rhn's continued adventures: a build journal, guide collection etc.

rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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Haven't really been in the mood to do anything with the old world for a long time. I still intend to at least do some kind of photo walkthrough or something, if nothing else than just for myself to relive the world. And I will keep in mind the world download, but might be hard to get running these days, with mods of specific versions probably being hard to find. But nevertheless I will keep it in mind.

I have however been lured to play some 1.12 with some friends, and it kinda got me hooked on Minecraft again. Specially building with Chisel & Bits ;) But being so obsessive about how I build/play, I kinda need my own pack and world to not totally overwhelm the others :p
So I have spent the last week or so researching "new" 1.12 mods, as it seems the most "matured" version with most mods, with the goal of building a modpack for the next "great" build :p
I put up a little separate thread about it, hoping for some inputs and ideas: https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/th...inputs-and-ideas-for-building-modpack.302747/
 

Tianyulong

Active Member
Oct 21, 2016
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Just wanted to say that I'm super excited to see what you will build in 1.12. Definitely my favorite version of modded, so many great building blocks to choose from!
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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After a long time experimenting with different mods, I have now decided to properly start a new playthrough. I settled on a magic/medieval themed 1.12 pack, with the express purpose of allowing me to build stuff in the Elder Scrolls IP theme(Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc.).

The main "gameplay" mods in the pack are:
  • Astral Sorcery
  • Blood Magic
  • Botania
  • Electroblob's Wizardry
  • Embers Rekindled + Aetherworks
  • Ice and Fire: Dragons
  • Immersive Engineering + Immersive Technology
  • Minecolonies
  • Mystical World
  • Roots
  • Thaumcraft
  • Mo's Creatures
  • Roguelike Dungeons
  • The Aether + Aether Continuation
  • The Twilight Forest
Full modlist

Magic mods to allow for the magic Elder Scrolls feel. Some steampunk styled tech for Dwemer ruins. Lots of magical creatures and some world structures to populate the world, and some exploration dimensions for a bit of fun on the side. Minecolonies to help me build large settlements around manually built features. And some random tech stuff for some behind the scenes automation. And a truckload of building mods to facilitate a lot of building :p

I have tweaked a few recipes so far, removed a lot of items from mods that I didn't think fit the theme, but otherwise I don't suspect bothering with any major tweaking. It is first and foremost for facilitating building stuff, and don't want to limit that by gating stuff to late-game only.
I have spent a lot of time on worldgen, setting up RTG, BoP and Geographicraft to create semi realistic worlds with naturally gradual temperature change. Looking really good now and can many places really bring out the Elder Scrolls feel.

I have found a wonderful seed, that might not be the exact landmass of Tamriel, but have excellent biome combinations for almost all the major regions. So far I have found a place for Skyrim, Cyrodil, Black Marsh, Elsweyr, Hammerfel, High Rock and Valenwood. Summerset Isles and Morrowind is the only places I have not found a suitable place for yet, though I suspect Morrowind will be hard(maybe a mushroom island or something could be converted to a little island outpost, but there are none in 100k+ range according to Amidst).
DLBLMRZ.png


Wy7f7ae.png



My plan is to build cities/villages/outposts for most, if not all of these regions, heavily inspired by the game lore. However I will be taking some liberties about timeline etc. so might not make full sense according to lore. Or I could of course just claim a Dragon Break to make it all canon :p
 

rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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Since the original world spawn is ~8000 blocks away from the interesting parts, I decided to create a new little spawn area that also fit the established trend of the Elder Scrolls games. So I built a little reef in the middle of the ocean, so you can RP being the only survivor of a prison ship who have wrecked on the reefs.
NS4VFV1.png

