Witnessing the end - a minecraft Journal. Chapter 20, 27/11

[FurkeyRefills]

A very nice chapter, that roof looks very nice btw, might steal your design ;)

Your world is getting bigger mate !
Do you think you'll stop when you get to the end of the tech tree ?

Getting to the nether shouldn't be hard :/

[Stormweaver]

A very nice chapter, that roof looks very nice btw, might steal your design ;)

Your world is getting bigger mate !
Do you think you'll stop when you get to the end of the tech tree ?

Getting to the nether shouldn't be hard :/

For storyline purposes, the nether's gonna be a no-go for quite a while. I think. Infact, I'll just see how that goes as I'm making this up as I go along.

As for reaching the end of the tech tree. That, that is going to take a long time. It's going to be a good handful of chapters before Steve even thinks of processing netherrack (although he'll just think it's a nice burny stone at that point) although the screaming when it hits the millstone'll be a good plot device for him jumping back into the BTW tech tree.

[FurkeyRefills]

Very good, would you mind doing some English homework for me ?
;)

[Stormweaver]

Very good, would you mind doing some English homework for me ?
;)

Ugh, my english grades sucked (B&C at GCSE)...I was always more of a science guy.

And now I feel old.

[FurkeyRefills]

Since the English board of education people are all high, they've now pushed GCSE a year forward.

This means I have to do my GCSE's in year 9, which is poopy, because we have less time to study and prepare for doing them in the first place.
But on the other hand we have more time to actually do the courses.

I guess I really shouldn't be saying GCSE, because most of my courses are BTEC, which is just a fancy way of saying no test at the end and more course work to do throughout the year :/

Tbh with you, I fucking loathe school with the very same passion that I loathe Justin Bieber !

[Stormweaver]

Since the English board of education people are all high, they've now pushed GCSE a year forward.

This means I have to do my GCSE's in year 9, which is poopy, because we have less time to study and prepare for doing them in the first place.
But on the other hand we have more time to actually do the courses.

I guess I really shouldn't be saying GCSE, because most of my courses are BTEC, which is just a fancy way of saying no test at the end and more course work to do throughout the year :/

Tbh with you, I fucking loathe school with the very same passion that I loathe Justin Bieber !

I'd have loved it if I was taught anything. I knew most of my GCSE stuff on the day I entered high school, and spent 5 years bored shitless.

...which is probably half the reason I still haven't gone to uni yet, and waste my life on minecraft.

[gftweek]

Since the English board of education people are all high, they've now pushed GCSE a year forward.

This means I have to do my GCSE's in year 9, which is poopy, because we have less time to study and prepare for doing them in the first place.
But on the other hand we have more time to actually do the courses.

I guess I really shouldn't be saying GCSE, because most of my courses are BTEC, which is just a fancy way of saying no test at the end and more course work to do throughout the year :/

Tbh with you, I fucking loathe school with the very same passion that I loathe Justin Bieber !

I'd have loved it if I was taught anything. I knew most of my GCSE stuff on the day I entered high school, and spent 5 years bored shitless.

...which is probably half the reason I still haven't gone to uni yet, and waste my life on minecraft.

English in my last year of high school is the only class I ever failed, even though I did well in it in previous years. Studying poetry and drama just wasn't on the cards for me, plus I didn't get along with the teacher.

Uni however was such a breath of fresh air by comparison, since you are choosing to be there and choosing exactly what to study, and the lecturers respect you as free thinking adults instead of annoying children it's a much better atmosphere than tertiary schooling.

On topic: Enjoying your design skills as much as the story, it's always something I think about focussing on, just as soon as I've finished collecting this resource or building that device, but I usually never get past the big square box.

[Stormweaver]

English in my last year of high school is the only class I ever failed, even though I did well in it in previous years. Studying poetry and drama just wasn't on the cards for me, plus I didn't get along with the teacher.

