Buildcraft Forge released

The new API is out and running, but from my current mods only Eloraam's collection uses it (there is also a beta of Buildcraft, but I tend to wait until betas end anyway). I'll look into it tomorrow, however, I tried to run the game with this mods and didn't worked:


ModLoader Beta 1.7.3
mod_RedPowerCore 1.6.0
mod_RedPowerLighting 1.6.0
mod_RedPowerLogic 1.6.0
mod_RedPowerWiring 1.6.0
mod_Renderhook 1.7_01
mod_TooManyItems 1.7.2 2011-07-01
mod_WorldEditCUI 1.7_01
mod_WirelessSniffer 0.5
mod_PowerConfigurator 0.5
mod_WirelessRedstone 1.4
mod_WirelessRemote 0.4
mod_FCBetterThanWolves 2.70

So tomorrow I will look into a clean install of the game. Godd night!

Another on secret doors

Well, I had this one in my hard disk, so... ^^U.

First, a new way to open doors, in the video I make it with Buildcraft pipes, RedPower and Integrated Redstone... but you could make it with just buildcraft:

The basic idea: drop an item in the pipe system and get the door open. more than just one block to act as a lock can be added, both as an option ("any of this blocks will open the door") or as a need ("you need X blocks of each one of this list to open the door")

And here we can see the application to make a (somehow) snealy door with pistons:

The best part of this is that I managed to squeeze the circuit for the pistons in just 4 blocks of depth.

Well, enjoy the videos and think how to put them into your worlds ^^ I'll see you all on the weekend.

Upcoming changes to Minecraft mods

Ok people, here we are again. I was going to show you some "homemade" stuff, but I found something much more interesting, and that is what's going to fall in our lap in a few weeks or even less.

First, the great news, Minecraft Forge is a growing project that now has inside both Eloraam, Alblaka and SpaceToad among others, meaning we can expect much greater compatibility between their mods in the future, and the even greater news is that we can expect much less pixel-intensive version of Industrialcraft as a side effect.

Second, the upcoming new update to Eloraam's mods, aside from glowing blocks, is this:

Yeah, that is Eloraam's work: we can see both some lights and the option of putting the logic gates in walls or in the ceiling. Also, she has promised a screwdriver for some use with the plates (and that we will be ablo to put the plates by themselves, so covering logic gates will become possible).

Now for Industrialcraft, I'll advice you to go to Industrialcraft's blog and check. Can't say anymore here.

And finally for Buildcraft, the upcoming changes are avaiable as a beta in the mod's forum page, with the advice of only using them for testing without any other mods (because it might get unstable). SpaceToad made a video of the upcoming Buildcraft 2.0:

 In short: A new liquid (oil), a new tool (the wrench, which is used among other things to change the pipe's settings, like which exit the items can use in a steel pipe), and a new mechanic for all the actually redstone-powered pipes and machines: they will now require engines, that are activated by redstone and come in three speeds: wood, stone and iron (each one is quicker than the previous). While all engines require a redstone source to start working (and that can be a continuous source, like a lever or a redstone torch), stone engines also require something to burn (like coal), and iron engines require oil (and they need a lot of oil buckets to get filled). See the video for more info on that.

Stay tuned!

Some circuitry, pistons and secret doors

Well, following with my ecclectic development of entries, today I offer you some videos from my Youtube channel that I uploaded between yesterday and today.

The first is just a new version of the already existing concept of blast doors using 20 sticky pistons to have a secret double door in a 6 blocks-wide wall, but this time using only the RedPower addon:

The second is just a "logical" evolution of the previous concept, that is, putting the "door" on the floor, so the secret passage can even be outdoors! The only change in the circuitry is that now all is in the same vertical height and into a side of the moving parts, instead of having part under the doors and part over them:

And the third is just another logical evolution of the previous idea: instead of a secret passage, it's now a trap you cannot get out from (unless you are carrying some extra blocks, that is XD) that can be turned with ease into a deadly, self resetting trap:

A small edit to this entry: an even more reduced version of the circuitry for the floor's trapdoor:

I hope you enjoy watching the videos as much as I enjoyed making the designs. Be warned, however: RedPower turns minecraft into something much, much more addictive than it was!