Added some very basic stuff(including some Davinci Vessels parts) to allow travelling and directions to the various main regions. Just a bit of fun for myself, and would work nicely if the pack is ever polished enough to share.
Had to drastically reduce the spawn rate of Ice and Fire mods Sea Serpents(even further than I did with all other mobs), because they were everywhere. Made Davinci ships or even vanilla boats near shore impossible. Even got knocked out of the sky a few times in Davinci air ships when testing. But Sirens, sharks and other dangers still make oceanic traversal interesting ;)


Since it fit nicely with the early game tech, and I have just recent been playing that game a lot, I decided to start out in Skyrim. Picked a nice spot in a Mega Taiga(Spruce and mega tall oak tree forest) at the foot of an Extreme Hills mountain region. Really reminded me of the transition between Falkreath and The Reach. I can definitely see myself building Dwemer ruins later in the Extreme Hills area! And there are also Tundra, Ice Plains and Snow Desert biomes nearby, so lots of cool options for more Skyrim locations.

I have cleared out a part of the forest and founded the Nord village of "Jetilheim" (made up name, not part of lore):
jmBObLX.png

The spot was almost perfect. Almost... I just cannot help modifying the landscape to make it just so. The mountain lake and the stream are not part of the natural world gen. I built it by hand to give the village fresh water and power for a sawmill(more below). Thank god for decent Tinkers tools and Emperors Chalice from Reliquary :p

So far the village is mostly just a Nordic themed Minecolonies colony, but I have started adding my own touches to it, heavily inspired by Skyrim. Plan on decorating all the buildings later when they are all at the level I want, and I have some flight/creativeflight means. Too tall to modify without :p Tier 5 buildings are also gated behind materials from the End, and doesn't really feel ready for that yet.

View from nearby watchtower on a hilltop:
lyI6eC7.png


One of the main gates:
ASFRwYS.png

Heavily inspired by the old broken battlements and the new wooden reinforcements of both Whiterun and Riverwood. Lot of Chisel and Bits work :p

Sawmill and farms:
7JdXeiS.png

Just a regular Minecolonies Lumber hut, but once it is max level I intend to make it into a Skyrim styled sawmill. Hence the Better With Mods waterwheel, which will be driving a Saw.

Tavern at the foot of the Jarls house(the town hall, not fully upgraded yet):
sJaMBBZ.png

The NPCs are just some CustomNPCs tests for various Nord styled skins.

Next door, the Companions/fighters guild/mead hall style building that I have built from scratch:
yXshRaR.png

Heavily inspired by Jorrvaskr in Whiterun. And yes, it is almost entirely Chisel and Bits. Roof was a nightmare :p
Minecolonies Watchtower in the background. For scouting dragons and other winged dangers I suppose, because forest is too thick to see anything through :p

Inside:
1s64xvw.png

Still have to add some furniture etc. Debating with myself whether to make a basement similar to Jorrvaskr too. Would make a good Fighters Guild style thing with accommodations for recruits I suppose.
Got forced into a few Ice and Fire dragon fights when exploring pretty early in the game. Managed to cheese a few of them after they just wouldnt stop following me, so mounted a skull of one at the end. Temporary Troll skull at the other end, but not nearly as good looking ;)
Dunno what the Minecolonies farmer is doing in there...

More pics of roof:
TSpuTKw.png

I spent hours doing ellipses with the Extra Bit Manipulation tools to make the roof. And then hours moving half of it to the other end of the building. And a lot of copying stuff back and forth. Good thing I apparently secretly like torture like that I suppose :p

Roof decorations:
ft4aKSs.png



Lately I have been mostly busy just setting up some basic infrastructure. Initially I had set up in a Roguelike Dungeon house in the village. But it started to get in the way of the village, and had to be partly removed to build the mead hall. So I set up a lot of stuff in the Aroma1997 mining world, then regretted that due to performance degradation each time I went back and forth to craft/pick up stuff... So now I have built a "noob cave" kinda thing in the side of a volcano biome, far away from any place I plan to build anything else. That way I can quickly travel back and forth with Waystones without the performance drops of swapping dimensions:
Airship landing platform:
iGoQbGy.png

And also a nice view of some sort of jungle biome. Also added a few guards to deal with any rare instance of mobs wandering in. Using a Megatorch from Torchmaster, but the verticality of the landscape and flying capability of a lot of mobs still allows a few mobs to get in. Mostly Manticores and Wraiths from MoCreatures.

