MOAR CAVES

I have never been so hooked on exploring caves and soaking up what resources I find in them. Today I log yet another post on my adventures.

As previously mentioned, this world is rather bad for getting diamonds. Nonetheless, there were a couple patches of them.

After fighting a zombie wearing a chainmail chestplate, I ended up getting it as a drop!

At one spot there was a horde of zombies itching to get at me. A couple Creepers helped whittle away at them until I finally dove in and took out what remained.

Much more also happened while I was in the cave systems. I promise this will be the last time I make a caving post until my resources run low, which I imagine won't be for several weeks or months. I have enough iron to keep myself armed and prepared for a long time. Here's the net collection of this mining trip:

It was nowhere near as much as the last time but it's a very handy addition to my current reserves. I now have a stack of iron blocks - I'm that rich.

After the conclusion of one night, I observed a Creeper stuck in a small hole next to my storage room. I went to kill it, and didn't quite manage to get away in time.

That kind of sucked. I filled it in with gravel to make it secure as I fixed it up, then repaired it and now things are good as new. I also placed a torch where the mobs kept getting stuck, so maybe now the problem won't come up again.

In my next post I should be returning to working on either the village or an XP grinder. Depending on how things go, I may not even need to use the spider dungeon as an XP farm - I could simply configured my mob grinder to let me one-hit-kill mobs. This in combination with my anvil would make it possible for me to get high-level enchants on my iron armor and tools.

Caves, Dungeons, and Mob Traps

On my friend's private server and my single player map, I have been doing more cave clearing. It's a bit of a diversion from working on the village tower but it's fun and it's letting me stock up on resources for the project.

Friend's Private Server
A couple skeletons were shooting at me, when suddenly war broke out between them. I went down another tunnel to let them duke it out, and when I returned the victorious skeleton was still shooting where its opponent once was. Rather trigger happy, apparently.

Later on, found a proper skeleton dungeon!

Not more than a few minutes later in another tunnel there was some cobblestone protruding under a pile of gravel. It wasn't place there by me. Moments later I noticed some zombies and discovered it was a dungeon!

Those were some good times going through the caves. Eventually I'll need to get back in and collect the ores. It will leave me well-set for a while.

Single Player World
I've been hurting for mob drops ever since the map began so finally I've put together a cheap and ugly mob trap by my house. At the bottom of the 20-something block fall is a hopper-chest pair which collect the deceased mobs' remains.

A picture from the top early in the construction.

And now a montage of pictures from various angles.

At the bottom where the hopper and chest are, I built a small chamber with an iron door to protect me. Here I can idle for as long as I want while the trap brings in the goodies.

After a little while of running the trap I realized it was possible spiders were spawning in it. Since they are 2x1 in shape it is possible they might clog the tunnel to the bottom, rendering the whole setup useless. My suspicions were confirmed when I pillared near the spawning chamber.

Those red dots are almost all spiders, locked on me and hoping to pounce at the first chance. I went around to the top and broke in, but ended up falling right into the midst of them. Somehow my armor was able to keep me alive while I battled almost 20 spiders at the same time!

I lived with half a heart remaining! That was a bit terrifying.

While recovering I placed half slabs at every other block on the spawning pads. Now there is no way a spider can spawn, leaving me with zombies, skeletons, and Creepers. It's very satisfying to hear their death sounds as they hit the bottom of the long fall.

Clipping Enderman!

In order for a mob trap to run efficiently, you need to light up all the caves within 128 blocks of the central spawning point. As you do that, the game will have fewer and fewer dark areas to place a monster. Eventually you just have the mob trap itself, making it very efficient and fast. While on a trip to light up some caves I came across a zombie dungeon.

At this point I've found all three types of dungeons, plus a cave spider spawner. I didn't actually have it as a goal to find all three types of dungeons, but somehow I've done it, and it's quite pleasing. As for the mob trap, I might add a second layer in order to make it faster.