User:McClaw

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Revision as of 12:37, 17 September 2013 by >McClaw (→‎Tips)

An early player of The Blockheads, McClaw is something of a dilettante wiki editor, hoping mostly to get things organized and going strongly enough for those with more dedication to expand it to higher forms.

He dislikes leaving:

Some links he's saving for convenience:

Wish List

Not being a member of the forums, I thought I'd put my wish and idea list for The Blockheads here.

  • Crafting steel from iron and charcoal.
  • A "compost pile" crafting surface that can be "fueled" with various fruits and plants to allow conversion of dirt to compost. (That makes more sense to me than crafting it out of kelp on a crafting table, and would be an additional use for fruit.) It would need to be created out of dirt, fruit, and worms.
  • Worms that crawl out of compost on their own?
  • "Weeds" that spontaneously sprout on compost and have to be removed before anything else can be planted?
  • Change it to the North Pole Coat Of Comfort. Still red with white trim, but it can be worn along with the other special clothing items and will protect against heat as well as cold.
  • A light source that works while being carried. Maybe a miner's hat made from copper and a steel lantern?
  • A "freezer" that can convert water to ice (Bucket of Water to Ice and Tin Bucket.) And may induce nearby water to freeze?
  • An "apex use" for copper and/or bronze. These otherwise become rather unimportant once a good supply of iron and steel are available.
  • Aquatic tools and clothing:
  • Bronze shoes to allow walking on the ocean floor.
  • Bronze, steel lantern, and kelp to make a diver's helmet. Provides mobile light and air. Maybe it gets recharged with kelp?
  • Copper urn / boiler / percolator to turn roasted coffee beans and water into coffee (refill cup) while a Blockhead is away.
  • A copper or bronze "harpoon" that's more effective against fish and sharks. Say one blow for a fish, at most two for a really big shark? (Although just making the existing flint spear more effective than a sword against fish and sharks would work.)

Tips

I thought I'd share some of my strategies, tactics, and opinions here so I'm not tempted to put them in the regular articles.

  • Playing multiple Blockheads in a world takes a lot of coordination. While it speeds results, it's too much for most players.
  • When just starting a new world:
    • Make your first priority two blocks of dirt, one stick (don't use the shovel), and several blocks of flint. Use these to make a Workbench, then a Tool Bench, and then a machete.
    • Use the machete to get sticks more efficiently for making a campfire, and a spare spade (the first will go fast).
    • Now get another dirt for a Craft Bench to make baskets, one per Inventory slot.
    • With inventory space to spare, make your first pickaxe.
    • Dig down and use the pickaxe to mine all the stone it can (sixteen), ignoring limestone and anything else. (There's always stone in a column below the Portal.)
    • Use that stone to upgrade the Tool Bench, make a stone pickaxe, and a stone enclosure for your campfire.
    • Your Blockhead is now equipped to start branching out, but making stone tools is a good option. (You'll have to stick with flint machetes until you master bronze.)
  • Pine trees are an excellent source of sticks and wood, and getting rid of one removes the chance it will spawn a dropbear. (Very important if it's near your starting shelter.)
  • A growing tree will produce blocks of leaves to either side. Harvesting them (for sticks) from either side of a young tree is an easily renewed source.
  • A simple barrier against animals is a two block deep hole; on level ground it barely slows a passing Blockhead. Another is a door; give it the appearance you want by stacking a sample of the desired block on a three-high column, remove the two below, place the door, then remove the top block. I also like to put a lantern on top of the result.
  • Use two barriers surrounding trigger plants (carrots for donkeys, apple trees for dodos, kelp for fish, pine trees for dropbears) to make a breeding farm. Keep track of it so you can nab their resources when you want.
  • A ridden donkey can jump a 2-3 high barrier, so you can make a corral surrounded by doors and planted with carrots. You'll probably have a donkey available when you want to ride.
  • 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, the fish won't be able to resist your lure.
  • Sharking made easy:
    • 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).
    • Put a solid block on the surface of the water, leaving a one-block wide channel underneath and into the trap.
    • Above that platform, arrange a back wall and ladder to another platform 8-9 blocks above the water.
    • Equip a Blockhead with a spade, a sword (iron preferred), and at least one block of sand.
    • 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).
    • The trapped shark is now in one-deep water and can't flee, making it much easier to attack with the sword. (Or for small ones, catch in a bucket.)
    • Once the shark is disposed of, use the space to remove the sand and get the Blockhead back up the ladder.
    • 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.
  • I like to organize my tools in baskets along with at least one of their common harvesting products and commonly useful items. (Spade with dirt, flint, and clay; machete with stick, trapdoor; axe with wood, ladder, and gem pickaxe; pickaxe with stone, coal, and gold pickaxe.) These are swapped in and out from a basket at the bottom of the inventory into the two slots above. Other items / special combo baskets are stored in the next basket up, while the upper inventory is used for special tasks and random pick-up.
  • Mining ores (except for iron) is more productive when using a gold pickaxe to do most of the work (all but the last two of the needed 32 strokes) and finishing with a gem pickaxe. It not only produces the occasional bonus (including 10x the ore), but gives me time to switch over to the gem pickaxe and abort just before harvesting. The gem pickaxe will give the multiplier only if it makes the final stroke; it doesn't care about the rest.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Speaking of golden chests, why make wooden ones when you have (emptied) golden ones? Well, sometimes you want to be able to differentiate them.
    • 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.
  • 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.
  • Yes, you can use amethysts for light, but they're short range only. They're not bad for lighting (and marking) a tunnel by placing them side-by-side.
  • Don't use coal to fuel a furnace, save it for making steel. It may seem plentiful and efficient, but charcoal and wood are infinitely renewable, coal isn't, and becomes scarcer if harvested with early or non-gem pickaxes.
  • Use the "watch video" option for free Time Crystals (off the Pause menu) as often as they're available. It's faster than mining the darn things and cheaper than paying for them.
  • 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, 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 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, a 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.
  • 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.
  • Remember, Blockhead's don't die from their injuries, they just move very slowly. So if you really need or want to, force that fall or walk across that magma.
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