Episode 110: The Beginning of the End (no, not *that* one)
I've reached the northern tip of the continent, and completed exploring the entire coast, at the same time. I still want to finish exploring the interior, of course, but since the water is all explored, it's time to
Take to the air.
Not for everything, or even most terrain. I'm going to stick to my policy of using the airship for very difficult terrain (basically the Geographicraft mountain ranges: they were designed to be a challenge to cross and so exhaustive mapping is, well, exhausting). And there are enough mountains on this continent it's often the best way to get to an area I want to explore.
Here both considerations apply: I'm currently at the northern tip of the continent, so I wouldn't want to leave the airship here, and although the very tip of the peninsula is this bucolic terrain, most of it is pretty rugged mountains.
After finishing this little region on the end, that's where I go.
Once I'm done with a little bit of unmapped mountain in the north, I head for the main unmapped region. I switch to one-hand mapping because I've noticed that it's easier to miss stray dots when I'm mapping two-handed - and indeed, I see that I missed some dots on the right side of the peninsula when I originally mapped it.
So I adjust my mapping plans a bit. I head south along the west edge.
These go on for a while but eventually I reach the end.
Then I go back north to finish the main section, past this pretty decent approximation to a U-shaped glacial valley.
Then back south on the coast where the missed dots are. I guess I missed them because I was avoiding that really sharp ridge to my right.
With this mountain area done, it's time to land and switch to ground exploration. I'm hungry, so I plop another cheesecake on the ground and have a few slices.
From here, I head west. As it turns out, the remaining large areas, plus a few small mountain areas in the east that I didn't map, back when I wasn't as systematic, form a giant arc. The arc starts with the largest remaining area, to the northeast. My rough plan is to do them in sequence. I'm not sure how much I can finish before I need to head back to the chateau for a break, although I'm hoping to get this entire northeastern area done. It's pretty big, and we'll have to see.
You probably noticed the dark forest on my left and I start by walking its edge, next to this birch forest.
This large lake permit a little fast boating exploration. After it the dark forest pulls back from the coast, but I stay near the coast to stay adjacent to my coastal explorations from last episode.
The westernmost part is a hot zone, and as I reach it I find this sandy watering hole. The Savanna ahead looks rather lush in its saturated spring colors.
The Savanna is relatively small, and soon I transition to desert. I notice the sun is heading down, and of course *now* I notice that once again I have
- you know it -
forgotten my bed.
I might find sheep in that Forest there, but probably not in the time I have. I remember I passed a Millenaire village on the coast ahead, so I race ahead trying to get there before dark.
I don't make it. Grudgingly I start pillaring up for the long night.
As I do I see the village was *just* ahead. But I didn't know exactly where it was, and even if I got there it could take time to find an unoccupied bed. This is Hardcore, and I can't take chances.
I construct a little hidey-hole on top of the pillar so I don't have to worry about Skeleton fire, and resign myself to watching the stars pass for the night. IRL, I fix some tea and play timewaster games on my phone to pass the time.
Come morning I dig back down, finding *no* mobs at all waiting for me. I hadn't heard any roast when the sun came up either. That's pretty unusual; I'm used to sometimes fairly substantial greeting parties after a night on a pillar. No idea what happened there.
Then I head over to the village, partly to see if the village was the reason for that odd forest grass area in the Mesa I saw last episode.
It seems not to be, though; the region is south of the village. It's not the biome, either; it's Mesa Plateau F on both sides of the boundary here. This is not a big enough issue for me to deal with debugging right now, so I continue exploring.
Time to start a pass back east, and a river gives me a convenient way through the Mesa plateaus.
I stay on the river for a while, but it's heading too much to the south, and after a while I have to get out and head back north.
I map the rest of the hot zone, and then head into this big tree Oak forest that was next to me when I noticed I was missing my bed. Good thing I didn't look for sheep here because there aren't any.
Next is some Swamp, but I still need to find some sheep for a bed, plus I don't want to slog through a swamp right this minute, so I turn south.
I go back into Birch Forest - no sheep here either - and then cross this unusually sharp forest ridgeline before reaching the river again (I'm looking back in this pic).
And then, fi-nal-ly, I find some sheep. Since I was carrying iron to make maps for mapping, I can just shear it.
With my bed problem solved, I can continue exploring the fresh spring terrain.
Next episode: well, maybe a little bit of mountain exploration after all.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
That was quite brave to leave the game unattended in hardcore. I do not, for any reason, allow myself to do that. That's not entirely true because there was one time I reached away for like five to ten seconds (I left myself in my basement, looking relatively towards the ground in case an enderman teleported into view or something), and even that I shouldn't have done. If I need to do something for 5 or more seconds, I pause it. The risk may be low, but it's always higher than if I pause it, and if something happens, I can't react right away.
I don't feel very brave here. I was 25 blocks in the air, surrounded by a 2 high wall I was looking at. There's no phantoms in this version. I'd have to have had an Enderman teleport on top of the wall and then fall into the little central area with me, or something similarly insanely flukey. (and I didn't even think about that kind of thing until you mentioned it.) I really don't think that's a meaningful risk.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The risks may be low... but it's never zero (like they are when it's paused), haha.
The only reason I thought of a random enderman teleport was because I've had it happen to me. I stepped away while in my mountainside tunnel network which was properly lit and blocked off everywhere from mob access... other than something that could teleport inside, that is, so I came back to see one walking around near where I was looking. I didn't step away but for maybe a minute or two.
Episode 111: A Little Past the Beginning of Not That End
Now that my sleeping arrangments are fixed, I want to finish off mapping this peninsula. And in front of me lies the sentinel mountain on the coast I commented on two episodes ago. RTG Mountains can be a bit of a hassle, but I figure this is small enough I can just map around it.
Incorrectly.
I probably could have managed it if I had been a bit more patient.
And I do get some good views as compensation.
Then back to some strikingly open Oak forest. It's so open I check to see if there's some plains mixed in, but, no, it's just RTG Plus forest variety at work.
Next I'm back into some similarly thin Birch Forest, although here a bit of Extreme Hills subbiome scrambles the interpretation.
Avoiding that swamp area last time only put off going through it. I've had a cycle of attitude toward swamp - early in this journal I was getting annoyed because it's slow going, and then I got appreciative as I was trying to build up my sugarcane supply. Now I'm done with making maps, and I'm back to annoyed.
Another well placed scenic lake bails me out of some of the swamp slog.
I continue into the Birch Forest you see, but sunset is approaching. I spot an barren hills sub-biome (Extreme Hills technically, but it looks different when small) and head over, because I like some clear space around when sleeping. But right then it starts snowing! As I've mentioned several times, in the Serene Seasons mod, Extreme Hills and Taiga effectively stay in Winter when everything else is in Spring and Autumn.
I desparately pillar up (I'm a bit worried about duskrainspawning) and toss down my bed, fortunately fast enough to prevent substantial snow accumulation.
Now, though, I spot some dark forest. And I switch from my recent system of wrapping around the explorations I've just been doing to try to map it out.
A conveniently placed river grants me access to the interior, so this is looking promising.
It's on a map edge, though, and that can create trouble, since I can't map dark forest on one map from a clearing on the other.
Coming around the south end it's looking a little problematic, but that Birch Forest area you see grants me access to a small clearing and from there I get it all mapped. Yay!
To the east is yet more dark forest, but I manage to map it with the help of the same river, which, incidentally, is the river into dark forest I saw from the coast 2 episodes ago that I said might be useful. Indeed it is.
Then there's a stretch of plains, easy-to-map apart from this one ravine hazard.
When I reach the east end of the map and turn back for a last pass west, I'm near the south edge of the map. So I use the map edge wiggle technique to get some mapping done on both maps.
But there's an Extreme Hills region *right* on the edge getting in the way. I have to maneuver around it and back up a bit to finish the south map, plus I trip a couple times like here.
When I reach the ocean - with another nicely placed swamp acting as a river delta - I'm done with this map. If I can finish the one to the south (which TBF has a lot left) I'll be done with the entirely of the northwest one of the areas I had left to map - and it was the largest, so my schedule is looking good!
For now, I proceed along the coastline, on the edge of this relatively small tree forest. I've found coastal exploration leaves boundaries a bit rough for systematic east-west or north-south mapping. After one pass inland along the coast then maybe I'll switch.
