Luanti Asuna Minetest - the two kinds of rice, and the two kinds of salt and sugar

 I am still quite enjoying the Asuna mod pack for Luanti Minetest.  There is still a LOT that I have yet to explore.  I've spent the past month or so looking for the 'other' kind of salt and the 'other' kind of rice - and finally, found them, or at least, part of the puzzle.

 I could find nothing about the other kind of rice for a very long time - then I realized that it wasn't just 'Asuna', it was probably part of the X Farming or the Farming Redo.  One of the rice forms is from one, and the other from another - maybe even one of the biome packs.  So, they clash a bit and it is hard to tell what comes from what.

 The one rice is a white seed that comes from jungle grass, when it doesn't break into cotton, it breaks into rice seed.  This rice is easy to harvest and easy to replant.  It is a 'normal' crop.  It can be used with a raw fish to make sushi, or can be mixed with green beans and tomatoes and a few other things to make chili etc.

 The other rice I have not found the actual source biome or location for, but I finally found a few of the grains in a hamper (wayfarer chest) in a jungle environment, and then went on a trek to figure out how to plant and harvest it.  After some vain attempts to plant it in regular dirt, or dirt under water, or dirt surrounded by water etc etc... I found by accident the 'silt loam' block, which says on the description, used to grow rice!  The silt loam block can be made with a block of clay (4 clay lumps on the crafting grid), a block of any Enverness sand or dirt, and a block of any regular type of soil / dirt.  Those three things together make the silt loam block.  Then, those blocks can be planted underneath a layer of water, and the new rice grains can be planted in it.  They take about five stages to grow, but then they can be harvested and will yield the rice sheaf and also more seed.  The sheaf can be put in the oven to make it into cooked rice - which can be used with kelp, fish and other things to make more food.

 

 how to make silt loam soil used for farming rice

It must be placed one block under the water in order to plant

 

 a rice to the left that is almost, but not ripe - two rice seeds just planted on silt loam soil blocks under the water

Finding out about this, I also found info about Palm Wax and candles - which had not come up before, and also about more potions, including flight potion, requiring etherium dust and a fire flower powder (those flowers in the ethereal red desert that bite when you hit them, still haven't harvested one yet).  The etherium dust is found in some desert environments inside blocks, showing up as bluish purple dots in the block.

 

 

this is the second or third stage of growth right here - it begins underneath the water

It does not grow well when you are absent, you have to stick around.   Some crops grow while you are absent in Minetest, and some are greatly accelerated or only grow when you are present in that area.

 

 

 

 

This is the final stage of the growth of the sheaf rice 

Notes on the two kinds of sugar : one comes from Stevia, which is found growing wild in highland grassland near jungles, and it is made by putting four Stevia sheafs on the crafting grid.  It is used with fruits and flours and soy milk to make baked goods.  The other kind of sugar only comes from burning papyrus, and is not used in recipes, but can be made into a block.

 

The first kind of salt comes from putting a bucket of water in a furnace.  The other kind is made by using a mortar and pestle on salt crystals, which come from the ice tundra regions near Alpine areas.  Watch out in Alpine areas, the bears bite (and take a good amount of hearts away when they do).

In real life?  Rolling along.  Planting in the garden some more, beans and nasturtiums and cucumbers are coming up, along with the kale, arugula, summer squash and mizuna.  Some marigolds are coming up in a pot that I had thought definitely wouldn't - having been planted weeks ago.  I'm bouncing between the Spanish-to-French and French-to-Spanish and picking up some Japanese and even some Greek lessons here and there.  Other than that - trying to get enough sleep and not eat junk.  

 

 

Build an Empire style play Minecraft - population and jobs

This is an extension of my original post 'Let's Play Build an Empire style Minecraft'

This is an example of a spawn point town, in  swamp, using the available resources.  The houses have a cohesive style, but they have some individuality, too.  This town is called Cantrall (after the courthouse Abe Lincoln stood his first case in, I don't know why, it popped up in my head and I ran with it) 

We Will Survive

The original 'house' is built into the side of the hill and becomes the city center.  It contains the mine down to bedrock, a bed, a loom, and the beginning storage chests.  This is played with Monsters ON, and Normal mode.  So, the player is going to get hurt (a lot) and need to eat (a lot).  Luckily, there were some sheep and chickens to the North.

