Minecraft Forums

Now I know all the secrets of your maze

You know baby, I'd love to get you outta that armor and see what skin you're wearing.




Me: Excuse me, do you have a pork chop?
Her: Yes, why?
Me: Because as soon as I saw you, you stole all of my hearts.

The Challenge: You are on the moon. Mine all the resources you can and build a rocket ship to get back home.

The Backstory: You have been selected for a first of its kind, solo mission to prospect and mine the moon. Unfortunately your employer, CutRate Excavations Inc., has sent you to this desolate landscape with nothing more than the spacesuit on your back. You must survive the harsh environment, the perilous moon beasts (who knew?) and the cold, unbreathable atmosphere as you mine your way across the landscape and eventually build your own spaceship to bring you and your precious cargo back to terra firma.

To begin:
All you need are the parts for your space suit.

• Iron Boots
• Iron Leggings
• Iron Chestplate
• Pumpkin (which serves as your space helmet)

The Goals:

• Survive (I suggest playing on Hard dificulty. Lets face it, the moon is a hostile place)
• Accumulate minerals (Points are calculated at the end based on the ammount brought "home" on your spaceship)
• Construct a working spaceship and launch

The Rules:

• Never, EVER go outside without a full working spacesuit (including helemt). If a part gets damaged beyond repair, you may not leave your base until you have replaced it.
• You may not plant anything outside. (Who know how they go there, but this is the moon for Herobrine's sake)
• You only have limited oxygen. You must limit yourself to 12 minecraft hours outside before you must return indoors to refill your oxygen supply.
• If you die, you lose, and your bones will fade away into moon dust. (*optional)

A working spaceship must contain:

• A cargo hold with two double-chests (no more) for storing ores
• A living space containing a bed, crafting bench and stove
• A chest containing at least 100 hearts worth of food for the return journey
• A cockpit with captains chair and working launch button
• 4 engines built with at least 12 obsidian block each
• 4 blocks of TNT to be used a rocket fuel (connected to the cockpit via redstone)

Beyond this, the design and size of the ship is totally up to the player.

Winning: The challenge is won when a player successfully detonates the TNT from the cockpit of their spaceship, signifying a successful launch back to earth.

Points: The challenge would only be half as fun without a scoring system. Points are based on the minerals found in your cargo hold at the time of launch.

• Stack of redstone (25 points)
• Stack of coal (35 points)
• Iron Ingot (10 points)/Iron Block (90 points)
• Lapis Lazuli Block (150 points)
• Gold Ingot (25 points)/Gold Block (225 points)
• Diamond (30 points)/Diamond Block (270 points)
• Stack of Obsidian (500 points)

*Add 250 points if you make your spaceship out of smooth-stone.

Other things to note:
* I highly recommend this texture pack to really make the experience moon-like: (your pumpkin actually becomes a space helmet!)
* This challenge requires some start-up materials. Players are allowed to hack in the starting materials, or play from an existing world in a new map location. All other materials must be found as a part of the challenge, however.
*While the challenge can be played on a regular map, the user TheNosferatu has kindly created a custom, moon-like map that comes complete with starting materials and a list of rules. It can be found here: http://johandam.com/etc/MoonCraft.7z Much thanks to him!

Hope you find this challenge fun and enjoyable!

As people start completing the challenge, post your scores on the thread or send me a PM and I'll compile a High Score List!

Here are some screenshots from my trial run:


The Lobby of my Moon Base


The Main Chamber (Access to mines, etc)


The Airlock to the Outside


My Spaceship (Yes, it is ugly. My design skills are...lacking)

Quote from Joshua22220099

hi,i'm building a town in minecraft, but i don't know what i could build.
Could u pls give me some ideas?

Thx =)

I'm always a fan of building a castle, perhaps on a hill somewhere, and then creating a town down below for it to lord over.

Depending on what kind of town you want (modern, medieval, classical, etc) you will likely include some of the following:
A town hall
A main plaza/courtyard
A few houses (perhaps with shops)
A market
A church/temple/shrine
Walls (depending on your city type)
A harbor (if near water)
Decorative items like streetlights, and gardens fountains

Googling the phrase "minecraft town" will give you plenty of picture and videos to get ideas from.

I have been wondering this too, and the only way I can get around it is through the use of spawn points and nether portals. It works like this. The vault is made out of an entirely bedrock cube. The ONLY openings are two (more if you like) single chests laid two spaces apart in the bottom of the wall allowing the chests to be opened from the inside and outside of the vault. If destroyed, the holes still do not allow access inside. When a player wants to enter the vault, he or puts all of the items in their inventory into these boxes. The player then must kill themselves. As a moderator, a hack must be used to change the player's spawn somewhere inside the cube. So, upon death, they will teleport into the cube and be able to retrieve the contents of the boxes from the inside.

