The most underused starting strategies?

[PhilHibbs]

Turtles. The first thing I do is dig down to get some redstone and some gems, and make a mining turtle. Diamond pickaxe if I can, otherwse any gem will do. Se that off doing a 5x5 excavate or 10x10 OreQuarry from the computercraft.info forum and that's a nice selection of ores and probably a couple of diamonds very quickly.

 

[SReject]

I need to have a better starting strategy. I always end up going mining for a bit and just kind of settling for somewhere, I've never really explored and found somewhere nice to be.

Q: Do you mostly play SSP? If so then, let me tell ya, I was the same way. I'd travel like, at most, 100 blocks from starting spawn and end up just building a base there to go caving. By the time I'd finished caving I'd already have a setup going so didn't feel like moving. Once I started with SMP, I got motivated by the other players exploring for that 'perfect' spot to setup shop, and I gradually started following suit

 

[Golrith]

I'm a take it slow guy. I think at the moment due to learning all the new mods having come from Tekkit. Being familiar with IC2 and EU power, I started with TE and MJ power instead. Don't see the need to rush through content.

Usual setups are to explore the local area, find somewhere for an initial shelter, and then go mining. My first trip I don't spend too much time, I want to ensure I don't accidently get killed and lose everything, but this does mean I do end up with resource shortages quite quick, so have to head off mining again pretty soon.
Once the basic machines are up, then I concentrate on my home for a bit, then I then get a sorting & storage system up and prepared. Hopefully by this time I have the resources for a quarry.

As much as I'd love to mine for ages deep underground before getting started, sods law a creeper will always sneak up to me as I'm gathering diamonds near lava, or those sodding annoying Angry Zombies will charge me and knock me back into the lava.

 

[Exedra]

Is Steve's carts tree farms actually early game? I thought it was a multiple diamond investment?

It's only one or 2 veins of it. Only 5 diamonds.

 

[eculc]

I take it VERY slow in the beginning. On the latest world I've started, I got a pulverizer and powered furnace up about 4 hours in (in this case it was due to a lack of gold, but the point still stands: SLOOOOOW) and haven't progressed much past that point yet.

 

[dc0110]

Q: Do you mostly play SSP? If so then, let me tell ya, I was the same way. I'd travel like, at most, 100 blocks from starting spawn and end up just building a base there to go caving. By the time I'd finished caving I'd already have a setup going so didn't feel like moving. Once I started with SMP, I got motivated by the other players exploring for that 'perfect' spot to setup shop, and I gradually started following suit

Now you come to mention it, yeah.
I'm on my own server with my son, and we just bumble around where we are, it's kind of SSP as as it's just us two
It's very true to life though "Daaad, can I have some.... ? "
When I was on a SMP on Vanilla I was about 3000 from spawn, and I'd really take my time to find a good spot.

 

[Hydra]

I personally don't really like it if you're on a server and people move away like 3000 units. Kinda defeats the purpose of being on a server if you're nowhere near each other IMHO.

 

[dc0110]

well it was vanilla and we did the usual nether hub tunnel jobby so not too long a journey to see each other

 

[Zelfana]

I went with what I've been doing in vanilla pretty much. Which is that I try to get Fortune III asap. In vanilla that usually means "wasting" 5 diamond ores.

I'm on Magic World btw. First the usual up until I have enough stone and wood. Then went exploring a bit to find all the animals and a nice place to grow trees in, I started in alpine biome. Then mining until I get materials to make Pulverizer and an engine for it. And while this was happening I was leveling to 30 and I left everything that could be Fortune'd behind, including coal. I would need redstone but I lucked out and found enough in a chest on one of those TC monolith things that I found right next to my spawn. It also had Hoe of Growth in it which surprised me a bit. Didn't mine a lot, just so I got the gold and obsidian with survivalist's pickaxe (could also use Igneous Extruder but didn't have the redstone to afford that yet).

