Something that I’ve mentioned on a couple of different occasions, but have yet to really explain is afk farming. Now for most you’ll be familiar with the concept of afk or away from keyboard, but for some this may be a new concept and I thought it’d be appropriate to take some time and explain it as it’s likely going to play a role in your own pvp strategy.
A Semi-Complete Fully-Auto Cactus Farm
The first thing you need to know about afk farming is what it is. Now in Minecraft crops will only grow if the chunk they’re in is loaded. A chunk will only be loaded if a player is in range of it, so for those who build their bases closer to spawn you’ll likely have your farm running 24/7 regardless of whether or not you’re actually actively playing at the time. This can be quite handy for obvious reasons, but makes your base more vulnerable to raiding. If however you build your base further out the likelihood that another player will be in range often enough to keep your crops growing is limited and as such you’ll need to employ afk farming. This involves staying logged on even though you’re not actively playing. For example you could log on to the server and just leave your character to sit in range of your farm while you go to work, read a book, or enjoy a movie. When you come back your crops are all grown so you harvest, replant, and repeat eventually selling the crops at spawn to provide money for things you need to effectively pvp.
A more advanced system involves full automation which is often accomplished through use of redstone, but can also be done via other means. A fully automatic farm will allow you to sit tight for longer periods without needing to return to harvest and replant as these things are done for you. These types of farms are most often made using cactus, melons, pumpkins, and sugarcane, but can also include mushrooms and even chickens if you’re clever. Of course if you’re on a factions server, afk farming can be something your faction splits into shifts so no one person has to stay logged in all the time.
The obvious danger is that your character will be standing somewhere without you at the controls. This makes your character vulnerable to attack and it’s why farm security is one of the most important aspects of afk farming, though shockingly it’s one of the most overlooked. Often times it’s you’re extremely valuable resources like diamonds that get the best security, but I personally believe that your farms should be nearly as well protected in order to keep your character safe and to protect your source of income.
Finally it’s important to remember to check the game occasionally even with a fully automatic system as accidental loss of connection will occasionally occur and if left un-resolved for a long period of time could seriously cut into your profits. While afk farming you’ll also want to make certain that your inventory or pause window is open to make sure you’re not logged out for inactivity.
So there you have it, a crash course on afk farming. I hope this helps you set up your own farms and I look forward to seeing you server-side. Until next time, thanks for visiting my N3rd C0rn3r.
Well hello again everyone and welcome to the latest article in my Minecraft PvP series. As you likely remember from the last article I was well under way trying to get my new base completed. I did manage to set up the early farm infrastructure and I’d been using the money earned from that to purchase more cobblestone to finish my base out with. Today I’m happy to say that this portion of the base building is complete and I’m now completely incased in cobblestone covered entirely with water. Obviously it won’t keep out the most determined, but it will make getting in a very costly process with little reward.
Eventually cactus will line the lower section as well
This is of course only the first step to base completion. To help offset certain costs I’ve taken the four rows at the ends of each farm and used them for sugarcane, carrots, melon, and netherwart so I needn’t buy these things each time I need to make some potions. I’ve also planted 4 oak saplings inside the base with only enough room for them to grow one of the smaller versions of each tree and in such a way that they won’t interfere with the farm set-up. This is due more to a fluke than to good planning, but I’ll gladly take it. Now I need to buy considerably less for each project I do as wood and brewing materials are plentiful. If you’re wondering why I went with oak as opposed to birch which would naturally grow the shorter trees it’s simply because I wanted a readily available source of apples as well.
Next up on the “to do” list is the automation of the cactus farm using hoppers. So far I’ve got 2 rows completely automated, but there’s still a good deal of work to be done. The idea is that the water streams on the above level (which I’ve decided to leave to save a bit of money) will push the broken off bits of cactus down into the line of hoppers on the lower floor. This will attach to hoppers surrounding the sand blocks supporting the cacti on the lower level allowing a fully contained system that doesn’t require exposing the hoppers to the outside. Once the two main hopper lines are complete I’ll be able to afk farm much more efficiently and progress toward completion should speed up quite a bit.
