[1.7.10] Marooned

[Spaman]

1.5.0 is in active testing and I have been busy trying to find new ways to break the pack c:

Entertaining video. Thought I'd better mention to your viewers that agro pigmen have been removed from the Nether. I just forgot to send you the updated file. Not sure why you're getting drops from explosions as I had mob griefing turned off to prevent creepers blowing up your skyworld platforms, when you make some that is.

Its actually easier to get established in the Nether than the video showed without the agro pigmen. Makes a huge difference without them.

Also not a good idea to take all the blocks in the bottom chest as it makes it harder to get back up a second time. Just saying.......

I'm sending you the updated special mobs file Elder so you can explore without having to deal with them next time..........

 

[Zerias]

Anyone got some tips for new players they'd like to share? I've got a few I wish I'd known when I started:
The Watering Can can be filled from the sewage ponds, not just pure water. [Not as useful when playing a non-desert map due to rain barrels.]
Watering Cans also function on food gardens and oreberry bushes. [The first is essential for garden-related quests, the second a minor boost.]
Oreberries can be converted to nuggets instantly by just stuffing them into drawers. [Definite facepalm moment for me here, my base is literally wallpapered with drying racks because of all the nuggets and bee combs I needed to dry.]
While the quest will tell you to build a vacuum hopper to gather drops from your automatic sieving, I find it simpler to just put a water channel flowing over it into a regular hopper, preventing a VH from grabbing nearby items it shouldn't. Speaking of which, anyone else ever have their sieve vanish? I had to go creative to replace it. I think it may have been due to nearby lava but I can't seem to find info online about the flammability of sieves.

I'd suggest just watching Elder's playthrough for lots of tips like these, but I'm sure many people would rather play unspoiled.

 

[Swat_Raptor]

Read the quest book, all of it.

I just realized that stone shards can be crafted together to make a stone rod and then into a saw. the book mentions that this can be done but doesn't show up in NEI, Thou I wonder the point of even being given stone shards rather than just given a stone rod, can't think of any point of this other than a chance to punish people who don't comb each page, isn't their ignorance punishment enough. Either way the book mentions several key things which you need to know.

build near spawn, it sucks having to hike back to base every time you die

 

[Elder Sign]

Biggest one:
Don't Get Cocky

 

[Spaman]

Anyone got some tips for new players they'd like to share? I've got a few I wish I'd known when I started:
The Watering Can can be filled from the sewage ponds, not just pure water. [Not as useful when playing a non-desert map due to rain barrels.]
Watering Cans also function on food gardens and oreberry bushes. [The first is essential for garden-related quests, the second a minor boost.]
Oreberries can be converted to nuggets instantly by just stuffing them into drawers. [Definite facepalm moment for me here, my base is literally wallpapered with drying racks because of all the nuggets and bee combs I needed to dry.]
While the quest will tell you to build a vacuum hopper to gather drops from your automatic sieving, I find it simpler to just put a water channel flowing over it into a regular hopper, preventing a VH from grabbing nearby items it shouldn't. Speaking of which, anyone else ever have their sieve vanish? I had to go creative to replace it. I think it may have been due to nearby lava but I can't seem to find info online about the flammability of sieves.

I'd suggest just watching Elder's playthrough for lots of tips like these, but I'm sure many people would rather play unspoiled.

I've got a huge tip. Swat_Raptor has already mentioned it. Actually READ the quests! I put tips like the ones you mentioned in the quests so you can take the shortcuts as they arise. Like everyone else I've had to learn many of the shortcuts by accident, or watching Elder's videos, they're so informative. The oreberries in BB's or drawers is something I was unaware of as well until I accidentally went to place some overflow berries in an empty drawer below their counterpart nuggets and missed the intended drawer by 'that' much and got the nugget drawer instead. wondered where my berries had disappeared to so experimented some more and REVELATION, new shortcut. So what did I do? Changed some aspects of the challenges to keep it on its survival course and then changed the texts to let players know about the shortcut. Found out later I could have just watched an elder video instead and saved myself some time.

