Minecraft is Engineering

The more you get into your Minecraft world and the more you try to make the more you’ll find that engineering plays a large role in making it all work. Whether you’re working with water, or lava, or redstone, or even a mix of them all, you’ll need to design the system, test it, redesign it, test it again, and finally when you’re satisfied with how it works and looks implement it in your world (this is why I highly recommend having a test world).

What Needs Engineering?

my test world so far

As you attempt to build mob spawners, efficient mines, item conveyances, and a host of other systems you’ll quickly find that engineering plays a large role. This is especially true for more complex systems. For instance I’m currently trying to build a mining system to make mining more convenient and allow me to continue mining for longer. This requires a system that automatically unloads a storage minecart and returns it when it’s empty, which then connects to a vertical item elevator (preferably quiet and compact if possible) that will transport items up to a silent fully automatic item sorter and then transport the sorted items to multiple locations with an even distribution until all designated locations are full at which point it will send the rest to a mass storage system until it’s full, at which point the items would be diverted to an incinerator. Now obviously that sounds immensely complex, but if you break it down into its component parts (item elevator, item sorter, storage system, etc.) it becomes simpler. Seeing the whole and being able to take it down to its component parts or seeing the parts and imagining what the whole might look like is the nature of the engineering (you know, besides all the math that goes with it).

Why Engineer?

Based on the example above, the answer should be obvious; you do some engineering to take cool systems and combine them into something incredible. For the more adventurous player the above system could be set up to include auto-smelting systems so all your iron, gold, and even cobblestone are automatically smelted for you, and even indicator lights to let you know when certain resources are running low. Add to this several other types of farms and pretty soon the large majority of your normal daily work will be done for you requiring little more than occasionally chopping down a tree, swinging a pickaxe, and planting some seeds. It’s easy to see that there’s a lot to do in Minecraft so wouldn’t it be wonderful to have just a little bit less to have to worry about. Of course I know building the system and getting it to work is half the fun, but once it’s done you’ll have more time to pursue other projects and really deck out your world.

Conclusion

While it’s one of the more complex and resource intensive things to do in Minecraft engineering is also one of the most enjoyable. As such, if you’d like to make your Minecraft life a lot easier later by putting in the effort now, I’d highly recommend doing some engineering in your N3rd C0rn3r.

Minecraft is Combat

Whether you’re fighting mobs or other players Minecraft is a world where combat is going to be inevitable. While for those playing on difficulties lower than hard core the consequences aren’t that extreme, it can still be demoralizing to lose a fight and of course there’s the loss of precious experience that goes with it. In order to make your character more combat ready, there are some things you’ll want to make and some tactics you’ll want to know.

Armor

The first thing of course is armor which will reduce the damage you take from almost all sources. There are four pieces to any set of armor; breastplate, leggings, boots, and helmet. If you’re just making your first set of armor you want to make it in that order as a breastplate will offer the highest level of protection, leggings the next highest, etc. There are also four materials you can use to make your armor; leather, gold, iron, and diamond. Obviously diamond is going to provide the most protection for you, with iron being the step below that. Because gold is a soft metal its protection is about on par with leather, however it’s superior because gold is more easily enchanted (you get better enchants for less experience) so if you have an enchanting table ready to go but have no diamond or iron, you can use gold. Just be aware it has very low durability. Leather of course is your lowest level armor, but given how easy it is to obtain leather once you’ve got a cow farm going, it’s easily renewable and so there’s never a good excuse for having no armor.

Weapons

There are two primary weapons in Minecraft the sword and the bow. The ax can also be used as an effective weapon if you need to save that last inventory slot, but it does a little less damage than the sword, so you’ll want to use the sword anytime you have the space in your inventory (note that the ax can receive both tool and weapon enchants making it very versatile). You’ll want to use your sword for close in combat and your bow for hitting targets further out (or keeping dangerous melee opponents like the creeper at bay). The one catch with the bow is that you’ll need arrows to use it. These are dropped by skeletons or you can craft them with flint (obtained by digging gravel), sticks, and feathers (dropped by chickens). Bows can be enchanted to make them more powerful adding things like more damage or flaming arrows, which can be used to set off TNT that you have placed out at a distance.

