Minecraft Forums

8

Ahhh! Fresh start. always excited. Here's my spawn point. Pretty nice spot huh?


I need safe spot til I can get sorted and a place to hide in the situation that I die away from spawn and it's night. This little wall looked quite fitting, and happened to be right around the corner from exact spawn.


Sadly, no animals in the immediate area so I'ma have to get food by other means. a pathetic start, I know.


It's getting dark and I have yet to make a bed.. The seeds I got from grass haven't grown to wheat yet, I'm ready for the night!


So far so good, let the zombie siege begin. I also kill sheep I find as I defend myself so that I can get wool for a bed asap.


Let's get back to day! Oh wait. >.> I placed my bed after digging out a bit of that wall from earlier, turns out there is a cave right below me with a few monsters in it. That is bad luck.


At least I got a carrot from a zombie and can add to my farm!


Found the cave with the monsters that were keeping me from sleeping. sadly, they've despawned. Its a good time to light it up though. I found some coal inside as well, first ore!



Its daytime again, and I scout the area. I hear a pig and my food problems disappear. Whew! Here's a portrait of my first victim. It's okay, I quickly let his family join him in death and later on my stomach.


Mmmmm porkchops. Food, finally, the wheat STILL hasn't grown.


I went back down to the tunnel where I found the coal, went a tad deeper and found some Iron. Now to decide what to use it for..


Some spoils after a bit more of dinking around.


Lets pretty up my spawn safe house a bit so it actually resembles a house in the tiniest sense. Nothing special, just a vibe is all I'm going for.


More seeds on the farm.. But still no wheat! It's what, day 3 now? Wheat growing speed is Overpowered and clearly needs a nerf. Almost there..


A use for my extra Iron, gotta gear up. got big plans!


I did a bit of exploring looking for more animals. Here is a nice flower forest about 80 blocks north, horses are everywhere!


My farm is FINALLY starting to kick off. How useless. I had to use bonemeal to get anything done.


I didn't get a photo of any spiders, but I finally got some string and made a fishing pole. Its a fantastic alternative to wheat farms early on. I honestly had never tried it before. Here's my spoils of just a few minutes of fishing with a regular pole.

I made the bread out of spite, though I'll probably keep it in a chest at spawn. I have plenty of food now.The bow is enchanted with Flame I, the fishing pole is enchanted with Unbreaking III and Lure III. Awesome find.

Things NOT pictured in this update:
-I moved my bed inside the cave after lighting it up, for obvious reasons.
-I found more pigs and a small herd of cows near the flower forest and got some beef and leather, I have cooked the beef but have not made use of the leather yet.
-I made another chest by my door that I will be putting things for my initial journey to my base location. this will be shown in a later date.

Very few first day/night cycles are unique, so some of this is redundant from other people. I wanted to give an idea of my mindset and how I personally go about getting solutions.

It's time to leave spawn and find the area that I'm going to build my base. First, I need to do some exploring and gather some things, mainly seeds and saplings so that later when I start needing things I only have to go so far as my chests, but also some coordinates for special finds if they appear, such as this one, a mesa right next to a roofed forest straight south across a few hundred blocks of ocean from spawn.


Found a small sand island right off shore, lit it up.. but its night and it hasn't stopped raining for what seems an hour now.


One thing about sapling farming is you get plenty of wood in the process, and a spider happened to drop a few string. I'll pass some time til the sun rises. I'll be more reckless at night later, but I'm underprepared for now.


Pick was about to break, so I needed more cobble. dug down in the sand and found a small iron deposit, since it was mixed in with sandstone, only 2 pieces. this seemed an appropriate use, my first iron sword.


Day time, lets look around this roofed forest as we cut down trees for saplings. Huh, quite interesting terrain here.


I have a feeling I'll be filling up my inventory pretty quick before I go back home, so I left some things I didn't need/want at the beach.


Kinda hard to see, but the swamp I boated past looked pretty cool with the brown mushrooms speckled all over.


