The Minecraft Logs #9: An attempt was made

When I last made a post about Minecraft (back at March! Yikes!) I was frustrated because my attempts to add a basement to the house I got were not working that well. So I decided to try to make my own house from scratch. My thinking was this way I could build it to my exact needs instead of trying to force someone else’s design to it.

My plan at the time was to make a post whenever I finished said attempt. Well, I did start on it however I got frustrated again because like usual my attempt was turning out to look more like an alien pretending to build a human house than anything else.

Because of that I decided to take a break and come back later… except I got distracted by other games and only now have been getting an itch to play Minecraft again. Ooops!

P.S.: This is my post #3 for Blaugust 2021

Now let me see if I can remember everything I did…

My first idea was to try to make a kind of mega structure that could house everything and would be attached to my mines.

I tried to do it more free form without worrying too much about little details, went into creative mode and used some wool to try to build an outline of the structure.

The problem with that strategy is I clearly had absolute no idea what I wanted to do and my outline just turned into giant cubes which are honestly very boring.

If I had at least tried to visualize, even a little, what I actually wanted it to look at the end, maybe things wouldn’t be so bad.

Having learned my lesson I went googling for image references. Because Create is the mod I care the most about during this playthrough, I wanted some kind of victorian steampunk look for the house. Finding references for those weren’t that hard.

Unfortunately my lack of a visual imagination ended up being an obstacle again as I couldn’t find blocks that I felt gave the right color/looks for the kind of steampunk house I wanted. I decided to use other blocks that I felt were just as cool and ended up with something resembling more of a gothic look which I was fine with.

Now here is where the big mistakes begin. I wasn’t very happy with the spot I was building in and decided that the location of my first house was indeed the ideal spot. But I hadn’t even started to demolish the first house yet so I had to take care of that first.

Initially I tried to do that manually but that was proving to take too long. Then I tried a bit of TNT but that also didn’t destroy as much as I was hoping for. So I decided to put enough TNT inside to guarantee everything would be destroyed. I might have exaggerated a little with the amount. Just a tiny bit.

Ok, I will I will admit I used too many and this was a hard lesson about that.

The screenshot at the top is the result of all the TNT I used. Obviously I didn’t want a crater of that size near my home base. I also didn’t want to relocate somewhere else. Trying to fill it manually would be insane too. That left me only with one option: to look for a mod or tool that could do terraforming.

It took a bit of work to find one that worked for my use case but I eventually found WorldEdit. It isn’t the easiest of tools to use but it got the work done.

After that it was just a question of copying what I had already built of the new house with Create, save it to a blueprint and then rebuild it in the new location with the Schematicannon.

It didn’t took long for me to get stuck again. Before finishing the outside part of the house I decided to try to get an idea of the interior layout first. That is when I ran into the problem of “this place was built by an alien pretending to be a human”.

Since I couldn’t come up with a solution to this problem I decided to take a break and some moths later we are here again!

I haven’t really found a solution to the problem so I think I will just compromise. Instead of trying to build something from scratch I will just look at some house blueprints, try to modify it for my needs and try not to worry that things look off/are not cool.

There is still a ton of things I want to build and places to explore in Minecraft. If I keep getting stuck because of a house I will never get to do any of those. And I’d like to do them before everyone ports their mod to the a newer version of Minecraft. Or at least before Create releases another version that will require me to have to relearn some stuff. Again.

Or worse, I get tempted to restart again because of some reason or another.

The point is, I’d like to get to a point where I feel I am “finished” with my current world and can move on to new adventures in Minecraft. And other mods too. There are still some big mods I want to test out. It is just not the time for them yet. :p

Speaking of mods, since it is me we are talking about, I obviously installed a few more. These are some mods I have been pondering about before the break and figured I might as well install now to give a good test run. If things break then I get my excuse to restart everything again. :p

Quark Oddities – One of the weakest parts of Minecraft for me is the enchanting system. I just dislike how you get a random enchantment every time you want to enchant something. I’d much rather have some control over what enchantment shows up even if it means some steeper requirements or maybe some sort of progression system to get the best ones.

Unfortunately I was not able to find a mod that completely replaced the system. The best I could find was the one in Quark Oddities that gives you a way to influence what kind of enchantments you get.

I haven’t tested it yet so I might not end up liking it much. But right now it might be the best compromise between what I want and what the game offers.

Curios API – This mod adds some extra inventory slots for things like backpack, cloaks, rings, bracelets, necklace, belt and so on. By itself it doesn’t do anything but if you have mods that have support for it then it can be pretty useful if not essential.

Sophisticated Backpacks – Inventory is always a problem for me. This mod should hopefully help me a bit with it. But besides the practicality of the mod it also has some neat features like upgrades that allow it to auto-loot, auto-feed the character as they get hungry plus a lot more that you can find listed in the mod’s page.

It is also compatible with Curious so you can use the backpack and a chest armor at the same time.

Advanced Finders – This mod let us create special type of compasses that can point to the direction of minerals, ore or gems. I haven’t decided if I will keep it or not as it is kind of cheaty. But I want to give it a try first before making any decision.

Advanced Hook Launchers – As much as I like the idea of the Nether, I hate trying to explore it. I pondered about looking for a Jetpack mod to make the exploration less painful but I still want to try flying with Elytra and Firework Rockets first because… well, it just looks like my kind of crazy and fun. :p

So I decide to compromise and go with Hook Launchers because, again, it looks like my kind of crazy and fun. :p

I will have to test to see how well that works for exploring the Nether though!

Inventory HUD+ – This mod adds a few extra HUD options. It allows you to see your inventory without having to open it. It also shows the timer of any potions you drink and the durability of each individual gear you are wearing. Plus a few other things.

They are little things but extremely useful!

Supplementaries – This mod contains a mix of decoration and functional items. Considering for how long Minecraft has been around I find it baffling that it has so little in terms of decorating items or even functional ones. Supplementaries does a good job of filling in this area.

Tetra – In my attempts to look for alternatives to Minecraft’s enchanting system I tried to look for mods that would allow me to upgrade my tools and weapons. After searching for a while I settled between Tetra and Silent Gear. In the end I decided to go for Tetra because… well, it looks cooler.

I don’t think Tetra actually adds alternatives to the enchantments, it only allows us to upgrade the efficiency, damage and speed of the tools/weapons. I could be completely wrong though as I haven’t tested it extensively. But even if it is just that it might still be interesting for me. Plus did I mention it looks cool?

One drawback it does have in comparison to Silent Gear though is that it doesn’t cover armor. But that is a minor issue for me right now.

That should be all for me and Minecraft right now. There might be more soon. Depends on how much time I end up building and rebuilding stuff until I get satisfied. :p