Uni however was such a breath of fresh air by comparison, since you are choosing to be there and choosing exactly what to study, and the lecturers respect you as free thinking adults instead of annoying children it's a much better atmosphere than tertiary schooling.

On topic: Enjoying your design skills as much as the story, it's always something I think about focussing on, just as soon as I've finished collecting this resource or building that device, but I usually never get past the big square box.

Heh, that was pretty much how I felt. I used to enjoy reading things like macbeth and other classical works, but studying them really ruined it for me.

On topic: Thanks, to be honest I'm a box person too. It's all because I'm posting screenshots for this that I'm putting effort into how it all looks >.< and I like it so far.

I...technically have the screenshots for the next bit done. I'm thinking of uploading them now, and just doing a short chapter to go with them later once I'm in bed to set up for steve's first real job: making a farm. Perhaps 2 farms. Either way, cactus and reeds are easy enough to do, and free wood/redstone is always awesome. Loving EE >.<

[CapnRedbeard]

Hey, been following since you first started!
Wanted to say this is really great, I heart a story, and you've definitely nailed that so far.

Makes me sorta wish I'd done something similar on the world I had going.
I'd taken a break from Minecraft for a while just before 1.8 came out but the SkyBlock got me back into it,
though I may hold off on BTW until the official launch. I've gotten attached to 1.9 quite a bit.
Then again, I may not be able to stay away :)
If I do go back, you've inspired me to check out EE as well, since SkyBlock is definitely the place for it.
... but I digress.

Anyway, this is now one of the stops I make everyday on t'internet to see what's new.
So to echo the sentiment, keep it up!

[Stormweaver]

Anyway, this is now one of the stops I make everyday on t'internet to see what's new.
So to echo the sentiment, keep it up!

I'll do my best to udate it daily then :p

Anyways, somehow I ended up sleeping 14 hours last night. While enjoyable, it means the bit I wanted to do last night still isn't up -.- so expect a new bit when i get back from the chemist ^.^

[Stormweaver]

Huh...this took waaaaay longer to type than expected. That and I had a nap...damned cold making me tired.

CHAPTER 11: MORE DISCOVERY (because allcaps are good for you)

It's taken a couple of days to get used to waking up in a bedroom, overlooking the sunrise. It's a nice feeling, and almost enough to make me forget that the 'horizon' the sun rises from is little more than an illusion, a deep blue mask of smoke to hide an impenetrable darkness below. At any rate, I have no intention of studying that...or even looking, if it can be helped.

Yesterday I built a new platform. It's a trivial task, but I needed a workspace for what I'm planning today, which is the study of redstone. This is old work, and something that was much neglected in the academy, so I'll explain it a little here.

Redstone, as we know is a soft metallic dust. In nature it has two states; a stable state, where it behaves much like grains of sand, and an active state where it draws together and emits a small amount of light and heat. Compressing the stable dust, or exposing it to active dust, causes redstone to become active; this allows for a signal to be passed down a wire of it almost instantaneously, simply by exposing it to pressure or another active signal.

Redstone in the active state holds together, but can often be stabilised simply by applying the 'current' from another active source to an organic material connected to it. In machinery, this was often small needles of bone from fish, or other small animals, though splinters of wood worked just as well. This simple behaviour allowed for compact control over machinery without it needing any kind of power source, and was incredibly efficient. My hope is I can use some of these rules to recreate some forms of automation here, but I'll need to understand how this world has warped the basic nature of redstone before I do anything detailed with it.

I have prepared a number of 'redstone torches'. It's the smallest form of an inverter I could make with these materials, but I expected things to have to scale upwards in this world. A small handful of these I've set into stone slabs in pairs; a pair of inverters would be needed in order to keep the signal strength high enough for it to function properly, but that is just about all I can do with my current knowledge; everything else is up to testing. It's gotten a bit dark, but I've made sure this platform will remain well lit, and I'm not tired yet. Let the testing commence!

