nicely now that I'm pushing on finishing it. Aesthetically it seems like I should fill in some more on the bottom but while I'm working on this new build it would be easier to just explore up there. I'll probably just do whichever strikes my fancy the next time I go exploring.
There's a lot of processing to do, and hauling rocks down to the Infernal Furnace in the basement for smelting is a bit inconvenient now. Maybe I should just put in a conventional furnace bank next to the mirror - I do have enough coal.
I spot the gather golem off-course and stuck again, as happens a lot. Except it's not him - it's the Alchemy golem, which has for some reason left the alchemy room inside the tower and is jumping around on a ledge outside. I go over to push him off and SMACK SMACK SMACK I start taking damage! This is seriously weird - nothing is attacking me. Some kind of bug, possibly related to why the golem is out here (I didn't think they could open doors and in any case there's a Warding Stone that should keep him in).
I can't get him back inside by pushing so I snap him up with the golem bell. I replace him at the Alchemical Furnace, and, as I suspected, he's trying to get at a jar 3 blocks above the floor. Somehow he decided to not be able to get at it from the outside rather than not be able to get at it from the inside and got outside to not be able to do anything there. Maybe he was just hot from standing next to the furnace all the time and wanted some fresh air. I move the jar and he goes back to work.
So I've got Greenshist and Red Clay for the dome. For the tower I want to use three different materials but I only have enough Greywacke and Smoothstone. I need one more, and I figure I can just mine some Andesite at Fallingwater.
Preparing to head there, I realize I've not unloaded Spunkie so I Nexus over to the Magical Oasis to drop off the clays and Greywacke.
From the dropshaft, I've previously gone east and south towards the Komantite Underground Biome. Now I choose to go north, which will go through a lot of Andesite (I know this by my above-ground travels). Eventually this could connect up with the long east passage from the winter tower. I normally like to have long underground passages and use them to get around hassle-free, as some of the players in Dulciphi's world may have noticed. No need for that now but - habit.
This route gets through the annoying cave just north of my earlier mine. After that I encounter a more normal frequency of caves like this. A few I try to light up and one I actually succeed. Looking at this pic I see several Metallurgy metals so I'll probably come back to collect more.
Mining along I encounter a small void below me, which is odd since I'm at y=11 and everything below me should be lava. It turns out to be the smallest mineshaft I've ever seen.
I spot this Mithril Ore, which I eagerly take. Except - it's not Mithril, it's Platinum! Platinum is the rarest Overworld ore in Metallurgy and is part of two of the top alloys in Metallurgy. I've never seen it in survival play. Actually, when I was coding and testing ore ubification last year, I'd become seriously concerned there was something wrong with my conversions because I couldn't find any. I spent hours digging at y=11 in creative test worlds until I finally found ONE Platinum and could relax.
I also adapt a new strategy I should have started a long time ago. With the Hand, I don't have to worry about filling my inventory so I can ignore item drop ores (which I need to switch picks for) on the way out. Then I switch to my item drop pick and head back, collecting all the drop ores on the way.
I continue hundreds of blocks until finally I hit a cave that actually blocks my way. I've got enough Andesite now (by far), so I turn and head back.
Back at the Winter Tower I head over to the mirror drop site. As I've mentioned, the Infernal Furnace has become something of a bottleneck - both from its relatively slow rate and from the need to haul things up and down the mineshaft. My mirror drop storage is full of coal from mining so I make a bank of vanilla furnaces and load them up.
I head downstairs, load some more stone into the Infernal Furnace, process some ores, and pick up some Marble and Soapstone I've roasted up. Then back upstairs for the Andesite roasting in the furnace bank, and then it's off with my supplies to the Magical Oasis.
I'd been planning to do the second tower with 1/2 Greywacke, 1/4 Andesite, and 1/4 Soapstone, and I'm all ready to go, but I start having second thoughts right before I start putting it up. The Andesite and Soapstone will both match the tower I just put up. Half matched and half unmatched seemed OK for the dome but I'm still a little uncomfortable. On top of that Soapstone has a flat texture, and because Greywacke doesn't have a brick form, this tower will have to be all smoothstone.
So, right before starting on the second tower, I lose my nerve and decide to find another patterned smooth stone first.
