MegamanPsy
Streamjumper
MegamanPsy
Now if only I could figure out what the difference is.
Difference between what? If you're looking for the full game mode, you want Survival Alpha, or just Alpha.
If you need more information, you can just ask here, or look for one of those quiet green fellows in the game. Just invite him on into your shelter and offer him a cup of coffee while he explainsssss thingsssss to you.
Oh, he likes hugs too, but is too shy to ask.
Ah, it's the inventory. How the ******** do I actually craft things? All I ever did was multi build mode. I never really played single player at all.
I can post the basic tutorial image sheet when I get home, but here's the Clifnotes version. Yeah, still detailed, but it'll quickly explain things, get you tools, and get you into some shelter by nightfall. And you want shelter by nightfall unless you're playing on Peaceful.
Step 1: Punch tree, recieve delicious wood. When digging, mining, or chopping resources don't just press the mouse button... hold that ******** til the job is done. You're manhandling the enviroment here (like a boss), not finessing it. If you end up with a sapling (either from picking one up off the ground or by beating the s**t outta the leaves left after you harvest the trunk-- make sure you look up into the canopy too, there's often a few chunks of valuable wood up there), you can plant them by selecting them in the quickbar either by using your mouse wheel or pressing the number on your keyboard. It'll take a bit for the tree to grow, but it will let you harvest more wood later without needing to travel.
Step 2: Press "I" to open inventory (note that time doesn't stop when in inventory, storage, or crafting). Note that you've got four sets of different inventory slots. One set is worn gear (four armor slots- forget them for now), a big set (3x8, I think) for carried items, and a line at the bottom that are still visible when the inventory is closed (this is your actively equipped toolbar, the s**t you're ready to use on other stuff, throw). Your logs will be in the quickbar, where new stuff you grab goes first if there's space. Left click to pick up the whole stack or right click to grab half-- you'll want to left click. Bring these bad boys up to the crafting box (the set of four squares in a 2x2 formation) and left click to drop the bunch there. In the single output window you'll see a block of planks with a number 4. This lets you know that for each click there, you'll pick up 4 lumber and use one log. Logs are only useful for aesthetics or firing a furnace... turn all those logs to lumber.
Step 3: Now that you've got a nice load of planks in hand, right click to drop one in each of the four blocks in the crafting window. Put the rest in your inventory. Take the output and rejoice... you have a crafting table. This lets you access the full 3x3 crafting matrix that will allow you to make really useful stuff. You can drop it right where you are now and set to craftan, but I suggest taking a moment to look for a good place to build your shelter before dropping it. You can pick it back up by beating it with your fists like any other block, but that's a waste of time, and you'll want it at hand during nighttime... plus you'll want it in a more central location like your main base camp. Put this bad boy in your quickbar (make sure it isn't the active item) and look for somewhere good to build. The closer this is to your spawnpoint, the easier, since you'll end up back there every time you die, and the shorter/less complicated the run to safety and stored gear is, the better.
I prefer looking for a decent cliffside with plenty of smooth stone and some dirt, where you can either dig a good 4 wide, 4 deep and 3 high and just build a front wall when need be, but 3x3x2 is fine too, though it'll get cramped quickly. Drop your table in a decent location and right click to open that bad boy and set to work. Grab your plank stack and put two in one block and two more in one under that (you can do one and one, but the output here is something you'll be making a decent amount of, so a double batch or more isn't bad if you've got the resources). This will give you a total of 8 sticks/poles. Now toss one pole in the bottom middle slot, one in the middle slot, and grab your planks. Imagine this 3x3 grid like a standard phone keypad with sticks at 5 and 8. Watch as you place these planks since the output item will change as you go. Putting just one plank in the 2 box will give you a shovel - pass on this for now and continue to add a plank in the 1 box (hoe, still not what you want). Adding a plank to the 4 box would give you an axe, but you don't want that. Add a plank to the 3 box (so planks in 1,2,3 and sticks in 5 and
cool and harvest your wonderous wooden pick. Don't make any more tools for now, since wood is purely on the "better than using your teeth and a waste of resources" tier.
Step 4: Slap that pick into your quickbar, select it, and apply locally to any stone you see. Be sure to collect the chunks of cobblestone that are produced, as this, along with dirt, will make for a lot of your early building. When you need to remove sand, dirt, or gravel, unselect your pick (or any tool but shovels) via the mouse wheel, as your hands will be faster and save valuable wear on your tools. If you see a block of stone with several black dots on it, rejoice. You've found coal (which is a round black lump in your inventory, not to be confused with the sharp black wedges that are flint). If you see blocks with yellowish dots, leave em alone til you're using better than wood, since you can't harvest ore without at least stone tools.
