So what did YOU do today?

spectrumwars wrote:Today I finished the first spawning chamber for the darkroom item grinder. It's got a working lighting system and running water in all the canals and everything. The inner corners of the neighboring chambers didn't have quite as much clearance as I'd hoped, but the overlap is extremely minor and easily dealt with using a 2-block-long diagonal wall where they meet. Rather than the steel doors I originally planned, Splated is gonna install some piston doors for cleaning/maintenance access.

I do like the changes to the nether portal room hallway, and the improved warehouse doorway.

The dark room is producing a ton of items, great job spectrumwars! Will mobs drop rare loot?


I Finished the door to the dark room, I needed a tad more space but I think you'l like it. I have a shutter for the windows now too.

I dug the Atrium and tree farm rail line today. The sending line makes it to the future station location but the return line is only about 1/3 complete. I'm not sure were you want the station to be so for now I'll build a simple stop.

I'm going to afk grind i need to get some work done.

No, the item grinder won't drop rare loot. Skeletons and zombies only drop ingots and bows and such when they are killed by a player...or within 5 seconds of taking damage directly dealt by a player. So, for the time being, if you really want, you can stand in the opening of the future grinder chamber across from the active one with a bow and shoot mobs just as they drop over the edge. When the fall or lava kills them a couple of seconds later, if it's within that window, yeah, you DO get the XP and rare drops, but you need to dash down to the warehouse collection point to collect them before the XP orbs and items despawn 5 minutes later. I got a couple of XP points that way today, but what with skeletons shooting you back, it's probably not worth it. And once the grinder is fully complete, there isn't planned to be a spot from which you could do that sort of sniping.

Great job on the piston access door to the spawner...but I already managed to break it. I was lighting up the room and going inside to double-check one aspect of the dimensions for duplication in the next chamber, and I opened the door and started taking potshots at the handful of mobs inside nearby, when a creeper somehow survived two fully-charged arrow hits and a sword swipe to blow up right in front of the door. The door itself still works, but the outer window shutter isn't working, so I plugged it with a block of cobble temporarily. I didn't want to go digging into the innards of the wiring setup to see what went wrong.

Today I got almost halfway with digging out the second chamber of the darkroom grinder. I also partially decorated the last segment of the hall down to the Throne Room, to hide the dripping of water from the canal carrying items from the grinder's lava blade chamber over to the collection point in the warehouse. Then I went XP grinding in the double grinder, hoping to replace one of the enchanted items I lost the other day in a ravine. Spent 50 XP levels on a diamond pick, got Efficiency V and Unbreaking III. So, one heck of a good obsidian-digging pick, but no fortune or silk touch. Oh well.

About to get back on now for a little...

I'll update the last few days.

I found a little stash of items hidden in the farms. 4 stacks of glowstone dust, and a stack and a half of lapis, plus other stuff... Moved a bit back to the storeroom.

I've been doing bits and pieces here and there with the storeroom itself to make it look a little better. I'll do some more on it later too.

Got the main "guts" of the platforms for the housing set up, as well as a spot for the tunnel from the eating hall to connect to. Much more to be done there though

The lava river is completed again (not sure if I included that earlier), and I've had a few failed grinding attempts, not getting past 40 before dying

Also, we have a random sheep wandering the platforms... I say we let it live and see what happens to it

spectrumwars wrote:No, the item grinder won't drop rare loot. Skeletons and zombies only drop ingots and bows and such when they are killed by a player...or within 5 seconds of taking damage directly dealt by a player. So, for the time being, if you really want, you can stand in the opening of the future grinder chamber across from the active one with a bow and shoot mobs just as they drop over the edge. When the fall or lava kills them a couple of seconds later, if it's within that window, yeah, you DO get the XP and rare drops, but you need to dash down to the warehouse collection point to collect them before the XP orbs and items despawn 5 minutes later. I got a couple of XP points that way today, but what with skeletons shooting you back, it's probably not worth it. And once the grinder is fully complete, there isn't planned to be a spot from which you could do that sort of sniping.

Great job on the piston access door to the spawner...but I already managed to break it. I was lighting up the room and going inside to double-check one aspect of the dimensions for duplication in the next chamber, and I opened the door and started taking potshots at the handful of mobs inside nearby, when a creeper somehow survived two fully-charged arrow hits and a sword swipe to blow up right in front of the door. The door itself still works, but the outer window shutter isn't working, so I plugged it with a block of cobble temporarily. I didn't want to go digging into the innards of the wiring setup to see what went wrong.