Once complete I’ll have the money to get the resources to start raiding some nearby bases, though it seems as though there’s little construction happening anywhere near me.
Finally, if you read all the articles on my site, I’d first like to say thank you and you’ve probably noticed that I’ve started an Original Minecraft story series. These tend to be a bit longer so I’ll be writing a new one only once a week (typically on Sundays) and then I’ll make two in game copies which I’ll be giving away for free at spawn on Sunday evening. If you’d like to try and get a copy of one of the books, then I’ll see you at spawn once I’ve finished in my N3rd C0rn3r.
Below is my first ever (though definitely not my last) original Minecraft themed story, formatted so that you can copy/paste it into a book and quill in the game if you'd like to. If you do I'd ask only that you leave the referencing tag at the end so those that enjoy these stories can find more of them. Thanks to everyone for all your support so far and I hope you enjoy Reckless Abandon.
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It was a day just like any other. The square sun rose over the extreme hills in the distance bathing the land in light and burning away the monsters foolish enough to stand out in the open as it made its daily debut. Little about today seemed
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especially unusual. Steve was running low on iron and so it was time for another trip down into the mines to extract the relatively common, but immensely useful resource from its long entombment in the dirt and stone that seemed so prevalent down
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there. Steve needed the iron for a massive overhaul of the mining operation itself. He wanted to make it as automated as it could possibly be, but of course that meant a great deal of manual labor up front to get the materials needed to set up the system.
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"Those hoppers sure do use a lot of iron," Steve said to himself as he gathered up a few pick-axes and shovels for the long day ahead. He paused for a moment and stared at the armory considering a sword, bow, and some arrows, but after a moments
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consideration he decided against them. Because the automated system wasn't set up yet he'd have to carry all the gathered materials back himself and he decided he just couldn't spare the room in his pack for the extra gear. Little did he know that
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this one decision would end up making this day a potentially fatal one. Armed with picks and shovels and nothing else Steve made his way down into the mines dug out near his little home. The first couple levels had been completely dug out already so he
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headed for level three only 9 or so layers down from the surface, but far enough that natural light didn't ever touch the blocks at this level, at least not without help from Steve. Making his way down the ladder Steve could hear the soft drip of water
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leaking through shallow tunnel roofs and the occasional crackle of the flame at the top of the torches evenly spaced throughout the mine tunnels. He reached level three quickly and found his way to the next area ready to be mined, pulled out a fresh pick,
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and started digging. On and on he went, burrowing through dirt and rock stopping only to gather coal or iron encountered along the way or to switch out a broken tool. It must have been at least an hour into his work when the tunnel he'd been digging
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suddenly opened up on another, somewhat wider tunnel, one Steve hadn't dug. It was quite dark and led off to the left for quite a ways before it hit a wall of any sort, however it seemed to not go very far to the right leading Steve to believe that he'd
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hit the very end of a tunnel. Strangely there
was a bit of iron just to the right. Steve had to wonder why anyone who made a
tunnel like this would leave behind an iron vein. Wood braces held up the roof
of the tunnel and cobwebs had affixed themselves to
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the corners formed by these braces. Sections of mine cart track were visible on the floor, though several sections were missing and though this portion of the tunnel was dark, Steve could see light from torches a ways down the tunnel to the left. Steve
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pulled a torch out of his pack and affixed it to the wall immediately in front of him, jamming the grip into a crack he found there. "If whoever dug out these tunnels left this iron, then they probably left even more further down," Steve said thinking
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outloud. One thing was for sure, his tunnel hadn't been giving him nearly as much iron as he'd been hoping for and exploring these pre-dug tunnels would be much easier than continuing to dig his own. With that thought Steve made up his mind to take a
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look around and see if he might not be able to improve his fortunes somewhat by mining what had been left behind. Having made his decision he pulled out his pick and made short work of the iron vein to the right and then set off down the left tunnel. As
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he went Steve continued to place torches making sure the path back to his own tunnel was clearly marked. The last thing he needed was to get lost down here. As Steve rounded the left corner at the end of the hall he saw another iron vein and made
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straight for it. Greedily he hacked away at the iron rejoicing in his lucky find of these tunnels. Steve quickly gathered the iron visible on the surface, but there was more beneath it and he needed only take a step in to reach it. Steve ducked in to the
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small opening in the wall realizing too late
