secret_online's recent activity

  1. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link
    New thread, new progress update. I worked on two main builds over the past week. The first was the result of a discovery Eth made one day: a mole had made its way into our cave. Maybe it wasn't a...

    New thread, new progress update.

    I worked on two main builds over the past week.

    The first was the result of a discovery Eth made one day: a mole had made its way into our cave. Maybe it wasn't a mole, maybe just a @hamstergeddon. Unfortunately, the level they were digging their rail tunnel at intersected our cave and would have gone straight through our iron farm. So, after some consultation with Eth, I built an underwater glass tunnel in a similar style to the road tunnel higher up in the base and dug a connection down to it. I dont have my own screenshots, so I'll use Creesch's instead.

    The second is the Spruce Community Portal's portal in the Nether. I asked @ColdheartsTalon if they were accepting trees built by others, and they said yes, so I designed and built a tree. I'm quite happy with how this turned out, being my first serious attempt at a custom tree. The hanging lamps are to mirror the ones on the overworld side of the portal, as well as to light it up so you can actually see the branches more clearly.

    The saga of the wind charge player launcher has probably come to its end. After some more experimentation with @teaearlgraycold we still haven't been able to get a long-distance launch at a speed that gets from home to Poland at any reasonable pace. That was sort of my original hope, that I could zoop over at pretty much any time, probably breaking Poland's airspace laws in doing so.

    Other than that, there's been a lot of small bits of work. I think my major rush at the start is over, and I'm going to have to settle into a slower rhythm otherwise I will burn out.

  2. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    I've just restocked the launcher, because it was completely empty. It takes 7 stacks of breeze rods to fill it up, which is, uh, about 6.5 hours of AFKing at the breeze farm. I really need to add...

    I've just restocked the launcher, because it was completely empty. It takes 7 stacks of breeze rods to fill it up, which is, uh, about 6.5 hours of AFKing at the breeze farm. I really need to add more Trial Chambers to the minecart loop.

  3. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    They do not. The game has multiple mob caps for different categories. Glow squid fall under the "underground water creature" cap, which has a limit of 5 (barring nearby player shenanigans)....

    There is the iron farm with mobs above it (although I am not sure they influence the calculation)

    They do not. The game has multiple mob caps for different categories. Glow squid fall under the "underground water creature" cap, which has a limit of 5 (barring nearby player shenanigans). They're also the only thing in that particular cap, so even regular squid don't affect glow squid spawning.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Reading the game's code, the player_movement_check gamerule applies when the player isn't flying,and has a lower limit of 100 blocks per tick as opposed to the elytra's 300 blocks per tick. I...

    Reading the game's code, the player_movement_check gamerule applies when the player isn't flying,and has a lower limit of 100 blocks per tick as opposed to the elytra's 300 blocks per tick. I don't think I'm actually going that fast on launch, especially on lower charge times, but I really have no way of knowing.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    I've now replaced the slabs at the bottom that were holding the bubble columns with rails, so there should no longer be anything that could possibly get in the way while launching. In case it...

    I've now replaced the slabs at the bottom that were holding the bubble columns with rails, so there should no longer be anything that could possibly get in the way while launching. In case it somehow does kill you again, the dispensers above the snow have buckets to pick up/place it down again, so you can use those to temporarily clear the area.

    I'm still having velocity resets happening all the time, including really close to the platform at low charge levels (like, less than a second). I don't know whether this is the game's built-in check (also shout out to the Fabric project for making mcsrc, being able to read the Minecraft code whenever I like is great), which can be disabled with by setting the elytra_movement_check gamerule to false. It seems likely, given that the code there is basically "if going too fast, don't".

    I will ping @teaearlgraycold to see if you'll consider changing the gamerule (even just to test whether this is the cause of the velocity resets), but I will also say that this player launcher will almost certainly cause lag spikes when people use it because the server will try to load chunks along the way.

