User:McClaw: Difference between revisions

** If you've only found one of a rarer gem (emerald, ruby, or diamond), upgrade your trade portal and then buy a replacement -- each upgrade unlocks the ability to purchase the gem just used.

** A level 3 trade portal has gold nuggets available, so you could buy three and upgrade your furnace to level 3 to start crafting steel and gold (and gold coins).

** A level 6 trade portal sells the components for trains, electrical generation, and elevators. You still have to make your own electric crafting surfaces, though.

* Make a fishing tank / kelp farm, a water tank three or more blocks wide and deep planted with kelp. If it isn't too big (I like three wide), the fish won't be able to resist your lure.

** On the edge of a large, deep body of water, arrange a one-deep channel at least half a dozen blocks long. There should be no "steps" in the sea floor greater than one block high leading up to it (to make sure the sharks don't turn around).

** Place a solid block level to the surface of the water, leaving a one-block high/wide channel underneath and into the trap.

** Park the blockhead on the upper platform. Up there, it won't cause arriving sharks to go wild.

** When a shark passes the lower platform into the trap, place the sand block to block the gap (next to the lower platform is easiest).

** Once the shark is disposed of, use the spade to remove the sand and then send the blockhead back up the ladder immediately to avoid nearby sharks (if any).

** Don't worry if the water "inside" the trap is under one block deep, that actually makes it easier for a blockhead because it can stand and walk there instead of having to swim. But don't let it get too shallow or sharks won't enter. And don't let kelp grow, it can "snare" a blockhead's actions.

* There's a tip above that can help you keep your blockhead's inventory organized: If you expect it to pick up an item, place at least one in the desired slot before going harvesting. And if you expect to pick up more than one stack of something (such as stone when mining with a steel pickaxe), "seed" more than one inventory slot with said item.

* Diagonal tunnels are highly efficient for travel. A blockhead travels horizontally about as fast as it does on a level surface, and vertically probably faster than on a ladder. It's also not difficult to make cross- or side-tunnels with a minimum of disruption -- and no trapdoors, just short ladders! They're even better using stairs, as they're faster than walking and replace blocks when crossing caves.

* Digging a (mostly) horizontal tunnel through the dirt across the top of the bedrock makes for a good way to find most of the clay (more valuable than flint in the long run) and buried golden chests. It also leaves a travel route to go from shelter to shelter without risking bad environments or dropbears.

** I like to carry a wooden chest when mining (especially with a golden pickaxe) or exploring to stash things I find and keep my blockhead's primary inventory open for more new stuff. I've never needed more than three chests for that, and usually nest them.

** Carrying a wooden chest avoids confusion, as wooden ones don't spawn in the unexplored world.

* The basic oil lantern provides better light than a torch and is easier to produce in quantity than steel lanterns. But only steel lanterns can be placed and give light underwater. Although once you've got electricity (and plentiful iron/steel), go with the brighter and more oil-efficient steel lanterns.

* When placing lights, my "rule" is to set the next one out as far as I can confidently identify a path and space. The results will overlap and reinforce between sources, giving better results overall.

* You don't need to leave ladders behind, but be careful how you remove them. It may be slow, but picking them up after passing them (three horizontally, four vertically) means you'll have more later. They can also provide a "skyhook" in open air (but only vertically once you're no longer adjacent to a solid block, and then you have to place them again going back down).

* One of my habits when circumnavigating is to carry some reinforced platforms and use these to build the floor for small, aerial shelters at the top of the poles. Ladders up the pole, a trapdoor at the top, at least three platforms to either side, simple walls and roof (and trapdoor in the center for roof access, another of my preferences) with a lantern inside and there's space for setting out a bed or chests -- or crafting surfaces for resupply. (Note you can build like this almost anywhere by creating a column and removing the blocks below the top one. Just be sure to not remove that top block until you have something above it.)

* When a blockhead is traveling, one of the things I like it to carry is a bed, usually the best available. Set out a few blocks for safety/shelter, a lantern for environment, and the bed will quickly restore a blockhead's energy.

* Speaking of which, a golden bed is almost as good as coffee. It's incredibly quick and requires preparation only once for repeated uses. Coffee is faster and gives a temporary action boost, but has to be recreated for each use. That said, I prefer coffee to revive a tired blockhead when it can take advantage of any "midnight sun."

* Electricity is a game-changer, but it's also a resource-intensive start-up. And you'll need steel (and therefore gold nuggets) to do it.

** Next comes an electric metalwork bench, both for easier processing and for making silicon wafers for the big goal -- solar panels.

** It takes 25 sand and black sand (each) to make a silicon crystal, but the production of wafers doesn't match their consumption (that's 5:3). Fortunately, five solar panels provide good power. (Ten is significantly better.) Unfortunately, that's 75 of each type of sand needed.

** Go ahead and put a roof over your solar panels if you want, but make it glass and leave at least a one-block gap between them.

** You ''can'' power solar panels off artificial lights, but even chandeliers give barely a trickle. It's still a good use for all those amethysts you've been finding.

* For the advanced "single player" player, use portal chests to shuffle materials between worlds. This opens up the possibility of creating a world specifically for "stripping."

** To strip (as in strip mine but not literally) a world, make sure you can supply at least 520 time crystals and then create a new world. The world name and blockhead details aren't too important, as you'll eventually delete it when its usefulness is done.

** The first big goal is to acquire (at least) one of each gem type from amethyst to diamond, then use them to upgrade a portal all the way (total cost 300TC) and then craft a portal chest (220TC: portal, portal chest).

** Next, import from another world a diamond pickaxe and whatever other tools you think important and start off on a circumnavigation.

** When you complete the circumnavigation, pack up everything of value in nested chests and baskets (strip the blockhead, too), put it into the portal chest, switch to the receiving world and remove it, then go back and delete the stripped world.

** Yes, it's a lot of effort, but I've used the above method to equip all five blockheads of a world with the "unique" clothing and deliver piles of rare materials and thousands of time crystal points.

** Digging a tunnel along the top of the bedrock will be one of the things you find yourself doing (and why I didn't call this the "farmer" approach). It lets you find golden chests under sand/beaches as well as buried cave mouths. Oh, and creating a quarry for stone (and maybe some ores) doesn't break the "rules" here, especially if it's out of exposed bedrock.

** Although you can bypass finding gold ore (see above), eventually you'll have to find those rarer gems (rubies and diamonds) by getting into a deep cave. Fortunately there should be at least one in your world that curls around and goes both deep and to the surface -- somewhere. You might need to connect some traceries of cave chambers to get that deep, though. Or dig some rather long bedrock-top tunnels.

* If you thought electricity was a pain to arrange, just wait until you try to fly.

** You could buy a jetpack at a trade portal, but it will run you hundreds of the new platinum coins -- equal to thousands of gold coins, and a single chest holds only 1,584!

** Including the craft bench upgrade, you'll need to start with about 1,000 units of oil, 300 coal, and nine titanium ingots.

** Most of the prep work is done at the refinery. Most of the assembly is done at the craft bench. But you'll have to make your jet engines at an electric metalwork bench.

** So why bother? Because somewhere on the floating islands you can't see above you are gem trees. Yes, trees that produce gems like fruit. And if you don't fly, you'll have to climb -- on ladders. A whole lot of ladders.