I've spent the past 6-7 months playing on just one world, my first world, and after spending a couple weeks adding new features to my mod, TheMasterCaver's World, I've started a new world using it; many new features such as new biomes have been added (vanilla 1.7 mega taiga variants, including coarse dirt and podzol; savanna variants, including an Amplified-like variant like Savanna Plateau M; ice spikes, including packed ice; flower forests, including new flowers, also found elsewhere; and more). This is also the first time I've actually played the game since earlier this month - I spent all of my otherwise play time working on the mod.
Similar to last time, I used AMIDST to find a good seed (-8547083745248820158, as seen in vanilla), meaning one that spawns you in a plains biome in a large landmass; this is about all it is good for as it otherwise has serious issues even rendering biomes (e.g. the biome overlay is completely different from the biomes shown when you mouse over them, with nonsensical biome names for non-vanilla biomes (even the biome IDs don't match their names), and often has repeating patterns and blank areas), down to outright crashing.
Here is where I spawned, right in the middle of a plains biome as promised; it appears to be a pretty good area to build and had plenty of pigs for food:
I'm sure you know what comes next so I'm skipping over all of that; after collecting a bunch of wood I dug underground to make a shelter, just a simple area for temporary use:
Temporary or not, I made it a bit less dull by using oak planks for the floor, birch planks for the walls, and cobblestone for the ceiling:
Just a basic wheat farm for breeding cows; later on I grow potatoes as my main food source. Note also that I planted the wheat in rows, until I got more seeds, as crops grow faster when planted like this (when completely filled in they grow half as fast, for the same yield over time and a greater yield when harvested infrequently after they have fully grown):
This may be surprising, but the master caver doesn't do any caving to get resources they need; like everybody else I dig a staircase down, blocking off any caves I encounter (I encountered two):
Did I mention caves? I encountered a "bit" of an obstacle while mining down - an understatement; I just made a turn to avoid it and I'll be mining in the other direction anyway (back towards my base); I'd have taken any diamonds though if I'd spotted any:
That's not actually that big; once I get more than 512 blocks away from the origin (0, 0; spawn is around -200, 250) more fun things can be found (this restriction is so you have to explore a bit, while not being too restrictive, like the vanilla reduction of abandoned mineshaft frequency within 1,280 blocks of the origin, which was removed in favor of a limited size).
Also, my mining style may be seen as a bit unusual, but there is a reason for that:
As you can see by the obsidian I'm mining below the surface of lava, contrary to common advice to mine at y=11 (or the equivalent):
My first diamonds (three):
Of course, I immediately make a diamond pickaxe with them:
This allowed me to get rid of the pesky obsidian in the way; note the bedrock - I'm mining at y=1, the lowest you can possibly go:
The reason I'm mining so deep is of course because of my mod; the rarest and most valuable ore, amethyst, only generates as often as diamond below y=3, and due to how ores generate (veins from higher layers extend into lower layers) it is still only half as common at y=1, dropping off to about 1/8 as common above y=2. This also means that I'll want to get a Fortune III diamond pickaxe to mine it - note that it has to be diamond as iron can't mine amethyst (in fact, in the latest version of my mod amethyst uses the same block ID as obsidian, eliminating an added block ID; I used metadata to make it drop amethyst instead of itself; similarly, amethyst blocks are also based on obsidian, meaning that it is possible to craft obsidian (all blocks act the same in terms of blast resistance, etc; you can even make Nether portals with them), if in an extremely expensive manner).
Despite the rarity, it is sustainable to use it for repairs once I'm caving without using Fortune to mine it (the tools have 4,686 durability, armor 4,500, which overall doesn't offset the relative rarity but I find far more diamonds than I need; in a similar manner, the higher repair costs put more of the XP I get to good use, though repairing when you have 60 levels, common when I use diamond, isn't really wasteful considering the renewability of XP), so my Fortune pickaxe can then be put to use harvesting potatoes; using amethyst doesn't make diamonds entirely useless though since they can be used to craft diamond ender chests, with a double chest of capacity, although those are only useful once I make secondary bases, so diamond essentially is like iron in vanilla, only useful early on (as ore; ingots from chests and zombies are more than enough to supply my needs for anvils and shears).
I also made a cow pen after returning to the surface; I'll actually only breed cows until I find a stronghold, since it'll (hopefully) have libraries filled with more books that I'll ever need; afterwards, I find baked potatoes to be plenty and simpler to farm (not shown; I just planted some sugarcane I found around naturally occurring lakes rather than make a dedicated farm for them):
Speaking of finding a stronghold, I killed my first Enderman (I didn't actually expect to kill it as it was day, but apparently it saw the tree I was under as blocking sunlight and didn't teleport away):
And yes, I'm still using a stone sword and no armor - no real need for them at this point, though Endermen are a bit scary without a shelter as they deal 7 damage per hit on Normal.
Next I'll be doing more mining until I have enough amethyst ore so (hopefully) Fortune III drops enough for me to make the gear that I use in regular gameplay, then find a stronghold for books which then lets me start enchanting; since amethyst items are only enchantable with books this means I have a fairly large task ahead of me; the last time I even built my main base out of quartz because I got so much, even without using Fortune to mine it; and I'll probably do the same this time as well.
Not until I defeat the Ender dragon will I actually "play as usual", meaning caving, so that is still a ways off.
Also, I'm going to be keeping track of all of the biomes I've discovered, excluding technical (hills) biomes except when they are different:
1. Plains (spawn biome; there are numerous horses scattered around)
2. Forest Mountains (there are actually two variants, one with lower height variation but with a higher sub-biome; so far the one I've seen is relatively flat, as the height of a biome just amplifies the underlying noise. This also gave me oak, spruce, and birch wood from the start)
3. Forest (a technical forest biome as found in plains, later I also found a full-size forest)
4. Winter Forest (forest biome with snow)
5. Big Oak Forest (forest exclusively containing big oak trees, including a larger 2x2 variant)
6. Winter Taiga (same as vanilla taiga before 1.7)
7. Jungle (plus a jungle temple; I now have all four types of wood)
8. Roofed Forest (similar to the 1.7 biome except trees use oak leaves and spruce wood and are grown from 2x2 oak saplings)
9. Mountainous Desert (a variant of desert with more height variation; at first I thought this was a regular desert since what I saw of it was relatively flat)
10. Mega Mixed Forest (forest biome containing various big tree types mixed together)
11. Mesa (similar to the 1.7 biome, except there are "dead trees" (big oaks without leaves), more caves above sea level and deposits of normal clay in place of dirt and gravel inside the hardened clay, along with iron ore over double the usual range and amount, both clay and ores only exposed if there are less than 8 blocks of air around them)
12. Bushlands (slightly hilly biome, similar to plains, with small bushes similar to those in jungles, made of spruce leaves and wood and also regrowable from spruce saplings)
13. Tropical Swamp (nearly flat jungle-green biome with numerous 1 block deep water lakes and small jungle trees in addition to swamp trees; both regrowable (in vanilla swamp trees are ungrowable), blue orchids also generate in addition to other flowers)
14. Mixed Forest (dense forest containing all types of small trees)
15. Volcanic Wasteland (mountainous biome with large amounts of lava, largely gravel (ash) covered ground, magma cubes, and increased ore generation, particularly emerald, which generates in veins similar to diamond in addition to single blocks)
16/17. Birch Forest (also similar to the 1.7 biome except small pockets of "Poplar Grove" containing poplar trees (birch wood and leaves) can be found)
18. Lake (a relatively shallow, vanilla river depth, underwater biome that can have small islands of other biomes in it; also found as small sub-biomes within many other biomes)
19. Mega Taiga (one of two vanilla variants, with the same big trees and podzol/coarse dirt ground cover as 1.7)
20. Extreme Hills (identical to the 1.6.4 biome except with more trees and spruce trees as well as oak trees)
21. Savanna (the trees generate with jungle wood logs and oak leaves, similar to the first 1.7 snapshots and grow from oak saplings in savanna biomes only. Villages can also generate here)
22. Mega Tree Plains (plains biome with giant oak trees able to reach cloud height from near sea level)
23. Spruce Tree Hills (technical biome in Mega Tree Plains, small hills covered with the tall variant of spruce tree)
24. Hilly Plains (plains biome with increased height variation; villages do not generate but horses can)
25. Ocean (mostly unchanged from vanilla; height variation was reduced in favor of small islands, sometimes making mini-continent clusters, containing actual biomes, thus classic Survival Island seeds mostly don't work)
Just a small update and some notes regarding mining; so far I've mostly been mining, but am going to the Nether to find a fortress since I want to find a stronghold to speed things up a bit and put the levels I've accumulated to use (currently at level 40, despite enchanting some items, including stone tools (not recommended in 1.8 since that wastes lapis), for 1 level).