Oh yay! 500 blocks of ocean later, raining, again.. but another tree type that I wanted to get saplings for.


Cut down a few trees, not much monster trouble.. 11 / 11 / 11? Make a wish! (stop raining, sheesh!)


I used Amidst to initially pick the map, but I didn't take much note of the area and where biomes are. I knew there was a jungle some where.. but after an hour or so of shoreline following, finally found it. >.>


And now that I've found it, I don't think I should stay... Not one, but TWO witches at the shore. I didn't get a picture of the baby zombie right around the corner, I was too busy not dying to it and his creeper friend to get a picture.


So many monsters coming after me, I think I'll cut the jungle adventure short. Left with only 5 saplings. Oh look, still raining. at least I got to grab a few watermelons near the shore. I'll check those off my list.


On the way back home, How did I miss this?! DOUBLE exposed dungeons on the shore, 5 blocks away from the ocean! What?! NO! Chunk error while generating or something.. both spawners are broken, missing, and the chests are broken as well, all the items they contained all over the place, not yet despawned.. I see some goodies still.. (I did remake the map on creative and find em again, they generated fine that time.. they are just borked in my survival map.. sad!)



Sad they both were broken, such sadness to such an awesome find. Here's some of the loot I decided to keep.


Around the corner, hello!


Some Loot.. decisions decisions, my inventory is pretty full.





Finally back home.. I have most of what I needed to get, plus some. Here's what my spawn area looks like from the ocean heading back.


Something about spawn chunks and staying loaded.. I suppose I should have opened it up to LAN before I headed out? This wheat farm is absolute garbage!


Its almost time to head out from spawn for hopefully good. I'll leave a bit behind in case I ever need to come back, but I'm taking most of the goodies with me. Here's my supplies chest with most of my checklist complete.



Things NOT pictured in the entry:
-Monsters in the Jungle biome, seriously, they wanted my beans! (cocoa beans.. from jungles.. nevermind.) I was a bit more worried at not dying 1300 blocks from spawn.
-Any of my 20+ broken boats. Seriously, they disappear everytime you log out, which sucks when in the middle of the ocean, and they break on the shore when you are still 40 blocks away.. swimming to the shore and collecting the remains of your boat when you get there is so frustrating! I don't think I'll do much boat travel any time soon. might wait for 1.8 official, snapshots seem buggy.

Soon I'll be heading out to find the location that I'll be building my base.

Its time to grab my things and head out to where I'll be spending the majority of my time on this map. Gotta take my nice mud boots, since it rains so much.


Heading out, I find more friends of my first porkchop. I'm not low on food at the moment, but I don't have any useable farms that I can get lots of food quickly.. I'll take em as I go. This is a bit northwest of the flower forest and horses I found in entry #1.


OoooOOOoooh, a village, lets check it out.


What in the.. second tiniest village I've ever seen! (I did find one that was just a single 4x4 house once).
Looks like these guys are pig farmers. Don't mind if I take a few?


Yes! I'm coming back later for sure. Very nice finds for early on.



I'll have a full blown villager trading system in the future, though I don't know if I'll do villager breeding and transportation or zombie villager healing to get my initial villagers. I'll keep these guys safe in the meantime regardless. waited til night where they all ran indoors.


Back on the ocean, I've found my build spot. Here is a sample of some of the scenery I'll have.


Grabbed a small flatish section of land nearby and quickly lit it up. I build a small cobble wall to keep mobs out. Spiders can still climb over, but they don't bother me near as much.


threw in a single cobble block so that I personally can jump over.. cuz swimming around is so hard.. eh, looks and sounds ridiculous, but is quite handy in practice.


Getting low on cooked porkchops, lets fix that. "Humble beginnings; revisited"


Get some sugarcane growing.. gonna need paper and sugar at some point.


Lets look around a bit. I want to get some of the area generated to avoid future lag spikes, I also am on a hunt for a few things I didn't grab earlier. Here's another angle of that sexy mountain of mine.