Next episode: prospecting
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.
Aujourd'hui, nous sommes tous Parisiens!
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 173: Stone Set Selections
First I head out west, through the Dunes. There's actually a creeper waiting for me but I move fast enough to just avoid it. Soon I'm over the Dunes and in a small plains. Beyond that is a Jungle and a large lake.
The Jungle (Warm climate) is next to a Highlands Tall Pines (Snowy climate). The climate system was designed to reduce this but it's not perfect, as you see here. It's pretty rare, though - I think this is the first time I've seen it in this world.
The lake connects to a Flying Mountains, made more dramatic by the Black Granite stones. I've actually seen a different part of this biome before, in Episode 33. This is a more "classic" Flying Mountains than the lone spire next to the FallingWater build, with deep canyons separating complex mountains. It's pretty appealing.
Well, OK, this is a bit crazified. Boy, that would be a hassle to build under!
Right north of here is Outback which is not good for stone hunting. I turn south. Unfortunately I forgot to get a map pic to show more of what's going on.
Right to the south is the Tall Pines I showed earlier. The parts I see have Komantite, which I already have.
By now I've explored this area of the continent to the edge of my map and up to the Outback. I turn south.
On the map it looks like there's some water and then another continent. However, I can see they join off-map. I stay on my existing maps because I don't want to generate any more until I finish my 5x5 wall map.
On the other side is more Tall Pines. Here I spot some Gabbro. This is one of my least favorite stones as it has a rather flat texture and somehow the slightly purplish color always ends up looking not right when I use it. After some thought, though, I decide to take some just in case. I'm actually kind of kicking myself for not digging the Red Granite a few episodes back. I could get there fairly easily, but I'm bound to use it and I could have saved myself a trip. I cut into one of the hills, block off the entrance, and then spend the night chopping out about six stacks.
In the morning I cut out and keep exploring.
There's an Ice Plains here with a couple of rivers which make exploring it a breeze. The boots are so fast on ice it's like a carnival ride.
I spot an annoying ubification bug where occasionally ores are transformed to the wrong stone. This is the great curse of modding - having to debug. I literally have cold sweats about some bug ruining somebody's world. This, fortunately is just mildly annoying.
Normally it's a pretty rare problem and happens in very small area. Here, for some reason, I see these out-of-place Quartzite ores over a fairly large area. After I played this session, I regenerated the world in creative and TP'd over. On the regeneration it looked like the areas were generating with Quartzite instead. So the problem may be that the stones are generating wrong, not the ores. I do some caching, so it's possible; but when I look at the code I can't see where it would be happening. I'll come back later when I have more time.
A little further on - still in Tall Pines! - I spot exactly what I was most looking for, Dacite.
Same as before, I cut into a hill, block myself in, and start quarrying.
Here, though, I encounter a cave, and it has a guardian. I dispatch it easily enough, and then poke in to see if I can light it up. I'm near a dead end, so I can go in with my "safe back" rule, but quickly it splits in two different directions, so I retreat and block it off.
With my Dacite collected, I take the Frozen Rivers back to the ocean, swim over to the Dunes, and then cross them back to the Magical Oasis.
I like the look of the tower from above. Obviously I need some towers quite a bit higher to give a good presentation from the Dunes side. I hadn't realized that mountain to the north is actually arches - I'll have to plan for that when building view locations.
I Nexus back to the Winter Tower and put the Gabbro and Dacite in to roast. While that's going on, I look at my options for the Platinum I got last episode. Platinum can alloy with Orichalcum to make Celengil and with Kalendrite (a Nether metal) to make Amordrine. I don't have any Kalendrite, but I do have Orichalcum, so I use half my Platinum for that and save the rest.
I get 8 Celengil dust, and use two for the sword. My level is 46, so I go ahead a do a max enchant - Celengil has a very high enchantability. I get a lot of enchants, but not particularly useful ones - Looting III, Unbreaking III, … and Bane of Arthropods V. Oh well, at least it looks nice.
I goof around a little until my Dacite is done roasting and then Nexus back to the Magical Oasis for the next tower - finally!
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.
Very nice.
Those flying mountains look like the old 1.1 Extreme hills. Do you know if they are generated that way -- the negative height variation -- or if they just actually decorate the biome with big hunks of rock in the air (like the Bryce structures)?
