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.

Video of Ink Sac Farm

I have just uploaded a small video showing my little dam in action, even going underneath to display the redstone circuits and what happens during the on/off operation.

It's my first video and there's no audio as it's all nice and neat.

http://youtu.be/J3T-Uh-jsHY


It can be adapted as a squid farm - they find it difficult to swim against the current, just make sure they spawn regularly at your spot and when you get two or three, close it off and they'll explode and die leaving the ink sac behind for you to collect.

It was a trial and error process for my own learning and there are many things I would do differently. I'd keep it straight and about six blocks in length. If I was really clever I'd have two switches which would operate both ends but with a delay for the opposite so the current will flow properly, that may take some experimentation though.  This will provide a current in either direction.

Hope you like it, subscribe to the channel, there will be more videos coming soon.

Jiggery Pokery

I've moved the original post in to a dedicated page called The Reason, as it states why this exists in the first place.

I haven't updated any of my minecraft levels for the last few days due to real life issues, however I hope to get back and updating the theme park soon, three water rides have been completed I'll start on roller coasters.

I want to do a haunted house theme as well, only if I can make it spooky enough and build the tension up properly.  Might be difficult to do in this engine, but I'll experiment with the stock sounds and images, who knows, combinations of moving platforms and sudden pitfalls might suffice.

First Post, The Back Story

Hi I am Sidrat and I've been a gamer since probably before you were born.  I was drawn to Minecraft after seeing all the wonderful things people were doing via Youtube and various gaming sites so I thought I'd have a go and delve in to the game and software itself.

The first few days was playing the game as casual as I can, the creepers really are and the sound effects are disturbing - I now play the game at a very low volume and never with the music on - as that tended to fade in and out for some reason, as long as I can hear water and or lava I'm fine, the creepers aren't so much when they're not blasting out of my headphones, they're more of a gentle susurration on the ears and a good early warning indicator.  There's a reason horror movies are best enjoyed at a high volume.

After wondering around a bit in a few great looking maps I thought it would be a good idea to look at what to do with the pile of Redstone I was accumulating across my various game plays. So I hit up a new seed and after ten minutes in Creative wondering how I was supposed to use Redstone I hit the tutorials.

After a few days of looking around and being silently critical of some of the Lets Play Youtube presenters and video tutorial specialists my mission was clear.  Find a tutorial covering pistons that didn't spin around 257° in various directions while placing blocks for variously unexplained reasons and then move quickly on to the next stage.

Eventually I completed that mission and found exactly what I was looking for. Austin from http://minecraft.wonderhowto.com/ explained a great extendible method of achieving three pistons can move up and down.  Not only what was needed and where and also, more importantly the why.  Redstone circuits are not named that way for show it is an electrical circuit that is being built and the current acts in a very similar fashion.  The example tutorial I followed can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXE6evwKdxc. It also uses colour coded pathways which makes everything very easy to follow and because he uses a long pathway there's limited camera movement. A great tutorial which leads to a design that can be easily followed and therefore understood and adapted to ones own needs.

Maps, examples and screenshots

I'll be making my worlds available intermittently when I have something I really want to share. I have a few projects on the go, the first of which is a functioning example of a modified (but easily recognizable) triple vertical pistons - this is already available from the aptly named page, featuring screenshots and the important download link.

The second is a theme park I'm working on in a World Edited (minimally) island, currently featuring three water slides, with other attractions to follow, but certainly not in a releasable state. Check the pages for updates and the download link when it arrives though.

Seeds

I've kept a record of the seeds I've used and in some cases the co-ords I've visited and turned in to small abodes.  I'll update the page with screenshots of interesting seeds that I come across and also the background to the word, date or phrase I've used.

Polite Request To Video Tutorial Authors

Please follow these few, very easy to follow requests so everyone can follow your tutorial.

• Please enter window mode and feel free to switch programmes to aid in mouse cursor highlighting without the very annoying and off putting camera movement. (I'm sure a keybind can be modded to allow this)
• Explain what you're doing and why.  Yup it's second nature to you the why's and wherefores of your actions, but in the case of a tutorial for a specific result, assume it's a standalone tutorial being followed by an absolute beginner unless you state otherwise.  So tell us about the ABBA and a Falling Edge Trigger if that's what is being used.
• Why not use a script?  I don't mean you should read verbatim a 10 minute discourse on your project, downright let it flow and always be yourself.  Best tutorials are planned tutorials, and if something unexpected happens - keep it in if it's relevant, interesting or a short detour.  An hour long tutorial on making a light go on and off that consists of fifty seven minutes of feeding your dogs is not interesting or relevant.  Occasionally silence is best.  The medium you are using is visual with built in sound, so allow the game to tell the story for you.

Closing

Thank you for reading this blog and I hope this informs, incites, helps, hinders, tickles and above all inspires your creative juices to flow.