Cows, aww yeah. Look at that heifer. I'ma breed her a good one later and make books out of the skin of her children. (too far?) No for reals though, having to bring cows, or any animal, across long distances is so frustrating. I'm glad I don't have to go far to get started on a steak and leather farm.


A view from the other side of the mountains. I'll make use of the sand soon.


Birch forest hills look so neat. This desert is pretty big too, perfect. I'll need it later..



Well, it might look good for now.. It appears that won't be the case for long.


Here we go, this is what I need, a swamp, a single lily pad. this swamp is actually quite interesting. (little orange dot just to the left of the pointer is a pumpkin, btw)

Interesting Indeed. not something you see every day.


Heading back to my beach spot to drop off my goodies. I'm not sure where my screenshot went, but I did find a single pumkin in the swamp as well.


One last look at my scenery before I start prepping my next endeavor.


Things not shown in the entry:
-I'm missing my screenshot of the one pumpkin I found, I did also grab a few mushrooms from the swamp as well.
-Also couldn't find and pics of some of the tunnels in the mountains, but I didn't explore inside them yet, so nothing has really been missed. These will be explored in detail at a later date.
-I didn't bother showing my "chicken farm" as it was simply a 5x2deep hole in the ground and none of my eggs hatched into anything.. bad luck. Gotta go find more chickens and get more eggs to try again later.

I have most of what I need to get started that I can get from above ground. I still need some things, but I'll be heading underground soon.

It's starting to get dark again, I absolutely LOVE my sunset.


I mark out the center of my ocean spot with a lily pad (coords are -600/-500 exactly). It's hard to see, but This single lily pad is massively important and everthing I do from now on will be revolved around it.


I'll be clearing out and mega thoroughly lighting up caves in a 400x400 area, 200 blocks in each direction from the center of my future base.
I need to get resources, so I'll mine out the area underneath. Here is the southwest corner of my 400x grid.


Down to level 11, I dug a 2x2 hole so that I could get down in safety as well as use it as a way out later.


Small Storage room at the bottom of that hole, this will be my main mineshaft entrance, as the three other corners all happen under ocean biome.

Added a ladder and water drop for quick and easy access. The water drop at the bottom breaks my fall so I can fall from Y90 down to Y11 with no damage.


Mining isn't inherently interesting. Its mindless for the most part, though I hate when this happens, I almost walked right into it!


Easy organization.. Gone through a few Iron picks now, still no diamonds yet.


I meet my first cave, It's got water at my level. I block it off and dig a small hole so that the water doesn't go down my tunnel and break torches.

Neat trick, wish I had been doing this in my other worlds.


Here is another tunnel I met. This also happens to be the midway point on one side. I'll light up the local caves, make it a bit safer, and place my 200 block marker.

The wood shows directions that my tunnels are going. The block pointing left is back to my storage spot and ladder, the bottom right block is pointing towards the center of my base (lined up with that lily pad from earlier) and the top right block is pointing towards the North West corner, still 200 blocks to go.


Almost 300 blocks from where I started, First diamonds!

But wait, my luck is finally better! A second node right behind the first!


Ooh a ravine. These look so cool with void fog at low elevation. that lava actually gave me some trouble as it was right over my path, and there was a skeleton sniping from across the pool.



Next Ravine, are you kidding me? (My bad with the F3 menu up.. Honest mistake) Sadly I didn't get the other two creepers, the zombie, the skeleton, and the witch that were just right of the water fall. This was the most frustrating point, because once I cleared the area, EVEN MORE creepers dropped in from me. I have no mods.. but sometimes it seems like there is a creeper spawner in these tunnels.

a few more creepers, view from the other side of the ravine. this is in addition to the five from earlier.


Finally done with my second line of 400. West side and North side perimeter complete. Here are my spoils. I did have 22 diamonds, but 3 were used to make the pick.


Things not shown in this entry :
-I did grab a bit of obsidian, but I'll have that in my next entry.
-I have since completed my 400^2 perimeter, with small storage rooms in each corner, but mining tends to be redundant. You are welcome.