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It all went more or less how I hoped. There was one thing I hadn't considered happening in the beginning; it seems that the 'blocks' in this world are able to hold a redstone state. I suppose that, working backwards, this would have been a part of how things used to work, but...seeing it on this scale is almost inspiring. I wonder how much more advanced things could have been if we understood the world that we couldn't see? Sometimes I almost feel glad for the opportunities I have here. At least I know I have access to crude forms of inverters and diodes - I'll be able to do little more than basic logic, but it's a start. Tomorrow, I hope to be able to create something that will interact with redstone...I have a bad feeling about the weather though.

I knew it. I wake up to a downpour of rain - it didn't take much than moving to the lab's window to see the windmill spinning freely; the gearbox must have broken again. Now that I'm working on redstone, maybe I'll be able to rig something to disengage the gears when I'm not using it? I'll see about that when the weather clears up. For now, it looks like I'll just be doing more theory.

A hot breakfast of chicken and dumplings helped me ignore the weather outside. The chickens don't have any form of shelter...will they be alright in this? I should build a proper enclosure for them

I've got my idea. I know for a fact that, in this world, only one 'block' can exist in one 'co-ordinate'. Even if a block isn't taking up the full space, anything else that attempts to be placed there gets pushed sideways, until it either breaks itself back into an item, or finds a free co-ordinate to materialise properly. I'm pretty sure That if I could make one block change in such a way it would take up two blocks, it may well 'push' or break whatever is already in the other block while doing so. The design I have in mind would be somewhat like a piston, I guess.

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Hmm. I can't get a basic design for this to all exist within one block. As a result, even if it could work, it wouldn't do anything...though this is little more than a rock and a panel attached together with redstone. For now I'm out of ideas. I'll do some farming, take my mind of things. I need to try to remember what else can interact with redstone...

I got nothing done today, the rain didn't let up at all. Since I already got soaked harvesting and replanting wheat yesterday, I didn't fancy trying again.

The rain's let up now. First I'll see about making a new gearbox.

I made the right choice rebuilding the gearbox first, as it's given me an idea, if indirectly. normally a small redstone charge would be used to separate the input gear from the rest, so it can spin freely during storms or floods. This uses the fact that two compressed sources of redstone tend to repel each other, if they're not already linked by the current; it's not a strong force, but it's a bit like magnets repelling. I have a hunch that if I were to use something dense, like gold or iron, to amplify this force, I may be able to get the piston to work.

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The iron did it. When charged by a small redstone current, the wooden plate is almost instant propelled exactly one block forward. When the charge is taken away, since the plate isn't really a block in itself, it becomes unstable and quickly retracts into the piston before it breaks apart. It's not as mechanical as I would have liked, but I can't argue with the results.

So what Should I use this for? ideally, I need it to push a block that has very specific requirements for existence, and which will grow on it's own; which leave me with plants, and the only two plants I can think of that don't require much in the way of care are the reeds, and the cactus. Both potentially useful; I know for a fact that cactus can be transmuted into a lightweight, but durable wood for building, while the reeds - or sugarcane, I'm really not sure what it should be called - can be processed into sugar, which can be transmuted into redstone, glowstone, and other fuels. Convenient.

When fixing the gearbox, I added a lever to it; it's little more than a stick with a tiny amount of redstone on it. when it's moved, the contact forces the redstone into an active state, creating a charge. I've made two more, connected to two pistons for a small test. each piston is in a spot where it will break the top of a cactus or a reed when activated, so all I need to do is let them grow. Whichever gives me the best results, I'll use for setting up my first semi-automatic farm.

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This is interesting. It seems that one of the conditions a cactus 'block' has, is that it can't be next to anything solid. With my own eyes I saw it grow, and then the top part became unstable due to the piston - I didn't even need to activate it. The reed grew fine, and broke as expected with the piston being turned on.