Getting out requires use of the nether-gate glitch discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=1016&t=75218 A gate is set up in the entry way outside the cube where the boxes are loaded. Upon first entry to the nether, the connection is made. Then, a second portal must be made just inside the cube which (as close as possible to the original), given proximity of the portals, it becomes likely that they will both travel to the same gate in the nether. Then, upon exiting the nether once again, the nether portal will only deposit the player outside the cube, thus creating a one way path.

Disclaimer: I'm not terribly familiar with the inner workings of server moderators, so I'm not sure if the spawn point idea or the portal concept will apply to multiplayer. If it does, it would be effective. If not, it would be fun to create in singleplayer, but ultimately, as stated above, useless.

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An elevator with no sticky pistons is possible but you can only get 13 blocks high.

I'll post a short tutorial if you'd like. It uses just 4 pistons, half blocks and fence gates, and of course, redstone.

What your looking for is a spiral elevator that pushes you up stairs with regular pistons. You really should try to be more resourceful though. I typed "minecraft regular piston elevator" into youtube and this was the first result:



Obviously this is a very old video, but the concept hasn't changed. Not sure how well it works anymore, but that is the only design I'm aware of that doesn't use sticky pistons. Just use a water/vine break to get back down. If you want a high speed two way elevator, you need to invest in a slime farm.

you can make a elevator with only 2 stick pistons and reach any height you wish, surely you can get enough slimeballs for 2 sticky pistons

though you will use alot of redstone/repeaters but we all have tons of it in our survivals

\/ \/:::::UPDATE:::::\/ \/
Here is a link to the paint plans for this build:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1405322-neuschwanstein-castle-mc-plans-paint-rar-zip/

/\ /\:::::UPDATE:::::/\ /\

Firstly; I know that this building is and has been popular amongst MineCraft players and builders since the beginning. So all props, once again, go out to each of you who have either finished or abandoned their own particular variation on the challenge. The following is simply my take, in my fashion, with my artistic license, and my personal preferences for play method. I am in no way intending to one-up anyone's work... I just happen to like big challenges and tough circumstances with no short-cuts.

This is my second attempt at this project. My first failed attempt is chronicled: HERE


Here is the goal:


Here is a page of [Google Images]of the structure.





It has taken almost a month from when I abandoned the first attempt to reach the point where a second 'restart' thread was in order.

Lessons learned from failure:
1) Absolutely HAD to have one mod; a height limit adjuster... the Main Tower is 155 blocks high.
2) Need to draw a complete set of plans before even selecting a place to build.
3) Monster Defenses (fences, torches, temp-houses and workshops built of stone not dirt) need to be a higher priority.
4) MASSIVE amounts of wool will be required so a huge farm is needed(4-6 times the size of first attempt).
5) A 300+ length means that much of the action will be a LONG LONG ways from the craftsmens' village, so a railway is needed (I know nothing of rails).

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FIRST STEP: Find dimensions / plans to work from

I found a guy who built this structure out of legos, and after a few emails back and forth we negotiated a deal on a physical copy of the plans that he created and used. The plans are too big to scan, so they had to be photocopied at a blueprint shop and mailed to me. I do not believe that I purchased rights to post or distribute the plans, so I've taken a few concept photos of them that are just low res enough to not be used by anyone else.






On his website four of the smaller of the elevations. Here is one:


This is a direct linked jpg so I'm not worried about copyright on this one.

You can contact the creator of these plans [HERE]if you would like a set of your own. FYI, he has plans done in square grid graph paper, for about 60 or so historical castles. I plan to build a few of them from his plans over time.

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NEXT STEP: MineCraft Plans


From the Lego Plans, I extrapolated a set of my own in MS Paint... The scale is appx 1block = 1ft.
These are just the outside walls, the interior walls and the courtyard are yet to be translated.






From the four exterior wall elevations (as well as the lego plan for the layout) I created what I call a footprint



These are my creation and you are welcome to them.

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Step 3: Create a world and find a place to build

First challenge)
This particular height limit adjustment mod makes you spawn at the top of the sky... that means I needed to keep creating worlds until I found one that spawned me withing 7-8 blocks of deep water so that I could 'fly sideways' on the way down and not spawn-fall-splat-rinse-repeat.

Second challenge)
The foot print of this structure including the approach ramp is 308 X 128. For those of you who play in MC edit or whatever the mod is that creates flat featureless worlds to build on... 308 X 128 is fantastically HUGE according to the map generator. I created around 40-45 maps before I found one that had BOTH a spawn by deep water, and anything approaching a flat and dry spot that size. But, I'm a stubborn you know what, so I stuck it out till I found one.

Here is a map screenshot:


As you can see, the back two corners are hanging over a river and a sea that will have to be filled in at some point.

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STEP 4: Clear the land

It just so happens that the entire footprint was covered in trees that will all have to be cut down. Here are a before and after shot of clearing the first third of the foot print taken from a 128 block tall pillar:



In order to clear that many trees I had to build little woodcutter's huts spread around the forest, so I wouldnt have to keep running 200+ blocks back to the bass every night:


There are four of them scattered around in the pillar pic above but they are hard to see. Look for the 20 block tall dirt pillars that I built right next to each hut so that I could find it in the trees.