I'll continue mining "off camera" (this includes caving and lighting up the area) only showing interesting things and no more, but that is a very over time thing.

It's finally time to get some creating done! So far, prep wise I've chopped down some dark oak trees. I almost always have one growing by my storage spot on land so that I can constantly collect and replant it as I pass the area.
I broke some logs into planks to make a large amount of dark oak half slabs, I surround my lilypad marker and go 10 blocks out in each direction.


Halfway done, some of you might have an idea of what I'm going for here..


Platform complete!



For the next step, I'm going to need lot's of sand. It took me about 4 trips of almost complete inventory of sand to get the needed amount.. and for the first two trips I didn't think to use any diamond shovels. I don't have an enchanting setup as of yet, and I died to fall damage a few times so I'm out of levels. anyway, I'm putting that desert from earlier to use.


Filling up the platform!


Got the perimeter of it done, used some of the gravel I had laying around. Walls are 16 blocks tall.


Here's that little storage spot I have, with my dark oak tree that I'll cut down soon, as well as a view of the sand in the background. What's interesting is the inventory.


Finally got an enchanting setup. Its not an ideal location, but It will work for now. Kind of an unorthodox enchanting setup, but it works, all 30 levels.


Back to the ocean platform, I misplaced my screenshot of the entire pillar filled with sand. Basically look up a few screenshots and imagine no air in between the sand walls. just a solid sand pillar.
I begin breaking the plank platform, the sand falls down into the water and stacks up. oceans are 16 blocks deep, which is why I made the pillar 16 blocks tall. when each pillar of sand is done falling, its at sea level.


Final platform block removed, sand all fallen, ocean filled in. took a few hours (partially cuz I had to take a break and get to work.)


Time to remove some of the sand. I start in the middle because I also need glass.. torch trick works wonders.


glass panes are the most efficient for large vertical windows, I used light grey because its the most transparent glass, as well as very easy to get dye for. A cool perk with panes in water is that you can swim up and down next to them without holding your breath, essentially allowing you to breathe underwater while you build.

I float to the bottom, and place them beneath me as I swim up. might not be most time efficient, but it is the easiest method I have used.


Finished one quarter of the circle, removed the sand to reveal the result. pretty cool looking, though the bottom layer had a few weird rendering issues with the water and panes, so I swapped in some extra gravel to remove the problem. Looks quite good!



Finished another quarter, halfway done. I'm basically out of light grey dye though, so soon I'll go farm for more.


Used some extra diamonds to make the night easier, ran around in the desert and field nearby for some night monster slaying. Bones were my main priority, though I won't say no to another witch kill!


On my way back, I killed some squid for the ink to make more light grey dye. Got more panes, finished the circle, and cleared the sand.

I did also put a ring of dark oak half slabs on top of the glass. It hides most of the visual weirdness of panes next to water, adds some contrast, as well as makes it easier to walk around the edge.



Things not shown in this entry:
Most of my journey into the desert for sand. It was tedious and time consuming.
My deaths. I died 4 times to fall damage. >.> I was more focused on getting my stuff back than I was about documenting the exact moment at the time.

I'm going to begin work on a small house, as well as work out a color scheme for my base. I have a few cool ideas.

I'm starting to get low on food. (okay, not quite true, I found a stack of cooked beef in a chest later, but other than that, I was almost out.)
My first attempt at a wheat farm near spawn was pathetic and I left the area before anything really grew. However, I'm in need of a cow supply, and with no leads, wheat is my best option. Wheat farm 2.0 actually works and I have about 2 stacks of wheat now.


Fenced off the other side of my anti-hostile cobble wall on my land storage spot, threw some more torches down and made sure all walls were inescapable.


There are tons of cows over by my mine entrance, but (at least in the snapshot) passive mobs move painfully slow in water, so I made a quick cobble bridge to make transport exponentially easier.


First victim! (that cobble bridge helped SO much.)