Since a lot of my reason for only wanting one farm was that iron was on short supply, I see no reason now why I should not attempt to build both.

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A small thought came to me this evening. were I to make these farms, I had planned to set them up so at a button press, everything would be harvested and I could simply collect them. With my cactus discovery, it brings up one small problem - objects in 'item' form are unstable in the world. Attached to an entity, contained within a solid block, they're fine, but left alone, they dissapeer as fast as the rainwater when the sun comes out. So I built a box with a hole in it. It doesn't look all too impressive, but it should help keep the items stable until I collect them, and perhaps might be able to do more one day. At the very least, I've made a groove in the top where a filter can be placed, and a small flap and a screw that can be operated by mechanical power to let the items out. It's a hopper, I suppose. Should be useful.

Tomorrow, I farm. Tonight...it's chicken again. I miss beef.

[Kwilt]

It looks like you have a bit of a bork on that first spoiler. :P

Unless that was intentional. Otherwise, finally! The real action begins!

[Stormweaver]

It looks like you have a bit of a bork on that first spoiler. :P

Unless that was intentional. Otherwise, finally! The real action begins!

hehe, I thought it looked a whole lot shorter than it should have been :p

Thanks for that. and yeah, the...real...action. yes. Probably the most action untill I create the

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huge mob trap with an enderman combat arena on top

.

...though I'm still looking for narrative justification on that one. It'll come to me >.<

[FurkeyRefills]

Nice chapter, Very progressive !
;)

EDIT: Someone needs to pin this, I love reading this when I get home from school !

[Stormweaver]

That awkward moment when you realise that, despite having made piston-based tree farms, 12-story hemp farms and a four-floor elevator, you've never made a cactus farm.

...so there was going to be an update tonight. Turns out I'll be sleeping first >.>

[darahalian]

Nice! I've really been enjoying your explanations of minecraft physics, but your justification of how redstone works in the inner workings of things like levers and pistons and such is pure genius! It makes perfect sense and makes redstone seem a little less mysterious/magical and more physical and workable.

I've also been enjoying the story quite a bit... the general idea along with the cool explanations of minecraft physics has been making for a very interesting read; I'm looking forward to the rest of it! I can't wait to see where you take the story with the more morally questionable aspects of BTW.....

[Brethern]

Nice! I've really been enjoying your explanations of minecraft physics, but your justification of how redstone works in the inner workings of things like levers and pistons and such is pure genius! It makes perfect sense and makes redstone seem a little less mysterious/magical and more physical and workable.

I've also been enjoying the story quite a bit... the general idea along with the cool explanations of minecraft physics has been making for a very interesting read; I'm looking forward to the rest of it! I can't wait to see where you take the story with the more morally questionable aspects of BTW.....

There was a saying magic is just science we don't understand. I'm really enjoying this series but I do have a question about the skybox map. If you build far enough you're going to hit land right? I'm curious as to how that's going to fit into the story.

[Stormweaver]

Nice! I've really been enjoying your explanations of minecraft physics, but your justification of how redstone works in the inner workings of things like levers and pistons and such is pure genius! It makes perfect sense and makes redstone seem a little less mysterious/magical and more physical and workable.

I've also been enjoying the story quite a bit... the general idea along with the cool explanations of minecraft physics has been making for a very interesting read; I'm looking forward to the rest of it! I can't wait to see where you take the story with the more morally questionable aspects of BTW.....

There was a saying magic is just science we don't understand. I'm really enjoying this series but I do have a question about the skybox map. If you build far enough you're going to hit land right? I'm curious as to how that's going to fit into the story.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't know where land starts.

The way I see it, I have three options.
1) don't build more than 500~ blocks away from the bedrock
2) use a map editor to delete chunks as I find them
3) use the -snip- plot device to -snip- while steve -snip-

After all, one day steve will realise that not only does the skyblock not have oil, it also doesn't even have anything to use oil to fuel. And by that point, we can all assume steve's going to be spending most of his time sat in his -snip- worshiping -snip-.

