A short introduction for people who haven't played with these items at all...
A Beacon is a block that gives a buff (status effect) to players within its radius. There are several different effects, but the most useful are Haste (making mining and digging even faster) and Speed (allowing faster movement by the player). A Beacon requires a Nether Star to craft.
A Nether Star is a guaranteed drop from killing a Wither.
A Wither is a boss with a decent amount of health and dangerous, block-destroying attacks. The Wither rapidly destroys any blocks in its immediate vicinity, and can destroy more with its ranged attacks. Therefore, where you fight the Wither is important both for yourself and the safety of any builds nearby. The Wither can be summoned with 4 blocks of soulsand and 3 Wither Skeleton Heads.
A Wither Skeleton Head is a rare drop from a Wither Skeleton, which spawns only within Nether Fortresses.
If you're interested in obtaining a Beacon, either for faster travel within your base or to place in your mining operation, keep reading! This post is intended to be an exhaustive Victor's Bounty-centered guide to obtaining a Beacon.
Gearing Up
Before you can hunt for your Wither Skeleton Heads, you'll need a certain level of gear. I would strongly recommend this minimum level of gear. If you take extreme care never to aggro a pigman with a stray arrow or sword swing, and watch your surroundings carefully, you should be able to survive with this gear.
Diamond Sword enchanted with Fortune III
Bow enchanted with Power III (the higher the better)
Diamond Chestplate
Iron Helm, Leggings, Boots
Ideally, of course, you'd have a full suit of Diamond armor, enchanted with Protection 4. Extra Sharpness on the Sword or Bow enchants like Infinity, etc., are helpful but not required. The Fortune III is not optional -- without it, your drop chances on the Wither Skeleton Head go from 1 in 18 to 1 in 40.
Note on enchanting: in general, you should never drop a diamond anything on an enchanting table and roll the dice. There are now very established trading villagers all over Victor's Bounty that can sell you enchanted books for any enchantment you might need. In the long run, hand-assembling your diamond boots or sword with enchantments bought with emeralds will let your stock of diamonds last many times longer.
Farming Wither Skeleton Heads
Your first goal is going to be getting 3 Wither Skeleton Heads. The Wither Skeletons themselves are relatively hard-hitting mobs, and since they only spawn within Nether Fortresses, you're likely to kill a fair number of Blazes while searching for them and killing them.
The only way to find Wither Skeletons is to run back and forth within a Nether Fortress. They only spawn within preset confines of the Nether Fortress, the only spawn with a light level of 7 or lower, and they only spawn (like all monsters) 24 blocks or more away from the player.
There is a specific Nether Fortress construct that has only a 5x5 walkway intersection on it, but, Wither Skeletons can spawn within a 19x19 area (if they have the blocks to spawn on). In a Fortress close to the Spawn/Dreadworks Portal, I have converted two of the intersections into a 19x38 spawnable area, with 3 floors. This doesn't make Wither Skeletons guaranteed, but it does mean that leaving this area and then coming back is almost guaranteed to spawn SOMETHING. For this reason I recommend trying out this nether fortress.
First, exit the Spawn Portal and go out the downward stairs side, onto the bridge. You'll be heading towards Duara.
Right at the foot of the cobblestone stairs to the Duara portal, turn left. Go up the ladder at the end of the hallway and you'll be in the Nether Fortress. To your left is the room I carved out; to the right is more Fortress. I've consistently been able to find 3 Heads within an hour using this fortress. If you have other strategies for collecting Wither Skeleton Heads, please share!
A few extra tips:
Each time you leave the big room and come back, be wary -- there are typically Blazes, which are better shot down with bows than killed melee. Just be careful not to shoot any pigmen.
Try not to engage Wither Skeletons until everything else is dead, unless forced to. You want to get the killing blow on these with your Fortune III sword, so accidentally killing it with your bow (or having it be shot in the back by a Blaze) is not ideal.
After killing Blazes, make sure to extinguish any flame patches by tapping the top of the block with a sword/bow/block/etc. These fires light up the surrounding area and prevent any Wither Skeletons from spawning.
