you're kidding me

The above cap is /gamemode 3, looking at the outside of the shaft that goes down to the loot under the desert temple.

Before I actually went down there, I decided that while I was going to be in and out of cheats, I may as well go fly around first and see how close I might be to my last bunker. I have no idea if I ran in circles through the desert. It seemed like a really long run to get here, but I might have zigzagged a lot, and who knows, it might be easy to run back home if I want instead of using /tp. Also, I kind of want to build a glass highway system a little up in the air sometime in the future that will connect all the places I like. I've made glass roads before in other realms, and the views are spectacular.

This vid is like doing a geographical survey.
4 minutes in, memories of that zombie kid killing me in the pond
6:17 just noticed another desert well or something on my left, flew right past and didn't even see it
7:48 my spider spawner if I ever want to go back and get it
8:15 may as well throw a few free torches up while I'm here but seriously need to stop this new bad habit
8:40 hello, Enderman
10:03 see what I mean about mobs problems in /gamemode 1? They can still activate that pressure plate in the booby trap beneath the temple just because I'm there, even if I'm not in survival mode
10:37 hello, witch- I tried to get a selfie with her (10:51) and when I hit F5 it was like I was suddenly in /gamemode 3 POV while I was standing beside her but she wasn't showing up at all, so I wonder if witches always live in that POV because they're from the dark side and they're magical, and then you see the purple sparkles poof up and when I F5 back to normal POV she's looking at me like I'm a dork, lol



All in all, flying around in a dark cave placing torches was like practice for when I go down into the temple shaft. Sadly, capturing video suddenly stopped working (checking the webs, I see this happens a lot with other gamers, so I'll look for a fix later), but fortunately, it was very boring anyway, so you don't have to sit through it. I couldn't see a thing. I was very careful to stay in /gamemode 3 so I wouldn't trigger mobs to move around. But what I could see was a puzzle- this isn't the way it's supposed to look.

From about midway up the shaft. If you can see the bottom down there, you'll notice the maze style floor. What?

Here, I enhanced it for you.

Much closer, should be hovering just above where the chest should be set into the sides of the shaft. Whaaaat? #facepalm Don't tell me it's already blown up. I wasn't even down here!

And the chests appear to be gone...

The question is- How long ago did this even happen?

Two explanations are possible- either it has already accidentally blown up, or someone has loaded a Starrstrukk seed world before and I got a copy after they uploaded their version to share. Up to this point I've never run across any indication that someone's been here before me, BUT, if I go down there again in /gamemode 1 and start throwing torches up and find any kind of tunnel in from somewhere, I'm going to think that someone who knows what they're doing getting around pressure plates and TNT must have gotten in here and grabbed all the loot.

A mystery...

O_O

breaking my own rules

By the time I'd found all the ore and made my stacks of torches, I was feeling very impatient and broke my own rules putting the torches up on the rooftops. I really should have built stairs or platforms or used ladders and made little holes to get up there or something, but man I was having a really hard time getting past that repeated creeper assault.

Turned on the camera. About 4:24 in is the very first time I actually cheat cheat, threw a couple of torches down without reverting back to survival without even thinking because I was tired. I realized it fairly quickly, and then thought what the heck and just started doing the temple itself. I really wish I hadn't played while I was that tired. Everything else you see in my game so far is all survival mode. I mean, I worked so hard to get the materials and make the torches in the first place, and mode 1 doesn't actually use them up, so it's like super cheating. After I was done I was disappointed in myself.

At 8:05 I switched back to survival mode to shoot the creeper in the pool. Turns out that was a really good idea. Didn't stop a new creeper hole from showing up by the temple while I was out getting coal, but at least one creeper wanted a swim.



Part of playing in Starrstrukk is trying not to use cheats and sticking to survival mode. But I got an idea while I was cheating cheating.

What I decided to do was go into gamemode 3 so I could fly through walls and ground, and then switch to gamemode 1 inside the shaft and put torches up. Cheating, yes, I know, and not nearly as easy as it sounds. Even just showing up in gamemode 1, if a mob was actually in the shaft, it could still look at me and even approach me, even though it wouldn't be activated to harm me. Big problem. My mere presence could trigger the explosion by that logic. Gamemode 3 might allow me to see if there were mobs in there, and if I could switch to gamemode 1 away from the pressure plate and start throwing torches around everywhere, I *might* be able to rig the shaft so mobs would never spawn in there. Cool idea, right?

My biggest problem is that the loot under the temple is down a shaft and sitting there in complete darkness. I'm learning hard and fast that anywhere I show up with any amount of darkness, mobs automatically start spawning. The loot is sitting around a trap that triggers a block of TNT if you touch it, and all it would take is one mob walking or standing on it to blow the whole thing up.

