Hi gang! I'm having such a great time on the Empire that I really can't help myself here; the weekend is upon us, I started a little bit early with opening a nice cool beverage and well... So earlier this week I managed to finish building the, as I call it, Omega forge. It's basically a hopper driven 15-furnace parallel smelter which can really speeds things up. But yah; with a requirement of 2 stacks of hoppers (which means 128 hoppers; 5 iron ingots used per hopper so 512 + 128 = 640 ingots in total. Divided by 64 (easy) means 10stacks of ingots total. Or: 71 iron blocks plus 1 ingot). Hmm, at least I can still do math from mind Anyway; it put a good dent in my (not too heavy) iron reserves and because I got a bit tired of buying all my stuff I finally decided to live up to the 'mine' part in Minecraft... Well, and this turned into one heck of EMC customized experience! Thing is; some time ago I finally got the last piece of my voters armor: the voters chest. The kind of chest which you don't use to put things in, but instead helps you to keep things out This is what I'm talking about: Me wearing my voters armor and showing off my new iron voters sword... What is so cool about getting dyed leather armor you may wonder? Well, first of all the "getting dyed leather armor" part. I think it's very cool that you get such useful gifts solely for voting for the Empire (daily). Just like I still think the last holiday season was awesome; I didn't participate in the events, but enjoyed the promo's all the way! But back to the armor: the real awesome part here is that this armor is special. Not only is this soulbound, thus belonging to me and me alone: "If you strike me down I shall remain more powerful than you can possibly imagine...". It is also marked Unbreakable. Yes, you read that right. I can get blown up by a dozen or so creepers, respawn with my full armor and it won't have a scratch on it; ready for use as soon as I'm back in the game. Now that is customized armor for you! Of course this isn't the only thing which makes this armor so awesome. The EMC boys and girls really understand perfectly that leather armor, even with the soulbound & unbreakable enchants, wouldn't be much more useful than the regular thing. So they also added some very nice enchants as well in order to allow the armor to become much more usable than plain leather armor, but also making sure that it wouldn't become too powerful (which is actually something I enjoy, no kidding). What enchants? Well... Start voting, continue voting, and you'll soon find out for yourself Trust me: it's well worth it... Alas... I had a cool set of armor, I had a need for iron. Time to go mining! When I go mining, just so you know, I try to plan ahead. I don't run off into the waste thinking "gee, I wonder what I'll find" but instead I check the livemap to see which area might interest me and also what time of day it is (so I can plan on traveling during the day after which I can mine at night). And of course I bring supplies; at the minimum plenty of food, a crafting table, a clock, weapons and tools (good sword, several (high end) pickaxes, shovel & axe), torches and one stack of dirt & cobble. Lately I also brought an infinite bow along which has saved my skin a few times as well Depending on what you're after, but a crafting table can be invaluable. Really... I mean; you do realize that all those stacks of coal (or iron, redstone, diamonds (?!)) can easily be reduced to 1 inventory section of blocks? 9 stacks of coal, thus 9 inventory sections, can be easily converted into 1 stack of coal blocks. Thus saving up 8 inventory sections. IF you got a crafting table And don't worry; unlike quarts, which you'll never be able to "change back" you can easily get 9 items back out of a block of coal, redstone, iron, gold, diamond or emerald. Now; my strategy was simple: go way out into the waste, find a good spot, and build a small base of operations. And I did! Heck, I was pretty confident that I would get some good scores here that I even raised my difficulty level up a notch. 6 instead of 5. The sun is setting in the forest at the other side of the river, right before my small base of operations I realize like no other how this is probably old school for most of you. I really do But the last time I went out for some serious mining on a server things were different for me. So this endeavor really was a bit special to me. And boy did I have a great time! After settling in, mining a way down (and adding stone stairs) I also made sure that I could sustain myself. I bred some chickens in the wild (not penned in, just bred 'm, also for XP), got a fishing rod, punched grass to get seeds which I planted, etc. And what a friendly community the EMC servers have. It didn't take long before my neighbors gave me a warm welcome into the wastelands: My wasteland neighbor, probably enraged because of the music I was playing Well, either the music got to him or the fact that I killed several of his cousin creepers In case you noticed; yes, this snap was from another mining trip (notice the iron voters sword) but even so... Doesn't change anything about my awesome experience. All of this really added up to my gameplay, it was so rewarding and challenging all of a sudden! You can really tell if you raise your difficulty... During the trip I used a pretty powerful diamond sword with plenty of enchants. Sharpness V and Flaming Aspect (and Looting III). I can slice up a creeper easily with 2 quick slashes. That is... On difficulty 5. Raise to 6 and it becomes a "little bit" harder. The other thing I noticed was that I had to deal with several enraged mobs during my trip, one example seen above. I got lucky that I could shoot my way out of a meeting with an enraged creeper But it really added up. I know those guys spawn randomly, but in my gameplay I like to think that those guys got really mad at me for disturbing their peace & quiet in the waste So yah... I aimed for Extreme Hills, I got Extreme Hills and guess what? The first abandoned (really abandoned, I was first!) mineshaft I found on a server on my own... This was soo cool. And even there did I got jumped by dozens of hostile mobs, some even enraged too! And just in case you're still wondering about the powah of that voting armor I mentioned earlier: one normal creeper managed to get to me up closer. Not directly next to me, and I also dodged a little when I heard the shizzle, but even so.... Kablam! And I had a big crater next to me. With the setup you see above I was only down 3 (or 3.5) hearts. No more. And of course; my armor didn't got a scratch on it Managed to bag 2 treasure chests, dug up a lot of coal, iron, redstone, diamonds (half a stack at least, but I also "ored" some) and 3 - 4 emeralds (also "ored"). Oh; "ored" means that I picked 'm up using my silk touch pick axe, another thing I'm slowly (but steadily!) getting accustomed to again SO yah... One mining trip down, carefully plotted my way back and in the end I bagged 3 - 4 stacks of iron, 2s or so of lapis, 4s redstone, 36 diamonds, 4 emeralds ("ored") and.... Its what also partly triggered this venting I now also own 2 dragon stone fragments! Really guys: I'm really impressed with the customization options. Because they allow us to add a lot of extra tension and risk to our gameplay but while still not intruding too much on the vanilla style gameplay. I mean; I have been here before (this mining "outpost" if you will) but on settings 5 and at one time also on 2 (because I wanted to mine sooo badly). No enraged mobs, not too much trouble from mobs basically and I slashed creepers with one or two strokes of my sword. So yah... EMC really is the kind of experience which you make of it. And as said; I'm having a great time so far, so felt like sharing Next stop: my crops on my residence (how boring )
Thanks 607 I will admit that I was quite enthusiastic (and impressed) when I wrote all of that (I still am) but I can now also tell you guys that I had very good reasons to be excited about those little adventures Now, I don't keep full track of the stuff I hauled in because after it ends up in my storage I tend to forget about it. But I got myself at least 3x 7 - 8 diamonds from fighting enraged mobs, several more diamonds from mining (at least 12 diamond ore blocks and enough diamonds to "bank" them) and also plenty of redstone, iron, coal and even gold and several emeralds (also mostly mined as emerald ores, got approx. 16 of them I think). Extreme Hills does that to you But honestly; I'm only approx. 500 blocks away from an outpost and nearly all of the terrain hasn't been touched. HUGE mineshaft region, and as said; chucked with ores. So yeah, there really is plenty to mine in the wasteland.