* 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?
Flying Mountains are generated that way, with high multipliers on the terrain noise functions, as are almost all of the Highlands mountains.The terrain noise is easily able to produce those below sea level areas in any biome; it's just that with most biomes the base level and the variations are tweaked to keep almost everything above sea level. Flying Mountains are tweaked in the opposite direction to produce largish water areas in spite of generally elevated terrain.
The Rock Mountains biome is the only Highlands biome with mountains which are created as rock decorations.
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 need to try to make a journal again... this is great.
Hey Zeno, I'm just wondering, what furniture mod do you use?
What great world generation!
I write short tales for my Minecraft Journal, Teds Tales!
I use Bibliocraft, which sadly hasn't updated to 1.8 due to the rendering changes. But it works great in 1.7!
Thanks. In all of my journals, I've worked hard at getting a pretty and interesting world. The world as is comes from a combination of Highlands, BoP, and Climate Control. When you see an "OMG, that's pretty" screenshot, it's mostly the doings of Highlands. In this last episode, and for that matter most of them since I started on the Arabian Nights build project, there's been very little BoP because the area was mostly generated before I added BoP.
BoP I use mostly to increase the variety of biomes, and to increase the variety of moods. Highlands is so relentlessly beautiful I find it's good to have some other stuff. BoP has pretty too, but it also a lot more has spooky and grimy and barren and cheery. CC makes the landmasses and climate zones playably sized, but you can't see it in the screenshots other than the map wall, which is very distinctive. However, although you don't see it in the screenshots, it makes a huge difference playing "on the ground".
Edit: I forgot Underground Biomes also adds to the mountains and cliffs shots. I use a larger Underground Biome size than the default as I find that reduces the tendency for shots to be "cut up" with different stone types.
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 174: To Tower Two, Touching Too!
This one is getting up there.
I check the look and they might be too close for looks but I decide to stick with my plan for towers that touch (mostly for functionality)
I'm going to use three stones for my four color map: Greywacke, Andesite, and Dacite. I'll use Greywacke for 2 of the colors and Andesite and Dacite for 1 each. Greywacke will form the background with the complex shapes.
I immediately like the palette I've chosen. The patterned gray stones look very nice. I'm not convinced about the arrow pattern, but on the other tower it looked better at the tower got taller so I'll build more and see.
Typically I keep checking the look of the build as I continue. Usually I'm using these visual checks for making decisions although here I'm pretty much committed to finishing this complex build according to plan. I'm quite glad I stopped to look for different stones as the two towers are clearly distinct as is but if I hadn't had the Dacite and had used Soapstone I think they would have looked too similar and I would have had a problem with the boundary being indistinct.
Finally the tower proper is done and it looks like a distinct improvement on the first one. I put a Birch plank floor on top and an Arcane Lamp for lighting and take a break in real time before tackling the dome.
Since it worked for the tower, I'm trying the same scheme of 1 stone for two colors and 1 each for the other two. In this case I'm using Greenschist for my main stone and Blueschist and Red Hardened Clay for the other two. It seems the Blueschist doesn't have enough contrast with the Greenschist but I decide to continue and hope for the best.
Feeling inspired, I once again tackle the problem of connecting the patterns on top and bottom. I try to hand-draw a pattern again, and this time I make changed to the top and bottom patterns when necessary. This time I succeed at bridging the two patterns. Yay math!
I run into a problem with the blocks that are supposed to be in-between the levels. On the first dome I used two half-slabs to put a block in between. However, Hardened Clay has no half-slabs. So, either I put those blocks at one of the adjacent levels (making the shape slightly bumpier) or I swap reds I need to place there to green or blue (messing up the pattern slightly). After a while I go with a bumpier shape and a more consistent pattern.
Gonna have great views when this is done!
I keep grinding upwards. It's still hard, but it's distinctly easier on this dome than on the first. Part is practice - I'm learning how it works. Partly, though, it's much easier to stay oriented with 3 colors than with two. The rarer colors serve as "landmarks" I can use to re-orient when I get disoriented. With only 2 colors it was all just "two" ambiguous.
