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No, you can't place a bed on lilypads, even one block up (as I found). And no, I've never been able to place a bed directly on leaves, in 1.12 or anything prior. If I'm treetopping, and I do sometimes, I have to place dirt or wood blocks on the trees to put the bed on. That must have been changed post 1.12, and in the way of these things, you've forgotten it.

Those bandits were indeed quite scary. There were 4. In just a few seconds they did enough damage to strip at least 20 points of durability off my helmet (I thought it was more like 30 but I'm not sure), and presumably a similar amount off my other armors, and knock me down 8 hearts. That's certainly far more than 4 zombies+skeletons could do. (Edit; Damage Sceenshots says I was getting attacked for 20 seconds, although most of that was arrow fire and those weren't doing much damage.) Dying to that level of punch wouldn't be that embarrassing; what would have been was not considering the possibility of bandits. I fought Millenaire bandits once a long, long time ago and they weren't this frightening - I beat them with just ordinary Minecraft equipment - but they didn't dogpile me. IIRC they only had melee weapons and I basically killed them kung fu fighting style, one at a time.

I was also offguard because the one time I fought bandits they were Norman and I didn't know Millenaire had bandits from other cultures (although it seems TOTALLY appropriate once I give it the tiniest thought).

I'm actually thinking of ramping up the bandit camp frequency. I think it would be more interesting gamewise to have them fairly frequent rather than the Byzantine sheepherders, which are literally the majority of standalone buildings with the default settings (which seems buggish to me.)

I'm going to craft a makeshift vanilla iron helmet to try for home (for once, my playing is not ahead of my posting) and we can call it a tiara? If I had an armor station I could decorate the tiara to make it a bit more convincing - but if I had *that* I could fix my real helmet. You're right I'm not in all that much danger as I can sleep at night and avoid Roofed Forests - (and mysterious Millenaire buildings!) And next time I'll be waving my death sword. But there are caves to walk by, holes to fall into, and lighting bug dayspawns, so it's not zero risk.

This *is* a big continent, as Geo large continents always are. They are made, in effect, of 4000x4000 block regions, but generally several, with a lot of post processing for variability. My experience is that a very rough rule is about 10,000 x 18,000, but there is a huge amount of variability. If I'm doing the math right, I've established that it's 11,000 blocks wide (more is still possible in a different area, but unlikely) and a minimum of 10,000 blocks high and almost certainly a good deal more than that, because the bottom edge of my map wall will probably be 10,000 continuous blocks of land and so you'd expect it would continue a long way south. My idea with "large" continents was that they would be larger than any normal player would ever explore in one game, and feel "unlimited" as a result.

Episode 59: Sort of Lewis and Clark, part 2



In the morning I continue south, past first a Forest and then Cold Taiga, with small, roughly vanilla sized trees.

In the Cold Taiga here, the typical tree is probably smaller than in vanilla, although there's a lot of variation, from shrubs to moderately tall trees. I suppose this will be bad for the occasional player who tries RTG Plus and sees something not too different from vanilla trees, but it should be rare and the variety is nice for wide-ranging explorers.



I have to sail out a bit to avoid some ice shelves extending well out into the water.

The coast continues roughly south to the next map, so I stop and make it, now 4 west and 1 south of the chateau map.



After several hundred more blocks of icy coast, the climate shifts to cool, with a Mega Taiga and a Roofed Forest, and turns back west again. So I'm still not at the end.



This Roofed Forest is huge, and I sail past it nearly 1000 blocks before reaching a swamp, where I get off to look for sugarcane.

Initially I can't find any. But after a while I realize the late summer color changes just make it not stand out, and once I recalibrate my search image I find about half a stack.



And of course I get bit by a Lamprey. Like the last one, this inflicts Weakness, and it takes about 20 whacks to off the nasty thing.



The coast of the swamp is heading west, and I reach the next map just as I reach the end of the swamp. I make my map (now 5 west and 1 south of the chateau map) and cheerfully sail off. Until I realize I don't have the Atlas in hand and less cheerfully have to sail back to pick up some mapping I missed. :-(



Past that plains is *another* Roofed Forest, which extends *north* on a long narrow island - arguably more of a peninsula with this little passage. I go around it to make sure there's not more land up there.