First of all, here is a rendering of what I've mined so far, a set of 7 tunnels about 300 blocks long, covering about 32 chunks in area:
This had gotten me 31 diamond and 10 amethyst ore so far, plus plenty of other stuff; the amount of diamond I've gotten is consistent with what I've estimated you should find when mining 1x2 tunnels spaced every 4 blocks (3 blocks between tunnels), which is one of the more optimal mining patterns since most veins of ore are 2 blocks wide. One vein of diamond was actually in a cave I mined into, another was underneath lava I mined away after converting it to obsidian; both of the veins of amethyst ore I've found were on layers 1-2, each 5 ore.
Despite the common advice not to mine below lava level I haven't had that many problems doing so; by luck most of the area I've been mining is is free of caves, at least in the lower levels. Of note, this is more common in 1.6.4 despite a greater number and density of caves since there is also a larger regional variation in cave density, with some quite large cave-free areas possible, as opposed to the more uniform distribution of caves in 1.7, which can be seen in this comparison (there are actually only a third more caves overall in 1.6.4 than 1.7, but the clustering makes it look like there are a lot more). Of course, this means that when you do encounter caves you'll likely hit so many it isn't worth trying to mine under lava.
I've also been saving nearly depleted diamond pickaxes (3 so far, which gives me 5 chances including combining to strip unwanted enchantments) so I can use them when getting Fortune, rather than use new pickaxes; the low durability doesn't matter since I won't be using it much (after using it to mine amethyst I can use it for harvesting potatoes for food; I already got one from a zombie and replaced some of the wheat to get a stockpile of raw potatoes for when I later make a potato farm), although I might wait until I've enchanted books for my amethyst items so I can put just Fortune on one if I get it (best not to have Efficiency if you use quartz for building, one miss and you have a huge hole in the wall).
Also, I've discovered just how bad the animals escaping fences problem is; I went to the Nether (so far just to secure the portal, no problems as it was already mostly sheltered in a small cavity) after filling the pen I mentioned with cows and when I returned there were probably at least 10 that escaped (I just killed the adults); even without unloading chunks baby cows sometimes "escape" by spawning outside. Otherwise, I've only occasionally had animals escape since I usually don't overcrowd pens and building in the spawn chunks means chunks are only loaded/unloaded when you start/stop playing or go to another dimension.
Phew, I got through the entire thing... Both of those posts combined probably has more text than a chapter in one of my textbooks.
Yeah, animals always escape my pens. After they escaped from those large pens I used to make, I just used a 4x4 fenced off area with carpet on top of them so I can get into them. Then, I had a fire aspect sword to handle the preparation of the meat.
Where is the light coming from in your wheat farm on the first post?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?"
Where is the light coming from in your wheat farm on the first post?
I put torches in holes in the ceiling; later on I use glowstone in a similar manner in my main base although I still use torches in other bases; placing them in the ceiling reduces their effectiveness a bit (for a 2 block high space the light level on the floor directly under them is 12) but gets them out of the way so you don't accidentally mine them, and allows for more even lighting (mainly aesthetical).
I put torches in holes in the ceiling; later on I use glowstone in a similar manner in my main base although I still use torches in other bases; placing them in the ceiling reduces their effectiveness a bit (for a 2 block high space the light level on the floor directly under them is 12) but gets them out of the way so you don't accidentally mine them, and allows for more even lighting (mainly aesthetical).
I really like it. Aesthetically pleasing while you work up to glowstone.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?"
Really nice stuff. Love this new kind of stuff on the forum! Looking forward to what will happen next! By the way, I am placing my bets on the pigs gathering in one place and being hit by lightning. Lol. xD
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Proud member of the Hypixel Build Team!
Hero's Destiny! A WIP mod coming soon!
SciTech! An amazing WIP technology mod that lets you tamper with RADIOACTIVE substances!
Most of those pigs were eaten; that's where I got the pockchops from, though I did save a few.
I had a rather fun experience in the Nether; not to much happened until I found a fortress and mined my way up to the top through one of the supports - to be met by three Ghasts, without a bow to shoot them; luckily one of them shot and killed another and I deflected the fireballs to kill the other two, with a close call when a fireball blew up and almost sent me off the edge (no lava below, just low ground). I did get a Blaze rod though from a couple Blazes I found and Nether wart, although stopped exploring before I found a spawner and want a Fire Resistance potion before I do so. Also, back in the Overworld I tried setting a witch on fire and killing it, as they can drop potions they are drinking (no slimes yet either, one big magma cube but no drops).
I've also done some enchanting; so far I've gotten Efficiency IV twice and Efficiency IV Unbreaking III, not quite what I want but since these are nearly depleted pickaxes there is no loss there; I still have one more left to enchant, then can combine them to remove enchantments for several more tries before making new pickaxes (or I might just try books, which are needed anyway).
It is also interesting to note that I'm still using stone swords, with level 1 enchantments (all Sharpness I so far, a benefit of having a low enchantability, which is a bit ironic as Sharpness is more useful than Smite or BoA; Sharpness I on a stone sword is just enough to kill most mobs in three hits (21.75 damage total), including zombies, which effectively have 21.74 health due to 8 armor points), though I also have full iron armor with level 1 enchantments now.
Also, I experienced a rather odd bug which I've experienced before after leaving the Nether; for some reason I suddenly lost the ability to break most blocks shortly after returning (but not right away), except for blocks that are instantly broken, almost like the game thought I was in Adventure mode or something (tools wouldn't work though; in 1.6.4 there are no limitations aside from having a proper tool). Otherwise, the game behaved normally. This is fixed by quitting and reloading; because of this, I make an enchanting setup in the Nether to minimize the number of times I go through the portal, which is otherwise not an issue.
I've also had this happen while testing and chunks stop loading as well, almost like the server isn't working, but mobs still move and respond to attacks, etc, even move in "invisible" chunks, and new chunks will be generated (seen in Minutor, etc) but not appear on the client if I fly into the empty space; doing /gamemode 0 also had no effect, while Creative still works for breaking blocks. There is also no bug report that I can find regarding any issue like this.
In addition, this is what my mine, which I've finished with for the time being, looks like in Minutor; the purple is amethyst ore, which I recolored (as Minutor shows it as obsidian) to make it easy to see; you may also notice emerald ore on the right, as Forest Mountains are similar to a more forested version of Extreme Hills (I've also run into silverfish on several occasions):
I haven't been so lucky enchanting lately; none of the pickaxes I enchanted got Fortune, although I did get Silk Touch twice and was able to make my "Ender Pickaxe", with Efficiency V, Silk Touch I, Unbreaking III, so called since I mainly use it on Ender chests. These were all of the enchantments that I did get, each of which I got twice (a total of six, starting from four depleted pickaxes, some of which I combined to strip enchantments so i didn't end up with all of these):
Efficiency IV
Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III
Efficiency IV, Silk Touch I, Unbreaking III
The two Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III pickaxes are being used to mine more quartz; these are good for 12,000 uses before needing repair (I'll just combine them with a new pickaxe without renaming as I should only need to repair each of them them once based on my previous experience). Silk Touch is also useful for harvesting glowstone without losing any; since I got it relatively early on most of the glowstone I've mined has been with it. Unlike other tools, even diamond is a bit overkill for my "Ender Pickaxe" as I typically only use it a few times per session; in my first world I've mined about 1,400 Ender chests, not even the durability of an unenchanted diamond pickaxe, and have never repaired it either with about 75% durability still left.
The amount of quartz I've mined is quickly overtaking everything else, already more than four times more than the coal I mined and giving me about 7,600 of the XP I've gotten so far, enough for 9 level 30 enchantments, plus additional XP I had already (I also spent 35 levels to combine and rename the "Ender Pickaxe", which is still largely depleted but can be repaired later):
Also, I've noticed a bug in the "mob kills" stats (most of the kills shown were in the Overworld before I went to the Nether) - zombie pigmen count as zombies (I only included most Overworld hostile mobs, other mobs don't count, either to the total or for individual mobs); this is because I check for whether a mob is an instance of a particular mob; zombie pigmen are based on zombies so this includes them; similarly, cave spiders (EntityCaveSpider) must be checked for before regular spiders (EntitySpider) or they both count as spiders.
