[cycl0pse]

DB20 server going down for maintenance and OS backup.

update
Server is being reconfigured and optimized. I'll post when it's back up. No later than AM Monday.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

Image dump

I cut a tunnel through the nether. Though they don't fit down my nice spiral stair.


This is what happens when you leave crystal clusters around.



Aren't drop bears larger with shorter ears?


Now thats a spider.


This is how chicks spawn before they start moving, courtesy crazy server lag.


Trying, and failing, for the perfect mob grinder age resulted in this.


This is why you get a house inspected before you buy.

[cycl0pse]

The DW20 Server is back up and running now. Thanks for the patience.

What was done? Replaced the failing drive and the other old drive and reconfigured the system to a single RAID5 array. Next on my list is to separate the web server from the Minecraft server so I can load balance better.

cycl0pse

[cycl0pse]

Power outage had dropped the DW20 server. It's back up now.
(note to self: get that @#$#@$ UPS!!!)

cycl0pse

[cycl0pse]

Before I even ask this question, let it be known that the current DB20 world will not be going anywhere any time soon.

That said, anyone have an opinion on either the new Hexxit mod or the re-vamped tekkit (not the lite or classic version, the 'new' version)?

I find some appeal in both...

[BLAZE_MkIV]

So i've done a little work in vanilla. The swimming chickens caused allot of sound lag.




The extra eggs get automatically turned into cooked chicken.

And in SSP my first legit.

[The Final Dakar]

[cycl0pse]

took me a moment to see the creeper.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by cycl0pse 

Power outage had dropped the DW20 server. It's back up now.
(note to self: get that @#$#@$ UPS!!!)

cycl0pse

I crashed it the other night too, late night, just logged in and went through a portal and bam.

Over half of all the fuel was used in restarting the two boilers multiple times and I was very glad for the overkill-sized tank.

Originally Posted by cycl0pse 

Before I even ask this question, let it be known that the current DB20 world will not be going anywhere any time soon.

That said, anyone have an opinion on either the new Hexxit mod or the re-vamped tekkit (not the lite or classic version, the 'new' version)?

I find some appeal in both...

Hexxit seems more like an "adventure" style modpack, but I didn't read into it like crazy. The new tekkit does seem to trump our DW server for the time being, but I remember there was some friction between the tekkit people and some mod authors on the old version.

The DW20 1.5 pack is out for download in the launcher under "private packs." Simply type Direwolf20_1_5 and it'll download. I think it's just single player at the moment but I'm going to check it out. Also, it doesn't seem that 1.6 is going to take that much longer, early fall at the latest. If 1.6 is released without RedPower (which seems likely) what's the plan? 1.5 worlds are definitely incompatible with 1.6, but I believe the plan seems to be making the transition from our current version to 1.6 as painless as possible.....besides potentially deleting everything in the village using RP2.

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

lulz

[cycl0pse]

Well, just for kicks I downloaded the new Technic launcher and have been playing around in SSP. Different. So far I've played around with Hexxit and yes, it's an 'adventurer' mod... but it reminds me a lot of our Whither boss fight. Lots of new dungeons, towers, caves, and such around and each has a rather powerful boss. The added mods take out a lot of the industrial stuff (no Build Craft, no Industrial Craft, no Modular Power Suits ) in favor of a more D&D approach (More weapons, armor, enchanting, etc). The Tinker's Construct is fairly in depth, and Treecapitator should be in vanilla. So far, it seems to have a limited number of 'end game' items, making the challenges more difficult. For explorer types, it's awesome. For builder types, it's OK (has micro-blocks). For crafters who don't like enchanting/magic... it's limiting.

I'm working on a second VM for the server that will let me run the current DW20 as well as a second minecraft install. Since we have (at present) a finite number of players, the total server/network load would stay constant. Thinking it might be a nice place to test out various Modpacks and such, possibly even rotate through various ones just to mess around.

cycl0pse

[sek929]

I'll give anything a try at this point. I've been playing around on direwolf 1.5 and tinkers construct is super cool, I can definitely see it working in an adventure setting.

Modular Powersuits has undergone some changes, most notably the suit now builds up heat, which can eventually kill you. Without heavy heat sink plating one shot from the railgun will fill the heat bar up, so that's been nerfed nicely.

At any rate, if I had I choose I'd go for hexxit at the moment. Tekkit seems to similar to what we are currently doing in our DW20 world.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

The mod packs are always going to get behind periodically when mojang switches between patch releases and feature releases. Its very hard to do long term persistent worlds. With most mods being single developer, life happens. Even with the larger multi developer mods they have a culture of map breaking changes being fine. With Mojang all we get it terrain mis-alignments.