that the place he'd intended to put his foot was actually a hole to a vertical
drop deeper into the tunnels! Steve tried to catch himself, but it was no use
and he fell for a terrifying moment that seemed to
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extend to encompass several eternities until he landed with a sickening thud on a hard wood platform. Steve was reasonably sure he'd cracked a bone in his leg, but he was still able to stand on it with only minor discomfort. "Oh, well that's just great
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Steve!" he yelled at himself, feeling foolish for having made such a rookie mistake. As Steve picked himself up he took a look around at his new surroundings. He was on a wooden platform that crossed the gap over a huge underground ravine. Steve took one
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look back up the hole he'd fallen through and knew there wouldn't be any way to climb back up that way and so it seemed he'd have to find another way out. He placed a torch right below the hole to mark where he'd come from and started hobbling up a long
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wide tunnel that seemed to lead back under where he'd been. If he was lucky he'd be able to find a tunnel that went back up and connected with the system he'd been in right before he fell. If he could find those tunnels, he'd be able to find his way back
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from there. The tunnel seemed to go on forever and it wasn't too long before Steve placed his last torch. "Oh, no," he said out loud, "I don't have any torches left!" He finished, his voice taking on a hint of panic. If he wanted to get out of here, he'd
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have no choice but to continue through the dark of the tunnel ahead. Steve began to feel his way further down the dark tunnel being extra careful to make sure each step placed him firmly on solid ground before committing. After several tense minutes that
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seemed more like hours Steve found his way to the end of the tunnel which turned left and thankfully began to ascend. A wave of relief washed over Steve as he felt the path start going upward toward a now not so distant light source. Unfortuntely his
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relief was cut short by the sound he heard from behind him. There was an eerie hiss of a sort accompanied by the skittering of multiple legs over the cold stone surface of the tunnel. The sound instantly turned the wave of relief into an icy chill that
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ran down Steve's spine temporarily immobilizing him. If that sound was what he thought it was, he could be in very big trouble. He fought through the paralyzing fear and managed to look back over his shoulder to see a set of beady red eyes staring back at
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him from the tunnel ceiling. This is what he'd been afraid of. This was a cave spider; a small blue spider with a deadly poison bite that could end the already injured Steve if he played this wrong. Realizing how truly desperate his situation had become
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Steve felt the overwhelming urge to run for the light up ahead. Steve took off up the sloping tunnel praying there were no holes along the way. The spider leapt after him looking to poison him and live off of his corpse for several days at least. Steve
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Pressed on, his injured leg throbbing painfully as he sprinted down the tunnel. If he could just reach the light any other spiders he encountered wouldn't attack him, or so the stories had always said. Something about bright light made them lethargic
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and passive. The light wouldn't save him from this one though. The adrenaline from the chase would keep it focused enough to continue attacking him, even in the light. Steve pulled out his last pick as he ran. It was almost dead, but it's the closest
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thing he had to a weapon. "Oh, why did I leave the sword behind?" he asked himself full of regret about the ill-fated decision. There was no time to dwell on his mistake however. The light was just ahead and Steve skidded to a halt in its comforting glow
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as he turned to face the pursing spider. The cave spider leapt up aiming for Steve's head, but Steve with a desperate swing of his pick caught the spider in mid-air sending it flying back. Undeterred the spider made another leap, this time dodging the
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frantic flailing of Steve's pick and managed to sink his fangs into Steve's already injured leg causing it to explode with a rapidly spreading burning pain that felt like molten iron scorching a path through his veins. Steve gave the pick a final solid
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swing knocking the cave spider off him and flinging the head off the handle. The spider landed a few feet away clearly dead with the shattered remains of the pick sticking out of its abdomen. With the immediate threat having been dealt with Steve, using
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his good leg pushed himself up against the wall with the torch on it, where he sat cringing in pain from the spiders bite. He could feel the poison spreading, drawing ever closer to his vital organs where it would do some serious damage, potentially
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killing him if he didn't do something quickly to stop it. A quick look around confirmed that this was indeed the system of tunnels that led back to the one he'd been digging and as such it was already quite well lit. From this angle he could see a
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chest sitting flush with the wall across from him that he hadn't noticed before. He crawled over to it with his last ounce of strength just barely able to lift the lid as he felt his life slipping away from him. Inside was some iron, a pick, and...
