[BLAZE_MkIV]

I've been playing a DW 1.5 SSP mostly hardcore mode. I'll post some photos. Mostly its been build a base and tree farm, start on nano armor, die to creeper. This last week has been Hard difficult but not hardcore, otherwise hitting that pigman when a creeper was on the nether side of my portal would have been a little worse.

[Jawbone54]

You guys started another server?

[sek929]

You betcha, its a blast too, you should come join.

[cycl0pse]

Jawbone, yes I did start another server.

Hexxit: cycl0pse.dyndns.org:25570
you can get the Hexxit launcher here: Technic Launcher - Technic Platform

The idea is that, once we bore with Hexxit, I'll archive it and we'll try another modpack out. (don't see this happening anytime soon... I'm rather enjoying hexxit)

[sek929]

After a couple screwups I managed to figure out dimensional doors as a means of teleporting from point A to point B. I plan on making one link to the Lich Tower as to facilitate an easy retreat/rearm/inventory dump.

[cycl0pse]

good news/bad news
good news: I have a sorting system that works!
bad news: very hopper, and thus iron, dependent.

it's modular, but linear. takes up quite a bit of room. The good news is it can stack. So for now I'm building it in the castle around the courtyard.

Definitely need more iron.

cycl0pse
edit: and for anyone curious, it's 1.5 vanilla compatible.

[cycl0pse]

Hey Jawbone, I see in the log you're trying to connect to the Hexxit server. Everything OK, or are you having issues?

[cycl0pse]

SEK: quick FYI
I have two grinder options running. The first is the tower grinder. Take the door to "Castle Grayskull" and take the left tunnel. Should be relatively easy to figure out from there. I left signs

The other one is a simple drop grinder using that lonely zombie spawner in the main castle building. I was even nice enough to dim-door the top and bottom, so just wait at the top, then head down and punch away. the're dropping with about 1-3 hearts left. punching too long? I left a sword there...

cycl0pse

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by cycl0pse 

Hey Jawbone, I see in the log you're trying to connect to the Hexxit server. Everything OK, or are you having issues?

Sorry, I just saw this.

The problem was on my end. I finally logged on.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

Okay I got talked into trying out hexxit. After dieing once to a Battle Guardian before I defeated (regen potions FTW) it I went looking for a place to call home. And got completely lost.



It even has an detached garage.



Met with cyl0pse on the vanilla server yesterday and showed him the way to the horse valley

[andi*pandi]

Yeehaw!

[cycl0pse]

Horses change things more than one would expect. A decent horse has speed equivalent to a mine cart, making the 'King's Highway' a viable means of daily transportation. It also requires someone with a lava mote around their building to come up with a much larger door. On top of that, you now need an aesthetically pleasing stable, preferably creeper and enderman proof, not to mention a re-design of interior stairs to get Mr. Ed down to my rail lines so I can quickly travel places a road hasn't been cut to yet.

Horses and Hoppers have significantly adjusted the logic in Minecraft. Almost worth a full rebuild of my home base to take advantage of it all.... if I wasn't enjoying Hexxit so much, that is.

On another note:
the DW20 server kept crashing, and logs pointed to the dynmap add-on. I've disabled dynmap, so no pretty map out there to look at for now. Once I do some research, we'll see what happens.

cycl0pse

[sek929]

That was me who aided in crashing the DW20 server. Logged on to look around and the server went down after I went through a portal gun portal.

[cycl0pse]

well, I see from the log I missed a party in Hexxit last night. Sigh. Getting up super early for work is having a negative effect on my Minecraft social life...

SEK, Regarding the DW20 server: from the logs, all the various crashes (portal, myst doors, etc) all seem to stem from Dynmap getting overloaded. So I did the math. When DW20 with Dynmap was stable, it took 6 processor cores and 8gig memory. Hexxit is stable on 4 cores and 4 gig memory. I killed Dynmap and did some testing. I can now get DW20 running relatively stable with just 5 cores and 6 gig of memory.

My opinion: that version of DW20 is a resource hog something fierce. Definitely got to redo that server ...

cycl0pse

[BLAZE_MkIV]

I know that 2 days ago was the first time i had been on in weeks.

