Upgrade to 1.4

[Tom]

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

Spoiler

Bet you can't not read that in this guy's voice:

[close]

The server will be upgrading to Minecraft 1.4 real soon now.


First, I WILL be deleting sections of the existing world so we get to see some of the new features without having to travel way too far. The idea so far is that most of the LARGE ocean will be deleted, and many of the long meandering trails. I'd also like to open up areas much closer to spawn, but that's up to everyone deciding what areas can go.


So basically, I need you to tell me what locations are good to go.


Secondly we've had a few people ask for some basic mods. This means I'll likely be putting together a little modpack for us to use. So far people want the EnderStorage mod. Are there any others we should contemplate? Equivalent Exchange perhaps? To be honest I /really/ would like the portal gun mod.. Going much further than that would basically just turn the server into "Tekkit".. I'm so tempted to talk up the Forestry mod, its so freaking useful even without a bunch of other mods, but its even more useful if you also have BuildCraft (and if you have BC, why not take RP2 and IC2 as well? ). RP2 is an option too I think, its redstone stuff is so useful for vanila its not even funny.

If there's no decision made by the time I sit down to do the actual upgrade, I'll just decide myself that goes for the deleting chunks part too. 

[Lazybones]

- don't turn the server into mod pack hell, if the client side stuff all works with a mod launcher then that isn't bad

- tech kit sounds very cool yet also sounds like some of it is redundant and other parts broken, I think as a rule a mod needs to be very complete and stable to be considered.


I will also post a disclaimer that I don't log in much these days so this is just my opinion.

[Lazybones]

I also vote to delete ocean however you may want to check if something was built in the neither first

[Tom]

- don't turn the server into mod pack hell, if the client side stuff all works with a mod launcher then that isn't bad

- tech kit sounds very cool yet also sounds like some of it is redundant and other parts broken, I think as a rule a mod needs to be very complete and stable to be considered.

Yeah no. it won't be tekkit.

I also vote to delete ocean however you may want to check if something was built in the neither first

Hm? I'm not sure what the nether and ocean have to do with each other, except maybe gates linking under the ocean... but if there's nothing actually there, the gates don't matter. This is why I'm asking everyone to give me info. I can't decide properly on my own. I don't know what people have built and where.

[Lazybones]

For some reason I thought the over world and neither chunks got generated together never mind.

[Mr. Analog]

As someone who, uhh, builds a lot of stuff I highly recommend Equivalent Exchange, you still have to work for it and without mods like RailCraft you can't stockpile large amounts of EMC (Energy-Matter Currency) unless you are actually playing.

Basically once you hit the high tier with EE you can fly around and build armor that requires fuel but lets you take a lot of damage/breathe underwater/etc

BuildCraft vs Red Power

BuildCraft contains the Quarry which, while great for extracting a chunks worth of stuff can make the world look ugly fast, meanwhile RedPower lets you build really really sophisticated redstone stuff the downside to it though is it creates new gems and ores which means to get rolling with RedPower you'd have to start in a newly generated area.

As far as I know both EE and BuildCraft use all standard Minecraft goodies but don't add anything beyond their own new items you must craft

Also EE has crystal chests and well if that's not cool I don't know what is!!

[Tom]

As someone who, uhh, builds a lot of stuff I highly recommend Equivalent Exchange, you still have to work for it and without mods like RailCraft you can't stockpile large amounts of EMC (Energy-Matter Currency) unless you are actually playing.

Basically once you hit the high tier with EE you can fly around and build armor that requires fuel but lets you take a lot of damage/breathe underwater/etc

BuildCraft vs Red Power

BuildCraft contains the Quarry which, while great for extracting a chunks worth of stuff can make the world look ugly fast, meanwhile RedPower lets you build really really sophisticated redstone stuff the downside to it though is it creates new gems and ores which means to get rolling with RedPower you'd have to start in a newly generated area.

As far as I know both EE and BuildCraft use all standard Minecraft goodies but don't add anything beyond their own new items you must craft

Also EE has crystal chests and well if that's not cool I don't know what is!!

I wouldn't suggest BC myself. RP could be an idea. It doesn't add that much worldgen that you actually need to use. And the Crystal Chest comes from the IronChest mod.