For now I'm just enchanting books to get enchantments for my other equipment; I've almost completed my sword, which will have Sharpness V, Knockback II, Unbreaking III (just need another Sharpness IV book), I've also put off finding a stronghold for a bit, with the number of cows I bred I may not even need the books they have (though they may have enchanted books, would be ironic if I found a Fortune III book just after I enchanted to get one).
I thought it was interesting to mention the very first time I enchanted a pickaxe (iron) at level 30 - it got Efficiency IV, Fortune III, Unbreaking III - and not only that, the first time I enchanted a diamond pickaxe I got the same enchantments - talk about luck!
Also, I experienced a rather odd bug which I've experienced before after leaving the Nether; for some reason I suddenly lost the ability to break most blocks shortly after returning (but not right away), except for blocks that are instantly broken, almost like the game thought I was in Adventure mode or something (tools wouldn't work though; in 1.6.4 there are no limitations aside from having a proper tool).
In 1.8 I've been experiencing entities like villagers and rabbits becoming invisible after coming back from the nether. Occasionaly there will also be some block mining lag where I will mine a block and it won't pop for a few seconds.
I had an interesting journey to a stronghold; in the relatively short distance that I covered I encountered seven new biomes, something that won't happen in 1.7-1.8, that's for sure! There are still many more left to find though; it is very possible not to have a given biome within 2,000 blocks of spawn (as often used as criteria for "all biomes near spawn").
I didn't go very far, about 400 blocks to the west and 600 to the south; I only lost one Eye of Ender, throwing one, then following it for a few hundred blocks before throwing it again (this can be seen by the bend to the south I made after the third throw), the last time I threw it I was practically on top of the stronghold (it led me right to the portal room; a bug introduced with the structure saving causes them to lead you to the actual start (a spiral staircase) after you reload the world after a stronghold is generated):
Another stronghold-finding tip is that they are usually 640-1152 blocks away from the origin, in a circular radius, although this is by no means exact; my first world has a stronghold which is entirely within the minimum distance. Because of my spawn point, to the southwest of the origin, I also expected the closest stronghold to be to the southwest.
This is what I saw along the way:
Lots of horses in the same plains biome I spawned in; I don't use them for transportation though since I've always preferred minecarts:
Also, behind the horses you can see a Winter Forest biome, essentially a forest biome with snow.
A bit further along is a Big Oak Forest biome, with big oak trees, including larger variants with 2x2 trunks; these trees are unique to this biome in that they can only be grown in it:
Winter Taiga, renamed from vanilla Taiga (or Cold Taiga in 1.7; actually, for some reason they added a new biome for Cold Taiga and made the original taiga snow-free, no idea why, maybe they thought it wouldn't matter since everybody would make new worlds anyway but some people keep their old worlds):
Note also that I'm standing on a Frozen River; in vanilla only Ice Plains have these even though other cold biomes should have them as well (this does lead to odd patches of open water under trees though, as only water exposed to the sky is frozen).
Further on...
From left to right, Jungle, Roofed Forest, and Desert; the first also gave me jungle wood/saplings (also melons, though I didn't really look for them), and also had a jungle temple near the edge which I raided and got the following from one of the chests:
And finally, I saw something really tall in the distance and came closer to see what it was - boy, those are HUGE trees (yes, that's a cloud cutting through the tallest tree on the right)!
That's a Mega Mixed Forest biome, with all of the big trees in my mod and vanilla combined (jungle, 2x2 big oak trees, mega trees (as seen on the right, modified from jungle trees), mega taiga trees, both a 3x3 tree I made myself (in the middle) and 2x2 spruce trees from vanilla 1.7. Except for the big oaks, all of these can be grown anywhere).
Also, here is what the explored stronghold looks like in MCMap; it was fairly large, ranging from y=5-50 in depth, with close to a double chest each of iron and wooden doors (no need to make any doors for a while, the wooden doors will be used for a village); in the upper-left corner you can see the jungle temple:
The stronghold was also some fun to explore; I added mob spawners at various points, such as under the chests in the corridors and in the libraries (a bad silverfish infestation in those). This included two cave spider spawners, with a total of 8 spawners in the stronghold. I also got the diamond sword in the screenshots from a chest; only at this point did I stop using stone swords (which I broke two of on the deluge of silverfish in the libraries, which often have two spawners).
Also while there were some caves and at least one ravine intersecting it (the portal room is in the ravine) the only indications of this were at the open ends of some corridors and water and lava dripping from the ceiling in a few spots (it is even possible for a stronghold to be completely surrounded by water or lava; I removed code that normally prevents pieces from generating if there is any liquid in their path; this is often a cause of broken up strongholds, especially when they are under an ocean, only the portal room doesn't have this code, ensuring it always generates). Similarly, the game normally ignores air blocks when generating walls, leading to breaks wherever they intersect caves, but I changed it to always overwrite blocks. There are still some generation bugs though; I came across a button embedded in a wall (recessed in a 1x1 pocket) by itself; mining away the wall next to it revealed a door leading to another part of the stronghold, with a double-thick wall between them, which appears to be an off-by-one error in the structure piece placement (there could be more unexplored sections) and an area where two sections overlapped one another.
Sounds cool. Maybe I will add to my WIP modpack, Denziens of Heaven!
That won't work as I assume you mean a Forge modpack; as I clearly stated in the thread (based on other people trying to use it as a Forge mod):
NOTE - This mod will NOT work with Forge, and I do not intend to provide any compatibility; the only mod it has been verified to work with is Optifine.
Essentially, it is an "all-in-one" mod that I primarily made for my personal use; some aspects of it reflect when I did use other mods, such as Rei's Minimap (coordinates), Backpacks (diamond ender chest with a double chest of space, though I made those less of a "backpack" than a means to transfer more items between two fixed locations; for a while I did have a double chest ender chest though, the new one is in addition to ender chests so you get 3 chests of space), a mod I used that added amethyst armor and tools (which was quite OP; the sword did +20 damage, tools mined like Eff V diamond (even the shovel was still more powerful than a Sharpness V diamond sword); I actually modified the mod myself to balance it a bit, including making the armor actually worthwhile to use as for some reason everybody think it has to have crappy durability compared to tools of the same material, and don't seem to realize that you can't have more than 20 armor points; actually, in my mod I made each armor point provide 3.5% damage reduction, so diamond/amethyst armor is 70% max, allowing 50% more damage through than vanilla (30% / 20%); this is also why I have 17 armor points in full iron, which is really 59.5% damage reduction - mobs still have 4% though, making iron armor nearly as powerful (68% DR) as diamond armor on a player). I even hacked in amethyst ore (using MCreator...) by having it drop the numeric ID of the mod's amethyst item (something no longer possible), instead of crafting it with diamonds, emeralds, and quartz, which was easier (I broke the crafting recipe by editing some bytecode).
Even back then, I actually modded the Forge-patched base classes for my own mods (decompiled with MCP, before they added Forge Gradle to stop you from doing this) to ensure compatibility; it could be possible to do the same now but I don't have the incentive to do so (some classes can be replaced without issues, but only if Forge or other mods don't use them; for example, I don't know of any 1.6.4 mods that modify cave generation, and only one 1.7.2 Forge mod that does).
I finally got around to killing the Ender dragon, after 109 in-game days - I wasn't in any hurry to get that over with and could have done it much sooner, and of all of the stuff I enchanted, which took up most of the time I've spent playing so far, the only thing I took was a Power V bow (a different bow from the one I regularly use, which also has Infinity and Unbreaking; I could have easily made a couple more if that were necessary as Power is a common enchantment on books), plus level-1 enchanted iron armor and a couple Sharpness I stone swords (these I used to kill Endermen after I killed the dragon, getting a couple dozen Ender pearls, enough that I'll never need more again as I only use them to make Ender chests). Probably the most important thing I brought was a few extra Ender pearls, as the platform spawned in empty air and building a bridge is rather risky; I don't think there are situations where you can't throw far enough to reach the island:
I must say that I don't really see much of an achievement in killing the Ender dragon given how easy it is, plus it isn't really the "end" of the game, especially considering the fact that I haven't even built a real base or anything yet.
