Thoughts on Multiplayer

I was so excited when I first got onto a multiplayer server. Finally being able to interact with others! People would see my work, and possibly contribute - or destroy! Either way, it would be fun to collaborate or restart when I was griefed or robbed.

The odd thing I've found since then is that multiplayer isn't all I thought it would be. In some ways I've really found it to be more of a hassle than anything else. It's fun to meet friends and look at others' creations first hand, but there are a few problems I have noticed along the way.

One of the biggest nuisances for me is the lack of control over the day/night cycle. I don't like building at night. This is probably because I don't generally light up areas when I settle in them. So every night when I'm playing on a server, I need to try and round up people to get in beds. And this frequently is not possible. Therefore I end up spending 10 minutes waiting for the sun to rise. It's really quite annoying.

The other is how I don't have control over what version of the game they're using. There are a set of mods that I use for my singleplayer world which don't get updated at the same time as Minecraft. Indeed, between versions 1.6.2 and 1.7 there were enormous changes to the code. So much that needed things like the Minecraft Coder Pack still has not been updated. As a result, many mods are still stuck at 1.6.4 at the latest. Since my laptop practically demands Optifine, that means my single player stuff can't go beyond 1.6. Servers are typically in the 1.7 range. That means no mods, getting lost easily, and it's a general inconvenience to me.

Plus, servers are more unreliable than personal maps. A server can go up or down at any time without your knowledge or approval. Due to damage or game updates the map might get reset, thereby deleting all of your works right out of existence. Seems kind of pointless to me to build stuff, only for it to later be destroyed like that. Luckily there are some sites and servers which provide map downloads, so you can finish your projects. But even then I don't think it's quite the same.

On the other hang, SSP offers you a lot more control. The sun goes up or down at your will. You delete it only if you so desire - or if it's utterly unplayable due to game updates. My pride and joy creations have always been on singleplayer maps.

Redstone Project, Continued

It's been a while since I mentioned the redstone network project I've been working on. Here's an update.

The most critical change has been the addition of the redstone clock system, which acts as the "heart" of the automatic portion. It's a big open controlled mess of redstone.

This morass of redstone technology tells the sugar cane farm to harvest every 10 minutes, and the wheat/potato/carrot farm to launch every 2 hours. So far everything works pretty dang well.

Underground I have expanded the item sorter and storage system. It's getting pretty long.

And the triple farm itself. I took the stuff from the redstone village I was previously working on and put it to work here. I've yet to have an issue with it.

The most active part of this whole thing is a hopper clock that fires once a minute. To some that might be annoying. I find it quite fun to let the game run in the background on low volume, and hear the pistons fire rhythmically. Eventually I want to make another one of these setups, but underground. In my main room I want to be able to hear the main piston firing, so I might place it underneath the chamber or something.

Acacia and Wool House

This is my first build of Minecraft 1.7. It uses the new acacia wood blocks. Personally I find the logs to be good, but acacia planks are iffy. I was able to use them in the flooring nonetheless. This house sort of has a "modern architecture" feel, which I'm alright with.

Modular design wasn't explicitly used with it, but you can easily make three modules out of it (entrance, bedroom, and storage). I think I lucked out and put a good amount of detail into it, yet kept a fairly simple design.

1.7.2 Changes

This has been a pretty big change for the game. It's a little head-spinning to figure it all out by experience. Here is a list of some of the bigger changes in the game.

New biomes:

• Mesa, which is made entirely of clay. Also has red sand.
• Mega taiga: 2x2 birch trees with podzol, which acts vaguely like mycelium.
• Ice plains spikes: ice plains with packed ice stalagmites.
• Savannah: flat like plains but also has acacia trees.
• Roofed forest: almost completely topped with leaves, trees and giant mushrooms are up close to each other. Has mostly dark oak wood.
• Birch forest
• Sunflower plains: like plains, but can have sunflowers.
• Forest flower: a forest with the new flower types.
• Deep ocean: really deep ocean.
• Extreme hills+: like extreme hills, with birch trees.
• Snowless taigas.
• M-variants are much more mountainous.
• Hills-variants are hilly.
• Plateau-variants are hilly but with flat tops.

Oceans are smaller (thank God!)

New blocks and items:

• Acacia and dark oak wood added. Slight texture change to all.
• Lots of new flowers! Still got dandelions. Red poppies replace roses. Added blue orchids, allium, azure bluet, tulips which have many colors, oxeye daisy, double-height sunflowers, double-height lilacs, double-height rose bushes, double-height peony. They are mainly used for dyes.
• Stained glass and pane counterparts. This is particularly awesome.
• Packed ice: lacks most features of regular ice, but you can still slide on them.
• Red sand: acts like regular sand, but you can't make sandstone from it.
• Portals can be much bigger.
• In addition to regular fish there is now salmon, which always gives a tuxedo cat, clownfish which always gives a siamese cat and is a poor food source, and pufferfish which is used in a potion of water breathing, gives you a ginger cat, and will make you sick as heck.
• Fishing has been changed a bit so now you get junk and treasure sometimes. 

There are other changes no doubt but I'm not terribly interested in them.