A classic monster grinder using Buildcraft

Yes, I know I promised a video... but really, a 30 minutes long video of watching how things build themselves can be a little boring, so instead I took screenshots.

My build is 37x36, with a total height of 5, with the distribution directly taken from this video of Youtube, with some small changes.
In case you are wondering, I'm using a txture pack, Ruston RPG (it doesn't need anything, just drop it into the textures folder and select it ingame).

 First I made a small setup. Here you can see the space determined, one platform made and several Buildcraft's fillers connected to wireless receivers (for no other reason than to have them all run at once XD).

Here I start the powering and the fillers fill the area.

Now finishing the basic layout. Since I don't fully trust Buildcraft's builder for anything but building with a single kind of block (you can use several, but it takes a lot of counting and calculation to arrange the blocks in the appropiate order inside the builder, so I prefer to do everything else by hand), this layout will be the one I will take into a blueprint.

There you can see the template maker making the template. I will leave it there just in case getting out and coming back into the server resets the templates (there was a problem in the SSP version when the builder first appeared, and since I don't know if it has been fixed, well, it's not like anyone will steal it XD).

You just put a blank template and the maker does all the job, it doesn't even need redstone! (But you can use a redstone torch to make a negative of the template).

In the video the player uses signs but I find very annoying the signs cannot be stacked (unless you use a mod), so I use slabs instead, which are the cheaper option. Since the slabs take a space, you could make the grinder bigger by adding one to the X and Z measures per water source needed (here you could enlarge the trap to be 41x40 or so).

I made the "mouth" a little too small, I had to remove the top layer of blocks to allow for zombies and skeletons to die there, but it's just a classic lava trap (between the lava and the water there are three ladders, and a water current under the ladders).

An aerial view of the "finished" product (save the roof XD).

Now I put a builder over the trap, and started building an upper level. The easiest way to do the upper level is to change the direction of the central water current, letting the mobs drop in the fartest (to the lava) position of the grinder.

The builder, feeded by a chest to represent the porssibility of using storaged materials from the quarrys, or having one or two quarrys feeding the builder thanks to pipes. The chests in the ground are to storage the drops from the mobs, using insertion pipes (but there is no real reason not to use simple stone pipes, really).

Here I just realized the builder is putting things in a rotated fashion... oh well XD.

So why this? Well, in the video we see the player needs a lot of time, effort and a couple of diamond pickaxes. Now, we can just make a template of an above the ground version of that trap, and then make the builder excavate it in the innards of the earth (so you wouldn't even need to feed the builder, you would need a clock, the builder and the template!). The only drawback would be the need of running and planting torches to avoid the spawning of mobs during the construction once there is a 2 blocks of height at enough distance from you.

This grinder has the following pros and cons:
+ Only 5 of height counting the roof (6 with the floor, 7 with the water channel to collect stuff).
+ Easy to made and modify.
+ Hard to spot. Glitches would show very little.
+ With Buildcraft, now you can make this trap with ease in the air, allowing for a position where the mobs can only spawn inside the grinder.
- Items get stuck if for some reason a mob dies away from the lava (the slabs or anything you put to stop the water currents from merging will also stop items). This can be a minus if you make the upper level with dirt to use it as a regular animal farm.
- You don't see the monsters dying.
- If you play with Mo's Creatures (like I do), Ogres cannot spawn in this trap. However, this also could be considered a plus, since the ogres would break the trap even if you use obsidian instead of stone: the ladders preventing the merge of water and lava would break. As of today, the only way of avoiding this is to reduce the strenght of the ogres so they don't destroy any block (or using other mods to damage the mobs, like Industrialcraft's Tesla Coils).

Farms video

So here it is the video I promised. You can see here how I make my automated farms to get wheat, cacti, mushrooms, and sugar cane (well, and wood when I set up a tree plantation in the roof or floor of a base).

About farming the flower farming: you cannot plant flowers and expect them to expand, you need to use bonemeal on grass to get more, so set up a water collector for that is quite an overkill ^^.

I expect to make a new video before next week about making a monster grinder that also doubles as a critter grinder during the day, using Buildcraft.


