[Bent]

Going to build Mocks Hold last, then connect to the skyway, at the top of that.

Lot of work to do, and I picked that place, because it was the closest island to the spawn point.

[HiddenOne]

Can we turn the skybridge into a waterway to ride boats instead of walking? Because I live far from the center of activity and its a pain in the butt to travel.

[Morgoth]

I found D'rek's place by accident as I was boating in that direction. Out of nowhere a patch of light appeared beneath my boat, seemingly from the bottom of the ocean. I had to investigate and found myself falling through an enormous cavern.

[Aptorian]

HiddenOne, on 19 October 2010 - 04:10 PM, said:

Can we turn the skybridge into a waterway to ride boats instead of walking? Because I live far from the center of activity and its a pain in the butt to travel.

We could yes, but what do you say to waiting until the haloween patch, that way we can see if there's some fix to the railway carts. Then we could build a railway system instead (It's faster).

It was always my intention that some kind of fast travel should be possible with the skybridges, but I just wanted to see what happened next.

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

When is the halloween patch?

[Morgoth]

I would also suggest not doing too much exploring until the patch comes out. It occurred to me that the new biomes, hell-gateways etc in all likelihood will only appear in areas not yet generated on our map. Ergo, the more we explore the further we'll have to travel to find these things once the patch hits us.

[cerveza_fiesta]

True morgy. Good thought there. I will cease my extensive explorations since I have enough coal/clay to last me a good long while now.

RE Canal system

I'm going to start it at surface level. Boats are so fragile that they break if they touch anything at speed. Therefore, you need something at least 3 or 4 spaces wide to make a usable canal. This would mean adding a LOT of bulk to the skybridge and I kinda like keeping it as a thin link so it doesn't take up a huge portion of the sky.

Plus, as Apt says, the existing skybridge is prime at the moment for adding double-lane minecarts on all the major branches. They just need to fix that bug and it will be a way better way of fast travel

As for the canal, if Jim puts some water source blocks in there for us in the next few days, I'm going to start it at the lake beneath moon spawn and will head over in your direction first.That way you'll be more or less on the route with the azath, morgy, coco, jim and me.

If you want to start building it from your end, go 5 spaces wide. You can either tunnel through hills or climb over them...remembering to only climb about 1 block in every 12-15 horizontal blocks and put a 1/2 block along the step. For valley sections, I planned to set it up like a cobblestone aqueduct. It only needs to be 1 block deep too, so the easiest way is to start at surface level and place a row of cobblestone blocks on either side, 5 blocks apart (5 in between, not counting the outer edges) and fill in the middle with dirt. So it will look like a dirt highway with cobble along the sides. Once we get water source blocks from jim, we just put a line of water down the middle and then start removing dirt along the sides of it. If we start at one end, and begin removing dirt from the centre outwards, line by lengthwise line, we should end up with a full canal of still non-flowing water.

make sense?

[Morgoth]

It would look a lot cooler if it was underground.

Then we'd get a regular road above ground, minecarts on the skyway and boats in dark tunnels beneath.

[cerveza_fiesta]

but aaaaqueduuuucts!!!!

*said in a whingy voice*

For real, aqueducts look sweet. Whatev though. I'm sure it will end up as a partial above, partial below ground thing, with bits that connect to aqueducts and bits that go through tunnels, connecting occasionally with the road system and skybridges.

You guys ever seen the youtube videos for minecart launchers? There's a glitchy way of building a launcher that involves building a 2x2 circle of tracks and placing 2 minecarts on it. It takes advantage of carts bumping into each other and rebounding. The 2x2 is too small for 2 carts to really sit still side by side so they circle round and round glitchily bumping into each other and rebounding until they both accelerate to full speed and kinda sync up their motion so it just looks like one cart.

Then you put a straight minecart track next to it that leads to your destination and drive by in your cart on that track. The booster carts strike yours and send you flying at the top possible speed down the track until you bump into something solid. It eventually slows down, but it takes a super long time and then you just build another booster to keep your speed up.

[Aptorian]

Hmm, well, if we're talking aesthetics I think it would make the most sense to have the minecarts beneath the earth, since that's where they belong and then we might as well have a glass water channel in the sky, just for the hell of it. I don't think any of the travelling systems should be on the ground, since we'd be sitting ducks for skeletons and creepers.

[cerveza_fiesta]

not if you're traveling fast though. Skellies and creepers couldn't catch you. I think only spiders can outrun people on foot

If we aqueducted the canal system, it could be 2 blocks off the ground at all times, which is enough to keep out any of the monsters (unless they add flying ones ofc)

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 19 October 2010 - 05:38 PM

[Aptorian]

Four words: Creeper on the tracks.

Anyway, I still have some water source blocks left that you can have if you need them.

[HiddenOne]

That's a lot of projects, fellows.

Glass aqueducts in the sky...sounds cool
Creepy Tunnels underground passing through the Azath cart ride? Looking at mobs through glass walls? How much are tickets going to cost?

I agree that elevated tracks would be good, skellies have deadly aim. Imagine your inventory racing away in a cart as you slowly die...


What's going on with the cartography app? I know you're on here Jim. I can see your name right down there.

[Aptorian]

Jim just stopped by and dropped off some 1700 water blocks and little less lava. So, what ever projects you have had in mind you can begin on now (and that does not mean steal all the lava and water blocks to make your own personal obsidian mountain )

We're going to need 400-500 water blocks for the Azath.

EDIT: By the way, any crazy future projects in mind?

When ever we're done with the Azath I have my eye set on the big patch of sea area behind my mountain. I'm considering building an EPIC size biodome beginning on the seabed and reaching up to the sky ceiling. Which I am sure will take like a thousand thousand blocks of sand.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 October 2010 - 07:43 PM

[Slippery Jim]

Hi all,

Right - I have placed some chests on the roof of Jim's Sanctuary for Wayward Malazans which contain free Water and Lava (since they can't be collected by normal means at the moment). They are not full as I can only spawn 64 at a time at the moment and I am having a busy RL time at the moment.

In other news I want to apply some admin tools to the server - specifically a whitelist of usernames who are allowed to access the server. Also automated backups.

Be warned - currently there are no backups and anyone can join our server! I plan to shut down the server on the weekend and try and set this up. The server will be down for a couple of hours with a bit of luck - I'll post more details as my schedule becomes apparent to me!

My normal life consists of working in London with 2 hours travel each way. This means I am away from Server admin access from roughly 6am to 8pm GMT give or take an hour. If you need me to do something like replace items lost due to a bug please PM me using the built in forum tool as it emails me when you do and it saves the risk of me missing it in the thread.

Also once again be reminded that this game is in Alpha and we may wake up one day and find all our save games are buggered.

Aside from that I am very impressed with the efforts you are all putting in - it's quite something to see!

Kind regards,

Jim

[Slippery Jim]

Re: cartographer

OK - it's something I plan to address this weekend with the backup thing.

Currently I admin the server through a command line based connection. I have yet to test moving files hither and thither through it though I suspect I can use Wput to get it on my FTP area.

Once that is sorted I will get Cartographer going and post on here - please be patient

Jim

[Kanubis]

Really fantastic of you to go to all this effort Jim!

[Morgoth]

game seems to be down

[Aptorian]

Just checked, it's working fine, me, Hidden and Coco have been online for hours.

By the way, when you come online, I left a chest with glass next to the sculpture in your garden.

[Aptorian]

Somebody recreated Rapture in Minecraft.... IT IS HUGE!

Spoiler

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 19 October 2010 - 10:00 PM