Cast, Mine, Thrive

A journal of adventures in the worlds of Minecraft and MineTest.

[cast-mine-thrive]

While exploring the Mining Dimension, I ran across this hole cut into the landscape. It's covered in webs, and there's a spider spawner some ways in. Normally, this would be pretty dangerous, but one of the features of the Mining Dimension is that monsters can't spawn there (normally anyway, there are some exceptions).

Thus, it's basically just a big hole that doesn't serve any real purpose. However, it's a bit of a warning, because if spider nests like this can spawn here, they can spawn in the Overworld just as easily, and I'd better keep an eye out.

Also, yes, my go-to weapon is a giant cleaver that rival's Cloud's Buster sword. I don't plan on swinging more than once.

[cast-mine-thrive]

In the last post, I bemoaned how hard it can be to figure out some of the newfangled contraptions in modern mods. Shortly after I discovered and began fussing over the ground trap, I discovered there was a counterpart to it called a water trap.

This machine does pretty much the same thing. Put some fish bait in it, and after some time you'll have an array of fancy fishes to dine on. It's much easier to use than any autofisher I've ever seen, and the bait can be produced using ProjectE's Energy Condenser for slightly less EMC than the fish you'll catch.

Also, unlike the ground trap, I had no trouble getting this one to work. I just plunked it underwater like any other autofishing machine and it did its thing right away. Plain and simple.

[cast-mine-thrive]

If you've made your own "modpacks" in the past, you've probably had to deal with lots of instability and many error logs in your attempts to get the various mods to work together. Today, these problems are gone for the most part, but now there's a new problem with playing modded Minecraft.

Newer mods, and newer versions of classic mods, often lack documentation. This results in cases like the screenshot above: I've found a new machine among the recipes listed in Just Enough Items, but I can't find any useful instructions on what exactly I'm supposed to do with it.

And just to be blunt: 45-minute YouTube videos are NOT helpful when you're already playing the game or just need one simple answer. The written word is grossly underappreciated when it comes to manuals these days.

I finally figured out how to use this machine about a month after this screenshot was taken. It's a "ground trap", and what you do is bury it in a one block deep hole, cover the surrounding area with tall grass, and fill the bait container with either grain bait or veggie bait. Then you just wander away for a bit, and when you return some of the bait will be gone, and there will be some meat or animal bits (leather, bone, eggs, feathers, etc) collected in the trap.

No hunting required!

[cast-mine-thrive]

Here's something I certainly didn't expect to find.

This island is made from magma slime, and it's another new feature created by Tinker's Construct. These islands don't form anywhere near as frequently as the floating islands in the Overworld, but they serve the same purpose: easy access to large quantities of slime.

One thing to be very careful about though: while there's a small ring around them, the majority of the blocks making up these islands are actually the same height as the lava. One wrong step and you'll end up being cooked alive!

[cast-mine-thrive]

One of the drawbacks of the Minecraft world is that some things are just plain unreachable through normal means. For example, I need a little glowstone powder and nether quartz to continue on, but these are only found in the Nether.

The best place for the Nether Portal was some distance from the main base, as these things can be a risk to the general peace and quiet of the nearby area. Also, because I wanted to someday extend the main base, I also need to leave plenty of room between it and any fixed portals. Thus, I placed the portal on top of one of the towers seen in the previous update.

However, between gathering the obsidian for the portal and setting it up, I managed to lose track of where I had placed my suit of armor. So I made do with the scraps I managed to find instead.

[cast-mine-thrive]

After all of the work I've done in the Mining Dimension, I figured it was time to do a little exploring. The entire theme of this install was to explore a new world with many strange places, after all.

So, once I'd generated enough iron to make a lightweight suit of armor and some weapons, I mounted my broom and flew off into the sky in hopes of finding something interesting.

These tall towers were a few minute's travel from the hut I've been using as a base. They were surprisingly empty; very few monsters spawned in them, and there wasn't anything of interest on their different floors. For what it's worth, they were sort of a bust.

Also, like the previous screenshots, I ended up having to tweak this one in GIMP to make it possible to tell what the image showed. It's a rather annoying problem plaguing this set up for some odd reason.

[cast-mine-thrive]

I have a bunch of mods installed that add structures to your world, so I'm not real sure what generates these floating islands. They are really high up, making them hard to spot and even harder to access. The big problem is that the broomsticks I can make with Evilcraft have a flight ceiling -- these islands are almost higher than the brooms can fly.

Each island houses a single chest, and to be honest, the loot isn't that great. I've mostly been visiting them to trim the vines, as they grow long enough to get in the way or otherwise prove annoying.

