Shiphty

I like finishing at least one project before I post any updates. I've been working on a blast furnace for forever. Remember all that iron ore? It wasn't enough. I haven't used iron for any tools, weapons, or armor. I made a bloomery to process it, made an iron anvil, and have been making blooms ever since, just saving up for enough to make a blast furnace. Yeah, I know I could make a small one but I hate doing things half way.

Well, if fall damage were to be applied to water I think it ought to be reflective of reality. People can go cliff diving without injuring themselves. Personally, when there is some unbelievable aspect to the game, some loophole, I usually don't employ it. I've always hated the water break at the bottom of a huge hole in someone's minecraftian home. It didn't seem to make sense to me. Rust?! Ugh.

I know it isn't true but it almost seems like some TFC fans are masochists. "How can we make this game harder, more unpleasant, and less rewarding?"

_neglected to store up food for the winter.

I would help but I don't even know what a repo is.

You've just encouraged me to start pickling ASAP. The problem is that this really isn't a single player game. There's so much to do that if you play alone you're almost always running around in circles with two dozen projects half finished.

I leave the garden crops in the ground as long as possible. I know that where I'm living the pond water starts freezing around the beginning of January and if the plants are still in soil they go to seed. I really should start pickling things.

I'm currently up to the 7th of December in the year 1007. Thanks for the reminder, I've got to harvest before the frost sets in!

(Pardon any errors for this entry, I'm typing with a munchkin climbing on me.) I'd picked up a great deal of magnetite nuggets on the south western edge of my land and craving steel I scraped all the topsoil off the area to make sure I didn't miss any ore and began a strip mine beneath the flattened land. Of course I was more established and so I took my time with this mine. If you're trying to make a strong ceiling you cannot rely on the default height of the support beams but must add one additional section to each support before you place your crossbeam. The crossbeam should be the height of your ceiling, not under it. You should already know the size and shape of the chamber you are constructing, this method doesn't allow for removing any supports until you have excavated the entire area, then you work backward taking down the last supports first and the first ones last. After all the supports are in place you can shore the ceiling up with whatever strong material you have available. Smoothed stone is my favorite. In this case the vein was very close to the surface, it was almost a breach mine. Unfortunately magnetite is difficult to distinguish from dolomite. During one of my food runs I discovered that my roosters had been up to no good. Chic-splosion. This branch being finished, needed its supports removed. Since the previous support covered the area over these supports I could take them out without any trouble. Then close up the hole and you've got a finished and safe ceiling. Rinse and repeat until you work your way back to the beginning. No muss, no fuss, just a completely finished ceiling over my brand new magnetite mine and quarry. Yes, quarry, I intend to build a wall to make my land safer. Speaking of quarries... Since my old quarry is on my land I couldn't leave it in such a messy state. I had to give it a somewhat finished ceiling and cover it over for safety's sake and because the open pit prevented me from building a wall around the perimeter. No more belief and gravity suspending supports. I really should do something with all that vinegar. It may not look big but this vein produced around one hundred and sixty iron bars worth of magnetite ore. No, I haven't smelted it, I still need more copper for enough bronze necessary to construct a bloomery. No fear though, Ol' Shiphty has a plan. While I was clearing the land above I found two native copper nuggets almost directly in the center of my quarry. I figured if I simply tunnel straight down I'd hit copper in no time. I was right. The copper was at the very top of the rhyolite layer below. There was a little cavern in the way but the drop was only bruise-worthy. For exploratory tunnels you needn't excavate much of the stone in order to remain safe. Keep your tunnels one cubit wide and two cubits tall except where you put up braces. I like to put them every five cubits for measurement's sake. This tunnel is safe, easy, and fairly quick to mine out. I do not know of a better method for exploratory mining. If I wasn't munchkin-sitting I'm sure I'd have steel by now. Yes, I sit on munchkins, it's much easier to watch them if they are trapped under you and cannot move.

I don't know who I'm going to vote for but I agree about the federal reserve.

I generally listen to something that I can think about while I'm working; social commentary, philosophy, theology, or a let's play. Having rough and bumpy ground drives me nuts. I want my land to be easily traversable. Nothing worse than trying to gather sticks and saplings and accidentally falling into a chasm.