Tactics

While combat may seem like it’s just a basic move and click game, there are a few extra tactics worth knowing. If you’re holding a sword, holding down the right click button will cause your character to block reducing damage taken by up to half. This is useful if a creeper surprises you. It’s not directional either so blocking will reduce damage from any source around you (even behind). If you melee an enemy while falling it will deal critical hit damage. This can be accomplished by holding the jump button while you’re fighting your enemy not only making you harder to hit but occasionally dealing more damage to them. Rapidly switching between right and left clicking on your sword will cause it to attack faster and will also occasionally block damage reducing the damage you take and increasing the damage you’re dealing. Finally, mobs need line of sight to attack you which means having a stack of blocks with you and making a 2 high pillar between you and a mob, will prevent it from attacking you until it navigates around the obstruction. This can help you get close enough to melee a skeleton or avoid a creeper explosion.

Conclusion

While combat can be dangerous, there are ways to make sure you’re dominating, rather than being dominated. I sincerely hope the information provided here will help you truly conquer your N3rd C0rn3r.

Minecraft is Colonization

Sometimes in Minecraft you will feel the need to leave your home for somewhere different. Maybe this is due to a lack of necessary resources where you started or perhaps it’s a result of failing at building your base the way you really want it resulting in a desire to start over without sacrificing all the progress you’ve made and resources you’ve acquired by making a new map (guilty as charged). In these cases colonization will likely be your best bet.

What is Colonization?

my home away from home

Essentially, colonization is establishing a new base of operations somewhere else. Maybe this will include moving over everything from the old base, but more likely it’ll serve as an outpost where you can collect massive quantities of resources you don’t have available back home. This is actually a good method to use if you want to make a massive quarry but don’t like the idea of having a huge hole dug into the ground within sight of your base.

What You’ll Need

To set up a functioning colony you’ll need to take a lot or resources with you to get things set up and functional. Remember that there’s no need to do a complete restart and try living off the land. That will only slow you down. You worked hard for the resources you have so use them to set up a livable base so you can get started working on the project you set out to do in the first place. Obviously you’ll need to take plenty of food with you to get yourself started and something that you can plant to make more food when you run out as you’ll probably be way out at your colony for a long time. If the site for your colony is close enough to your base that you can go back for resources whenever, it’s not really worth setting up a colony and you may as well just set up a rail system to it. You’ll also need lots of basic materials for making the things you’ll need once you’re there. At least one stack of cobblestone and maybe a stack of iron for tools (if not more) and several stacks of wood at least. If you take stacks of the whole wood blocks with you, you’ll be able to carry much, much more and can convert it to boards, sticks, or whatever else you need once you’re there. Still you’ll also want to bring a few chests so you have room to store your materials as you gather and convert them. You can even fit more by using blocks instead of smaller materials (like ingots) to bring extra resources. Naturally as you’ll be traveling a great distance and may encounter some mobs, armor and weapons are always a plus, and some basic tools will be helpful as well (pickaxe, shovel, and axe) What you’ll want to bring will likely depend upon what you’re planning to do at your colony, but you really only need to bring one of each tool for the trip as more than that will clutter your inventory. You can always make more once you’re there and set up. Finally a stack of torches is always handy for lighting up the area where you intend to build your colony and a bed is absolutely a must to avoid those long dangerous nights stuck in your new home.

Conclusion

Sometimes it really is just necessary to set out and establish a new home, at least for a while. The dangers are ever present, but the rewards are great and I would conclude that it’s absolutely worthwhile to set up a few colonies in your N3rd C0rn3r.

Minecraft is Mining

Unless you’re brand new to the game, you are probably already aware that Minecraft is going to involve some mining (and probably even a new player will get that impression) As such it should be no surprise that the number of mining methods and systems is incredibly vast and some can become quite complex. Still it’s worth exploring some of the more common methods.

Why Mine?

The answer to that is quite simple; when you first start the game, it’s the only way to get the resources you need to do pretty much anything. Now once you’re more advanced you can set up generators for cobblestone, you can make charcoal (which is essentially coal) from wood and you can set up farms for food and even things like iron, redstone, and glowstone, however when you’re just starting, such resources are somewhat more difficult to make in these ways (as most of these things require a good deal of resources to get set up) and so mining is going to be the best way to get you the things that you need.

How to Mine

How you choose to do your mining will largely depend upon who you are and what resources you’re looking for. I personally use a multi-mining method that combines two techniques called tunneling and pin-wheeling respectively, but you could use whatever method works best for you. Because there are so many different methods of mining I can’t possibly cover them all (at least not in a reasonable amount of time) and so I’ll go over a few common types and how to get started with them.

Staircase – This is a simple easy method that involves digging a staircase down through the ground until you get to the layer that you’re wanting to mine at (layer 11 is considered the richest in everything and is right at the lava layer so lava usually won’t be encountered above you). This method allows you a way up and down that costs you no resources and allows you to safely gather the materials you are digging through. Once you’re at the bottom (or as far down as you want to go) you can use another method to keep you on that layer simply using the staircase as an access, or you can go back up and dig another staircase. These can even be layered for maximum coverage.

