Technics Pack – Industrial Craft

After selling the villagers plenty of wood and a few bricks, it seems I’m a bit more welcome: my status is now “Regular Visitor”.

The village is growing nicely too..

I had to check.. but the Town Hall has even had an upgrade, with the walls of the central part now being made from the smoother-looking cooked brick, rather than the mud bricks it began with.  The bricks take rather a long time to make, though, and I wanted to move on..

I decided to leave the villagers to do the rest, while I finally started on the Industrial Craft part of the Technics Pack!  I did have to resort to a tutorial from the Industrial Craft wiki though, as I just didn’t know where to start..

The first task is to find a Rubber Tree, and extract the rubber using a simple Treetap.
The tutorial said the trees were rare, but I found one without too much trouble.  After taking the rubber from the one Sticky Resin hole on it, I ripped the tree down, hoping for saplings.. and with the help of a little bonemeal, I soon had a Rubber Tree farm!

So now I can start on the long-winded stuff..

Gather resin, turn it into rubber, combine it with copper to create cables.. which are then combined with more and more stuff to create machines, such as an extractor which will increase the efficiency of rubber production.  However, the machines require electricity.. which means building a generator.  The generator requires rechargeable batteries (cable, tin, redstone), refined iron, and an iron furnace (more iron and a regular furnace)..

Hmm.  I’m building things to build other things, to do a job I was already doing, albeit slightly more efficiently.  Long term gains, I guess..
Fortunately, I found a lot of resources while looking for redstone, so it’s now just a matter of following instructions.

Out in the rest of the game world, I managed to tame and ride my first horse.. though I had to check the internet again to find out how to dismount X)

As well as horses, there’s a Unicorn and a Pegasus, which have lower spawn chances, and the Pack Horse, Nightmare (black unicorn) and Black Pegasus, which are only available through breeding.  Like the crazy friend who got me into this mess, I will probably attempt to collect them all.. collect ALL the ponies.. 😉

Minecraft Mods – Technic Pack

I’ve mostly ignored Minecraft’s various mods so far.. nothing really leapt out as a must-see, and I just didn’t have the enthusiasm to face the hassle of setting them up.

However.. a friend has been trying out the Technic pack, which adds a big pile of mods to the game.. building, industrial machinery, more creatures via Mo’ Creatures, and from Millénaire, NPC villages which grow as the villagers work in them.

Minecraft itself has to be downgraded to version 1.7.3 before the pack can be applied.  So that I can play on the multiplayer server still, I need to have a second install of Minecraft.. or a second copy of the game’s bin folder at least.  I looked into creating a batch file to switch between the modded version and vanilla version, but that would rely on naming the folders “bin” and “bin(1)” rather than something memorable.  As I want to keep a backup copy of the modded version anyway, it should be easy enough to just copy that over when I want to play the mod.

So, into the game..

I spawned right next to an Indian village, with a few small buildings, and NPCs going about their business.. collecting wood, making bricks, and if I headed into the town hall, one or more would come running to trade with me 🙂

I decided to avoid gathering resources directly within the village in case it turned them against me.. but I was lucky enough to come across loads of blocks of wood from trees which were despawning all around, and ended up with a full stack of wood without having had to strike a single tree!

I’m still only at “Stranger” status with the Village Chief, though as I bring more goods to trade, this reputation should improve and I’ll be able to get more interesting things, including housing which isn’t so easily destroyed..

My friend had warned me against building too close to the village, as they will expand onto you if it’s in their plans.  I moved to the next flat piece of land and made a small house, containing a workbench and chest, and a bed for passing the night in safety.. or so I thought!

The Mo’ Creatures part of the pack adds.. as you’d guess.. more creatures, including werewolves, big cats, and Ogres..

I awoke from the third night’s sleep to a smashing sound, grunting, and the realisation that my house was being destroyed around me by three large Ogres!  I ran away, not wanting to take them on with the wooden sword I had to hand.. and when I came back there wasn’t much left..

In case you don’t want to be surprised like this, Mo’ Creatures has a few adjustable settings.

I have reduced the number of Ogres.. for now.  They drop Obsidian, so when I have a bit more gear, I will be hunting them for it!

Werewolves were another threat I’d been warned against, with the recommendation of just running if I saw one.  It’s a different matter during the day, though.. and I was encouraged to attack the “hobos” wandering around for their loot.. as well as for the fact that they were the Werewolves’ daytime form.

As well as the hostile creatures, there is a nice variety to the wildlife.. rabbits, cats, fish, horses.. even pegasi and unicorns, which a friend has been busy trying to breed..

For my part, I still need to create a saddle, find food, and even tame a horse, before I can worry about breeding them 🙂

I came across some dolphins too.. and I even managed to get a ride on one by clicking him.  I couldn’t repeat it when I tried, though, as the other dolphins just threw me off!

The trees are another great thing about this mod.. more variation, with a few types of fruit trees too.. and some insanely large trees dotted about, which remind me of our attempt at a giant tree on our old multiplayer map!

I also found an Oil Slick, but I think I’m quite a way off building any of the industrial machines which I’d want it for.. so I’m leaving it alone for now.

Before I start ripping apart the countryside, I want to see quite how much my little village can expand.. they’ve already started! 🙂