Midweek Miscellany
Part 34 ~ 29 May 2025
Posted: 2 February 2026
It's not all big projects and progression. Sometimes you just gotta do a little housekeeping. Grind for some resources. Update some spreadsheets. And you know what? I don't always have the time or energy for a multi-day build. But it's all good, because these kinds of tasks can be tackled in short, low-energy sessions – like my weekday evenings. To quote one of Minecraft's title screen splashes, it's time for some Casual Gaming! Consider this a kind of "things not worth their own post" post! :P
Kelp Wanted
Having already scoured the area around Null Island for its kelp, I did the same off the coast of Elaville to boost my supply. To keep the green gold rolling in, I planted out a 32x32 farm around the conduit, lighting the surrounding seafloor for safety. I set up extra smokers in my storage room, and they've been cooking away ever since. Even at double furnace speed, it takes A WHILE to churn through this stuff, but it's okay because I spend most of my time in this area :) I'll never need to burn coal in a furnace again!
Return to Ender
On my first visit to the outer End, I just rushed for the wings and got out of there. On the server, this would be considered antisocial, but this world is all mine so no one can stop me lol. There is actually other stuff here worth having though, so I grabbed my shield and headed out for some good old-fashioned End busting. My rewards included shulker shells (somewhat less useful with Stacker, but still nice), extra ender chests, sparkly end rods, stacks of lovely purpur blocks, and a trophy dragon head. Back on the main island, I took a moment to pick away at the obsidian pillars for more of this precious material.
Sculk & Skulls
I had a zombie and creeper head in my trophy case already, leaving just the skeleton skull to complete the set. (Note that piglin heads aren't available in 1.19; they're a 1.20 feature.) Unlike those first two, there's a way to get skeleton heads without going through the whole charged creeper thing. There are some perfectly preserved specimens down in the Shrieking Hole! I left them behind on the first visit because I was laser focused on getting Swift Sneak, and consequently only looted half the structure. This time, I left no stone unturned, and no bone undisturbed! I found three skeleton skulls, meaning I have a couple spare for spooky decorations...
Lava Farmer
After failing my farm in the previous episode, I went back to the Industrial Ocean and tried again, this time with something more basic: the dripstone lava farm. I laid out a line of cauldrons, built a tray of deepslate, and hung pointed dripstone over the containers. Then I hopped through the portal to the basalt deltas room, which conveniently had many little lava pools to supply me. After a couple of trips back and forth with buckets, I had a full pool of lava sources, and fresh molten rock started flowing into the cauldrons. This stuff is bound to come in handy at some stage, whether it be for smelting, stone generation, or burning up mobs.
Spreadsheet Gaming
Oh, you thought I was kidding about the spreadsheet thing? Check out this bad boy. We've got:
- Coordinates and distance calculators. I wrote the formulas myself using trigonometry. Yes, that thing they taught you in high school that you thought you'd never use again. If you want to find the shortest path from A to B, trig is the tool for the job!
- Villager trade reference. I copied these from the wiki during the 1.19 era, and go back to it when I need to hire new villagers. I've added notes regarding which trades are important, and which ones aren't guaranteed to appear when leveling up, which might necessitate "retraining" your villager.
- Villager trade wishlist. This is mostly focused on enchanted books, but also includes a list of the other villager types. There's a colour coded system based on what I have vs what I need.
- Checklists. This is how I keep track of my progress towards the advancements, and other collectibles like the potted plants.
- Other random stuff for reference, like plans for farms, one-off calculations, or ideas for names.
So yeah. There's a little insight as to what goes on in between those big project posts. Little things like this keep the world ticking along! And when it comes time for the next serious build, I'll be that much better prepared – be it with resources or reference pages.