Vertical Mining – As you may have gathered from the name this involves digging straight down, however it’s best to do this by digging at least a 1x2 hole rather than a 1x1 hole. In Minecraft you should never, ever dig straight down. The likelihood of the block below you opening up into a large cavern or a pool of lava is very high potentially causing fatal damage to your character and loss of valuable equipment. Basically you want to dig down to the layer you’re trying to get to or even all the way to bedrock if you want collecting any resources you find along the way. Be sure to take plenty of ladders or vines with you to place on the blocks so that you can get back up. Once you’ve reached the layer you want to mine on you can choose your favorite horizontal mining method or just dig another hole nearby.

Tunneling – Once you’re at the layer you wish to mine at, you start digging tunnels and just keep going straight for as far as you can. This is a highly efficient mining method as every two blocks you dig out reveals 4 blocks that you’ve never seen before. This does however often result in really long tunnels making for a long walk back and assuming you don’t want to encounter mobs on the way back, it’ll end up using several torches as well. The tunnels don’t have to be only one block wide and in fact can be as many blocks wide as you’d like. I personally do four three block wide tunnels leading out from my shaft in all four directions and typically go out 384 blocks (two stacks of torches placing them on the left wall every 3 squares [to compensate for having none on the right side of the wall]).

Pin-Wheeling – This method builds off of four main tunnels and digs a series of side tunnels all going in the same direction. For example my main tunnel is three wide (to allow for a minecart system) has torches every three blocks on the left and has a side tunnel every three blocks on the right. This means there’s a space of two blocks between each of these side tunnels which is extremely thorough (meaning I’ll get all the ore in a chunk), but not as efficient (meaning I dig through more stone/dirt/gravel) as it would be using a wider spacing (3-6 squares between). If viewed from above this would create a “pinwheel” pattern hence the name.

Quarrying – This method is very much like the real life method and involves digging a large pit layer by layer to recover the resources leaving blocks along the side to form a staircase so you can get up and down. Such a project will typically yield many resources including a lot of cobblestone and dirt and could take a few days of 24/7 digging to complete. This however isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the quarry doesn’t necessarily loose its usefulness once it’s completely dug out. It can be used afterward to make underground or underwater bases, provide access to uncovered caverns and resources, or even serve as the foundation point for large projects like a huge skyscraper which can be made much taller if you’re building from bedrock up to sky-level. Often times because of their enormous size compared to other mining methods, a quarry will run into lava pools or caverns which doesn’t necessarily stop your progress, but it can often times delay it. This is a great method for getting lots of cheap materials while also picking up many more valuable ones.

Conclusion

While it may seem like a lot of work, mining is definitely a rewarding endeavor in Minecraft. If you’re low on resources, need a flat location to build a major project, or just like the challenge of designing highly thorough and efficient mining systems, definitely try your hand at mining in your N3rd C0rn3r.

Minecraft is Automation

That’s right everyone, today we’re going to talk about making life in Minecraft more convenient using Automation. Whether you’re playing in a single player world, a multi-player world, or even in pvp, there are only so many hours in the day (and only minutes in each Minecraft day) meaning there’s only so much that you as the player can accomplish each day. Now technically everything can be automated, but some things are so colossally complicated to do that it’s just easier to harvest yourself (tree farming for instance), but other things are quite easy to automate and if you can set it up, it will save you the inconvenience of needing to go through and harvest things yourself. Even a semi-automatic system can save immeasurable amounts of time and effort.

What can be automated?

As I said, technically most everything can be at least semi-automated, but there are those things that are simple and those things that become far more complex.

Fully Automatic Cactus Farm

Farms – Probably the most common type of automation is in the area of farming. No one wants to spend their whole day gathering food resources when they could be mining or building or even hunting down mobs so it helps to have a system set up that automatically harvests and stores resources for you without any need for input from you. Since the introduction of hoppers, this has become much easier as items no longer need to be stored in an unloaded chunk (like the nether) to keep them from despawning. Now you can simply feed the collected items into a hopper with an attached chest to have them automatically stored for later retrieval. The easiest types of fully automatic farms to make are cactus, pumpkin/melon, egg, sugarcane, and mushroom farms, though the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Smelters – Using hoppers it is possible to have resources automatically fed into a furnace for smelting, cooking, or whatever other process you tend to use a furnace for. This is done by setting up a hopper on top (for the item to be cooked), a hopper on the left side of the furnace (for your fuel source), and a hopper underneath (for your output). These hoppers can have attached chests, or can be linked up with an automatic item sorter in order to automatically smelt and cook resources from various types of farms.

