Forestry, Extra Bees, and Magic Bees once again have an up to date combination that work with eachother!
Grimoire of Gaia has had a busy week, and put out a 3rd update. Many additional items, and tweaks. And garden gnomes.
I’ve moved up to the current Enhanced Portals.
I noticed I’d left Better Dungeons off the list. I’ve been using it all along.
Worldgen
Extra Biomes XL 3.13.4 : A wide range of additional biome types to explore, as well as some new plants. I have all of the biomes disabled right now, so that my initial area will be base biomes.
Biomes O’ Plenty 0.5.5 : Another biome mod. Once again, the biomes are disabled in the main overworld, meaning I’ll only have vanilla biomes. However, when I start journeying the multiverse with Mystcraft, any biome from EBXL or BOP could make an appearance. 0.5.5 now adds biomes to the Nether dimension too.
Metallurgy 3.0.0.0.11.3 : Adds a wide range of additional metals, and ores. It’ll be dealing with most of the ore generating in worldgen, apart from a few from Tinker’s Construct that it doesn’t include. I’ve turned the rarity of ore up from its default settings which seem rather too generous to me. The 1.5.2 versions are only available from Rebel Keithy’s twitter feed, linked to at the start of the Metallurgy thread.
Dungeon Pack 1.5.2 v3 : Adds a variety of structures to the land of minecraft. I have a lot of mods which add structures, so I’ve made these pretty rare. I’ve also disabled quite a few structures that I didn’t like the look of, particularly ones that float in the sky. I like my sky clear!
Ruins : More structures added to the world. Once again I’ve turned the rarity right up.
Natura 2.1 : Some new trees, and a variety of berry bushes. I particularly like the Eucalyptus tree. Now also makes significant changes to the Nether.
Wild Caves 3.0.4.2 : Adds stalactites, spiderwebs, and other decorations to caves and other underground areas. It makes spelunking a little more interesting, and usefully for me, the increase in diversity makes it harder to get lost!
Better Dungeons 1.07 by Chocolatin: Even more structures, but this time with some new enemies too. Warning: May contain pirates!
Quality of Life
Not Enough Items 1.5.2.25 : This adds a recipe search system, which becomes increasingly vital the more mods you’re using. It also has quite a few cheat options, but I shall not be using those unless its needed to recover from a serious bug. NEI requires CodeChickenCore (I’m using version 0.8.6.15), available from the same page. Its tooltip option interacts badly with certain objects from other mods I’m using, so I’ll be keeping that off most of the time.
In need of inner peace after my disastrous obsidian hunting expedition, I decide to build an aquarium.
Renewed, I also build an anvil for using my stock of enchanted books.
A quiet and somewhat uneventful episode, but I was pleased to finally have some enchanted tools. Since recording I’ve continued my grand staircase downwards and have just broken into a cave network. I’ll save looking in there for the next episode.
Anvil enchanting is vanilla Minecraft, of course, but new to me. This is my first proper game since Alpha, and even unmodded Minecraft still has plenty of new things for me to learn.
Mo Creatures by Dr Zhark and Bloodshot 42 : I’m not sure how many different sorts of fish there are to collect. I do have some piranha eggs, but I thought that might be tempting fate.
Wild Caves was responsible for the spider webs I collected down in the caves.
Farlanders adds rubies to worldgen for trading with the friendly Farlanders. Not to be confused with the identical looking Ruby planted by Biomes O’ Plenty, who made the deliberate and annoying decision to be incompatible.
After a joyous beginning where I introduce my newly bred horse while fighting off an army of monsters, it all goes a bit wrong.
I demonstrate how to make steel from Manganese and Iron, and then bravely set off to use my steel pick to carve some obsidian.
Mods Encountered
Metallurgy by Rebel Keithy and Shadowclaimer : Steel is another step up from Damascus Steel, but I am not currently in possession of enough Manganese to dream of putting it into general usage.
Grimoire of Gaia by Silentine : Dullahan!! That’s what those pesky little blue folks were called. I shall have forgotten again by the next time I encounter one.
Enhanced Portals gets its first mention rather sooner than I expected. It would appear that, in addition to improving how portals work, it also has something to say about the properties of obsidian, the main material for portals. If you don’t have Enhanced Portals installed, steel will handle obsidian very nicely indeed. For me, I shall have to accelerate my descent to depths where diamonds can be found.
The reasons for my pumpkin and wheat farming become clear, as I go in search of a trusty steed or three to help me get around a little faster.
Mods Encountered
Mo Creatures by Dr Zhark and Bloodshot42 : The horses, donkeys, saddles, sugarlumps and medallions are all Mo Creatures. Through selective breeding, and a little magic, it is possible to attain pegasi, unicorns, and other exotic mounts. I’ll settle for a sturdy and loyal companion for now.
I’ll be making the means to get horses to stay still in the next episode. That should allow me to take Pablo the pack-donkey on adventures *relatively* safely. I just hope he does better than the luggage in that regard.
Rancraft Penguins : Today was the triumphant first appearance of a Rancraft Penguin. That’s one, getting devoured when I go over to the ocean, just as I clumsily cut to the next scene. Most of the penguin species appear in icier biomes than I’ve found yet, but a few appear on beach sub-biomes, which I guess I’m encountering for the first time in that area.
In the last episode I claimed there was an unstable Thaumcraft vis node south of my base. Today, I show how I could have known that without goggles, and go to check it out a bit more closely.
I also do a bit of vegetable farming.
Mods Encountered
Thaumcraft by Azanor : The obsidian altar will continue to pump out aggressive-aspected wisps until I deal with the spawner. As it’s embedded inside obsidian, I couldn’t do that today. Even if I could destroy it, I’m somewhat reluctant to, as wisps can drop some useful ingredients.
Mo Creatures by Dr Zhark and Bloodshot42 : I’ll probably need to put fences around my farms eventually, as Mo Creatures is filled with critters who like messing with your crops.
Natura by mDiyo : Natura adds cotton and barley seeds to grass drops, as well as the pants themselves growing in the wild.
Forestry by SirSengir : I now have some visible cross-bred leaf blocks on the trees near my hives. Most exciting, but I’m leaving them where they are until I can analyse their genetic structure and pick the best saplings for the next generation.
Today I put my wizard hat back on, and begin to dabble in the weird ways of Thaumcraft research.
Realising that magic is not the only path to success, I also show how to create a batch of Damascus Steel with Metallurgy. Damascus Steel is made by mixing bronze dust and iron dust. It is a little better than iron for most purposes, and is significantly more durable, meaning that gear will last far longer. All tools and armour made with Metallurgy metals have a unique appearance too.
Mods Encountered
Metallurgy by Rebel Keithy and Shadowclaimer : There are a great many ores and alloys in Metallurgy beyond the ones I’ve used so far. Most of them are rarer, or in the Nether or End. Damascus Steel is a good working material for me where I am, still in the very early game.
Grimoire of Gaia by Silentine just updated to 1.4. As well as taking pity on me in my Extreme Hills home (Silentine watches the series!) by pushing Griffons and Valkyrie up from sea level, the new version also adds 5 new monsters whom I’m sure shall be delighted to see me.
Thaumcraft by Azanor : At last I’m back on track to becoming a mighty Thaumaturge! I did mispeak though, as I have done a little with Thaumcraft in a previous episode. You can catch me creating my first wand, and the fabled Thaumonomicon back in episode 11.
The crucible is a tricky beast, from what my studies tell me, so is going to require a room of its own. I’m extending the ground floor of the wizard tower to accommodate it.
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