I hit some Taiga, which I haven't seen for a while. The Oak trees are RTG tree variety. In the Better Forests port of the trees to modern minecraft, "foreign" trees show up more "logically" - when the climate is close to that kind of forest. In 1.12, though, climate information isn't available at the appropriate stage of generation, so I use an arbitrary Perlin noise.
Night falls and I enjoy a treetop sunset.
Like I said, still winter here in the Taiga - even though the colors here are Spring. It's a bit off.
I come across a Japanese village, but I have everything I need to finish mapping this continent, and I've shown plenty of them, so I just pass through.
And now I get a third dark forest challenge, in one episode. Fun (not)
A well placed clearing lets me get the mapping connected to the coast.
Then mapping from the east edge lets me get everything except ONE DOT. I decide that's not worth the effort of treetopping, and I just leave it.
And now I realize I've made a mistake. I had been planning to leave a strip unexplored on the east edge of the unmapped region, to bring the airship back from the north. But I forgot that when I got wrapped up mapping the first dark forest I handled this episode and now I'll have to walk back to the airship and bring it back south, wasting the travel because I've already mapped the route. I think I should go back and fetch it now before I end up wasting even more time. So...
Next episode: Back to the Airship!
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The mountain climb was worth it for the llamas. I initially get surprised when I see some in your pictures because I keep thinking they are pretty rare (because they are these days), before realizing they probably aren't rare for you because I don't think they were as rare back then.
Yeah, llamas are very common in my game - they show up often in Extreme Hills, which composes most of the mountain ranges in my game *and* is used as a barren hills sub-biome in most temperate biomes. Spitting noises are everywhere!
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I guess it may have 1.18+ where they became less common then.
My oldest world that I was playing a lot back then comprised of terrain generation from before llamas were even added. And my much recent interest in playing comprises of terrain from 1.18+.
I did start a second world in 1.16 but I didn't really do so much exploring in that one. I do recall seeing llamas around extreme hills though, which were still rather common. In1.18 and later, mountains more or less replace those and they seem to only show up in windswept hills, and those don't seem as common.
Llamas need more viable spawn locations. I want to see them more.
Episode 112: More the Middle of the Beginning of Not That End
On the way to pick up the airship, which I've left in the north, I am of course mapping as practical on the way. I move into an Extreme Hills biomes but I don't see any mountains ahead so this is likely just a foothills region.
And it is, affording a nice view of the mixed terrain ahead.
The mountains are here, to the side. This is yet another great spot for a build; this low rise would provide views of the terrain all around, plus the mountain view. This world would have worked out better as a multiyear world; with a lot more building and slower exploration; but as has happened to me several times before my modding plans have interfered with my playing plans, as I'd like to give Better Forests a whirl but I'd really like to finish my goal of completely exploring a continent. If it weren't for that, maybe it would have made sense to put this world aside, but now I'm having ideas of a broader rework for sub-biomes in Geographicraft, which would make me want to play a different 1.12 world, with a big set of modded biomes. In the end, there's never enough time.
Continuing into the forest ahead, I find and kill a zombie dayspawn. I look around, but can't find a lighting glitch it might have come from.
When I reach the edge of the map, I continue on to the next map east, for planning purposes. I'm thinking I can get all of this (large) unmapped area on this expedition, and I want to make sure I get everything. It would be so annoying to have to come back out here.
Then I head on to the next map north, where I left the airship. I left it near the coast, but on the way I figure I'll go ahead and map out this smallish area. Right after I start I get this nice view of a hillside Flower Forest.
I see a LOT of Flower Forests, because I explore a lot, and I've gotten somewhat jaded by them. But it's been a bit since I last saw one, and I luxuriate in the display a bit.
Ahead is a Snowy area with a little variety from sub-biomes. In one of the first Java worlds I played, I started in a 1.6 era Snowy Zone. It was just plains, and with the shorter view distances possible at the time, it was a little visually boring. This is better.
There's a bit of an intrusion of temperate biomes on the way to the Ice mountains, with a Forest Hills in Plains. This was always one of my favorite sub-biomes, even in vanilla, and I got a nice positive impression of the 1.7 update because my first spawn was facing one (was Forest Hills as a Plains sub-biome added for 1.7? I can't remember for sure, and I couldn't find exactly when online, even in the Minecraft Wiki history.)
Next to the Ice Mountains is this little pool, that could be interpreted as a glacial melt pool.
Then into the huge Ice Spikes area.
The sun is setting as I finish mappping out this region, so I bed-plop in the Ice Plains.
In the morning I head north to the coast where I think I left the airship. This bit of Dark Forest is too narrow to be dangerous.
But - it's not where I thought it was? I climb over this small ridge to check right against the coast and it's not there either.
Eventually I find it (it takes a while). It was actually pretty close to where I was when I headed north to look for it. It had been several days of real time since I left it. I should have checked my screenshot folder, or my posts - that's one of the advantages of journaling!
Indeed, I spot those Flower Forested Hills again as I'm taking off and starting south.
I head on to the next map south, where I start with a strip on the west edge. Here's a rocky hills sub-biome in a forest; unusually rugged for a sub-biome; a crag of sorts.
There's a larger area to map towards the middle and I decide to do it on foot for interest, so I land in a forest clearing on the map edge. Forest clearings are IMO one of the biggest wins of the new Geo sub-biome system and it's a pity modern minecraft has removed the one type *it* could generate, clearings in Roofed Forest. I'm thinking of adding clearings to Better Forests, my port of these trees to modern Minecraft.
The Forest here is super-open cathedral forest, and it looks great.
Then, right after it, one of my other favorite view types from the RTG + Geo combo, Plains with scattered tree sub-biomes.
Just beyond that is the Mesa mountain range I flew over way back in Episode 52. But it's already mapped so I'm not going there today.
The south of this region is a Extreme Hills area, but I'm just on the edge of it and I don't have to deal with any difficult ridges, so it's easy enough to map from the ground.
With this region mapped, I return to the airship as night falls.
Next Episode: Maybe a little *too* much mountain overflights.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The Forest here is super-open cathedral forest, and it looks great.
This is it; this right here is what I think the Gold standard should be for forests.
The canopy is high enough off the ground, and the trees aren't so clustered, and this combination results in feeling like you're in a forest, while still having good visibility.
Of course, more dense forests should also exist, and ones with smaller heights should also exist, but I think this should more or less be the baseline they strive to be.
Then, right after it, one of my other favorite view types from the RTG + Geo combo, Plains with scattered tree sub-biomes.
While I like the idea of forests with clearings, as well as the inverse of plains with small patches of trees, it felt like those two things were happening a little too often for my liking when I tried RTG.
This might be a matter of preference though. Maybe I was too used to 1.18+ where, due to the larger region sizes, there's many spots where it's vast plains and I didn't seem to see that as often as i would have liked in RTG. It seemed like pretty often there was breaks in forests for clearings, and breaks in plains for patches of trees, and while the concept alone is great, I think with smaller biome/region sizes, this happening so often ironically blends the two together a bit much for me and makes things feel more monotonous on a larger scale (whereas 1.18+ does this better on the larger scale, it can have the opposite problem of being more monotonous on the smaller scale due to its larger biome/region sizes).
If you don't plan to change the biome/region sizes for Better Forests, then I think this concept might fit better in that than it currently does in RTG. Again, that's a matter of preference though. I only tried Better Forests once in a creative test world before I started losing interest in playing for the time being, but I really liked what little I saw.
This is it; this right here is what I think the Gold standard should be for forests.
The canopy is high enough off the ground, and the trees aren't so clustered, and this combination results in feeling like you're in a forest, while still having good visibility.
That's an interesting take; this is about as open as RTG (or Better) forests ever get. The norm is quite a bit denser, influenced by my experience with real forests, which are generally fairly dense, although there are certainly exceptions in montaine and dryland forest, etc. But I'm open to being convinced, and this does tempt me to make some configs to adjust density.
Edit: I'm aware this *looks* prettier, but as you know I lean more to realism. I like places like this to exist, but be special.
While I like the idea of forests with clearings, as well as the inverse of plains with small patches of trees, it felt like those two things were happening a little too often for my liking when I tried RTG.