Compact Storage Minecart Unloading and Return System

Item Sorting – For those that are a little OCD like me, this contraption is a life saver. Using hoppers and redstone you can set up a system that will automatically sort and store your items for you, without needing any input from you whatsoever. These systems are a little complicated, but once you’ve got one set up, you’ll find that it really is quite amazing. You can even attach these to devices such as an automatic descending storage system (which is a chest on top of a couple hoppers, feeding into two chests, on top of hoppers feeding into three chests, etc.) giving you a massive storage capacity and an automatic item elevator and automatic minecart unloading and return system to completely automate a large branch mining operation meaning all you have to do is mindlessly harvest till your inventory is full, toss it in the storage minecart, and do it again never needing to worry about sorting or storing the items, or even carrying them back up to the surface (which we all know can be a pain).

Security – Using the new daylight sensors you can set up defenses around your base that will automatically activate at night. If you’re busy doing things in your base through the evening, this can help protect your base from stray mobs by activating lights, opening up motes of lava, or any other type of diabolical thing that you can imagine.

Material Generators – While material generators are typically not fully automatic, you can set it up so that they require little input from you to work appropriately. The cobblestone generator is probably the most well-known example and uses lava and water to generate cobblestone which you just sit and mine for as long as you like. These can even be set up with hoppers to automatically store the cobblestone so you needn’t even stop to unload your inventory. Another example would be the obsidian generator. You fill a premade area with lava, pull a lever, and water pours down from the ceiling turning it all into obsidian which you can then harvest at your leisure. Sand and gravel generators could be fully automated, however the glitch that made them possible has been fixed and they no longer work, but such is life in Minecraft.

Mob loot farms – If you don’t care about rare drops or the experience, a mob loot farm can be fully automated, so much so that you can actually sit there afk and just collect loot from the hapless mobs caught in your trap.

Conclusion

While it’s not necessary to fully automate the various things in your Minecraft world, it does make life there much easier and I’d highly recommend it for anyone, especially those with less time to play. If you want to make your Minecraft character’s life a bit easier, give automated solutions a try in your N3rd C0rn3r.

Minecraft is Brewing

One of the coolest features in Minecraft is one that you may not even know about called potion making or brewing. Because of the required materials to get started it is fairly end game content, but the things that you can do with potions are both impressive and well worth pursuing.

Required Materials

To get started you’ll need some reasonably common materials like glass, a workbench, and water. You’ll also need some less common materials such as a brewing stand. You can also make a cauldron if you’d like (a “u” shape in the crafting window with iron) but it’s mostly for looks and doesn’t serve much purpose if you have an infinite water source nearby. You can craft your brewing stand using 3 cobblestone blocks (arranged in a straight line at the bottom of the crafting window) and 1 blaze rod (placed in the center of the window). This final ingredient tells you why potions are fairly end game content; you’ll have to take a trip into the nether in order to get them. However it’s not just a casual jaunt into the depths of the nether, but a concerted search for a nether fortress where you must fight and defeat blazes in order to get their rods. Later you can use their spawner blocks to set up blaze rod farms, but for right now, you just need a couple blaze rods (one for the stand and one for your first batch of fire resistance potions). While you’re searching about the fortress, you’ll also want to try and find nether wart to use in a farm as it’s a principle ingredient in making almost all potions. The journey into the nether can be dangerous, but once you’ve got a small base set up to protect yourself during that initial transition from overworld to nether, you’re much better off. Having at least iron equipment with a few basic enchants is very, very helpful, but not absolutely necessary.

What You Can Brew

The first tier of brewing is fairly simple. You place three water filled bottles (made with 3 glass blocks in a “v” shape in the crafting window and then fill them with water by right clicking on a water source) in the three lower slots of the brewing stand and add your first ingredient. Nearly all potions will start with nether wart yielding an “awkward potion” that has no effect. You can however also use other ingredients, though most will eventually yield a “potion of weakness.” This is a useful potion and can be made by simply using a fermented spider eye (brown mushroom, sugar, and spider eye on the crafting table). There’s really no reason to use any other type of ingredient initially (though you can if you want) because it’ll end up wasting resources. Once you have an “awkward potion” you can distill extra ingredients into it yielding different effects.

Potion of Night Vision – made using a golden carrot (one carrot in the center of the crafting window surrounded by 8 golden nuggets) on an “awkward potion” this will allow you to see in the dark, useful for caving if you don’t care to light it up or for working underwater.