In the background you can see the top of one of the many, many slime islands that Tinker’s Construct generates. Seriously, there are dozens of them all over the place.

[cast-mine-thrive]

I probably should've seen this coming.

Long story made short: I decided to check out the nearby towns in a bid to trade things for emeralds. After all, emeralds have a lot more EMC than your average item (more than even diamonds), so trading a few shafts of wheat for an emerald is a huge net gain.

While walking around one of the towns, I found a villager offering a Nether Star for 9 emeralds. Nether Stars are hard to get (as they are a drop from the Wither boss) and are worth an insane amount of EMC, so heck yeah this looked like a good deal. I spent some time running around trading everything I could to make enough emeralds, and then traded for the Nether Star.

... which as you can see, was neither a star nor a good idea. Whoops.

[cast-mine-thrive]

Evilcraft takes an entirely different approach to magic and wizardry in Minecraft than I'm used to. The main focus of this mod is the many things you can do if you're willing to be a little bit evil. For example, a lot of the things you do involve using blood collected from hostile or passive mobs. In order to collect blood, you need to carry a special device while killing a lot of mobs. Once you have enough blood in your vial, the real fun begins.

The broomsticks are a great place to begin. Usually, I make sure that my Minecraft set up includes a method to fly (typically a jetpack of some kind). However, there simply weren't many tech related mods for the Minecraft version I decided to use, and those that were available didn't have a method for flight. This means it was the first time I've been grounded since I abandoned Vanilla a few years ago. That's where the brooms come in -- you ride on them like any proper witch. So, once I completed all of the intermediate steps, I was able to finally leave the ground behind.

Evilcraft's Broomsticks require a lot of things -- evil sticks, dark crystals, crystal powder, and the blood of about sixty sheep. Once everything's combined, it's just a matter of looking to the sky and straddling your custom made cleaning utensil. The good news is that they are easier to steer than a boat, and you can hover in mid-air when you want to. The bad news is that it's really easy to accidentally put the broom back in your inventory, and they provide no protection whatsoever against long drops.

But, once you're airborne you're free to explore the world from a better vantage point. For example, I found this village nestled in the woods east of my base.

Unfortunately, In order to make the screenshot come out, I had to tweak it in GIMP again; I'm not sure why everything's coming out so dark (my video settings are the same as always; I checked), but hopefully nobody minds that I toggled the brightness and contrast of the image.

[cast-mine-thrive]

Honestly, I'm not sure why I decided to mess around with enchanting this early on. Perhaps it was because I'd collected a lot of ore and felt like I might have trouble getting enough material to feed the hungry Energy Condenser.

Whatever the case, EnderIO provides a much better solution than the clumsy enchanting table from vanilla Minecraft. To use this, you need a book, some other items, and have already gained a number of levels. It works much like the original enchanting table, except that what items you place in the special extra slots determine what enchantment you produce. It's not random anymore.

To apply your new magical buffs to your favorite tools, use the tool and the newly minted book in an anvil. Ultimately, this makes enchanting a little more expensive than normal, but the ability to select what enchantment you get is worth the extra price.

[cast-mine-thrive]

Unlike my usual setups, this selection of mods doesn't have much in the way of machinery or industry in general. The main reason for this was that I accidentally chose to base the install on an unpopular version of Minecraft, so the usual stuff like Thaumcraft, Industrial Craft or Thermal Expansion just aren't an option as they were never ported to it.

The next best thing (other than Tinker's Construct) is EnderIO, which is rather expansive. It's another mod that I've never used before, but since it has a very small learning curve, it's really easy to use once you have enough materials to build the machines.

Shown here are the three machines that are the core of the mod. On the far right is the generator that provides power to everything else. It burns just about any sort of normal fuel, so there's no intermediate steps to deal with. Just toss the coal in the slot and it'll fire itself up.

The middle machine is the Sag Mill. Most industrial mods have a grinding machine that gives you a way to double your ingots per ore ratio, and this is the one from EnderIO. Unlike most of the others I've used over the years, the Sag Mill also produces byproducts as it works. Cobblestone is a common example, but you have a chance to get more valuable things too. Grinding coal ore can yield diamonds as a byproduct, for example.

The last machine is the alloy smelter, which is basically a furnace that can cook three things at once. You can also use it to produce special ingots using various formulas, but 99% of the time it's just going to be used as a cheap and speedy furnace. It can only use the power provided by a generator though, so don't expect to use this on its own.

Another neat feature is that all of these machines can pull resources from or place items into nearby inventories, much like a Thermal Expansion itemduct network. There are also a few other specialized machines, but those tend to be used for just a few specific things and aren't really needed.

