Minecraft RiffRaff server

My latest minecraft venture was a custom server put together by the RiffRaffSyndicate. This has an extensive set of increasingly complex mods. I bred bees (yes, the insects) to get ones that had diamonds in their honeycombs. I used a magic sword that could harvest the souls of mobs that you could put into a device that summoned them continuously. I had a summoner of small spiders from the Twilight Forest mod. These, I killed with a machine that harvested their monster essence that I fed into another machine that created other monsters using a template from a single captured one (which I then killed with another machine to harvest things they dropped on death). I built a tower with decorations of gold blocks made from nuggets harvested from Zombie Pigmen in this way. I do understand that this is the equivalent of dressing up in costumes of Star Trek characters, but furry. But if you are in the scene, furry trekkies are probably a lot of fun.

So some of my creations from the RiffRaff server are shown below. This server updates every few months. My base on the first world was called Bwandir. Shown below are my enchanting and power rooms. They feature a lot of decorative elements from the Twilight Forest, a magical realm you can enter through portals.

I was reluctant to leave this base and move to the new world on an update, but then I blew most of it up in a GregTech explosion and decided I might as well move on. My new base was called Isengard. It was supposed to be this evil base where trees were cut down by machines, villagers were held captive, and there were fell creatures bred in underground caverns. I did all that, but then I got into bee breeding and they pollinated flowers everywhere. This kind of ruined the evil mood. Below are the main tower of the base and the stairwell into the dungeons (built into a quarry pit).

Since towers seem to be my thing, I built another one for decoration. This is the one with gold blocks for decoration inside. There were arcane levitators from Thaumcraft 3 in various places in this one. Thaumcraft, Forestry and the Twilight Forest were the major new mods to me on this server, all great ones. 

So I am waiting for the server to update. The world will be re-created but we are allowed to take some things with us. I built a small transfer house and filled it with chests - mostly of bees and saplings of special trees since they took a long time to breed. I should say that all these servers are free - run by fans just like the mods are free and made by fans. I have offered to contribute to the servers I have joined but they never take me up on it. This is a great, alternative server. I am surprised it is not more popular. 

Minecraft Tekkit Modpacks

After playing out my interest in "vanilla" Minecraft I discovered that there were a number of fan created modifications (mods) of the original game. These exist with some kind of blessing from the company that makes Minecraft (Mojang), in that you still need an account on the original game and then add in the extra code for these mods. There are a whole range of mods out there, some add new blocks that look interesting, some complex machinery, some more magic items and mobs. On the recommendation of my son, I tried out the Tekkit modpack, which is a collection of compatible mods designed by different people. Some of the mods I tried out in this pack were Equivalent Exchange 2 (EE2), Buildcraft and IndustrialCraft. EE2 was a magic mod, in which you could transform and create matter into any form. It had some fantastic end game equipment that let you fly, grow things instantly, and mine huge areas in one stroke. It takes the name from an anime series, in which there is alchemy that will let you transform matter into new forms, but not let you change one kind of matter into another. EE violated this in that you could change anything into anything else (and later on, from nothing using matter condensers). I appreciated the mod but in the end didn't like the fact that you could make anything out of any old junk lying around (if you had enough of it). It kind of ruins the joy of finding the blocks you were looking for after a long search. Below is my first settlement. Pumpkins had a high EE matter value, which is why I formed them (you could turn a stack of pumpkins into a diamond).

Next I explored the Buildcraft mod, which had engines (and oil which could be refined into fuel), pipes and automatic crafting. This is a fun mod. There are no special tools, but the mechanical items are cool. One of the most fun things is the quarry machine, which will automatically mine a square area down to bedrock when powered by engines. Buildcraft also has some automatic building machines which I used to make the factory buildings below. IndustrialCraft is a sister mod to Buildcraft, very compatible, with electric type machines and tools. The tools are quite interesting - there are electric replacements for axes and pickaxes but also things like electric jetpacks which let you fly (not far and not quickly - but still, flying is pretty useful). There are solar panels and other kinds of generators for electricity and the ultimate machine is the matter fabricator that makes UU-matter, a kind of pink blob that you can transform into most other materials. It comes close to the problems of EE but it is harder to make in quantities and you can only use it once to make other things.

I didn't try out Tekkit long before a new version came out. The old version became "Tekkit Classic" and the new one was "Tekkit Lite" (light in the sense of computational resources). New versions of Minecraft come out, the mods which fans write are not always updated and the community wants to see new things. So, these modpacks are constantly in flux. In the new version, there were quite a few new things to play around with. Thermal Expansion is a very well put together mod of machines for Buildcraft (energy storage, powered furnaces, etc.). This is not a flashy mod, but a real pleasure to work with. ComputerCraft has these cute little robots (turtles) that you can program in Lua. I have one farming in the picture below. These are a bit of a pain because the program stops when you quit the game and you have to restart your system when you start up again. Further below is one of Steve's Carts doing automated mining. Steve's Carts is another well thought out and balanced mod. 

Playing around this time, I also built a nuclear reactor in IC2. This is my totally safe and efficient Mk1 breeder reactor. It only went critical and exploded once :) I think I must have put the components in the wrong way that time, because it should be foolproof. 

All the stuff above was in a single player environment. I also joined a Tekkit Lite server, run by Tmek. This was a very fun group and I built up a tech base there similar to the things above. I built a power suit using the Modular Powersuits mod, which allows for very fast movement and flight. The thing I was happiest with was the set of towers I built just for show. Each tower is supposed to represent a season.