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bread! "Oh, thank goodness!" Steve exclaimed grabbing the bread and greedily gobbling it down, hoping that it would give him the strength to overcome the effects of the poison before it finished him off. Steve ate his fill and waited, hoping against hope
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that this lucky break would somehow ultimately save his life. Minutes passed as he sat there feeling like death itself, but as suddenly as it had come on, Steve could feel the turning point in his bodies fight against the effects of the poison. The
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searing
pain began to subside and Steve could actually feel his strength returning.
After several more minutes of thankful rest Steve slowly tried to stand and
found that even his injured leg felt better. He took a couple careful steps to
make sure he
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was ready to travel once more and having been satisfied that he was feeling better he ate one more bit of bread leaving him one last piece and began a slow, but steady walk back up the tunnel and to his home. The ladder back to the surface was challenging
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to put it mildly, but he made it back to the surface where thankfully it was day time still, though the sun was making its way down toward the horizon. Steve made the short walk from the mine to his house crawling up the stairs and practically kissing the
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threshold
of this safe haven. Closing the door behind him Steve went to the kitchen and grabbed
a bottle of glowing liquid which he then drank, setting the bottle aside for
later use, and then hopped into bed, ready to put the events of the day behind
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him. His sleep that night was so deep that he didn't even dream and the eight hours of night passed by in the mere blink of an eye. Steve awoke feeling one-hundred percent better and decided that he needed to create a reminder for himself, to never go out
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unprepared again, even if it meant making a few more trips back and forth. Steve gathered up some materials and the last remaining piece of bread from the abandoned mineshaft and created a frame, which he placed the bread into. He then took this and
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hung it on the wall above the door to the armory as a reminder of the previous day’s events. From then on any time Steve thought about going out without weapons to save room in his pack he would see that bread and remember that such a decision almost cost
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him his life. That was a mistake he was going to make sure he never, ever made again.
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The End
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If you liked this story and would like a copy that you can copy/paste into your own Minecraft world or would like to read more original Minecraft themed stories like this one you can find them at: http://www.n3rdc0rn3r.blogspot.com
Hello everyone and welcome back to my Minecraft PvP series. So when I last posted I had just begun construction on a new base after encountering some difficulties with the last one (namely that I was unable to grow anything) This thankfully proved not to be the case for the new base and I was able to set up some temporary farms to help me get some money to finish the construction. Well luckily they did just that and I was able to get enough cobblestone to start the lower level including a waterfall catch. Now as most of you are probably aware, one of the best ways to protect your base is to completely cover it in water to prevent the effects of TNT explosions. However if your base has yet to be sealed (like mine at the moment) this water coverage provides a means for people to get to your base assuming of course that it’s not on the ground. Since I’m still working on it, I didn’t want any unwelcome visitors just yet. I also managed to set up the basic structure for my cash crop the cactus. This is a pretty simple setup for now that is simply a row of sand 8 blocks long with 4 cactus set on it every other block and water set on either side to bring the broken off bits of cactus to me in order to expand the farm or sell for other materials. Because the server automatically removes entities every now and again I will eventually replace the water streams with hoppers, though that’s a bit down the line as iron is a bit expensive. Still it’s a necessary project and once I’ve got that going I can start making the things I need to do some epic PvPing.