Also, while many people use the Nether and End for various automatic farms and transportation at this point they might as well not exist as I have no reason to go back; in fact, I've even deleted them before to reduce save size. It is possible that I might use the Nether for faster rail transport at some point but it'll take a very long time to explore any world to the point where I'd feel that would be necessary (in my first world I've explored up to 3,000 blocks from spawn, but only in one direction, 1,000-1,500 blocks in the other three, over about a year of daily playing; a 3,000 block radius from spawn is about 110,000 chunks and I explore about 100 chunks per play session when caving so that is about 3 (2 more) years of daily playing to explore that far in all directions; double that distance would take 12 (11) years, and so on).
The next thing to do now is to build a base, which I'll be building with all of the quartz (more than a double chest of blocks) that I mined while enchanting; similar to past designs (e.g. this thread) the biggest area will be a storeroom for the resources I get from caving, plus rooms for other things and a village I'll populate with cured zombie villagers (not for trading, just to have them; this goes back to my first world, which has a naturally generated village right at spawn which I built my base around).
I'm finally done after 163 in-game days; "done" as in having completed everything prior to starting my main gameplay of caving.
Following are screenshots from around and inside my main base, which I mostly built out of the quartz I mined while enchanting; the glass I used mostly came from a pond where I built, I only took a cactus from the desert I found before:
From the front (facing east); I went with a design that consists of a main lower floor and an open upper floor/roof:
Looking down the front hall, which spans the entire width of the front, and the central hall, which goes through the back (narrowing midway); note that I placed buttons next to the doors but wooden pressure plates are actually used to open them, including the front doors:
TheMasterCaver's Bedroom (missing the apostrophe since it didn't fit); the purple colored ore in the floor is amethyst ore, which also explains the thing on the right that looks like a purple diamond, I also changed one of the paintings to make a portrait of myself:
The Egg, safely contained in its cage:
Workroom, containing basic supplies, food, wood, Ender chests (the blue one is my mod's diamond ender chest, a double chest version that is separate, for 3 chests of total storage, though not so portable; at this time there is no use for it until I make a secondary base); and yes, that is a Wither skeleton skull over the crafting table, only the second one I've ever gotten, it was actually dropped by the first Wither skeleton I killed, out of maybe 5 total (which explains why I've only ever gotten two):
Enchanting and brewing room; it is ironic that I'm not actually going to use this for either enchanting or brewing after making a few splash potions of weakness to cure zombie villagers:
Nether portal room, just a small 2x4 room with a portal midway:
Furnace room, with a chest of coal at the end; considering how much I mine, this isn't very large but I smelt most of it while caving so I can make more room (9 stacks of iron ore = 1 stack of blocks):
Storage rooms, a small one for miscellaneous stuff and a huge one for resources mined while caving:
Farm room; the majority of it is devoted to potatoes (of course), and even that isn't really that large; only 8x8 (looking at this, I think I'll make it 8x9 so it matches up with the width of the other plots; the raised border conceals water), but yields three stacks of potatoes per harvest thanks to Fortune, enough food to last me about a week of playing; as you can see from a look in my food chest it is VERY easy to get endless quantities of food even without automated farms; I could take a minute to harvest three more stacks right now if I had room:
This was a pickaxe that I originally enchanted to mine amethyst ore with, to avoid having to mine too much (otherwise, I don't bother using Fortune; I found about three times as much diamond ore and still have 38 diamonds after using a lot of it on pickaxes)
Staircase to the second floor; you can see the first floor entrance on the left in the first screenshot above:
View of the second floor from above, which contains a NPC village, with some interesting looking houses; there are a total of 18 doors so there should be 6 villagers; this is also completely safe from zombie sieges in 1.8 (at least 20 villagers required); I could easily fix the bug but why bother with something that is pointless and more of a punishment than any challenge, animal pen (note the glass blocks, to prevent animals from passing through the fences, which was somehow happening with chickens even without unloading chunks, possibly due to babies growing up) and tree farm (spruce, birch, oak, jungle, the last my main source of wood from now on, mostly used to make torches; note that to increase coverage of steep terrain I removed space constraints from all types of trees, thus they can be grown like oaks - except you can't place them right next to each other, especially oaks, or (huge!) 2x2 tree variants will grow; a "mega oak tree" can give 5-6 stacks of wood but is cumbersome to harvest). Also included is a rendering made with MCMap, showing the back and left side (relative to the front; east is to the upper-right):
Of course, I'm now ready to start doing what I enjoy the most (note my inventory - that's so I don't pick up unwanted drops, adding slots for other resources as I find them):
I've already explored part of a cave system I ran into while mining, the one with the big cave mentioned in my OP, mainly to get more coal and iron; at the bottom you can see the stronghold I found and a bit above that the jungle temple. This also gives you an idea of how much I mined, the most of any world so far; with the help of Minutor (shown separately below) I counted about 5.2 km of tunnels; with 27 amethyst ore found on average I found 1 amethyst ore every 192.5 blocks (385 blocks mined, excluding ores from the walls), compared to 85 diamond ore (one ore every 61 / 122 blocks):
Yes, looking good and an ambitious start to a world!
I haven't pondered the mechanics/balance of your amethyst system yet, but I'm all for adding variety to the mining aspect. Heck, it'd be fun if there were a handful of very rare ores that didn't do anything at all except given an indication of how much effort one puts into mining. Or, perhaps, a very rare ore could be blended with diamond or others to confer particular properties on the item being crafted (very subtly, it doesn't have to be a game changer). I'm sure there are mods out there for that; I wouldn't mind stumbling on tourmaline, pyrite, turquoise, etc. etc. every now and then.
I also like the use of quartz in your build- very clean and bright looking. I've used it as accents here and there, but I've never spent enough time in the nether to gather much of it. What'd you do with all the netherrack you must have gone through?
BTW, I've been having farm animals glitch through simple fences since I started playing 1.8- it's annoying- I now have dyed sheep running all over the place!
Yes, looking good and an ambitious start to a world!
I haven't pondered the mechanics/balance of your amethyst system yet, but I'm all for adding variety to the mining aspect. Heck, it'd be fun if there were a handful of very rare ores that didn't do anything at all except given an indication of how much effort one puts into mining. Or, perhaps, a very rare ore could be blended with diamond or others to confer particular properties on the item being crafted (very subtly, it doesn't have to be a game changer). I'm sure there are mods out there for that; I wouldn't mind stumbling on tourmaline, pyrite, turquoise, etc. etc. every now and then.
I also like the use of quartz in your build- very clean and bright looking. I've used it as accents here and there, but I've never spent enough time in the nether to gather much of it. What'd you do with all the netherrack you must have gone through?
BTW, I've been having farm animals glitch through simple fences since I started playing 1.8- it's annoying- I now have dyed sheep running all over the place!
cheers,
tbg
I actually placed most of it; I know it isn't so good for blast resistance but that isn't really that important, plus if you make a wall Ghasts can't see you so won't shoot (not that Ghasts are really that big of a problem with their bad aim and all).
Also, if you are wondering how much I mined, including overall:
As you can see, I mined 5,719 Netherrack and placed 5,535 (some of this drops from Ghast explosions); I ended up with about three stacks. Also, I used an amethyst shovel while digging grass/dirt while building my base, although I kept using the Efficiency IV Unbreaking III diamond pickaxe I used in the Nether (as mentioned before, the diamond sword I found in the stronghold, I used it until it was about to break and just threw it away, it actually got more than 1,562 uses since hitting stuff like grass doesn't take away durability but counts as a use).
Also, in retrospect making an amethyst shovel (or other item) with just Unbreaking III is sort of useless - even with just one enchantment it is too expensive to repair more than one unit at a time, costing 31 levels to repair for another 4,684 uses (1171 durability); two units would cost 53 levels - that's 22 levels per unit, just for the repair costs. In fact, it costs 52 levels to repair an unenchanted never before operated on (i.e. no prior work penalty, which is only 2 anyway if renamed) item, I also increased the anvil cap to 49 levels (my Sharpness V, Knockback II, Unbreaking III sword costs 47 levels per unit, compared to 35 for two units for the equivalent diamond sword; I get more durability back per repair but spend more XP per use).
Although being able to mine more than 4,686 blocks means you don't need to repair or make a new one after that; if used until depleted you can mine over 18,700 blocks, incrementally catching up during subsequent repairs (this was also the logic I operated on back when I used an Efficiency V, Fortune III, Unbreaking III diamond pickaxe for all mining; even if I missed a repair (37 levels for one unit) due to spending levels to repair something else it still had 75% durability left and I could catch up later as long as the total amount of XP I got was greater than my total expenditures, which it was).
