User talk:MentalMouse42/Archive 01

Hi there. I'm open to discussion. --Mental Mouse 10:30, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Moved all my topics over here. --Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

My current game
As of Aug-9-2012, my new world has been coming along nicely... Having learned from experience, I've been staying within the confines of my first map, while accumulating resources locally. I spawned in plains, but with forests, jungle, and deserts, all within easy reach. I also found a village and got up a few emeralds before the village got depopulated (I posted that bit as a bug...). I've accumulated all the animals except wolves (and apparently those are now incompatible with cats), and having found some melon seeds, I've now completed my set of farms. (Including the new cocoa plants... yay, cookies!)

The quarry under my original base produced a fair bit of ore including diamonds, with much more from the nearby ravine I've been looting. It opens onto an abandoned mineshaft at lava level, that's been... interesting. Especially the cave spider spawner that was embedded in the middle of a large room's high ceiling! Flint-and-steel let me burn enough webs to slap a torch on the spawner, but that didn't actually stop it. :-( I had to find (and dig) a way around to get at it from the top and take a pick-axe to it.

At this point, my next order of business is to find a Nether Fortress... I never did find one in my last game, and in this one, I've only poked my nose into the Nether long enough to throw up some cobblestone walls. The Nether:Talk page indicates the nearest Fortress may be quite far away, half the map or worse. On the other hand, The Altitude page suggests it's likely to be between levels 50 and 85 (though that graph might well represent a single game :-. (August 9, 2012)

My Nether explorations have gotten out to about a 250-block radius from my original gate, with no sign of a fortress... and it's getting a good deal harder to get anywhere new -- my last exploratory staircase filled in a chunk of the map to the south, but I still ended up peering over cliffs down to the lava sea. :-( I did throw up a second gate back to the Overworld, but haven't explored much there -- I was mostly desperate for cobble and arrows.  --Mental Mouse 21:23, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I've been filling out that new base with various farms, and have been exploring the area. Lots of ravines in the area, though the ones under my "home away from home" and the portal have hard-to reach lava in the way. (A creeper blew open an entry to a shaft right next to the portal!) I also spotted a desert village near the edge of the map, so now I'm stocking up on fences and such before I go over there. There's extreme hills just beyond it, so I might go mining for emeralds too. I got a wolf, too -- actually twice, but a creeper blew up the first one. I'm trying to keep the new one sitting in a safe place, but he keeps teleporting to me. :-( --Mental Mouse 22:07, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, got the town secured (dang, that took a lot of fences). The trading system really is totally unbalanced... I've got farmers trying to sell me 8 cookies or 3 bread for an emerald (with 4 wheat farms handy!), while the blacksmith is asking 7 emeralds for an iron pick. The librarian is buying paper, but I'm not that interested in going industrial on sugar-cane to milk him.... but maybe I should, just to be able to get more trades. Haven't seen a zombie siege yet. I ransacked the nearby desert temple, but all I got was a bit of iron (I'd brought a few blocks with me), a dozen gold, and a big pile of bones. --Mental Mouse 22:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ETA: Oh wait.. the librarian already gave up on paper, now he wants to sell me bookcases at 3 emeralds a pop.  And now the only guy who wants anything but MOAR EMERALDS is asking 14 chicken, and my suspended-water chicken farm (back at my spawn base) wasn't working too well last time I looked.  Bugger this for a lark.... (On the other hand, my new Looting II sword works a treat on Endermen... I could do without the Knockback II though.)  --Mental Mouse 23:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Nether Fortress!
After fooling around with the villages (the chicken guy switched to wanting to sell something, but I found another village where someone's buying wheat), mining for emeralds (there's an AMS down there too), and generally futzing around with the new base, I've reterned to the nether... and finally, caught my first sight of a Nether Fortress, with Blazes brazenly hanging out on the walkways! Unfortunately, it's standing in the lava ocean, many blocks away from and below the ledge from which I spotted it. Now, how to get there? --Mental Mouse 17:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 1)  Bridge across Ghast-infested void.  :-(, and from the ledge I'd need to build a pillar down at the end, with vulnerable ladders.
 * 2)  Cast around north and south of this one for another, more accessible one.  Getting long distances in the nether is already pretty challenging....
 * 3)  "long-cut" through overworld:  It's right near sea level, so if I get out to the overworld from a gate at least 128 Nether blocks away, I should be able to move ~1024 blocks to the equivalent location, and throw a gate right onto the Fortress....  Problem: accessibility, through a kilometer of mostly-unexplored and unmapped territory.  I might be able to build a better bridge back up from fortress to ledge....