It is just a smallish peninsula, but night is falling and I'm trying to figure out where I can sleep.



Near the tip there's a small Forest area and I try to sleep on the beach, but a Zombie comes out after me. I kill it, but I figure I'll be monsterblocked from sleeping. So I sail out a bit and try to build a sleeping platform with the lily pads I brought.



AAANDD - I've forgotten how to do this. (although, I don't remember it being hard?) Eventually I managed by jumping into the water to place a block underneath this level, and then climbing back on to extend it. I guess I could have placed the dirt to the side of the lily pads?



Past the Roofed Forest peninsula is a Plains, and then a snowy zone which heads west and then forces me uncomfortably near this Ocean Monument with some ice shelves. I get by without being zapped.



The cold coast then continues southish, eventually on to the next map, now 5 west and 2 south of the chateau map.



Then the coast turns and heads *east*, initially past a mountain range, and then past yet another Roofed Forest. Then past another mountain range - actually the same; the Roofed Forest is isolated and cut off from the rest of the continent by that range - kind of an interesting setup.



Then on to the next map to the east (now 4 west and 2 south of the chateau map) so more than likely I've rounded the furthest western extent and am heading back. I show this picture because I think unzoomed maps look good and it's a pity they're not very useful.



Quite a bit more more moutain coast going east, and then some forest as the coast turns back south.

Right at the end of the mountains is a Millenaire building and I get out to investigate. But something shoots me. A skeleton? In the day? Is this some kind of spawner?



No. It's Millenaire bandits. They swarm me. I hit back - but I'm plainly losing. I knew Millenaire had these and I've seen them in the distant past, but even in flyarounds I don't remember seeing them, and I had forgotten about them. Perhaps at great cost.

Part of the reason I'm losing is that I'm waving my Luck item collection sword, not my Manyullyn sword of death. But I don't notice until afterwards.

I turn to flee, but they pursue, and I've got a Slowness effect on me. It looks very grim. I'm not really panicking, oddly, because this has all happened so fast I'm not registering what's going on.



But when I get in the water, they get in - and then stop following. I am saved from an ignominious death - by what I suspect is a programming bug.



Once I get some distance I pull out my crossbow and it's very effective. I get an achievement from killing one bandit, then kill another coming at me on land, then snipe the two that followed me into the water but have just stopped and are floating there.

That was a crazy close call! Perhaps living by a bug is even more ignominious than death would have been but - I'm still glad to be alive. And I will definitely be more careful about Millenaire buildings in the future!



Then I loot their residence, a rectangular stone building. This actually has some good loot - some Mayan decorative carvings, and some gold ingots.

I block up the entrance and sleep inside for the night.



Come morning I continue in my boat along the coast. Soon I reach a hot zone, and I see in the distance an interesting Mesa formation. But it looks like it reaches on to the next map south, and I don't want to go further south, because there's no place to put anything that far south on the map wall. So, soon, I'll probably have to go back home on land, and perhaps have some more thematically Lewis and Clark-y adventures.



Also nearby is this interesting hill mixing Mesa and Extreme Hills.

But now it occurs to me - how is my armor doing? It was already damaged even before the fight.



Answer: really badly. Fortunately Tinker's stuff doesn't break at 0 HP, just become nonfunctional. I guess I was REALLY lucky to survive that encounter. Well, I brought plenty of sharpening kits for just this, so I pull one out and ...

It doesn't work. While sharpening kits fix tools, some internet research indicates Tinker's *armor* has to be repaired at an Armory station. Which is not that easy to make.

Great. Here I am with a broken helmet, about 9000 blocks from home. Without a working helmet, I've got some serious traveling, um, a-head of me. (rimshot)

Next episode: struggling home.

Sunset over a jungle is cool, and even more so since it's a bit rare to see it so late in the process - you have to be high up, which the chateau is.

Yes, large continents do often have complex shapes.

For rivers, RTG randomly scatters points on the plane, and then places rivers in spots equidistant between to spots (with some warping so they aren't weirdly straight). The width of the river is proportionate to the distance between spots, and so varies enormously. I could have probably come up with some mathematical manipulation to standardize the river widths, but I didn't.