This pic is off the webs and clicks to a general article about minecraft structures. It's a very misleading picture because it looks well-lit. The reason I even looked it up is because I decided to use cheats to go take a look around, and there was NOTHING I could do to see it this well.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

the origin of the name Starrstrukk

Remember how I was stoked to have a stack of torches yesterday? WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE, my head screamed at me. 64 TORCHES WON'T GO VERY FAR.

My head is right. I got so used to living with barely any torches to work with at any given time here in singleplayer survival mode that I forgot how much freedom I had in multiplayer working with a team and all of us having access to as many torches as we wanted. TORCHES = POWER.

64 little bitty torches isn't enough, for sure. So I light up the rooftops, what then? Here I am so worried about the temple loot blowing up, and I hadn't even thought how I'm going to get down there yet, or where I'll go mining next. I have no backup plan for after I run out of torches again. Maybe my plan should be to never run out of torches again.

So the next morning I went up the coast the opposite way, this time stayed on the same side as the village, but the biome quickly changed and it wasn't very long until the beach was running along forested cliffs. I almost went on up, but a sheep distracted me (carrying shears around is pretty handy), and thanks to that sheep I found another giant crack in the ground, but this one looked much easier to get around in, yay!

I had never worked around mossy stone before, had no idea what it could mean, so I worked my way up on that side (you can see it in the above snap) and followed it into the wall. I wound up having a brilliant tangle with skeletons and zombies and a million spiders because I ran into my first spider spawner. I loved every second of it. I've come so far since I first started playing. I used to avoid the hard stuff, now I relish it.

Part of the bad craziness was me experimenting to see if a pail of water would put out the spawner and suddenly me and all the baddies are floating in circular rapids still crazy fighting, and NO, water doesn't put out a spawner. I managed to start blocking off the water in between sword slashes, and there it was, my very first loot chest. It even had some cool stuff in it, but I stood there looking at it like a fool and suddenly got killed, and of course lost all my stuff.

I wasn't as upset as having creepers drop on my head twice in a row made me, but I was ticked enough to go back in there and conquer. Thankfully, some of my stuff was still floating around in the water, including all the cool mossy stones I'd been collecting, but the chest and the loot had disappeared, along with my torches. #facepalm I got mad and just started slinging cobblestone blocks up around the spawner, and then I found out later that's exactly how one is advised to handle them until they can be harvested later. Harvested??? Are you guy CRAZY? But I guess there probably will come a day when I'm cool enough to become a spider wrangler.

Well, that was a waste of torches. I kept going, working my way further into the heart of the gorge.

This was actually soothing, hunkered down in a tiny notch with what I needed most, listening to the rain fall. I almost took a nap in there.

I eventually had to /tp back and empty my pockets, then I came on back and ran past the gorge to see what else there was to see. Found coal sticking up into the sky on a grassy hillside. The scenery was lovely, not one thing bothered me while I worked. This is what it looks like when your pockets get too full to pick up anything else. I think I've got a lot of coal now...

I got back home just before dark, and while I waited on some iron ore to cook down in the furnace, it hit me I could expand this window along the whole wall and then double the height. Maybe I'll do this to all the buildings in the village, make it lots easier to see what's going on. As the sun set I took a few seconds to breathe in the fresh air before I got the rest of the glass up, thinking how beautiful the desert looks at night.

I have torches now.  Tomorrow is going to be a good day.

I grew up near the Four Corners area in New Mexico and used to take the screen off my window at night as a kid so I could get out of the house and climb my favorite tree at night. I'd sit up higher than the house looking at the far flung lights across the desert and watch the stars. 

driven by desperation

The root of all my creeper damage problems was obviously still not having enough light, and in places I didn't even think of needing more light. I need more torches. There is enough wood growing near me that I use it for the furnace when I want to make glass or cook cobblestone or food, and since I'd been running around almost exclusively during the day and coming in at night, I hadn't needed torches for anything once I had dispersed the rest of what I had around the village. Well, that obviously wasn't enough.

When I left the village it was to find coal, and not come back till I had a LOT of it. I had piddled my way through a mountain by my second bunker and a few spot mines here and there, but I'd never run into really good coal veins. One of my toughest survival challenges since the very beginning has been my search for coal.

I crossed a waterway away from the desert and ran along the shore where I hadn't yet explored, and it wasn't long at all until I nearly fell into a giant crack in the ground. You know what you do when you find a deep gorge that butts right up against a lake, right? You break out the one block of dirt holding the water back and create the biggest waterfall into the dark abyss ever. I really didn't know it would do that, and I'm probably very lucky it didn't kill me. Oopsie.

But dang if there wasn't some coal in there. The mood I was in after two creepers in a row dropping on my head, there was nothing going to stop me getting that coal.



Also, I seem to relish making platforms. I can't help thinking "saftey first" while I'm working.




This one is my favorite. I had run back to the village and manufactured a lot of torches with the coal I had loaded up on and then run back to get more ores, and I really enjoyed blowing off my pent up steam before this field trip was all over.