If you don't plan to change the biome/region sizes for Better Forests, then I think this concept might fit better in that than it currently does in RTG. Again, that's a matter of preference though. I only tried Better Forests once in a creative test world before I started losing interest in playing for the time being, but I really liked what little I saw.
I'd have to use a completely different system for clearings in Better Forests, because there's no sub-biome system. I have the tools; we used to use them in RTG before I put the clearings into Geo making them unnecessary. There would be a fair amount of flexibility (and probably a lot of variation) in how dense they would come out.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Yes, I know that would be a bit sparse compared to an average forest in real life, but if mimicking real life and making something better for gameplay (while still matching up with real life pretty well anyway) are at odds, I'd probably go with the one better for gameplay. That's how I was looking at it.
Whenever I played RTG, those forests were my favorite to find, and the ones I wanted to do something with (make a house in, put paths in, etc.). It's fine if they don't get more sparse than that (if they do, they'd start feeling less like formal forests and more like... sparse trees), and it's fine if forests more dense than that commonly exist. But if I think about what I'd want in the ideal forest in vanilla... that's it right there. Ones with lower canopies and denser trees, such as the medium forests tend to be like, are also fine though. Either of those is a tenfold improvement on the cluster of large bushes vanilla has going on for the majority of its forests.
Episode 113: Approaching the End of the Beginning of the - oh never mind I'm running this joke into the ground
The southern area of this big northeast area I'm mapping is a giant mountain range running all the way to the coast, more than 3000 blocks from here, with a big "knot" of mountains at the end. *This* I want the airship for.
It's dusk, but I can map from the airship at night, and some night mapping would be a nice change, so I head off towards the mountains rather than sleeping for the night.
I overfly the Japanese village I found in Episode 33. It felt a lot bigger on the ground. I remember that ridge to the right of it seemed *huge*.
Now I'm on to the next map west (1 north and 1 west of the chateau). This is most of what I have left to map on this expedition, although the big knot of mountains is on the map SW of here (I *said* this was a big mountain range).
I map away, appreciating the feel of the night.
I follow the range on to the next map south. It's almost all Extreme Hills except for that one spot of Ice Mountains.
And finally I reach the "knot" of mountains on the map west of that (2 west of the chateau).
There's another small area of Ice Mountains here.
I fly around the edge of the knot, against the coast, and then start roughly up and down to finish the exterior.
The sun is about to rise, and I'm still nowhere close to done with the mountains. Way less to talk about than with 20 minutes of ground exploration, that's for sure. As I'm mapping, I'm hit with a bit of regret that I didn't map this area on the ground.
The RTG version of Extreme Hills has a ridge and valley structure. Inland it's hard to map because the ridges often make accessing the valleys rather difficult (and sometimes the valleys get pretty rugged too.) But here the ocean provides access to the valleys in this knot, so I could have done at least most of them, one by one, accessing them from the sea. And that would have given much more of a story to write about.
Of course, to do that, I'd have to *be* on the sea, so the logical time would have been when I was first exploring the coast. So maybe I should make that a rule of thumb - explore mountain valleys I can see from coastal exploration. But - I'm done with coastal exploration on this world, and after this I think my next world will be in modern Minecraft (to play Better Forests). So - it's a little late for that rule. Ah, regrets.
And then, soon, another regret -
Snow (it's still winter in the mountains). After sunrise, of course, so I can't sleep it off. So now I face 20 minutes of avoiding snow accumulation. Bleah.
Nothing to be done for it, really - I suppose I could fly off to somewhere not snowy and AFK the day, but that sure would be boring - so I finish off mapping the knot in the snow, going as fast as I can. Because I'm going back and forth, there is some snow accumulation, but it doesn't look too bad in the mountains.
Now I head back east, on to the next map, on my return leg. This mountain range is so thick it's taking three passes - one pass east to west in Episode 108 when I came out here, then another east to west at the start of this episode, and then this west to east.
There's a bit of non-mountain area that's not going to be mapped by this pass and I turn around to get it. I'd want to do this bit on the ground, but I'm concerned I might forget it. Remember I *am* the guy who keeps forgetting his bed.
I finish and continue eastward. Sometimes the mountain range isn't wide enough to need 3 passes, and I'm overflying lowland terrain, but I've got to move the airship, so I map from the air.
There's Taiga here, where it's *also* still winter and where I have to worry about snow accumulation, but I manage reasonably well.
When I'm finally done with the mountains (yay!) I turn north, looking for a spot to land the airship. Immediately I spot this desert hills, looking incongruous in the snowfall. I head over and land. The hill is extra good because it's high and the airship descends slowly, so I'm out faster than I would be normally.
I head east towards the map edge. I'm planning to map this remaining section in circles. But it's still raining, and that makes for a dreary feel even in these pretty trees.
In the forest, though, there is an interesting effect. The RTG Forest canopy is dense enough that the rain is mostly blocked from reaching the ground. It feels like I'm sheltering under trees, which you don't feel with the vanilla shrub trees, because they're too small and sparse, and can't have a largely interlocking canopy due to lighting issues.
As I turn north on the edge of the map, I get this view into a Plains area.
It's still winter and snowing in the bare hills sub-biomes, so I race through them. The snow makes them more noticeable - sometimes they end up lowish and they just don't register; but when they're getting snow, you notice them.
Right after I need to turn west to continue the circuit I spot what looks like dark forest. Fortunately I don't have to go in.
Heading west I find a small lake and take advantage of the boating opportunity.
Further west is a larger lake, but I have to dispatch a creeper dayspawn before I boat it. I then look for the vanilla lighting bug that might have spawned it, find one, and fix it with a temporary torch.
But now it's almost sunset, and I don't have time to boat the lake.
So I plop my bed, watch the sunset, and then hop in for a snooze. But as the bed animation starts I hear -
Zombie Noises! And close!
Next episode: Uhoh, do I even get to sleep?
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Normally I'd guess a cave beneath you, but given the possibility of lighting issues in that version, another guess is that there was another one that spawned a zombie spawned and it detected you and only got close/noticed when you went to sleep.
I'm in bed but there's a zombie walking towards me. Will my sleep get aborted? Will it nightmare me awake in the middle of the night?
Oddly, I go to sleep and the time jumps forward to past the next dawn. Definitely a strain on suspension of disbelief, especially given the zombie is so close to me that when I wake up in the morning:
It knocks me into the water before I even have time to turn around.
This is actually a benefit, as it's on fire but I don't get lit becase I'm in the water. 2 strokes dispatch it.
And this is presumably where it came from. Two vanilla lighting blocks within a couple of blocks, yow!
I boat out the lake, and then continue west through this inviting open terrain.
Near the coast is more forested terrain, including this Mega Taiga. I'm starting to develop ideas for an RTG version of this biome; whether I do it depends on interest. The current 1.12 version is "semi-RTG"; it throws in a few RTG spruce-design trees in a mix of oak and spruce materials; but it's still mostly the vanilla trees. I'm thinking of some 2x2 trees to replace the big vanilla ones, which have disappointing leaf tufts at their tops - RTG can do much better now with the light tracking system.
Then Dark Forest, and I end up running through a small stretch of it. No, I don't know where the new braver Zeno came from either.
Then some Swamp as I go around the intrusive bay with a gravelbar at the entrance, from Episode 109.
I'm getting hungry, and I now work out a system to use all my foods efficiently - eat 6 different items from one lunchbox, then a few slices of cake, then from the other lunchbox, then from the other cake. With that every time I eat something it's been more than 12 "eats" since I ate it, so it's full efficiency. Except for the secondary slices of cake, but that's not a big deal. Even with that cakes give a lot of shanks for the effort to make them.
Then on to a desert, and I yield to temptation to boat the river.
Terrible idea. I end up with parts unmapped on *both* sides of me, so I'll have to do three passes instead of two. This outweighs the almost double speed on the boat. Although it was a nice change, and if it had been a little more to the south or the north I'd have gained some time.
After getting the section above, I check out this coastal Seljuk town. Like most early Millenaire villages, they don't have anything I really want to buy. I sell them some items anyway, including paper and iron, so they potentially might make something in the future.
It's late in the day and I choose to hang around a bit so I can sleep in the village.