Episode 58: Minecraft Lewis & Clark, part 1

My plan for this expedition is simple - head west until I reach the west end of the continent, to find out how big it actually is. I plan to use rivers as much as possible, hence the Lewis & Clark reference. I can take a river route west across the chateau map and then WSW across the next map (with some small interruptions) on a river that runs off the west end of that map. Beyond that, I can't make promises, but here's hoping.

I'm not using the airship partly because it's not how players explore normally (so not a good test) and partly because I can actually go faster in a river in a vanilla boat. Also, Lewis and Clark didn't have an airship - not thematic.

This could be a very, very long trip, so I stuff my double inventory (vanilla plus Tinker's backpack) with things to make it possible to go nearly indefinitely. I bring all my high-quality foods, and a few more to have more than 12 things to eat so I'm always getting maximum effect even with Spice of Life installed. I bring my 6 empty maps, and enough Iron Blocks and Redstone to make 30 more max maps. That would be enough to go 72,000 blocks, which is far further than I've ever seen even a large continent go (normally it's more like 20,000) although I don't have a lot of experience. I note that even that big map count wouldn't be enough to map the whole continent, just the crossing.

I don't have anything like enough paper for that many maps - that would be 22 stacks, and I only have 2, but I seem to be able to collect enough in the field.



I enjoy one last sunset before I go. What can I say, I'm me.

You have to squint a bit, but even at this zoom you can see most of the rivers I'm going to take from the green arrow (the chateau) to the river heading off the map to its west.



I stop along the way anytime I see a couple of sugarcane with some growth. I collect ecologically - I always leave the bottom block, to regrow.



It's now late summer, and the colors are distinctly drier and browner, especially out of forest biomes. Swamps are entirely brown already. I guess Serene Seasons has a dry summer climate.



On the map west of the chateau map, there are a few short portages on to the lake I found in Episode 27. You'll notice some snow here, from the last time I was nearby almost a year ago; it's not melted as the chunks haven't been loaded, although they are melting rapidly now that I'm here. Then there is a short crossing around the end of a mountain range to another river continuing WSW. I take this river to the map edge, and when the Bibliocraft Atlas informs me I am literally off the map, I make another (2 west of the chateau).



Almost immediately I hit a very small section of Frozen River (about 10 blocks) due to this Snowy micro-climate. Except it turns out to be not a micro-climate, but a thin narrow extension from a respectably sized one.



Then I come to a fork in the road, I mean river. I take the right fork because it's more westerly.



That soon reaches its source in some Ice Mountains, so I have to get out and hoof it - like these reindeer. But just a little further on is:



Ocean ALREADY !?!? I'm all geared up for some massive land expedition across a huge continent and after only about 1000 blocks of new exploration, I've reached the other side? That's kind of anticlimactic. That would make this section of the continent only about 6000 blocks east-west - well make that "only", as not many MC players ever travel that far. But still small for a Geographicraft large continent.

But, I figure, I should at least continue to the west end of the continent, and that might me a long way yet. So I hop in my boat and start heading along the coast, which is almost due west here.



First I'm passing a mountainous area with some unusually large gaps between the mountains.



Then there's some swamp, so I get out to hunt sugarcane. I'll have to sleep soon anyway.



I find a hill in the swamp to climb for a view west. It does look like the end of the continent.

But that area does continue onto the next map west, so in the morning I make it (3 west of the chateau) and continue. So this is still a substantial trip - maybe I should call it "Sort of Lewis and Clark?"



I spot what looks like a swamp island off the coast and sail out to investigate.



But it's not a little island, but connected to more land, so "looking like the edge of the continent" is misleading. Geo just keeps throwing fun surprises at me!



I spot a vanilla village and hop out to investigate, but while I'm doing this a Millenaire village generates on top of it.



Earlier, I've found a Blacksmith village and a Nitwit village. *This* one is a Cleric village - more than half the inhabitants are Clerics.



Continuing west on the coast, I move into a hot zone, and find a ruined Indian building, but with little inside - just a bit of Iron and Millenaire rice.



Finally, at this little Jungle island, the coast turns south.



Initially I'm in this weird situation because I'm on the next map west - but if I land on the coast to make the next map, I'm back on the last map and can't. But the coast goes a bit further west, and there I can land and make another map - now 4 west of the chateau.