Well, I found another viewpoint which was more distant, but from below the walkway level. I've just remarked and fixed up the route there (which is slightly insane in its own right, at least finding it was). And I'm building a bridge over ~70 meters of lava sea.... 3-wide cobblestone, with iron bars for railings. My Ghast strategy is, run back to the start of the bridge, where I have a shelter. --Mental Mouse 20:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The bridge is perhaps half-built. It quickly became obvious that single-height bars were not sufficient to protect me from explosive knockback -- I didn't quite get dumped into the lava sea, but I did find myself standing on the outside of my fence. Yikes.... So, double-height bars. Then when I'd almost run out of iron bars, I decided to go back ... and promptly ran out of arrows. Naturally, there were two ghasts with a crossfire at the entrance to the cave/staircase to the ledge.... (And again later on the trip back, but one of those turned out to be stuck within sword reach.)  Amazingly, I did get back home, and stocked up on iron bars, arrows, cobble, and suchlike. Back to the bridge next session....


 * Try adding a roof to your bridge; that should keep you safe from ghasts. On my server, I built an enclosed cobblestone tube from the portal to the nearest fortress, some 300 blocks away. (A few players have a habit of falling off ledges.) Not much of a view, but it works. -- Orthotope 20:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I might do that after I finish the bridge. Right now, I'm at my most vulnerable when extending the end, so I'm trying to do the work when they're absent anyway, and the open ceiling sometimes lets me shoot back. --Mental Mouse 22:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

So.. what kills me? On my way back to the site (not as well marked as I'd hoped), a zombie pigman stumbles around a corner and into my pick. Trying to dodge him and his buddies, I panic, and fall down a hole (but not into the chasm or lava sea). And forget to hit F3 for coords before I respawn. :-( It would be a tough bet to reclaim the items anyway though, given I'll be coming back from well outside the chunk radius....  We'll see how that goes -- it would be really nice to get them back, I had a ton of supplies and about a dozen diamond's worth of equipment.   I'm almost resupplied, but I want to grind some enchantments for sword and pick first. --Mental Mouse 16:58, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, made the rounds of my spawners, and mined a few cave spider nests, even found a new section of deep cave to mine. Going back to the Nether, I actually did find my items waiting for me, right at the entrance to the bridge area! And the ZPMs had all calmed down to boot! (Almost a pity, I was prepped to build an iron golem on the spot for them. ;-) )  After reinforcing the area and path to the bridge, I've roofed over the first section of the bridge, and will soon resume extending it.  It's occured to me that yeah, I do want it roofed, especially when I start playing with Blazes.  I finally built a gate by the bridge too - after beating my way through a fall-through-the-world bug, that ended up in an Ocean biome, but I do have a few islands nearby to build up.  I haven't slept in that bed yet, but will ASAP now that the island has a spare set of armour and weapons.  :-) --Mental Mouse 16:15, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Wel,, I got knocked into the lava. :-( Happily, I'd already stashed a bunch of stuff, but I still lost my tools and newly-enchanted (but now somewhat beat-up) armor.  The ghasts had been really hanging around near the far end of the bridge, and I dared a little too much.  I'm almost to the last stretch, a right turn that will bring me up to a walkway -- maybe 20 blocks at most.  Unfortunately, those ghasts keep hanging around low in the lava sea (where I can't shoot them from even mediocre safety), and one has been dodging behind the fortress itself.  --Mental Mouse 20:32, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Bah, I'm back in the Nether, (and Ocean Base is restocked) but those ghasts are still guarding the open end of the bridge. I took down one, but the other is hanging out down by the lava sea, ready to shoot at me when I stick my one over the edge. I'm increasingly tempted to resort to peaceful mode. --Mental Mouse 16:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I broke down and went to peaceful mode to finish the bridge... then was confronted with a slippery slope: Almost as soon as I went back to normal mode, Ghasts reappeared, and now threaten to knock me off the walkways. Unfortunately, my bridge is to the outer ends of a couple of "broken bridges" -- and I have a lot of walkway before I can get "indoors". Not to mention the first thing I run across is a stair to a remarkably exposed Blaze spawner... I think it's far enough back that I should be able to get past without trouble. I did do a bit of exploring in peaceful mode, and found at least one other spawner, and a Netherwort patch. Now I just have to kill some blazes, gather some ripe netherwort, and get it all home. Just.... --Mental Mouse 21:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It was actually fairly easy to pick up a half-dozen blaze rods and some nether wart. Another trip with a couple of potions of fire resist (and an Iron Golem) got me up to a dozen-odd.  (Next time I'll also bring a fishing rod, but the Iron Golem wasn't worth it.)  Unfortunately I lost my diamond Silk Touch pickaxe to a couple of dumbass mistakes (nice thing about this game, it generally takes at least two mistakes in sucession to really screw things up), but I've still got an iron STP to move my nether Chests around.  I'm working on replenishing my stock of enchanted armour and tools, and hoping for a Fortune pickaxe -- indeed, I've been collecting diamond, emerald, and sometimes redstone with ST, waiting for it.  Note:  The Nether wort grows way faster than I expected, especially since you don't actually use that much.
 * I think it's worth discussing a bit my decision to break into Peaceful mode (the first time I've done so this game). On the one hand, I could eventually have finished the bridge, probably after a few more deaths.  On the other... I don't like the Nether in the first place, with ghasts firing at you from out of reach and chewing up the landscape.  Finding the Nether Fortress in the first place was a PITA, and so had been building the bridge so far.  In short, this was getting to be Not Fun Anymore, and it ultimately is a game, something meant for fun.  --Mental Mouse 21:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions for Minecraft
Since the forum doesn't seem to want to accept my registration (I would have been MentalMouse42 there), I'll stick my suggestions here.