Don't forget there are 3 floors! The stairs are in the back of the room.
After clearing the big room, feel free to leave and check the walkways outside for Wither Skeletons as well. They can also spawn on top of the huge Nether Fortress building around the corner.
Night Vision Potions - If at all possible, I strongly encourage you to try Night Vision potions. The recipe is Nether Wart + Golden Carrot + Redstone. These potions last 8 minutes, so for a cost of just under 2 gold ingots, you can get almost an hour of brightly-lit farming done. The vision distance improvement in the Nether is astounding, and these potions have often let me spot a Wither Skeleton standing off on top of a fence that I never would have spotted otherwise.
Spawning and Killing the Wither - The Easy Way
So, you're finally carting around 3 Wither Skeleton Heads, you've got your soulsand, and you want that Nether Star!
There are a number of ways to trap a Wither. Most of these ways are complicated ways of tricking the Wither into only attacking one spot or focusing its attention on one thing, usually to force the Wither to stand still and power a farm of some kind (wood farm, obsidian farm, etc.)
However, the simplest way to trap a Wither is trap it with bedrock, since it can't break bedrock. To do this in 1.8, we need a specific configuration of bedrock -- a 3x3 flat sheet of bedrock with an air pocket above it, and another sheet of bedrock above that. Luckily for you, I have already prepared such a location!
Head back to Spawn Portal and go the upstairs route this time. A ladder marked "Wither Management" is available off to the right. Take this ladder all the way to the top, go down the hallway, and enter the room!
First, you'll make sure the switch is DOWN:
Then you'll build your Wither on the iron platform, and immediately flip the switch UP. I now back up all the way into the doorway, to avoid the blast radius of the Wither as it spawns:
You can stand here and swing at the Wither's tail until it dies. The Wither will be unable to injure you (or any of your surrounds) in any way! (As long as you stay in this room until it dies, anyway.)
At last, the Wither is dead and we can collect the Nether Star:
Happy Day!
Spawning and Killing the Wither - The Hard Way
If you want a little bit more of a challenge, but still don't want to risk destroying any property, I would suggest spawning the Wither above the bedrock ceiling of the Nether. This gives you a huge, flat arena to fight the Wither on, potentially with one or more friends, and zero risk of "escape" into player's builds.
I have punched a hole in the bedrock using the dark oak method, so you can get up and down whenever you want. Right next to the ladder up to the Wither Management room is a small doorway marked "Special Project 37". Take this long stairway, and when you reach the fork, turn left. There will be an iron door directly in front of you -- open it and proceed up the ladder. This will take you above the bedrock.
I would recommend traveling a hundred meters or so from the ladder before spawning the Wither, but don't forget to mark down the coordinates of the ladder! If you get lost above the bedrock, you'll be lost for a long time.
If you're going to fight the Wither solo, you need top-notch gear -- 4 pieces of diamond armor with protection 4, a Sharpness V diamond sword and an Infinity Power V bow would be my recommendation. You'll also need some healing. Set up 5 potions of Healing 2 on your hotbar before the fight and you should be OK. (Or, bring along 1 enchanted golden apple -- more than enough to kill the Wither). If you have more people, you can do it with much cheaper equipment, as it will be splitting its attention between the players.
Closing Thoughts
Hopefully you found this post helpful! Let me know if you have any questions, or have suggestions on easier ways to farm the Wither Skeleton Heads, etc.
Of course, getting that Nether Star and crafting that Beacon is only the first step... You'll also need enough iron, gold, or emerald to build a pyramid to place it on. I can help with that, too -- but I'll save it for another post!
You can also dig a small room and long hallway at bedrock and create it there. While the Wither can break blocks it can't do that very quickly. Pepper it with arrows from the tunnel until the halfway point and engage with a high-level smite sword. The tunnel allows you to break line of sight for personal regeneration and if things get really hairy the thing will be contained for a little while.
Oh, I missed the request. Note that @ s don't work for me. Vanilla bug or something. PMs are king.