Had four cows following at a time.. only one stayed interested all the way to the pen. since my wheat is actually growing (okay, I used bonemeal to speed it up..) I can get breeding going.


Back out in the ocean, I started digging a tad deeper. I don't have any TNT yet, but I know there is a mineshaft very close by in the meantime.

I'll prolly leave it at this level for a bit til I have a reliable source of gunpowder (*cough*). I'll search for a way into that mineshaft as well. I did also want to not deal with gravel falling as I dug, so I replaced the gravel border with stone bricks. They are easier to look at and don't fall.


Here's what it looks like from just off the beach.


What is round two? well here's a hint..


Looks like that village is closer than I thought. You can barely see it on the horizon.


Looked at my enchanting table real quick, saw an enchant that I know I'll need soon. only cost me two levels, so I couldn't pass it up. Here is the first thing in this world that I have enchanted.


Half of step one of round two is a quarter of the way completed! (ugh, means I have a LONG way to go..)
Here is another taste of what is in the works. So much cobble... almost ran me out! I'ma have to go mining again to get the other 3/4 of that done.


Things not shown in this update:
After I got a few cows in my pen, I (thought I) still needed food, so I ruthlessly killed local pigs and cows for their meat.
I caved a bit and lit up a few local caves while killing mobs. didn't find anything interesting.
I tried out that enchanted fishing pole I got in entry 1, (unbreaking III Lure III) for about an hour, got two triphooks and a glass water bottle aside from the usual fish.

I'll continue to work on this "off camera" and show the final result. I have yet to find a dungeon so I need to sort out a more efficient way to get levels til I'm ready to go to the nether.

Still at work, a lot of what would be considered "new" is just progress. This time around, pictures are out of order to keep them relevent to the ones around them. I went back and forth between a few different parts of my current project.

I'm out of solid blocks and need to work on my big circular platform (well, not glass, but that'd be absurd to use for this purpose!) so I head back down to my mine.
When standing under sky, there is no depth fog. each direction goes 400 blocks, then makes a right turn and connects again.


After getting a few more stacks of Cobble and breaking another diamond pick, I head back up to my glass pillar and dig a few blocks out under the water. I know there is a mineshaft nearby and I want to explore it a bit.

I feel like the gravel ceiling is both odd, and going to be an issue later.. :/

There is a Ravine that cuts through this mineshaft. I'll light up everything on this side of it, and get the other side at a later time.


I did a bit of wall destruction to easier light it up as well as add to my cobble stockpile. This was a pain in the butt because the ceiling is literally at the ocean floor, and most of these hallways were filled with water.


I also dug a stairway down to level 11 from one side of my glass pillar. I came across that ravine again, but looking down is quite a nice sight to see!

And the view from the bottom, looking back up, you can see the mineshaft.

Stairway complete, here's a quick look to scale about how farm my glass pillar is from that mineshaft. Keep in mind the floor of the glass pillar is about 20 blocks below sea level (around Y=45).


Here is my next main project, and honestly what took most of my time in this update. I need this to be flat.

I also need this area flat, but I'm going to need to fill it up rather than dig it out. This will cut into my sand/gravel supply a good amount, though I may just fill up what I need and make a big underwater window here.. what do you think?

Lucky for me, There was an awesome enchant that I couldn't pass up that will specifically help me here.

Level 30 enchant got me the enchants you see above, however, I did also get a Fire Protection III book from a chest in a desert temple earlier (see entry 2). I combined them to make the helmet Fire Protection IV. I'll do my best to keep this around when its time for the Nether.

I've done a good amount of digging, but like I thought before, that mineshaft is just bad placement. So messy.


These are a bit dark, but if you click on them to zoom in, it is pretty easy to tell what is going on here.

That is a lot of squids..


Here is the finished product of 1/4 of the underwater completely flattened and mineshaft holes filled in. This is the quarter underneath the finished cobble cylinder. The wall to the right (part of another quarter that will be flattened later) shows about how high it was before, a sort of before/after.