Yeah, some may say that cutting down ~800 trees so far and another 2000+ to go seems like grinding, but I will probably use at least that much wood in a project this size anyway. Besides, the trees are NOTHING... its the earth moving that is going to get grindy

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STEP 5: Get stoned.

Although Neuschwanstein Castle is mostly white (wool), the gatehouse foundations are block and the gatehouse towers and the two courtyards are grey stone. I will be building the gatehouse first (and then moving all storage / workshops etc into it). The towers alone will require about 1700 blocks of smooth stone each... so its time to start the mining ops:

This is the diagonal drop shaft that goes from ground level all the way to lvl 17 (will mine down there from 17 down to 1). From the shaft alone, I have been able to generate enough cobble and make enough stone blocks to build the gatehouse foundations.


Remember all those trees? They will go to good use fueling the brick/block ovens:


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STEP 6: Get food.

The first thing I built in my mine was a massive wheat farm. Hold on to your butts... it is planted with 16 rows each 64 blocks long:



I have been cutting all the tall grass in my tree clearing efforts, and I still only have 2/3s of the seeds I need to plant the 1024 block wheat patch, LOL.


So the world is built..., plans are drafted, clearing, cutting, mining, planting are all well underway. Still havent started the sheep operations yet, but I cant wait to get started building.... so lets lay this thing out.

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STEP 7: Foundations

After many many many runs back and forth all over the general building stie to verify elevations and distances. I did some fancy pencil and paper math and determined where the gatehouse will be built, and then where the center point will be.


After another dozen trips around the footprint area, I selected the height:


Soooooooooo Let the building begin.
Here is a screen shot with the basic foundations laid to elevation for the two towers and the front wall of the gatehouse.



And a shot of the completed gatehouse foundations including the basement floor for the space underneath the main entry arch. This basement room will become my main operations center for the first third of the project; the gatehouse, the guards tower (see big square to upper right) the courtyards and the bailey wall for the never built inner keep:


And a shot from ground level of the front of the gatehouse foundations taken from what will be the second to last phase, the future approach ramp.



Tonight I will be building the towers, putting floors on the ground floor rooms of teh gatehouse, and moving operations into the gatehouse basements!..... finally.
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The last two weeks of Dec are ALWAYS tough in my professional life, so it is good to be back in the computer chair with a few days of vacation to play.

As always, your comments, both critical and suggestive, will be MOST WELCOMED

Peace

The Helpless Archer's Challenge
You're pretty good at shooting an arrow, but not much else. You've never used an axe, pickaxe, shovel or hoe; much less learned how to craft one. So, the fact you've found yourself stuck in the middle of nowhere without much more to your name than your shirt on your back is somewhat concerning. Just how are you going to survive?

For those of you who have Minecraft down to an algorithmic routine --mine, craft, build--, it might seem dull after a while. This challenge should change that.

Rules
- You cannot craft any tools or swords. The only weapon you can make is a bow and arrows.
- You cannot craft any TNT, pistons, dispensers, or complicated redstone circuitry.
- [EDIT]You may craft TNT for mining purposes if you hate hugging creepers
- You can craft pressure plates for doors.
- You can craft anything else (furnaces, etc).
- You must play on Normal or Hard difficulty.
- You cannot mine anything by hand except for dirt, gravel, and sand. Mushrooms, flowers, sugarcane, etc can be picked too.
- You can steal torches from mineshafts.
- You cannot set brightness to max. Keep it on moody.

- If you wish, you may mine 1 tree by hand for some starting wood.

- You must try to accomplish the following goals as fast as possible:


Goals

Simple Challenge
- Build a house (cannot be made of sand/dirt/etc, must be wood/stone/etc, must be 8wx8dx3h minimum)
- Build an automated cactus farm
- Build an automated sugarcane farm
- Build a moat around your house (moat must be three blocks wide in the cardinal directions)

Extended Challenge
- Your house must have a cobblestone base and floor and a slab roof.
- Make your house two stories
- Obtain a full suit of iron armor
- Obtain a full suit of gold armor
- Obtain a block of diamond
- Obtain a block of gold
- Obtain a block of iron
- Build a nether portal
- Build a non-redstone Mob grinder.
- Build a minecart rail system of at least 16 rails.


tips
- Creepers will be your friends in absence of tools
- Mineshaft chests are valuable resources


Post images of your progress or videos of your attempts! Good luck, Minecrafters! :smile.gif:

Quote from IceMoose

Instead of the sun when you look up it should be the earth (square)

Maybe replace the moon instead. Otherwise you would see a moon on a moon. :wink.gif:

Bobert_nonsense and I built a somewhat functional conveyor belt using pistons. The delay was a pain to set up -.-


Whaddaya think?