I took the liberty of removing the potential spoilers. In all truth, I have no idea what steve's going to do either :/

[Brethern]

Nice! I've really been enjoying your explanations of minecraft physics, but your justification of how redstone works in the inner workings of things like levers and pistons and such is pure genius! It makes perfect sense and makes redstone seem a little less mysterious/magical and more physical and workable.

I've also been enjoying the story quite a bit... the general idea along with the cool explanations of minecraft physics has been making for a very interesting read; I'm looking forward to the rest of it! I can't wait to see where you take the story with the more morally questionable aspects of BTW.....

There was a saying magic is just science we don't understand. I'm really enjoying this series but I do have a question about the skybox map. If you build far enough you're going to hit land right? I'm curious as to how that's going to fit into the story.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't know where land starts.

The way I see it, I have three options.
1) don't build more than 500~ blocks away from the bedrock
2) use a map editor to delete chunks as I find them
3) use the -snip- plot device to -snip- while steve -snip-

After all, one day steve will realise that not only does the skyblock not have oil, it also doesn't even have anything to use oil to fuel. And by that point, we can all assume steve's going to be spending most of his time sat in his -snip- worshiping -snip-.

I took the liberty of removing the potential spoilers. In all truth, I have no idea what steve's going to do either :/

having steve reach land could be interesting. Maybe expand the story into steve building a new settlement for himself.

[Stormweaver]

Ugh. Learning how to make a largish cactus farm shouldn't be done while not having land below you...it's taken ages.

But whatever. I have all the screens, so I'll have the next chapter out...in a few hours or something.

[Nekhs]

I wanted you to know that I registered here specifically to thank you for this.

I wouldn't have bothered installing this mod OR equivalent exchange probably until they were released for live - when live itself is released in a couple of weeks.

Now I can't really imagine playing without them.

I just don't have the patience to progress further than 'self-sustaining' in the skyblock challenge. ;)

Enjoying the story, as well!

((Edit to clarify: I had to downgrade from the prereleases to do so, and my server still runs 1.9.4 pre, so initially I figured cost > benefit.))

[Stormweaver]

I wanted you to know that I registered here specifically to thank you for this.

*pride*

I gave up on the prereleaeses to be honest. While they are adding a few bits of new content, ultimately it still feels like the same game i got bored to tears of before I found BTW. Gameplay > dragons.

For everyone else; sorry about the late update. Still feeling ill -.- The spoilers for the next bit (along with the reminder text for me typing it up) are spoiled in the OP, if anyone wants to look. If this lemsip decides to work anytime soon, it'll be up tonight.

[pi4t]

Great story! I didn't register just to thank you for this, but this is the first post I've made that hasn't been of the 'I have bug. Fix now.' variety. I've always liked reading stories of playthroughs of games (Civilisation being a common one), and a Minecraft story is great in itself. And you've got the best style IMHO, where your character doesn't know all the stuff and you provide 'explanations' as time goes on.

So yes, keep it up. (I'm kind of worried, as nearly every other story I've posted on, no matter how successful, has received few/no updates after my post. If Storm disappears suddenly now, you can all blame me :) )

[Stormweaver]

Fear not pi4t, having found I have the second highest number of posts in the community (yeah, who'd have thought. I'm not even a turtle -.-) the least I can do is to...continue doing exactly what I was doing anyways.

By the way, credit for the reed farm design goes to...someone on here who posted a video of one. I've used it ever since...though I think this is the first time It's ever just had one storey. Otherwise, this is a fucking long chapter. There are typos. I'll deal with them later >.<

Chapter 12: Automation

Originally, I was going to spend today building my farms. Having given it some though, I'll begin that tomorrow, as I'm sure that this is going to be a project that will require something That I haven't actually done before, since building anything here: planning.