[cycl0pse]

traffic to DW20 has been slow, not counting me logging in to test stuff. I've attributed it to the nice weather we've had this summer.

[sek929]

Hexxit seems to be taking off, so for now I really wouldn't expend much energy on the DW20 server. I like to check in just to keep an eye on things, which was a good call since this past time I discovered that our sorting system was clogged with Birch Logs. Past that I like to admire the complexity of the entire build that blaze has set up with RP2 for our sorting machine, it's a thing of beauty.

I've been keeping up with Dire's server play series (Forgecraft 1@2) and there are major changes to nearly every mod that we know and love on our DW20 server. So much so that if we do decide to play DW20 modpack when the 1.6 compatible version is available (which will be sooner rather than later) I would suggest a fresh world...or

Cyclopse has hinted at, a couple times, building our own modpack which would include all of this new Hexxit worlgen and a smattering of the newer 1.6 compatible mods we are familiar with from DW20. I think this is the most tantalizing option moving forward, but then the burden of compatibility and other issues will be on our beloved admin, instead of some youtuber.

[andi*pandi]

Between the busy summer and having to sort out Minecraft updates, have not been on to play in ages. I think with colder weather I'll get back into it.

[cycl0pse]

I'll go on record now stating that I do want to work on our own MODpack, but making it balanced and stable is not an easy task. I need to do some research to make sure I'm up for adjusting all the config files (the background stuff) before I fully commit to it happening. (And to be honest, if Blaze would be willing to back me up on that end, it'd be a huge help.)

I just like the idea of taking the 'best of' from different mods and putting them together. The hard part is keeping it balanced. Example: Power Suits in DW20 just about kill all risk from the game, assuming you have a reliable power source. Quantum armor did the same for Tekkit Classic. Not sure about everyone else, but I like having some risk in the game.

Taking Hexxit as a base, there are a few mods that could go (Harken Scythe being one, Legend Gear being another ... they are fun, but not that spectacular) and a few I'd love to add (Buildcraft definately, possibly a flavor if Industrial, Ender chests are a must).

If we were going to do this, what mods to people like?

[sek929]

Taking Hexxit as the base (so Tinker'sConstruct already included) I'd add:

Applied Energistics - Makes storing and crafting less tedious without killing the challenge of mining.
BuildCraft - Maybe lose the quarry and keep everything else, can be used to power Applied Energistics.
Ender storage - Obvious reasons
Iron Chest - Adds the iron/gold/diamond/etc chests.
Omni Tools - Adds lexicon and omni wrench
Portal Gun - With Dimensional Doors this seems like it would fit right in.
Thermal Expansion - Adds machines that perform IC2 functions without adding all the stuff from IC2. Adds Magmatic engines, liquiducts and tesseracts.

I'm happy with the current level of armor and weapons, being able to die keeps it fresh.

[Jawbone54]

This is stupid, but the one where entire trees collapse when you chop them with an axe is a must.

[andi*pandi]

I like being able to fly, or hover. Makes building so much less tedious, with the scaffolding etc.

[cycl0pse]

all good suggestions (and Jawbone, treecapitator is not a 'stupid' suggestion: it's an awesome mod that should make it to vanilla).

I'm starting the fact-finding stage. So far, I've set myself the following ground rules:

1. Don't go backwards. (shooting for 1.6.2 compatibility, 1.5 minimum)
2. Avoid 'end-game' items, or nerf them (Power Armor, Nano Suit, etc)
3. Limit duplicate functionality. (no sense having 3 styles of backpacks)
4. No resource-killing functions (Dimensional Doors is good, Mystcraft is bad)

That's just the basic ground rules. Things I'm keeping in mind include flight, technology, biome diversity, redstone circuitry/logic, and overall look-feel of the mods. As much as I personally like railcraft, it really doesn't fit the mood of a high technology world. Similarly, Legend Gear stands out around nuclear plants. Hexxit showed me that a limited but balanced mod is preferable to a huge, all encompassing MOD (like tekkit classic) that has poor game balance and eventually feels like creative with creeper-target-practice. I"m also assuming this will be more of a co-op experience (players helping players, no intentional PvP) and will have a bit of Hexxit's 'us vs Minecraft' vibe.