A step in the right direction would be identifying the cultural marxism which has pervaded our society.

This is how I feel. I'm not arguing one way or the other but when my first set of bowls broke I quickly started making sandwiches and forgot about bowls entirely. Problem solved.

My land is starting to look more settled but is still under construction and not entirely pretty. Here is the view from the tower toward the west. And the north. And the east. I did begin excavating the land over a magnetite vein on my western border but I may put that project on hold until I've acquired more copper. I need enough bronze to make a bloomery. I don't think I'll have to go far to find copper, this land is dripping with minerals of all kinds.

Well, this morning I have time to upload some more screenshots and bring the journal current. Clearing and leveling the land was quite a long haul. Very nearly done... Annnnnd done. The spring is shored up with its own stairway and the entire thing is fenced and gated. Brewing will no longer be a rushed job. The trees grew in so fast and make it difficult to tell but this land is completely flat. Yup, definitely flat. Torchin' up the place. I don't intend to just leave the torches out in the open but they'll keep the baddies away for now. I'm always trying to come up with creative ways to keep the dark forces from spawning. I realized that these timber tips would present spawning opportunities. Rather than put up a torch or jack'o lantern I just wedged a little board into the intersecting crack on each one. You can hardly see it from the ground. And yes, I use pumpkins for scaffolding. I call these things warding stones. I dig a pit down two cubits, put a smoothed stone in the bottom, top it with a torch, then cap it with another smoothed stone. Then I shave the top stone down to one eighth of a cubit. It's a lot of work but it looks better than a torch forest. I feel that there ought to be a mechanic in the game which lets you permanently take territory and make it safe. Alright, so, I found every resource I needed except for chickens. I went on a long journey and covered thousands upon thousands of cubits... no dice. I got so frustrated I actually considered cheating. But the idea of cheating made me lose the will to play. I finally gave up and went to bed. The next day I read that you could pluck feathers from friendly pheasants. And so, with renewed vigor, I made up my mind to capture and tame pheasants. However, while I was exploring the nearby sea for the best route by which to bring home some cattle and horses I'd discovered, I stumbled upon an entire continent populated with chickens. So. Many. Chickens. I brought the chickens home. I also brought back the cattle, horses, and a mated pair of donkeys. I am only lacking swine, which may be found in the nearby woods. You might've noticed that my health seems to have regressed. Yes, I died. After over seven years of harrowing adventures and striving for survival, I stumbled down a crevice in a field. I was pretty upset over the ordeal, I was beginning to hope that I wouldn't die at all. I don't like dying. I plowed up the rest of the soil around the pond. I can now perform crop rotation by circling the pond. I also hedged the farmland in with gravel. I'd discovered that saplings like to grow too close to my garden and the plants will become uprooted. The front room is jam-packed with chests full of soil, gravel, sand, and tons of uncut wood. Pine on the left, ash on the right. And yes, you can attach ladders to stacked wood. Hickory for days. White cedar stacked in the smithy. Douglas Fir in the charcoal chamber. I don't really care for douglas fir. There are also stacks of aspen, maple, oak, spruce, and white elm. After acquiring a tremendous amount of livestock I decided it'd be prudent to trek up north and bring home as much salt as I could. I ought to have brought more than one pick and I didn't learn from my first mining expedition as I also left my saw at home. I arrived at the site with little time before dark. You can see that my shelter was quite sloppy but it sufficed to keep me and my new salt mine safe. The smoothed rock salt floor serves as a roof to the salt mine below. Upon returning home I cleaned up the top of the mot yard and planted my orchard. I still need to decide where to plant the berry bushes but I think I'll wait till the trees are full grown. Though it served me well, it was clear that I needed to disassemble my old shelter. Sheep, cattle, horses, and chickens were all gathered together and given their own pens. These pens were then fenced in as well in case any of the animals escape the first barrier. There is a space reserved for pigs. This whole livestock area is at the front foot of the mot. I decided it was time to work on acquiring steel. The first thing I needed was a kiln room. I excavated a little space next to the main basement chamber near the mineshaft. Seven pit kilns is more than enough for my purposes. The entire room is made of stone, no fire danger. And I don't have to go outdoors. I remembered that anvils used to keep metals from cooling so I laid out two stone cut ones. Unfortunately, things have changed. I had to use the forge to reheat about half of the copper ingots in order to craft the seven double ingots for my first metal anvil. A bronze anvil was the next immediate project. It was easier the second time around but I did reheat four of the ingots.