I finished the perimeter of the circle, here's a view from the beach by the awesome mountain ranges. It gives you an idea of the scale I'm going for.

I'm far enough away that things look quite farm, but close enough that you can see some detail.

Things not shown in this update:
I've finished filling in the circle and am almost done flattening the ocean floor. I figured these would be redundant so I just showed my startin efforts so you can see how I'm going about it.
I got a good amount more of diamonds and other overworld ores from mining, in case you were wondering how I got so much diamond stuff.


I'll finish up all the prep work and start loading up the platform. Next entry will have a bit more detail on that. I need a house and better storage system, even if just temporary.

So I've slowly continued grinding out some of this massively tedious project.
I've continued filling in the platform but I ran out of cobble. I started using wood, and gave a go at halfslabs in an attempt to cover twice as much area. It ended up being more of a pain in the butt to place than was worth the effort.

Since I'm low on wood, I need a quick way to get lots of it.


Whole platform filled in.


I need more sand and gravel.. so I'm off to the desert. However, I'll take my chances at enchanting a diamond shovel. Unbreaking III was the hint, so figured I'd at least have something worthwhile. This is quite lovely actually.


I decided to do a bit of caving and exploring to take a break from the sand farming. Here is what I found under my giant mountain.

Going to have to come back and give this stronghold a good exploring.. is it strange that I've never actually fully explored a stronghold or gone to the end in survival?


I'm still trying to finish flattening out the ocean floor, I've got most of it done but I need to level a hill down about 6 blocks. It's not going quick and I'm burning through Iron. This should help!



In the process of digging away, I discovered another spot of this abandoned mineshaft. I threw a few torches down and right around the corner, skelly spawner!
Prime location as well! I plan to remove the roof as I continue flattening above it, so I prepare it for water and keeping it visible.



Here I have the final necessary section of the ocean flattened out.

Time to start covering the platform!

I have a dome shape planned out and a few reference grids so that I can get my numbers right all around.
A few double chests of gravel and sand later, here is a quarter of it filled up with sand.



Since a large amount of this platform is wood, sectioned off by gravel, I'm pretty safe using this method of removal..
And fully sunk.
Only 3/4ths of the way left to go... Geez that's a lot of sand.


I cover the already sunken section with some light grey stained glass.


And after a few hours of stone destruction, torch placing, more stone destruction, sand falling and breaking, collecting, inventory emptying, and repeating..
First quarter of the dome is complete!!!



If you look at the right level while swimming, there is a short moment where you can see underwater clearly because your head is technically above water.



Things not shown in this entry:
I had a lot of screenshots of progress, but they were redundant. to remove the sand from under the glass I used the same method as an earlier entry.
I did more mining for some more coal and diamonds, though much less fruitful than hoped.
I had a few arguements with creepers and had to do some hole patching in my platform. I suppose it would have been easier to just light it up while I worked on one quarter at a time.. but I also am slowly building up the rest of the platform.

I'm going to need a lot more light grey dye. Ink is easy.. there are so many squid around at any given time. Lets make bonemeal easier to get using that spawner we found earlier.



Clearing out the sand around the top of the spawner, the cobble is the dark room.


I was unhappy with how close the underwater hill was to the glass still, so I went through and gave myself some more space.


Halfway done with the dome, I had to recycle a huge amount of my sand and gravel to get platform three ready. after many hours of tedious sand placement and block removal, I have sunk the third section.

Remember that this specific third was partially over deep ocean and in order to flatten the area out, I simply built a platform rather than filling in the area.
I walled the water off after removing all the sand over it so I could continue with the rest.


Filled it all in with sand because it was bothering me.


on to the fourth section.

Reusing a lot of my sand and gravel once again, I used all my gravel first so I could have the leftover sand for making glass. I'd hate to have to run back to that desert yet again.


The final quarter was a bit tricky due to extra amounts of mineshaft, and a ravine.