[Mr. Analog]

B'oh, I thought it was from EE as you use an Alchemical Chest as an ingredient.

Personally speaking I prefer RP2 over BC

mmm block deployers
pneumatic tubes!
LAMPS!!

[Tom]

B'oh, I thought it was from EE as you use an Alchemical Chest as an ingredient.

Personally speaking I prefer RP2 over BC

mmm block deployers
pneumatic tubes!
LAMPS!!

Um, you can use regular chests as an ingredient for the special chests. with all the extra mods, it starts off with a copper chest iirc, then iron, then silver, then gold, then diamond, then crystal. without other mods, its just iron, gold, diamond, crystal. See http://technicpack.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Chests

And yeah, I prefer RP2 as well. It's tubes are far smarter than BC pipes are.

[Mr. Analog]

That's for sure!!

[Tom]

Also: MICRO BLOCKS.

Anyone who likes building pretty things probably wants microblocks.

[Thorin]

A good question for deleting chunks would be what ocean area has construction under it that you don't want deleted?  In my case, PLEASE DON'T DELETE MY UNDERWATER MINE AND GIANT ROOM: see http://mc.tomasu.org/#/1584/64/822/max/0/0 and http://mc.tomasu.org/#/1565/64/783/-1/0/1.  Maybe I should spend some time examining the map to look for underwater structures (like LennyLen's dome).  And maybe IM / email all the people that you know on the server and tell them about this thread and that we're trying to free up parts of the map.

And yes, I guess we'll have to make a little Tomasu mod pack.  EnderStorage would be for setting up a post office to "mail" things to other players.  I dunno about EE, on the one hand it seems to make Minecraft easier, on the other hand you never have to go looking for diamonds or emeralds again.  I just haven't decided yet if that helps or if it cheapens the experience (no more hoo-rah when you find those diamond veins).  RedPower would be wonderful for improving our redstone circuitry.  But I don't want to get overwhelmed with too many new things at once and then spending all my time building automated machines and no time building actual things to look at...  Anyway, that's my opinion.

What's in the Forestry mod that makes it so useful?

Hmm, maybe what we need is a pro/con for the mods.

EnderStorage
Pros: allows easier transfer of goods from location to location and player to player, gentle learning curve
Cons: requires client-side mod to use

Equivalent Exchange
Pros: can transmute any material to any other material once you're set up, adds new materials to make armour/weapons/tools from, allows near infinite inventory and automatic repair of tools/weapons
Cons: requires client-side mod to use, adds a lot of new craftable items, looks like a steep learning curve, appears to encourage a lot of time at the crafting table

RedPower2
Pros: significantly reduces size of redstone circuitry, allows multiple coloured redstone wires side by side, allows cutting blocks into thinner slices or hollow tubes
Cons: requires client-side mod to use, adds a lot of new ores and craftable items, looks like a medium-to-steep learning curve

Damn that was a lot of posts while I was typing this up.  I'm with Lazy, I don't want a large number of mods cluttering it up and confusing me.  I kinda like being able to say I built stuff in vanilla Minecraft (although ever since we started using Bukkit for whitelisting, we weren't vanilla anymore, but there weren't any mods that helped building).  But I do understand Mr. A's desire to make building easier, and that RedPower stuff would make our redstone circuitry much easier.

[Tom]

What's in the Forestry mod that makes it so useful?

It helps with farming. And has this neat mechanic with bees. You can set up wheat, and tree farms. Theres also a block that will feed your animals for you.

[Thorin]

I tried to mark off the areas that need to be saved and that can be deleted.  I spent about an hour and a half slowly scrolling through the map to check.  I also went through the Travel Guide to make sure I'd not marked any of those locations for deletion.  Marked in red means I didn't find anything there that looked man-made or worth keeping; marked in white means I think or know there's man-made stuff there.

[Tom]

Thanks Thorin. I hope others get a chance to look at that and point out anything that they'd want to keep or is ok to delete.

That said, Bukkit has made its first Development release today.

http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/when-will-craftbukkit-for-1-4-be-released.107128/page-28#post-1390990

I will /not/ update to it. But this means that the first recommended build should be out soon.