Reporting in

I took a little break from playing Minecraft, and I'm back to playing a lot. I think I'm getting better at this. I'm generally happier with my buildings. And I can make simple redstone constructions. I like ranching. I like mining. I like building.

About enchanting, I've decided the best way to go about it is to do lots of level 1 enchants for the armor, and level 20 enchants for tools and swords. I have also decided to wear diamond armor full time. It's more convenient.

I'm playing at a small server. I like playing on a small server. I get to know people better.

Mushroom stew

Mushroom stew is delicious, vegetarian, and cheap. But it takes too much space to carry around. But spaces are only limited if you go on a long expedition. Stew is good food to have when you are doing things around your base. Save that steak for a long mining trips or exploration runs.

Minecraft Piston Quirks

Does your Piston stay up when it shouldn't? Do you have trouble getting fine control over your pistons? Pistons are a bit weird, but once you understand it, it makes more sense. At least you know why it happens.

2 articles helped me understand.


First, a video from Ethos: http://www.youtube.com/user/EthosLab#p/u/9/hUcK6LaBUS4  This episode of ethoslab reviews piston properties nicely.


Second, a picture: http://i.imgur.com/AHCbc.jpg

source::http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/jrrh2/a_short_list_of_often_mentioned_piston_bugs_and/

Mushroom farm

With the restriction of mushroom growth to 5 within a 9x9 area in 1.8, it is impractical to have a large scale mushroom farm. Instead, you can build many small mushroom farms spread out your land.

I saw a nice convenient and compact design from Ethoslab: episode 112. 13 minutes in.

http://www.youtube.com/user/EthosLab#p/u/2/PcVABZIQCLA

[edit] on second thought, just littering mushrooms everywhere would accomplish the same thing. Or, growing mushroom with bone meal is fantastic.

Water Elevator

I now understand water elevator better and I made one myself. I will post a picture later.

One insight I had recently was this. There is water source block. And water flow block. If you have a 2x2x1 water pool, infinite water, and dig down one layer. The layer below the top layer contains water flow blocks.

The key to a good water elevator is to have water source blocks instead of water flow blocks. Water flow blocks have downward velocity associated with them.

I just saw a very elegant elevator design from Etho. I love his videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/EthosLab

XP Farm For Enchanting in Minecraft

I have been struggling with getting enough experience points to get good enchantments. At the same time I have seen more and more designs for experience farms posted on reddit and youtube. It usually requires a dungeon, and the way it works is to have a large number weakened mobs delivered to your doorstep.

Most useful is a skeleton XP farm, because the arrows and bones that they drop are also quite useful.

I found this youtube video to be most useful guide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QSXWlPvGAo

The producer's name is KaspersMC. He is Danish and he is very funny as well. He also has very insightful tutorials on the proporties of Minecraft water.

http://www.youtube.com/user/KaspersMC

[Update] I found a zombie spawn and built an XP grinder myself! It was fun and not too hard and I learned a lot when building one by myself. I got lots of cool enchantments now.

Update

I'm still playing a lot. I made a piston water flush farm. Quite mundane design. I liked making it. My first practical redstone structure. I tried playing on public servers. I tried odielag.com and a reddit server. I don't like the lag on the servers, but I'm getting used to it more.

I died on odielag server and I respawned with everything. I didn't lose anything. I didn't want to play there any more. Too well protected. The reddit server lag is horrible so I don't want to play there either. And people build beautiful things there.

Right now I'm playing on a small server. 1.9pre4. I like it. Only a few people on at the same time.