Because I traded a few stacks with the Seljuk village next to my starter base, I speak the language. I have news for you, dude, this is NOT Anatolia.
Shortly after leaving the town I have to eat, but all the remaining foods in my current lunchbox have been recently eaten. So I start the plan to eat a couple slice of cake, and then switch lunchboxes. Even hungry, though, I can't quite finish one cake, and since you can't retrive a half-eaten cake, I leave the desultory remaining slices in the desert.
Continuing my loop, I spot a river heading south, into a little pocket of unexplored terrain. It veers west for a while, though, and misses some of the pocket. Sorry you can't see the map; I'm mapping one-handed since the desert is so close in color to unmapped and I need the better visibility; and the interface obscures the relevant part of the map.
There's a vanilla Taiga village right where I need to get back out of the boat, and it's another one that has annoyingly built building *in* the river. I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking about stopping that, although I think that would require some hackerific work on the village generator. Probably not now, though, more likely the next time I try a 1.12 world, which might be a while.
I go north a bit to finish the pocket, and then continue east to finish the circuit.
A sunflower in Taiga? I didn't know that could happen. Doesn't seem to be in the RTG code for Taiga decorations.
Next is some Oak forest, containing possibly the worst vanilla lighting bug I've ever seen. It doesn't go away with a torch, or a dirt block placement. I have to place two dirt blocks to dispatch it.
I've now gone through a quick succession of all the standard forests; Taiga, then regular, then Birch. After Princess Garnet's comments, my eyes are attuned to extra-open forest and I'm noticing it here. The Birch forest ahead is less open; this is because the medium Oaks are very "spready" trees but the birches aren't, so each birch covers less space on the ground.
Then I climb into the foothills of the massive mountain range to the south. Even after 3 mapping passes, there's still some left (OK, that's partly the fault of the absurdly short mapping range). But it's just foothills where I'm walking, nothing problematic like those mountains in the distance.
Then back into a regular Forest, now with a little Spruce mixed in. There's a big wolfpack here and - wow, never tamed a dog in this world. How did that (not) happen?
Now I've finished my clockwise circuit, and I have a minor change of plan. The Desert mountain to the east of me is where I left the airship, and if I just continued spiraling I'd have a little extra to walk to get there. So I turn around to do the next, hopefully last, circuit counterclockwise. Then I'd finish right near the airship.
Next episode: finishing a long expedition and seeing the results.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The villages in rivers can be fixed by re-adding the code the game used to ensure that village building can only generate in specific biomes; prior to 1.10 this is the same as the biomes they can spawn in; while removing this allows for more (around a third of villages completely fail since the start was too close to another biome to add anything else) and larger villages I prefer not having them generate in other biomes at all:
It would probably be better to invert the check if you only want to exclude a few biomes, e.g rivers and oceans since otherwise every valid biome needs to be added to the list.
I also changed this a bit myself; I added villages to Savanna Plateau but they can only generate within that biome and other villages can only generate within other valid biomes, avoiding villages that cross between the two (and up the slopes):
// List of all biomes that villages can spawn in
private static final List validSpawnBiomes = Arrays.asList(new BiomeGenBase[] {BiomeGenBase.plains, BiomeGenBase.desert, BiomeGenBase.desertM, BiomeGenBase.savanna, BiomeGenBase.icePlains, BiomeGenBase.meadow, BiomeGenBase.savannaPlateau});
// List of all biomes that villages can generate into (excludes Savanna Plateau, which is handled separately)
private static final List validBiomes = Arrays.asList(new BiomeGenBase[] {BiomeGenBase.plains, BiomeGenBase.desert, BiomeGenBase.desertM, BiomeGenBase.savanna, BiomeGenBase.icePlains, BiomeGenBase.meadow});
// Used by Savanna Plateau villages
private static final List savannaPlateau = Arrays.asList(new BiomeGenBase[] {BiomeGenBase.savannaPlateau});
public static final List getValidBiomes(int biomeType)
{
return (biomeType == SAVANNA_PLATEAU ? savannaPlateau : validBiomes);
}
An example of a Savanna Plateau village; the start/well is located at the bottom-center and would normally have paths in all four directions (unless blocked by a previously added path and its buildings) but they only generated into the biome (you may also notice a lot of lighting errors under the trees, which for the most part are fixed by post-generation light checks, but not immediately, or more than 7 chunks away, the chuck ticking range*):
*A video somebody made while flying in Creative in TMCW, showing how numerous these lighting errors actually are, more easily seen after the sun starts to rise (vanilla fixes most of them as well, if much more slowly and less reliably, especially when moving back and forth since as soon as a chunk gets unloaded the game forgets if it needed its light checks run, 1.7 fixed this by adding a new NBT tag, as I did, and also relights chunks differently, e.g. it seems to be what caused the infamous stuttering from "clientside chunk ticking" in 1.7):
After Princess Garnet's comments, my eyes are attuned to extra-open forest and I'm noticing it here. The Birch forest ahead is less open; this is because the medium Oaks are very "spready" trees but the birches aren't, so each birch covers less space on the ground.
Speaking of which...
I started Minecraft for the first time in some months yesterday, and it was because I was playing with seeds and reading this thread lately, so I was thinking how these sorts of trees would look in current Minecraft generation under more conditions, since I only tried Better Forests that one time.
There were a lot of forests of what I believe are the largest oak trees and the largest birch trees. Things were indeed quite dense. Are the trees in Better Forests not as spread as they are in RTG? Or, is this a case of variety and my sample size? Seeing how much taller these birch trees were as they were completely dwarfing a nearby dark oak forest (which surprised me as it was still vanilla) was something.
Are the closer trees because you can only change what the trees are like, and not where they are, with newer versions of the game? If so, I can see why this is the result because vanilla trees are very close together as they are generally very small.
I also noticed the ground in forests doesn't have the patches of podzol, fallen logs, or brushes like RTG does. If the forests are less dense, these sorts of things seem like they would be more welcome as it would help break up the monotony on the ground. With dense forests, too much of that (referring to brush especially) might result in them being too much like temperate jungles though, so I'm wondering if you didn't add them because the forests are more dense?
You should update to the release version of Better Forests; it has a Dark Forest.
The Better Forests aren't supposed to be different from the RTG forests in density; I'll crawl through the code to see if I changed something. I mentioned these forests I've been seeing lately seem unusually sparse.
I was never fond of the Podzol patches - I thought they looked blotchy. There are occasional bushes, but very occasional. Fallen logs I just didn't get around to. Bushes and logs wouldn't be hard to do but Podzol would due to the total overhaul of the decoration system.
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Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I originally thought the same thing about the podzol spots when i saw them in pictures. "I get what it's going for, but... I'm not sure if I like it or not". I didn't dislike it either though, so I largely felt indifferent about it. However, it was after trying RTG that it won me over. I was basing my opinion just on my experience with vanilla forests, plus what I had seen of RTG in pictures, and I felt podzol would just look bad in vanilla forests, and the screenshots of RTG had me feeling mixed at best. When I tried RTG though, I came away with a changed opinion. Because of the forests being more sparse and open in RTG, it really works. The floor of forests really benefits from that added variety. Better Forests should, in theory, benefit all the same as RTG does... at least, if the forests being so dense in Better Forests isn't the norm as it seems to be.
I'll try updating Better Forests tomorrow when I have more time and patience. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I tried a new seed and now the game is misbehaving on me. This only ever seems to happen with Forge and RTG or Better Forests, but that's not to say it's entirely the fault of either of those and not something with my PC or how I have things set up in combination with it. I started the new seed and after about only three minutes in, my display went Black. I initially panicked and thought that issue with my PC/video card had returned, but I noticed it didn't restart and my mouse cursor was there, so the Silver lining (I guess?) to this bad situation is that it's not the same issue before and my PC wasn't crashing, but something is definitely going awry with the game instance. The logs for the game mention a lot of errors I don't understand at the same time/after this loss of display from the game occurs, so I presume they are related. I'm not sure if it's being caused by Better Forests though, and even if it is, I don't know if it would be out of place to post them in this thread so I won't.
I tried starting the game again and it did it again, almost immediately this time (five or so seconds in, so... maybe something in that particular spot in that particular seed?). I haven't tried another world to see if it's due to something with this seed though. I'll update it some other day and see where that gets me.
