FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hi, here's just a bunch of quick random tricks and tips I found out about Minetest Game over the years:

• You can use torches to stop water from flowing through, while you can pass through without trouble
• With steel ladders, you can build into lava and even climb down into it, as the steel ladder stops the lava from flowing in
• Torches are also useful to make quick and easy air pockets in liquids
• The Sneak Glitch
• With enough food, you can actually swim or dive in lava if you just eat fast enough
• You can create infinite water with two water sources / two water buckets (see here)
• You can make world exploration a lot easier if you build some kind of “marker” system or primitive “guideposts” (made out of blocks), with simple but well-visible marker structures across the world
• The mese axe digs faster and is more durable than the diamond axe

Didn't know about the steel ladder and lava trick. Can't think of how many times I could of used that.

• I like to use gravel, sand or water to get down a deep uncharted hole without damage. Place the sand or gravel on a side of a node so it falls down. Repeat many times until it piles up high enough to safely hop on to it. Then just dig your way down like you were on a nerd pole.

• You can remove lava much the same way. Just bounce the sand or gravel off of anything to cause it to fall to the bottom of the lava. Repeat until it reaches the top.

I like to use gravel, sand or water to get down a deep uncharted hole without damage. Place the sand or gravel on a side of a node so it falls down. Repeat many times until it piles up high enough to safely hop on to it. Then just dig your way down like you were on a nerd pole.

Hehe, I had this idea, too, but it never worked when I needed it the most.
I tried this a couple of times in giant caves, but it didn't work. When the drop is very deep, the gravel apparently never hits the ground (probably because of an unloaded area) and it won't stack, so I can drop as much gravel as I want, it doesn't help. :-(
An alternative trick is to simply a water bucket and swim down the waterfall.

Wuzzy wrote:I tried this a couple of times in giant caves, but it didn't work. When the drop is very deep, the gravel apparently never hits the ground (probably because of an unloaded area) and it won't stack, so I can drop as much gravel as I want, it doesn't help. :-(
An alternative trick is to simply a water bucket and swim down the waterfall.

You are right. Gravel/sand doesn't work when it's too deep. But at least it confirms that you will not survive the drop if you are tempted jump down.

Lets see... If you need sand but you have lots of desert sand, just craft sandstone and then craft sandstone back to sand (you'll get ordinary sand)
On many servers there are two set home commands (this is not default minetest game but is common on the servers, if they have unified inventory.)which you can use to travel between home and mines(or some other place).
You can create water lifts by placing water at the needed place and then using its flow to climb.(idk if there is anyone who doesn't know this oO)
Thats about it, i hope it was useful xD

Normally, when placing a tree or cactus block, they will go the direction you were facing. But if you hold down the sneak key while placing it, the block's orientation will be perpendicular.
This is useful to know for building tree houses. It works with pillars, too.

If you ever wondered why the trees you placed sometimes rotated oddly, now you should know! :-)

Don't know if this fits here, but here it goes:

You can get one wheat seed per grass if you are patient enough. Dig grass. If it results in a seed, congrats. If not, place again and repeat. The same can be done with jungle grass to get cotton seeds.

It may be bit non-obvious for those who come from Minecraft, but items placed in the crafting grid do not drop when you close the inventory, so you have 9 extra inventory slots if you need them.

Growing stuff underground :) E.g. put a sapling and a mese lamp next to it or another bright light source from some light or lamp mod you may have. Make sure the ceiling is high enough XD

Using trapdoors, it is possible to make a one way door.
Place one, then another on top in the same direction(holding sneak).
Then you can open them, stand inside the space they fill when closed, then close them, and then you can walk through

when using coal in furnaces a block of coal will burn about 20 percent longer than 9 separate coal lumps
most tree leafs can be made into twigs that can be turned into sticks that way you can stops wasting
planks
renewable fuel? got sand? grow cacti

To breath under water, place two papyrus blocks one on another while standing on the bottom. This will make air pocket on the sea bottom.

Just like torch. BUT torch should be attached to wall at level of two blocks above sea bottom to walk inside air pocket to breath. What if bottom is flat? Torch on bottom is not at level of your nose. :-) So placing two papyrus blocks one on another will help.

Minus of papyrus blocks -- they do not glow at dark sea bootom. Torch -- is light.

Chibi ghost wrote:renewable fuel? got sand? grow cacti

Or use tree trunks. Just do not forget to place sapling in place of just felled tree. Saplings (even more than one) will drop while leaves of felled tree decay.

kaeza wrote:It may be bit non-obvious for those who come from Minecraft, but items placed in the crafting grid do not drop when you close the inventory, so you have 9 extra inventory slots if you need them.

Yes. BUT only if you don't have to craft anything. If there is no free space in inventory and you begin to place something in crafting area, where will you dump these items if you have to craft something (pickaxe, for example)?

the_raven_262 wrote:Lets see... If you need sand but you have lots of desert sand, just craft sandstone and then craft sandstone back to sand (you'll get ordinary sand)

I know it.
4 sand blocks => 1 sandstone block. 1 sandstone block => 4 sand blocks.
4 clay lumps => 1 clay block. 1 clay block => 4 clay lumps.
9 coal lumps => 1 coal block. 1 coal block => 9 coal lumps.

