Underground Survival Base

Etho and Extreme Hills biomes. Two things I really enjoy about Minecraft.

Honestly, can you not like majestic terrain like this? It's become the new home for me in my Survival map. My home base has long served me and will continue to do so if I ever return to it. But it's time for a new adventure, and this time I'm going underground. This scenic view is what lies about 50 or more meters above my head.

Since I enjoy Etho and the hills, I figured I would combine them both into my game play! I left everything I owned back at my base and moved to the edge of my map. Using Minutor I located a spot where there were plenty of intersecting caves, to provide a place to live and build. I intend to build with the cave system's shape. Right now I'm sticking to Peaceful, although I want to move to higher difficulties as I become acclimated to the setting.

Before I even made it underground, it was quite the adventure. Food was scarce (as always). I chopped down a tree and chased after some sheep. When I got back to the starting point (on a high spot), I noticed this triple rarity!

That fed me for the first while. There was an entrance that led to a ravine. It was full of Creepers - go figure. I get the feeling these are going to be a long-lasting enemy of mine in this new adventure. This pair watched me as I tried to block them off and kill them.

Funny story. Eventually they lost interest and walked away. Then I fell off of the cobble staircase I was making and I pillared up as fast as I could. In the mean time, they both suddenly came rushing toward me. Peaceful mode for the win!

You've seen the screenshot for the new base. I got to work making the basics to survive.

Tons of iron and coal were present, of course. What surprises me is the amount of gold that I found. Has there been an increase in how common it is? I don't remember it being so easy to get.

From here I got working on the central hub. Emulating our favorite Canadian LP'er, it's going to have a grass floor. I added planks around the circumference for good looks. In addition, there's a path underneath it leading to another potential hub. Just recently I discovered there are three paths going to the same place! One is very convenient and will become my main method of reaching it. But I wanted to make this path neat looking so added a flight of stairs.

And the still unexpanded second hub:

There's definitely still a lot to do. I need to run some grass down here, for sure. I also need to move that little thing of wheat out of the way and establish a proper wheat farm. So much to do, I'm dizzy with anticipation!

Survival: A New Home

You see a random cave here. I see the future central hub of my new underground Survival mode base. The chamber is roughly spherical and the bottom is around level 20. I can already tell that this hub will have a lower level, an upper level balcony, and a central pillar. Etho, eat your Canadian heart out.

Stay tuned for more.

Ranch Completed [Ultimate City Post 10]

And the ranch is done! Outside and inside views:

As you can see, I have sort of fixed the lighting issue. The planks and bricks go fairly well with the glowstone.

On the west and east walls of the ranch building are the automated wheat stations. Since straining over it with the wheat farm, I've come to memorize just a little bit of the design. I also attempted to make the border of the station look good. The sign says "Wheat Station 1" and Wheat Station 2 is directly opposite of it.

I think in a future round of development, when the city's redstone network is set up, there could be another switch which goes down a wire to the control center that turns on a redstone torch saying that it's out of bonemeal or seeds.

Here's a look at the outside section of the stations:

I like how the top and bottom of the station are essentially reverse in design of the rest of the building. Adds variety. In the second picture, the bottom three layers are probably going to be underground. That one plank block which isn't aligned looks weird. If it's a bother, I can move that to line up with the others.

There's no chests in this building. I thought I might add a fancy piston door closet thing, but that was proving too complex and I wanted to get this done. Ah well, there's always next round.

And in case you are wondering, I'm thinking that there are going to be three rounds to creating the city.

• First round is what's going on now. Creating the buildings and attempting a good design. According to feedback, the design could be better. :D
• Second round is bringing together the redstone network. The entire city will be connected through a redstone network which is centralized at the Control Center. Because I haven't figured out all the network components, the Control Center hasn't been designed. This is also the round for the underground water system.
• Third round is probably what everybody wants: the new design phase. Making the stuff look good.

So what's next? Perhaps the automatic breeder. I will have to check this out on YouTube since I've never done anything like it to any extent.