Item storage and random clutter:
ZFyr5fZ.png

I have deliberately kept is slow in terms of mod progress, so doesn't have any fancy infrastructure yet. But just now I have set up the Storage Drawers network and hooked it up to the ExU Indexer and Remote Indexer, for easy access to building materials out in the world. Also had to give in and make myself some basic Botania tools and baubles, despite my plan to wait with that. They are just too good...

Oh, and I recently also found out a little nugget: Cooking for Blockheads multiblock kitchens extend to other inventories too. Learned that by accident when recipes showed up for all the stuff in the Storage Drawer network!
 
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GamerwithnoGame

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Jan 29, 2015
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Holy moly dude!!! :D Back with a vengeance!

I love how you've approached this, with a concept in mind and clear ideas about how you're going to develop and expand. That Chisels & Bits roof is just... *chef kiss*

I'm once again left gazing in wonder at how you do what you do :) Looking forward to seeing more!

EDIT: Oh also: I was a bit surprised to not see Bewitchment in there, but you have so many other things, you'll be plenty busy!
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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Holy moly dude!!! :D Back with a vengeance!

I love how you've approached this, with a concept in mind and clear ideas about how you're going to develop and expand. That Chisels & Bits roof is just... *chef kiss*

I'm once again left gazing in wonder at how you do what you do :) Looking forward to seeing more!

EDIT: Oh also: I was a bit surprised to not see Bewitchment in there, but you have so many other things, you'll be plenty busy!
Thank you!

I never really clicked with Witchery in the past tbh. It had some cool concepts and systems, but since it was all so pvp/multiplayer focused I never saw the point tbh. Not with my playstyle. Must admit that when I saw that Bewitchment is the spiritual successor to Witchery, I kinda just ignored it. Maybe I should have looked deeper into it...
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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*sets himself down in elsewyre and cats a while* It's funny how a theme can somehow show up from random chance. I've accidently caused a staged thematic progression in my new pack, and I love it.
I thought about adding some recipe tweaks, cross mod requirements etc. to my pack to add a more of a progression. Did a little bit to balance some stuff, but otherwise I think I decided against it. I am naturally doing it just through my normal play. I had lots of fun for weeks now just with vanilla, Better With Mods, Minecolonies, some Tinkers tools and C&B, because that fits the theme of what I am building in a Skyrim village. And despite how awesome it would be to have a grand unifying progression between all the mods, I think this kind of build just needs me to focus on a few mods at the time.
Like:
Minecolonies->Small villages and possibly a large Imperial Cyrodil settlement.
Ember->Dwemer
Astral Sorcery->Ayleid.
Thaumcraft+Electroblobs wizardry->mages guild.
Bloodmagic->Necromancer lair.
Roots-> maybe Wood elves or Khajiit?
Botania->??? (having a hard time placing this. Alchemists maybe? Wood elves? Mage guild? Ideas welcome!)

Oh and for Khajiits: CustomNPCs and More Player Models really shines for this :p Tested out both Khajiits, Argonians, elves etc. already. Is really cool and allow you to really RP to be in the Elder Scrolls world :p
IqriD2z.png
 

rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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Welcome Back Rhn. You've taken to Little Tiles like a duck to water.
Love it.
So far only Chisel & Bits. But do have Little Tiles in the pack, just need to watch some guides on how it works first. Have a bit of "new mod" overload atm :p
But thanks ;)
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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Charcoal kilns:

RFiCh8O.png


1dc9xLW.png


z2MrgvV.png



Inside:
8YSaY6N.png

Put 3 "Better With Mods" Kilns (basically an in-world furnace requiring no fuel) inside each kiln, and automated them with ExU Ender Porcupines (love these!).
Normal furnace recipes for Charcoal have been removed, so it is this or Immersive Engineering Coke ovens.
One of the goals with this playthrough is to spread out automation to logical and believable places. So automated it with Ender Chests, so I can remotely send it wood from anywhere and get charcoal back into sorting system.
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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Built a some more stuff to decorate the Skyrim village.