Mainly, the amethyst items are so I can have something "different" while making more use of all the XP I get (unlike many people I do not run back and enchant as soon as I reach level 30, except for the time when I actually am enchanting), but otherwise they are impractical to use over diamond (durability and enchantability aside, they are otherwise identical) for most people (referring back to the shovel, a diamond shovel with Unbreaking III can be fully repaired with a new shovel for 1/3 more uses between repairs (though the repair is necessary and can't be held off) and costing only 26 levels, using the pre-1.8 repair system of course; in 1.8 every repair is cheaper, as little as 2 levels, except for the last one, for 33 levels).
I've spent the past 6-7 months playing on just one world, my first world, and after spending a couple weeks adding new features to my mod, TheMasterCaver's World, I've started a new world using it; many new features such as new biomes have been added (vanilla 1.7 mega taiga variants, including coarse dirt and podzol; savanna variants, including an Amplified-like variant like Savanna Plateau M; ice spikes, including packed ice; flower forests, including new flowers, also found elsewhere; and more). This is also the first time I've actually played the game since earlier this month - I spent all of my otherwise play time working on the mod.
Similar to last time, I used AMIDST to find a good seed (-8547083745248820158, as seen in vanilla), meaning one that spawns you in a plains biome in a large landmass; this is about all it is good for as it otherwise has serious issues even rendering biomes (e.g. the biome overlay is completely different from the biomes shown when you mouse over them, with nonsensical biome names for non-vanilla biomes (even the biome IDs don't match their names), and often has repeating patterns and blank areas), down to outright crashing.
Here is where I spawned, right in the middle of a plains biome as promised; it appears to be a pretty good area to build and had plenty of pigs for food:
I'm sure you know what comes next so I'm skipping over all of that; after collecting a bunch of wood I dug underground to make a shelter, just a simple area for temporary use:
Temporary or not, I made it a bit less dull by using oak planks for the floor, birch planks for the walls, and cobblestone for the ceiling:
Just a basic wheat farm for breeding cows; later on I grow potatoes as my main food source. Note also that I planted the wheat in rows, until I got more seeds, as crops grow faster when planted like this (when completely filled in they grow half as fast, for the same yield over time and a greater yield when harvested infrequently after they have fully grown):
This may be surprising, but the master caver doesn't do any caving to get resources they need; like everybody else I dig a staircase down, blocking off any caves I encounter (I encountered two):
Did I mention caves? I encountered a "bit" of an obstacle while mining down - an understatement; I just made a turn to avoid it and I'll be mining in the other direction anyway (back towards my base); I'd have taken any diamonds though if I'd spotted any:
That's not actually that big; once I get more than 512 blocks away from the origin (0, 0; spawn is around -200, 250) more fun things can be found (this restriction is so you have to explore a bit, while not being too restrictive, like the vanilla reduction of abandoned mineshaft frequency within 1,280 blocks of the origin, which was removed in favor of a limited size).
Also, my mining style may be seen as a bit unusual, but there is a reason for that:
My first diamonds (three):
Of course, I immediately make a diamond pickaxe with them:
This allowed me to get rid of the pesky obsidian in the way; note the bedrock - I'm mining at y=1, the lowest you can possibly go:
The reason I'm mining so deep is of course because of my mod; the rarest and most valuable ore, amethyst, only generates as often as diamond below y=3, and due to how ores generate (veins from higher layers extend into lower layers) it is still only half as common at y=1, dropping off to about 1/8 as common above y=2. This also means that I'll want to get a Fortune III diamond pickaxe to mine it - note that it has to be diamond as iron can't mine amethyst (in fact, in the latest version of my mod amethyst uses the same block ID as obsidian, eliminating an added block ID; I used metadata to make it drop amethyst instead of itself; similarly, amethyst blocks are also based on obsidian, meaning that it is possible to craft obsidian (all blocks act the same in terms of blast resistance, etc; you can even make Nether portals with them), if in an extremely expensive manner).
Despite the rarity, it is sustainable to use it for repairs once I'm caving without using Fortune to mine it (the tools have 4,686 durability, armor 4,500, which overall doesn't offset the relative rarity but I find far more diamonds than I need; in a similar manner, the higher repair costs put more of the XP I get to good use, though repairing when you have 60 levels, common when I use diamond, isn't really wasteful considering the renewability of XP), so my Fortune pickaxe can then be put to use harvesting potatoes; using amethyst doesn't make diamonds entirely useless though since they can be used to craft diamond ender chests, with a double chest of capacity, although those are only useful once I make secondary bases, so diamond essentially is like iron in vanilla, only useful early on (as ore; ingots from chests and zombies are more than enough to supply my needs for anvils and shears).
I also made a cow pen after returning to the surface; I'll actually only breed cows until I find a stronghold, since it'll (hopefully) have libraries filled with more books that I'll ever need; afterwards, I find baked potatoes to be plenty and simpler to farm (not shown; I just planted some sugarcane I found around naturally occurring lakes rather than make a dedicated farm for them):
Speaking of finding a stronghold, I killed my first Enderman (I didn't actually expect to kill it as it was day, but apparently it saw the tree I was under as blocking sunlight and didn't teleport away):
And yes, I'm still using a stone sword and no armor - no real need for them at this point, though Endermen are a bit scary without a shelter as they deal 7 damage per hit on Normal.
Next I'll be doing more mining until I have enough amethyst ore so (hopefully) Fortune III drops enough for me to make the gear that I use in regular gameplay, then find a stronghold for books which then lets me start enchanting; since amethyst items are only enchantable with books this means I have a fairly large task ahead of me; the last time I even built my main base out of quartz because I got so much, even without using Fortune to mine it; and I'll probably do the same this time as well.
Not until I defeat the Ender dragon will I actually "play as usual", meaning caving, so that is still a ways off.
Also, I'm going to be keeping track of all of the biomes I've discovered, excluding technical (hills) biomes except when they are different:
2. Forest Mountains (there are actually two variants, one with lower height variation but with a higher sub-biome; so far the one I've seen is relatively flat, as the height of a biome just amplifies the underlying noise. This also gave me oak, spruce, and birch wood from the start)
3. Forest (a technical forest biome as found in plains, later I also found a full-size forest)
4. Winter Forest (forest biome with snow)
5. Big Oak Forest (forest exclusively containing big oak trees, including a larger 2x2 variant)
6. Winter Taiga (same as vanilla taiga before 1.7)
7. Jungle (plus a jungle temple; I now have all four types of wood)
8. Roofed Forest (similar to the 1.7 biome except trees use oak leaves and spruce wood and are grown from 2x2 oak saplings)
9. Mountainous Desert (a variant of desert with more height variation; at first I thought this was a regular desert since what I saw of it was relatively flat)
10. Mega Mixed Forest (forest biome containing various big tree types mixed together)
11. Mesa (similar to the 1.7 biome, except there are "dead trees" (big oaks without leaves), more caves above sea level and deposits of normal clay in place of dirt and gravel inside the hardened clay, along with iron ore over double the usual range and amount, both clay and ores only exposed if there are less than 8 blocks of air around them)
12. Bushlands (slightly hilly biome, similar to plains, with small bushes similar to those in jungles, made of spruce leaves and wood and also regrowable from spruce saplings)
13. Tropical Swamp (nearly flat jungle-green biome with numerous 1 block deep water lakes and small jungle trees in addition to swamp trees; both regrowable (in vanilla swamp trees are ungrowable), blue orchids also generate in addition to other flowers)
14. Mixed Forest (dense forest containing all types of small trees)
15. Volcanic Wasteland (mountainous biome with large amounts of lava, largely gravel (ash) covered ground, magma cubes, and increased ore generation, particularly emerald, which generates in veins similar to diamond in addition to single blocks)
16/17. Birch Forest (also similar to the 1.7 biome except small pockets of "Poplar Grove" containing poplar trees (birch wood and leaves) can be found)
18. Lake (a relatively shallow, vanilla river depth, underwater biome that can have small islands of other biomes in it; also found as small sub-biomes within many other biomes)
19. Mega Taiga (one of two vanilla variants, with the same big trees and podzol/coarse dirt ground cover as 1.7)
20. Extreme Hills (identical to the 1.6.4 biome except with more trees and spruce trees as well as oak trees)
21. Savanna (the trees generate with jungle wood logs and oak leaves, similar to the first 1.7 snapshots and grow from oak saplings in savanna biomes only. Villages can also generate here)
22. Mega Tree Plains (plains biome with giant oak trees able to reach cloud height from near sea level)
23. Spruce Tree Hills (technical biome in Mega Tree Plains, small hills covered with the tall variant of spruce tree)
24. Hilly Plains (plains biome with increased height variation; villages do not generate but horses can)
25. Ocean (mostly unchanged from vanilla; height variation was reduced in favor of small islands, sometimes making mini-continent clusters, containing actual biomes, thus classic Survival Island seeds mostly don't work)
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Just a small update and some notes regarding mining; so far I've mostly been mining, but am going to the Nether to find a fortress since I want to find a stronghold to speed things up a bit and put the levels I've accumulated to use (currently at level 40, despite enchanting some items, including stone tools (not recommended in 1.8 since that wastes lapis), for 1 level).