I spot a river going inland and take it a little. This is one of the times that RTG, even with the default settings, makes a really wide river. It's things like this that kept me from making the default settings be for wider rivers than now.



Back on the ocean I spot what looks like a forest island, and while investigating find yet another forest island. Except these two aren't islands, but peninsulas separated by a bay, and I'm betting both connect to the mainland.



At sunset the coast appears to turn south again. But I'm suspicious because I've now traveled about 4,000 blocks pretty much west with several false indicators of a turn south. If this *is* the end, the continent is about 10,000 blocks across, although with a complex shape. Well, I'll sleep it off on the beach, and then continue. Tomorrow is another day.

Great story, but the images aren't appearing. I think the "previews.dropbox.com/p/thumb/" files might be for your account only - I can't view them in a browser, or in img tags here.

Episode 57: Flying for Finding Final Fundamentals

Of course, the first thing I do is



Fix the bizarre problem with my airship where the top and back of the balloon got attached to the front. This is all routine; chop, move, etc; everything's just a normal block when the airship is disassembled. Except at the end I realize I don't have anything appropriate on me to attach the roof.

So I just use dirt. It's on the inside and nobody will ever see it. Including you readers, because I didn't take a pic.

I keep hearing zombie noises and check the attic for spawns but that's not it; my snow removal seems to have helped.

I then make a bunch of compasses for future mapping - I'll carry them with and turn them into maps as I go with the sugarcane I find on the way. But the zombie noises are continuing and they are driving me CRAZY!



So I spend the evening tunneling around under the chateau, trying to find a source. To no avail.

Frustrated, I head out in the morning and - wow they're loud here. Maybe I left an unlit pocket when I was filling out the front of the chateau with dirt?



Bingo. Swat-swat, place a torch, and - blessed silence. A lesson in doing things right the first time.

I spend the day on farm and ranch chores.

Now I'm ready for my next expedition. But this one will be different - rather than going to map, I'm going to collect the resources from the Tinker's floating island I spotted in Episode 52 (right before the Bobbit Worm tried to eat me.) The main point is to get Purple Slime, which I can use for Knightslime, to provide some HP-enhancing armor improvements.



I will do some mapping on the way. Obviously, I'm taking the airship. I'm going to head SE from the chateau to pick up one nearby area I've missed (a little hard to spot this zoomed out) and then south, eventually over the unmapped area east (right) of the big snowy area on the map one south. The I'll head to the floating island, which is off the east coast on the SE-most map.



I set off bright and early the next day. There's a greeting party, but the airship is in the secure area next to the chateau, so I just take off and ignore them. This pic is of part of the unmapped area; at this zoom the rest is more obvious. The snow is still here because I haven't come close enough to melt it yet. It actually melts pretty fast, to the point that the mapped area ends up mostly green.



I'm really not sure how I missed mapping this - I've been through here at least twice. I think I was distracted by rainspawning possibilities from the forest and didn't pull out my map.



Then south on to the next map and this large unexplored area.



This is the area that gave me a lot of trouble on the ground in Episode 30. I think you can see why - this area has tall ridges going east-west, and I was trying to go north. It's spectacular and scenic, but not much fun to walk on.

This area is too wide for one pass, but I'll finish it on the way back.



Soon I'm past, and head over Deception Bay (the deep inlet almost to the Bearclaw Sea) to the lands to the south.



Once there, I decide I may as well do another mapping pass on the way down.



As usual, airship exploration brings some great views.

I get all the way to the very SE corner of my mappings and - no floating island? Did I forget something?



Yes, I did. It's not at the SE of my mapping but a little to the north, next to the little peninsula out to the east.



I was expecting a big running battle to get on to the island, but the slimes just jump off as I approach. It takes a while to stop the airship in the right spot, and by the time I'm done they're all gone and no more spawn because I'm too close. So, sorry, not the exciting fight I was hoping to write about.



I chop down the Purple Slime Tree, getting 4 saplings and 2 purple slime balls. Not enough for several armor improvements, so I'll have to grow the saplings to get more. (The purple slime leaves occasionally drop slimeballs, like oak leaves sometimes drop apples.) The I dig up some Slimy Dirt (the bluish grass), which I need to grow Slime Saplings, and some Green and Blue Slime blocks. I'll have plenty of slime now - I won't need that swamp spawning area after all.



