A Nomadic experience is generally for experienced players or players looking for a fast-paced, thrilling gameplay experience. With the addition of the Hunger system in Beta 1.8, this style has become an even more challenging and engaging experience. This style is based on the real-life nomads who roam the Earth without a permanent residence. There are certain rules and styles for this way of playing.
The basic rules are: Keep moving, Keep game on hard mode, only build shelters for 1 night, and don't stay in one area for more than a night. There are more specific styles that specify where you can go and where you stay to even how you should survive and move.
Nomadic shelters
Nomadic shelters can range anywhere from absolute simplicity to an easily deployable craft station. In principle, Nomadic shelters should be easy to make and accessible from almost anywhere on the various maps of Minecraft. Below are a list of Shelters that are organized by complexity. The most basic utility for the nomad is the bed. It's easy to make - just blocks of Wool and 3 blocks of Wooden Planks are needed to craft it. Note: You can use any color of wool. You can even use multiple colors of wool and wood, but the bed will remain red. The only way to change the bed color is to change the texture pack.
| Ingredients | Input » Output |
|---|---|
| Wool + Wooden Planks | Template:Grid2/Crafting Table |
"Instant shelter"
Instant shelters are the absolute basic, and while they keep you safe, you lack many luxuries and abilities. These shelters are useful when exploring a map or finding rare resources like clay or cacti. They are meant to be built in 5 to 10 seconds, anywhere on The Overworld or in a cave.
There are 2 types of instant shelters you can do :
First one is a hole in the ground. This is exactly what it sounds like. All you need is to dig a hole according to the schematics below.
This one protects you from mobs even if you built the shelter at midnight. You should stay careful when going out of it, a mob may fall into your hole. If there are any mobs on top of your hole, you might not be able to sleep due to them being too close. If you do not put a torch in to light the shelter, it will be dark enough for a mob to spawn.
Second type of instant shelter is a pillar on which you will sleep. This method will only work if there are no mobs nearby.
This shelter is useful if you don't want to be surprised on your wake by mobs (you can clean the area around with a bow and an arrow). However, building a pillar without overhangs is not advisable since after the Beta 1.2 update spiders can climb walls - or in this case the pillar. This is easily circumvented by making overhangs on top of the pillar to prevent spiders from climbing up the pillar and harming the player sleeping in bed.
Huge mushroom shelter (or PESS (Portable Emergency 'Shroom Shelter')
There is another instant shelter that is easy to make all you need is 1 red mushroom, 1 bonemeal, 13 soil, a torch or two and 1 bed.
First plant your red mushroom on a dirt block then use your bonemeal on that mushroom, remove the central stalk and build a 1x1 tower up the center of the mushroom where the stalk was. Fill the bottom floor of the mushroom with the remaining dirt, place a torch or two and finally place your bed and you've finished your makeshift base. I like to think of it as a tent. It also has the plus side of producing even more mushrooms to make your breakfast.
If you dig a 1-block hole in the ground to plant the mushroom in, it will usually (but not always) grow its walls all the way to the ground, so you don't need to make a way to scale the mushroom.
Brown mushrooms can also be used as a safe place to snipe mobs from with the Bow and Arrows.
Some people like to call it the Portable Instant 'Shroom Shelter(or PISS), but is not recommended on SMP servers with speak rules...
Basic hut
It's just what it sounds like. It's a ground level structure that can be a bit bigger than the "Instant Shelter". Just place your bed and build a space around it that mobs cannot penetrate.
Mountainside hut
Again, like the name implies, this is built on a mountainside for maximum protection. If your "bridge" to it is one block wide, mobs will have no chance of getting to you. Thankfully, Mountains have been increased in size and rarity since the 1.8 update.
Tree "house"
This might be one of the most efficient, and safest, ways of making a one-night shelter. All you do is go up in a tree and barricade yourself with any material. This works especially well with larger trees (the ones with branches). Note that spiders may be able to get up the smaller trees. Also, a plus-side to this shelter is that you have a natural way to see outside.
With the introduction of Jungle Trees you can make a really high tree house or even make a tree village in a jungle biome connecting each tree via a walkway/bridge.
Cave dwelling
If you happen to have a pickaxe with you (which I'll assume you do), this is an easy one. If you stumble upon a cave, you only have to barricade the entrance and you're done. Of course, barricading the side of the cave that leads into the earth is also a good idea, since lots of hostile mobs might spawn. Like always, proper lighting is a must-have. Besides natural occurring caves, you can also dig a hole into the side of a cliff or mountain yourself, and seal off the entrance.
Inventory management
The biggest part of this experience is the traveling. You'll need to pick up all your gear every morning and make off for the horizon. Storing your goods in chests won't help (ender chests can if one is on the ground and the other stored in your inventory) you come morning when it all has to fit into your personal inventory.
You also need to pack in the most economic way possible. Try to only carry the base materials, that way you can hold more per stack. For instance, carrying wood instead of planks will allow you to hold four times as much materials. Carrying wood (logs) instead of sticks will allow you to hold eight times more! Only craft as many items as you need and carry the rest in raw materials. Also, try not to mix things like the different types of wood or planks, as that takes up space, too. Although it isn't as compact, you could craft the mixed wood into sticks, as they will match then.
Then you have to decide what is worth taking and what is easy to make more of later on. Is taking up a whole slot for your workbench worth it, or is four planks easy enough to come by to build another? What else could you carry instead of that, a whole stack of wood? Another weapon or pickaxe?
Another good tip is to use those rare materials early. Using those couple of iron ingots to make a faster axe or pickaxe will save you a lot of time versus chopping with a wood or stone tool. That time is crucial when you're fighting the clock each day and night.
If you like inventory management but think a whole chestful is too much space, you can add additional limits such as only holding items in your inventory bar (that you can access without pressing e) or setting off each day with only 9 items. Excess items could be incinerated, buried, placed or just thrown in a lake.
Tips & tricks
- Placing a bed is one of the basic things to do to your shelter, as this will make it your new spawnpoint -you might die, after all-, and it provides a unique opportunity to skip the night, at least in survival.
- Make sure your shelter is properly lit. If you don't, then you'll probably have the living daylights scared out of you when you hear the hissing sound of a creeper right beside you. However, mobs don't always spawn when you are in a bed, because you put the game on fast forward while sleeping.
- It's always a good idea to have a hole in the wall of your shelter, or have a clock with you. That way, you'll be able to see when it's day again. (Remember, spiders can't enter holes one block in width). However, creepers can see you through the hole and may explode if you are near enough, so be careful in small shelters.
- You can use glass for windows, but 16 glass panes can be made from 6 glass blocks, so glass panes are a more economic choice. Using glass is a luxury and will be a waste of resources and time as you cannot retrieve any glass after placing them unless you have a silk touch tool. You can obtain both glass and glass panes with silk touch.
- Make some shears. Always shear sheep of their wool, so you can keep your previous bed where it is. This way, if you die, you won't spawn back at the world spawn.
Advantages
This nomadic style of play lets you see and explore the world with only a few tools and items, stripping Minecraft down to the basics. It will also give a higher chance of you finding different biomes. The most common biome you will find is Pine Forest.
Disadvantages
As you could probably tell, the save files for the world will be huge. If you choose to use a mapping program, it will most certainly take quite a long time to load the simulated map of the entire strip of the world. Also, it is difficult to dig down and find diamond and other ores in a single day, so you will not have as many ores as you would otherwise.
Good nomad mods
There are some mods that improve the nomad experience.
- HUNGER MOD - offers a similar, but different experience from the official hunger system, and includes thirst and fatigue aspects.