I don't like endlessly grinding my way through a pack and have tried to design it so that players can take advantage of shortcuts whenever possible. I always show where shortcuts are possible [if I know about them] as evidenced in the following spoiler:

Spoiler: Shortcuts

ORE INSPIRING:
Oreberry Bushes act like cactus in the way that they hurt you when touched, but they don't destroy items when thrown at them. When placed, they start their growing cycle, which consists of 3 stages: small, medium and mature. The different stages are differentiated by size easily and only the mature stage produces berries on random ticks. Oreberry Bushes can only be placed on opaque blocks as well as upside-down slabs, upside-down stairs and hoppers. Once placed, the block underneath can be destroyed and the bushes will continue growing and producing berries. This allows you to 'stack' your bushes on top of each other to produce a more compact growing area. Be aware they can only be planted in low level light and will only grow in low level light. PS: A watering can can speed up the growing process of your crops including these oreberries. You need to 'right' click it on a fluid source before using it. Or you might prefer a bucket of water instead. Choose wisely.

The great thing about oreberries is that you can either hang them to dry or smelt them in an oven. When dried they turn into little nuggets that can be combined into ingots. Later on I'll show you an even easier way to make nuggets.


GOOD BETTER BEST:
What's your fancy? Better Barrels or Drawers? Lets make some and find out hey? PS: Placing an oreberry in a BB or drawer containing a nugget of the same genus instantly converts it into a nugget. Kool hey?

Crouch clicking on one will 'lock' it and prevent anything else being put in when the barrel is empty. PS: The labels you use in the recipe can also be 'Crouch' clicked onto other sides of better barrels for all around viewing.

Better barrels can also be upgraded to larger capacities. Make these 2 barrel upgrades and crouch click the Structural MK1 on the barrel first. Then crouch click the Storage Upgrade on the barrel to double its holding capacity.

Drawers come in a variety of sizes. You can upgrade their holding capacity. Status upgrades install a gauge to show how full they are. Using a Drawer Key reserves items in empty drawers while letting you add new items to unused sections.


SHIFTY SIFTING:
Sick of sifting all those blocks by hand? Well sift no more, Autonomous Activator will lighten your load. PS: You can also use one to feed 'compost' into a barrel. A hopper placed below the barrel will catch the dirt.

One of these babies will sift your blocks for you and they don't even require power. Adding more increases the speed your blocks are sifted. Sieve's can handle up to four each. But wait, there's more. A 'Left Click' Autonomous Activator filled with hammers and placed against the cobblestone block made by your cobblestone generator can make you a heap of gravel. Its a handy way to make gravel until you get power set up for a Pulveriser.

Regular hoppers don't work on sieves. Although you can send water flowing over your sieve to a waiting chest below, its a hit and miss operation. A Vacuum Hopper placed near the sieve will gather all its drops. You can configure the hopper to have a spigot. Placing a chest against the spigot will transfer the items into it.

Sadly the 1.4.3 version was published before this discovery so doesn't show the oreberry shortcut but the 1.5.0 does and I implore anyone who is struggling in their game to read every quest as they will give you hints along the way when applicable.

Cheers.........

 

[Spaman]

Read the quest book, all of it.

I just realized that stone shards can be crafted together to make a stone rod and then into a saw. the book mentions that this can be done but doesn't show up in NEI, Thou I wonder the point of even being given stone shards rather than just given a stone rod, can't think of any point of this other than a chance to punish people who don't comb each page, isn't their ignorance punishment enough. Either way the book mentions several key things which you need to know.

build near spawn, it sucks having to hike back to base every time you die

The point? There needs to be a point? My goodness, those shards are pointy enough already aren't they?

The point is that when I updated last time I was testing and realised I had changed things in such a way that it wasn't possible to make a saw before completing the sieve quest, and it wasn't possible to complete the sieve quest without having a saw. This was back when the stone rod was a tough rod. I looked around for a possible solution and decided to use a regular stone rod as it was craftable without the need to make a pattern for it. Then I had to find a way to get the material needed for it. The stone shards seemed like a good idea as I thought making a recipe for a rod using them would make sense as you could already make 4 rods using stone blocks or 2 rods using cobblestone. Besides I generally don't like making recipes that give me more than I want so that I wind up with useless pieces sitting in chests. Not always possible, but this time it was.