As for Industrialcraft, I'm currently not using the mod, because it takes so many terrain sprites, I would be limited to Eloraam's RedPower and Alblaka's Buildcraft, and I'm currently making some traps and contraptions that take much more advantage from the Better than Wolves and Portal Gun mods (see them in the links section to the right of the page).

Stay tuned!

Farming 101: what and how much

So we are all impressed by the big an amazing farming contraptions out there that allow, with a simple click of a button or turn of a lever, to get a lot of wheat to make bread, or get tons of sugar cane, or an endless stream of cacti... Now I wonder: is it really necessary?

Let's take a look at all the resources that grow on Minecraft:

1. Mushrooms. Used to make stew, they expand by themselves, so you can make a self-harvesting machine with some pistons and water, which is quite the good part, and they heal a lot. The bad parts are that, first, you need two different mushroom types to make the stew, and that Mushrooms tolerate levels of light that are dangerous: sunlight is light level 15, but mushrooms will "die" (in the game, they will pop out, like a destroyed block) when the light surpasses level 7... which is the limit at which monsters spawn. Lastly, you need three wooden planks per mushroom stew to make the bowl (well, to make 4 bowls), which is not consumed (unless you use the canning machine from Industrialcraft). While I think this all balances the mushrooms in the good side, if you want to carry the raw materials you need to leave 4 spaces at least (crafting table, 2 mushrooms and the bowls), and they take a lot of time to expand, but you can make a safe automatic harvesting machine (I'll get to it on thursday, I promise).

2. Wheat. You need three to make bread, which heals for 2.5 hearts or so. Unlike the mushrooms, it requires light, at least a torch in the next 3-4 spaces (I usually put one every 2 blocks one block above the one with the wheat) when you make an underground farm. The good points are that you only need wheat to make the bread and that you only "sacrifice" two slots to carry the materials (that is, wheat and a crafting table). The bad points are that farming wheat requires water, a hoe, dirt, and manually replanting (unless you use some mods). This last point is what makes the big farms a little like a waste: you can set up a small "farm" you can manually harvest quickly, and you are setting up a smal farm you can replant quickly. I takes more time for me to harvest and plant a big auto-harvesting farm that to harvest and plant two small manual farms...

3. Cacti. While these are not edible, they can be farmed for different uses, among them for furnace use as burning material, or to be burned to get green dye (or the more extended "defense wall"). While cacti have no problem with diagonally-placed blocks, they will drop if a block is north, east, west or south of them, and won't grow if there is a block over them; not to mention you can plant cacti only on sand (which obeys gravity), making the cacti automated farms a little too big in the vertical axis. Their best point, however, is that once you have set up the farm, you only need to collect the items (and a well-placed obsidian pipe with some chests does a great job for that).

4. Flowers. Used for dye crafting (and in some mods for other recipes), this will expand like mushrooms over grass, and they would be better suited to be used in great farming projects thanks to that (and because they take much more time to expand to the same surface).

5. Sugar cane. The best suited for farming, you can use it to craft sugar (needed to make cake) or paper (needed to make maps and books; paper is needed also in some mods). You only need to set up water, with dirt adyacent to it, and plant the sugar cane on top of the dirt. Since you can harvest the second or third part of the plant without removing the base, pistons (and a wall to stop the dropped items from flying all across the world XD) can be used with a water current for quick farming. Also, with Eloraam's Integrated Redstone you can set up a clock to activate the pistons once every 5 minutes or so (300 seconds) and use an obsidian pipe to gather the materials after a water current has put them all in a block, making them fully automated (meaning that you will usually need small farms since they are harvesting all the time, unless you need a lot of paper/sugar). The only bad thing about sugar cane is that is hard to find unless you are lucky with the starting position.

6. Wood. The most important resource is also the only one you can't set up in an automated harvesting farm. The best you can do is to plant trees with two blocks between them and three blocks from any other high obstruction, and try to keep homogeneous farms (I have noticed that when two trees of different kind get their leaves mixed, they drop less saplings), aside from that there is nothing to do there.

I expect to provide you all with some videos and images from some examples on thursday for different farms and contraptions, so stay tuned!