So what do I know? First comes the materials I'll be farming. Cactus, in a lot of ways, 'farms' itself. It grows at a steady rate, and if the top part becomes obstructed, it breaks and falls to the floor. Sugarcane grows somewhat sporadically, and requires breaking manually, though in this case, I intend to use my latest invention, the piston.

Second comes the redstone and pistons. It takes roughly one ingot of iron to make a piston which is able to extend into another block. I have a lot of iron handy, from downgrading the materials gained from enderpearls, so this shouldn't be an issue when it comes to size. Apon experimentation, I discovered that a redstone charge becomes undetectable, that is to say it ends, after approximately 15 meters. This can be extended by using either a buffer, or a pair of torches. Torches can also be used to transmit a charge upwards, which I think will be necessary.

Third comes transportation. Currently, the only times I've ever seen an item move without my interference is when it has just been broken, or it has been placed in moving water. As such, I think that setting up a water flow to transport the items is going to be the best method of gathering them all in the same place. Earlier today I set up a short, temporary channel to see how far water would be able to carry items, and got a distance of about 8 meters from one bucket's worth. This is probably going to be the limiting factor for the farms.

My plan involves having a water channel from each farm deposit the items into my hoppers. the mos reasonable method of doing this that I can see is for each farm to have a central water channel to carry the items out, and have this fed by a number of other channels into which the items will fall. with this is mind, the interior length is going to be approximately 17m - the length of 2 full channels, and the 1m space for the central channel. As for the width, I'd like the keep that at 8m or less, again due to the length water can move. off the top of my head, it should work - 1m for a water channel, 1m for the cane plant, 1m for the pistons, 1m for the wiring and then pistons, cane and water again make 7m. adding walls, the platform for the sugarcanes will be 19mx9m. I'll try and make the cactus farm the same size.

Now that I have all that written, I should sleep. This is going to be a long job. I just need to cook what stone I have left overnight...I hope I have enough to build this.

I woke up, crafted the brick I needed and grabbed enough cold chicken to last me the day. I'll need to build a platform for under the farms, and work from there upwards. First thing will be he chutes to carry the items to me; once they're made, I know where the rest of the building work needs to be done.

After building the platform, I noticed that I'd left the door open in my house. I noticed this, because I could see chickens indoors. It's taken me a long time to chase them out, but I should at least be able to finish the chutes by tonight.

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Tomorrow I'll make a start on those platforms.

The weather looks clear, the door to the yard is empty, an I'm all stocked up on bricks. I should have enough...hopefully when this is done, I can use some of the cane farm's output to make any more stone I'll need.

The making of the platforms went smoothly, despite losing my balance and almost falling off once. I stuck the first layer of a wall around each for now, so I should be safe while planning the next part up here. I'll build the cactus farm first; it's a much simpler construction, and it'll save me messing around with redstone for now; I don't want to find myself hungry while handling the stuff.

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I have plenty of wood at the moment, and since I'll be able to make more the moment this is working, I decided to continue the construction with wood. First I filled the water channel in the centre, to make sure it would link up ok. Then I placed sand in a grid pattern across the whole platform; this is where the cactus will be planted. I thought it was going well to begin with, but when I tried adding the water streams, I noticed that there were a lot of 'dead spots' where the water was more or less still. as far as I could tell, I'd be wasting about a third of my cactus if I left it like that, which didn't seem right. Since sand is one of the few materials that cannot stay suspended in mid-air, I'll need to make a platform for each sand block to sit on, and make sure there is space underneath for the water to flow freely.

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I managed that, but it took the better part of the day to sort out. at least the water is fine now, so I might have a chance at getting it planted up tonight.

Working towards a plan like this is oddly rewarding. I always used to like being spontaneous when building things; both in the old world, and in this new one, but seeing this come together is satisfying, even when I'm unsure if it will even work yet. All the sand is in place, and the water is flowing correctly; a few space items of wood tossed in at random places made it all of the way down the end of the chute without getting stuck. It's starting to get dark, but I just need to plant up the cactus, and place something to cause them the break when they grow, and this side is done.

