Server finally updated to 1.7.2. Nether is enabled, monsters still currently disabled. I began building a tower where the portal in the Nether was created.
Edit (July 12th): server now running 1.7.3.
_________________ Twitter | Blag | MAGFest 12 - January 2-5, 2014, at the Gaylord (National Harbor, MD)!
Lastly, I've been working on a village on a large island northeast of the base. It's just about done! XT is helping with the finishing touches, a lighthouse to complement the nearby boathouse.
_________________ TA~RU!
Yeah, after much accidental burning of wood, I finally got the lighthouse finished and in a state where it won't randomly catch fire. One time it took an entire day/night cycle for the wood to catch fire, so I thought I had it right, only to discover otherwise. Stupid lava. I guess I should have used glowstone.
Anyway, here's the daytime view of the lighthouse.
On a server admin note, I had to do a little data restoration today because my parents turned off the server while I was asleep. Luckily nothing of value was lost.
_________________ Twitter | Blag | MAGFest 12 - January 2-5, 2014, at the Gaylord (National Harbor, MD)!
And far more important, the nighttime view. It looks a bit dim in retrospect, perhaps I really should use glowstone instead. Our main nether outpost doesn't have any nearby though, and the closest glowstone is like 20 blocks straight up.
I still plan on building a minecart station in the village, I just haven't sorted out where I want to put it yet, since the place with the most room is suspended over sand. Edit: Built the station, but it was nighttime when I finished, and then it started raining. Screenshot whenever. Station allows you to hit a button to continue your journey, and the resulting track splits needed a small bit of redstone wiring to make it all work properly. I'm toying with making the station a couple blocks wider just so it'll be easier to target and hit the buttons, since if you're too close to a button sometimes you won't be able to hit it.
We briefly discussed some server plans, but I might as well make them known here. Eventually I want to switch over to using bukkit, the popular server mod. It allows for plugins to do all sorts of things, most notably making creeper explosions not damage terrain. Oh, and Runecraft. Can't forget that. I really do want to turn monsters back on, the nether just isn't the same with nothing in it.
_________________ Twitter | Blag | MAGFest 12 - January 2-5, 2014, at the Gaylord (National Harbor, MD)!
Logged on and tweaked the station so that it's now two blocks wider in each dimension (well, other than height). Since it was daytime and not raining when I finished, I took a couple screenshots. The whole thing looks uninspiring from the sides, so I just took the two screenshots that matter.
First up: the view as you're riding a minecart and approaching the station.
_________________ Twitter | Blag | MAGFest 12 - January 2-5, 2014, at the Gaylord (National Harbor, MD)!
And second: the track layout inside. It's radially symmetric, so the parts you can't see look exactly like the parts you can see.
redstone stuff spoiler'd
Spoiler:
The curved track in the middle as you enter the station on either side is hooked up via redstone to the detector rails, since the detector rails aren't connected directly to the curved track in question. The result is, as you're attempting to exit the station in a minecart on either side, the rail will temporarily curve the other direction so you can actually exit the station, rather than you just pointlessly looping around to the other powered rail.
The redstone circuit is fundamentally the same on both sides, but one side needed its output inverted due to track curving oddities. Basically, both tracks wanted to curve towards the same side of the station, and for this design to work they needed to curve to opposite sides.
I took advantage of redstone repeaters forcing power to go in a straight line (in addition to their built-in delay function) in both circuits to prevent the redstone from looping around, which made it a lot more compact. Each side used two repeaters for this purpose, and even at their minimum delay they seem to toggle the curved rail at exactly the right time for just long enough for the cart to pass.
Of course, I hid the redstone from view, since visible redstone is ugly. The only visible redstone is the bit of it that connects the buttons to the slanted powered rails that get you going again when you want to leave the station.
Side note, I'm going to have to tweak the roof a bit, as there just isn't enough light inside the station during the day. It's actually brighter inside at night. Maybe it's just an optical illusion, but it's still too dark inside during the day.
_________________ Twitter | Blag | MAGFest 12 - January 2-5, 2014, at the Gaylord (National Harbor, MD)!
Roof tweaked, now the station is a lot brighter inside during the day.
_________________ Twitter | Blag | MAGFest 12 - January 2-5, 2014, at the Gaylord (National Harbor, MD)!
Not to take any wind off of promoting the multiplayer server, but a rather large mod came out recently: The Aether.
It's essentially the counterpart to the Nether. It's a huge sky realm with its own blocks, creatures, ores, trees, everything. To get in you make a portal much like a Nether portal, except you construct it out of Glowstone and pour a bucket of water on it to activate it.
If you fall off of an island and reach the bottom of the map, you'll fall back into the regular world. Most of the time this will result in death, but you can craft a parachute that will auto-open and let you float down. There's also a rather hard to obtain armor set that cancels fall damage when you have the entire set equipped.
The Aether has three types of dungeons, each with a boss that must be defeated before you can obtain the treasure. The dungeons' chests are locked and the boss drops the key. There's a bunch of rare loot, and a whole new equipment system to support it.
Best of all, there's a way to repair tools and weapons. It even works on items not added by the mod, I used it to repair a fishing rod.
Speaking of fishing rods, you'll need a fair amount of food to go exploring. One of the main ores will restore as much health as pork, but there's so many other uses for that ore. I set myself up a fishing hole, a wheat farm (using dirt imported from the regular world as hoes can't till Aether Dirt), and there are (mountable) flying pigs that can drop pork (or feathers, it seems to be one or the other).
There's a lot more to it than I've mentioned here. I didn't even mention the mountable moa birds, or the enemies that can poison you, or the yellow and blue slimes that actually have an appreciable spawn rate, imagine that (and their own special abilities and drops), or the annoying cloud things that launch cloud balls that push you around.
Overall this mod had a lot of time and effort put into it and it's definitely worth a look. Also, stop playing on Peaceful for the full experience. This is necessary for the dungeons.
spoiler'd installation tutorial and multipart tour
Spoiler:
Go ahead and subscribe to Paul while you're watching these, he does really entertaining Minecraft and Terraria videos.
spoiler'd info for people looking to INVEdit themselves the portal materials after generating a world, just because getting 14 (technically 10) Glowstone takes quite a bit of time otherwise.
Spoiler:
Don't select your Aether world from the menu. Click the Open icon and select your Aether world's
aether.dat
. Edit this, then click the save icon and overwrite
aether.dat
. If you edit the regular
level.dat
, the items will disappear.
_________________ Twitter | Blag | MAGFest 12 - January 2-5, 2014, at the Gaylord (National Harbor, MD)!
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