Technically you are starting on sand, it’s just not below you… The spawn randomization seems to get skipped in this case, when there’s already sand at the 0,0 spot.
The randomization was confirmed by some tests when the patch first came out – starting with the same seed, everyone had slightly different starting locations, but could quickly find the same landmarks.
Ah thanks Fugitive, that makes sense. I haven’t yet made it out of the spawn yet, is that dark place above sea level?
It’s actually right at sea level, it’s just an incredible fluke that it decided to put a dungeon right at the origin point at sea level, leaving it clear for you to spawn there, whereas otherwise you would have just appeared on top of the hill and above sea level.
I escaped 3666440496532277820. It hit my bloody-mindedness funnybone.
How deep down is the spawn point?
Without doing this sort of thing its unbelievably tedious to build any of the complicated stuff. The iron requirement for mine tracks is brutal; I hope you like slowly wandering the earth.
I guess if you want to play it as a roaming adventure game, sure, but there’s other games that do that better.
It’s funny, I’ve played a lot of minecraft but I’ve never made a minecart or track, or used redstone for more than a decorative torch. I’m not opposed to it or anything, it just gets put off to the point that I never build anything like that. I don’t play it as an adventure game really either, more as a castle building simulator. Come to think of if though, I do have worlds with some nightmarishly long corridors that could really use a track…
Pogo
2928
So there’s a random element as to which sand block you spawn on in the game, which is leading to different spawn points for people in the same initial chunk area of a seed. Makes sense now.
You can have fun and gather iron too, especially after he increased the iron ore spawn rates a couple months ago.
Oh - I don’t think a little bit of branch mining is unfun. It was interesting figuring out how to do it and dealing with lava outbreaks.
No one said branch mining has to be done one way, the boring way. I like to have very tall branches with lava lanterns at main junctions. I make nice spiral stairs and ballroom sized workrooms and cart stations. Sometimes I’ll make a random catacombs with all the extra cobblestone. Half of the exploration and building in this game is underground.
I gather it’s sea-level but doing an upward stairway from “behind and to the left” of the treasure chest it took me a good long time to reach the surface. Mind you, digging in pitch-darkness without tools does tend to make it seem longer. Nothing spawned in my stair. I nearly died to a spider on the surface, which would’ve been hilarious.
Pogo
2932
I didn’t know sandstone occurred naturally.
Yeah I ran into some last night. Was digging away and came into a sand cavern and all the sand on the bottom layers was sandstone.
Bluto
2934
I’ve been noticing that lately. I wonder if it got phantom patched in. I only see it in new parts of the world.
Sandstone occurring naturally was in the last patch.
Pogo
2936
I suppose I’ll do some tests to see how it is affected by explosions.
mok
2937
I managed to find my way to the surface after a few insta-deaths from the shock…then Joe the Creeper greeted me.
Pogo
2938
Looks like it’s almost as weak as dirt, somewhere between dirt and raw wood, so it’s a terrible building material in terms of creeper defense.
I think it’s really just there so you can build with a sandy appearance without the gravity effect. There was a rumour that spiders couldn’t climb sandstone, but I don’t think it’s been proven.
Pogo
2940
Well, just in case anyone was curious about how blocks reacted to explosions, there it is.
Of course, obsidian doesn’t blow up at all, so I didn’t include it.