It's the middle of the night, but on an airship I don't care, so I pillar back up and fly back north, adding a bit more map as I go.



By the time I'm north of Deception Bay again it's dawn.



I finish off mapping that big unmapped area, enjoying the scenery.



While I'm here I pick up a few unexplored dots.



Then back on to the chateau map to clean up that annoying line of snow dots.



Seems the issue was that my tunnel was close enough to map but not close enough to melt snow. Weird problem.

And, finally back home. Remarkably easy.



I plant my slime tree saplings on some slimy dirt.



FINALLY remember to breed a magenta sheep.

Head over to the farm and

BAWOOM! Thunderstorm!

I know I could bedplop, but I have objections to that cheesy move, so I run for the chateau.



My one-shotting crossbow saves my bacon.

I snooze in the chateau to clear the weather (really? so bizarre) and head back the next morning.



Two slime trees have grown, so I chop them, and then a third that grows while I'm doing that. Chopping three trees yields:



*One* slimeball. Welp, I may be at this for a while. I'd forgotten I got this same problem in my previous journal, but there I could get purple slimeblocks from one of the floating islands. Not here, so I'll have to grind a bit.

But not right now, because I have some big plans!



Here's the map I have right now. Pretty similar to the one at the start of the episode other than some filled in spots. But after my next expedition, this will probably look VERY different.

Next Episode: possibly my biggest land exploration ever!

Oh, bigfooting is posting right after somebody else, which makes that post less noticeable.

I'm not planning on winding down my current journal quite yet, although I'm thinking I will soon; I have just had a lot of real life going on, both good and bad.

There have been times where I was in serious danger in a world I cared about and I totally panicked; and other times when I was totally sanguine. I'm not sure what's the difference. Anyway, I enjoy your posting and playing, and I know how *I* would feel about losing a long-journaled world (having done it) and I project my feelings.

Edit: and sniping is taking the top post on a page with some side issue. Sorry!

Argh. I come here to post but I don't want to bigfoot you.

You're getting a lot of diamonds, but I find tools at least get worn out really fast without Mending. I surprise myself with how fast I can chew up diamonds in vanilla.

but the resource pack I used to change that stopped working after one of the 1.19 minor updates.

Ah, the upgrade death march strikes again.

That was a lot of risk for the Netherite upgrade. IMO with such a valuable world I wouldn't have risked up.

That map is still small compared to yours. It's 3x5, which would be 6x8 with your map size, and you have two rooms that are something like 8x12. But yes, it's getting big for the space. For my next two expeditions, at least, I'm not going to push the north and south boundaries - I'm going to be filling existing maps out, and exploring west. Longer term, I'm starting to think about moving on from this world; I think it's proved it's point, that the current Geo/RTG combo fixes the "another forest" problem, quite definitively, on a scale far larger than almost any player will experience (not you, I know, but you're far from typical). I've been kind of inspired to finally give a tech-oriented modpack a go after so many years by some of the discussions on the mod forums, or if I can get the trees to work in modern minecraft I'd obviously want to journal that.

The airship malfunction is not that consequential. All blocks need to be connected orthogonally, and after my last modifications, some weren't. They blocked the ship from moving, but eventually I moved the ship so they *were* orthogonal and then it worked, albeit with a goofy appearence. It will be easily fixed once I'm home. I could have fixed it in the field if I'd known the back part of the balloon was attached.

My current plan for snowcaps is to use the "shadowing" tools in RTG. RTG places darker blocks (by default cyan terracotta) on steep slopes for a more naturalistic look, and because of that RTG already calculates slope steepness. I'll try having snow on the *least* steep mountain areas, with the maximum steepness increasing with height. The effect will be something like sprinklings of snow blocks on shoulders starting around 100 and then gradually on steeper areas with height up to, I dunno, maybe 180, by which time it will have replaced all the surface stone.

Episode 56: Landing and Lands



As dusk arrives I disassemble the airship overlooking a Mesa-Plains junction to sleep.

My next step will be to fly to the west (left) of the line over the mountains I'd made earlier, and fill in that wedge.



The views are awesome, and I'm grateful I don't have to map this on the ground. It's a big area of Extreme Hills, probably because two different mountain ranges got shoved up against each other.



