Better Than Wolves Forum

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:25 pm**

That's one of the things I have a slight issue with. The hunt for wither skulls. I kinda stopped playing the server for the last week or so because of it. I know that if I go in there, it's back to killing wither skeletons.

I already hunted for at least 16 hours and I've got exactly 1 skull out of it :/

I could probably make a nether farm, but that groth requirement makes it a LOT of work. Mind you, I'm not really saying the balance is off yet, I might be missing the point.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:38 pm**

Spoiler ahead, maybe, I don't know.

I haven't done that yet, but it seems people are missing the obvious with the wither skulls thing. As long as you find a jungle temple, you have everything you need to make a simple chopping block trap. You can make one of these traps in a nether fortress and simply lure some skeletons after you. You don't need to make a full nether fortress mob trap for this.

Again, I didn't try this yet, but I don't see how it could not work. Just don't fall in it yourself :P That would be a fast, tragic death.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:42 pm**

jorgebonafe wrote:Spoiler ahead, maybe, I don't know.

I haven't done that yet, but it seems people are missing the obvious with the wither skulls thing. As long as you find a jungle temple, you have everything you need to make a simple chopping block trap. You can make one of these traps in a nether fortress and simply lure some skeletons after you. You don't need to make a full nether fortress mob trap for this.

Again, I didn't try this yet, but I don't see how it could not work. Just don't fall in it yourself :P That would be a fast, tragic death.

I hadn't considered that myself. The existence of the chopping block in a temple with pistons (also required for this) seems to me that this is the way to go. I could imagine plenty of good designs where you have a chopping block set up two blocks above and you can just run under it and wither skeletons get chopped up. Nice!

I wonder how much more common skulls are when you use a chopping block...

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:46 pm**

jorgebonafe wrote:Spoiler ahead, maybe, I don't know.

I haven't done that yet, but it seems people are missing the obvious with the wither skulls thing. As long as you find a jungle temple, you have everything you need to make a simple chopping block trap. You can make one of these traps in a nether fortress and simply lure some skeletons after you. You don't need to make a full nether fortress mob trap for this.

Again, I didn't try this yet, but I don't see how it could not work. Just don't fall in it yourself :P That would be a fast, tragic death.

This is why I love the mod and this community. The problem solving required to progress and the people willing to share their ideas with the rest of us.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:55 pm**

Mason11987 wrote:
Yhetti wrote:2 Things: 1) My blacksmith is a greedy bastard, he charges tremendous prices for iron armor and tools, but the others seem pretty reasonable.
He does sell for a lot more than any other villager, but he has a lot of good stuff. All iron and diamond tools and armor. Chain Armor and refined tools too. He's definitely intended to be the emerald sink, which serves an important need when you consider that the farmer is designed as an emerald faucet since most of it's trades give emeralds for farmable goods.

I don't think the librarian sells anything (before max level), same with the priest (except ender eyes, and enchantment) the Farmer sells stuff, but only for a single emerald I think. The butcher mostly sells for a single emerald as well (except for tanned armor/saddle).

From doing a lot of trades with my blacksmith I've found he buys iron ingots 6:1 to 9:1 but sells iron tools at (by ingot) 1:2 to maybe 1:3. So if he's turning those ingots into iron tools, he's selling by ingot for about 12 to 27 times his cost, talk about a costly shaft!

It looks like selling him resources to make diamond ingots is a better deal, but of course diamonds are not renewable, so that makes sense too.

I did notice in my trades that the boots of all types seemed cheaper than I would expect, given the cost of other items. For example, I got diamond boots for 2 Emerald on the ingot but the best helmet I could find was 4 per ingot, same with chestplate and leggings and all the tools

Yeah but I can make iron faster than I can earn 20 or so emeralds for his trades, obviously the diamond trades are invaluable, the blacksmith has actually given my third player on the sever a full set of diamond armor. It just seems stupid because he will ask for several iron ingots and only give me one emerald and then give me armor for 20 times the amount.

