DeepT
4181
Is soul sand missing from the 1.8.1 version of minecraft or has it become super rare? I have been to the neither on several new worlds and wandered around. I have yet to encounter any soul-sand.
Hansey
4182
It’s defnitely not missing, as I found some in my 1.8.1 nether, but now that you mention it, it does seem to be a bit sparser. I wandered the nether for quite some time before I came across some (I wasn’t actively looking for any though) but when I did find it, there was loads of it.
DeepT
4183
I find lots of gravel though. Not sure I am supposed to be finding that in the nether.
Hansey
4184
I think gravel has always been in the nether, but maybe not as much as there seems to be now, because you’re right, I find loads of gravel there now. It’s usually hanging over lava so that as soon as you dig up one piece all the pieces that are connected it remember that “hey, gravel falls if there’s no solid block underneath it!” and before you know it you’re swimming in lava.
I heard a rumor that they added more gravel to the nether so that people would have a way to get flint in case your portal was extinguished and you needed another flint and steel. I don’t buy that reasoning though, since you also need iron to make a flint and steel, and that doesn’t exist anywhere in the nether.
Pogo
4185
The nether really isn’t somewhere you should be going unprepared. If you’re worried about dying in the Nether because you’re carrying a bunch of items, one of those items should be a flint and steel anyways.
That’s pretty much why I never go in there. The risk/reward factor is pretty jacked up.
Whoa. You guys are all missing the massive benefit of the Nether: Fast Travel.
The nether is basically a 1:8 scale map of your overworld. Read the linkage section here for more info:
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Nether_Portal
I have built a tram network in the nether that links to portals in my overworld for quick movement. Build everything in the nether high blast resistance materials (cobblestone works and you’re probably sitting on a surplus). You can encase structures in glass too since ghasts won’t aggro through it, but anytime you leave your fortress you need to check your glass walls because errant fireballs on weird trajectories can end up taking out glass back at your fort you weren’t thinking about while farming porkchops. :P
In any case, even though the portals will map to already existing ones if you’re building within 1024 meters in the overworld… HOWEVER… if you disable a pair and then cause the game to generate a new one it will create new pairs within the 1024 limit.
Here’s my method for creating multiple portals within 1024 meters. If you’re making them beyond that it’s easy… just make a new portal and voila. This is for portals within the 1024 limit:
- Create your first portal. Head through with some stacks of cobblestone, a chest, and an extra flint/steel.
- Take the time to build a cobblestone bunker around it your new portal in the nether. Put a chest inside it with an extra flint/steel. The bunker doesn’t have to be complicated but there cannot be ANY lines of sight from the portal to the outside or a ghast fireball has the chance to knock out the portal.
- Grab the obsidian for a new portal, and a bed and head to a new location you want to link to your nether subway network.
- Once you get to the new location, put down the bed and sleep in it.
- Build your new portal. Light it and step through. You’ll most likely end up at your original bunker. That’s OK. Go grab your diamond pick and come back into the nether and knock out one of the side blocks on the portal. That will shut down the portal pair on the nether side.
- Put your valuables in your bunker chest and go outside and die.
- You should reappear at your bed in the new location.
- Go back to the portal and while facing your original portal in the overworld, step through the portal.
- Since the original portal in the nether is down… you will pop into a brand new portal in the nether. You will be facing the direction of your bunker.
- Figure out where the hell your bunker is by travelling in that direction.
- Replace the obsidian in the original portal and relight it.
- Now you have two pairs of portals that are paired, even though you are within the 1024 distance limit.
- Go back to the new portal and build another bunker around it.
- Build a cobblestone tube from new to old.
- Put a railway in the tube. Enjoy. :)
An image of part of my network:
Hansey
4188
Oh definitely. I don’t go to the nether with loads of stuff, and I always bring a spare flint and steel. If I’m exploring anything in the nether, it’s only because I’m looking for glowstone.
Whoa. You guys are all missing the massive benefit of the Nether: Fast Travel.
I’m not missing it. I have an extensive railway in the nether connecting my overworld outposts.
Marcin
4189
I’m not bothering with fast travel until portals work as expected. The extra steps needed to get them to line up/recognize each other properly seems like a bug that was never fixed.
I’m pretty sure they are working as expected. It works great for distances greater than 1024. You only need to do the tricks for overworld distances that are shorter.
Marcin
4191
I went way, way, way farther than 1024; on the way back, I still ended up at home base. “Working as expected” would be a direct, one-to-one portal link … :/
I’ll stick with my gold-accelerated railways I guess. Seems easier and filled with less frustration.
(I’ll probably give it another shot once nether has all the cool new stuff in).
I think in the worst case you might have to be 2048 blocks away from the first portal; think of it as having a radius of effect of 1024, so it could still include two portals that are the diameter apart. Unfortunately I doubt he’s going to do anything to improve portals anytime soon. And IndustrialCraft has teleporters, but they take a huge amount of energy to operate over any significant distance.
Prerelease 5 is out now, and as expected is mainly just bugfixes. I think the dragon is in now though; there’s a video of someone spawning one and killing it in the regular world.
So is anyone on QT3 planning on starting up a new server any time soon? Some friends and I have been looking for a place to play.
I think a lot of people (including me) are waiting for 1.9 to start up a new server, since there’s going to be a ton of world building changes.
Pretty much. And the worst part is that Skyrim is so close…
DeepT
4196
Yeah, I would be interested in a Minecraft server with mods, but MW3 is coming out and then Skyrim so if anyone started a server soon, Id only get on it after everyone else got bored of it.
Speaking of mods and servers, the Technic Pack just released their first multiplayer version, including Industrial Craft, BuildCraft, RedPower, Minefactory, Railcraft, and some other stuff like Xie’s Farming Mod and Nether Ores. Being the first public release, it’ll probably have some teething problems, so it might be worth waiting until it stabilizes a bit.
Especially nice is that the Technic Pack includes some ‘bridge’ mods that let you convert back and forth between the IndustrialCraft and BuildCraft (and RedPower?) energy types, so you can run quarries with nuclear reactors or whatever.
Is there some way of getting to that thing without a somethingaweful account?
Argh, they keep changing which subforums are publicly visible… I’d wait for a bit anyway, they’re still sorting out some problems with the server install.