Of course after setting it all up, I discovered that the new recipe wasn't showing in NEI, grrr. Easiest solution, mention it in the quest, but not for everyone, no no no, just those players that bother to read quests. Seemed fair after all the work I've put into writing them. Why not just give them a rod? Well, I felt obliged to give the player something to do to earn their keep.

...and if you're a player that tends to only read quests after all else has failed, and having been given a couple of 'useless' stone shards just prior to coming across a quest that requires a stone rod when you clearly have no stone and no easy way to get some at that stage of your game, you might either look at those shards and think hmmmmmm, I wonder? Or at least out of sheer desperation open the stone saw quest and shock horror, read the words in hopes of getting some enlightenment?

Cheers......

 

[Zerias]

Well that'll teach me to get tunnel vision on just finishing the quest as soon as possible. Looking forward to starting over on the next release, especially now that there's a guaranteed way to progress to the stone layers instead of hoping for wells or terrain glitches. One thing I've noticed in my current world is that aside from the first reward pack you get, I've not gotten any other tinker tools. Am I simply unlucky or is that bag a particular type that I'm not doing the proper quests to receive? I know for example that the tainted soil/mob drops repeating quest seems to only give bush/bush/garden/textile/garden/bush/bush, and that makes sense for an repeating quest, but should the other quest bags be doing so as well? Not a complaint though if that's just my luck, I just want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious again.

Have a tip that I don't think would be in the book anywhere: Snow tiles prevent mob spawning, making the cold taiga map very safe once it has rained, and potentially allowing for skyblock-style mob grinders to be effective, barring the presence of caves beneath the bedrock.

 

[Elder Sign]

Just did a quick double check of my playlists and it turns out that the video released today was video 70......
Wow time flies when you get a pack this good c:

 

[Elder Sign]

Well that'll teach me to get tunnel vision on just finishing the quest as soon as possible. Looking forward to starting over on the next release, especially now that there's a guaranteed way to progress to the stone layers instead of hoping for wells or terrain glitches. One thing I've noticed in my current world is that aside from the first reward pack you get, I've not gotten any other tinker tools. Am I simply unlucky or is that bag a particular type that I'm not doing the proper quests to receive? I know for example that the tainted soil/mob drops repeating quest seems to only give bush/bush/garden/textile/garden/bush/bush, and that makes sense for an repeating quest, but should the other quest bags be doing so as well? Not a complaint though if that's just my luck, I just want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious again.

Have a tip that I don't think would be in the book anywhere: Snow tiles prevent mob spawning, making the cold taiga map very safe once it has rained, and potentially allowing for skyblock-style mob grinders to be effective, barring the presence of caves beneath the bedrock.

There aren't as much caves that you need to worry about, just mineshafts, so if you have the bad luck to try and set up a mob farm over the top of one, well, good luck...

Although the Twilight Forest does give you a way to punch a hole in the bedrock....

 

[OniyaMCD]

There aren't as much caves that you need to worry about, just mineshafts, so if you have the bad luck to try and set up a mob farm over the top of one, well, good luck...

Although the Twilight Forest does give you a way to punch a hole in the bedrock....

Get the hole in the right place, and you could end up raining zombies...

 

[Spaman]

Well that'll teach me to get tunnel vision on just finishing the quest as soon as possible. Looking forward to starting over on the next release, especially now that there's a guaranteed way to progress to the stone layers instead of hoping for wells or terrain glitches. One thing I've noticed in my current world is that aside from the first reward pack you get, I've not gotten any other tinker tools. Am I simply unlucky or is that bag a particular type that I'm not doing the proper quests to receive? I know for example that the tainted soil/mob drops repeating quest seems to only give bush/bush/garden/textile/garden/bush/bush, and that makes sense for an repeating quest, but should the other quest bags be doing so as well? Not a complaint though if that's just my luck, I just want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious again.

Have a tip that I don't think would be in the book anywhere: Snow tiles prevent mob spawning, making the cold taiga map very safe once it has rained, and potentially allowing for skyblock-style mob grinders to be effective, barring the presence of caves beneath the bedrock.