Latest Project

The desire to automate things in Minecraft has never really left me. In the past I tried a project called "The Ultimate City" - twice, but both times I gave up. I also tried doing a sort of ultimate village but that was also too expansive for my liking. So now I'm going for a more simple route. I'm setting everything up bare-boned. It doesn't look pretty this time but I'm not trying to do that this time. Right now I'm doing a proof-of-concept thing. Here are a few pictures of what I've done up to now:

My end goal is to make an interconnected redstone system that has as much automation as I can get in Minecraft. This system is going to contain several different parts:

1. Mob grinder: the one I have already made will do for right now. It provides drops from zombies, skeletons, and creepers.
2. Automatic item sorter: the first and fourth picture show the sorter in its early stages. I forget who I got this design from. It was a bit irritating to get set up but now I have the pattern figured out and it works well. I'm thinking that for objects that I want to put in the same chest, I'll just add hoppers where chest would go that point to the target chest.
3. Automatic smelting system: using coal and charcoal, this will smelt items I put into the system that I want to smelt. Each furnace will be devoted to a specific item, and is controlled by a switch. Right now I'm trying to think of how to implement this. I haven't done much experimentation yet. There are two ways I have in mind. First I could have a horizontal smelting system with furnaces. My current knowledge would require everything to pass through this system, which would slow item sorting down significantly. The other option is to have the furnaces connecting along the vertical hopper-chest tube. The downside to this is how it would be harder to pick what should or should not get smelted, as well as the fact I'll eventually run out of space. I think the furnace setup is where I need to do my most investigation now.
4. Automated farms: for each type of item that can be grown and harvested, I'll try to make a farm that can be automated in some fashion. Most of this will likely be done above ground for now. This is connected to the master clock.
5. Master clock: this is a trio of hopper clocks. MrVleker came up with a clever design that allows for very long hopper clocks. I modified the system slightly for two clocks. One clock pulses at 10 minute intervals, the other at 2 hour intervals. This will be used for activating various farms.
6. Potion factory: this one is going to suck, because I'm not too well acquainted with potion mechanics. I'll probably do a stripped-down version of Etho's potion lab.
7. Iron farm: a basic iron golem farm. This will come in handy as I mostly play using iron tools. My map just doesn't provide enough diamonds for much more complex stuff.
8. Gold farm: I might not do this. Gold isn't that useful for me. I don't want to mine all that obsidian.
9. Hopper transport system: this is what will move objects around from place to place. 

Here's a picture of the hopper clock I think I'll be using:

Modular Design

This is a method for designing buildings that revolves around designing smaller units called modules and them putting them together to form buildings. It is useful for people who aren't good at making large builds but can design small units better.

For example, suppose I wanted to make a couple desert buildings. Here are some modules I might use:

An entrance:

A sort of living room area:

A general purpose module:

And a roof module:

The visual design aspect of the game was handled in these parts. All that is left is to come up with good ways of putting them together. Here are two I've come up with.

And that is the basics of modular design. You can build as big or as small as you feel inclined to.

The advantages of using modular design lie in how it pushes the burden of design on smaller, more manageable sections.

• Buildings can be more quickly made by simply combining the various modules together.
• They give an appearance of physical unity, bringing together multiple builds.
• Minor variations can be added, thereby giving variety without breaking the overall style.
• It can be used to emphasize or accentuate a build that isn't modular, while still looking good.

The primary disadvantage to this method of building is that things will look alike. A lot. This can me minimized by varying the dimensions of modules, blocks used, shapes, and so on.

This is, most likely, the method I will be using from now on for my builds. In tandem with techniques for designing things, hopefully my stuff will become a lot better looking!

Surviving as a Low-Detail, Small-Size Builder

In my previous post I mentioned how building styles in Minecraft can broadly be measured and compared by size, detail, and functionality. I also said that I scored low in size and detail. Some might think that because anyone scores low in these regards, that they are bad builders. I don't think this is true. Here are a couple builds I have made recently.

You can see these houses are not bloated with detail, nor are they terribly large, but they still look good. They have a quaint look to them. They don't barrage the eyes with too many distracting details. And they're quite easy to build too.

I don't think you need to be able to build huge things in order to be good at Minecraft. In fact I think sometimes stuff can be made too big. After a certain point, things just get ridiculous. But by and large, size does not impact the quality of something.

Nor do you need to be able to put details into every cubic meter of the game. Indeed I think it's possible to have so much detail and flashy patterns that a person can't really appreciate the whole thing. I'm a person who prefers simplicity, and a simple pattern can be just as nice to look at.

If you want to not be frustrated with Minecraft, know your limits. I presently don't have the imagination to make huge, complex things. What I'm good at are smaller things. I also don't have the patience to work on a repetitive project for weeks and months on end. What I like are small projects I can get done in one session. After taking the second picture shown above, I proceeded to add a potato farm, spruce tree farm, and then put a fence around the potato farm. Three separate sessions. I play casually. I'm not a YouTube let's player who has the energy to pump hours into the game. I get things made sooner rather than later, and I like it.

Are you a small builder? Then be the best darn small builder you can be. There's a market out there for you, because not everybody wants to see monolithic builds.