Treasure Ship

In the tradition of Caffienix's hidden bases, I've set up one more quest for people so inclined for exploration and treasure hunting. I got the idea while working on Constitution, so the theme of this hunt is sunken treasure. Somewhere in our world is a shipwreck full of precious materials. I'll put a hint in the post each day until it is found. Good luck!

The 1000m circle shows relatively few changes today. The failed cart launch mechanism has been removed from Highwind's prow, and there's a new facility of some kind going up in the Pixel Art Fields. A few simple shacks have gone up on the shore of the lake south of the Southern Wilds.

Finally, there's one more order of business. This server has been up and running just shy of 90 days now, and has a real community and story associated with it. What it does not have is a name. I'm interested in hearing suggestions for a name for our world, and subsequently selecting one to help identify this place we've created.

Why Don't It Ever Go Smooth?

The new memory sticks for HAL came in yesterday, and I installed them this morning. In one of those truly infuriating turns of events unique to complex machinery, HAL decided that as long as one of the new sticks was in any DIMM slot, it would just reboot at the end of the memory check. Can't even open the BIOS with one of the new sticks in there. I spent about 90 minutes with the mainboard manual, Dell's website, and Google trying to figure out why the sticks were being rejected (the canned answer "defective memory" seems unlikely, given that there were two pairs of modules from two different packages with identical behavior.) After an hour and a half, I reinstalled the original memory modules and restarted the machine with success, so at least I didn't break the working configuration, but I am now following up on what might be wrong with the matching of these modules and this computer. More as that situation develops.

(For reference, HAL9000 is a Dell PowerEdge T105. It is no longer produced, but the manual is still available online. The memory is PNY Optima matched 2GB sticks.)

Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

A few bits of housekeeping. First, I've gotten a number of inquiries regarding server performance. We're now regularly running with 8 people logged in at the same time, sometimes for hours on end, and the lag is getting significant. I traced the issue down to the server. HAL9000, the computer on which we run, was originally built as a test box, and has specs as such. It turns out that the issues we've been having have been a result of memory underflow -- HAL is using both GB to the limit and is swapping like crazy. To that end, I've ordered a new set of memory chips to quadruple the RAM onboard in hopes of fixing the issue. They should arrive Wednesday, and we can expect downtime Thursday morning when I install them.

That said, this ends up being about a $110 outlay, and between that and the UPS's, I'm not above putting out a jar. So if you feel that the server is worth the expense, and you're welcome to contribute with the PayPal button now on the right navbar. I guarantee that anything donated will go directly to the server's upkeep.

Finally, a bit of a retrospective. As many of you know, I need logs of the camera on Bronzite.net, so below is a video of the last 54 days. It starts roughly with the construction of Castle Wells. I recommend watching in 1080 resolution for the most detail as we built our world together.

Back from Miami

The Dispatches haven't been updated for a weekend because I've been off at a convention, but a great deal has been happening on the server. The Hyde's Tower grain farm now has an extension coming off of it. A lava dock, which I am told is a place for storing Lava in liquid block form, has been build in the waters southwest of town. Caineach's amphitheater is now looking much more like a performance venue, and MikeXIV's cabin in the western meadows has a fenced field around it. The curtain wall around the Everything Farm has been completed, making it rival Highwind in sheer amount of material used. There's also a strange glass path leading off into the east from AWell's Inn.

I'm told there are even more changes that are outside of Civilization, but to see those you'll have to wait, or venture forth yourself.

Boom Town

The Minecraft Server's population continues to rise quickly, the number of unique users rising by half in the last 96 hours. Acamilo's Everything Farm continues construction in Civilization, but TechieMikey has constructed an enormously long railway coming out of the mines under Hyde's Tower, and running south all the way to the Deep Range, creating a new facility called Station Beta, an underground mine, and a new fortress sitting atop the mineshafts. It lies entirely outside the Civilization map.

With the new influx of people to the server, and the 1.4 patch allowing spawn point changes in SMP expected in the next 10 days, we may be looking at dispersion of what has so far been a very centralized world. Whereas Hyde's Tower has been the home city for the entire server due to its proximity to the Spawn Point, we could see Northchester or Station Beta, or some other Deep Range post, become a new colony for people playing on the server, expanding construction well beyond our regular view. Whether any of these places are actively preparing for that case is, at this time, unknown.