More Riverwood style fortifications:
sE3SJJK.png

Still think I need to build a couple more of these wooden reinforcements, for a few other entrances to the village. But not sure yet :p

A small stable just inside:
XZUUmN2.png


Market square:
ZJ9jeDA.png

Still need to put in some vendors with CustomNPCs.
Probably not the wisest to have the baker stall so close to the charcoal kilns... Didnt plan that out properly, but it was just too much trouble to rearrange things to be more realistic. Oh well.

Also made some improvements to a Minecolonies well that I built earlier:
XBQalVc.png


While I am still waiting for upgrading the Minecolonies structures to last tier before decorating them, I built the watermill part of the lumberjacks hut:
uhFz6Lp.png

Split the stream up in two, so the water can be redirected to the watermill when needed, and redirected when not.
Once the hut is upgraded the waterwheel will be attached to the hut.

The waterwheel is from Better With Mods and is there to drive a Saw from the same mod that I have hid in a dug out cave below:
2W08zrQ.png

The cave is also big enough to build a tree farm, probably with Botania when I get the mats for it. The Lumberjack from Minecolonies provide a good amount of wood, however the NPCs only work with a player nearby. Therefore I will make a little tree farm down here that can be chunkloaded for a constant supply.



Speaking of Botania, I have decided to build settings for it and Roots in "Valenwood", the home of the Bosmer/Woodelves. It kinda fits with their lore the best I think ;)
Found a Roofed Forest along the shore of the "inner sea"(see map I posted earlier), with a small Plains biome bit in the middle:
s4QKATa.png


I plan to add a small harbour along the river for transport/trade:
q4puxjw.png


To my initial annoyance, it seemed this iteration of the seed decided to place a woodland mansion in the forest adjacent to the plains area. And that had to go...
ElD6PXR.png

About midway demolishing it when I remembered to take a screenshot.
While a lot of work to remove manually in survival, it was not too bad some good tools. And as a bonus I have TONS of Dark Oak and Birch wood now :p

However the mansion left a huge square gap in the forest, and the custom trees in this area are a PITA to replicate. Tried to copy some other trees with Architect, however the leaves just don't want to play nice. So time to think creative.
Decided to leave it and use it as a separate grove kind of thing:
g2GvLwL.png

The grove will probably be some kind of sacred place with some magical themes(maybe the place for Botania and Roots, or some at least), while the plains area will be a more everyday Bosmer village.

To get the right feel, I decided to build a huge tree to house some of the magic etc. Good thing I now had lots of Dark Oak wood. However... Leaf blocks are such a PITA to get at this early level. So I farmed some manually, then tried to place a bunch of them with Effortless Building in large fluffy sphere. Then I broke one block and... Leaves placed with Efforless Building doesn't count as player placed and the whole thing just went poof from Fast Leaf Decay and all the leaves were gone... Sigh..
So I have since rushed the Alfheim portal in Botania so I can now "duplicate" the leaves with the Conjuration Catalyst from mana. And I am now placing them by hand one by one. But it is slow due to not much automated mana production(Just using Endoflames and Coal/Charcoal mostly). So stuck in needing to progress in Botania before I can really build this further, while I dont want to progress much further before I have the proper place to build it all...
 