 The very first thing is cut down a tree or two, make a crafting table, get a wooden pickaxe, mine some stone, build a shelter with a door, and build a furnace to burn some logs in to make charcoal for torches.  You might get lucky and find iron or coal but you want to be in a small shelter with a roof, a door, and torches before the Sun Goes Down.  Or, you're toast... in the middle of a zombie/spider/skeleton sandwich.

Make a sword.  You will need it before you want to need it.

Have extra torches, and an extra tree or two worth of logs to make more sticks for torches and tools.  Then go mine, and hope for iron.

Home Sweet Home

If you can't get a bed right away (and you probably won't, because unless you go killing your sheep you will need to mine iron to get shears).. then stay underground with lots of torches until daybreak, then go back out and collect wood, kill fish in the lakes for food, gather kelp (if you're by the ocean) and dry it, etc etc.. 

Start building your farm as soon as possible.  I killed four spiders right at the beginning, so was able to make a fishing rod.  I also collected every apple from every harvested tree.  Food is no joke.  Get your gardens and food sources producing and make sure some is stored for later.  It's just like a real town in that way.

When you are comfortable with surviving  - and have your necessities covered, you can burn some sand for glass and make a fancier shelter on top or beside your emergency shelter.  You can also begin to plan your town with roads, fields, and footprints for houses.  You will end up with lots of materials from mining, so use your creativity!

Give your Towns Unique Identity - with Names and City Colors

Each town needs to have at least one custom banner, and a wooden sign saying the name of the village.  So one of the first goals of the city center, beyond food sources, is to have shears, a bucket and a loom.  Iron and string - not easy things to get for each village.  It's the basic 'iron age' technology.

Let your town have 'roads' and fences and a real flow of moving around from place to place within the village.  You might build it into the side of a hill and use the natural landscape, or flatten it out and start from a big square plane.  It's up to you.  And you can do something different for each place, evolving over time.

A Real Town would have Population

Villager mobs can be very annoying and take up CPU power, slowing the game.  We will experiment with those in another 'style' of Minecraft, where we don't expand across the entire world - which by itself takes up CPU power.  For now, we will just pretend that we have people in these houses, and that these people are here for a reason.  Each one will have a working house (as if you wanted to spend a Minecraft weekend there) and a 'job' that makes sense with the town.

For each 'imaginary villager' in a home there will be a separate bed, and a separate chest.  That means wool, and wood is needed for those things.  There will also be a crafting table and furnace for every house, usually near the entrance.  Each house needs torches for lighting, and glass for windows.

The kinds of 'jobs' you will be doing indicates what kind of population the real 'town' would need.  Farmers - the more fields, the more houses you might need to build.  A fisherman?  A woodcutter?  This town also has a paperworks (for the sugar cane farms) and a baker (where do you get your bread?)  It will need a sheep paddock and housing for the sheep farmer.

When you can - Specialize

Have lots of wool and a field of colorful dye-producing flowers?  How about an artist shop with paintings? 

In one of my towns there was a large amount of gold and redstone found deep underground.  That town became the first (And only, so far) town to have a clock tower building, sort of like a miniature Big Ben.


The Hard Way

If you REALLY wanted to get bones about it - you would provide in the 'villager' chest food, tools and clothing or armor.  But THAT would be going pretty far.  In a richer village, each chest would have some example of that to show someone 'lives' there - and the floors would be decorated with wood, carpets, glazed terracotta, brick etc - with item frames and paintings on the walls, terracotta flower pots and cauldrons - all the trappings of a town.

Get Yourself a Great View

One of the great things about Minecraft is the uniqueness of the places that are created - sometimes you just have to stand back and say 'Wow' - like the image above.  Try it out for yourself - version 1.15.2 Vanilla
seed# 2144314632329636425
and the coordinates for this plateau are -543.563, 77, -141.453
find an ocean monument at -880.396, 62, 255.962


How do you Win?