After I had established my base with the Pulverizer I went to look for a village as they usually have bookshelves to steal. Turned one into Thaumonomicon and took the rest for the Enchanting Table. Lucked out big time and found the diamonds needed in the blacksmith's chest. Started up on TC to get thaumium and made a thaumium pickaxe to enchant and got my Fortune III. Then it was all out mining with miner's backpack packed with me. Next thing I enchanted was a steel breastplate I found in the blacksmith and after that thaumium sword also found in a chest.

If you feel lucky you can try to find the obsidian for the Enchanting Table in village blacksmith's chest. And diamonds also from there or abandoned mineshafts. And you can find a pickaxe to enchant pretty easy, too. I still decided to go with thaumium, had to make some.

Still have not visited the Nether. I try to avoid it before 1.5 comes. But I think it is possible to make a blast furnace without going there. I will try at least. Twilight Forest is my next destination after I have gotten some armor on me.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Where else can you get Blaze Powder other than the Nether?

And, I think it will be a long time before the FTB mod packs are released for 1.5.

 

[Lambert2191]

Where else can you get Blaze Powder other than the Nether?

And, I think it will be a long time before the FTB mod packs are released for 1.5.

deserts

 

[Neirin]

I spend a loooooooong time building my base. I'll usually go mining long enough to get 3 diamonds and use them to get a mining turtle digging for me, but in my current world I spent a good 20 hours of play time just building my base before making a single machine other than that turtle. By the time I was ready to start making machines, my turtle had mined so much that I've been able to mostly ignore materials costs so far (the big exception is redstone, somehow I can never get enough of that).

 

[PhilHibbs]

deserts

I've never seen any Blaze Powder, rods, or blazes lying around in a desert. Anything more specific?

...I've been able to mostly ignore materials costs so far (the big exception is redstone, somehow I can never get enough of that).

Me too, Redpower seems to eat a lot of it.

 

[Neirin]

I've never seen any Blaze Powder, rods, or blazes lying around in a desert. Anything more specific?

There's a flower there (I think it's added by Thaumcraft) called Cinderpearl that drops blaze powder.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Oh wow. I never tried that. I've seen them, but I assumed they were for bees, and I haven't got into beekeeping at all yet so I left them alone. That makes it a bit too easy if you ask me, although you might have to clear out a large area of desert to get enough.

 

[Golrith]

It's good that Redstone get's used heavily now, compared to vanilla MC where it just cluttered up your inventory. Way too much of it for the limited about of Redstone powered stuff the average player would ever use it for.

I think in my base I've never got more then a stack of it, and I'm constantly using it.

 

[Lambert2191]

Oh wow. I never tried that. I've seen them, but I assumed they were for bees, and I haven't got into beekeeping at all yet so I left them alone. That makes it a bit too easy if you ask me, although you might have to clear out a large area of desert to get enough.

I don't generally find a huge amount of them tbh

 

[TehAnder]

I usually focus more on the 'Building everything nice' part before even starting any serious machinery. And, hells blazes, do it all the time TE for me, baybe.

 

[Zelfana]

I don't generally find a huge amount of them tbh

Only needs 9 so it's not that hard. But I have yet to find a desert. Damn EBXL biomes everywhere I go. I also need to find a vanilla swamp for the slimes, I have found only one spawned in a slime chunk so far.

I remember seeing netherrack in Twilight Forest so that's how I can get nether brick. If there is none, though, I'll just cheat enough netherrack to make the bricks, it's not like mining netherrack requires any real effort anyway. Saves me the trouble of deleting the Nether to get new generation.

Forgot to mention but I made coke oven pretty early, too, because why not. I'm making coal coke out of all my coal, there aren't really other uses for coal without IC2. Making coal coke quadruples the coal basically. Using charcoal for torches before I get torchberries and the Moonworm Queen from Twilight Forest.

 

[PhilHibbs]

If you don't consider it cheating then turn on slime chunk highlighting in Rei's Minimap, find a couple close together, and just dig out a slime spawning area at somewhere just below Y-level 40. I got plenty of slime that way after flying for many hundreds of blocks in each direction in search of a swamp.