Mining in the GoT Minecraft Server

  Okay, I have a confession to make. I hate mining. Hate it. I know, the game is called Minecraft, but for me, it's digital LEGO. Nothing bores or frustrates me faster than scrubbing around in a hole hoping to find the right mineral. Almost as bad is systematically clearing out a big underground space so I can build, one block at a time (although I admit that blowing things up is fun!)   So my take on mining is how to maximize laziness. I would prefer to set up anything that will make it as quick, easy, and low-maintenance as possible. I would much rather do a bunch of work on the front end and let it run, checking in on it from time to time. Failing that, I want to mine out as much as possible as fast as possible with as little work from me as possible.   So, as a result, I have learned a couple of handy tricks that might help make your life a little bit easier. If you hate mining like me, or if you wish you could make it more efficient, the server has mods that will help.  

Create Autominer

I heard about this from RPGDinosaurBob, and he even demonstrated it for me. Imogen also made one. I still needed a tutorial, though, so I could stop and start it and break down each step.   Fortunately, I found a really simple and easy one, and I've linked it in the sidebar.   The autominer works on the principle of something called a Minecart Contraption. Basically, in the Create mod, anything you put on top of a minecart and glue together counts as a single machine. There's a trick to activating it, but the tutorial explains all that, and in a way that was simple enough that even I could follow it.   The autominer not only mines out an area in a large block, but also lays down its own ground to travel over gaps, and picks up its own tracks as it goes!   Now some drawbacks. It's supposed to be impervious to lava, so good for nether mining. And technically, it is: when something is in motion in Minecraft, it doesn't really exist, and that's why this works - like a piston in motion. It's temporarily in two places at once. Any moving contraption in Minecraft works on this principle.   But the tracks aren't immune to lava. And the problem is, when the tracks get destroyed, the autominer stops. And then once it's stopped, it does exist, and it can be messed up by lava! It usually won't break the whole thing, but make sure you keep extra parts handy when using it so they can be replaced as you go. (You won't need the superglue again unless something goes really wrong: superglue remembers what parts are supposed to stay together, so unless you've screwed up the basic structure, you can just put those parts back.)   The comments section of the tutorial said you could have it make a full tunnel for you as you went along, and add light sources. I couldn't get that to work - it just broke my machine. So I just used the basics, except I have more deployers laying down a larger floor so it's easier to move around if you need to fix something.   The image on the cover of this article is of the ancient debris mine I dug out with the autominer. I kept going in three different directions before I ran into enough lava that it wasn't worth continuing that way.   Fortunately, you can pick this whole thing up and move it!   There are plenty of other uses for that Create function, by the way, and I'll get into some of them in the Technology article.   But the most useful of them on the subject of mining is this: did you know you can superglue and move an entire amethyst geode? :D  

Ars Nouveau: Mining with Magic

Ars Nouveau is all about solving your Minecraft problems with magic, I think. In my experience so far, it seems to do everything you wish you could do to improve your quality of life.   One of those things is mining, and there are three basic features I have found which I just love because they save so much time and effort!  

Mage Mining Through Spell Design

Ars Nouveau has customizable magic spells that you create through a combination of glyphs that you learn. One of those combinations you're going to want to remember is:   Projectile - Break - Amplify - Item Pickup   The first glyph in a spell is called its Form. What does it affect? Projectile means that you fire a wisp of energy at whatever you're looking at when you hit the button that triggers it (defaults to V but you can set the keybind to whatever).   The second glyph is the Effect. What does it do? In this case, it Breaks whatever you fire the Projectile at. This is just like breaking a block with a pick.   The third glyph is called an Augment. Is there some way you want to change the basic function of the spell? In this case, Amplify enhances its ability to break through gradually tougher blocks. With two or three of these added (yes, they can stack!) you can break obsidian or diamond with a single "magic missile."   The last glyph is also an Effect, but because it happens later in the sequence, it happens after all the other stuff.   Basically, this spell is a series of instructions: "Throw a magic missile at the block I point at, smash it so I can grab it, and then pick it up and put it directly into my inventory without me having to touch it."   I mean, that really is magic, right?   There's only two real limits. The first is that the more glyphs are in a spell sequence, the more Mana it costs to cast. But the more glyphs you know, the bigger your Mana pool - and in our server, we've installed a mod that stacks the Mana Pool you get from Ars Nouveau with the Mana Pool you get from Iron's Spells & Spellbooks. So, you may have to restrict what you use it on, or wait patiently for your Mana to regenerate, in the early game, but later on, it's basically free.   The second is that it doesn't work on Source Jars or other innately magical blocks. :( (Yes, I tried.)  

