Village and Homestead Photo album

Here's a few shots of the active areas that I've been working on.  I need to add a few more out buildings at the homestead in order to reduce the mob spawns.

I would also like to do a proper train station at some point - but that's a long time in the future of the settlement.

Home And Garden - Sugar Cane and Pumpkins are manually harvested. Large abode in distance with a look out tower above the structure.

Three rows of crops allowing easier water harvesting which drop down in to hoppers in to a double chest (not pictured).

Water Harvesting in action, operated via the lever.  Chests at the end of the wall allow for separate storage.

North West corner, better look at the long structure and three penned up horses.  I've rarely used the horses as I decided to use tracks instead and had already explored the landmass on foot.

View from the North East corner, visible is the lava moat which will be moved further away from the perimeter.

Train Station leading to the village (in progress). It's automatic using trip wire, hoppers and a dispenser.  Plenty of space for over ten carts and easily expandable.

New settlement, farmland, using the same water harvesting technique but only eight wide instead of ten.

Inside the town house.

Town South East corner - expand the picture for more detail.

Town South West corner with the pre-fab church next door.

Patchwork Map and the joys of Paint.net

Well using Minutor I've created a patchwork representation of the explored areas of my Minecraft world.

Yes I know it's dark, it doesn't appear as dark on my monitor and only realised after completing it.

 

This is the daylight version of the East of the map, you can see the main base near the desert on the bottom of the picture.

After a long trip over an ocean you get to the West continent.

This is untouched, I was searching for melons and jungles, but found wolves instead. Using Minutor this continent has a large number of underground railway structures which I look forward to exploiting in the future.

Out of interest, just how far do you travel in your single player survival maps?  The furthest west of the map is nearly 3,000m - I've explored to the East just as far as well, but it was dull and exceeds +3,300m.

Until next time.

SMP Overview Current progress

Here's the surface image as it stands for my current world project.

My first main base to the East and surrounded on two and a bit sides with a lava moat.  I currently feel that the moat is too close to the stone wall, as it can actually serve two purposes; lighting and mob defence.  I may even remove the lava in total and replace it with a mob collection system using water and a few central collection points.

The lighted path leading north east was described in yesterdays post, examining lighting methods - I've used a similar pattern for the railways system leading west towards a second village, with torches used along the side of the track near the powered rail accelerators.

Further west will be a second port, which will be used to launch a base on the next continent I discovered while exploring.

Perhaps it's time to create a patchwork image of the full explored area?

Until next time.

Team Extreme and Online game play

I built that square plot of land surrounded by Jack-o-Lanterns.  The building in the South East of the plot was an organic structure that developed over time.

Each section was used for a different purpose, the southern sandblock, main entrance is a lobby area fronted with two doors, to the west is six ovens with a chest to hold spare coal. The northern section was a storage area with a trapdoor leading to an underground wheat farm in four small sections and the East section is a library and enchantment table area with a door to the rear of the plot leading towards, the fountain, a small enclosed area for breeding chickens and more farm land featuring carrots, potatoes, pumpkins and sugar cane.

The Western small structure was a lookout section, with a trapdoor leading down to the same underground farm.

I enjoy water slides so I built a small one which is to the west of the main building.

All of this was done several months ago and I have developed further building and landscaping skills as I've played Minecraft off-line.

I am currently applying to join a group of builders who has had a very established presence on the Team Extreme server, and hopefully this post will provide evidence of building skills and passion for Minecraft creativity.

The above build was done in creation mode - I love it. It features a secret passage system leading to a patio area to the rear and a cobblestone generator off to the side - not featured. What you may be able to make out is the water harvester farming system on a raised platform.  It's a simple lever operated piston system that holds water source blocks until the food is ready to be harvested and deposited in to hoppers leading to a double chest.  Raise the blocks again and re-plant the seeds.  I'm sure there are better methods and I have since learnt to keep the water at ground level with the planters one level below for six blocks, then another drop - this in theory will keep the water flowing down for ever - or until you get bored of replanting several hundred items.  I've done a 10x6x3 plots of land for wheat, carrots and potatoes and it's more than enough for a single player world.

This is an image of the lighting mechanics used currently in Minecraft.  It's not great I've used spacing of 20 blocks, which in hindsight is too much, although I haven't seen a great deal of mob spawning in the darker spaces, so I guess it works okay.  It seems torches and Jack-O-lanterns have the same strength.  I've used J-o-L's here as they offer a more visual presence on the landscape.