The Cactus Farm (so far)
Since the cactus farm doesn’t actually take up the whole area I’ll also set up some other basic farms to provide food and brewing ingredients so I don’t have to buy them every time I’d like to make something. I’ll definitely include melon and netherwart. Be sure to let me know in the comments if you think there’s anything else I might need.
Now you may have wondered why I’m not using obsidian for this base and that’s an excellent point, it’d be far safer if I was. Well there are two great answers for that. First, obsidian is very expensive and the base is rather large so doing the whole thing up in obsidian to start with is just a crazy idea, it’d take way too long and issue 25 might see me finish my base, which I imagine would be pretty boring for you guys. Once I’ve got the farm going full tilt I’ll upgrade it, but for now cobble is fine. Second of course is that I have very little of value there are the moment. There’s some sand, some cobble, some cactus, and lots of water, things easily found anywhere on the map. Raiding the base would be a waste for anyone and so the best protection isn’t absolutely necessary just yet (though I’m sure it’ll get there eventually). Hopefully the next post will see the completion of my new base and the first stage of my cactus farm done here at the N3rd C0rn3r.
If you’re not a fan of Greenheart Games, I imagine you soon will be when you play their new game “Game Dev Tycoon,” which casts you in the role of a video game developer back when the whole thing first started and takes you all the way up through the next generation of console gaming and beyond.
Graphics & Sound
Because the game is a simulation less effort was invested into the graphics and sound, though that’s not to say that they’re bad. As you might expect the graphics are somewhat more basic that other games might be, however they easily get their points across and it’s not challenging to identify your settings and the details that fill them. The sound is of good quality and the track, though repetitive is catchy and still not an irritant after several solid hours of gameplay, a feat not often accomplished by other similar style games.
Gameplay
My Splash Screen
The game starts you off as a brand new software developer working out of a garage and starting with a meager $70k to develop your first game. If there were any doubt about what to do first it’s quickly dispelled as “develop a new game” is you’re only starting option aside from just sitting there and watching your monthly costs eat away at your startup money. Even if you find a winning theme and genre combination right off the bat and balance your focus correctly, don’t expect reviews for your first game to be better than 6s. Better ratings come with time and experience and for now 6s are awesome.
As you continue other opportunities will open up for you. Research is your first option and at the start all that’s available is “research new topic” (which is great because it costs nothing except research points) and the well worth saving up for “create custom engine” which opens up the option for you to design your own game engine in order to utilize the new technologies you keep researching thereby improving your games.
Once you get your first hit game and make you’re first million dollars you’ll be presented with an option to move to a new office. I’ve found that accepting this offer immediately tends to result in bankruptcy and so I stayed in the garage till the next gen systems came out, researching the whole time and then made a new engine and moved into the new office. From there things just got better and better. Seven hours later I finished the game (but don’t worry, you can keep playing afterwards if you want to).
Object lesson
The best part about the game is that it’s designed to teach an object lesson, or at least the pirated version is. The two versions start very much the same way, however once you reach a certain point you start getting messages in the pirated version that you “lost x amount of money because of piracy” to the point where it becomes impossible to develop new innovative games and still keep from going bankrupt. While it may be slightly exaggerated, one can definitely see the point and I find myself glad to have spent the $8 for the game to avoid the piracy hassle in my N3rd C0rn3r.