The joy is in the journey - but you will know you're making progress by expanding your territory.  When a village is self-sustaining, make yourself an 'export' building and chest - and begin to put excess food, materials and special items in there to 'seed' a new colony.   You may build roads in each direction trying to find a new place with unique resources, or a pretty view, or a different biome etc, to build the next town. Once you have scouted out a place - or before (if you're brave), head out with only what you can carry and build the next 'city center' to expand your Empire.

This World is an Island
Like to play islands?  This one spawns on a small island that may or may not have enough sheep to breed a population from.  There are a few trees, and some ores in the ground nearby.  If you really can't make the island work for you there is another larger flower-field landmass a distance due East... 
Try it out - version 1.15.2 Vanilla
seed# 8746182473153761204 

Note  If your town is an island, you have a unique opportunity to learn to reserve, multiply and expand your resources.  Trees are precious, as are wheat seeds and animals.  Beware creepers don't destroy everything!  How much space do you use for fields, and for buildings -- do you pull dirt from underground to expand your landmass in the water?  Don't spring a leak in your underground buildings while you mine!

To navigate away from your island (without just writing down coordinates at each place) - build a spire 20 blocks or more high and place a torch on top of it.  If you jump down into the water (and not onto the land) you will not hurt yourself.  Then, when you have built your boat, you can place your back to the spire and head off in a direction, and - if you build a spire on your newfound opposite shore, you have a landmark that will allow you to return back home 'easily'.

The NUTSHELL

Goal : Self-sustaining villages that provide protection from monsters, and food for the player.  Iron and other resources.  'Domesticate' and breed flocks and herds of animals.  Create roads, signs and / or landmarks to allow you to navigate your Empire from place to place.  Export materials to other colonies and share materials and resources like a real Empire would - a system of 'trade'.  Explore!  Try to collect as many unique materials as you can and distribute them across the 'known' world.

Door to Night Minecraft world (Drws i'r Nos) huge cave, mesa biome, mineshaft

'Door to Night' (Drws i'r Nos in Welsh) huge cave in Minecraft, savannah biome
mod : PlentyofBiomes and Harvestcraft
 World seed -3782039027719029110 at coordinates x,y,z  59,199, 68, 210.769

This 'door to night' cave is huge and actually is a network of caves.  This is not exactly at the spawn point but visible from a very cursory look-around.  I was ripping through a set of new worlds to hide a world I was actually playing in from a visitor (who loves to blow stuff up but doesn't look at the bottom of the list) who was playing on my computer... and then when I saw this world I knew I had to keep it.  

Although, I have to admit, I was scared to approach the cave with monsters on for fear of the sheer quantity of monsters that might be coming out of those depths of dark!  Hence, the name 'Door to Night'. 

And there was a lot more as I explored - notable of publishing the world seed and some coordinates for you, if you are finding this.
 
There are ebony trees and jungle trees with cocoa plants not far off, as well as nearby sheep, a village, and most uniquely, a mesa biome with an exposed mineshaft.  

The village coordinates are : 95.68, 67, 7.247 (it is pretty ordinary, didn't photo it)

But - the mineshaft in the mesa biome.. that is something I had not seen before!
The coordinates for the bottom pic are -142.97, 67, -496.333
It is quite a large mineshaft with chests and a spawner and more.

 

I hope you enjoy it!

Experimental corn crossings... August third

 This is the first third of the ornamental corn crossing.  This is the Smoke Signals, Pink Hopi and Mandan Bride mixed with last year's corn.  I think the Glass Gem had a hand in the one with the blue kernels, it was in the next plot and because I WANTED mixing, I did not shield any of them from each other.

notes: Pink Hopi and Mandan Bride were flour corns.  The corn from last year was a flint corn with some flour components.  The Smoke Signals, Glass Gem and Japonica were all flinty popcorns.  Most of this crop shows the flint or 'glass' kernel type.  There is one cob not pictured that was pulled a week or so ago that had more of the flour type kernel, larger, flatter and not as shiny.

Pink Hopi is showing through on this set.

 The Smoke Signals was the dark black vs. yellow and it shows up in several of the cobs.
The second cob from the left is nearly ideal, and will be passed through, as well as some of the more pink and purple kernels and some from the flour cob.  The Glass Gem is still to come. we will see how that turns out!

Esme had to show off that she helped me find the corn and shuck it in the field.