Diamonds!

Oct. 4th, 2022 11:14 pm
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
[personal profile] schneefink
As a reward for passing my last exam I have the next, even bigger one in less than two weeks. I'm anxious as usual. Fortunately my bosses agreed to let me take a week of vacation to study for it, unfortunately that means this week is even more stressful than usual at the office. At least "I need to do some practice questions before I'm allowed to play more Minecraft" is currently a surprisingly effective motivator to study in the evenings.


Things that happened in Minecraft: I decided to get more iron next so that I can wear iron armor in the nether without worrying too much about losing it, so I dug down under my house and stumbled upon an abandoned mineshaft, and in the middle of that mineshaft is an amethyst geode. Very cool! I have a spyglass now, which is convenient. I even dared to do some exploration of the big cave beneath the mineshaft. The twisting vines from the Nether are very useful. I found plenty of iron, some gold, and a single diamond. And by sheer luck a falling creeper missed me so I didn't even die (pretty sure I wouldn't have survived it even with my good enchanted armor on, though, idk, maybe there's a small chance – but I don't want to test it.)

Then I thought I would do some more boring mining and mined in the other direction, and I found the biggest damn caverns I've seen. They're SO BIG! I explored for hours with suicide torch runs (running into it with only torches and food) and it feels like I've only discovered a small part of it. It's not only wide, it also has a ton of tunnels and smaller rooms to the sides, and it's very very high. There's a deep dark section, and a dripstone section, and more I haven't seen yet. I planted some twisting vines and when they grow it'll be easier to explore the parts higher up.
I found two places with diamonds already, but I didn't want to mine them yet because I didn't have a Fortune III pickaxe yet and using that would give me more diamonds, and I don't need diamonds urgently right now.

I don't need diamonds urgently right now because I already have full diamond armor! I fully leveled up the armorer in the nearby village, traded with the rest of the village to get many emeralds, and now I have full diamond armor (enchanted, even!) :) Pretty cool.
I'm not going to wear it in the nether though, at least not while still exploring.

I got to level thirty so I could make third-level enchantments on the enchanting table, and then realized I'd played myself because I was now too worried about dying to explore any caves. So instead I upgraded my fishing rod: it had Lure II, Luck of the Sea III, and Unbreaking III, and Mending, pretty good.

The next day I did nether exploration! I got a warped fungus on a stick, put a saddle on a strider, and just wandered around the massive lava lake. The nether looks so cool! And riding a strider across lava is great, even though I can't quite shake the feeling that it's dangerous. I found a Crimson Forest, and after a while I found a nether fortress \o/ I even managed to evade two ghasts and make my way back to my portal.

Then, while DD and I were watching Techno beat Minecraft with a steering wheel, I fished for almost three hours. I got over a dozen saddles!, after a while DD just started laughing every time I got another one. I also got quite a few enchanted books and bows, including a bow with Infinity and one with Mending, I can make several very cool bows now. I haven't yet though because I'm more wary/cautious of enchanting now that I've learned about prior work penalties on the anvil…

The next day I maxed out my fishing road with Lure III and then, after a few brief detours, went back to the fortress. I wanted to build a portal there to see where in the overworld I ended up, but forgot to take the flint & steel >.< So I went up into the fortress in the hope of finding a chest there, I killed my first two blazes (they didn't drop anything, sadly) but didn't find any chests so I left again. Good thing I have so many spare saddles! (Maybe I will make a bridge there one day, it would feel safer, but it would be a long bridge…) I did get the "Hot Tourist Destinations" achievement for visiting all nether biomes, even though most I've only ridden past.

Then I went back with the flint & steel this time, found what I'm pretty sure is a bastion on the way but decided to leave that for later, built the portal at the foot of the fortress, and stepped back into the overworld – in the middle of a lush cave. Pretty, but full of zombies and skeletons. I died once, almost died several more times, and then mined my way out. I finally found a jungle! (I wanted to bring a junglewood sapling but lost it on the way, sadly, but I did bring an acacia one.) And a savanna, too. I was many thousand blocks away from base so I made my way back, which took quite a while, even using a boat and later a horse. I didn't even find anything interesting on the way, apart from one broken portal with not that great loot. I'm glad I tried it but I don't think I'll be doing that again: riding a strider is much more convenient!

As soon as I got back to base I planted bamboo, and whoa bamboo grows fast. I tried out scaffolding and it's super useful! I tried it out for cave exploration a little later and it's so convenient for lighting up tall walls and getting to higher places etc.