In the meantime, I'll be relying on this thread for my fix of better trees!
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Curse PremiumEpisode 110: The Beginning of the End (no, not *that* one)
I've reached the northern tip of the continent, and completed exploring the entire coast, at the same time. I still want to finish exploring the interior, of course, but since the water is all explored, it's time to
Take to the air.
Here both considerations apply: I'm currently at the northern tip of the continent, so I wouldn't want to leave the airship here, and although the very tip of the peninsula is this bucolic terrain, most of it is pretty rugged mountains.
After finishing this little region on the end, that's where I go.
Once I'm done with a little bit of unmapped mountain in the north, I head for the main unmapped region. I switch to one-hand mapping because I've noticed that it's easier to miss stray dots when I'm mapping two-handed - and indeed, I see that I missed some dots on the right side of the peninsula when I originally mapped it.
So I adjust my mapping plans a bit. I head south along the west edge.
These go on for a while but eventually I reach the end.
Then I go back north to finish the main section, past this pretty decent approximation to a U-shaped glacial valley.
Then back south on the coast where the missed dots are. I guess I missed them because I was avoiding that really sharp ridge to my right.
With this mountain area done, it's time to land and switch to ground exploration. I'm hungry, so I plop another cheesecake on the ground and have a few slices.
From here, I head west. As it turns out, the remaining large areas, plus a few small mountain areas in the east that I didn't map, back when I wasn't as systematic, form a giant arc. The arc starts with the largest remaining area, to the northeast. My rough plan is to do them in sequence. I'm not sure how much I can finish before I need to head back to the chateau for a break, although I'm hoping to get this entire northeastern area done. It's pretty big, and we'll have to see.
You probably noticed the dark forest on my left and I start by walking its edge, next to this birch forest.
This large lake permit a little fast boating exploration. After it the dark forest pulls back from the coast, but I stay near the coast to stay adjacent to my coastal explorations from last episode.
The westernmost part is a hot zone, and as I reach it I find this sandy watering hole. The Savanna ahead looks rather lush in its saturated spring colors.
The Savanna is relatively small, and soon I transition to desert. I notice the sun is heading down, and of course *now* I notice that once again I have
- you know it -
forgotten my bed.
I might find sheep in that Forest there, but probably not in the time I have. I remember I passed a Millenaire village on the coast ahead, so I race ahead trying to get there before dark.
I don't make it. Grudgingly I start pillaring up for the long night.
As I do I see the village was *just* ahead. But I didn't know exactly where it was, and even if I got there it could take time to find an unoccupied bed. This is Hardcore, and I can't take chances.
I construct a little hidey-hole on top of the pillar so I don't have to worry about Skeleton fire, and resign myself to watching the stars pass for the night. IRL, I fix some tea and play timewaster games on my phone to pass the time.
Come morning I dig back down, finding *no* mobs at all waiting for me. I hadn't heard any roast when the sun came up either. That's pretty unusual; I'm used to sometimes fairly substantial greeting parties after a night on a pillar. No idea what happened there.
Then I head over to the village, partly to see if the village was the reason for that odd forest grass area in the Mesa I saw last episode.
It seems not to be, though; the region is south of the village. It's not the biome, either; it's Mesa Plateau F on both sides of the boundary here. This is not a big enough issue for me to deal with debugging right now, so I continue exploring.
Time to start a pass back east, and a river gives me a convenient way through the Mesa plateaus.
I stay on the river for a while, but it's heading too much to the south, and after a while I have to get out and head back north.
I map the rest of the hot zone, and then head into this big tree Oak forest that was next to me when I noticed I was missing my bed. Good thing I didn't look for sheep here because there aren't any.
Next is some Swamp, but I still need to find some sheep for a bed, plus I don't want to slog through a swamp right this minute, so I turn south.
I go back into Birch Forest - no sheep here either - and then cross this unusually sharp forest ridgeline before reaching the river again (I'm looking back in this pic).
And then, fi-nal-ly, I find some sheep. Since I was carrying iron to make maps for mapping, I can just shear it.
With my bed problem solved, I can continue exploring the fresh spring terrain.
Next episode: well, maybe a little bit of mountain exploration after all.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
That was quite brave to leave the game unattended in hardcore. I do not, for any reason, allow myself to do that. That's not entirely true because there was one time I reached away for like five to ten seconds (I left myself in my basement, looking relatively towards the ground in case an enderman teleported into view or something), and even that I shouldn't have done. If I need to do something for 5 or more seconds, I pause it. The risk may be low, but it's always higher than if I pause it, and if something happens, I can't react right away.
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Curse PremiumI don't feel very brave here. I was 25 blocks in the air, surrounded by a 2 high wall I was looking at. There's no phantoms in this version. I'd have to have had an Enderman teleport on top of the wall and then fall into the little central area with me, or something similarly insanely flukey. (and I didn't even think about that kind of thing until you mentioned it.) I really don't think that's a meaningful risk.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The risks may be low... but it's never zero (like they are when it's paused), haha.
The only reason I thought of a random enderman teleport was because I've had it happen to me. I stepped away while in my mountainside tunnel network which was properly lit and blocked off everywhere from mob access... other than something that could teleport inside, that is, so I came back to see one walking around near where I was looking. I didn't step away but for maybe a minute or two.
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Curse PremiumEpisode 111: A Little Past the Beginning of Not That End
Now that my sleeping arrangments are fixed, I want to finish off mapping this peninsula. And in front of me lies the sentinel mountain on the coast I commented on two episodes ago. RTG Mountains can be a bit of a hassle, but I figure this is small enough I can just map around it.
Incorrectly.
And I do get some good views as compensation.
Then back to some strikingly open Oak forest. It's so open I check to see if there's some plains mixed in, but, no, it's just RTG Plus forest variety at work.
Next I'm back into some similarly thin Birch Forest, although here a bit of Extreme Hills subbiome scrambles the interpretation.
Avoiding that swamp area last time only put off going through it. I've had a cycle of attitude toward swamp - early in this journal I was getting annoyed because it's slow going, and then I got appreciative as I was trying to build up my sugarcane supply. Now I'm done with making maps, and I'm back to annoyed.
Another well placed scenic lake bails me out of some of the swamp slog.
I continue into the Birch Forest you see, but sunset is approaching. I spot an barren hills sub-biome (Extreme Hills technically, but it looks different when small) and head over, because I like some clear space around when sleeping. But right then it starts snowing! As I've mentioned several times, in the Serene Seasons mod, Extreme Hills and Taiga effectively stay in Winter when everything else is in Spring and Autumn.
I desparately pillar up (I'm a bit worried about duskrainspawning) and toss down my bed, fortunately fast enough to prevent substantial snow accumulation.
Now, though, I spot some dark forest. And I switch from my recent system of wrapping around the explorations I've just been doing to try to map it out.
A conveniently placed river grants me access to the interior, so this is looking promising.
It's on a map edge, though, and that can create trouble, since I can't map dark forest on one map from a clearing on the other.
Coming around the south end it's looking a little problematic, but that Birch Forest area you see grants me access to a small clearing and from there I get it all mapped. Yay!
To the east is yet more dark forest, but I manage to map it with the help of the same river, which, incidentally, is the river into dark forest I saw from the coast 2 episodes ago that I said might be useful. Indeed it is.
Then there's a stretch of plains, easy-to-map apart from this one ravine hazard.
When I reach the east end of the map and turn back for a last pass west, I'm near the south edge of the map. So I use the map edge wiggle technique to get some mapping done on both maps.
But there's an Extreme Hills region *right* on the edge getting in the way. I have to maneuver around it and back up a bit to finish the south map, plus I trip a couple times like here.
When I reach the ocean - with another nicely placed swamp acting as a river delta - I'm done with this map. If I can finish the one to the south (which TBF has a lot left) I'll be done with the entirely of the northwest one of the areas I had left to map - and it was the largest, so my schedule is looking good!
For now, I proceed along the coastline, on the edge of this relatively small tree forest. I've found coastal exploration leaves boundaries a bit rough for systematic east-west or north-south mapping. After one pass inland along the coast then maybe I'll switch.