First of all, here is a rendering of what I've mined so far, a set of 7 tunnels about 300 blocks long, covering about 32 chunks in area:
This had gotten me 31 diamond and 10 amethyst ore so far, plus plenty of other stuff; the amount of diamond I've gotten is consistent with what I've estimated you should find when mining 1x2 tunnels spaced every 4 blocks (3 blocks between tunnels), which is one of the more optimal mining patterns since most veins of ore are 2 blocks wide. One vein of diamond was actually in a cave I mined into, another was underneath lava I mined away after converting it to obsidian; both of the veins of amethyst ore I've found were on layers 1-2, each 5 ore.
Despite the common advice not to mine below lava level I haven't had that many problems doing so; by luck most of the area I've been mining is is free of caves, at least in the lower levels. Of note, this is more common in 1.6.4 despite a greater number and density of caves since there is also a larger regional variation in cave density, with some quite large cave-free areas possible, as opposed to the more uniform distribution of caves in 1.7, which can be seen in this comparison (there are actually only a third more caves overall in 1.6.4 than 1.7, but the clustering makes it look like there are a lot more). Of course, this means that when you do encounter caves you'll likely hit so many it isn't worth trying to mine under lava.
I've also been saving nearly depleted diamond pickaxes (3 so far, which gives me 5 chances including combining to strip unwanted enchantments) so I can use them when getting Fortune, rather than use new pickaxes; the low durability doesn't matter since I won't be using it much (after using it to mine amethyst I can use it for harvesting potatoes for food; I already got one from a zombie and replaced some of the wheat to get a stockpile of raw potatoes for when I later make a potato farm), although I might wait until I've enchanted books for my amethyst items so I can put just Fortune on one if I get it (best not to have Efficiency if you use quartz for building, one miss and you have a huge hole in the wall).
Also, I've discovered just how bad the animals escaping fences problem is; I went to the Nether (so far just to secure the portal, no problems as it was already mostly sheltered in a small cavity) after filling the pen I mentioned with cows and when I returned there were probably at least 10 that escaped (I just killed the adults); even without unloading chunks baby cows sometimes "escape" by spawning outside. Otherwise, I've only occasionally had animals escape since I usually don't overcrowd pens and building in the spawn chunks means chunks are only loaded/unloaded when you start/stop playing or go to another dimension.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Phew, I got through the entire thing... Both of those posts combined probably has more text than a chapter in one of my textbooks.
Yeah, animals always escape my pens. After they escaped from those large pens I used to make, I just used a 4x4 fenced off area with carpet on top of them so I can get into them. Then, I had a fire aspect sword to handle the preparation of the meat.
You can just call me Canary.
How not to look like a total fool in the forum games
Where is the light coming from in your wheat farm on the first post?
"It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?"
I put torches in holes in the ceiling; later on I use glowstone in a similar manner in my main base although I still use torches in other bases; placing them in the ceiling reduces their effectiveness a bit (for a 2 block high space the light level on the floor directly under them is 12) but gets them out of the way so you don't accidentally mine them, and allows for more even lighting (mainly aesthetical).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I really like it. Aesthetically pleasing while you work up to glowstone.
"It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for the winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. And also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?"
Really nice stuff. Love this new kind of stuff on the forum! Looking forward to what will happen next! By the way, I am placing my bets on the pigs gathering in one place and being hit by lightning. Lol. xD
Hero's Destiny! A WIP mod coming soon!
SciTech! An amazing WIP technology mod that lets you tamper with RADIOACTIVE substances!
Most of those pigs were eaten; that's where I got the pockchops from, though I did save a few.
I had a rather fun experience in the Nether; not to much happened until I found a fortress and mined my way up to the top through one of the supports - to be met by three Ghasts, without a bow to shoot them; luckily one of them shot and killed another and I deflected the fireballs to kill the other two, with a close call when a fireball blew up and almost sent me off the edge (no lava below, just low ground). I did get a Blaze rod though from a couple Blazes I found and Nether wart, although stopped exploring before I found a spawner and want a Fire Resistance potion before I do so. Also, back in the Overworld I tried setting a witch on fire and killing it, as they can drop potions they are drinking (no slimes yet either, one big magma cube but no drops).
I've also done some enchanting; so far I've gotten Efficiency IV twice and Efficiency IV Unbreaking III, not quite what I want but since these are nearly depleted pickaxes there is no loss there; I still have one more left to enchant, then can combine them to remove enchantments for several more tries before making new pickaxes (or I might just try books, which are needed anyway).
It is also interesting to note that I'm still using stone swords, with level 1 enchantments (all Sharpness I so far, a benefit of having a low enchantability, which is a bit ironic as Sharpness is more useful than Smite or BoA; Sharpness I on a stone sword is just enough to kill most mobs in three hits (21.75 damage total), including zombies, which effectively have 21.74 health due to 8 armor points), though I also have full iron armor with level 1 enchantments now.
Also, I experienced a rather odd bug which I've experienced before after leaving the Nether; for some reason I suddenly lost the ability to break most blocks shortly after returning (but not right away), except for blocks that are instantly broken, almost like the game thought I was in Adventure mode or something (tools wouldn't work though; in 1.6.4 there are no limitations aside from having a proper tool). Otherwise, the game behaved normally. This is fixed by quitting and reloading; because of this, I make an enchanting setup in the Nether to minimize the number of times I go through the portal, which is otherwise not an issue.
I've also had this happen while testing and chunks stop loading as well, almost like the server isn't working, but mobs still move and respond to attacks, etc, even move in "invisible" chunks, and new chunks will be generated (seen in Minutor, etc) but not appear on the client if I fly into the empty space; doing /gamemode 0 also had no effect, while Creative still works for breaking blocks. There is also no bug report that I can find regarding any issue like this.
In addition, this is what my mine, which I've finished with for the time being, looks like in Minutor; the purple is amethyst ore, which I recolored (as Minutor shows it as obsidian) to make it easy to see; you may also notice emerald ore on the right, as Forest Mountains are similar to a more forested version of Extreme Hills (I've also run into silverfish on several occasions):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I haven't been so lucky enchanting lately; none of the pickaxes I enchanted got Fortune, although I did get Silk Touch twice and was able to make my "Ender Pickaxe", with Efficiency V, Silk Touch I, Unbreaking III, so called since I mainly use it on Ender chests. These were all of the enchantments that I did get, each of which I got twice (a total of six, starting from four depleted pickaxes, some of which I combined to strip enchantments so i didn't end up with all of these):
Efficiency IV
Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III
Efficiency IV, Silk Touch I, Unbreaking III
The two Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III pickaxes are being used to mine more quartz; these are good for 12,000 uses before needing repair (I'll just combine them with a new pickaxe without renaming as I should only need to repair each of them them once based on my previous experience). Silk Touch is also useful for harvesting glowstone without losing any; since I got it relatively early on most of the glowstone I've mined has been with it. Unlike other tools, even diamond is a bit overkill for my "Ender Pickaxe" as I typically only use it a few times per session; in my first world I've mined about 1,400 Ender chests, not even the durability of an unenchanted diamond pickaxe, and have never repaired it either with about 75% durability still left.
The amount of quartz I've mined is quickly overtaking everything else, already more than four times more than the coal I mined and giving me about 7,600 of the XP I've gotten so far, enough for 9 level 30 enchantments, plus additional XP I had already (I also spent 35 levels to combine and rename the "Ender Pickaxe", which is still largely depleted but can be repaired later):
Also, I've noticed a bug in the "mob kills" stats (most of the kills shown were in the Overworld before I went to the Nether) - zombie pigmen count as zombies (I only included most Overworld hostile mobs, other mobs don't count, either to the total or for individual mobs); this is because I check for whether a mob is an instance of a particular mob; zombie pigmen are based on zombies so this includes them; similarly, cave spiders (EntityCaveSpider) must be checked for before regular spiders (EntitySpider) or they both count as spiders.