The Road North

A fair amount of construction has been happening in the Minecraft server out of the view of the 1000m view posted here daily. The Causeway north to The Wall has seen a number of improvements of late. A set of waystations have been established along its length, north of the Doom Fortress. From south to north, they are Northchester, Northrend, Northford, and Northgard. The southernmost of these stations has already developed into a small village, with a short but effective wall surrounding it on two sides (the other two open to the water.) None of the stations have date plaques, but they seem to be recent constructions. There are rumors as well of a fifth facility, called Northborough, but where it is and what its purpose is is unknown at this time.

In The Dark of the Night

The newcomers to the server have been busy, indeed. Besides a great deal of mining and a new residence west of Caineach's Ampitheatre, there is a new megastructure being constructed northeast of Spiral. Initial pictures suggest this could be the General Everything Farm that's been contemplated before. Time will tell exactly what emerges out there, but until it is completed and the walls secure, its roof will make the location dangerous as it will spawn aggressive mobs as readily as The Shadow does now.

Another note: I would like to discourage players from asking other players to log out during night so that they can advance the night to morning. Load issues associated with connecting aside (most of the problems reported to me are associated with several people logging back on and having their entire 81-chunk context pushed back to them by the server), there's a reasonable chance, especially at peak hours, that the minecraft.net login server will go down, and those players won't be able to log in for minutes or even hours.

Hyde's Tower Townhouses

This weekend most of the server population was meeting in realspace, so there's not many changes to speak of on the satellite. Here's an article on a much more mundane part of our world.

Hyde's Tower Townhouses

Constructed 26 January 2011 by Bronzite

Total Occupation on 14 February 2011

Denizens:

Unit #1: Awells

Unit #2: Ensis_Draconis

Unit #3: Techiemikey

Unit #4: Emcovello

Unit #5: csdx

Unit #6: Pookarah

To answer the need for personal space for newcomers to the server, especially those who weren't going to be on for great enough periods of time to build their own accomodations, the Townhouses were the first multicharacter residences built on the server. The six units, when originally built, were all identical. There was large empty space on the ground floor with staircases leading down to an equally large basement, and leading up to a second floor hallway and bedroom. Also, the attic level of the building was filled with water to help contain any fire that started in the mostly-wood building.

Since its construction, the occupied units have frequently been modified by their residents. Pookarah removed the upper floor almost entirely in her unit, leaving only a balcony over the living space. Ensis_Draconis carved out a section of the ceiling over his bedroom to create a flooded room and a waterfall replacing his front door. Finally, Awells made the most extensive renovations to his unit, greatly extending the windows and removing the fire supression system above him altogether, allowing for a much higher ceiling in the bedroom, as well as replacing the second floor with glass blocks.

Downtime Because I Care

Last night there was a power failure here, and the UPS units I bought explicitly to keep the server up and running failed the mission. I will be investigating that after this weekend. Fortunately, the hourly backup script seemed to be working spot-on, so we didn't lose any significant work. In other news, the Y70 line from Hyde's Tower to South Station is online, and the Spawn-Hyde's Tower line has reverted back to its short line roots. The Causeway-side rail line has also been ripped up, and now there are considerable reserves of rail line floating around to be used on whatever destination is next to be wired in.

Across the Narrow Sea

Today on the Minecraft server, the Y70 line from Hyde's Tower to South Station has been laid, cutting through the desert south of spawn and on through the hills and forest on the way. I expect it will be connected in the next few days. More pertinently, however, a new construct on has appeared on the daily map, and this one is big. Satellite imagery suggests a superterranean grounds about the size of Castle Well's courtyard, and what appears to be redstone wiring near the center. I've not been out to investigate yet, but something is definitely happening across the water west of Hyde's Tower.

The Spiral Fortress

Original Tower:

Built on 23 January 2011 by Bronzite

Height: 59 meters

New Tower:

Built on 25 January 2011 by Bronzite

Highest Occupiable Floor: 58 meters

Highest Block: 59 meters

Townhouses:

Built on 8 February 2011 by Awells

The Spiral Fortress was built on 23 January after I set out to find my original cabin I built when I first logged on. I spent 3 days game-time in the field, and never found the cabin on that trip, but I established a new camp site southeast of the spawn point. Once I had found my way back to Hyde's Tower, and established the rough relative positions of the town and my new campsite, I returned there and built a perimeter wall, and Spiral Fortress got its name from the block steps winding around the 1x1 block stack that I used to try to find something I could recognize while lost in the woods. Two days later, following suit with Hyde's Tower, a new cobblestone facade was placed on the tower, and after that, a new set of cobblestone to provide a spiral pattern to the now much larger tower.