Well it’s day two for yours truly on the MineFrenzy PvP server and unfortunately it got off to a bit of a rough start. After setting up my initial base and pouring time and resources into it I discovered a very unfortunate problem that means it’s going to be impossible to keep a base where I’d intended; crops will not grow there. As you may have guessed this means that I was attempting to set up a base in the Nether which seemed like a good idea until I ran into that particular problem. Now I’m not sure if I was just doing something very wrong or if Nether growth has been disabled to force farm building to be in the overworld, but after several hours of afk farming using multiple crops yielding no results I figured something was up. I went ahead and tested the same basic setup on a singleplayer world and what hadn’t happened in hours on the server took a few minutes there and thus I decided I’d have to tear down the base, unclaim the land and start fresh somewhere in the overworld. So the next several hours involved me burning through picks reclaiming most of the materials used to build the base and then heading back to spawn.
To minimize any potential losses I dumped what I wouldn’t need for the journey to a new base location into my enderchest keeping with me only the necessities and the least valuable items that wouldn’t fit in the chest. I then made my mad dash out the back of spawn (again) and proceeded to walk, and walk, and walk gathering valuable resources as I went. When at last I arrived I began the long process of setting up my base once again, hoping once more that the secrecy of the location would help prevent any incursions for the time being (not that I’ve got anything valuable there at the moment).
Since I didn’t have nearly enough resources to complete the base I set up a couple temporary farms on the roof (which is all I’ve got finished for now) to help bring in some more money to complete the project. This time the plants grew and by the end of the night I had myself a tidy sum to use the following day for further base building. Hopefully I can have the basic structure finished in just a few more days. Because of the expense of the materials I’m purchasing I did try to make a cobblestone generator, however it seems that this has been disabled which will be interesting for anyone attempting a lava monster based raid as the lava just pushes the water out of the way rather than making cobblestone from it. I’ll have to try and find some way to overcome this issue when I start raiding. At any rate, I’ve decided to go with a large cactus farm as 8 are sold for $100 and they’re really easy to make automatic meaning I can afk for hours without having to do a thing in my N3rd C0rn3r.
Hello everyone and welcome to my first ever Minecraft PvP blog series. In this series we’ll go through the PvP experience (and this is all new for me as well so we’ll be learning together) and see what all it has to offer. I’ll be playing on the new MineFrenzy server at mc.minefrenzy.com. This server is being hosted by HaydzSoulutions primarily for Youtubers to record on. However it is open to the public as well and I very much feel like the goals of the server are in line with making a blog series and as such this server is where I’ll be building, fighting, and growing my way to the top (hopefully).
Day 1
Spawn
First thing was first of course and I decided that I’d be playing without any donator advantages, though should you decide to play on the same server definitely consider donating to support the server (you get cool stuff for it too so it’s worth it). This decision means of course I’ll have to work twice as hard to get the resources I’ll need to survive and conquer, but I’m sure I’ll manage.
As I only started with a little cash and some basic tools and weapons (a stone sword, axe, pick, and shovel) I opted to vote for the server to get some extra coin. On the MineFrenzy website under voting are six different links that lead to places you can vote. For whatever reason the second to last in the list would not let me vote due to some sort of captcha issue, but we still got plenty of money for voting on the others and thus it was time to head out.
As I’ve never really PvP’d before and didn’t have the money to start hack and slashing right away, I snuck out the back entrance and went way, way, way out to set up a base, hoping secrecy would keep it safe until I had the resources to establish better defenses.
Sneaking Out of Spawn
Once there, which took a good deal of time, believe me. I set my home and teleported back to spawn to pick up some necessary resources which I then took back to my new base location to start building. One very important step in this process was making sure to claim the land. You can only do this if you’re in a faction so you’ll need to either join one or create your own. I, for security reasons opted to create my own, KING. I then claimed the land I wanted and began to build. The reason this step is so important is because if you don’t do this people who are not a part of your faction will be able to place and destroy blocks and access your chests without any problem making it easy to steal your stuff. Distance is a good way to keep your stuff safe, but claiming your land is even better.
At that point it was getting pretty late and I had to call it a night, but as you can imagine I’ve got some grand plans for the future of my new N3rd C0rn3r.