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This morning I'll be making my start on the reed farm. I've got my wood, my food and some dirt, but I think I can see shadows on the platform.

Spiders. Thankfully not aggressive - they rarely are in sunlight - but they're crawling all over the second platform. Why here? To begin with, It looked almost like the monsters were coming out of the darkness when I first saw them, but it's true that this platform wasn't lit up. Could it really be that they only get sent to dark places? I've never been able to watch from close up, but if that's the case...I'm glad I've been careful to light everything up till now. I'll have to put lighting in these farms too.

They left eventually, via the blue void below me. Do the spiders know what is down there? I don't see why anything alive would make that leap willfully.

The groundwork is done. I raised the platform a little, in anticipation of where the wiring will have to go, added a wooden wall, and put the dirt and water in place for the reeds. I then used some of my remaining stone to make a support for the pistons; I could have used wood, but until I know more about pistons I'd rather use something stronger to support them.

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Having installed the pistons and planted the reeds, all that's left is the wiring. I'll eat first. It seems the cactus side is already working, some just made it's way down the chute.

The wiring for this, I think is pretty simple. First I ran a 'wire' from the end closest to the chutes to a block in the middle. On the chute end, I took out an extra block to lead the wire down, and placed a lever on the other side - for now, this will be the on/off switch for the pistons. On the block in the middle is a redstone torch; this will be active and cause a charge in the block above it whenever the switch is 'off'. Since it was dark in there, I put a few torches on the walls... I doubt a monetr appearing in there will be a problem, but I can't be too careful.

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Above the redstone torch at the bottom is another block with a torch on it. Since the block is receiving a charge, this one is inactive - the theory is that when the switch is on, the bottom one will stop disabling this one - but when active, it will send a change through the redstone 'wire' here. This will in turn activate this pistons, allowing me to control all 32 of them with one switch.

For now I'll take a break. This is a more tiring project than I thought it would be. Maybe I'll have an early night. I'll set some glass up in the furnaces, as if things have gone well I'll be finishing up tomorrow.

I tested the switch this morning, after seeing a neat pile of cactus sat at the end it it's chute. The pistons are all working fine - I was worried I had made a mistake somewhere.

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With that, all that's left is making sure the farms are well lit, and covered over. I had already used some glowstone for lighting - it being solid makes it more convenient than torches, when building, even if it's much harder to get the resources for it. a few pieces along the top should be enough to keep the roofs lit up, although I wish I had a bit more. While working yesterday I had been giving some thought to the glowstone aggregators, and I think I can make one. Once this is done, I'll make that my next project, even if I use it for little more than lighting.

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With the glass windows in place, the reed farm is finished. Now I just need to do the same for the cactus side, and it's over. While I'm up here, I'm going to put a bit of wood detailing on the glass, I'll see how it looks later.

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I took the wooden scaffolding down too early. I'm pleased with the result - it's easy enough on the eye, as floating greenhouses go - but the moulding looks out of place. Guess I'll remove that now.

All that's left is installing the hoppers. I figure I may as well put the chests under them; I'll set up the mechanical power to empty the hoppers at some point in the future, but right now it'd just look strange to not have them. But with this...the project is more or less done.

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A constant supply of wood, and the materials to allow me to explore alchemy further. I guess this is just one step forward among hundreds, but I think I'm proud of this one, simple as it is. Time to have a rest, spend a few more days watching to see if anyone's coming to rescue me. If they do, will I want to leave so soon?

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Next time, on this thing with way too long a name: alchemy! Cauldrons! meaningless filler! Don't miss it!

[KriiEiter]

I wanted to do the same thing with a cactus farm. Just plop an alchemy chest with a black hole band and gem of eternal density, and voila! You then have a great supply of wood from cacti.