Amethyst Golems

You'll need a lot of amethyst or a lot of lapis if you want to get into the magic stuff, because that's how you make Source Gems (more in the Magic article). Fortunately, Ars Nouveau provides a funky summoned creature to helo you with that - the Amethyst Golem.   Use a Ritual of Awakening next to a budding amethyst block, and that block will turn into your Amethyst Golem (instructions in the guidebook for Ars Nouveau, the Tattered Tome.) This neat little guy will turn your non-budding amethysts into budding amethysts, and will help the budding amethysts to bud faster. Bind him to a nearby chest (or other inventory, such as a Repository,) with the Dominion Wand, and he'll keep on harvesting those growing amethyst shards for you and put them in that chest. All you have to do is wait! He'll even chase off hostile mobs for you (assuming he lives through it; he's got about the same health as an Iron Golem.)  

Ritual of Scrying

This one is so handy that I've gotten into the habit of keeping a Ritual Brazier and a Tablet of Scrying in my inventory. When you want to find a particular type of block, be that a mineral or whatever, go to an area near to where you believe that block to be and use this ritual.   The block you are looking for will be marked by glowing will o'wisps that you will be able to see through other blocks. If they're relatively close to you, they will be white; blue if they're moderately far, and green if they're far away. Augmenting this ritual by putting a Manipulation Essence on the brazier before you activate it will make it last for 15 minutes instead of 5. You will need at least one block of the type you are looking for, which will be sacrificed in the brazier (meaning it will be consumed, so it's sort of an investment.) Then start digging!   I've used this successfully to locate Ancient Debris, Mithril Ore, and even those treasure chests you sometimes find buried treasure maps for. Much better than chopping up and down in rows with your pick, doing a minesweep - or blasting things out and hoping you get the right spot!   (Okay - depending. Blowing things up in game where there's no real consequences is fun. But it can give me a headache after a while.)  

Productive Bees

If you're like me and you want to do all the work on the front end, you can also work through the process of acquiring and breeding bees that will harvest minerals for you. Generally, you have to start with breeding a Chocolate Mining Bee (usually found in desert biomes) with a Digger Bee (usually found in river or stony peak biomes) to get a Quarry Bee. Then set up an Advanced Beehive with expansion box near the mineral you want to harvest. They will treat said minerals like flowers! By putting the appropriate honeycombs in centrifuges, you will find yourself with honey, wax, and traces of minerals. Most common stone minerals can be acquired this way.   Most special minerals, however, require specialized bees to harvest, which require a few more steps to acquire. Most of them start with a Diamond Bee. To get a Diamond Bee:

Use a bee cage to get a Glowing Bee from the Nether

Breed your Glowing Bee with a Chocolate Mining Bee to get a Redstone Bee

Acquire a Blue Banded Bee (usually found in jungle biomes)

Breed the Blue Banded Bee with your Redstone Bee to get a Lapis Bee (this is also a way to get lapis to use to make Source Gems - see Amethyst Golems above)

Cage an Enderbee from the End

Breed the Enderbee with your Lapis Bee to get a Diamond Bee

Acquire a Slimy Bee (found in slimy nests in swampy biomes)

Breed your Slimy Bee with your Diamond Bee to get an Emerald Bee

To get a Gold Bee, craft a Gold Nest and put it down in the Nether, then use a Honey Treat on it and wait for the Gold Bee to spawn (it takes a few minutes)

To get an Ancient Bee, which harvests Netherite, feed a Block of Netherite to a Diamond Bee

This is how the "banks" and "mints" in the Minecraft server function - contained bees harvest the appropriate minerals, which use Create conveyer belts to pump things through a centrifuge, which flushes the waste products (honey and wax) and sends the appropriate minerals to a Create vault. Note that most of these bees only require ore of the appropriate type to harvest these minerals, not full blocks (although the blocks will also work).   The Big Book of Bees is the Productive Bees manual in game that will help you, but I've found it's often best to search things like "productive bees how to get a diamond bee" on Google to get clearer and more direct instructions.  

Suggested Combos

I've done some of the following combinations of these things in order to reduce my workload and required effort:

Lapis Bees to harvest lapis to turn into Source Gems

Magic mining to acquire enough Emerald to start an Emerald Bee hive

Autominer to get a few pieces of Ancient Debris, which were then tossed into a Ritual Brazier to find more Ancient Debris, which was then harvested with the Autominer until enough was acquired to make a Netherite Block - which was then used as seed material to start a hive of Ancient Bees with which to build up the available "food supply" for the hive, who then acquire the Ancient Debris from there. With the addition of a hive of Gold Bees and Create features to automatically process the combs through centrifuges, plus conveyer belts that move materials to machines, I have fully automated the Lapin Mint, which uses Netherite to make its coins

Ritual of Scrying to find an amethyst geode, which was then seeded with an Amethyst Golem and a means of teleportation to return, so that I would have an ongoing source of Amethyst