( Speaking of which: for those on the Hexxit server: is the difficulty level OK, or should we ramp it up? )

Open to all suggestions.

cycl0pse

[BLAZE_MkIV]

( Speaking of which: for those on the Hexxit server: is the difficulty level OK, or should we ramp it up? )

I died to a non-derp so its not way too low. I need to try another dungeon thing to gauge it again. Me and Sek did basically walk through a volcano last night. We were only limited by torches. I'd like to avoid the worldgen destroying "Zombies break wooden doors" setting though.

I like being able to fly, or hover. Makes building so much less tedious, with the scaffolding etc.

This is a question of do we want the pack to limit us or self limit. Its bad enough that you can just ladder over any physical obstacle. Flight kinda ruins it. I still need to post your hydra fight.

[cycl0pse]

Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV 

This is a question of do we want the pack to limit us or self limit. Its bad enough that you can just ladder over any physical obstacle. Flight kinda ruins it. I still need to post your hydra fight.

That's an interesting point. Flight makes it easier to build stuff but really kills a lot of the 'adventure' aspect. Definitely worth more discussion.

As for 'self-regulate' vs 'mod-limited'... I'm definitely in the 'mod-limited' camp. It's one thing to agree to limit village huts to 10x10x25 high, or to keep the community mine free of slimes. It's something altogether different to say 'yes, we have Power Suits, but you're not allowed to jump high, OK?' It's like handing a hyper child candy on Halloween and telling them not to eat it

[sek929]

Flight is a tough one.

The update MPS (powersuits) has some new mechanics, including a building up heat when using things like shock absorbers, flight, etc.. I died by overheating my suit in a test 1.5 DW world. The railgun is silly overpowered and the claw would eventually take the place of all the neat Tinker's items, which would be lame. A more limited "utilitarian" Powersuit could be used for faster movement and flight with all the other featured disabled but that hardly seems worth the effort.

Extra Utilities is a nifty small mod that adds a bunch of odds and ends, most notable being the Angel Block, which is placeable in thin air.

As for the difficulty I don't find it overly hard, but some of those larger dungeons are a massive chore as far as armor durability is concerned. I've come very close to death and died on numerous occasions.

[cycl0pse]

Blaze,
OK, I tried using eggs in the sorter as 'filler' and it seems to be working. Sadly, i'm out of eggs. Anyone have a chicken farm going yet?

All,
DO NOT SORT EGGS IN THE SORTER! Since it's the 'filler' it will ROYALLY screw things up.

(temptation to make a similar sorter on vanilla is growing, but I really don't want to get that much nether quartz together...)

[BLAZE_MkIV]

I have all things in my inventory to make one. I got a little sidetracked.

[Mac User #001]

You know, I've started dabbling in Minecraft a little here and there. Play every now and then on my iPad. Play splitscreen with some friends on Xbox. But what you guys are talking about is a whole new level I just don't understand yet.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

Minecraft looks simple on the surface. But once you get beyond building pretty houses it gets very complex. The xbox community is still in the building roller coasters stage. The PC side grew out of that when they killed cart boosters with 1.6b two years ago. If you want resources for more technical minecraft stuff feel free to ask. Though most of the recent discussion has been about 3rd party content.

[cycl0pse]

apparently there's an issue with Hexxit. I'm still getting to the point that I can troubleshoot, so I'll post here when it's back in a happy place.

[cycl0pse]

and Hexxit is back up. apparently I can't modify the LegendGear config file to remove those blasted hearts while hearts exist in the game. yay.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

but they're only mob drops not in chests? so just in the grinder (s)

Did some vanilla work while it was down.
Prototype

[andi*pandi]

Interesting... what do the carts do?

I am still at the building pretty houses stage. lol.

[cycl0pse]

Haven't seen it live, but from the picture they are hopper carts, so the top chest loads items to smelt, the cart goes back and forth dumping items into available ovens, and the bottom cart grabs the finished products and dumps them in the finished chest.

It's possible to use a similar theory to make a vanilla-capable sorter.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

There's a third cart in the back loading fuel. What you also cant see is the 30 stacks of material added to the dome.

I'm considering a design that will only fuel on demand and maybe only take 8 items at a time. Thankfully all cook-able items stack. I just need a way to prevent jamming.