Some people don't like getting close to the equator because food spoils quicker. Also, the acacia forests are nearly impenetrable.

The tower and the mineshaft are separate. The mineshaft only comes up to the ground floor and the tower begins at the roof deck. I use the tower to survey the surrounding area. It's also nice to just climb up there once in a while and enjoy the view.

Some folks must think I'm insane for doing all that work with stone tools rather than racing to get steel first. But ya know, I'm really having a blast. There were a couple of times where I felt like I was getting a little burnt out while leveling all that earth but every time I make a little breakthrough or finish a project I'm keen and excited about this build all over again. I've never made it to blue or red steel, not even black steel, but I think I might actually do it this time. In addition to the fact that I'm enjoying myself, I figure I'd go through so much steel doing what I'm doing that I'd spend more time looking for the steel in order to use it up so that it's actually faster to just finish the terraforming with stone. Twice zombies dropped bronze shovels and man, I went through those things in minutes. Most of the terraforming is done now at any rate. I've also discovered that I was wrong about the body of salt water, it isn't a gulf but an inland sea.

Here is a better view from the rear of the house. You can see the spring on the left and my original shelter and the garden pond on the right. What do you guys think? Does the tower look silly on top of the roof? If I was going to do it over I'd build it along side the house. I still might. The kitchen and smithy needed forges and forges need chimneys. Yeah, it's a little blocky, I plan to eventually work it with a chisel. I'm doing all the major building first and once everything's where it should be I can take my time and pretty it all up. I suppose I'm also putting off the fine details because I'm better at function than appearance. There will eventually be a grate over the kitchen forge. And again, I plan to pretty it up a bit. But here is the basic structure. I've yet to put trapdoors in the chimney. I hate seeing the rain come down my chimney. And yes, the forges are both set forward so the rain cannot affect them. The forge in the smithy is a siamese twin to this one. The chimney also serves the standard fire places in the upper smithy and my bedroom. These are also both identical and attached. I wasn't sure whether the chimney needed to be higher. What do you guys think? After I took this shot I chiseled one layer off the top bricks so that mobs couldn't spawn up there. Santa is welcome down my chimney, creepers... not so much. This may just look like another screenshot of my house but if you scroll up you can find a shot where I'm standing in this exact spot, on my original shelter, and there's only a wooded hill there. I included this for contrast. Look how far I've come! Lovely sunset view from my tower. There below are my sheep pens. The terrain all around is hilly and dense with trees. That would end up being my next project. But first I lit the forge and waited to see if my house would catch fire. It didn't. (Yaaay!) Then I brought all of my supplies indoors. It's unspeakably nice to be in a house after years of rough living. I will never go camping again! (Excepting every single time I have to journey out into the world in search of some supplies.) Most of my supplies were kept in the kitchen, the food was kept in the food cellar, but all the bulk items such as dirt, gravel, sand, and uncut timbers were put in the front room temporarily. I got tired of running up stairs in order to run down stairs so I constructed an entryway directly into the main basement chamber. This door spills out onto the upper scaffolding of that chamber. I suppose if I was concerned about attacking armies I might have abstained but as it stands the forces of darkness don't seem to be very organized and only attack me when they happen to see me. I cut down the trees all around my house, at least one hundred cubits in every direction. Then I set to terraforming the land. I wanted a flat property. There were quite a few lucky finds. I found bituminous coal and bismuth in abundance without even looking for it. There were also abundant traces of limonite and magnetite. I certainly picked a good spot to settle. Here is my quarry after the hills and trees around it have been removed. I made sure the hills outside of my land were sloping away. This was an immense endeavor. I only employed bronze to make saws, picks, and chisels. All the digging and chopping was done with stone tools. Among some clay I found a few strange bits of soil. I cannot account for this at all. And then it happened! I was ambushed in broad daylight by a skeleton. Before I could get away he had skewered me three times with javelins. The fourth one whistled past my head. If his aim had been true at the last I'd have been finished. I decided to pay more attention to my diet, craft some leather armor, and string a bow. I had not yet died and did not intend to. You can see here that my health was much improved after that. Additionally, the coal seemed to simply be laying on the ground for the taking. I have yet more screenshots but I haven't uploaded them to photobucket yet. More updates will be forthcoming.