I hit some Taiga, which I haven't seen for a while. The Oak trees are RTG tree variety. In the Better Forests port of the trees to modern minecraft, "foreign" trees show up more "logically" - when the climate is close to that kind of forest. In 1.12, though, climate information isn't available at the appropriate stage of generation, so I use an arbitrary Perlin noise.
Night falls and I enjoy a treetop sunset.
Like I said, still winter here in the Taiga - even though the colors here are Spring. It's a bit off.
I come across a Japanese village, but I have everything I need to finish mapping this continent, and I've shown plenty of them, so I just pass through.
And now I get a third dark forest challenge, in one episode. Fun (not)
A well placed clearing lets me get the mapping connected to the coast.
Then mapping from the east edge lets me get everything except ONE DOT. I decide that's not worth the effort of treetopping, and I just leave it.
And now I realize I've made a mistake. I had been planning to leave a strip unexplored on the east edge of the unmapped region, to bring the airship back from the north. But I forgot that when I got wrapped up mapping the first dark forest I handled this episode and now I'll have to walk back to the airship and bring it back south, wasting the travel because I've already mapped the route. I think I should go back and fetch it now before I end up wasting even more time. So...
Next episode: Back to the Airship!
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The mountain climb was worth it for the llamas. I initially get surprised when I see some in your pictures because I keep thinking they are pretty rare (because they are these days), before realizing they probably aren't rare for you because I don't think they were as rare back then.
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Curse PremiumYeah, llamas are very common in my game - they show up often in Extreme Hills, which composes most of the mountain ranges in my game *and* is used as a barren hills sub-biome in most temperate biomes. Spitting noises are everywhere!
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I guess it may have 1.18+ where they became less common then.
My oldest world that I was playing a lot back then comprised of terrain generation from before llamas were even added. And my much recent interest in playing comprises of terrain from 1.18+.
I did start a second world in 1.16 but I didn't really do so much exploring in that one. I do recall seeing llamas around extreme hills though, which were still rather common. In1.18 and later, mountains more or less replace those and they seem to only show up in windswept hills, and those don't seem as common.
Llamas need more viable spawn locations. I want to see them more.
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Curse PremiumEpisode 112: More the Middle of the Beginning of Not That End
On the way to pick up the airship, which I've left in the north, I am of course mapping as practical on the way. I move into an Extreme Hills biomes but I don't see any mountains ahead so this is likely just a foothills region.
And it is, affording a nice view of the mixed terrain ahead.
The mountains are here, to the side. This is yet another great spot for a build; this low rise would provide views of the terrain all around, plus the mountain view. This world would have worked out better as a multiyear world; with a lot more building and slower exploration; but as has happened to me several times before my modding plans have interfered with my playing plans, as I'd like to give Better Forests a whirl but I'd really like to finish my goal of completely exploring a continent. If it weren't for that, maybe it would have made sense to put this world aside, but now I'm having ideas of a broader rework for sub-biomes in Geographicraft, which would make me want to play a different 1.12 world, with a big set of modded biomes. In the end, there's never enough time.
Continuing into the forest ahead, I find and kill a zombie dayspawn. I look around, but can't find a lighting glitch it might have come from.
When I reach the edge of the map, I continue on to the next map east, for planning purposes. I'm thinking I can get all of this (large) unmapped area on this expedition, and I want to make sure I get everything. It would be so annoying to have to come back out here.
Then I head on to the next map north, where I left the airship. I left it near the coast, but on the way I figure I'll go ahead and map out this smallish area. Right after I start I get this nice view of a hillside Flower Forest.
I see a LOT of Flower Forests, because I explore a lot, and I've gotten somewhat jaded by them. But it's been a bit since I last saw one, and I luxuriate in the display a bit.
Ahead is a Snowy area with a little variety from sub-biomes. In one of the first Java worlds I played, I started in a 1.6 era Snowy Zone. It was just plains, and with the shorter view distances possible at the time, it was a little visually boring. This is better.
There's a bit of an intrusion of temperate biomes on the way to the Ice mountains, with a Forest Hills in Plains. This was always one of my favorite sub-biomes, even in vanilla, and I got a nice positive impression of the 1.7 update because my first spawn was facing one (was Forest Hills as a Plains sub-biome added for 1.7? I can't remember for sure, and I couldn't find exactly when online, even in the Minecraft Wiki history.)
Next to the Ice Mountains is this little pool, that could be interpreted as a glacial melt pool.
Then into the huge Ice Spikes area.
The sun is setting as I finish mappping out this region, so I bed-plop in the Ice Plains.
In the morning I head north to the coast where I think I left the airship. This bit of Dark Forest is too narrow to be dangerous.
But - it's not where I thought it was? I climb over this small ridge to check right against the coast and it's not there either.
Eventually I find it (it takes a while). It was actually pretty close to where I was when I headed north to look for it. It had been several days of real time since I left it. I should have checked my screenshot folder, or my posts - that's one of the advantages of journaling!
Indeed, I spot those Flower Forested Hills again as I'm taking off and starting south.
I head on to the next map south, where I start with a strip on the west edge. Here's a rocky hills sub-biome in a forest; unusually rugged for a sub-biome; a crag of sorts.
There's a larger area to map towards the middle and I decide to do it on foot for interest, so I land in a forest clearing on the map edge. Forest clearings are IMO one of the biggest wins of the new Geo sub-biome system and it's a pity modern minecraft has removed the one type *it* could generate, clearings in Roofed Forest. I'm thinking of adding clearings to Better Forests, my port of these trees to modern Minecraft.
Then, right after it, one of my other favorite view types from the RTG + Geo combo, Plains with scattered tree sub-biomes.
Just beyond that is the Mesa mountain range I flew over way back in Episode 52. But it's already mapped so I'm not going there today.
The south of this region is a Extreme Hills area, but I'm just on the edge of it and I don't have to deal with any difficult ridges, so it's easy enough to map from the ground.
With this region mapped, I return to the airship as night falls.
Next Episode: Maybe a little *too* much mountain overflights.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
This is it; this right here is what I think the Gold standard should be for forests.
The canopy is high enough off the ground, and the trees aren't so clustered, and this combination results in feeling like you're in a forest, while still having good visibility.
Of course, more dense forests should also exist, and ones with smaller heights should also exist, but I think this should more or less be the baseline they strive to be.
While I like the idea of forests with clearings, as well as the inverse of plains with small patches of trees, it felt like those two things were happening a little too often for my liking when I tried RTG.
This might be a matter of preference though. Maybe I was too used to 1.18+ where, due to the larger region sizes, there's many spots where it's vast plains and I didn't seem to see that as often as i would have liked in RTG. It seemed like pretty often there was breaks in forests for clearings, and breaks in plains for patches of trees, and while the concept alone is great, I think with smaller biome/region sizes, this happening so often ironically blends the two together a bit much for me and makes things feel more monotonous on a larger scale (whereas 1.18+ does this better on the larger scale, it can have the opposite problem of being more monotonous on the smaller scale due to its larger biome/region sizes).
If you don't plan to change the biome/region sizes for Better Forests, then I think this concept might fit better in that than it currently does in RTG. Again, that's a matter of preference though. I only tried Better Forests once in a creative test world before I started losing interest in playing for the time being, but I really liked what little I saw.
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Curse PremiumThat's an interesting take; this is about as open as RTG (or Better) forests ever get. The norm is quite a bit denser, influenced by my experience with real forests, which are generally fairly dense, although there are certainly exceptions in montaine and dryland forest, etc. But I'm open to being convinced, and this does tempt me to make some configs to adjust density.
Edit: I'm aware this *looks* prettier, but as you know I lean more to realism. I like places like this to exist, but be special.
I'd have to use a completely different system for clearings in Better Forests, because there's no sub-biome system. I have the tools; we used to use them in RTG before I put the clearings into Geo making them unnecessary. There would be a fair amount of flexibility (and probably a lot of variation) in how dense they would come out.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Yes, I know that would be a bit sparse compared to an average forest in real life, but if mimicking real life and making something better for gameplay (while still matching up with real life pretty well anyway) are at odds, I'd probably go with the one better for gameplay. That's how I was looking at it.