I have the whole FTB map, but it's 4.9 GB compressed. So two questions:
1. Can you handle gzipped tar files (.tar.gz)? I could rearchive it as a zip if that helps, but be aware that some (probably unimportant) metadata might get smashed in the process.
2. Can you handle downloading a 4.9 GB mapfile over HTTP... reliably? If not, I could send it to you via torrent, but that's always a bit of a PITA.
Snerkycall me trickthe c is silentRegistered Userregular
goodness me that's a large world
I should be fine finding a way to unzip whatever compression you fancy, and I think I should be alright to download something that big on my new fibre connection.
How do you wanna do it? What's easiest for you?
I logged on for the first time last night. I was blown away by spawn! So many neat things to explore. I did find a few creepers, which I promptly avoided.
Having not played much multiplayer, and having a poor memory of peoples wishes for things from this thread I left most things undisturbed. I did grab some eggs from the free eggs bin, hoping to start a farm in the future.
I quickly ran out of town and started punching trees. I couldn't really find any starter tool sets so I just ran off on my own. I built a boat and started checking out the jungle coast at night. Built a little sand hut, then decided it was a bad move and kept sailing. I bumped into a jungle temple and ransacked the place for some nice stuff. Score!
After more sailing I found the server map line, and quickly discovered that yes, boats will be quickly be destroyed by ramming into the map line. Swam to shore and found Frostheim(sp). Wow. Kept running as it was night and didn't want to creeper any of it, and found a huge, cleared out, flat area with torches as far as I could see. I... just don't know. Thats some dedication.
I finally settled in a grassy meadow somewhere and setup a little mossy cobblestone hut for the time being. I look forward to building my little home on the prairie.
Also, to whoever was typing in chat last night, saying hello and wondering who let your sheep out. I'm sorry I didn't respond. I did not know how to chat at the time... I'm edge56 on the server.
I know, and I thought it was funny. I quickly realized that I didn't know how to respond and I was a little embarrassed.
Thanks for the welcome!
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Kith, if you need enchantments and such feel free to stop by Briarthorn Tower (its the granite structure across the bay from spawn, the one with the clocktower). There are vendors for pretty much every book, rail connections out to frostheim and a few other places, and a grinder somewhere in there. Also overflowing autofarms of pretty much everything.
Yet again Defster and I built every resource and then got distracted by something else entirely as building ramped up. Damn you WoW!
Thanks for the tip Enc. I think my next plan is to head back to spawn and give it another look through.
I didn't want to be a big moocher so I got some iron gear and a stock of food locked down. My little mine ended up connecting with an already lit up cave so I sealed it up. I'm slowly making my way back to spawn with a full inventory. And I fully anticipate dieing and losing all my junk.
It looks like there was a minor patch (1.8.1) while I was busy gearing up for Thanksgiving. It looks like mostly inconsequential fixes but also claims some minor performance improvements. I'll update the server the next time it gets its regular kicking.
Where is spawn's nether portal? I can't set up a portal yet but I really need to go to the nether :X
Lovie found it, but in case anyone else needs to know -- Spawnington's nether portal is in the basement of the Dreadfort, which is the big stone brick building with a beacon on top of it.
Are you a Software Engineer living in Seattle? HBO is hiring, message me.
Introp, would it be possible to get a map render image of the current (Victor's Bounty) map?
Possible, but not easy. I'll add it to my work queue, but I wouldn't hold your breath. The new arrangement means I can't just hop onto the box and run pigmap or equivalent; it involves downloading one of the backups, rendering it locally, and uploading it to a host. So: time-consuming.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
I guess in the meantime we could use the updated in-game map:
...which is pretty much the same as the old map because the resolution isn't fine enough to show much of anything.
Like this thing along the northern border:
It runs for 481 meters, from a plateau in a savanna biome to another plateau in a dark oak biome, crossing a forest, small plain, and dry riverbed in between. This secondary defense behind the superior magical barrier I call the Decent Wall of Victor's Bounty (it's not great, but it's alright.) I put a few ladders along it so people can climb up. Try not to fall between the wall and the barrier - there's no way up on that side.