Problem solved. I used my ever useful torch trick to clear out around the ravine, then went up and manually removed the sand and then broke the floating platform. The ravine is a mild inconvenience, but I do want to keep it, so I avoided filling it up.



My pick was low, but too expensive to repair another time (I've repaired it quite a few times, tons of wonderful use). I had to enchant a new one. I got lucky.


I suppose I didn't realize that part of the new enchanting system means that even naming your items they aren't infinitely repairable anymore.

Almost done!!


Here we go. the dome is complete! There are a few (unnoticeable) errors in the glass as I misplaced a few things, but I have fixed them since taking screenshots.
These were taken on my alt account in spectator mode.




things not pictured in this update:
-A lot of cave lighting around the perimeter. haven't gotten to the close area yet.
-I ended up not using a huge amount of my screenshots for this, partially because I did a lot more in a single entry than previous entries and I would rather not overwhelm you with redundant updates of the same process multiple times. End results are more enjoyable.

I feel this is the most grind-out part that I have planned so far. Now that this step is complete, I can move onto a new project.
Monster Spawner design in progress.

In each corner of my dome (well, circles don't have corners, but equidistance in +/- every direction from the center..) I added some pillars for both appearance of support as well as function later.
They do connect to the dome at the bottom but I have not fixed the look of it yet.



And what all four sides of all four pillars look like under water level..


And to make the top of these sections look "much more better." Stone brick stairs around the top of each corner, and upside down stone brick stars under dark oak half-slabs.


Now that I have support pillars up to the surface, I messed around with many many variations of some of my favorite building blocks and got a very nice looking pillar design. I think I'm happy with this, I'll incorperate this design/style into the rest of my base.

Dark oak logs/planks, andesite (with polished andesite accent), red wool, cobblestone wall and wooden fence. Very sturdy looking, easy to obtain resources, though building it by hand is a bit obnoxious.. trade off I suppose.

An unfinished extension of one of them. I used the line where the finished pillar stops as a starting point for a soon to come project.


I'm low on dark oak, so I've upped my tree growing and enchanted a nice axe. So far I've been quite lucky with my item enchants.


Here is the start of that "soon to come" project, it was very soon to come, and I got the bulk of it done. I misplaced my screenshot of the finished plateform, unfortunately. I used stairs to get the vertical half slab effect.


I wanted to create a better way to get from down below to water level so that I can remove that ladder I've been using since I started this project. I also wanted my new transportation situation to look much better than a silly ladder.




It's hard to see above, but there is the start of a path towards land the above picture, here is a better look. I stopped the path abouve 30 blocks or so as I don't want mobs to have easy access yet.


Some more work in the above dome area where my stair cases will meet. I tried around 7 different designs for the center part, including water fountains and grass.. Here are a few that I was deciding between.


And the one I decided to go with as it was my favorite. Obviously you pick your favorite.


I added a double staircase to the platform from the path. I don't know that I like it, in fact at this point in time I think I actually dislike the result. Stay tuned, this might be changed later if I come up with something else I like more.




And the final touch for what I have completed so far, the centerpiece. It'll likely get more elegant in the future, but for now I really really like how it turned out for the time being.
You can see the same concept from the pillars in the underside of the large supports in the dome. It was a pain in the butt, but oh man it looks so good in person. I was sure I had more screenshots.. hmm.


Things not shown in this update:
More mining, a bit of cave lighting, all the mob killing that happens in between.. I'm a bit liberal with my diamonds, I use them so inefficiently.
I borrowed some eggs from a neighbor and started work on a temporary chicken farm. Cooked chicken isn't my favorite food source, but it is a very reliable one for mid-game.
I moved some sheep that I found in the birch forest nearby into the dome. This was a pain in the butt as the first one I brought died to fall damage and I had to get another one. very time consuming, but I now have infinite red wool, which is handy.
I already have a few screenshots of another project that will be used in the next update. They were a bit unrelated today.

Update 11 http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/survival-mode/297789-the-rig-a-minecraft-journal-updated-7-22-14?comment=44