Minecraft - A Trip to a Dark Place

I had limited time for Minecraft this week, but I did get a few things done. In the last post, I mentioned doing some basic automation to keep myself supplied, organizing storage, and building a quarry. One out of three ain't bad, right?

Behold! A potato farm!

It's a small start, but it's something. I used a MineFactory Reloaded (MFR) Harvester and Planter to handle the crops, and Ender IO energy and item conduits to handle power and do the moving. One of the byproducts produced by the Harvester is sludge, which accumulates in the device and slows harvesting. It inflicts a nasty stack of debuffs (wither, nausea and weakness) if you touch it, so I'll need to deal with that by building a Sludge Boiler (also MFR), which turns sludge into random, quasi-useful stuff.

Finding potatoes took some exploration. The easiest way to get them is to find a village farm with potato plants and steal a couple. Luckily, this mod pack has JourneyMap, an excellent mapping tool. As I explored the surrounding area, I discovered I a couple of villages, a bamboo forest, another ominous forest, and several villages. I also realized how much I missed having movement buffs, so delving into Botania for a Soujourner's Sash has moved up a couple of places on my to-do list.

Extensive Exploration

Oh yeah, while I was roaming around, I also found a weird obelisk with a chest in the middle. There was a wisp guarding it, but a quick hit and run raid netted me some good loot, including two Ender-lily seeds from Extra Utilities. Using these, I'll be able to build a very slow Ender Pearl farm.

You may be wondering why I spent all that time searching for potatoes when I already had wheat. I have a plan. It involves potatoes, sugar cane, a vat, and combustion generators. Potatoes plus sugar cane and water in the vat produces hootch, which can be used to fuel combustion generators. It's not great fuel, but it'll be a big step up from survivalist generators.

I started working on this project and quickly discovered I needed nether quartz to make the reservoir I wanted for water storage. So...

I built this...

To go here...

But I came back here...

So I built this...

And this...

To get back home.

Usually, portals in the nether link back to the original portal you used to get there. However, if the game can't find a suitable location for your portal in the nether in the right chunk, it may generate one in a nearby chunk. When you go back through that portal, you end up in the wrong chunk in the overworld, and the game creates a new portal there. Luckily it's not too far from my base, so I've just enclosed it and created a path.

Oh, today's important lesson: If you let a hostile zombie pigman escape back through your portal to the nether, your reception will be quite warm the next time you go back.

So that's about it for this report. Now I can get back to upgrading my power system, setting up basic Botania, expanding my farm, mining so I can build a quarry, and then, I guess, we'll see.

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