As I continue I'm finding a definite pattern to this pattern. From afar it looks pretty good but from up close it's kind of odd. The brick seems to help when I'm close so the next tower will go up in brick if possible. Unfortunately sedimentary stones and hardened clays have no brick form so I've got some choices coming up.
For the final tiers I work through the night. At this point I fall to the inside so I don't need to stop for the night. As it works out, all the top tiers stones that are supposed to be "in-between" layers are green or blue, so I avoid my earlier dilemma and do them all with half-slabs. I finish with another checkerboard spire shortly after dawn. I tried to get it done by dawn for a pic but just couldn't manage.
Selfie time! Oh, and nice view from up here.
Final conclusion:
The plans are working. The adjacent towers are visually acceptable and I'll be able to get around without going up and down to the ground all the time. I can stick a number of the towers together to get a palatial feel. Varying the palettes allows the towers to remain visually distinct even when touching.The 2-1-1 color palette adds visual interest and is more buildable than a 2-2 color palette. It's not perfect in every way, though. The new dome shows I want all patterned stones - flat textures work distinctly less well for this pattern.
As I plan for the later towers, I check out the arches I saw in the mountain. One turns out to be faux, with another mountain right behinds it. Two are real. However, the faux one is the closest and it looks like it will be difficult to capture views through the arches from stuff built on the hill.
Now that I'm getting a build that will be nice to look *at* it's time to try to figure out how it'll be nice to look *from.
Next episode: more planning and quarrying.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
The towers remind me of that colorful cathedral in Russia. Or maybe Taj Mahal? It also looks arabic.
Want to read some awesome journals? Try this: Survival Journals/Worlds list
Are you considering breaking the confetti pattern on some of the towers, or is that gonna be a theme for the whole build?
I'm trying to understand the pattern on the towers. It seems to be mostly L-shapes, but not entirely, and I'm not really sure how the L's are supposed to fit together, or if it's supposed to be semi-random.
* 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?
Yes, clustered big onion domes is reminiscent of St. Basil's Cathedral. Islamic was actually the goal, which would include the Taj. However, I'm trying for a wild fantastical look quite different from the calm and delicate Taj. I'm planning to try some minarets to accentuate the Islamic feel, but I haven't started yet even though I'm playing a couple of episodes ahead.
I'd been planning on using the pattern with different stone variants throughout, but I'm not committed. I have considered a spiralish pattern like the one I used in Dulci's world, hoping for a more impressive interior. That would accentuate the similarity to St. Basil's Cathedral, which isn't my goal, but that's a pretty marvelous building so it certainly wouldn't be bad.
I'm working from this aperiodic pattern (the square one). The idea is to get a complex never-repeating tiling (characteristic of fancy Islamic tiling) on a square grid (meaning doable in Minecraft). It should be very nearly all L-shapes; most of the deviations are mistakes on my part, although the first dome plan did have more slop in it. There are also spots where mapping a flat pattern onto the dome distorts the Ls.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Ooooh, this sounds like it will be a fun build.
Began playing during Alpha 1.2.6.
Episode 175: Back to Boating
Some minarets have multiple places to look out from and that suits my purposes as well. My rough idea is to have one view platform above the onion domes for a panoramic view and a view of the domes, and another below the domes for a more natural view of trees and hills. Normally minarets are separate from the main building, but I'm liking the system of connecting from tower to tower so I once again want the spire of the minaret to graze an onion dome.
The next issue is size. I need a tower with a circumference that is a power of two for the pattern to wrap (it's not actually perfect even then, but close enough). 7 is an option; looking at smaller circles I see I could also use 6 and 4. Smaller is better for a minaret, but a 4 is so small I won't be able to build a proper door. 6 is actually not very round but an even number will align with the existing (even-sized) towers better so I decide to go with that.
Finally there's color. I'm liking the general idea of grey towers and brightly colored roofs, but that leaves out a couple of interesting stones in mostly neutral colors like Quartzite and Red Granite. So I decide to try doing the minarets in non-gray neutral so I can use as wide a variety of UB stones as possible.
But, this means I'll need to *get* those stones so - back to the boat for prospecting and quarrying.
I look for the Quartzite/Chert column I spotted in Episode 170, but I miss it.