Potion of Fire Resistance – made using magma cream (slime ball combined with blaze powder, or dropped by magma slimes) on an “awkward potion” this potion will give you temporary immunity to fire damage. The implications are fairly obvious and this is definitely one of the best potions to carry with you into the nether (will prevent damage from walking through fire, being shot by blazes, and swimming through lava).

Potion of Swiftness – made using sugar (one sugarcane in the crafting window) on an “awkward potion” this temporarily increases you speed so walking is like sprinting and sprinting is really fast.

Potion of Healing – made using a glistering melon (one melon slice and one gold nugget) on an “awkward potion” this will restore 6 health when you drink it. These are great to have around pretty much all the time.

Potion of Poison – made using a fermented spider eye on an “awkward potion” this will cause poison that will slowly reduce the health of those who drink it. It’s best to make these splash potions.

Potion of Regeneration – made using a ghast tear on an “awkward potion” these will regenerate your health over time and are very useful in extended combat situations where you are too busy with other tasks to worry about drinking health potions.

Potion of Strength – made by using blaze powder (one blaze rod in the crafting window) this potion will increase your hitting power for a time and so is useful for maximizing your dps.

The Final Component

Once you have your base potions you can improve upon them further by adding one of four different ingredients. Fermented spiders eye will corrupt the effect of your potion (for instance potion of strength becomes potion of weakness), redstone dust will increase the duration of the effect, and glowstone dust will increase the potency of the effect. Finally any potion can be turned into a splash potion (meaning it’s throwable and causes and area effect) by adding gunpowder. These extra options can create better versions of the potions you already have or even create new potions like “potion of invisibility, potion of slowness, and potion of harming.” For a complete list of potions and ingredient combinations click here.

Conclusion

For many Minecraft players, the nether is fraught with danger and not worth visiting, but for the bold lay the wealth of all that’s been created down there opening up worlds of option both in the nether and on the surface world. If you’re among the bold, make sure you eventually get potions going in your N3rd C0rn3r.

Minecraft is Exploring

Whether you’re talking about the vast surface of the overworld or the darkest depths of the nether your Minecraft experience is going to involve a good deal of exploring. Of course the why and the how can vary and are completely up to you, but there are a few reasons and methods worth exploring (pun intended).

Why explore?

There are of course a couple different reasons to go exploring in Minecraft. The primary reason is for the purpose of acquiring exotic resources not found near your home. Some resources are found only in certain biomes so it’s not surprising that you’d need to do some exploring to find certain types of resources. What you need will of course depends entirely upon what kind of biome you live in and what’s nearest to you. For instance I had to go exploring to locate pumpkins, jungle tree saplings, spruce saplings, snow, cocoa beans, and cactus. I didn’t need to go anywhere however for oak, or birch, and have never had a problem finding slimes as I’m based very near a number of small island swamps.

The second reason is for the sense of adventure. While building your base and gathering resources is all well and good, the point of building the cool equipment and enchanting it all up and down is so that you can use it to explore, survive, and eventually conquer your world. Maybe you’re looking to do some mob hunting or perhaps you’re trying to expand into a new area and need to scope it out. Perhaps you’re looking for new villages to trade with, or perhaps you’re just trying to add more detail to your map. Whatever the reason there’s no denying that exploring is both exciting and fun.

How to explore

Technically all you really need is the will to go see what else is out there, however if you intend to last for any significant amount of time, there are a few things you’ll probably want to bring along with you. While you could try to survive off the land, you’ve already done that, when you started the game so why not use the things you’ve worked for? Since you’ll likely be spending some nights away from home you’ll want to make sure you have a decent set of armor and a weapon or two to fend off the angry mobs. You may also wish to bring a stack or two of building material to make basic shelters for the night. I’d recommend wood as it’s easy to get lots of it and has many uses (making new swords/bows, making torches) while out and about. You’ll also want to bring a workbench and a stack of torches so you can leave a path home if you need to and you can make more equipment on the go. Jack’O lanterns are great for this as the face will always face toward the player when placed. This can be used to indicate what direction to go to get home if you’re not traveling in a straight line and can be placed underwater as well. Finally you’ll want to be sure you bring one or two stacks of consumable materials (food and arrows primarily) so that you don’t run out. Other options include a compass or a map to help find your way around, extra material for making tools/weapons (stone or iron), and even a mount or some potions to speed your progress and possibly reduce your food consumption rate somewhat.

Conclusion

Exploring is a vital part of any game of Minecraft and one you’ll likely have to do if you’ve not tried already. Just be sure to know what you’re looking for and be prepared for a long journey so that you can make it back to your N3rd C0rn3r.