[cast-mine-thrive]

You see that blue block with a little dot in it? That's a naturally occurring Chance Cube. Chance Cubes look like giant dice, and they're one of the more unique (and more dangerous) features of my Minecraft world. Breaking a Chance Cube activates it, which will cause a random event to happen. These random events can range from a few item drops to drastic curses and monster spawns, so it's wise to be ready for anything before you get out your pickaxe.

For now, I'll leave this one be as I don't want to break one without some preparation beforehand.

If you're the gambling type, they can be made on demand. As the blue tint implies, they are made out of lapis lazuli, and nothing else. For now, it's not worth attempting to do that, but I might craft a few if there's ever a time where I don't mind being killed by magic, having my inventory wiped clean, or getting hit in the head by several anvils -- all of which are real possible outcomes of breaking a Chance Cube.

[cast-mine-thrive]

I mentioned earlier that Tinker's Construct has changed many of its rules regarding how materials work. One thing that hasn't changed is the need to use the smeltery to process metals. On the plus side, making a cast now destroys the stone part, so there's no leftover bits and pieces cluttering up the works.

Another benefit comes with using this mod alongside ProjectE. The smeltery uses lava for fuel, and as it turns out, buckets of lava are relatively cheap to create using ProjectE's transmutation features. You really only pay for the bucket itself; the lava source block isn't worth much. This means that you can recover most of the cost of creating the lava filled bucket by processing the empty bucket afterwards.

In the meantime, the smeltery isn't the best way to deal with processing ores. Sure, you get two ingots per ore, but many other mods can do better than that. On a related note, since none of the mods I'm using provide copper or tin, there's no way to produce anything made using bronze. It's possible I might be able to create bronze ingots using ProjectE, but I need to find one first.

[cast-mine-thrive]

Another of the new mods in my current setup is ProjectE. This is an attempt to bring the features of the popular, though now discontinued, Equivalent Exchange 2 mod to modern Minecraft. I've toyed with EE3 briefly, but I've never really used this mod before. Thus, this adventure is my first real exposure to what these magical machines are capable of.

The basic idea is that everything is worth a certain amount of magical energy. Much like the replicators in Star Trek, matter can be converted into energy and then back into matter again. An extreme example of this is turning cobblestone into diamonds. The difference between them is huge, so it'll take a mind boggling amount of cobblestone to actually do it, but it's possible.

This box is the heart of the mod's transmutation system. It's an Energy Condenser -- everything that goes in gets dissolved into magical energy, and you can transmutate this energy into whatever item you place in the chest's template slot. The bad news then, is that in order to create something, you must already have one of that something.

It's not much of an issue, surprisingly. Just keep one of each raw material on hand, and you can make anything in moments. I've mostly been using this to free up inventory space by turning everything into emeralds. Emeralds require more energy than diamond and aren't really used for anything, so it's a great storage medium for large amounts of magical energy.

[cast-mine-thrive]

Okay, that's right creepy.

As you may have guessed, the Gravestone Mod produces a little gravestone when you die. This grave contains all of the items and some of the experience that you had on you. This way, there's no need to panic and rush back to collect everything, since nothing will despawn, be carried off, or get destroyed by falling into lava.

On the other hand, it's surreal as heck to see a gravestone with your head poking out of the dirt in front of it.

[cast-mine-thrive]

The entrance to my mine is starting to take shape. In time, it'll be lined with polished stones and provide a winding stairway deep into the earth.

As you can see, I've already created a hammer. This one is mostly composed of slime, so it's not very strong and can't mine most ores. But, it doesn't really need to; once I have access to better materials I'll be disposing of this tool in favor of a better hammer.

[cast-mine-thrive]

Back in the Mining Dimension, I finally remembered that I've installed Tinker's Construct. I don't really have the means to build a smeltery yet, but there's more than enough wood and cobble to make some basic tools. Of course, I'm going to upgrade the tool station into a tool forge at the first opportunity, as I really prefer using hammers to pickaxes.

Getting started with Tinker's Construct was actually fairly awkward, as there have been several changes to the way the mod works. Specifically, materials work differently, and what you knew about them from previous versions of this mod isn't always how they work now.

For example, tools made with wood will sometimes hurt you when used, while stone almost always ruins whatever you've made. Before this, either would’ve worked as a viable choice for the entire tool. You best option now is to make your tools using a mixture of materials.

Fortunately, since there are islands spawning blue slimes everywhere, I can easily acquire enough goo to make slime crystals. Those are used as a spongy material that generally makes good handles and bindings.