Well, after much ado I've managed to pull myself away from playing to post some more screenshots. First floor walls finished, sans windows and doors. I needed a great deal more oak wood so I used the rest of the mot-mound as a nursery. However, it takes oak a while to grow so I went back for lumber in the meantime. Don't you love it when those tribal drums begin to beat time while you're running home? Oh you deceptively beautiful sunset, how you endanger me. I shored up a walkway leading from my back door to the spring. I will eventually construct an archway beneath it. How not to die whilst traveling: hide at night. I try to find a fresh water source. It helps if the water is bordered by a hill or cliff. I dig down one cubit and cover myself in lumber. Once the frogs stop croaking it's about time to emerge and begin traveling once more. That little garden started to produce more food than I could eat. Of course this meant it was time to try my hand at brewing alcohol. Two barrels of whiskey, three barrels of beer (my favorite) and the rest is vodka. Seriously, if you want a huge amount of alcohol, grow potatoes. I think the two on the far right may be vodka vinegar. Okay, here's what happened: I was constructing what I thought would be a standard piqued roof but once it was up it looked awful. Since the house is so wide and long a 45 degree slope made for a roof that was at least as tall as the main body of the house. Ew. So I cut it down and sloped the ends but left a flat platform. The roof goes up exactly one more story (five cubits) and then becomes a deck of sorts. And what was I to do with such a flat surface? Erect a tall watch tower of course! I really thought I was going to fall to my death the whole time I was building this. If you don't have a tower you really should build one. Setting aside utility, it's really a lovely view, particularly in the morning. A view of the house from the spring out back. That upper deck still needs a thatch roof but the frame for it is up. The thatch makes it feel nice and cozy. I swear, I'm really starting to love this house. Of course the top of the tower needs a railing. I'm starting to agree with DanDerth about the combination of oak and hickory. The guard rail for the ladder isn't as safe as it looks. There's a space between the ladder and the railing, just enough for someone to slip. But it looks pretty anyway. Attic storage area. The front room takes up the ground floor, second floor, and attic above it so each level acts like a balcony. I'm particularly fond of the timber rafters. And here we see the front room, which will become quite useful later. Still no doors or windows. Stairway to the attic from the second floor. I'm standing in what will eventually become my bedroom. To the right is the upper level of the smithy, to the left is a balcony over the front room. Here's the second floor balcony over the front room. Man, I really love those timber rafters. Again, second floor balcony over the front room. And yes, hunger just caught up with me. The bedroom exits onto an outdoor balcony which provides a roof for the basement stairway as this set of stairs is not actually a part of the house proper but an annex was made for it. Eventually these oak trees will be replaced by an orchard, berry bushes, and a flower garden. And here we are in the front room. I do plan to eventually light the place up in a more presentable fashion. For now the torches keep the creatures away. Here we have the first floor of the smithy. The mineshaft goes down to connect to both levels of the main basement chamber and continues on down to the mine. And now a view from the kitchen out the back door to the spring. The kitchen became and remains a catchall workshop while the building is underway. The basement stairway annex connects to the kitchen. The door off to the right leads to the front room and farther right is the stairway to the second floor which spills out into the upper smithy area. On the first landing of the basement stairway are doors to either side with the dark room food storage on the left and the basement main chamber scaffolding on the right. Further down is a door which leads to the basement's main chamber proper and at the bottom is the charcoal chamber. And here is the front of the house. The roof shingles are made of aspen. That was quite a journey as well. Sorry, no screen shots though.

I dunno... not sure more time at the quern would add to the game's fun factor.

That's terrible! You found the hickory tree right as you were quitting. Unbelievable.

Thanks. The hickory is actually growing on me. I did go and find aspen for shingles. I've been meaning to post more pictures but I've been so caught up in actually playing.

7

I've never lived in a place with much snow. My current home doesn't ever see snow at all, only a little frost in the lakes around January.