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Cptqrk

Popular Member
Aug 24, 2013
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I hate you...... :p

Gad damn I wish I could build things that even come close to looking this good LOL
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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I hate you...... :p

Gad damn I wish I could build things that even come close to looking this good LOL
Just keep practising and experimenting. And google a lot for ideas to steal... ehh I mean for inspiration. :p
Honestly, this Elder Scrolls thing comes rather easy, since there is so many established designs to follow. And such extensive fandom resources like Wikis.
Many of the Skyrim stuff I basically just stole from the Skyrim game, and adapted slightly to fit Minecraft. Though I might have to play some ESO again sometime, to get some more inspiration on many of the regions/races not featured in any of the other main games. Relying heavily on screenshots, concept drawings and wikis for ideas for the Bosmer settlement atm.
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
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Some WIP picks of the Bosmer settlement:

Been working on the "grove":
xywYXFX.png

Big ass tree, lots of leaves to have to place by hand...

Using the Bosmer connection to nature to RP that they can grow/shape trees to serve as buildings:
MRYzwNY.png

The light green "pod" trees are supposed to be housing for various stuff. Probably Botania stuff. As far as I can tell, Roots stuff fits better to be outside. I will probably use the same pods as houses for the village outside the grove. I think the village will mostly be farms and animal husbandry kind of place.
Still not sure how to "smooth" the pods out. I really don't like how Architecturecraft messes up texture placements. So might end up making some standardised "slope" pieces with C&B that I can copy around.

The big tree is hollow:
kquLUMv.png

Gonna make some stairs inside the trunk that leads up to the platform, and possibly further up the tree trunk for some balconies etc.

So far I made all the trees/buildings even sized, as I thought it would work best with double doors etc. However then I remembered that I need the Alfheim portal to fit in somewhere, which is 3 blocks wide... Not figured out how to do that right just yet. Maybe make the portal part of a tree on the small island in the lake?


Lots of decoration stuff to do. But kinda like how the base structure turned out.
 

rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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I just love CustomNPCs and public minecraft skin sites:
AtdOzuk.png

Needed a bit of a break, so looked up skins for Bosmer/wood elves. Haul turned out much better than I had thought :p
Should be plenty to populate the Bosmer village without use the same skin too often.

Also played around with a Giant:
WA7CY7S.png

(The dirt tower is 4 blocks tall)
His pet mammoth also CustomNPC using the model from MoCreature.
 

Middleclaw

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Apr 12, 2014
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I can imagine it now, Zombies and skeletons enjoying minecrafts version of the Skyrim Space Program. Creepers just become fireworks.
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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More WIP stuff from the Bosmer village:
Huts for the villagers:
6W1L7WH.png

Yay, lots more manual leaf block placement!....

Lot of C&B work to get the effect I wanted:
0Y40haz.png

I basically made some carpenter's style slopes with C&B and then copied it around. But was a bit more work since the "branch weave" I chose was not rotational symmetrical. But pretty happy with how it turned out.
Although the Dark Oak is very dark, and it can be hard to actually see details. The ramps and stairs tend to blur together from a distance. Might have to look into adding some lighter detailing to them. Like worn wood patterns on walkways/stairs.

Along with the villager huts, I also made this larger building:
Q23OjYO.png

Idea is that it is going to be a tavern, with both indoor and outdoor serving. Maybe one of the smaller huts will be a town hall kinda thing too. Or a guild hall for some faction.
(The hut in the left of the picture is planned to be a barracks for guards etc. Next to it you can spot the docks(more on that later when better developed))

The tavern is made up of 3 huts that connect, and have a large terrace outside:
u2r54pi.png


Lastly, I put in a well:
Q8z4mRZ.png

I really like the "bend trees to serve as buildings" kinda looks, so tried to continue it. Thinking about how to make living tree fences/gates etc. for gardens and livestock too. Probably with some "standardized" C&B parts, like on the huts, that can be mixed and matched to make it look dynamic.
 
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ICountFrom0

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I'm rather enjoying that green leaf with black stick woven through it that you've got going on. Sort of thing I wish I had the skill to copy with mine.