Rather than hunting around for it I continue on, with the plan of doing a little more exploring on this trip.
After a while I spot a Black Granite/Chert column and stop to quarry the Chert (I already have some Black Granite).
Inevitably there's a cave, which I fall into once due to the fact that caves are almost indetectable in
Black Granite. I block off the cave with dirt.
I'd forgotten a feature of Underground Biomes: chert often drops flint instead when you mine it. So I have about a stack of flint when I'm done.
After I've gotten the Chert, I head for the island where I quarried back in Episode 171 because I remember a section of the Rock Mountains is Quartzite.
This Quartzite is a different rock column and has different intrusive stones. Most of the "base" stones in Underground Biomes have two different rock columns like this. This decision pre-dates me but I assume it was done for a little bit of variety so you don't *always* have the same column once you know the base stone. As it is there are only two so if you're really dedicated you could know "it's either this or that" once you know the base stone.
Recently I recoded it so it's possible to change that - my idea was to have the stone sets randomized for each world, the way each world has a different set of Mesa layers. I haven't bothered to actually do the coding, though, partly because even I don't remember the column sets after programming them and playing with them for over 2 years.
I dig a 2-block shaft down, using the trick of standing in the middle of the two block so I'll never fall into something nasty by accident.
On the way I encounter Dolomite, a sedimentary stone I want. But, I'd discovered at the last quarry that I'd forgotten to unload Spunkie before the trip so I don't have a way to carry it back. I could send it through the Hand but there's additional juggling for that which isn't necessary because sedimntary stones needn't be roasted. There's Dolomite easily accessible at Fallingwater so I'll just get it there later when I have room in Spunkie.
At the bottom I do routine branch mining.
For a good while I am spared the usual cave annoyances but after a while I break into this big one. The lava makes it possible to have a safe break-in if I'm lucky - I can obsidianize part of the floor and the lava will shield me from mobs.
I'm not lucky. The cave is complex with a lot of spots to drop in. After swatting a couple more intruders (including a flaming bat that for a bit I think is a Firebat but turns out to be just an idiot bat that lit itself), I just seal it off and go back.
Next I decide to do some exploring/prospecting. I'm going to check out one of the landmasses at the top of my map, in the middle.
I land in a Woodlands, which turns out to be right next to a Redwood Forest.
On the other side of that is something I haven't seen before - a largely flooded Eerie (Thamcraft) Biome. It's a good color scheme for a swampy biome, actually. I dig up some easily accessible clay and then move one.
Next is an orchard, and then an Alps as I move into the snowy region to the north, and then Tall Pines.
In the Tall Pines I spot Rhyolite, which is another of my top target stones. Rhyolite is one of the "fancy" stones and is good for quasi-marble floors and decorative accents. I also think it will be very good for a tower in the Arabian Nights palace. So I cut in and start quarrying.
Initially I plan to just quarry without digging down to branch mine but the area is irregular and mixed with some Blueschist. It's enough hassle that I decide to do the two-wide dropshaft trick and branch mine at the bottom after all. My harness is almost out of Potentia so I refill it first.
On the way down I hit a Limestone layer. This is apparently in my mines somewhere but I don't remember where, so I decide to mine it.
I immediately run into an annoying intermod bug. As I'm quarrying the Limestone, some of it is dropping Thaumcraft Cinnabar Clusters instead. I'd noticed for quite some time that mining Cinnabar ore with my Pickaxe of the Core doesn't drop Cinnabar Clusters as it should, so what seems to have happened is that Thaumcraft is misidentifying Limestone as Cinnabar. I can't think of something I could have done to cause this so I'm guessing the bug is on Thaumcraft's side.
For the time being I initially switch to my Quicksilver Fortune pickaxe, which doesn't drop clusters. But after about a stack I have second thoughts, because my Quicksilver pickaxe is nearly perfect for ores but will be difficult or even impossible to repair at this point. I don't want to waste it on Limestone. So I abandon Limestone quarrying and dig on down to y = 11.
At Y=11 I do some routine branch mining without serious cave trouble. After I've gotten 6 stacks of Rhylolite I snooze because it's night, and then fly back up and dig out of the mine to resume my explorations.
Next episode: more exploring and back home.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Can I use UBC in my pack?