    1 vote

  6. Comment on Jet Lag Season 16: Hide + Seek United Kingdom | Trailer in ~hobbies

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Episode 6 spoilers I personally don't think the Prosperous Home curse is that powerful. In the last time it was played, it took exactly 1 radar question to narrow it right back down to the...
    Episode 6 spoilers

    I personally don't think the Prosperous Home curse is that powerful. In the last time it was played, it took exactly 1 radar question to narrow it right back down to the original radius, netting a whole 15 minutes in time bonuses from the card that was pulled. The curse costs 20 minutes to cast. In that round, playing the curse was worth -5 minutes.

    In order to make it really effective, you have to have the right kind of hiding zone, and you have to hope that it takes the seekers more than 20 minutes to narrow down to a similar area as before you cast the curse. The problem is that there are too many opportunities with all of the questions to cut the area in half again, which greatly reduces the value of the curse to me.

    A doubled curse might be interesting though, because the area increases with r². That costing a double and 40 minutes is pretty steep, though.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on Jet Lag Season 16: Hide + Seek United Kingdom | Trailer in ~hobbies

    secret_online
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Episode 6 spoilers It's looking good for Team Ben this run. I always love an underdog story, and Ben has had such a rough time this season. Ben did what he referred to on the podcast as a "little...
    Episode 6 spoilers

    It's looking good for Team Ben this run. I always love an underdog story, and Ben has had such a rough time this season.

    Ben did what he referred to on the podcast as a "little trick", which was that there was no way for him to get to Dumfries from Glasgow, he instead had to go the other way. Assuming that Sam and Adam would go towards Glasgow, he was hoping that they'd see he wouldn't have been able to get there from Glasgow and discount the station. This didn't actually work in practice, because this game the seekers have stopped trying to work out whether the hider could have reached a location from a previous location, like they were doing in Switzerland, but instead considering the whole range (and even a bit outside of that to account for delays and connections and the like).

    I was kind of hoping that Ben had gone to Gretna Green, and his answer to the same country question could have been England if he happened to be just across the border when he answered. That would have sent Sam and Adam on the train down to London instead, massively wasting time. Alas, he wasn't there. Although, while watching I did pin him down to that area pretty quickly, even hovering my cursor over Dumfries itself while sharing my screen with my watching buddy.

    Ben's photo of the river with the island in it was very cheeky, and I think it had some impact on the game, and Sam was saying how the river in Dumfries was too wide for the photo Ben sent.

    Ben going to Gregg's was so good. Not only was he the stereotypical clueless American asking about something so mundane (and absolutely rocking it, even the staff were finding it funny too), but we get probably the best Snack Zone double feature to have ever existed in Jet Lag history: two Snack Zones at the same time! The music being out of sync was funny, but the graphics being in sync was a bit disorienting given the sounds being out of sync.

    Pulling the Express Route curse, the double, and enough time bonuses was huge. Though I was (internally) yelling at him to discard the Prosperous Home to be able to take some of the other cards. Oh well, maybe he'll end up with enough time to also play that, though I personally don't think it's worth it.

    The thing I'm most curious about is how much in the way of shenanigans there is in the endgame in order to fill an entire last episode, considering we're ending this one just before the curses start.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Hmm, I wonder what you hit on the way out. I might have a look and see if there are other blocks that can be used to hold it all in. Thanks for the Breeze Rods! I might have to sign up...

    Hmm, I wonder what you hit on the way out. I might have a look and see if there are other blocks that can be used to hold it all in.

    Thanks for the Breeze Rods! I might have to sign up secret_offline to Tildes so they can interact with the world and ride the minecart at the farm while I'm at work.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    (edited )
    Link
    I've built Etho's 360° player launcher from his latest Hermitcraft episode, and added a bit of Wandering Trader flair to it. It's pretty cool, but very hungry for Wind Charges. Unfortunately it...

    I've built Etho's 360° player launcher from his latest Hermitcraft episode, and added a bit of Wandering Trader flair to it. It's pretty cool, but very hungry for Wind Charges.

    Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be as useful for long-distance launching as I'd hoped. As soon as you go outside of chunks the server has loaded it will reset your velocity, which sucks when you're otherwise travelling several hundred blocks per second. It probably still has use for long distance travel, just not as quickly. I found during testing that if you angle upwards for even a short amount of time the game will send you skyrocketing upwards. On one particular launch I ended up at y=2000, though that one did have a bit extra charging time.

    If you want to give it a go, feel free. I've added instructions along one of the side walls. As I mentioned it uses up wind charges very quickly, but you can launch multiple players at a time to help with the efficiency. Just beware of staying in the powdered slow too long. I built it floating in the sky above the roof portal tower at Eth's and my base.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    If you're meaning the one out at x:25 z:2642, I've found it to be much slower than either the witch farm or the ghast farm for getting gunpowder, and the witch farm also gets redstone which is...

    If you're meaning the one out at x:25 z:2642, I've found it to be much slower than either the witch farm or the ghast farm for getting gunpowder, and the witch farm also gets redstone which is useful for obvious reasons.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Could you add the Breeze farm I've built? The entrance is at 1102 62 248 in the overworld.

    Could you add the Breeze farm I've built? The entrance is at 1102 62 248 in the overworld.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link
    Not too much from me the past week, but I still have some screenshots to show off. Let's start with when I was bored AFKing at the Shulker farm, where I freecammed my way back to the main End...

    Not too much from me the past week, but I still have some screenshots to show off.

    Let's start with when I was bored AFKing at the Shulker farm, where I freecammed my way back to the main End island and looked back. I'd noticed this before, but Voxy always renders the actual world on top of its LODs, which normally isn't a problem but does come up if you freecam away from reality. I lined up the shulker farm with one of the obsidian pillars of the island, massively reduced my FOV to zoom in, and took this interesting shot.

    I mostly did 3 things this week.

    1. Restocking the Gas Station at the industrial area. I've started keeping track of the amount of gunpowder being used, and it's somewhere around 6 stacks a day on average so far. I spent some time AFKing at the witch farm to stock up a bit, but I'll likely need to spend some time there again soon.
    2. I built a tiny building around our roof portal.
    3. I've built a breeze farm! In fact I'm in it right now as I type this message. You can find the entrance at 1102 62 248, but I will warn you it's a little utilitarian down there

    Breezes are actually a pain to farm, because they only spawn in trial chambers, and each spawner has a 30 minute cooldown on it. The chamber I've built this farm in has 3 spawners, and with each spawner making 2 breezes per cycle that's a whole 6 breezes for an average of 72 breeze rods per hour with Looting 3. Each spawner is in a little box to funnel the breezes to the Nether. Breezes have a tag that makes them persistent, so they don't despawn, meaning I can sit in a minecart that takes me past each of the spawners in a loop and go off and do something else. This does mean that they do slowly build up over time in the nether, but the rate is a whopping 12 per hour so that's not actually an issue for the server. When you're done minecarting, you pop into the nether and attempt to kill all of the Breezes without them pushing you around or breaking the scaffolding. I need to do a better kill chamber at some point, but that is not now.

    I have two ideas to improve rates the farm.

    • If you have Bad Omen then the spawners can be activated a second time (also resetting the cooldown). This means that you could have two spawn cycles in a slightly-longer-than-30-minute period. The loot from spawners can give Ominous Bottles, but not enough to sustain itself.
    • There's another trial chamber nearby which I could add into the minecart loop for another 2 spawners (for a 66% increase in spawn rates. We'd be getting 20 per hour instead of 12! So many! Wow!). The issue is that I'd need to chunkload all of the areas while the farm is running, and that basically means patching chunkloaders of some form into the portals that also transport the Breezes,. And since each spawner is far away enough that they need their own chunkloading, that means they need their own collection portals too and I can't share them. This can only go badly, so I will be thinking on how I'd want to do this before I actually do anything.