For now I'm just enchanting books to get enchantments for my other equipment; I've almost completed my sword, which will have Sharpness V, Knockback II, Unbreaking III (just need another Sharpness IV book), I've also put off finding a stronghold for a bit, with the number of cows I bred I may not even need the books they have (though they may have enchanted books, would be ironic if I found a Fortune III book just after I enchanted to get one).
I thought it was interesting to mention the very first time I enchanted a pickaxe (iron) at level 30 - it got Efficiency IV, Fortune III, Unbreaking III - and not only that, the first time I enchanted a diamond pickaxe I got the same enchantments - talk about luck!
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
In 1.8 I've been experiencing entities like villagers and rabbits becoming invisible after coming back from the nether. Occasionaly there will also be some block mining lag where I will mine a block and it won't pop for a few seconds.
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..
I had an interesting journey to a stronghold; in the relatively short distance that I covered I encountered seven new biomes, something that won't happen in 1.7-1.8, that's for sure! There are still many more left to find though; it is very possible not to have a given biome within 2,000 blocks of spawn (as often used as criteria for "all biomes near spawn").
I didn't go very far, about 400 blocks to the west and 600 to the south; I only lost one Eye of Ender, throwing one, then following it for a few hundred blocks before throwing it again (this can be seen by the bend to the south I made after the third throw), the last time I threw it I was practically on top of the stronghold (it led me right to the portal room; a bug introduced with the structure saving causes them to lead you to the actual start (a spiral staircase) after you reload the world after a stronghold is generated):
Another stronghold-finding tip is that they are usually 640-1152 blocks away from the origin, in a circular radius, although this is by no means exact; my first world has a stronghold which is entirely within the minimum distance. Because of my spawn point, to the southwest of the origin, I also expected the closest stronghold to be to the southwest.
This is what I saw along the way:
Also, behind the horses you can see a Winter Forest biome, essentially a forest biome with snow.
A bit further along is a Big Oak Forest biome, with big oak trees, including larger variants with 2x2 trunks; these trees are unique to this biome in that they can only be grown in it:
Winter Taiga, renamed from vanilla Taiga (or Cold Taiga in 1.7; actually, for some reason they added a new biome for Cold Taiga and made the original taiga snow-free, no idea why, maybe they thought it wouldn't matter since everybody would make new worlds anyway but some people keep their old worlds):
Note also that I'm standing on a Frozen River; in vanilla only Ice Plains have these even though other cold biomes should have them as well (this does lead to odd patches of open water under trees though, as only water exposed to the sky is frozen).
Further on...
From left to right, Jungle, Roofed Forest, and Desert; the first also gave me jungle wood/saplings (also melons, though I didn't really look for them), and also had a jungle temple near the edge which I raided and got the following from one of the chests:
And finally, I saw something really tall in the distance and came closer to see what it was - boy, those are HUGE trees (yes, that's a cloud cutting through the tallest tree on the right)!
That's a Mega Mixed Forest biome, with all of the big trees in my mod and vanilla combined (jungle, 2x2 big oak trees, mega trees (as seen on the right, modified from jungle trees), mega taiga trees, both a 3x3 tree I made myself (in the middle) and 2x2 spruce trees from vanilla 1.7. Except for the big oaks, all of these can be grown anywhere).
Also, here is what the explored stronghold looks like in MCMap; it was fairly large, ranging from y=5-50 in depth, with close to a double chest each of iron and wooden doors (no need to make any doors for a while, the wooden doors will be used for a village); in the upper-left corner you can see the jungle temple:
The stronghold was also some fun to explore; I added mob spawners at various points, such as under the chests in the corridors and in the libraries (a bad silverfish infestation in those). This included two cave spider spawners, with a total of 8 spawners in the stronghold. I also got the diamond sword in the screenshots from a chest; only at this point did I stop using stone swords (which I broke two of on the deluge of silverfish in the libraries, which often have two spawners).
Also while there were some caves and at least one ravine intersecting it (the portal room is in the ravine) the only indications of this were at the open ends of some corridors and water and lava dripping from the ceiling in a few spots (it is even possible for a stronghold to be completely surrounded by water or lava; I removed code that normally prevents pieces from generating if there is any liquid in their path; this is often a cause of broken up strongholds, especially when they are under an ocean, only the portal room doesn't have this code, ensuring it always generates). Similarly, the game normally ignores air blocks when generating walls, leading to breaks wherever they intersect caves, but I changed it to always overwrite blocks. There are still some generation bugs though; I came across a button embedded in a wall (recessed in a 1x1 pocket) by itself; mining away the wall next to it revealed a door leading to another part of the stronghold, with a double-thick wall between them, which appears to be an off-by-one error in the structure piece placement (there could be more unexplored sections) and an area where two sections overlapped one another.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
What mods are you using?
Hero's Destiny! A WIP mod coming soon!
SciTech! An amazing WIP technology mod that lets you tamper with RADIOACTIVE substances!
I made it myself; it is TheMasterCaver's World, which I just recently updated to include more biomes and other features.
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Sounds cool. Maybe I will add to my WIP modpack, Denziens of Heaven!
Hero's Destiny! A WIP mod coming soon!
SciTech! An amazing WIP technology mod that lets you tamper with RADIOACTIVE substances!
That won't work as I assume you mean a Forge modpack; as I clearly stated in the thread (based on other people trying to use it as a Forge mod):
Essentially, it is an "all-in-one" mod that I primarily made for my personal use; some aspects of it reflect when I did use other mods, such as Rei's Minimap (coordinates), Backpacks (diamond ender chest with a double chest of space, though I made those less of a "backpack" than a means to transfer more items between two fixed locations; for a while I did have a double chest ender chest though, the new one is in addition to ender chests so you get 3 chests of space), a mod I used that added amethyst armor and tools (which was quite OP; the sword did +20 damage, tools mined like Eff V diamond (even the shovel was still more powerful than a Sharpness V diamond sword); I actually modified the mod myself to balance it a bit, including making the armor actually worthwhile to use as for some reason everybody think it has to have crappy durability compared to tools of the same material, and don't seem to realize that you can't have more than 20 armor points; actually, in my mod I made each armor point provide 3.5% damage reduction, so diamond/amethyst armor is 70% max, allowing 50% more damage through than vanilla (30% / 20%); this is also why I have 17 armor points in full iron, which is really 59.5% damage reduction - mobs still have 4% though, making iron armor nearly as powerful (68% DR) as diamond armor on a player). I even hacked in amethyst ore (using MCreator...) by having it drop the numeric ID of the mod's amethyst item (something no longer possible), instead of crafting it with diamonds, emeralds, and quartz, which was easier (I broke the crafting recipe by editing some bytecode).
Even back then, I actually modded the Forge-patched base classes for my own mods (decompiled with MCP, before they added Forge Gradle to stop you from doing this) to ensure compatibility; it could be possible to do the same now but I don't have the incentive to do so (some classes can be replaced without issues, but only if Forge or other mods don't use them; for example, I don't know of any 1.6.4 mods that modify cave generation, and only one 1.7.2 Forge mod that does).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I finally got around to killing the Ender dragon, after 109 in-game days - I wasn't in any hurry to get that over with and could have done it much sooner, and of all of the stuff I enchanted, which took up most of the time I've spent playing so far, the only thing I took was a Power V bow (a different bow from the one I regularly use, which also has Infinity and Unbreaking; I could have easily made a couple more if that were necessary as Power is a common enchantment on books), plus level-1 enchanted iron armor and a couple Sharpness I stone swords (these I used to kill Endermen after I killed the dragon, getting a couple dozen Ender pearls, enough that I'll never need more again as I only use them to make Ender chests). Probably the most important thing I brought was a few extra Ender pearls, as the platform spawned in empty air and building a bridge is rather risky; I don't think there are situations where you can't throw far enough to reach the island:
I must say that I don't really see much of an achievement in killing the Ender dragon given how easy it is, plus it isn't really the "end" of the game, especially considering the fact that I haven't even built a real base or anything yet.