I didn't know he traded refined/chain stuff(Spoiler alert), but he wanted hafts so I figured he would at some point. I am guessing those are only for max level, and his last "++" trade is something like an anvil then, so I have to wait for those. Mine is only at level 4, and I haven't been to the end yet.

On the whole wither skull thing (Yes I get it):
It's sort of amazing how this one last thing just sort of makes the whole game fit together very nicely.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 4:21 pm**

Actually, the chopping block was an alternative I was already considering. I had some vague ideas on how I might go about doing it (like building safe walking lanes for me outside the walls of the fortress), but had yet to really work out enough of the specifics to convince myself that it would work. :P Also, I figured I would still probably need to use a bit of groth anyways to up the spawn rates.

But no doubt, it's an interesting problem.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 4:41 pm**

remember you could always sacrifice some damage to get a higher count of Skulls by using an axe instead of a sword

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 4:48 pm**

RalphKastro wrote:remember you could always sacrifice some damage to get a higher count of Skulls by using an axe instead of a sword

Only the Battle Axe (SFS) gives you a bonus to get heads.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 5:15 pm**

I was disgustingly lucky on this topic of wither skulls.

I saw the same system as you guys, I brought a big windmill, saw blade, chopping blocks from a jungle temple as well as other goodies and made a railway to my nether fortress. Then I unleashed the groth plague and started making a windmill room in the heart of the fortress. Every so often a Wither skeleton ran up to me brandishing his sword. I got one skull early on, but before I had finished my death contraption, I got another two skulls in a row.

I was pretty dumbfounded and left my trap unfinished. I'll return to it later. After spending hours helping the groth on its way and carving into the fortress, I was ready to do something else and praised my luck.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 6:33 pm**

I like to think I'm big enough to admit that the above was a total oversight on my part that just happened to turn into some cool emergent gameplay :)

I had totally forgotten about the exceedingly low vanilla drop rates on wither skulls, which was actually what the battle axe bit was originally meant to correct. So, as I was reading through the thread this morning I was internally saying "ah fuck...I messed that one up".

Then the thing about the chopping blocks in temples and Saws came up and I was all like "Woot! Brilliant accidental design!". I don't think I could have planned that one better if I had tried :)

I really like it as it blends together a bunch of aspects of the design, encourages the player to explore mechanical power in the nether, plays off the chopping blocks in temples (which I originally put in for looks and the story they tell rather than as part of the progression), makes the vertical wind mill a part of the progression, encourages the use of groth, is a nice little puzzle for the player, and overall is just a whole lot of goodness.

Would love to take credit for the above, but when dealing with such a complex system, sometimes these things just kinda come together on their own :)

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 6:48 pm**

I had been thinking about chopping blocks + fortress. I'll test it out on stream ASAP, probably either tonight or Sunday.

Personally, I really dislike being forced into automation, but don't mind technology incentives. So, if it came down to being forced to create a nether trap, that'd not sit well with me and feel bad, but trying out chopping blocks sounds like fun. So yeah, I'm going to try to go the chopping block (without groth) route and see how hard that is to pull off.

We have certain 2 high platforms in our fortress where we regularly farm withers that would be able to support one of these contraptions. How many I can lure in there is another question. I'll experiment.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 7:38 pm**

Ok, I might be doing something stupid, or maybe I just don't know how these chopping block traps are suposed to work.

So I got two saws in a row, and two chopping blocks one block away. There are pressure plates that trigger pistons and push the chopping blocks on the saws. The whole thing is on the third block high, so I can pass under it, and it should kill the skeletons. But as they pass on the trap they just start to suffocate on the chopping block, and the saw doesn't seem to do any damage. It takes like 7 seconds form them to die.... It happened twice in a row, so I don't think it was an accident. Can anyone point out if I'm messing up something stupid?

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:14 pm**

jorgebonafe wrote:Ok, I might be doing something stupid, or maybe I just don't know how these chopping block traps are suposed to work.