    Finally, I just want to say wow! to a few of the projects happening around the server at the moment. One night Eth and I were pretty tired so we decided to just go on a world tour. Particular highlights for me were:

    • Poland, which grows by the day. @Taylorswiftspickles has done so much digging and both of us were impressed by it.
    • The Japanese cherry mountain, as I hadn't been out there before. Unfortunately I can't remember all of the names in this area, but I will edit them in if reminded.
    • @GravySleeve's platform, as I also had not seen it.
    • Whatever @smoothdrink is planning up north. I don't think I really want to know, I think I want to be surprised later when I check up on it.

    I don't have screenshots from that night, but maybe that's a good thing as it might encourage others to go out and have a look themselves.

    3 votes

  13. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    This is awesome, but I'm not sure I'll sign up for the test given my tendencies to both Stop playing for a while, meaning I'd be taking up a slot that someone else could actually make use of. Die...

    This is awesome, but I'm not sure I'll sign up for the test given my tendencies to both

    1. Stop playing for a while, meaning I'd be taking up a slot that someone else could actually make use of.
    2. Die randomly to fall damage, meaning I'd have to fly around and throw pearls into the machine a bunch.

    Having a teleportation network is really cool though, and something I've thought about doing especially with how transport-oriented this server is. Hopefully you don't have many issues with the increased radius at which item entities clump together, since that mechanic is important to how these machines work.

    The one caveat is that we play with ender_pearls_vanish_on_death enabled, so if you die you'll need to travel to each node and reload.

    Maybe this can be changed ;D Those random deaths I mentioned happen often enough that I don't bother setting up normal stasis chambers for myself because the pearls will just disappear at some point in time and I certainly won't remember to fill them. And it's even more annoying for something like this too where the purpose is long distance teleportation.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Jet Lag Season 16: Hide + Seek United Kingdom | Trailer in ~hobbies

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Episode 5 spoilers. There isn't much in the way of commentary from the podcast this episode (the play-by-play didn't really have much discussion, and there was what felt like a large section which...
    Episode 5 spoilers.

    There isn't much in the way of commentary from the podcast this episode (the play-by-play didn't really have much discussion, and there was what felt like a large section which was American-politics-adjacent, which isn't why I listen to it at all). Probably the main thing was they straight up acknowledged that they're too comfortable playing the game with the current ruleset, and the next time they do Hide and Seek they're going to have to make rule changes for themselves, otherwise we'll probably get a similar kind of game to this one.

    This was a very good run, I think. It still didn't top Adam's initial run, but is certainly the closest thing to it so far. Unfortunately the cards just weren't with him this run, and Adam and Ben seemed to be able to make a direct line to him without much in the way of deviation or delays.

    Probably my second favourite thing in the episode was Sam's anecdote of being asked if he wanted a coffee by a local. That's a sign of a healthy town where people are able to live comfortably, and I like that.

    And my favourite was the moment Sam decided he'd make a fun episode and played Impenetrable Fog and Passenger Princess. Making Ben the princess was so good, and Ben played it so well. Seeing Sam and not being able to do anything about it must've been so funny for him.

    I am glad that we get another Ben run, his last two were pretty unfortunate.

    4 votes

  15. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    As requested, here are links to what @Ethinolicbob has been working on, with added commentary from me because a list of just "link link link link" is boring. Sorry UK folks, they are imgur links,...

    As requested, here are links to what @Ethinolicbob has been working on, with added commentary from me because a list of just "link link link link" is boring. Sorry UK folks, they are imgur links, I will see about hosting images elsewhere at some point. For now you'll just have to log onto the server and see these things for yourself.