Also, while many people use the Nether and End for various automatic farms and transportation at this point they might as well not exist as I have no reason to go back; in fact, I've even deleted them before to reduce save size. It is possible that I might use the Nether for faster rail transport at some point but it'll take a very long time to explore any world to the point where I'd feel that would be necessary (in my first world I've explored up to 3,000 blocks from spawn, but only in one direction, 1,000-1,500 blocks in the other three, over about a year of daily playing; a 3,000 block radius from spawn is about 110,000 chunks and I explore about 100 chunks per play session when caving so that is about 3 (2 more) years of daily playing to explore that far in all directions; double that distance would take 12 (11) years, and so on).
The next thing to do now is to build a base, which I'll be building with all of the quartz (more than a double chest of blocks) that I mined while enchanting; similar to past designs (e.g. this thread) the biggest area will be a storeroom for the resources I get from caving, plus rooms for other things and a village I'll populate with cured zombie villagers (not for trading, just to have them; this goes back to my first world, which has a naturally generated village right at spawn which I built my base around).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I'm finally done after 163 in-game days; "done" as in having completed everything prior to starting my main gameplay of caving.
Following are screenshots from around and inside my main base, which I mostly built out of the quartz I mined while enchanting; the glass I used mostly came from a pond where I built, I only took a cactus from the desert I found before:
From the front (facing east); I went with a design that consists of a main lower floor and an open upper floor/roof:
Looking down the front hall, which spans the entire width of the front, and the central hall, which goes through the back (narrowing midway); note that I placed buttons next to the doors but wooden pressure plates are actually used to open them, including the front doors:
TheMasterCaver's Bedroom (missing the apostrophe since it didn't fit); the purple colored ore in the floor is amethyst ore, which also explains the thing on the right that looks like a purple diamond, I also changed one of the paintings to make a portrait of myself:
The Egg, safely contained in its cage:
Workroom, containing basic supplies, food, wood, Ender chests (the blue one is my mod's diamond ender chest, a double chest version that is separate, for 3 chests of total storage, though not so portable; at this time there is no use for it until I make a secondary base); and yes, that is a Wither skeleton skull over the crafting table, only the second one I've ever gotten, it was actually dropped by the first Wither skeleton I killed, out of maybe 5 total (which explains why I've only ever gotten two):
Enchanting and brewing room; it is ironic that I'm not actually going to use this for either enchanting or brewing after making a few splash potions of weakness to cure zombie villagers:
Nether portal room, just a small 2x4 room with a portal midway:
Furnace room, with a chest of coal at the end; considering how much I mine, this isn't very large but I smelt most of it while caving so I can make more room (9 stacks of iron ore = 1 stack of blocks):
Storage rooms, a small one for miscellaneous stuff and a huge one for resources mined while caving:
Farm room; the majority of it is devoted to potatoes (of course), and even that isn't really that large; only 8x8 (looking at this, I think I'll make it 8x9 so it matches up with the width of the other plots; the raised border conceals water), but yields three stacks of potatoes per harvest thanks to Fortune, enough food to last me about a week of playing; as you can see from a look in my food chest it is VERY easy to get endless quantities of food even without automated farms; I could take a minute to harvest three more stacks right now if I had room:
This was a pickaxe that I originally enchanted to mine amethyst ore with, to avoid having to mine too much (otherwise, I don't bother using Fortune; I found about three times as much diamond ore and still have 38 diamonds after using a lot of it on pickaxes)
Staircase to the second floor; you can see the first floor entrance on the left in the first screenshot above:
View of the second floor from above, which contains a NPC village, with some interesting looking houses; there are a total of 18 doors so there should be 6 villagers; this is also completely safe from zombie sieges in 1.8 (at least 20 villagers required); I could easily fix the bug but why bother with something that is pointless and more of a punishment than any challenge, animal pen (note the glass blocks, to prevent animals from passing through the fences, which was somehow happening with chickens even without unloading chunks, possibly due to babies growing up) and tree farm (spruce, birch, oak, jungle, the last my main source of wood from now on, mostly used to make torches; note that to increase coverage of steep terrain I removed space constraints from all types of trees, thus they can be grown like oaks - except you can't place them right next to each other, especially oaks, or (huge!) 2x2 tree variants will grow; a "mega oak tree" can give 5-6 stacks of wood but is cumbersome to harvest). Also included is a rendering made with MCMap, showing the back and left side (relative to the front; east is to the upper-right):
Of course, I'm now ready to start doing what I enjoy the most (note my inventory - that's so I don't pick up unwanted drops, adding slots for other resources as I find them):
I've already explored part of a cave system I ran into while mining, the one with the big cave mentioned in my OP, mainly to get more coal and iron; at the bottom you can see the stronghold I found and a bit above that the jungle temple. This also gives you an idea of how much I mined, the most of any world so far; with the help of Minutor (shown separately below) I counted about 5.2 km of tunnels; with 27 amethyst ore found on average I found 1 amethyst ore every 192.5 blocks (385 blocks mined, excluding ores from the walls), compared to 85 diamond ore (one ore every 61 / 122 blocks):
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Looking good Caver. I like the base design. It makes me rethink my usual strategy of building my base underground.
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..
Yes, looking good and an ambitious start to a world!
I haven't pondered the mechanics/balance of your amethyst system yet, but I'm all for adding variety to the mining aspect. Heck, it'd be fun if there were a handful of very rare ores that didn't do anything at all except given an indication of how much effort one puts into mining. Or, perhaps, a very rare ore could be blended with diamond or others to confer particular properties on the item being crafted (very subtly, it doesn't have to be a game changer). I'm sure there are mods out there for that; I wouldn't mind stumbling on tourmaline, pyrite, turquoise, etc. etc. every now and then.
I also like the use of quartz in your build- very clean and bright looking. I've used it as accents here and there, but I've never spent enough time in the nether to gather much of it. What'd you do with all the netherrack you must have gone through?
BTW, I've been having farm animals glitch through simple fences since I started playing 1.8- it's annoying- I now have dyed sheep running all over the place!
cheers,
tbg
I actually placed most of it; I know it isn't so good for blast resistance but that isn't really that important, plus if you make a wall Ghasts can't see you so won't shoot (not that Ghasts are really that big of a problem with their bad aim and all).
Also, if you are wondering how much I mined, including overall:
As you can see, I mined 5,719 Netherrack and placed 5,535 (some of this drops from Ghast explosions); I ended up with about three stacks. Also, I used an amethyst shovel while digging grass/dirt while building my base, although I kept using the Efficiency IV Unbreaking III diamond pickaxe I used in the Nether (as mentioned before, the diamond sword I found in the stronghold, I used it until it was about to break and just threw it away, it actually got more than 1,562 uses since hitting stuff like grass doesn't take away durability but counts as a use).
Also, in retrospect making an amethyst shovel (or other item) with just Unbreaking III is sort of useless - even with just one enchantment it is too expensive to repair more than one unit at a time, costing 31 levels to repair for another 4,684 uses (1171 durability); two units would cost 53 levels - that's 22 levels per unit, just for the repair costs. In fact, it costs 52 levels to repair an unenchanted never before operated on (i.e. no prior work penalty, which is only 2 anyway if renamed) item, I also increased the anvil cap to 49 levels (my Sharpness V, Knockback II, Unbreaking III sword costs 47 levels per unit, compared to 35 for two units for the equivalent diamond sword; I get more durability back per repair but spend more XP per use).
Although being able to mine more than 4,686 blocks means you don't need to repair or make a new one after that; if used until depleted you can mine over 18,700 blocks, incrementally catching up during subsequent repairs (this was also the logic I operated on back when I used an Efficiency V, Fortune III, Unbreaking III diamond pickaxe for all mining; even if I missed a repair (37 levels for one unit) due to spending levels to repair something else it still had 75% durability left and I could catch up later as long as the total amount of XP I got was greater than my total expenditures, which it was).
Mainly, the amethyst items are so I can have something "different" while making more use of all the XP I get (unlike many people I do not run back and enchant as soon as I reach level 30, except for the time when I actually am enchanting), but otherwise they are impractical to use over diamond (durability and enchantability aside, they are otherwise identical) for most people (referring back to the shovel, a diamond shovel with Unbreaking III can be fully repaired with a new shovel for 1/3 more uses between repairs (though the repair is necessary and can't be held off) and costing only 26 levels, using the pre-1.8 repair system of course; in 1.8 every repair is cheaper, as little as 2 levels, except for the last one, for 33 levels).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?