Whenever I played RTG, those forests were my favorite to find, and the ones I wanted to do something with (make a house in, put paths in, etc.). It's fine if they don't get more sparse than that (if they do, they'd start feeling less like formal forests and more like... sparse trees), and it's fine if forests more dense than that commonly exist. But if I think about what I'd want in the ideal forest in vanilla... that's it right there. Ones with lower canopies and denser trees, such as the medium forests tend to be like, are also fine though. Either of those is a tenfold improvement on the cluster of large bushes vanilla has going on for the majority of its forests.
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Curse PremiumEpisode 113: Approaching the End of the Beginning of the - oh never mind I'm running this joke into the ground
The southern area of this big northeast area I'm mapping is a giant mountain range running all the way to the coast, more than 3000 blocks from here, with a big "knot" of mountains at the end. *This* I want the airship for.
It's dusk, but I can map from the airship at night, and some night mapping would be a nice change, so I head off towards the mountains rather than sleeping for the night.
I overfly the Japanese village I found in Episode 33. It felt a lot bigger on the ground. I remember that ridge to the right of it seemed *huge*.
Now I'm on to the next map west (1 north and 1 west of the chateau). This is most of what I have left to map on this expedition, although the big knot of mountains is on the map SW of here (I *said* this was a big mountain range).
I map away, appreciating the feel of the night.
I follow the range on to the next map south. It's almost all Extreme Hills except for that one spot of Ice Mountains.
And finally I reach the "knot" of mountains on the map west of that (2 west of the chateau).
There's another small area of Ice Mountains here.
I fly around the edge of the knot, against the coast, and then start roughly up and down to finish the exterior.
The sun is about to rise, and I'm still nowhere close to done with the mountains. Way less to talk about than with 20 minutes of ground exploration, that's for sure. As I'm mapping, I'm hit with a bit of regret that I didn't map this area on the ground.
The RTG version of Extreme Hills has a ridge and valley structure. Inland it's hard to map because the ridges often make accessing the valleys rather difficult (and sometimes the valleys get pretty rugged too.) But here the ocean provides access to the valleys in this knot, so I could have done at least most of them, one by one, accessing them from the sea. And that would have given much more of a story to write about.
Of course, to do that, I'd have to *be* on the sea, so the logical time would have been when I was first exploring the coast. So maybe I should make that a rule of thumb - explore mountain valleys I can see from coastal exploration. But - I'm done with coastal exploration on this world, and after this I think my next world will be in modern Minecraft (to play Better Forests). So - it's a little late for that rule. Ah, regrets.
And then, soon, another regret -
Snow (it's still winter in the mountains). After sunrise, of course, so I can't sleep it off. So now I face 20 minutes of avoiding snow accumulation. Bleah.
Nothing to be done for it, really - I suppose I could fly off to somewhere not snowy and AFK the day, but that sure would be boring - so I finish off mapping the knot in the snow, going as fast as I can. Because I'm going back and forth, there is some snow accumulation, but it doesn't look too bad in the mountains.
Now I head back east, on to the next map, on my return leg. This mountain range is so thick it's taking three passes - one pass east to west in Episode 108 when I came out here, then another east to west at the start of this episode, and then this west to east.
There's a bit of non-mountain area that's not going to be mapped by this pass and I turn around to get it. I'd want to do this bit on the ground, but I'm concerned I might forget it. Remember I *am* the guy who keeps forgetting his bed.
I finish and continue eastward. Sometimes the mountain range isn't wide enough to need 3 passes, and I'm overflying lowland terrain, but I've got to move the airship, so I map from the air.
There's Taiga here, where it's *also* still winter and where I have to worry about snow accumulation, but I manage reasonably well.
When I'm finally done with the mountains (yay!) I turn north, looking for a spot to land the airship. Immediately I spot this desert hills, looking incongruous in the snowfall. I head over and land. The hill is extra good because it's high and the airship descends slowly, so I'm out faster than I would be normally.
I head east towards the map edge. I'm planning to map this remaining section in circles. But it's still raining, and that makes for a dreary feel even in these pretty trees.
In the forest, though, there is an interesting effect. The RTG Forest canopy is dense enough that the rain is mostly blocked from reaching the ground. It feels like I'm sheltering under trees, which you don't feel with the vanilla shrub trees, because they're too small and sparse, and can't have a largely interlocking canopy due to lighting issues.
As I turn north on the edge of the map, I get this view into a Plains area.
It's still winter and snowing in the bare hills sub-biomes, so I race through them. The snow makes them more noticeable - sometimes they end up lowish and they just don't register; but when they're getting snow, you notice them.
Right after I need to turn west to continue the circuit I spot what looks like dark forest. Fortunately I don't have to go in.
Heading west I find a small lake and take advantage of the boating opportunity.
Further west is a larger lake, but I have to dispatch a creeper dayspawn before I boat it. I then look for the vanilla lighting bug that might have spawned it, find one, and fix it with a temporary torch.
But now it's almost sunset, and I don't have time to boat the lake.
So I plop my bed, watch the sunset, and then hop in for a snooze. But as the bed animation starts I hear -
Zombie Noises! And close!
Next episode: Uhoh, do I even get to sleep?
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
Normally I'd guess a cave beneath you, but given the possibility of lighting issues in that version, another guess is that there was another one that spawned a zombie spawned and it detected you and only got close/noticed when you went to sleep.
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Curse PremiumEpisode 114: Dangerous Dawn Drama
I'm in bed but there's a zombie walking towards me. Will my sleep get aborted? Will it nightmare me awake in the middle of the night?
Oddly, I go to sleep and the time jumps forward to past the next dawn. Definitely a strain on suspension of disbelief, especially given the zombie is so close to me that when I wake up in the morning:
It knocks me into the water before I even have time to turn around.
This is actually a benefit, as it's on fire but I don't get lit becase I'm in the water. 2 strokes dispatch it.
And this is presumably where it came from. Two vanilla lighting blocks within a couple of blocks, yow!
I boat out the lake, and then continue west through this inviting open terrain.
Near the coast is more forested terrain, including this Mega Taiga. I'm starting to develop ideas for an RTG version of this biome; whether I do it depends on interest. The current 1.12 version is "semi-RTG"; it throws in a few RTG spruce-design trees in a mix of oak and spruce materials; but it's still mostly the vanilla trees. I'm thinking of some 2x2 trees to replace the big vanilla ones, which have disappointing leaf tufts at their tops - RTG can do much better now with the light tracking system.
Then Dark Forest, and I end up running through a small stretch of it. No, I don't know where the new braver Zeno came from either.
Then some Swamp as I go around the intrusive bay with a gravelbar at the entrance, from Episode 109.
I'm getting hungry, and I now work out a system to use all my foods efficiently - eat 6 different items from one lunchbox, then a few slices of cake, then from the other lunchbox, then from the other cake. With that every time I eat something it's been more than 12 "eats" since I ate it, so it's full efficiency. Except for the secondary slices of cake, but that's not a big deal. Even with that cakes give a lot of shanks for the effort to make them.
Then on to a desert, and I yield to temptation to boat the river.
Terrible idea. I end up with parts unmapped on *both* sides of me, so I'll have to do three passes instead of two. This outweighs the almost double speed on the boat. Although it was a nice change, and if it had been a little more to the south or the north I'd have gained some time.
After getting the section above, I check out this coastal Seljuk town. Like most early Millenaire villages, they don't have anything I really want to buy. I sell them some items anyway, including paper and iron, so they potentially might make something in the future.
It's late in the day and I choose to hang around a bit so I can sleep in the village.
Because I traded a few stacks with the Seljuk village next to my starter base, I speak the language. I have news for you, dude, this is NOT Anatolia.
Shortly after leaving the town I have to eat, but all the remaining foods in my current lunchbox have been recently eaten. So I start the plan to eat a couple slice of cake, and then switch lunchboxes. Even hungry, though, I can't quite finish one cake, and since you can't retrive a half-eaten cake, I leave the desultory remaining slices in the desert.
Continuing my loop, I spot a river heading south, into a little pocket of unexplored terrain. It veers west for a while, though, and misses some of the pocket. Sorry you can't see the map; I'm mapping one-handed since the desert is so close in color to unmapped and I need the better visibility; and the interface obscures the relevant part of the map.