[cycl0pse]

Blaze,
Did some research on Rifts attracting Endermen. Basically, a single rift won't do a whole lot, but two or more near each other will. Unfortunately, the Endermen then 'link' the two rifts, causing it to begin growing and eating away any blocks nearby. I've tried every exotic block I can think of, from Obsidian to unraveled fabric, and the growing unstable rift eats it all. So, using Rifts to attract / spawn endermen is starting to sound like a loosing battle.

Here's an example. I setup a rift out by the pirate galleon I found. It started as 1 rift, but an enderman showed up and 'expanded' it to two. After about 15 minutes, it ate every block within 2-3 blocks of the rifts across all 3 dimensions. Thus, the 'eaten blocks' had a star-like pattern to them, like thus:

Code:
  X  
 XXX
XXRXX
 XXX
  X

As the rift expands, the damage area grows symmetrically. Thus two rifts a block apart would 'link' together and eventually create this damage:

Code:
  XXX  
 XXXXX
XXRRRXX
 XXXXX
  XXX

Once the endermen start spawning, they will interact with the rifts, causing it to grow (possibly in 3 dimensions) and making it almost impossible to setup a containment trap. Perhaps our best bet will be to create a floating island somewhere that has some wild rifts and use it as an enderman hunting ground (with rift maintenance as the wild rift gets out of hand). Maybe we could even setup traps close enough for the endermen to teleport into.

We may be better off with a more traditional enderman trap either in the over-world or use our stockpile of eyes of ender to locate an end portal.

cycl0pse

[BLAZE_MkIV]

That's a very elegant way of making that exploitable. There may be an upper limit to how big it can expand to prevent a black hole but it's probably large enough to be useless.

To The End!

[cycl0pse]

OK, I have two MOD questions for everyone.

First, the long-term one...
Right now, the largest variety of MODs still use MC 1.5.2, but many are starting to convert to 1.6.2/4. Do we target 1.6 as a minimum base version, or do we stick with 1.5 as our base (knowing the likelihood of upgrading in a short amount of time is ... slim.)

Second, more immediate question:
Considering trying to slip ender storage into Hexxit. This is a low-risk move, since I can restore backups, but assuming it works we'd have a 'can't go back beyond' date without losing the ender storage. Additionally, everyone would have to manually update their local hexxit client with the mod. All this assumes it's even compatible. So, do we try it, or save the effort for our own mod compilation?

[sek929]

From what I'm seeing on Dire's Forgecraft 2 series a whole heap of mods are either ready in 1.6 or almost there, I think that's the version we should target. As for adding in ender storage I would love it as then we can hopper out of our destination chests into spillover chests or directly into the sorting system but I would hope that won't take much effort.

Last night I signed on and set off to find a Stronghold (which I've never done) in order to replenish my entirely depleted Ender Pearls from The End(which I've never been to). Eye of Ender led me about 500m west of the workshop and I started digging down. Heard some creature noises and dug sideways with my trusty hammer and within 10 seconds saw this.



Punched directly into the portal room, boom.

Blaze swapped out his gear for stuff he didn't mind losing, an example I should have followed, and we jumped into The End. While attempting to snipe the Dragon with a fully drawn bow Blaze and I crossed paths and I took him out with one mighty arrow to the head. While waiting for Blaze's return I would get knocked off the platform and lose all my stuff, including a very expensive Cleaver with looting 2. I signed off shortly afterwards.

For those reading who are not in the server, I present you the interior of our claimed and renovated castle, complete with a hopper and redstone sorting system that can be accomplished in vanilla Minecraft courtesy of Cyclopse.



Impressive, no?

[andi*pandi]

Yes!

[cycl0pse]

Sek,
We really need to dress up the 'top' of the smelter. I'm thinking make it look like a smoke stack and hide some smoke blocks from the fire swamp at the top. Thoughts?

Blaze and Sek,
So how did the ender dragon fight go?

cycl0pse

[BLAZE_MkIV]

One of the mods added statues with hidden crystals in them so you couldn't shoot them from the ground. That made it a little harder than normal. I've solo'd it in single player without dying. I wasn't ready yet so I didn't have any snowmen for endermen suppression. Shooting the bow in 3rd person view is hard. And then when I went through the end portal, I lost all the xp I got.