I'd like to say I've set the reward bags to only give the best rewards to players who read the quests, but I suspect you wouldn't believe that answer. In truth there are quite a few tinkers rewards and its really the luck of the draw. In one world I played, the first bag gave me a greater reward instead of the good reward you'd normally expect and it was a bone scythe. Made life really really easy. The basic bags are designed to mainly give tainted rewards and are only linked to the special 'random' bags with a 1% chance. That's purely so that you are guaranteed to always get a reward from any bag you receive. All basic bags are set up to only give the same reward once or twice, never more than that, even though it may seem like it after you receive a tin oreberry for the 6th time. Its just that there are multiple bags of each type mixed in with different other bushes.

As for snow, I wasn't aware of the mobs not spawning on it. Kinda makes me wonder how I missed that when I've played the cold taiga quite a lot. Might be because I usually tend to seek out an island to make my base near for the slimes. Now that I think back, I recall an inordinate amount of mobs camping under the nearby island. with very few wandering onto the snow. Then there's the forays I've made to ruins etc and noticed heaps of mobs on the edge of where the snow had not managed to reach. Hmmmm, not very observant am I? NTW, the way I figure it, not having mobs near your base is all very well but you still have to explore a bit and actually kill mobs to progress, so i guess it kinda evens itself out. Especially as its a simple process to light up your base or even build one on top of an existing ruin that has heaps of mobs in a non snowing environment. When they're all down there, less can spawn up top.

I like the idea that this gives more choice to players. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[Zerias]

Not a problem. I will say that the mob spawn radius is larger than weather radius. By how much I don't know, but enough that it's a simple daily chore to circle the snowy chunks around my base and kill things at the edges, solving my non-slime killing needs nicely. Glad to know it's just luck preventing me getting more tools - because luck changes, and I've got a good feeling about this next update.

 

[Swat_Raptor]

Just a thought, wouldn't it be nice if the reward bags were color coated, so that when you were looking at the choices of rewards you knew what you were getting.

I don't suppose there is a texture pack which does this?

I sometimes just look at rewards and ask is this a basic, good or greater bag???

Edit on another less important note I wish I could compress Redsand into Red Sandstone, that way we all could have decorative blocks to build our tombs out in this Red waste. but seriously early on I wish I could have some kind of decorative blocks to build with while I'm waiting for my ore berries and cactus to produce.

 

[Spaman]

Just a thought, wouldn't it be nice if the reward bags were color coated, so that when you were looking at the choices of rewards you knew what you were getting.

I don't suppose there is a texture pack which does this?

I sometimes just look at rewards and ask is this a basic, good or greater bag???

Edit on another less important note I wish I could compress Redsand into Red Sandstone, that way we all could have decorative blocks to build our tombs out in this Red waste. but seriously early on I wish I could have some kind of decorative blocks to build with while I'm waiting for my ore berries and cactus to produce.

Sadly I only have access to the public HQM versions which do not allow me to colour the bags individually. I can change their colour but they'll still all be the same. I've already looked into making them different but alas its not currently possible with the version I'm using. I have in some of the challenges put a blatant hint into the text to let you know which bag you'll be getting. This does of course require reading the quest to find the hint, lol.

At least you can find out once you've got one, and when you open it, it lets you know what type of bag it became along with its own distinctive colour.

You may have already noticed I've changed heaps of images when I thought I could improve on them. Even the quest gates haven't escaped a radical colouroscopy for the upcoming skyworld.

Compressing red sand? Hmmm, will look into it and get back to you.

EDIT: Well, couldn't find any red sandstone. Seems its not in Marooned. Probably why you can't craft it already. I've looked into other possible options and am thinking the best option could be sandy cobblestone. You can build with it, make stairs and slabs early game but can't remove it until you get a pick which could be problematical. Later on you can cook it into a sandy block that has more uses, including a couple of fancy styled bricks.

An early advantage of having this block would be to build a roof over an oreberry garden which would save on wood. I'm thinking I should add it to the game. Just have to come up with a decent recipe, and yes I know it probably should just be 4 sand blocks, but since when did I do the obvious?
I'll sleep on it and let you knwo what i come up with. Thanks for the suggestion.........