Back in Michigan

It must be May, I am back in exciting East Lansing Michigan working with Keith Promislow at Michigan State University. He and the group here are great to work with and we've done a bunch of good things together. We've started some new projects this year. I didn't take me long to settle back in since I knew my way around pretty well. I am in the same glorified dorm room as last year.

Not much has changed here since last year. They finished (finally) the road construction on Harrison and Trowbridge and started up on the main road through town, Grand River. There is a Chipotle outlet. This is a great fast food place, pretty healthy with some commitment to local and organic food. I haven't been to the one here yet but have been at other places and really enjoyed it.

The new art gallery on campus is also finally finished. Actually, I think the building design is really interesting. I have heard that the permanent collection inside is not that great. 

The MSU bike place is no longer renting out old bikes that they refurbish, they have moved to using new bikes. I was disappointed at this and asked why they had made the change. Apparently,  it just cost too much in parts to keep the old bikes in good condition. Something is wrong in the world when it is cheaper to buy completely new than fix up an old item with some life left in it. Anyway, here is my trusty steed for this year. 

My exploration this year will be non-chain fast food places within riding distance. Going once a week (on Mondays) I'll never be able to see them all - it is a college town, full of fast food places for students. This week I went to nearby Giorgio's pizza and got a slice of pizza and a greek salad. Salad, that's pretty good for a fast food place. The pizza there is non-traditional in that it is not all tomato sauce, grated mozzarella and then other things. I see they have listed a mac and cheese and bacon pizza. Hmm... anyway, not bad but not as good (and more expensive) than Uncle Fatih's which is the Vancouver place I go to. However, it did have salad! So, Giorgio's advertises "grinders" if you can read the writing in the picture below. I believe that is Michiganian for "sub sandwich". My next stop will be Mena's in Hanna Square (where my local gym is). They advertise "hot dubs" (and enough times it's not a spelling mistake), but I am not sure what that is - yet! 

(long delay - I am writing this now in August, catching up on my blogging)

So I did go on to Mena's later on that trip. A Dub turns out to be a grilled wrap. I got a "loaded dub" which had potatoes, bacon, cheese, and ranch dressing. It was actually quite good. I would go back there. They also advertise breakfast dubs. If you look online, there are a lot of reviews of Mena's. It looks like the kind of place frequented by MSU students seriously close to blood alcohol poisoning. When I went school was out of session and it was relatively quiet and quite civilized. 

The last place I went to was a place called "Five Guys: Burgers and Fries". I discovered later it has a number of locations across the continent, even one in Vancouver. Because of this, it can't be counted as one of the local places I had intended. I thought the burger I got there was fantastic, the fries only OK.

The cinema at Meridian Mall has reopened (Studio C!). I went to see Iron Man 3 there. This is seriously the best theatre that I have ever been to. It has leather seats, fancy food and you can get beer. There is a seating grade higher that gets you reclining seats and waiter service. I didn't get that but would on my next trip! 

I went to the annual art fair in East Lansing. I saw it the first year I went but last year I came after it had already happened. There are some very nice pieces at the show. I bought a necklace for Lealle with matching earrings (which she has never worn - I have not had much luck over the years finding things to her taste). I bought a nice bowl for myself which I brought back with me. Red and blue, my favourite.

I cycled a bit further afield this time in the other direction (East). I took the interurban trail shown below to the townlet of Haslett. "Interurban" is a funny term for the trail that goes from the outskirts of East Lansing to near Haslett. My guess is that this is part of a planned route going from more major centres, or maybe someone just has a dry sense of humour. It was a very nice trail, and I had breakfast in Haslett with the Promislow family at Fernando's cafe at the end of it. Good times. 

Minecraft Continued: the Desert Challenge

I am still a few months behind on my Minecraft activities, but will describe my second foray into vanilla Minecraft. I liked the game and wanted to do something different and came up with the "desert challenge". This was a game started on a flat, all desert world with sand and sandstone all the way down, so no other resources except from villages and desert temples. The first thing to do was find a village for food, then find one with a sapling in a blacksmith chest, then use lava from a smithy to make a stone generator, then get more lava to turn into obsidian to make into a nether portal. The stone generator and portal are shown below. One of the subtle lack of physics things with Minecraft are that you can make infinite amounts of water with just two water buckets spilled into the right pattern. Two buckets and you can flood the world! The other one is that one bucket of lava spilling on to water can make as much stone as you want. 

So then I settled into a particular village and began building places for new villagers to live. If you build houses, they will come. In terms of game mechanics it is all about the number of doors so I made door heavy apartment designs.

Then, to get better gear I set about trading with the villagers. I fished for them, grew food for them and had a tree farm to make charcoal for them.

However, there was always some wise guy that would only trade me for chicken, and there had not been such a thing on this world for thousands of years. They say the sands of the village echoed with the screams of the dying after the stranger came to town. I couldn't just kill them outright, because by that time the village was full of protective iron golems, which then became a source of iron ingots after they were suffocated by sand.

At this stage, I got bored. As a mathematician, I had proved I could win the game and therefore didn't have to actually finish all the details to be satisfied. I later realized that the ongoing appeal of the game was not the "game" but the architectural design, which I pursued later as I moved on from vanilla Minecraft and on to the game with additional elements (mods) written by fans. I left this world when I finally found an abandoned mineshaft, which I had been searching for the whole time.