I have torches now.

Well, some...

owning the desert

I still have days where I barely make it inside as the darkness falls. I can't always count on /tp because sometimes I'm just in a place that's too dangerous to stand still and keyboard the coordinates once the sun starts setting, so I finish up what I'm doing and run like mad back to my bunkhouse.

And even though the bed is here now, I still sometimes spend my nights thinking through my next steps. I like the idea that I have scheduled times like night and day that alternate doing and thinking.

And taking selfies, lol.

Then bright and early the next morning as I was running out my door, a creeper rolled off the forge roof across from my bunkhouse right onto my head and *boom*, blew my whole door out, along with my steps and part of the curb along the forge around a big new hole. That thing must've activated when my door opened, and by the time I'd taken 3 steps it was already falling on me. I can't believe it never even occurred to me that a creeper could spawn on a rooftop.

As I spent the morning repairing all the damage, I decided to line the curb edges with cobblestone slabs. I'd noticed in other places that putting slabs down can cut out the necessary hop up maneuver when a person is running (and especially running and fighting at the same time), and it occurred to me that I could line the curbs throughout the entire village the same way. It was a nice improvement and made running around town more enjoyable, plus the slab walkways added a bit of nice trim effect. I don't know if I'll stick with this color scheme, but it sure is handy.

After that I focused back on the idea I'd gotten earlier about setting up a wading pool inside city limits to use as a lure, like I was doing on my early morning runs out in the desert. Once creepers go into water, they sort of deactivate, and then you can shoot them with arrows and kill them without them blowing up first. Even if it all were to just miss and the creeper blow up before it could properly get into the water, a lined pool suddenly flooding out is very easy to fix. So I took out the original fence line I had running through that area, which had actually been pretty useless, and spent the rest of the day running around making a little pool.



I really like that pool there. I hadn't even thought of spawning more villagers until I stood back getting pictures, and it hit me this could actually work, I could have a thriving village here. Look how close we are to the next hill full of oak groves and sheep.

And I've also decided I really like the way acacia fencing stands out against the sand, and it matches the clay patterns on the temple, which is even more impressive when you are looking back at the village from out there.

Fortunately, the temple is this close to those acacia trees over there. I don't have to /tp anywhere, just a quick run out, chop a couple trees, make a little more acacia fence, and slowly replace the birch and oak, which I can use elsewhere for other things.

I'm also thinking maybe I can keep the double fenced area for livestock. I'll need to turf it and get some water in there.

I mean, how lucky is it to find a desert village right on the line of several intersecting biomes? I hadn't even thought of spawning more villagers until I stood back getting pictures, and it hit me this could actually work- I could have a thriving village here. If I'd found it out in the middle of the desert with nothing around it, I'd have excavated it all out by now and moved on, but this is doable.

I love the way the setting sun looks like it's sinking into the hole in the temple roof.

One more look around before I run inside. I felt really good about today. This is MY village now. I'm home.

And the very next morning, another creeper rolled off the roof in the exact same spot again and just missed my head, which meant the gaping hole was even bigger. Arg. I was so mad I just left...

creeper probs

Ah, the good old days, when a simple fence did the trick...

I had decided to run back and look over the earlier bunkers and then made the really big decision- I moved my bed. I had been pretty lucky so far not getting killed over here in the desert, but I knew that couldn't last. May as well be closer to my stuff so I can get it back if something kills me. Plus, this way I can make it day again.

Check out this well I found a little ways out of town. I have no idea if it spawned after I got here or was always here and I missed it somehow.

Oopsie. I think setting up actual residence is stimulating creeper economy. This gate is just outside the building I put the bed in. I think he got a little over excited. Time to get serious. The fence is double rowed here and still only single rowed up by the temple. Also, right at 50 seconds in there's a hole on the inside of the fence way too close to the temple.




I decided to make that area priority for the time being. Not sure yet if cobblestone will make a difference, but I spent some quality time installing another fortified gate there and getting more of that fence row doubled, then ran up the tower to do another assessment and think some more. I've obviously got to get more light going.




Love those early morning runs, picking up arrows and bones after the skeletons burn up. And of course a creeper wanted to play tag, so I ran back and forth deactivating and reactivating it (the pre-blow up hissing stopped whenever I pulled too far ahead) and thought Hey, maybe I can lure it into this little water hole and shoot it with my bow, because creepers kind of go dormant in the water. Didn't quite make it.



See all these creeper holes? They weren't in the video up there. This last one happened when I wasn't even there, and it is waaaaaay too close to my new gate.

This is becoming a problem. You can see why I'm worried about the temple.

Imagine coming home to this surprise after chopping wood all day. This is on the opposite side of the village. Would be cool if the creepers dug a moat out for me all the way around.

This snip from the third vid is giving me an idea...