[sek929]

Played around with Hexxit a bit, pretty neat, fairly challenging.

I'll sign on and play if it gets added to the mix.

[cycl0pse]

Can someone test the following Hexxit address> cycl0pse.dyndns.org:25570

I just got it stood up, so it may or may not work. Can't test myself until later...

(just a test for connectivity, please. I may have to update the version and look for a reasonable map seed)

cycl0pse

note: this will not affect the DW20 server... it's up and happy.

[cycl0pse]

And initial testing looks good. Open for business.

[sek929]

Cool, works great over here. I'll probably play throughout the night getting set up, we down for a common space to start out with?

Two important functions will be enchanting and Tinker's Tools, I'll work towards those goals for the start. I've played a few hardcore worlds and died very easily, this game is not forgiving.

[sek929]

Well I was on fairly late last night, got a nice cobble safe house set up complete with Tinker's Smeltery. Spawn is also located fairly close to quite a bit of nasty dungeons and other assorted dangerous loot areas. I have not plundered anything yet, for fear of dying and losing sweet loot.

Edit: Just realized you said to just test out the world because the version or map may change, d'oh, no matter I can start over again.

[cycl0pse]

actually, I'm pretty happy with the map we got. After testing function, I ditched the first map before you logged into it. The current map seed is:
BigTroubleInLittleChina

so no map changes. we're good to go. difficulty is on normal, fyi.

[sek929]

Sweet!

Remember, now that the Smeltery is up and running an iron pick takes only one ingot of iron to build, so ditch those vanilla tools! There is a fairly large 'monster town' to the N of spawn, and there is a Tower to the S. Right now we are going to need some armor and offensive weapons to tackle any of those things, and I'd like to get some kind of enchanting option up and running, even if it is only an Anvil to use enchanted books with.

[andi*pandi]

anyone know in the new launcher how to manually change key controls? I'd like to use command-click for attack, use, etc...but the options panel doesn't allow that. I used to edit options.txt to change it... but can't find it in the minecraft package.

Any clues? Google is not helping.

Also, sadness that the new launcher requires java 1.6... leaving the kid's powerPC unable to run the latest update. Poor sad PowerPC.

Wonder if on my machine I can run both versions 1.5 and 1.6 so we can still do LAN games.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

You can run multiple java vm on the same machine at the same time. When you launch an app you can force it to use a specific VM. I think there's a post about it a while back from when apple upgraded to 1.7. You can also use JarBundler to make the jar and the version restriction into a nice app.

[cycl0pse]

Well, no pics yet but Sek and were messing around in Hexxit this weekend. Rather interesting mod, and very challenging. It's not a question of 'if' you die, but more of 'when' and 'how spectacularly'. The mod even places a tombstone where you die, just so you can memorialize the moment.

Unlike DW20, it's an 'adventure' pack, meaning going out and clearing out dungeons (and plenty of other structures, too) is how you get the best items. So far we haven't found an 'end-game' item like a power suit or nano armor, but the tinker's construct is pretty versatile. It's more about good planning than just smash and grab (though smash and grab has a certain charm to it).

On the plus side, extrabiomes and microblocks exist in a 1.5 variant, so cool looking structures are possible. But the first few hours are all about defense, as the hostile mobs are, well, hostile.

Overall, fun change of pace. Feel free to give it a try.

right now it's whitelisted with the usual suspects, but I'm more than willing to add more folks to the whitelist (so if anyone is lurking out there, sing out and I'll add your ID to the list. no greifing.)

[The Final Dakar]

So, how long til you guys try out Cubeworld? LPers seem pretty open to trying it.

(No I'm not interested in it)

[cycl0pse]

first I've ever heard of it, honestly.
FWIW, the 'Hexxit' server is more a 'Minecraft Flavor of the Month' server. I plan on trying out various modpacks as we grow bored with things. The vanilla server is awesome and always worth time. The DW20 is great for what it is, but I think, if we could do it over again, we would have play tested some other mods first. So far, Hexxit is just the first one to try. Others will follow as we get bored.

[sek929]

Tinker's Construct is certainly one of the cooler standalone mods out there. I'm having a blast smelting and creating my perfect tool, and then fretting about losing it. My only wish is for some variety of tank to keep a larger backup supply of lava, but that's a small gripe. I also think Hexxit would be pretty cool with the addition of the portal gun mod, make them super rare, but once you get them exiting a massive dungeon won't be such a pain.