 * Placeable clocks: From the forum, but I endorse it.  Having a clock on the wall would be really nice....  I'd also love to see the placed clock act as a timer, delivering a redstone signal for one of its 12 "hours" (picking which one works much like setting a note block).  I'm thinking it should turn on for the whole hour.
 * ETA: Apparently 1.4 will have "frames" which let you mount clocks.  No timers, I guess, but at least it's a wall-mounted clock.   --Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Redstone block as BUD: Several people on the forums were suggesting variations on redstone blocks.  (That is, a 9-1 "compact storage".)  I figure that besides being at least as interesting as redstone ore, it should do something useful.  My suggestion is that the block should light up (perhaps level 10 or 11) and deliver power for 1 second (button length) when any of the 6 adjacent blocks updates.  Just to make it more interesting, it should also energize when a mob or item touches it, similar to a pressure plate.  Whenever it is energized, it should become "insensitive", to avoid loops.   --Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Cloning maps: I propose that maps should be clonable by dragging the new map to an existing map in your inventory.  The maps wouldn't actually stack, but the attempt would trigger the cloning instead of a new map.  Alternatively, a map could be cloned any time someone creates a new map while standing on the same block as the original (all three coordinates must have the same integer part).  (Somehow I originally got the idea this was already the case in 1.2.4, but it didn't work....)  The latter especially would have interesting implications for SMP, but the issues are straightforward....   --Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ETA: They're doing map cloning a better way in 1.4. --Mental Mouse 02:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Placeable gunpowder trails. This is another idea I got from the forums, and like.  Placed gunpower would be guaranteed to be set afire by any adjacent flame or lava, with each segment burning briefly and having a chance to set stuff afire.  TNT, of course, would always be set off thereby.  --Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Potions of fire. When drunk, it would simply set you aflame, but of course the real point is as a splash potion!  The effect would be instant rather than timed, and would affect blocks as well as mobs.


 * As a backstop to fixing the Village Zombie Apocalypse, villagers could spawn near the well when needed, subject to nearby doors. The tricky part would be if you wanted to check if the well's been destroyed... what would count?  Perhaps it should be self-repairing.
 * ETA: They picked a different method, my complaints with it are below.  --Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I've concluded that a significant amount of the hazard of the Nether comes from the eye-hurting default texture for Netherrack, which blurs edges and hides holes. I'm experimenting with texture packs, but the default texture really should be changed to something much duller. --Mental Mouse 22:30, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I understand why they didn't make eggs cookable (food balance), but it's still pretty silly that they aren't. Even without cooking them though, they'd be a great pre-ingredient for some minor potion.  Maybe blue eggs (lapis lazuli) for short-duration water breathing?   Or even multiple dyes, for a decorative item with perhaps some hidden surprise?  (I just checked to make sure that you can't dye eggs currently.  That would have been an amusing undocumented feature in its own right....)  --Mental Mouse 02:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * In SMP, Librarians should also sell Written Books... the ones they've previously bought! (There might be a few useful ones built into with the game, for SSP.)


