1561

I apparently have a medium amount of coal in my world. I’m not exactly swimming in it, but I also can’t mine out more than two stacks of stone without hitting several blocks of coal.

I’ve found a suitable location for my next fortress, and have run out of stone trying to extend my floating waterfall bridge to it. First order of business is to locate more diamond so I can have another wonderful diamond pick, then mine out the mountain where I’ll build my fortress, and then finish the bridge. A-digging I shall go!

1562

I made a new world recently and started near a beautiful mountain. My immediate reaction upon seeing it was “I must cut this mountain in half horizontally.” So that’s what I’m doing: about halfway up the mountain I’m cutting a swath that’s four blocks high. When I’m done (in about 5 months at the rate I’m going) I’ll have the top part of the mountain floating in the air.

Why? Because I can!

1563

My last world I decided I was going to completely hollow out the mountain near my spawn point. That project ended when I got distracted by some other cool stuff. Also, that damn mountain was frustratingly devoid of resources.

My current game is just a tangle of caverns below my starting house. It doesn’t end. I spend about 90% of my game hopelessly lost. It is time to start creating dynamite in bulk.

My goal for my next world is to build a walled village which is completely free of monster spawns within the walls and below (all the way to the bedrock).

This game is crazy addictive. I can’t wait to go exploring once the biomes are working.

1564

okay, didn’t see it in the thread, but is there some way to get descriptions of the items you have in your inventory?

1565

If you can’t find coal make endless fires instead of torches.

1566

Not in game. The minepedia has some I believe

1567

So, I’ve found the location for my new fortress. I like it:

However, it’s pretty far from my skywaterway, and I’ve run out of stone trying to finish up a new spur:

This calls for mining out a lot of stone, and that’s really not a palatable thought now that I’ve used up my last diamond pick. So I need more diamond, which means I need to find a cave. From my vantage point working on the skywaterway, I thought I had spotted a couple, but further investigation found that they were useless. Discouraged, I just started digging a stairway down into my mountain:

[continued]

1568

After going who knows how far down, I hit something intriguing – a natural cave!

My hopes are definitely up. There’s a little opening in this cave leading into a bigger cave system, and that’s good for mining. And then, rounding a corner, I come upon this beautiful sight:

Smells like ore. And after a little more digging, I’m ready to go:

1569

So the damn coolest thing happened just now.

I dug a 2x2 shaft straight down, with a ladder and a torch on the side every so often to light the way, until I was pretty deep underground. Then I started digging sideways, and quickly found a large underground cave system.

After exploring for awhile, I find a room with a huge lava fall coming down from the ceiling. A ghoul down below started to come at me, crossed the lava, and burned to a crisp.

But what’s that? The sound of water? Yes, just up and to the left a short ways was a little underground river. And then…

and idea!

It only took a few swings of the pick to let the water free to run downhill. It spread out and ran down toward the lava fall, and sure enough, as it crossed it there was the sound of steam and the lava turned to stone where it hit the water! I can dig out the stone block, but lava quickly replaces it and pssssshhhh turns to stone again.

How great is this game?

1570

Oddly enough, i consider it almost sacrosanct to disturb underground lava or water…but yes, it is awesome.

1571

It’s also the only way to harvest Obsidian at the moment.

1572

A question about spawning…

I have an underground cave and there was a spider in there. I saw him from a distance, put up some torches and a door to block him off and explored another area while I dug enough iron to make a sword. Once I had my sword I went back to kill the spider and he was gone.

Do monsters spawn and disappear underground based on the day-night cycle just like they do above ground? I figured if there was at least some darkness there’d be a chance for monsters to spawn underground anytime and they’d stick around due to the darkness. This wrong?

1573

In SP monsters/creatures only exist in a sphere around you.

Q: …
R: yes.

1574

This may be sacrilege but I carry a bucket of water with me when I spelunk and always douse out the lava beds. I also plug up all water flows and lava flows, torch light the place and mine for ore. I have had a great deal of success with this technique.

1575

I carry around two buckets of water, but they are just for if I fall into some lava, and I need to not die in a fire.

I also carry lava in the event of a tough fight- using lava as a shield! (enemies will try to walk right through it)

1576

Here is my Motte and Bailey Castle so far:

http://img828.imageshack.us/i/daymedium.png/

http://img842.imageshack.us/i/nightmedium.png/

Sorry I’m having trouble figuring out how to make those imbedded images, so you’ll have to click to see them.

The first image shows the whole castle from the outside, including the dry moat around the outside. The second shot is from the top of the fort at night looking down on the Bailey.

And heres the type of historical building I’m trying to imitate (search google images for “Motte and Bailey” to see lots more)

Motte and Bailey

Tony

1577

Wow, you chopped a lot of trees!

1578

Yeah the tree chopping was the longest part. In the end I packed a bunch of axes and went on a 3 day chopping expedition, cowering underground at night. I needed a compass too, I didn’t want to deforest the area within sight of my Castle. I want to turn that empty space in the bailey into a “crop rotation” field, with 3 quadrants wheat and one quadrant fallow.

I wouldn’t do it again. Quarrying stone is faster and more fun because you are exploring as you go. But chopping trees is a fairly thankless task.

The funnest part was surveying the land, looking for a good site that wouldn’t require too much land prep.

Tony

1579

Very very cool. Something else to add to the top of the growing Minecraft project pile :) Love your pics.

1580

I think I had enough of lava the time I setup a toolbox right next to a lava square. I was making a pick when it caught fire and then I caught fire. I foolishly did not have any water so essentially burned to death while trying to run around the lava pit to my exit. All my stuff basically landed in the lava pit when I died - including 7 diamonds and untold numbers of iron ore.

I decided at that point that you play with lava, you get burned.