As for CubeWorld, I watched some Yogscast videos and it certainly looks cool, but it is totally not up my alley. Adventuring and looting only with no crafting or building gets old real fast for me. Still a very neat game and certainly very well made.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

I've never been into the final fantasy style game genre.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

As for CubeWorld, I watched some Yogscast videos and it certainly looks cool, but it is totally not up my alley. Adventuring and looting only with no crafting or building gets old real fast for me. Still a very neat game and certainly very well made.

I haven't watched much, but it looks so startlingly similar I really have to ask if it couldn't have been a mod.

(The answer likely is, not if they wanted to make money on it)

[sek929]

Oh Cyclopse, in a moment of clarity I solved our arrow problems. Enchant a book with Infinity (11XP), apply it to bow (6XP) and that's that.

Edit: also

[cycl0pse]

nice lid. I really need to spend some time enchanting up a dungeon kit.

[cycl0pse]

quick question: how much do people use the dynmap of the DB20 server? since standing up the Hexxit virtual, I really see just how much resources that dynmap eats up... if it's not being used, I'm going to disable the active map and just update it once a week.

Opinions and thoughts on this?

(for the record, Hexxit has a mod that does the mapping client-side, so no real need for a web map)

[BLAZE_MkIV]

I don't really need the dynamic map updating.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by cycl0pse 

nice lid. I really need to spend some time enchanting up a dungeon kit.

I made you one as well, put it in an item frame inside your house.

I think we can easily just rely on manually requesting map updates for the DW20 server when needed, I don't see much hapeneing there in the near future.

[andi*pandi]

weekly updating is prob fine, or something like that.

[sek929]

Server went down as I was Tinkerin'

[cycl0pse]

power outage. just got everything restarted.

[cycl0pse]

Just a FYI: Sek, when the server dropped the last time, it was due to a power outage (again). Apparently someone was playing "click-click" with the power in the area, so I shut the server down. The power finally stabalized after 3am. The server may still be down now and may stay that way until this evening...

[sek929]

Oof, rough break dude...I could use a small break from Hexxit anyways, my kitten is feeling neglected.

[cycl0pse]

good news: no issues with the server after all the power issues (*)
bad news: all advanced router functions got fried. So no port forwarding for the time being.

End result, DW20 and Hexxit are down for now. If the stars are in alignment and the rubber chicken is still magical, I'll have it back up by friday.

(*so what was this mysterious power issue? no idea, but in the space of 6 hours our power 'flickered' over 50 times. it got to the point that I unplugged all the major items for the night.)

[cycl0pse]

(ahem)
and we're back up and running.

[sek929]

Update:

I've bitten the bullet and moved most of the spawn safe-house inside that castle you cleared out Cyclopse. I'm only going to make use of the second floor for storage and workshop, the rest of the enormous building is up for grabs. I extended the rail line straight into the first floor and meteor protection is already up and running.

[cycl0pse]

Do we have meteor protection at both sites? If so, I may build an obvious station for the rail so anyone else who stops by can just head down to the castle.

[sek929]

Yep, there are now two meteor shields. A convenient train station would be awesome.

[sek929]

Server down?

[cycl0pse]

just Hexxit. Gotta check logs and see what happens, but suspect it was MS updates. It's back up now.

[cycl0pse]

Been a while since I've posted anything but server updates, so here's my mini-review of Hexxit:

First off, don't be put off that it's an 'adventurer' pack. It 'plays' like vanilla Minecraft, just with more structures, dungeons, biomes, monsters, and equipment. Sure, it lacks buildcraft, industrialcraft, and thaumcraft... but those lacks actually make a very balanced modpack. I've yet to find a 'endgame' item, such as a Powersuit or Nano armor, yet the tinker's construct and advanced enchanging let you make very powerful items that still have the ability to wear out. It adds a certain thrill to wandering around... you never know when a new mob will jump out and give you a decent fight. Nights are back to being dangerous outside the save zone you setup, and beyond a simple ender chest you don't have 'off-site' storage anymore... so death has risks again. Rather invigorating.

I do miss the warehouse and auto-sorting system therein. I also miss railcraft. Still, those losses are nicely balanced by the addition of Dimensional Doors (where has this mod been my whole life?) and, surprisingly, Bilbocraft (love the new furniture options, especially bookshelves). With just a touch of resource managment it's possible to setup instant transport between far away bases in a manner similar to MystCraft... just without the excessive overhead of the mystcraft worlds.

All in all, I'd rather play Hexxit than vanilla, but it's no replacement for DW20 or other 'technology' modpacks. Simply put, it's what an update to Vanilla should be. Now, on to pictures.