 * Dirt ramps: Recipe like stairs, or even a shapeless 2-for-3 recipe.  Similar to stairs, except that they're "slippery"... if you try to stand still on one, you slide down.  Dirt slabs could be interesting, especially if they can grow grass.  --Mental Mouse 13:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Also:
 * Arrran Weeviling's Fanmade page.
 * Arrran Weeviling's Items from the Fanmade page.
 * It's not clear if you realize this, but there is an Aether mod, documented on this very wiki. Never played it, but it does look interesting.  --Mental Mouse 10:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Ender Chest
I'm looking forward to being able to build my first Ender Chest, and considering what might go into it. With 18 slots, some items are obvious, but others... arguable. Assuming full stacks (or as much as I've got) of the most compact form, I've so far got the following: At this point, we start getting into progressively more uncertain items. We've only got 5 slots left, and I'd want to save a slot or two for "input" or utility stuff.
 * 1) Wood logs, of course.  This is instead of any pure-wooden tools, I'll make those (and a crafting table) as needed.  The same applies to the next few.
 * 2) Iron.
 * 3) Gold.
 * 4) Diamond.
 * 5) Emeralds.
 * 6) Redstone.
 * 7) Coal.  This one is actually questionable, but not having it could be inconvenient.
 * 8) Sugar Cane.  Ultimately for maps, but since it's a 1:1 conversion, might as well have the version that can grow.
 * 9) Beef or pork:  Max-density food
 * 10) Obsidian
 * 11) String... besides bows and fishing lines, this gives a few blocks of wool for beds and markers.
 * 12) Smelted Stone. The big question here is, cobble or smelted stone?   But smelted stone is easier to convert back to cobblestone (place and mine) than the reverse, and it's needed for certain crafts:  notably buttons and redstone repeaters.
 * 13) Eyes of Ender (to make more chests)
 * Bread or Cookies: Cheaper or small-change food.
 * Flint (or gravel) and...
 * ... Feathers. A stack each of these, plus 1/8 of the wood stack, makes 4 stacks of arrows.
 * Dirt, for growing stuff
 * Wheat seeds, eggs?
 * Glass?
 * Blaze rods?

--Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Villager Cure is Problematic
Apparently, the cure for Village Zombies (which is also the means for village recovery) requires a Potion of Weakness. Unfortunately, you can't brew potions until you've found and looted a Nether Fortress. Pretty dubious to me.... OK, you could hope for a priest to offer you a Blaze Rod (and have enough emeralds already to buy it) before he gets killed. Pretty iffy. On the other hand, all you need is one Rod for a Brewing Stand, because Weakness is the only potion that doesn't need Nether wart. --Mental Mouse 20:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ETA: Apparently Priests don't sell Blaze Rods anymore, so if you haven't beaten the Nether, destroyed villages are SOL. --Mental Mouse 21:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Spencer10APSC Display
The user Spencer10APSC has been posting a series of comments on my talk page that have gone from snippy through obnoxious to arrogant and finally incoherent. Since Ultradude25 has apparently decided to let him off with a warning, I feel my best remaining response, is simply to leave them online for other people to see (and if Spencer's not embarrassed by them, he should be). However, I don't want them crudding up my talk page, so I've exiled them to their own page. Also included are my replies and Ultradude25's warning.
 * On consideration I've decided I do want to quote UD's warning here. It's good advice for anyone, and not just for this wiki:  "Spencer, I'd recommend you read the rules properly before trying to tell people that they're breaking them... –ultradude25 (T&#124;C) at 08:32, 3 September 2012 (UTC)"

--Mental Mouse 11:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * His further comments have been transfered to the same page, as will future comments in the same vein. And no Spencer, I am not insulting you, nor embarrassing myself.  Here's some more advice to go with Ultradude's:  When you discover that you're standing in a hole... stop digging.  And since you ask for a specific request:  Stop leaving your notes on my talk page.   --Mental Mouse 20:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

RE:Mr. Tubbytuts? KingFlametail?
WTH? I don't know whether to cry "sockpuppeting", "vandalism", or just "pranking"! --Mental Mouse 13:50, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I do not own Kingflametails account, My Little Brothers account is MrTubbytuts (He is new to Formatting so I helped him!) Grid Cakebomb.png Arrran Weeviling The Inventor of the Cake Bomb! 13:52, 3 September 2012 (UTC) (This is not Sockpuppeting, I made a Epic box for My Friends
 * OK, it just looked odd to me.... --Mental Mouse 21:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Working on a tutorial for Pumpkin & Melon farming
Over here, currently converting the ASCII graphics to BlockGrid images. Unfortunately, having more than one of the BlockGrids busts a loops-per-page limit, so I'm having to repeatedly screenshot the page, then replace the visible grid with its PNG clipping from the screenshot. (Did I mention, "Save Image" doesn't work on BlockGrids?) --Mental Mouse 01:27, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi (bone meal and wool)
Just saying that the recipe your undid i did not do. I edited it, i have not a minecraft playable right now, so i could not test it. But if crafting colored wool with bonemeal does not make it white, i was unable to test it. It also does not make sense why there was a recipe in the first place if you cannot craft it... Trigger hurt 19:55, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Trigger hurt: You can craft White Wool with any dye to create a dyed wool, including the recipe "white wool + bone meal = white wool". It's purely a waste of bone meal, but it's a valid recipe in-game which is why it's included here. You cannot dye colored wool, however, which is why your edit was incorrect. If you can't verify something, it's probably best to ask for clarification on the talk page rather than just guessing how it works.
 * I've restored the proper recipe to the page. Happy editing! --timrem 21:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Timrem! Trigger, next time maybe you should wait until you can test it.  I keep a creative-mode game handy just for that sort of thing.  I did miss the "white on white" thing, though....  --Mental Mouse 21:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)