Coal block burns longer than 9 coal lumps. So coal block is more efficient fuel. But I do not recommend to use coal as fuel, because coal is finite mineral, but trees or cacti (as fuel) — potentially infinite.

kaeza wrote:You can get one wheat seed per grass if you are patient enough. Dig grass. If it results in a seed, congrats. If not, place again and repeat. The same can be done with jungle grass to get cotton seeds.

Cool. Thanks. I had to tear a lot of grass to get some wheat seeds.

ExeterDad wrote:I like to use gravel, sand or water to get down a deep uncharted hole without damage. Place the sand or gravel on a side of a node so it falls down. Repeat many times until it piles up high enough to safely hop on to it. Then just dig your way down like you were on a nerd pole.

Yes. The same can be made not only to go down, but to go up as well. Just jump and place sand under yourself. Repeat. And you can climb to any height.

Coal is practically infinite, you will find coal wherever you dig. Only reason to prefer a renewable fuel would be in case you have a mod that requires tons and tons of coal for something, or for automation.

EDIT: This isn't a tip, just a response to Sergey

Sergey wrote:

Chibi ghost wrote:renewable fuel? got sand? grow cacti

Or use tree trunks. Just do not forget to place sapling in place of just felled tree. Saplings (even more than one) will drop while leaves of felled tree decay.

yes but there are better uses for trees other than burning
although I have recently found out that pumpkin heads burn quite well
as well as fern trunks

Chibi ghost wrote:most tree leafs can be made into twigs that can be turned into sticks that way you can stops wasting planks

Recipe, please

Chibi ghost is writing nonsense, there are no twigs. Note this thread is about Minetest Game.

When you have more than 2×99 coal lumps, craft them into coal blocks to save inventory space. This is very efficient when you have tons of coal. The same trick works for ingots, mese crystals and diamonds. All these blocks can be reverted to their original form.

Before you go mining, ALWAYS bring enough sticks, wooden planks or tree blocks with you. Nothing is worse than breaking your final pickaxe and then getting stuck in the mines because something is blocking your way.
In your inventory, craft tree blocks only to wooden planks or sticks when you need them. This is another trick to save TONS of inventory space.

The wooden pickaxe is the only wooden tool you will ever need, the other tools just suck too much; don't bother crafting them. Upgrade to a stone pickaxe as soon as you can, throw away or burn the wooden pickaxe and craft the other stone tools instead.

If you can't find coal to operate your furnace, remember that you can always use other fuel sources (mostly wood-pased). Jungle Tree is a very good alternative and almost as good as a coal lump. See here for a list: http://wiki.minetest.net/Smelting

For efficient mining, there are two “magic” heights you have to reach:
The first one is Y<=-256, from which diamonds appear, and the second one is Y<=-1024, from which mese blocks appear. From this point on, mese blocks will appear and all ores appear at their maximum probability. Therefore, it is best continue mining at this height as soon you reached it, don't waste time in higher levels.
But it is pointless to dig much deeper than that height as you won't find more things as you go deeper.

Wuzzy wrote:But it is pointless to dig much deeper than that height as you won't find more things as you go deeper.

Not always true. My experience is, the deeper you go, the more common rare ores get. Especially if I have mods enabled (such as mithril from moreores), then if I go deeper, I find mithril about as fast as I found diamonds at -256.

Wuzzy wrote:Chibi ghost is writing nonsense, there are no twigs. Note this thread is about Minetest Game.

sorry I didn't realise you were talking about vanilla minetest the using coal block thing works in modded or unmodded games though

Not always true. My experience is, the deeper you go, the more common rare ores get. Especially if I have mods enabled (such as mithril from moreores), then if I go deeper, I find mithril about as fast as I found diamonds at -256.

Yes, it's ALWAYS true. Read again. As soon as you passed the magic height of -1024, there's no point in digging much deeper, as all ores are at their highest probability from -1024 and below. Ores won't become more common from that point on. I read the source code, I know what I'm talking about. But it's true that ores will become more and more common relative to the surface level.

Chibi ghost wrote:

Sergey wrote:

Chibi ghost wrote:renewable fuel? got sand? grow cacti

Or use tree trunks. Just do not forget to place sapling in place of just felled tree. Saplings (even more than one) will drop while leaves of felled tree decay.

yes but there are better uses for trees other than burning
although I have recently found out that pumpkin heads burn quite well
as well as fern trunks

I understand that trees are better be used for building than burning. BUT! Cacti can be mined only using axe for which tree is needed (sticks for handle or whole wooden axe). While trees can be felled with bare hands (although longer than with axe).

Wuzzy wrote:

• The mese axe digs faster and is more durable than the diamond axe

Diamond pickaxe, shovel or hoe is the best, and is better than mese's one.
As for axe — the opposite.

This is strange.

Wuzzy wrote:

• You can make world exploration a lot easier if you build some kind of “marker” system or primitive “guideposts” (made out of blocks), with simple but well-visible marker structures across the world

You can make world exploration a lot easier with Minetestmapper.

DAMN! I collect 148 fly-agarics in order to shove them in furnace as fuel to destroy that damn mushrooms! Know what? They don't burn as fuel or as smelting material.

You may consider it as a tip :-)

Sergey: Or you just press F7 … lol

EDIT: F9.

Wuzzy wrote:Sergey: Or you just press F7 … lol

I don't understand... I use first person view.

Oops, I mean F9.