So I got two saws in a row, and two chopping blocks one block away. There are pressure plates that trigger pistons and push the chopping blocks on the saws. The whole thing is on the third block high, so I can pass under it, and it should kill the skeletons. But as they pass on the trap they just start to suffocate on the chopping block, and the saw doesn't seem to do any damage. It takes like 7 seconds form them to die.... It happened twice in a row, so I don't think it was an accident. Can anyone point out if I'm messing up something stupid?

You're not missing something stupid. It's just that for some reason the saw has to be on one of the bottom two blocks; having it on the third block doesn't work.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:18 pm**

That may have something to do with the messed up collision volume on wither skels. If I remember right they're visually 3 blocks tall but have a bounding volume identical to regular skeletons.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:23 pm**

Oh, ok... Redesign time, then :P

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:30 pm**

Yeah, sorry about that man, I'd definitely like it not to be the case, but while I can't remember all the details, I do remember that the last time I looked at what it would take to change it, it was a bit of a mess.

I'm foggy on the details, but I think it may of had to do with the pathfinding system not being setup to handle 3-block tall walking mobs, so if the skels were taller, they'd constantly try to path through "doorways" (as in 2 block high gaps) only to repeatedly bang their head on the frame :P

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:35 pm**

Sure, its fine... I'm just worried because now I may get my own head chopped off :P

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:39 pm**

jorgebonafe wrote:Sure, its fine... I'm just worried because now I may get my own head chopped off :P

Well, if it's any consolation, your own head can make for lovely decoration :)

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 8:41 pm**

jorgebonafe wrote:Ok, I might be doing something stupid, or maybe I just don't know how these chopping block traps are suposed to work.

So I got two saws in a row, and two chopping blocks one block away. There are pressure plates that trigger pistons and push the chopping blocks on the saws. The whole thing is on the third block high, so I can pass under it, and it should kill the skeletons. But as they pass on the trap they just start to suffocate on the chopping block, and the saw doesn't seem to do any damage. It takes like 7 seconds form them to die.... It happened twice in a row, so I don't think it was an accident. Can anyone point out if I'm messing up something stupid?

If I'm not terribly mistaken, you could just put the saw in a way they walk directly into it when the piston triggers

Edit:Ninja'd.... quite a lot

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:05 pm**

Have you considered using obsidian pressure plates to momentarily disable the pistons? I used something like this to shred pursuing mobs once before I developed the water gates

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:11 pm**

DaveYanakov wrote:Have you considered using obsidian pressure plates to momentarily disable the pistons? I used something like this to shred pursuing mobs once before I developed the water gates

That might be viable if obsidian pressure plates hadn't been switched to SFS ;)

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:19 pm**

Hold up. Wither skeletons definitely have a larger than 2 block bounding box because you can block them with a two block high opening that allows you to escape but blocks them. I do this all the time in nether forts for self preservation.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:21 pm**

Yeah, completely slipped my mind that wither skeletons are one of the bottlenecks to get to the End now. Sorry about that.

Spoiler

Show

The first is finding one of these bloody temples!

Sarudak, Wither skellies do indeed have a taller than 2 block footprint as evidenced by their suffocation but their bounding box still misses the blade of the saw.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:23 pm**

DaveYanakov wrote: Sarudak, Wither skellies do indeed have a taller than 2 block footprint as evidenced by their suffocation but their bounding box still misses the blade of the saw.

Ah hah! There you go. That totally makes sense.

Hmmm...will do some head scratching on that one.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:46 pm**

Tripwire three blocks from the floor is a method that will detect wither skeletons but not passing players. I just made an effective little bottleneck trap with this. I have to say, it was the first time I've ever used tripwire in Minecraft, and it's painfully obvious that it's a Dinnerbone feature and not something implemented by FC or Notch. In fifteen minutes I ran into all sorts of weird issues and inconsistent behavior, but it does work if you slog through all that. :-/

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