First night: easy as pie. I continue my tree punching!
Second night: jesus fucking christ arrows creeper explode agughgh wife distraction dead.
Poop.
I watched Guildboss’s first-night tutorial (thanks!) and got myself well-established with a nice, safe little cave. I figured that I’d explore a bit while waiting out the night, so I started digging tunnels downwards. Despite hearing some nearby monsters, all I found were a couple of safe little cavities with some more coal and my first gold.
I spent several days just digging out my little network of tunnels, but I was starting to run low on wood for torches and picks, so I figured it was time to venture back out on the surface. I could hear something nearby, so just to be safe I made a chest and put everything valuable in it, heading back out with only a pick, a sword, and some extra cobblestone. Immediately, I was jumped by a spider and dead before I knew what the hell.
Fortunately, all of my stuff is safe in the chest. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where the entrance to my cave is, and in hindsight I should have built some kind of landmark on the outside. Now I’m wandering around desperately trying to find it again and, as I post this, hiding in fear at nights in puny little gravel caves…
Pogo
1823
Kinda funny that, even with all the warnings about using some kind of system to find your shelter from spawn, everyone has to learn it the hard way.
kerzain
1824
Well, you did eventually get jumped too, by was one of those Frankenstein monsters! When he fell on you he bumped you into the lava the second time. You can just see him for a couple frames between 12:24-12:26 when you’re flailing around on your way to death.
pyrhic
1825
Here’s my project:
A view from down below, at the southend, in the grotto:
This is a view from the west, atop something i call ‘monster hill’
From the east:
This is from the south tower, at night, looking over the courtyard. Currently the courtyard is the border of the castle, but will eventually be centrally located.
The rest of the shots: http://img214.imageshack.us/g/cast1w.jpg/
I’m not terribly satisfied with the design - mainly the openness of it all. The problem is, i like views and I want to be able to see the horizons, and you can’t do that in the middle of a castle. This way, it’s great to be in and look out, but not so nice the other way…I was thinking of experimenting with the west tower and closing it in somewhat…
I didn’t think I was that far away from the spawn. :(
Ah well, I gave up looking for my old cave and started a new one within line-of-sight of my spawn point, and it’s been going pretty well. I had to dig down pretty far through a whole lotta nothing, having to run around outside just to scrounge for coal, but I eventually hit a decent cave system and started finding iron and redstone, and a bit more digging linked up with a few other caves. A couple of them include large waterfalls, where I learned how the fluid physics work and how easily you can flood the pathway up around it that you were carving out…
Getting back and forth from the entrance is a bit of a pain so I moved all of my crafting stuff down into a central cavern and have been working almost entirely underground so far. I’ve managed to slap down enough torches that there’s only the occasional monster, and no serious threats so far. I’ve even got my own pet slime trapped by water currents in a corner of my main crafting room. I’ve got enough stone saved up that I should start thinking about some actual structures now.
Pogo
1827
It’ll be fun some day when you happen upon your old cave.
I haven’t seen this discussed too much: how the hell do you find your way around those huge underground caverns? I’ve dug all the way down to the diamond level (my shelter is a door on the cave :) ), and I’ve managed to already lose one all-iron-armor corpse down there to lava in a revealed mega cave network.
Pogo
1829
Someone mentioned in this thread a good tactic… put torches on the left side of tunnels. That way anytime you have torches on the right, you’re heading where you came from.
For tunnel splits, I make a wood or cobblestone “arrow,” two blocks high with one block jutting from the side pointing to the exit. Wood works better, contrasts more against the environment. Kind of like an upside down ‘L’ shape.
Teiman
1830
you can make a trail of reddust from the entrance of your mine down the tunnel system.
the best system to not get lost (anyway) is use a simple minning system, like a vertical hole with ladders. you can’t get lost in a ladder, theres only up and down, and up is exit.
I have found that you can edit terrain.png and make holes on the rocks tiles(holes where alpha is 100%), so you can see everything underground, all the lava and tunnels systems. Is too cheaterous and spoil the game somewhat, so don’t do that.
On the other part, this also means the game renders way more than it really needs…
I’m glad I didn’t read this thread until after I bought the game otherwise I’d have caved much earlier. As it was, RPS sold me (bastards) and I picked it up at 1pm yesterday. I reckon I had an hour and a half break at around 9pm to eat and stuff and then finished around midnight when a skeleton spawning cave cost me all my goods. Fucking Minecraft!
Leave a trail of popcorn (torches on left only, or dig up a single block in the floor and plug in a cobblestone). Then just follow the trail back out.
DeepT
1833
What texture replacement are you using and where did you get it?
Tunnels and my own mine shafts are easy. It’s the “enormous underground cave complex that loops around on itself and has multiple levels” that’s a problem. I don’t know how to systemically clear it other than walling up areas arbitrarily.
Signs. Lots and lots of signs.
I designate each ginormous chamber with a letter, then designated smaller rooms or passage intersections with a number. E.g. “Sector B-23” or what have you.
As others have noted, you also have to something that denotes “this way to the exit.” I use two torches, one above the other.
DeepT
1836
I have a torch / cobble stone system that I use to point to the way out. The torch is the center spot, and the cobblestone is in the direction of the exit. If you remember to do this and place them often enough, getting out of the most complex cave mazes is very easy. Each successive torch / cobble stone points in the direction of the previous pair. If you go onto the QT3 sever and go my place in the frontier, there is a tunnel down to a huge cave complex. You can see how it is done there and how easy it is to escape.
Zylon
1837
I’ve been using a two-block pillar of cobblestone, with a torch placed on the exit-facing side (or two sides, if it’s a diagonal). These are really easy to spot from a distance since I always place them in the center of the room.
Just started playing this on Sunday. Don’t know if this has been mentioned but for overland navigation I have found that denuding tree leaves so that they point the way back home is a pretty good landmark. The leaves don’t ever regrow, right? Right?
jeffd
1839
Some people use signs. My system is to only place torches on the walls to my left.
jason
1840
I’ve avoided mine mazes by simply strip mining or quarry mining. I built a little fort and originally I was going to put a basement door in and begin making tunnels… but after a couple run ins with the exploding guys, I turned my fort into a floating castle (complete with blocks and torches to mimic engines underneath) which hangs over the giant pit that I have dug. As the pit grows, so does the bridge I use to get in and out of the castle.
