I don't use them in the Overworld because I like the low-tech look, but I do have a rail system in the Nether I use to connect my bases and the nearest Nether fortress. I get a kick out of both building them and riding on them, actually. I don't have an iron or gold farm, just occasionally branch mine, and I don't really collect them in mineshafts, but haven't had any problems with resources so far, though I am somewhat sparing in terms of only using them to connect things that I expect to visit reasonably often.
OTOH since it was mentioned in a previous post, I pretty much drop Nether portals within a short range of anyplace I think I might want to revisit more than once or twice. I figure 4 trips to mind the spawn platform in the End gets me 10 pairs of portals, not too shabby.
I used to use rail lines until sprinting was added, now I find myself using them almost never in survival. Between nether portal networks and sprinting I can get anywhere fast enough for my needs.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
7/9/2014
Posts:
54
Member Details
My friends and I have used rail mostly for routes we expect to take underground frequently. Above ground, running, horses and portals all seem more efficient.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
See what changes have happened in your favorite packs!
yeah I do. They were a better investment before a recent update though. I've found you seem to travel significantly slower than you used too and I get lag lurches when chunks load which never used to happen. They still remain the singe best way to transport mobs though, so I wouldn't say they are useless ever.
The main way I use them these days for personal transport is for nether railroads which beat running between portals and save me 7/8 of the rails I need to get around between my far-flung bases. Arguably, horses are just as fast though so you can make horse-trails in the nether, you need more space but they work just as well except for having to stop to turn corners. In the overworld I make horse-trails everywhere rather than railroads and use nether rails for quick travel as horses are a bit more versatile.
Space Expedition to EPIC 204:Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
While a packed ice path is faster than rail travel, you need the packed ice, and some distances are pretty big and would require a lot of packed ice, a finite resource.
I like rails for the nether, less so in the overworld. In the overworld they can useful as part of a collection system and they're good for vertical travel. Sometimes in the overworld it's nice to have a sky rail for some leisurely travel and scenic views, but not for any serious travel. Here's a list of what I use them for:
I always start one on every world but run out of resources before I finish.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
97% of teenagers would cry if they saw Justin Bieber on top of a tower about to jump. If you're the 3% who is sitting there with popcorn screaming "DO A BACKFLIP", copy and paste this as your signature.
I use rails between portals in the nether when they're too far to walk. And in some redstone contraptions as well of course. Never in the overworld, as i travel by foot to explore, and through the nether to get to different places of interest once portals are set up.
I made a secret path to my base in survival that used a lot of rails, in both the overworld and nether dimensions. It's useful if you want to get someplace quickly and manage resources in your inventory while you travel. In addition, nether railways can allow you to travel 8 times the distance in the same amount of time, so VERY useful for large-scale survival builds.
While a packed ice path is faster than rail travel, you need the packed ice, and some distances are pretty big and would require a lot of packed ice, a finite resource.
I like rails for the nether, less so in the overworld. In the overworld they can useful as part of a collection system and they're good for vertical travel. Sometimes in the overworld it's nice to have a sky rail for some leisurely travel and scenic views, but not for any serious travel. Here's a list of what I use them for:
Nether travel (portal to portal)
Mob transport (passive and hostile)
Villager transport and staging
Item collection
Vertical travel
I'd have to disagree with you there, there are plenty of videos on how to make ice farms that can be used infinitely, water can be infinite and so is ice if you're in a cold biome. Ice is infinite
I'd have to disagree with you there, there are plenty of videos on how to make ice farms that can be used infinitely, water can be infinite and so is ice if you're in a cold biome. Ice is infinite
Ice is infinite, yes. Packed ice is not. There's a difference.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The source of my intention isn't really crime prevention; my intention is prevention of the lie! Yeah, welcome to the Scatman's world!
I actually use minecarts to get around in the overworld, mostly, sort of. I play on a single-player ultra-vanilla survival world, and one of my hobbies is to completely map/survey the world around me. Right now, my “known world” is a rough rectangle about 6 km long by 4 km wide with my main base just about in the middle. I’m rather fond of my base, but as it turns out it’s a long way from just about anywhere “interesting”- the nearest horses were 1.3 km away “as the crow flies”, the nearest mesa more like 2 km and the nearest village almost 2.5 km.