Spiral has become something of a backwoods settlement, but on 8 February Awells went there and expanded the wall to encompass twice as much area, and built four cabins inside to provide living space for people based out of the fortress. On 18 February South Station became operational on an island in the harbor just west of Spiral, bringing a new surge of activity at the location, and shortly after a subway between the station and the mines under the fortress were installed. It now has most of the facilities of Hyde's Tower, except for the public stores, and provides easier access to areas east and south. It is unclear at this time if the town is destined to fade into obscurity and disrepair, or if something greater lies in the future for this location.

Hidden Places and Secret Bases

As I've been wandering Civilization recently trying to set out the new Y70 lines, I've found a remarkable number of abandon houses, caves, and mines throughout that remind me that for everything that shows up on this blog and in the nightly picture, there's a lot more happening that we don't see. Caffeinix drives this point home with the following announcement:

Over the past week or so, I have been engaging in a bit of underground underhandedness. Subterranean subterfuge, one might say. Basically, I've been building rather unique structures in out-of-the-way places and not telling anyone. The idea is to give you all the opportunity to come across them on your own and go "wow, how did that get there?" Since I am a generally impatient person, however, I thought it would be fun to speed the process along by giving out a name and vague direction for each of the three places I have built, and seeing who can find them all first.

1. The Seekrit Underwater Lair. A stone's throw from Hyde's Tower.

2. The World Tree. Look in the forests of the West.

3. Casa de Chunk Error. Southeast of Spiral Fortress.

AWells appears to have already stumbled across the Seekrit Underwater Lair, but you can still beat him to the other two. In a week or two, or when they've all been discovered, I'll post more detailed directions and pictures for your enjoyment.

Caffeinix

So there you have it. Three secret structures have been built afield for you to find. If you haven't already logged in to go exploring, or if you need a break from building up the world, an excursion into the wild might be an exciting diversion. Just don't forget your bow and arrows! Creepers are everywhere.

A Boat Too Far

As you say from MikeXIV's video yesterday, the rail system is coming into its own, and now we have connectivity to all the major habitats of the world. It has greatly decreased the temporal size of Civilization. While that was happening, a new boat was constructed in the waters east of Hyde's Tower. It is still being built, and the tremendous amount of wool necessary for its sails is being gathered. In addition, the project to convert the Hyde's Tower to South Station line to Y70 has been commenced, and the first bridge from the city to the spawn is being built.

I've Been Working On The Railroad

I am proud to announce that it is now possible to travel from the Arcology to the Southern Wilds and back without ever leaving your minecart.

I am slightly less proud to present this video, demonstrating that the system isn't perfect.

-MikeXIV

Castle Wells

Today's update only has much to do with widening buffers around rail lines and building the launch computer at Hyde's Tower, so to keep you interested, another profile of a big, beautiful building in our world!

Castle Wells

Construction started 3 February 2011 by Awells

Principle construction completed 4 February 2011

In the aftermath of the Forest Fire on 29 January, there was a large plain on the south short of the landmass inside the Loop. Awells took advantage of this large space before it was replanted to build his own castle. The result was the single most visually impressive complex currently on the server.

The outer courtyard is home to no less than a dozen fountains, half of water, half of lava. The courtyard is lined with torches, making it extremely bright, even at night. The multiple layers of torches were added 3 March, as part of a reserve against the eventual replacement of torches with lanterns. Animals are commonly found to be roaming the courtyard of Castle Wells, sometimes ablaze from wandering into the lava fountains set into various places. Fences largely protect guests, but it is still very possible for the unwary to blunder into the magma.

Finally, the most remarkable part of the castle is the main hall. Water cascading over the glass roof provides its distinctive blue appearance. Inside, a large hall of specially built benches and table lay under golden chandeliers. It is by far the most elegant and largest hosting space available anywhere on the server at this time, and is not likely to be outstripped soon. The nine tables could theoretically seat fifty-four guests, and a raised stage at the west end of the room provides presentation space. Appropriate for weddings, funerals, and extremely expensive birthday parties.

A New Stop

Yesterday Government Center Station was completed. At present it has two launch targets -- Hyde's Tower and a one-way trip to the rail spur off Arcopolis. It now has an entrance on the Causeway above, making access much more convenient for people coming from anywhere except Hyde's Tower by rail. In the meantime, the Y70 protocol continues to be hammered into its new form, and replacement rail may begin getting laid as early as later today. The next move on the system is to connect the Hyde's Tower-Government Center Station line with the rest of the rail network to the south.

