Hi gang! Editorial Please keep in mind that this guide is about features for an upcoming version of Minecraft (at the time of writing). Also: the things I'll be showing here won't do you much good on the Empire (unless your a SS I guess), but they might help you spice up your single gameplay a bit. I usually prefer to focus myself on Minecraft topics which can also be used on the Empire itself and address the general Minecraft topics 'elsewhere' (a more general Minecraft forum) but I figured... Why not here again? It's been a while since I shared something anyway Generated structures? One of the system blocks which I really admire and enjoy using is the so called structure block; it's basically a block which allows you to important and export structures to and from your game. The cool part is that even Mojang is using this technique for some of the automatically generated buildings. If you come across an end city (in the End) or maybe a woodland mansion (the Overworld) then those have one thing in common: you can also build them yourself using structure blocks. For example: would you like an End ship in your game? Easy! /give @p structure_block Place the block, right click on it (you need to be in Creative mode), and then click the bottom left button which is now called 'data' until it says "load". Use: "end_city/ship" as the name, then in the 3 'value fields' below (which represent X, Y and Z coordinates) enter 5 1 5, then click 'LOAD' (in the bottom right corner, below buttons such as 'save entities?'). Now you'll see an outline appear which will show you where the structure is going to be placed. If you're satisfied with this: Open the interface again (right click) and click 'LOAD' again. And voila; one end ship! If you're not satisfied with this: Open the interface again (right click) and change the coordinates, then click 'done'. You'll see that the outline has moved. Proceed to move it around until you're happy with the location. This is all fine and well but we have a bit of a problem. You see... the only structures which support this right now are: End cities, Fossils, Igloo's, Woodland Mansion and the upcoming Underwater ruins and shipwrecks. So what if you'd like yourself a desert temple, officially known as a desert pyramid? Well, guess what? You can! And thanks to the new /data command you'll even be able to randomize it too! What I mean with that? Well, let's find out! Finding a desert pyramid A desert pyramid which Aya & me found and enhanded a bit in the snapshot world. Finding something in 1.13 couldn't be easier. Not only do you have the /locate command at your disposal; in 1.13 this won't merely show you coordinates but clickable coordinates. So once you have your coordinates all you have to do is click, and hit enter. Woosh! Instant teleportation. Of course: you might want to start with using F3-c. This is yet another cool new feature: it will copy your current coordinates to the clipboard. And did I ever tell you that 1.13 also allows you to teleport yourself across dimensions such as the End, the Nether and the Overworld? No? Well... that's for another time. For now just trust me on that So start with using: /locate desert_pyramid. And don't forget that tab completion is a thing in 1.13. So after you pressed /lo you'll probably see 'locate' appear already: press tab. Then space, and after you typed des it probably already lists the pyramid too. Now, if you took my advice to copy your current location (so that you can easily get back again) then I suggest you start by saving this command in a command block for safe keeping: /give @p command_block. Place the block somewhere out of the way & right click to open its interface. Paste the teleport command and then click 'Done'. Careful: some pyramids can end up being buried in sand or other junk. If that's the case for you then either start by clearing out the junk around it or find yourself another pyramid. Clearing out shouldn't be too hard though. Setting up the structure blocks Now comes the fun but also tricky part. Give yourself a structure block: /give @p structure_block and don't forget that tab completion is a thing! Place it right in front of the entrance, but a few blocks away. I usually leave 3 - 5 blocks open. Press F3 to open the debug screen and look carefully at the crosshair. The most ideal location is for you to face eastwards while looking at the entrance; so towards a positive X axis. So basically both lines of the crosshair (red and blue) point 'away' from you. It's still doable if your pyramid faces another direction, but it can be a little harder on you. It is important to remember that if you're working with structure blocks then the start position of something to save is always located towards the 'start' of the crosshair. Or in other words: the size of a structure can never be negative, always positive. Don't worry if this doesn't make sense right now: you'll soon see what I mean. Here I've found a pyramid and placed my structure block, notice the outline? Now, the fun part about all this is that a desert pyramid has a fixed size: 21 x 21 and it's 11 blocks high. Which makes it relatively easy to set up your structure block. However... this only covers the top side, as you probably know a pyramid also has a shaft with a booby trap at the bottom (pressure plate and a layer of TNT below that). In order to make it easier on us I prefer to save the whole structure in 2 parts: the top, which consists of the main pyramid itself, and the bottom which will only contain the shaft, the TNT floor and the four treasure