There's a vanilla Taiga village right where I need to get back out of the boat, and it's another one that has annoyingly built building *in* the river. I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking about stopping that, although I think that would require some hackerific work on the village generator. Probably not now, though, more likely the next time I try a 1.12 world, which might be a while.
I go north a bit to finish the pocket, and then continue east to finish the circuit.
A sunflower in Taiga? I didn't know that could happen. Doesn't seem to be in the RTG code for Taiga decorations.
Next is some Oak forest, containing possibly the worst vanilla lighting bug I've ever seen. It doesn't go away with a torch, or a dirt block placement. I have to place two dirt blocks to dispatch it.
I've now gone through a quick succession of all the standard forests; Taiga, then regular, then Birch. After Princess Garnet's comments, my eyes are attuned to extra-open forest and I'm noticing it here. The Birch forest ahead is less open; this is because the medium Oaks are very "spready" trees but the birches aren't, so each birch covers less space on the ground.
Then I climb into the foothills of the massive mountain range to the south. Even after 3 mapping passes, there's still some left (OK, that's partly the fault of the absurdly short mapping range). But it's just foothills where I'm walking, nothing problematic like those mountains in the distance.
Then back into a regular Forest, now with a little Spruce mixed in. There's a big wolfpack here and - wow, never tamed a dog in this world. How did that (not) happen?
Now I've finished my clockwise circuit, and I have a minor change of plan. The Desert mountain to the east of me is where I left the airship, and if I just continued spiraling I'd have a little extra to walk to get there. So I turn around to do the next, hopefully last, circuit counterclockwise. Then I'd finish right near the airship.
Next episode: finishing a long expedition and seeing the results.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
The villages in rivers can be fixed by re-adding the code the game used to ensure that village building can only generate in specific biomes; prior to 1.10 this is the same as the biomes they can spawn in; while removing this allows for more (around a third of villages completely fail since the start was too close to another biome to add anything else) and larger villages I prefer not having them generate in other biomes at all:
if (par0ComponentVillageStartPiece.getWorldChunkManager().areBiomesViable(var9, var10, var13 / 2 + 4, MapGenVillage.villageSpawnBiomes)) { par1List.add(var8); par0ComponentVillageStartPiece.field_74932_i.add(var8); return var8; }It would probably be better to invert the check if you only want to exclude a few biomes, e.g rivers and oceans since otherwise every valid biome needs to be added to the list.
I also changed this a bit myself; I added villages to Savanna Plateau but they can only generate within that biome and other villages can only generate within other valid biomes, avoiding villages that cross between the two (and up the slopes):
// List of all biomes that villages can spawn in private static final List validSpawnBiomes = Arrays.asList(new BiomeGenBase[] {BiomeGenBase.plains, BiomeGenBase.desert, BiomeGenBase.desertM, BiomeGenBase.savanna, BiomeGenBase.icePlains, BiomeGenBase.meadow, BiomeGenBase.savannaPlateau}); // List of all biomes that villages can generate into (excludes Savanna Plateau, which is handled separately) private static final List validBiomes = Arrays.asList(new BiomeGenBase[] {BiomeGenBase.plains, BiomeGenBase.desert, BiomeGenBase.desertM, BiomeGenBase.savanna, BiomeGenBase.icePlains, BiomeGenBase.meadow}); // Used by Savanna Plateau villages private static final List savannaPlateau = Arrays.asList(new BiomeGenBase[] {BiomeGenBase.savannaPlateau}); public static final List getValidBiomes(int biomeType) { return (biomeType == SAVANNA_PLATEAU ? savannaPlateau : validBiomes); }An example of a Savanna Plateau village; the start/well is located at the bottom-center and would normally have paths in all four directions (unless blocked by a previously added path and its buildings) but they only generated into the biome (you may also notice a lot of lighting errors under the trees, which for the most part are fixed by post-generation light checks, but not immediately, or more than 7 chunks away, the chuck ticking range*):
*A video somebody made while flying in Creative in TMCW, showing how numerous these lighting errors actually are, more easily seen after the sun starts to rise (vanilla fixes most of them as well, if much more slowly and less reliably, especially when moving back and forth since as soon as a chunk gets unloaded the game forgets if it needed its light checks run, 1.7 fixed this by adding a new NBT tag, as I did, and also relights chunks differently, e.g. it seems to be what caused the infamous stuttering from "clientside chunk ticking" in 1.7):
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?
Speaking of which...
I started Minecraft for the first time in some months yesterday, and it was because I was playing with seeds and reading this thread lately, so I was thinking how these sorts of trees would look in current Minecraft generation under more conditions, since I only tried Better Forests that one time.
There were a lot of forests of what I believe are the largest oak trees and the largest birch trees. Things were indeed quite dense. Are the trees in Better Forests not as spread as they are in RTG? Or, is this a case of variety and my sample size? Seeing how much taller these birch trees were as they were completely dwarfing a nearby dark oak forest (which surprised me as it was still vanilla) was something.
Are the closer trees because you can only change what the trees are like, and not where they are, with newer versions of the game? If so, I can see why this is the result because vanilla trees are very close together as they are generally very small.
I also noticed the ground in forests doesn't have the patches of podzol, fallen logs, or brushes like RTG does. If the forests are less dense, these sorts of things seem like they would be more welcome as it would help break up the monotony on the ground. With dense forests, too much of that (referring to brush especially) might result in them being too much like temperate jungles though, so I'm wondering if you didn't add them because the forests are more dense?
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Curse PremiumYou should update to the release version of Better Forests; it has a Dark Forest.
The Better Forests aren't supposed to be different from the RTG forests in density; I'll crawl through the code to see if I changed something. I mentioned these forests I've been seeing lately seem unusually sparse.
I was never fond of the Podzol patches - I thought they looked blotchy. There are occasional bushes, but very occasional. Fallen logs I just didn't get around to. Bushes and logs wouldn't be hard to do but Podzol would due to the total overhaul of the decoration system.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Better Forests Varied and beautiful trees and forests, in modern Minecraft.
I originally thought the same thing about the podzol spots when i saw them in pictures. "I get what it's going for, but... I'm not sure if I like it or not". I didn't dislike it either though, so I largely felt indifferent about it. However, it was after trying RTG that it won me over. I was basing my opinion just on my experience with vanilla forests, plus what I had seen of RTG in pictures, and I felt podzol would just look bad in vanilla forests, and the screenshots of RTG had me feeling mixed at best. When I tried RTG though, I came away with a changed opinion. Because of the forests being more sparse and open in RTG, it really works. The floor of forests really benefits from that added variety. Better Forests should, in theory, benefit all the same as RTG does... at least, if the forests being so dense in Better Forests isn't the norm as it seems to be.
I'll try updating Better Forests tomorrow when I have more time and patience. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I tried a new seed and now the game is misbehaving on me. This only ever seems to happen with Forge and RTG or Better Forests, but that's not to say it's entirely the fault of either of those and not something with my PC or how I have things set up in combination with it. I started the new seed and after about only three minutes in, my display went Black. I initially panicked and thought that issue with my PC/video card had returned, but I noticed it didn't restart and my mouse cursor was there, so the Silver lining (I guess?) to this bad situation is that it's not the same issue before and my PC wasn't crashing, but something is definitely going awry with the game instance. The logs for the game mention a lot of errors I don't understand at the same time/after this loss of display from the game occurs, so I presume they are related. I'm not sure if it's being caused by Better Forests though, and even if it is, I don't know if it would be out of place to post them in this thread so I won't.
I tried starting the game again and it did it again, almost immediately this time (five or so seconds in, so... maybe something in that particular spot in that particular seed?). I haven't tried another world to see if it's due to something with this seed though. I'll update it some other day and see where that gets me.
In the meantime, I'll be relying on this thread for my fix of better trees!
It sounds like you may have the same issue mentioned here, due to a recent AMD driver update (24.6.1):
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/support/java-edition-support/3202883-minecraft-java-launches-to-black-screen-after-amd
MC-274190 Black screen after AMD Adrenalin 24.6.1 driver update
Also of interest, the latest driver actually fixed the memory leak that affects all versions before 1.8 (just over two years late):
https://www.reddit.com/r/GoldenAgeMinecraft/comments/1f4vbrk/amd_just_fixed_the_memory_leak_bug/
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?