Minecraft Forums

Quote from MazeCraft

Wither skulls are very rare. 1/40 chance of dropping one and looting enchantment on a sword doesn't affect the rate.

Has that been confirmed in the code? As far as I was aware, they were just another rare drop, which meant looting helps a bit. I have always used looting in skull collection, but that might just be anecdotal evidence and a placebo effect on my own end.

Anyway, on topic with the thread: To find nether fortresses, head in an east/west path instead of a north/south path. They tend to generate in parallel north/south lines, so running perpendicular to them should offer a good chance of finding them relatively quickly.

But, like the others, I suggest sticking to your current world.

- No beacons (Killed about 30 wither skeletons, never a single skull)

There's a nice project for you. Try to prime the nether for wither spawning. Disable spawn points around a fortress to a moderate degree, make a second pathway 3 blocks below the current fortress pathways (meaning 2 air blocks between the paths) and get yourself some beacons!

Water and half slabs do essentially the same thing. Whichever is more efficient for you to use.

As far as lightning goes, it should be a non-issue as long as there's rain when it's lightning.

I personally like using a 40ish drop fall followed by me punching them once. Brutal simplicity and mass-murder go hand-in-hand.

As stated above, low efficiency. TNT destroys more blocks than not. In order to make the TNT, you would need to essentially remove a desert from existence, which isn't much help in the aesthetics department either.

As far as scaling up cobble generators goes, it's not difficult. The only real thing going on is lava hitting water or vice versa. You can make many, many different designs and still get cobblestone out the wahoo.

If, for whatever reason, you have -that- much TNT at your disposal, I guess it would be reasonable to build a cobble generator to use it. I can't imagine what circumstances would lead to you having enough TNT to justify it though.

Also, quick edit, why not just use the TNT underground in a place you aren't worried about?

I work on my ghast farm in my survival world.

continue doing whatever it was that I was already doing. Diamonds aren't that rare.

Bonemeal doesn't create grass, bonemeal creates tall grass (and flowers) when used on a normal grass block.

I'm not the kind of person who is okay with spawning things in when there is a relatively easy way to get things places

Second option: the pistons. How high is this island?

Use silk touch.

Assuming someone on your server (you said there was an admin) has an exp grinder, there's a good chance someone can lend you a tool or give you a grass block.

Other than that, you could use pistons to just push the block vertically. I recommend the first strategy, though.

To be more complete, any chance you could add in how many of a given ore (redstone/coal/diamond mining - iron/gold smelting) for the levels, as well as possibly the cooking of food?

Quote from ownagepotato

Yeah, mining quartz is most efficient.

No, punching endermen to death for ~100 seconds is much more efficient.

Mining quartz requires you to go further and further away from spawn per enchantment, because it is a nonrenewable resource.

As a function of number of enchantments done overall, quartz becomes worse and worse efficiency, whereas the endermen farms stay the same. This means that the front-end cost of building the endermen grinder will eventually become moot.

I have heard that a piston clock will keep 4 chunks loaded if placed on the intersection of 4 chunks. Can I take this concept and put it in one chunk too, or does the chunk edge affect behavior?

Piston clocks take (and correct me if I'm wrong) more than one tick to push a block (there are repeaters involved) - does that mean that the chunk will be loaded for a tick, then unloaded for a tick, then loaded again?

Are these usable on SMP?

This is the clock I am thinking of:

At this point, you're hardly even playing minecraft.

Do you mean a cosmetic solar generator, or are you using some sort of mod?

If you were going north/south, you're doing it wrong. They spawn in rows going north/south for the most part so you'd be better off going east or west.

That being said, don't spawn in blaze rods. Keep searching. If you go over those lava lakes and do find one in a lava lake, you have an amazing starting point for a wither skeleton farm.