    • Early on, Eth built the first farm on the Nether roof: Froglights! We should have a good supply already, and the farm is pretty fast.
    • Eth designed and built the gold farm half of the combined gold and bartering farm! He even patched in an on/off switch when we noticed some weirdness happening with chunk reloading on the server.
    • I would say we're onto the building half of the screenshots, but we're actually on the digging half. We noticed that our cave had only a thin layer between another cave below, and decided to make them one big cave. The vast vast vast majority of the digging was Eth (as in I only dug a couple of boxes of material, and Eth dug dozens of double chests).
    • Unfortunately we don't have screenshots from before Eth did the ceiling. He's still in the process of trimming and adding froglights to some of the vines.
    • The centrepiece of the cave is the iron farm birdcage. I believe this is a custom design, with the villager chambers underneath the spawn platforms.
    • It started raining just as I started taking these screenshots. Eth built the as-yet-unnamed eastern highway. He did such a good job that people thought it was my work, which I take as a compliment to both of us. It goes through two different biomes, with variations on side decorations for each. There are some nice sight lines drawing attention to things, well placed corners to break it up, and good block choices for the road and decorations.
    1 vote

  16. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Oh absolutely. These are my highlights of the thread for sure. Just the sheer joy about turtles, in this case, is so infectious and I am here for it. Even little discoveries (like learning copper...

    Oh absolutely. These are my highlights of the thread for sure. Just the sheer joy about turtles, in this case, is so infectious and I am here for it. Even little discoveries (like learning copper will change over time and that you can wax it to stop it) mean so much more when found organically in-game rather than in the patch notes.

    Keep these updates coming, and please don't be shy about posting when others are posting castles, offshore platforms, floating cities, the destruction of literal hell, or complex redstone machinery. These comments are just as important to me and they are appreciated by players of all experience levels.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Given the demand for rockets at the gas station, I've been using the witch farm while playing other games, checking in every once in a while to make sure I don't starve.

    Given the demand for rockets at the gas station, I've been using the witch farm while playing other games, checking in every once in a while to make sure I don't starve.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    Thanks for the witch farm! Redstone and gunpowder at the same time!? Who could ask for more, really... I did notice that two of the sweepers were broken, so I fixed them. I assume this is because...

    Thanks for the witch farm! Redstone and gunpowder at the same time!? Who could ask for more, really...

    I did notice that two of the sweepers were broken, so I fixed them. I assume this is because they were running when somebody left the farm. To try and prevent that, I've patched on a lever at the sky platform so that you can turn the farm on and off from there. Hopefully that reduces the chance someone leaves while it's active.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    Link Parent
    #4 (the plugin) is the only one that actually would do anything. The non-plugin alternative is that you get a second player to AFK in the Nether at the same time but standing near the exit portal....

    Sadly, it breaks when someone is in the nether.

    [...]

    I don't know if any of these are hallucinations or legitimate solutions.

    #4 (the plugin) is the only one that actually would do anything. The non-plugin alternative is that you get a second player to AFK in the Nether at the same time but standing near the exit portal. I would say "just wait for players to leave the Nether and eat the loss" but since Talon is in there building the hub that's not going to happen.

    Mobs despawn when further than 128 blocks from a player. If there are no players in the Nether, then there's no players to do that check and the game keeps the mobs around. If there is a player in the Nether and that player is more than 128 blocks away, then as soon as the Guardians come through the game sees they're far away from a player and despawns them.

  20. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    secret_online
    (edited )
    Link
    This was a busy week, definitely more so for @Ethilonolicbob but I'll let him write about what he's done over the past week. The dragon is dead! I was holding off on writing up this comment until...

    This was a busy week, definitely more so for @Ethilonolicbob but I'll let him write about what he's done over the past week.