One of my two cats – the pretty white-grey one – was killed by a drowned with a trident :( I kill every trident-wielder I see in the hopes that they will drop one, but I didn't even think of (nor would likely have considered it a risk) my cat running around outside, and then it died. Right when I was trying to think of a good name for it, now that I have (so many) name tags.

Then I wanted to go to one of my previous temporary huts and decided to take a shortcut, only to find an entire new village not two minutes away from my home base! How did I not discover this before, I was sure I'd explored that region already. Very convenient. And it's right next to a swamp, too. Several nitwits in the village, unfortunately, but that can be compensated with more villagers.

I finally encountered phantoms! It took this long because I usually sleep quite regularly. They're annoying, but at least I managed to kill one.

I did some trading in the new village, but then I got bored and instead continued to explore the massive cave under my base. I keep finding new tunnels and entire areas, and I found three separate new diamond veins! I didn't want to mine them without Fortune, but the enchanting table told me I could get fortune 3 on a pickaxe with level 30, so I did some level grinding. (Sadly it turned out I could only put Fortune II on my diamond pickaxe – I'd even made an entire new diamond pickaxe with my last diamonds because I put Efficiency on the first one before I knew about prior work penalties – so I put Fortune III on an iron one. Annoying. I need more Unbreaking/Mending books.)

And then I finally mined all the diamonds I discovered, and I got 26! Niice. Not even sure yet what I'll use them for, since getting diamond armor from the armorer is easier. A diamond sword, maybe, though I could also just get more emeralds and level up a weaponsmith. Still, very cool to have! Maaybe now that I have back-up diamonds I'll even dare to wear my diamond armor to the nether, even though I'm scared of losing everything in the lava. Hmm.

Next few steps: more enchanting, more cave exploration, and then finally getting some blaze rods! (I also really need to reorganize my chests, the sooner the better, ugh.) I'm really looking forward to having an enderchest, and excited about experimenting with potions.

Date: 2022-10-08 09:34 pm (UTC)
dreamersdare: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dreamersdare
Haha, you are doing so many more interesting things in Minecrack than I am :D I'm just pootling round my mines, exploring a lush cavern (in the middle of a bigger cave and hides creepers, goddamn thing) and trying to engineer my way into a shipwreck rather than mess about with underwater breathing.

Also killing pillagers. Because to hell with pillagers, little arseholes.

I'll tell you what though, all my cats are sitting safely in my house along with my parrot and Mr DDs dog. Because I am not having gribbly things kill my pets, so I'll leave them where its safe (possibly, I am missing the point of having the pets here...)

Date: 2022-10-10 10:33 pm (UTC)
dreamersdare: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dreamersdare
It would, although invariably I would end up wanting a bigger ender chest than I can actually have :D

I was trying to work out if I could get rid of the water actually, but it's proving tricky and I'm not sure if I can. I've not looked at the door option, but I might try and experiment with that too. I really want to check out this ship!

I have killed a lot of pillagers, but I have cows and milk, so it's not such a big deal. I have a LOT of crossbows now (which do allow for rapid fire fun if you line them up in your hot bar). I did butcher a pillager outpost near my house, but it had neither allays nor an iron golem, which was disappointing.

I need to breed my cats. Once I've done that, I'll keep two home safe and let the rest roam and bring me presents. I am, sadly, still looking for a dog.

Date: 2022-10-29 09:56 pm (UTC)
dreamersdare: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dreamersdare
I frequently find the storage mechanics frustrating: just let me move a chest without having to empty it first

YES. Stop making me scatter my crap all over the floor in order to shift things around!

I assume you now have a herd of cats? (Hmmm, what is the collective noun for cats? Okay, the internet informs me it is a 'clowder'. But also that a 'destruction' or a 'nuisance' are acceptable terms :DDD)

Date: 2022-10-29 10:17 pm (UTC)
dreamersdare: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dreamersdare
I tend to carry fish and bones with me as standard for exactly this reason. I don't know if wolves still despawn if you don't tame them straight away, but they used to and I'm not risking it!

Date: 2022-10-30 03:08 pm (UTC)
dreamersdare: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dreamersdare
None! Well, Mr DD found one lonesome wolf in one of the oak woods, but we haven't found a single other wolf in any of the biomes we've explored. So frustrating!

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