chests of course. The most important thing to do here is to find the correct starting position. Let me show you: Here is the interface of the structure block. As you can see I placed it right in front of the entrance; in in my case I got lucky enough to find a pyramid which entrance pointed westwards. The important part here is the relative position section: this tells the structure block where the structure 'begins'. Because I'm facing eastwards my starting position is to my left. So I used a negative Z value (-10). And because I placed the structure block 3 blocks away from the entrance I filled out 4 for the X value because the start position is also a few blocks in front of me. And 0 for the Y because I'll be saving the structure in 2 parts. You can see this in better detail in the previous screenshot (notice the green line on the left side of the pyramid?). This is also why they call this the relative position: the coordinates heavily depend on the location of your structure block and the direction you're facing. However, and this is important: the structure size will always be the same: 21 x 11 x 21. So the only thing you have to do is to make sure that the green line of the outline gets placed in the corner of the desert pyramid. Start by filling out the structure size and then set the relative (starting) position. Preferably in the corner to your direct left, but it can also easily be the corner at the right and in the back (this would be the case if you faced westwards). Just experiment a bit with the relative position: be sure to click 'Done' once you changed those numbers! Warning: don't click that big 'SAVE' button just yet, before we can do that we need to sort out a few things on the inside first. (not so) Random treasure? As you probably know there are 4 loot chests in a desert pyramid. And those contain random loot: you'll never know what you'll find in there. Minecraft uses so called "loot tables" to determine the kind of items which should appear in such a chest. But there is a problem See the screenshot above? When you're standing inside a pyramid, above the shaft, then a loot chest is always 12 blocks below you. If you stand on the terracotta block right between the sandstone pillars then you'll be standing right above the loot chest. So now try using this command: /data get block ~ ~-12 ~. You should see something similar to what I showed you above. The problem here is the LootTableSeed. Do you know about the seed comand? If not try using it now: /seed. That number is your so called level seed: it fully determines what your level will look like. If you create a new world and then enter this number as the seed you'll get the exact same level back. Every block you know in the world will be back at its exact same location. And that's also what that LootTableSeed is all about: this pre-determines the kind of treasure which you'll find in those chests. Or, in other words: in its current state you'd get the same kind of treasure every time you load in the pyramid. That's no fun So let's fix this! It is time for another dose of 1.13 magic: /data remove block ~ ~-12 ~ LootTableSeed. And wham; no more pre-determined loot. If we save the bottom in the state it is now you'll get totally different treasure each and every time you load in the bottom section. Pretty neat, right? So let's do that now... Place another structure block on top of the blue terracotta block, then enter these values: Don't worry: these values are always the same, no matter the direction you're facing. Once you're done you'll need to do 2 things: first click that big 'SAVE' button, you should see a confirmation appear. Next: open the interface again, and switch the structure block from Save to Load (click the button at the lower left corner). Once that says 'Load' click 'Done'. Wondering why we do this? Simple really: we're going to save this structure block as a part of the pyramid. The advantage of that is that we never have to remember that -14 Y value. For now just finish the project: walk outside, open the other structure block interface and click 'SAVE'. Now... whenever you want to place a pyramid later you can simply use a structure block in 'load mode', use "desert-pyramid_top" as its name and set the relative Y position to 0. This will ensure that only the top gets loaded and will be placed right above the ground. After that all you'd have to do to get the bottom is to walk inside, open the other structure block interface, click "LOAD" and you're done. This is what the current situation could look like when viewed in observer mode: Must. Resist. Abandoned. Mineshaft. Notice both outlines, the one on top and the one below ground level? And we're done (sort off)! Congratulations, right now you have a fully dynamic desert pyramid structure available in your 1.13 world. If you want to place one somewhere then give yourself a structure block, load "desert-pyramid_top" and wham.. done. However, there is one important aspect to keep in mind: datapacks. In 1.13 everything you manually add to a world: recipes, loot tables, functions and structures: they all need to reside in a so called data pack. So although things will work in the situation it is now it'll be better to make a datapack, move your structure files into it and then use that from there on. It will also make the whole thing much more transportable: if you want to use it in another world then you'd only have to copy your datapack around. How to do that? Yeah, that's for another guide (one which I also plan on sharing here). And there you have it!