    • The dragon is dead! I was holding off on writing up this comment until we'd done the fight. Does anyone have plans for bringing a shulker to the overworld so we can build a shulker farm in the industrial zone?
    • We built the gold farm on the Nether roof! The spawn platforms are from an Ilmango design, but all of the item processing is Eth's design. I placed down most of the spawn platforms while I left the redstone to Eth.
    • I finally connected the bottom of the roof portal tower to the ground. I've also installed a bubblevator and snow drop so it's easier to get up and down. Unfortunately for me I want to completely redesign the tower at some point, so I've only put minimal effort into interior decorations.
      • While its nice to have some connections directly from the bottom Nether to the roof, I will miss having people coming over to our base just to use the roof portal. We ended up being a de-facto hub and having people come over, even if just passing, was just a nice experience. Hopefully some of you will still come say hi on your way to the roof.
    • I built a bridge that cuts through our cave. Our rough theme is Wandering Trader adjacent, so there's going to be a lot of blue with gold trims this season. This was one of the reasons we built the gold farm. Not the main one, but still.
      • The tunnel is completely enclosed as it's not meant to be an entrance to our cave. That's something we're still planning out. We have a couple of candidate locations for the entrance, but haven't settled on anything yet.
      • This build was designed in creative. I took a schematic of a slice of terrain, pasted that in the creative world, built it, took a new schematic, and went through the usual layer-by-layer building process.
    • I also built the Emerald Embassy in town. I still haven't quite figured out the purpose of this building, but I'm sure I will eventually.
      • The interiors are pretty basic right now and need a couple of detail passes. At the main entrance you'll be greeted by a llama behind the desk. There's some seating for waiting and space for reading material, but I haven't written any yet. Next is the filing room which just has bookshelves, but at the back of that is a pen for more llamas. Upstairs is a room that I want to use to put displays of projects we've completed, but I haven't decided on how they'd look just yet. It'll likely be armour stand work, but I haven't got my materials together for that yet.
      • My favourite section is the rooftop garden. It needs armour stand work, but this place just feels nice and cosy, especially with the leaf particles falling down.
      • In contrast to the tunnel, this one was not designed in creative and was done completely free-hand on the server. I like to mix it up between planned and spontaneous builds.
    • I've been working on tidying up the area around the Nether portal in the spruce forest.
      • I want to turn this into a little bit of a market/community space for the bases in the area. I won't be adding a Nether portal to our cave, and instead will be using this portal as the main entrance to the Nether. I have ideas on how to get the area started and set a rough theme, but I want to open it up to the other locals to build in soon. I imagine there could be a few community projects we could work on together, like roads, bridges, and maybe more.
      • People I know in the area are @dhcrazy333, @kwyjibo, @DisasterlyDisco, @RossEllerHva, and of course myself and @Ethinolicbob.
      • Related, but I think it'd be cool if we were able to find a regular time (like monthly or every two months) where most/all of us around this portal could be online and we all do something as a little community. It could be something like a little build competition, playing a minigame someone has made, conquering a trial chamber, doing another dragon fight, or anything really.
    • The most recent project was the pop-up gas station in the industrial district. The redstone inside is a custom designed rocket autocrafter. I wanted something as compact as I could reasonably get it, and I think I did pretty well. It's a little wider than I would want, but you can't place comparators vertically otherwise this might've been more compact.
      • These are length 1 rockets, because I find the shorter flight time gives me more control over short distances, which is probably the way I use rockets most.
      • All you need to do is right click a slot on the shelf and it'll give you a stack of rockets. If you're holding a partial stack and right click then your partial stack will go on the shelf and start filling up from the autocrafting.
      • There are indicator lamps on the roof for when supplies are starting to get low. If a lamp turns on, there's probably around another 6 or so stacks of crafting before the crafters start having issues. Gunpowder is definitely a limiting factor at the moment. I do want to build a faster creeper farm in the cave Eth and I have been building in, but that's a later project.
        • Just a small note on farm efficiency here, people seem to like putting their AFK platforms directly above the farms. When the game runs a spawn check, it first chooses a random X,Z coordinate in the chunk, finds the highest point in the X,Z column, then chooses a random Y coordinate within that column starting from bedrock up the that highest point. The higher the highest block, the lower the chance that that Y coordinate falls within the farm itself. So if you're wanting to make farms a bit faster, move the AFK platform to the side. You might need to lower it a bit to keep the farm within the despawn sphere and do some spawn proofing around it, but that should pay off in faster spawn rates.
      • If anybody wants their own gas station, let me know. My only restriction is that the building it goes in must look like a gas station. This is about as small as it can get, but any others will likely have to be bigger to look correct in context.
    5 votes