When I first started exploring, I found a floating castle. Immediately I felt at home.
(shortly after this picture was taken, cycl0pse was slain by the occupants of said castle)


After returning to spawn, I adventured another direction and found my first battle tower. The good: it only activates if you want to explore it, otherwise it stays passive. The bad: if you do activate it, be ready for a LOT of mobs. two spawners per floor, all the way to the roof. The ugly? Giant stone golem on the roof that is nasty if you're under-equipped.
(again, not knowing that discretion is the better part of valor, cycl0pse explored said tower... and earned an express trip back to spawn for his troubles)


At this point I decided a secure home base was required, so reverting to type I found a hill near spawn and dug my way in. Soon I had my nice little hobbit-home (with rooftop greenhouse):



Not much later, SEK joined the party and got to work on a proper base at spawn. Got to admit, he has style:


I'll leave you with a few random pictures:





So, anyone else been up to anything?

[The Final Dakar]

I like the Easter Island head.

[sek929]

I'll echo what Cyclopse said, Hexxit is a very nice overhaul of Vanilla without losing any of the challenge of Vanilla.

Dakar, you actually mentioned you'd be interested in taking a look at Vanilla again, since there have been many changes, well Hexxit is running 1.5 Vanilla (I'm fairly sure) and there are no technological whiz-bang mods to complicate things. The mods that are included only enhance the Vanilla experience but still require plenty of good old fashioned leg work.

Tinker's Construct has a variety of uses, cardinal among them is the ability to use a wide swath of materials to make tools and weapons. It adds some very nifty blocks, like drawbridges, and can also be used to double the output of ores. The overall mechanics of the system are awesome, and it has rapidly become one of my "can't live without" mods.

Bibliocraft isn't just a pretty mod than adds very decoration-minded blocks, but also expands the Vanilla storage system and adds many different way to store, view, and easily access items, tools, etc... Tool racks being my favorite.

Since there are so many mobs and dungeons to explore your XP will always climb rapidly. You get XP from mining certain blocks and from smelting, so enchanting armor and weapons is no longer a massive grind, coupled with a new enchanting system curtsey of a very specialized mod means you can get the exact enchant you want. Loot is varied and certain types of structures will yeild different families of loot. The underground maze dealies for example are great places to get tons of enchanting books.

Extra biomes and added tree types and block types make building and design more robust than Vanilla as well, and moving forward RedPower microblocks are being replaced by the Immibis Core API, which does alll sorts of neat things regarding what can be done within the space of one block.

If you have any interest in playing Vanilla, Dakar, you should def head on over to our Hexxit server and give it whirl, I guarantee it'll blow your pants off*




*not guaranteed

[cycl0pse]

hexxit is running a flavor of 1.5, but many 1.6 updates (read as: horses) are added via a modpack.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Dakar, you actually mentioned you'd be interested in taking a look at Vanilla again, since there have been many changes, well Hexxit is running 1.5 Vanilla (I'm fairly sure) and there are no technological whiz-bang mods to complicate things. The mods that are included only enhance the Vanilla experience but still require plenty of good old fashioned leg work.

Tinker's Construct has a variety of uses, cardinal among them is the ability to use a wide swath of materials to make tools and weapons. It adds some very nifty blocks, like drawbridges, and can also be used to double the output of ores. The overall mechanics of the system are awesome, and it has rapidly become one of my "can't live without" mods.

Bibliocraft isn't just a pretty mod than adds very decoration-minded blocks, but also expands the Vanilla storage system and adds many different way to store, view, and easily access items, tools, etc... Tool racks being my favorite.

Since there are so many mobs and dungeons to explore your XP will always climb rapidly. You get XP from mining certain blocks and from smelting, so enchanting armor and weapons is no longer a massive grind, coupled with a new enchanting system curtsey of a very specialized mod means you can get the exact enchant you want. Loot is varied and certain types of structures will yeild different families of loot. The underground maze dealies for example are great places to get tons of enchanting books.

Extra biomes and added tree types and block types make building and design more robust than Vanilla as well, and moving forward RedPower microblocks are being replaced by the Immibis Core API, which does alll sorts of neat things regarding what can be done within the space of one block.

If you have any interest in playing Vanilla, Dakar, you should def head on over to our Hexxit server and give it whirl, I guarantee it'll blow your pants off*




*not guaranteed

Actually part of my reluctance is also a general laziness of not wanting to have to download another launcher or whatever.

[sek929]

You're right, the 2 1/2 minutes that would take is just unbearable.