I’ve built about 3.6 km of very simple rail in 3x3 tunnels at y=11,12,13 and am in the process of gathering enough iron to finish off the last 1 km of my current tunnel. The rails certainly don’t go everywhere, but they do allow for fast, easy, safe travel day or night to various points of interest. I also use them to conveniently get me to the “edges” of my world so that I can expand my maps as well as to have ready-made access to good mining areas (mining is another one of my hobbies).
I’ve found that the 3x3 tunnels easily generate enough redstone and gold for the powered rails (at 32 rail intervals), but I have to supplement the iron from additional mining activities. I don't seek out abandoned mineshafts, but will clear them out when I come to them. I have bazoodles of planks and fencing (enough for the rails), but I never find enough rail on its own to suit my needs.
I don’t *always* use minecarts, though- I intentionally make the tunnels 3x3 to allow me to ride my horse underground from point to point (that’s how I got my original horse back to my base in the first place- underground!). I have a series of “horse exits” that are three blocks wide (two normal blocks and one people-stair block) by five blocks high (so I don’t bonk my head going up and down them) that I use to get up to the surface with my horse. The horse is definitely faster (and more fun) than the minecart, but then I have to think about where I’m going to put him so he doesn’t walk into lava or suffocate or something and, well, sometimes I’m too lazy to steer (hence the minecarts)…
Minecarts are quite good to transport materials from mine into sorting and smelting area or automatic sorter and smelter. It is easy to get huge loads of various items when stripmining and it would be boring to carry them by hand.
I also try to connect distant resource rich areas with my home base, namely nearest mesa for hardened clay and desert for sand. If they are not too distant and if I have mules, then I usually use them. Limit is one minecraft day of travel with mule. If they are more distant, like 2000 blocks or I have not found mules or it would be unpleasant to build overground road to them or if I need more resources than fits into one chest, then railroad is more effective.
I build railroads almost always underground, usually 1x2 tunnels level 12. So I can find diamonds when digging them out.
Even though I use Horses a lot, Minecarts are a cool and fun way to go from place to place. Especially when you design it with legit Survival materials
You could just make a chest underground and empty your inventory there
Minecarts rock!
We have built rails connecting all major villages found on our server.
See a Tour of one leg here:
My few Minecraft videos
I don't use them in the Overworld because I like the low-tech look, but I do have a rail system in the Nether I use to connect my bases and the nearest Nether fortress. I get a kick out of both building them and riding on them, actually. I don't have an iron or gold farm, just occasionally branch mine, and I don't really collect them in mineshafts, but haven't had any problems with resources so far, though I am somewhat sparing in terms of only using them to connect things that I expect to visit reasonably often.
OTOH since it was mentioned in a previous post, I pretty much drop Nether portals within a short range of anyplace I think I might want to revisit more than once or twice. I figure 4 trips to mind the spawn platform in the End gets me 10 pairs of portals, not too shabby.
It's possible to build really modern feeling tunnels, like a metro/subway network underground or on elevated highways above ground.
I used to use rail lines until sprinting was added, now I find myself using them almost never in survival. Between nether portal networks and sprinting I can get anywhere fast enough for my needs.
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..
That takes food and you need to hold the sprint button down though? Seems inconvenient
My friends and I have used rail mostly for routes we expect to take underground frequently. Above ground, running, horses and portals all seem more efficient.
I use minecarts in all my farms and for transporting villagers and myself to certain destinations.
yeah I do. They were a better investment before a recent update though. I've found you seem to travel significantly slower than you used too and I get lag lurches when chunks load which never used to happen. They still remain the singe best way to transport mobs though, so I wouldn't say they are useless ever.
The main way I use them these days for personal transport is for nether railroads which beat running between portals and save me 7/8 of the rails I need to get around between my far-flung bases. Arguably, horses are just as fast though so you can make horse-trails in the nether, you need more space but they work just as well except for having to stop to turn corners. In the overworld I make horse-trails everywhere rather than railroads and use nether rails for quick travel as horses are a bit more versatile.
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
While a packed ice path is faster than rail travel, you need the packed ice, and some distances are pretty big and would require a lot of packed ice, a finite resource.