You can see how big this Extreme Hills area is; something like 1000x500 blocks on this map, and it extends onto the map to the south (the chateau map).

Then I fly over the range and set down on the east (right) side, planning to explore on land. Besides being a better test, exploring "conventionally" is mostly more convenient than in the airship; the airship is very hard to maneuver and changes speed and direction very slowly. Only in very rough terrain like Extreme Hills is the airship preferable.

When I land and try to disassemble the airship, it fails, and I'm thrown from the ship. Fortunately I'm just a few blocks up. But, that's why I didn't want an airship until I had good falling defenses, because if I accidentally hit the "dismount" key: AAAAAHHHH!!!! Even now there's some risk if I go up to 170+ to cross a really big mountain and don't come down immediately after.



I take the little river but it quickly dries up in the desert. This leaves a small spot to fill out ahead of me. But it turns out to be mostly Extreme Hills, so I'll get it with the airship later.



I do get a nice overview of the curling river from 2 episodes back.



I turn south to fill out this part of the map (west of the range) on foot.



Watch your step!



South of the desert is a largish Plains area, although not as large as the two "Great Plains" areas on the Chateau and spawn maps.



Then a Taiga with smaller trees and poor visibility. Parts are Mega Taiga.



I sleep next to a lake I run across. I'm looking around nervously as I clickclickclick the bed waiting for sunset.



Next day I take a spin on the lake, finishing mapping here. I've left a strip unmapped on the east- I have to bring the airship back, so I figure I'll skip a strip and bring it back over that.



Then I turn west along the bottom of the map. There's a Roofed Forest I have to dodge a bit, but I get this great scenic shot in the process.



Then I turn back and make another mapping pass going west.



Then north, into a hilly forest area. I try to take a pic from the top, but the smaller trees (from altitude) get in the way.



So I dirtramp onto one of the larger trees up top for a pic.



That leaves a small area of Extreme Hills. I already have a different plan for getting the airship home, so I resign myself to some serious mountain climbing to finish this off.



Huzzah! I made it!



Heading back to the airship, I run across a defunct branch line.



Wait, the back of the balloon isn't back at the chateau, it got stuffed into the interior of the balloon. That is *weird*.



Now to the air to get that leftover strip. Here's an aerial view of that curving river. As it turns out, I could probably have mapped this on foot. A lot of this area is low for Extreme Hills and traversable.



And there's that Cold Taiga I'll probably never show from the ground after all. Although, those are pretty tall trees for Cold Taiga.



I've done what I planned on the map north of the chateau map, but there's a strip unexplored on top of the chateau map itself . I'd better get it now or it will bug me later.



I thought there would be more tricky terrain on that route, but actually the only thing which might have been a problem on the ground is this roofed Forest.

Then back to home. The map is a help, because the really tall mountains have snow on them and I can use the map to plot a course where I don't have to go quite so high.



It's still nice to see the landmarks of home - that mountain/river/jungle combo.



A landing spot on *top* of the chateau would be more convenient that the one I have, in the far side yard. It takes a while to come down, and some careful maneuvering.



And finally, the current map. I think I can define the regions north and east of the chateau region now.

There's no clear boundaries separating the area north of the chateau from the area east of it. But, with the chateau my main base, I'd probably never go from one to the other. And, they have a distinctly different feel, because while there are several settlements, both Millenaire and vanilla, in the area east of the chateau, there are *none* in that part north of the chateau - which is a bit weird, actually. So I'd draw the boundaries like this:



East of the moutain range is the Spawn region,



and north of it is the Empty Coast.

I'll need more explorations to define more regions. They will be coming. But not right now!

Next episode: preparing for a different kind of expedition

Well, I'll give snowcapped mountains a go. I think there's a trick I can use from the slope shadowing system.

Well, snow on top of rock mountains is the aesthetic for 1.12 - vanilla does it and Serene Seasons does it, and probably others as well. In general if anything *else* modified the snow level RTG wouldn't be able to track it so it might well end up snow on top of other blocks anyway.

As a for example, in the "complex sub-biomes" option of Geographicraft, it bumps up the snow levels a little in Extreme Hills because it's absurdly low and so any Extreme Hills subbiome - the only this available in vanilla for a bare hillock - would have snow on it, looking very out of place.

