Minecraft - Relocation

I've been playing my modded Minecraft world a bit since my last post, making slow progress on my base, doing a bunch of mining, and creating a bunch of handy tools using my newly built Smeltery. As I mentioned last time, I wasn't quite sure if I was going to stay put or move my base. I've decided to move, but my new base is not too far away. Here's an update on everything that's happened since my last post.

Smeltery and Tools

A couple game days mining with basic tools quickly convinced me to upgrade my gear. Mining with stone and iron tools is OK, but it gets old pretty fast, and Tinker's Construct tools are pretty awesome. To get the most out of these tools, you need to build a Smeltery, which lets you create alloys that are much stronger than iron. You can also use the Tinker's Construct Tool Forge to upgrade and repair the tools you create.

Smeltery and Tools

That's a pretty basic Smeltery, and if you look at my toolbar, you can see the set of tools I made with it. A Smeltery is a multi-block structure that lets you melt various metals, including raw ores, into liquids. What's a multi-block? Good question. It's a set of Minecraft blocks arranged in a specific way that produces a new structure. The Smeltery is made up of Seared Brick blocks, a Smeltery Controller and a Seared Tank for fuel, in this case, lava. It's basically a giant bucket full of molten metal. Add ores/bars and pour the molten metals into casts using a Smeltery Drain and Faucet. Do watch what you add to the Smeltery though. It will automatically create alloys from metals. I ended up making two alloys for my tool building project. Aluminium Brass, which is used to make casts, and Alumite, which I used to make my fancy pink weapons.

• The process for making a tool is something like this:
• Make a stone version of each part you're going to cast.
• Use the Casting Table to make an Aluminium Brass cast of the part.
• Use the cast and the Casting Table to pour an Alumite version of the part.
• Assemble the finished parts into a final tool.

Once you've assembled your tools, you can add enchantments. I've already added luck (Fortune) to my pickaxe and auto-repair to all my tools because I'm lazy.

A New Home

With new tools in hand, I started working on my new base. It's on the far side of the meadow from my first base (just a couple hundred meters), but it's on the river's edge, so water provides a little protection from wandering monsters. I've completed the basic structure, which looks something like this.

Modern Life

As you can see, I went for a modern structure. The interior is secure but mostly empty. I've decided I'm going to treat the house as a house and put the various workshops, labs and machines I'll be building underground. I've already started building a new mine shaft beneath this structure. I may even move some of my farms underground, though some stuff, bees and trees come to mind, are a lot easier to deal with above ground.

I'll be spending the next couple days moving the bulk of my current setup to their new underground home. Of course, that means I need to build underground homes for all my stuff...

Once I get things moved I'll be working on some farm automation. In the past, I've built a single large farm that handles all my basic crops. This time, I think I'll be doing smaller farms with single crops so I can control harvests more efficiently. I may also set up an automatic quarry, depending on how my resources look. I have a fairly good supply of iron and copper, but I'm pretty short on some other materials. Sometime soon I'll have to apply some better organization to my stuff. I have a half-dozen chests that are loosely sorted, but it's getting hard to find what I need for crafting. I could probably slap together a basic AE system, but I don't have the power to support it, so that's probably on the agenda too.

• Next!