I like rails for the nether, less so in the overworld. In the overworld they can useful as part of a collection system and they're good for vertical travel. Sometimes in the overworld it's nice to have a sky rail for some leisurely travel and scenic views, but not for any serious travel. Here's a list of what I use them for:
I always start one on every world but run out of resources before I finish.
97% of teenagers would cry if they saw Justin Bieber on top of a tower about to jump. If you're the 3% who is sitting there with popcorn screaming "DO A BACKFLIP", copy and paste this as your signature.
I use rails between portals in the nether when they're too far to walk. And in some redstone contraptions as well of course. Never in the overworld, as i travel by foot to explore, and through the nether to get to different places of interest once portals are set up.
I made a secret path to my base in survival that used a lot of rails, in both the overworld and nether dimensions. It's useful if you want to get someplace quickly and manage resources in your inventory while you travel. In addition, nether railways can allow you to travel 8 times the distance in the same amount of time, so VERY useful for large-scale survival builds.
I'd have to disagree with you there, there are plenty of videos on how to make ice farms that can be used infinitely, water can be infinite and so is ice if you're in a cold biome. Ice is infinite
I really only use them for two occasions, either to get the achievement or as a way of transportation between bases.
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do" - Steve Jobs
Ice is infinite, yes. Packed ice is not. There's a difference.
The source of my intention isn't really crime prevention; my intention is prevention of the lie! Yeah, welcome to the Scatman's world!
I actually use minecarts to get around in the overworld, mostly, sort of. I play on a single-player ultra-vanilla survival world, and one of my hobbies is to completely map/survey the world around me. Right now, my “known world” is a rough rectangle about 6 km long by 4 km wide with my main base just about in the middle. I’m rather fond of my base, but as it turns out it’s a long way from just about anywhere “interesting”- the nearest horses were 1.3 km away “as the crow flies”, the nearest mesa more like 2 km and the nearest village almost 2.5 km.
I’ve built about 3.6 km of very simple rail in 3x3 tunnels at y=11,12,13 and am in the process of gathering enough iron to finish off the last 1 km of my current tunnel. The rails certainly don’t go everywhere, but they do allow for fast, easy, safe travel day or night to various points of interest. I also use them to conveniently get me to the “edges” of my world so that I can expand my maps as well as to have ready-made access to good mining areas (mining is another one of my hobbies).
I’ve found that the 3x3 tunnels easily generate enough redstone and gold for the powered rails (at 32 rail intervals), but I have to supplement the iron from additional mining activities. I don't seek out abandoned mineshafts, but will clear them out when I come to them. I have bazoodles of planks and fencing (enough for the rails), but I never find enough rail on its own to suit my needs.
I don’t *always* use minecarts, though- I intentionally make the tunnels 3x3 to allow me to ride my horse underground from point to point (that’s how I got my original horse back to my base in the first place- underground!). I have a series of “horse exits” that are three blocks wide (two normal blocks and one people-stair block) by five blocks high (so I don’t bonk my head going up and down them) that I use to get up to the surface with my horse. The horse is definitely faster (and more fun) than the minecart, but then I have to think about where I’m going to put him so he doesn’t walk into lava or suffocate or something and, well, sometimes I’m too lazy to steer (hence the minecarts)…
cheers,
thebugguy
Minecarts are quite good to transport materials from mine into sorting and smelting area or automatic sorter and smelter. It is easy to get huge loads of various items when stripmining and it would be boring to carry them by hand.
I also try to connect distant resource rich areas with my home base, namely nearest mesa for hardened clay and desert for sand. If they are not too distant and if I have mules, then I usually use them. Limit is one minecraft day of travel with mule. If they are more distant, like 2000 blocks or I have not found mules or it would be unpleasant to build overground road to them or if I need more resources than fits into one chest, then railroad is more effective.
I build railroads almost always underground, usually 1x2 tunnels level 12. So I can find diamonds when digging them out.
Even though I use Horses a lot, Minecarts are a cool and fun way to go from place to place. Especially when you design it with legit Survival materials
They can be useful to transport to a central point on a SMP server.
Well at least for servers that aren't ruined with /tp /home and /spawn.