Today I got almost halfway with digging out the second chamber of the darkroom grinder. I also partially decorated the last segment of the hall down to the Throne Room, to hide the dripping of water from the canal carrying items from the grinder's lava blade chamber over to the collection point in the warehouse. Then I went XP grinding in the double grinder, hoping to replace one of the enchanted items I lost the other day in a ravine. Spent 50 XP levels on a diamond pick, got Efficiency V and Unbreaking III. So, one heck of a good obsidian-digging pick, but no fortune or silk touch. Oh well.

stop breaking stuff! its fixed now was just a missing piston.


I'm starting work on the unwelcome mat and i noticed the main entrance has some creeper damage.


i was thinking maybe we should build the main entrance with more obsidian. I was planing to make my killzone obsidian and pressure plates to prevent creeper damage.


Also can I move the guard house door behind the moat? it seems silly to have our door controls in front of our first line of defense.

Where would you put the doors though? The only way I could think to put it well was up that central pillar

Well, I managed another spectacular fail. I was trying to help Req kill an enderman in the throne room, and it ended up killing both of us, thanks to him futilely trying to fight it with a bow and me only having a stone sword (and counting on him to do at least SOME damage to it). I had just come back from digging on the darkroom spawner, so I had one of the Fortune III picks on me for use on coal. Apparently when I died and my items scattered, that was one of the items that ended up inside the lava core of one of the columns. So that's two enchanted diamond Fortune III picks I've lost in the last couple of days, sigh.

On the bright side, with lots of much-appreciated help from Mimodo and the Trainman, we finished digging out the second chamber of the darkroom item grinder. Now I just need to wire up redstone to the redstone lamps I've already installed in the ceiling, and install water in the canals, and we'll be ready to yank the torches and activate that chamber.

The next two chambers will require more gravel to be dumped in the lake above, I fear.

I expanded the mines closed off upper brach line, i assisted spectrumwars and mimodo in digging out a grinder room, I think i removed all the cobble and dirt from the throne room.

Ok, so...

I created a spot for a minecart station at the housing area. We moved the partially constructed tracks, so now all that's left is the last little bit to the stop. I left that for splated, since he seems to be best suited to dealing with the minecart tracks.

I fixed the entry to the storeroom, as there was a glitch in the repeaters causing the monostable circuit to malfunction, which meant that the pistons would only retract for the duration of the signal.

I did a minor fix in the store room, which took massive amounts of effort to fix. The chests in the hall of wealth were out of alignment... Which meant re-aligning not only the chests on the left side of the hall, but also every chest in the hall of crafts. After a lot of work, and a little help from trainman (who seemed to be around to help all day), I finally finished that. My OCD has been satisfied... for now.

I created a new section on our noticeboard wall. This is for player announcements/requests. If you would like something, or wish to tell people something, post it up there. Guys, keep an eye on the signs, they are constantly changing.

Along with SW and Trainman, we dug out the 2nd half of the 2nd section of the darkroom grinder. Not sure if it is in operation yet or not.

Took down hundreds of blocks worth of excess scaffolding in the throne room.

Small fix on the throne room pillars.

Linked the tunnel from the eating hall to the housing. It goes to the second level platform. I've only put the basics in, so someone can get creative and throw fancy things in there.

Brendanan wrote:Ok, so...

I created a spot for a minecart station at the housing area. We moved the partially constructed tracks, so now all that's left is the last little bit to the stop. I left that for splated, since he seems to be best suited to dealing with the minecart tracks.

I fixed the entry to the storeroom, as there was a glitch in the repeaters causing the monostable circuit to malfunction, which meant that the pistons would only retract for the duration of the signal.

I did a minor fix in the store room, which took massive amounts of effort to fix. The chests in the hall of wealth were out of alignment... Which meant re-aligning not only the chests on the left side of the hall, but also every chest in the hall of crafts. After a lot of work, and a little help from trainman (who seemed to be around to help all day), I finally finished that. My OCD has been satisfied... for now.

I created a new section on our noticeboard wall. This is for player announcements/requests. If you would like something, or wish to tell people something, post it up there. Guys, keep an eye on the signs, they are constantly changing.

Along with SW and Trainman, we dug out the 2nd half of the 2nd section of the darkroom grinder. Not sure if it is in operation yet or not.

Took down hundreds of blocks worth of excess scaffolding in the throne room.

Small fix on the throne room pillars.

Linked the tunnel from the eating hall to the housing. It goes to the second level platform. I've only put the basics in, so someone can get creative and throw fancy things in there.