 

[OniyaMCD]

Compressing red sand? Hmmm, will look into it and get back to you.

According to my 'walking Wiki', that is a vanilla recipe as of 1.7.2.

 

[Spaman]

According to my 'walking Wiki', that is a vanilla recipe as of 1.7.2.

Well that could explain it. We missed it by that much [-]

 

[RealKC]

According to my 'walking Wiki', that is a vanilla recipe as of 1.7.2.

Tought that red sandstone was introduced in 1.8?

 

[Elder Sign]

Well that could explain it. We missed it by that much [-]

Maybe you could add it in with the quadrum mod that is sitting lonely and forgotten?

 

[OniyaMCD]

Tought that red sandstone was introduced in 1.8?

This is what I get for not double-checking (although wiki pages frequently give me Flash issues.) Calling across the living room is usually faster. ;D Red Sand was introduced in 1.7.2, but Red Sandstone was introduced in 1.8.

 

[Spaman]

Maybe you could add it in with the quadrum mod that is sitting lonely and forgotten?

Funny how you forget things. I've already used the spare block Quadrum provides to make the slate block to compress all those flints. Guess I can look into how to add new blocks using it. This means another delay of course while I figure it out. Then after I do, you might get even more compressed blocks.

Thanks for the reminder...

PS: I hope your next video on the skyworld reads less like a horror story and more like a 'See, surviving in nether ain't so hard after all......... Wouldn't want you scaring off the customers before they get through the door would we?

EDIT: Okay got th eblock made, now I just have to figure out how to give it a proper name rather than its current tile.blockredSandtone.name Shouldn't be too hard, i hope!

EDITEDIT: .....and its got its name. Just need to make a texture for it and we'll be good to go.

Either way, it'll be in the update.............

FINAL EDIT: I've got the red sandstone block up and running and am inclined not to give it the same material properties as its cousin the regular sandstone for the following reasons:

1: This is a block that will be used early game when players won't have a pick to break a sandstone block so it makes sense to me to make it a 'ground' block instead. That way it can be removed by hand like a dirt block.

2: As its a compressed block, it will be harder to remove than dirt, but not as hard as those tainted soil blocks.

3: Since this is a bonus block, I'm not inclined to make the recipe reversible. You make it, you're stuck with it.

4: As one type of block is rarely enough, I'm thinking I might make it so you can compress the red sandstone further to make it more blast resistant to creepers. The block would retain its same pattern [which is the same as basic sandstone] but would become a deeper red with each compression. I remember making blocks like this when I made my own mod with Beta1.7.3. It never saw the light of day as Minecraft changed the way they update and when I accidentally started my game while still online, it got corrupted and wouldn't start anymore, grrr!

I'll have to look into it and do some testing to make sure I get the mix right. I recall my 1.7.3 blocks were designed to still take damage but the greater the compression, the less of them got blasted away. If I can replicate that, it'll go in the pack.

Shouldn't take too long as I already have the knowledge, I just have to dredge it out from the back recesses of my addled mind.

FINAL FINAL EDIT: Just wanted to let you know the compressed blocks have been added to the game. You now get a sandstone type block with some resistance to explosions [6], but not much. Then there's a double compressed block that has double the resistance of the first one, followed by a triple compressed block with, you guessed it, triple the resistance of the regular one.

I've done testing using TNT to see how they stack up. Its a pretty good level up as less blocks are blown with each increase in compression, but some of each are generally still blown up depending on how close the explosion is. I wouldn't want them replacing obsidian as the goto material for a safe enclosure.

Making a block is dead easy. It only requires 1 block surrounded by 8 mob heads. Can't get easier than that hey? You can? really? Collecting mob heads isn't that easy? Would you prefer gunpowder instead? No? Zombie drops then? Still no?

There's just no pleasing some people, guess I'd better make it use 4 of the relevant blocks of each in succession so that you can make them on the run. Since I've had to abandon my wonderful and very balanced mob head idea, I won't be including any reversing recipes, so bear this is mind when making your blocks.

Cheers.........