Expansive Walls

In the past 24 hours, Hyde's Tower has had the largest changes its seen since the curtain wall was originally built. It was moved 30 meters east to encompass the Rail Depot, and adding over 2,000 square meters to its protected area. Also, the Hyde Canal was dredged deeper, and the whole perimeter lit brighter than it ever has been before.

In additional, Government Center Station was built out and up, now having an actual roof, switching computer, and protection from creepers and the like. There is an active discussion going on regarding the Y70 Protocol and some problems that popped up building and operating the GSC-Hyde's Tower line, so if you have thoughts on the matter, check the previous post on my Buzz feed.

RFC #01: Y70 Rail Guidelines

This is MikeXIV writing, just so nobody is confused. I don't expect to be writing for the Dispatch often, but here goes:

The construction of the rail link between Hyde's Tower and Government Center has exposed some flaws in the Y70 rail protocol, so I'd like to talk a bit about it and solicit feedback.

The original Y70 rail protocol: "Cross country rail links should be built at an altidude of Y=70. Cross country rail links should be built safe from mobs and livestock"

I choce Y=70 because I think the resulting track looks more natural than running the rail lines up as high as the causeway, and because floating 4 squares above sea level provided good views from the train, while being hard for monsters to reach.

That said, most of the track I was building at the time ran over water or low ground, or through hills much taller than 70 (and hence tunnels). The ground between Hyde's Tower and Government Center station (and in many other parts of the world, I'm sure) is right near 70. Attempts to monster-proof ground level track with fences are going badly for two reasons 1) fence along the track slows down trains and 2) mobs can still spawn on the track, and with fence in place they cannot get off.

Another way to mob-proof ground-level track is terraforming - dig a ditch on either side and no mob can get onto the track (or back on if he spawns on the track and falls off). We could also illuminate the track to remove the possibility for mobs to spawn on the track itself. Doing this is time consuming, however.

All that said, I think the best option is to loosen the Y=70 rule. The idea is for track to be about 4 squares above the predominant terrain level over its length, and with a reccomendation that tracklayers choose routes that are good looking and require minimal ditch-digging over routes that are incredibly efficient.

Hyde's Tower

Government Center Station and the Spawn Wall are still under construction, so I thought I'd take today to start a series of focus articles on some of the significant constructions in our gameworld. Today we'll start with the first, and probably most famous structure in our world: Hyde's Tower.

Original Tower:

Built 22 January 2011 by Baronweasle

58 Meters Tall

Waterfall and Lavafall added 23 January

Reinforced Tower:

Built 25 January 2011 by Baronweasle

Highest Habitable Floor: 55 Meters

Highest Block: 58 Meters

Hyde's Tower was the first significant structure built on the server. When users first started logging on, it was the only obviously artificial building within sight of the spawn point, and thus most gravitated toward it and the small, squat building that stood at its base. The day after the Reinforced Tower was built, Baronweasle built the server's first Portal at the top, although the Nether was not available on SMP at the time (nor is at present, for that matter.) The lava and waterfalls on the south and west facings, respectively, provided a lighthouse and an orientation point in the early days of the server, allowing explorers within site of the Tower to determine not only where they were in relation to the tower itself, but also in roughly which direction they were from it. Today it is known primarily for the town that shares its name that has grown up around it, serving at the primary hub of all activity on the server, and the first place that most newcomers are directed to find public stores, living space, and resources to get them started.

What Lies Below?

Back from a long and exciting weekend, the Minecraft world has seen some changes. TechieMikey has begun construction of a protective wall around the Spawn Point, to save us from those pesky monster-spawns killing us just after we have been dekilled. The rail line from South Station to the Wilds has been upgraded with bridges and anti-animal fencing to avoid some of the unscheduled creep and cow stops. There have been some upgrades to the Government Center/Hyde's Tower line, but it still has only about a 40% success rate on throwing a cart from one end to the other without interruption. The Doom Fortress continues to lie fallow, its raging forest fire having burnt out.

Intriguingly, there are rumors of a new facility being constructed, this one lying below the surface of the vast lakes that cover approximately 50% of the known map space. Its location remains an utter mystery, as does its purpose. Could this be new townhouses for the more aquatically inclined among us to recline in? Or do the fishmen have some more sinister purpose in mind?