Atrium stop is working. Also I noticed ink sacks dropping from the darkroom grinder.

Splated wrote:Atrium stop is working. Also I noticed ink sacks dropping from the darkroom grinder.

Yes. That's one of the benefits of this design. The continuous flowing water will occasionally spawn squids, who are carried to the drop shaft and dumped. Having fewer hit points than hostile mobs, the fall kills them pretty reliably.

On my other server, the grinder prototype doesn't have the lava blade system at the bottom, it just drops them onto the intersection of the two main corridors on the top level of my bedrock mine. It can be terrifying to stand there and look up to see giant spiders and giant squids falling down from 30 meters above.

EDIT: Second Chamber is dark and flowing and sending mobs to their item-extracting doom. It doesn't have a piston access door, as the only design I really know seems to take a lot more wiring than Splated's creations. But the lighting system works.

And since the old ladder went right through the out-spout of this chamber, I dug us a new ladder a few blocks over.

Today I did two small building tasks along with some store room sorting. Someone left a sign about an unfinished wall in the Portal Hallway so I fixed that quickly.

I also decorated the room in front of the Atrium Minecart station to match the rest of the tunnel.

I think we should really focus on the throne room before we start digging out the housing. I don't know what the plan is, but It has been neglected heavily lately. I would destroy the scaffolding myself, but I wasn't sure what was going to be changed/added.

I actually agree with you there... I think now we go and get the throne room done. I removed a large quantity of the scaffolding, but there is still the basics up there... I'll go through an make a specific list for what needs to be done in there

Tonight I did a complete XP grinding session, and spent 50 XP levels on a new diamond pick...and got Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III. So, a great pick for those not wanting to be slowed down by stone picks in branch mining, but not the Fortune III or Silk Touch which I was hoping for. But I saw a couple of fresh Fortune III picks in the enchanted pick chest, so someone else has been having more success than I in that area.

Afterwards, the Trainman and I got an incredible crapload of work done on filling in the lake. We got enough filled in to start work on the third chamber of the darkroom grinder, although not enough to dig the whole thing out. In the end, we simply ran out of gravel and dirt. Tomorrow we'll bring more up from storage and probably finish.

Today I helped mimodo with the tunnel connecting the store room to the throne room. Il try and get some design ideas for the throne room to store room tunnel decoration. I also helped spectrum wars with the big dark room grinder. I learned a little bit on how it worked too. P.s. the grinder is not a fun way to die. Ask me about this on the server and il explain why I added this part.lol

It's a great way to die! All your Items fall out at the quick drop chest, so you get them upon respawn

Brendanan wrote:It's a great way to die! All your Items fall out at the quick drop chest, so you get them upon respawn

Assuming none of them get sprayed into the lava blade upon your death. Remember how I lost that last pick? If they can spray out INSIDE a column, they can do so onto the lava blade. So don't do it with anything you don't want to lose.

And if you guys really want a fast way down to storage level from the surface and darkroom work areas, we CAN build you a water drop that doesn't include exploding creepers and a lava blade at the bottom...

The point isnt speed... It's the fun of falling with the enemies, and dying amongst the corpses

I did find the fall to be quite fun, the drop and lava blade was ok.

I couldn't sleep, so I went back on and did another complete XP grinding session. For 50 XP levels, I got Silk Touch I and nothing else. We finally have two silk touch picks again.

I had to do some work IRL yesterday so I sat in the double grinder for a couple hours. I was at about 41 levels when I lagged and fell in the spider collection chamber that I had just filled. When I spawned and returned I found all of my items but I only got back 9 levels.

Later I was determined to regrind those levels so I sat in the grinder for a couple more hours. This time I was successful and I spent 48 levels on a new diamond pickaxe. It is Fortune III, Efficiency IV, and Unbreaking III, so I was pleased.

Afterwards I attempted to create the arch at the entrance to the Throne room. I used the same design of the arches in the dome for the bottom part, but after that I improvised. I even managed to fit our city crest into the design.

And it look good too (IMO)

I agree with Bren, it looks really good. The store room also looks super awesome! The only thing that could be seen as a problem is the store room and throne room entrance sounding like a slaughter house. I personally don't mind but it's weird from a RP viewpoint.

edit: The loot dropping down by the bed is brilliant! And there's tons of rotten flesh in there.

I've been enjoying the rotten flesh too

And the slaughterhouse sound is great (although I don't listen to sound much)

I've been mining every chance I get. Just wondering, can I bring a fortune pick into the mines with me for diamond and stuff?