Step 5: After your wood pick dies or after you have a bit of stone and dirt, make yourself stome stone tools. These will be your mainstay for a while, even when you've got access to steel and diamond. Just use poles in the 5/8 slots and substitute cobblestone for planks in the 1/2/3/4 slots. I suggest making an axe, several picks, and maybe a shovel or two if you have the resources and/or a ton of gravel/dirt/sand to move around. You can also make a sword in any set of three vertical blocks by putting a stick at the bottom for a handle and wood/stone/steel/diamond (gold is s**t for tools) above it. As with any other crafting, you can mass-produce by putting multiple components in the matrix fields and just pulling the product out. However, you can't stack tools, so put them in easily pulled spots in your inventory, and of course a few in your quickbar. Feel free to finish off your shelter here. If you dug into the side of the hill, finish off the shape and build a front wall. You'll want a hole in your wall 2 high and 1 wide for a doorway which you can plug with dirt for now (or craft a door... 6 lumber in a 2 wide x 3 high block on the crafting grid) and a window, preferably 1 block missing at the very top of your front wall, where it meets the roof. If you can make this at least two blocks off the ground, more the better. You want to be able to see the sky without being shot in the face by skeletons, aggroing zombies/spiders, or pissing off creepers (which will peel the entire front off your house if you anger them.
Step 6: Torches. You want torches and storage. One will keep monsters (though not livestock, if you have grass-covered dirt bricks in your shelter) from spawning in your shelter, as well as letting you do something more useful than shitting yourself all night long or tearing a hole in your wall by accident. The other will let you keep your inventory somewhere safe and more manageable. Find coal either by digging where you are or running around taking a quick look at stone outcroppings and looking for blocks of stone with black dots on or in them. Each coal block can give you 1-3 or so lumps of coal, and coal (like steel, gold, diamond, and blackstone) often runs in lodes where you'll find several blocks butted up right against each other. Torches are 2 block items, so you can even make them on the run without a table. One stick with one lump of coal right over it gives you 4 torches, which currently burn forever and can be recovered by hitting them. Put enough torches in your hut to keep it well lit and one or two extras on the outside so you can easily find your place when it begins to get dark.
Storage is easy, and you can make it at nighttime to pass the time. Just grab 8 lumber and stick em in every spot but the center one. Voila... a box. Make two of those and set em side-by-side to make a chest, with double the storage space. You can make furnaces/kilns (for cooking pork, smelting ores, making glass, or turning cobblestone into smooth stone) by doing the same and substituting cobblestone for wood.
To use a furnace, you put the cookable item in the top box and fuel in the bottom. Then you can leave it to do its work. Larger projects (like tons of smoothstone or glass) can easily necessitate you loading up 6 or more furnaces with stacks of stone and fuel and leaving them to do their work while you do yours. You can also build walls/floors with furnaces or worktables and still use them as long as you can click on them. Chests too, but you can't use a chest unless there's nothing on top and due to the combining nature of boxes/chests, you can't put any box or chest next to another large chest. Some people like to dig out the floor of their hut and set their crafting units as floor tiles.
Basic beginning tips: Monsters can't spawn anywhere there's light. This includes sunlight, torchlight, lava light, burning wood, active furnaces, and even redstone torches. The exception here are slimes, which only spawn at a certain depth underground and don't care about your puny illumination.
Direct sunlight pacifies spiders (docile unless you attack), and burns zombies/skellies. If undead are in water or shade, they can survive well into the day, and underground is just fine by their standards. Creepers laugh at daylight, but won't spawn in it.
I can't stress this one enough. If you dig directly above or below you, you totally deserve everything that happens to you. This includes falling into endless pits or lava, or being on the recieving end of a gravel/sand/lava/monster avelanche. Sand and gravel fall if something solid (or a torch) aren't below them, and can smother you. Lava and long falls should be obvious problems. Stand one block to the side of where you're digging... more if you think lava might be involved.
The effectiveness of tools is in this order wood/stone/steel/diamond. The higher the tier, the better the durability and quicker it will do its job. This includes swords. Yes, a diamond sword kills things faster. In addition, you need at least a stone pick to harvest steel, and a steel pick to harvest gold, redstone, or diamond. You need a diamond pick to harvest obsidian or a monster spawning block (you find these in the rare treasure rooms, don't worry about this for now).