Bridges

Yesterday I continued building out the lines from Government Center Station, laying railbed north to the Doom Fortress, since I ran out of actual track a while ago. Th Y70 track protocol has provided a number of opportunities to give the rail lines a much more organic feel than the Causeway's freefloating appearance, even if they require fences and cleared land to properly keep passive mobs off the rails. So far the nicest set piece I've created is a bridge just north of Government Center on the way to the Doom Fortress:

I expect if we ever convert the Hyde/South Station line to Y70, we'll have a number of other artifacts like this on the line as we work our way across the Loop.

Bringing The World Together

In the last 24 hours, we've started laying out from the Government Center Station that MikeXIV set out the skeleton for. A bridge line gets close to Arco (although the location of the future station there is considerably higher than the Y70 track protocol provides for.) In addition, the Hyde's Tower line was laid in its entirety, and we've successfully launched carts in both directions using simple manual launchers. All told, it takes a minute or two off the Arco-Hyde's Tower transit. In addition, a new station was built near Hyde's Tower, just east of the wall, with a station platform and a large (and presently unoccupied) electromechanical room beneath it. It is connected to Hyde's Tower proper by an underground walkway that leads into the Hyde-Spiral tunnel.

Back In Orbit

Good news! c10t 1.6 released, and we're back in business. Above is the first world image since the Backstep. Not a whole lot has changed on the 1km view that I didn't cover before. The Doom Fortress has burned out, as have the other non-lava beacons around the world. I haven't had much of a chance to investigate closely, so let me know what else is different.

Lost

Spawned in at Spawn Point Station today. Can't remember how I got there. Nothing in my inventory. Server's just restarted, but creepers roam the daylit landscape below. Don't know why.

Where was I? How did I end up here? Where is all my stuff?

There's no minecart waiting at the station, and the chest with the lying sign contains only knick-knacks, and that golden sword that's been there for weeks. Who made that, anyways? I start walking north.

Hyde's tower is eerily silent. Even the ubiquitous cows and pigs are missing from the courtyard. All the beacons have burned out. Was that staircase at the fountain there last time I was here? I don't remember. I head down into the stores.

My chest has everything I remember being there in it. The public storeroom downstairs looks colder, lonelier somehow. Was ceiling raised? I don't think so, but something's different. I go outside. Awells' townhouse has changed. More glass, more books. The others look the same... I think.

A vague memory comes back. Arco. I was at Arco, doing Deep Range Expeditions. Getting iron for MikeXIV's railroad and North Station. How did I end up back at spawn with nothing?

Nevermind. Dumb question. Where did I die, then? Where is my iron gear? Maybe there are clues at Arco. I leave Hyde's Tower, heading north on the Causeway.

On the eastern branch, a new structure comes into view. Wooden platforms and doorways, crisscrossing complexly in a roughly rectangular shape directly below the Causeway. When I get closer, I see railheads. This must be North Station, or what will become North Station. Wooden structure. I think back to the night of Forest Fire, the night when we tests the Townhouse's fire suppression system and learned it nothing but add flood to fire. I continue east.

Arco looks much as I remembered it. Past the sealed Portal, I make my way to the grass level. No new apartments taken, I go to the DRE house I had fitted. The hardwood floors are missing. I remember now, the Backstep. We set the clock back two days. All the modifications I made in that time were gone. I check my inventory in the chest.

125 iron bars, plus miscellaneous other items. Enough for a third of a kilometer of rail. Almost enough to connect Hyde's Tower to Arco. But I remember other sources of track... where? I should find those. Highwind? The Cabin?

The Cabin. I was there after the Backstep. What was I doing there? I take a minecart from the inventory and set off back to Hyde's Tower.

The minecart launcher at Hyde's hasn't been reset. I work on it a bit and repair it. I'm off again, now under power. At the Spawn, I take the cart with me, and head west and south.

At the Pyramid, there's a new set of torches, leading from the exit off the Causeway to the entrance. Has somebody been running it while I've been away? Past the Highwind's exit, looking west towards CraigP's towers of blinking lights. Are those relays new? Or do I just not remember them? No matter. I'm almost at the cabin.

The cabin hasn't changed from what I remember. The chests are somewhat emptier than I recall, but the half-stack of track I remembered was still there. Downstairs, a full stack of stone waits in furnance, freshly cooked. I move it upstairs. I notice the loft has a bed now. I put that there, just after the Backstep. I tested the beds from here... but then what? What happened to me?