User:McClaw

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:

"Image Coming Soon" when there's a replacement that can be made.
Dead End Pages.
Orphaned Pages.
Uncatagorized Pages.
Wanted Pages with too many go-to links.
Unsatisfactory images that need updating or replacement.
Category:Articles_needing_cleanup plus bad grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

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?
Being able to choose the visual traits (skin color, hair color, hair length, face) of a new blockhead instead of tapping Random until one you like appears.
...or at least present a "full zoom" view so details of the new blockhead can be seen better.
...and maybe being able to rename a blockhead.

An "apex use" for flint. It otherwise become rather unimportant once a good supply of bronze and iron are available.

Aquatic tools and clothing:

Metal 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?
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 I've tried multiple blockheads, I tend to keep one active while the others serve as a sort of "meditation factory," waiting their turn.
- When my active blockhead grows too tired (or tired enough to be put to sleep), I activate a meditating one before putting the tired blockhead to bed. Once it awakens, I set it to meditating.
- The second biggest problem with multiple blockheads is when you need one blockhead to access items carried by another. Chests and shelves become very important, and shelves allow the items stored to be seen.
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 as the top of 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.
Want another strategy tip? How about bypassing bronze tools? It's not that hard, and mostly needs just a little luck.
- With your first five bronze ingots, upgrade your tool bench. That not only allows bronze tools but the tin spade.
- Make a tin spade and go digging along the top of the bedrock. You're looking for golden chests, so sand deposits are a good place to start. You'll also find surface-reaching caves that may have more.
- Find enough iron ingots (at least 10) in those chests and you can not only upgrade your tool bench again but make an iron pick -- and that will undoubtedly let you dig deep enough to find enough iron ore to continue.
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 (three wide), the fish won't be able to resist your lure.
Shark harvesting made easy (depicted on the Shark page):
- 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.
- 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 spade to remove the sand and then send the blockhead back up the ladder quick 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.
I like to organize my tools in baskets along with at least one stack of each of their common harvesting products or 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.
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.
Mining ores (except for iron) is more productive when using a gold pickaxe to do most of the work (all but the last few of the needed 32 strokes) and finishing with a gem pickaxe. It not only produces the occasional bonus (including 10x the ore), but gives you time to switch over to the gem pickaxe and abort just before harvesting. (Count to 30 and switch.) The gem pickaxe will give the multiplier only if it makes the final stroke; it doesn't care about the rest. (Why not iron ore? Because it demands twice the strokes to harvest.)
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!
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. But only steel lanterns can be placed and give light underwater.
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.
Put a shelf above a crafting surface (but not a Campfire). Use it to store common resources or products, especially if you don't need your blockhead to carry them around most of the time.
For the most space-efficient storage of bulk materials (such as mined stone), nest chests. Baskets can work at a slightly reduced scale, but chests can be both stacked and nested and hold four times as much per chest.
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. (Based on the least efficient pricing, watching an ad is worth about $0.10.) And check frequently; you may only get a few per check, but there might be more waiting just a minute later.
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.
Another is to have a stash of useful things in that carried chest I mentioned above. Ladders, lanterns, wood, crafting surfaces (or at least a Workbench)... I've heard some players load a full set of crafting surfaces and stay mobile.
The simplest, unimproved Portal can be used as a teleportation destination, they're made for only 100 time crystals and one stone, and they can be picked up for re-use. Carry one to mark a "save point" in case you find something you want to come back to later (such as your progress if you need to head "home" to resupply).
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.
- You should really start with a steam generator and electric furnace, the former for power and the latter for "cheap" iron.
- 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. Unfortunately, that's 75 of each type of sand needed.
- It takes as many iron ore to make a black sand (if you can't find enough) as used to be needed to make an iron ingot. Making iron ore from black sand hurts a lot more than that.
- Solar panels are nearly useless without a flywheel, preferably more than one. Flywheels can also serve the same function as copper wire, so don't skimp.
- Go ahead and put a roof over your solar panels, 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.