I don't really have a problem with it anyway because exposed rock is common even on Mount Everest:

As an aside, Minecraft changes temperature with elevation far too slowly. Out of the entire range of temps from 0 to 1, only something like 12% allows a biome that isn't either snow down to sea level or clear up to 256. Minecraft really needs some warm but snowcapped biomes, but it's not possible.

Friendly creepers? Never heard of a mod with that. Although there is the occasional story of some softheared newbie going to give a creeper a hug...

Episode 55: The Sting of Summer Seas



Once nice thing about the Bibliocraft Atlas - which I didn't notice until now - is that *exactly* when you go off any map in the Atlas, it switches to an image of map 0 (in this case the area just east of my starter base). So you know exactly when to make a new map - no wasted map from making it too early, no backtracking because you made it too late.

Just past the hot zone is a swamp, and I get off the boat to gather sugarcane. No Moose in this swamp, fortunately, but there is a Roofed Forest sub-biome near the coast I have to detour around.

The previous swamp was small. This one is sprawling. (One of the effects of Geographicraft is it does more stocastic manipulation of boundaries than vanilla. This makes biomes vary in size more, which I like.) I get through about half of it and then need to return to the boat because I left my bed there (I wasn't expecting to be gone so long.)



I have to climb over a spur of Extreme Hills to get back near the coast. But once there, I can't find my boat. I feel like I'm in the Sozganjio Marshes (there's your obscure reference for the day). I resort to my vanilla boat to get out to sea where I can see the balloon.



The coast turns north again. Oh well. Towards sunset I spot this lake connected to the sea, but it's not so easily reached in the Da Vinci boat, which has more of a draft than a vanilla boat and gets stuck in depth 1 water.



There's also an offshore forest island, which I circumnavigate. I sleep the night on the boat.



Come morning I continue boating - and the coast turns south. That's a relatively good sign, although with large continents there's usually a lot of back and forth. I have collected about 2 stacks of sugarcane at this point, which is enough for all the empty maps I brought, so I skip this swamp.

I get a screen refresh, which probably means Serene Seasons has moved to the next month, midsummer by my count.



The coast turns west again at a Snowy zone and soon its time for a new map. Shortly after that:



I hit a jellyfish. Ouch. And, apparently, the first in this world !? I wasn't missing that after all the agonizing zaps in my previous journal.



Then the coast turns south again and I almost go onto the next map - but not quite. Then the coast heads back north.



I spot a vanilla village on a hill and get out to investigate.



There's also a Millenaire ruin here, a ruined farm. It only has 12 wheat.

Two Librarians in the village are already selling enchanted books: Frost Walker II, and Looting II. In a vanilla game that would be pretty useful. I still might use the Frost Walker.

There's also some fields of ripe cabbage and cauliflower, which I harvest so no Farmer will tear them up, and unripe broccoli. Why so many brassica? I dunno; maybe happenstance, maybe harvestcraft has some grouping logic.



Then back to see and past a LOOOONG (and impressive) mountainous coast. There's a Norman village here, but I sail on by.



With another jellyfish strike. I must be losing my touch. Actually, maybe it's that this is a bigger boat. Is there a meme for "we're going to need a smaller boat"?

Then it's time for a new map but - I only have supplies for two more, and I'm afraid I might need more than one to get home.



So I take to the air and map this mountain range from above. The Norman village is in this shot. Turns out the other side of the range is more ocean, although I'm suspecting an inland sea, because Geographicraft doesn't normally do long thin straight extensions.



I sleep in the airship with a view of an Ice Spikes.



In the morning I continue south over that Snowy zone, then to this large lakeside hill.



Turns out I could have made that last map, because I'm already back on existing maps. Well, three new maps is a lot and I'm getting a lot of exploration done, so it's OK.

I decide to land the airship and explore the rivers a bit by vanilla boat.



The river forks and I take a fork to the north. It goes back onto the next map north, but then ends at a hill.



I get out and start heading back to the airship. I spot this witch's hut and snipe the witch through the window.



Then back to the map to the south again, with these interesting mixed trees.



I take a boat ride in the lake I saw earlier. It looks very different from the ground.



In spite of some Roofed Forest, I manage to finish mapping this little area, and then return to the airship.

Next episode: more combined air and ground exploration.