[cycl0pse]

cycl0pse's Dimensional Door Enderman Grinder
(because you can never have enough ender pearls)

Before I get into this, I suspect that a more traditional enderman grinder in the End itself would have significantly better output than this design. Still, there's something to be said for a grinder that can fit in a 9x12x10 area. Place one near your crafting zone (even underground) and let the pearls slowly accumulate. Now, on with the show!

As the title states, this only works with the Dimensional Door MOD, but even that's not entirely true; it also uses quicksand. So for now the only place it works that we have a server setup is Hexxit. This isn't a huge hardship, since it is D.D. that uses a LOT of ender pearls to make dimensional doors. So here's the complete 'shopping list' for the setup to work:
Tools: pick, shovel, rift blade
Blocks: 2 hoppers, 2 chests, 20 quicksand, stack of ender-proof blocks (bricks, stone bricks, stone, etc)

Here in cyclopse-land, I don't like hiding my machinery, nor do I mind 'complex' stuff. I'm more of a steampunk type of guy, so looking at the cogs spinning is rather relaxing to me. As such, I did not include an elevator to move the collected pearls back 'up' to the working level, and I'm pretty sure it's possible to do this slightly more efficiently than I have it setup currently. Feel free to improvise, improve, and innovate to your heart's content. (Pictures coming soon)

Start by creating an empty 'room' for the trap, preferably somewhere secure (just in case an enderman escapes). Now, use the rift blade to create two rifts next to each other at the top of the room and place quicksand below the rifts. Below the quicksand place two hoppers to feed a double chest. Surround the entire contraption with stone bricks (or another ender-proof block) and you're done. For safety, consider running water under the chests, that way if an enderman does escape he teleports out rather than demolishing your base.

Here's the rough profile of the trap:

Code:
R- rift, Q-quicksand, H-hopper, C-chest, X-bricks, W-water

9       RR
8         
7   XXX    XXX
6     XQ  QX
5      XQQX
4      X  X  
3      X  X
2      XHHX
1       CC
0  WWWWWWWWWWWWW

Ahh, ASCII Art, how we love thee. Anyway, the dual rifts create an 'unstable' rift that endermen will drop out of. Based on the mechanics, they drop directly into the quicksand, slowly sinking until they begin to suffocate. As long as you don't look at them during this process, they will die and occasionally drop a pearl. Simply stay close enough to keep the endermen spawning and eventually you'll collect plenty of pearls.

There are a few potential dangers to this design that need mentioned. First is the rift itself. Since it both spawns and attracts endermen it's best to keep the trap ender-proof and keep ceiling heights low (or add water features) to keep random endermen at bay. If an enderman is able to interact with the rift, it will expand it. Since the rifts 'eat' blocks near them (see previous post about that) it will destroy the grinder in short order, causing an explosion of endermen in the region AND destroying all your pretty stuff in the process. So far I've been running my setup about 2 hours and the enderman have not been able to expand the rift. The upside is, if a rift gets unstable enough it starts dropping endermen at a rate of one every 2-3 seconds

I'm planning on adding one of these close to the battle tower grinder I made so that anyone waiting for XP will also be generating pearls. With the recent taming of The End small grinders like this may not be needed, but anything to increase our ender pearls is a good thing, right?

cycl0pse
(pics coming soon)

[andi*pandi]

FTB seems to have taken another nosedive.

And in vanilla, there's was an annoying settings issue I seem to have figured out.

odd how you get used to certain key commands and cannot change.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

The breeding program is successful. I can has flying.


I've been putting some time into the dome in vanilla but just can't find any inspiration for the FTB world.

[cycl0pse]

Hexxit is now at 1.07 on the server side.

DW20 (FTB) has been rebooted.

I'll talk about DW20 later. Need to gather my thoughts...

[andi*pandi]

Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV 

The breeding program is successful. I can has flying.


I've been putting some time into the dome in vanilla but just can't find any inspiration for the FTB world.

So which world does this live in? Looks cool.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

That's the hexxit world. There's a bunch of pregenerated castles and stuff. That's the one Sek is redecorating.

[andi*pandi]

nifty.

I also checked out your dome, said hi to the horses, and admired the new chicken/egg factory. Nice, that.