(Thanks @sarukun for the four double-chests of cobble. And everybody else I mooched cobble off.)
+9
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I'm gonna start a new project. Probably just a little house for me to live in.
Let me get my beacons.
+1
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Whelp, cant find anywhere empty enough for a build and ended up getting permastuck on login in a portal, which immediately crashed my game.
Guess this was a bad idea?
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Hey Enc Do you know which portal you're stuck in, and what side? I don't know if it will help, but if we broke both portals maybe you could login.
Are you a Software Engineer living in Seattle? HBO is hiring, message me.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
edited December 2014
I don't. I found a nice door in a wall somewhere near where I circled that had a fairly extensive underground household but only a small wheat farm outside. I went into the portal, came out in the nether, and now I crash on login. The door was facing south and was surrounded by andesite or dolorite blocks and cut stone.
I got stuck at the white circle.
Flamingo, I was looking at building a new project at the green circle but I saw you had a cathedral in the area. Do you plan on expanding or continuing that project?
Enc on
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Dr. Flamingo49 Gilded Disc Perceives the SunRegistered Userregular
Flamingo, I was looking at building a new project at the green circle but I saw you had a cathedral in the area. Do you plan on expanding or continuing that project?
That project is mostly complete, and will not expand larger than it currently is. As long my building remains surrounded by water, feel free to build in that area.
Dr. Flamingo on
+1
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I'd be on the birch island to the north and would'nt leave the shore. But I will likly use most of the birch island in the process. I'll make sure teh southern shore is prestine and park like for your viewing pleasure.
OK, in the meantime, a note to the owner of this lovely home:
Your nether-side nether portal, located at X -57, Z 54, has been deactivated. The overworld-side nether portal, located at X -466, Z 434, is still intact, but temporarily pops out at the nearby Briarthorn portal in the nether. We're hoping that when Enc logs in he'll be able to spawn without crashing (that may have nothing to do with portals, but here's hoping).
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
edited December 2014
Not that I can tell, something is causing the client to crash. I get about 3 seconds of login and then the entire system drops back to the launcher with an error message.
Posts
A short introduction for people who haven't played with these items at all...
If you're interested in obtaining a Beacon, either for faster travel within your base or to place in your mining operation, keep reading! This post is intended to be an exhaustive Victor's Bounty-centered guide to obtaining a Beacon.
Gearing Up
Ideally, of course, you'd have a full suit of Diamond armor, enchanted with Protection 4. Extra Sharpness on the Sword or Bow enchants like Infinity, etc., are helpful but not required. The Fortune III is not optional -- without it, your drop chances on the Wither Skeleton Head go from 1 in 18 to 1 in 40.
Farming Wither Skeleton Heads
The only way to find Wither Skeletons is to run back and forth within a Nether Fortress. They only spawn within preset confines of the Nether Fortress, the only spawn with a light level of 7 or lower, and they only spawn (like all monsters) 24 blocks or more away from the player.
There is a specific Nether Fortress construct that has only a 5x5 walkway intersection on it, but, Wither Skeletons can spawn within a 19x19 area (if they have the blocks to spawn on). In a Fortress close to the Spawn/Dreadworks Portal, I have converted two of the intersections into a 19x38 spawnable area, with 3 floors. This doesn't make Wither Skeletons guaranteed, but it does mean that leaving this area and then coming back is almost guaranteed to spawn SOMETHING. For this reason I recommend trying out this nether fortress.
First, exit the Spawn Portal and go out the downward stairs side, onto the bridge. You'll be heading towards Duara.
Right at the foot of the cobblestone stairs to the Duara portal, turn left. Go up the ladder at the end of the hallway and you'll be in the Nether Fortress. To your left is the room I carved out; to the right is more Fortress. I've consistently been able to find 3 Heads within an hour using this fortress. If you have other strategies for collecting Wither Skeleton Heads, please share!
A few extra tips:
Spawning and Killing the Wither - The Easy Way
There are a number of ways to trap a Wither. Most of these ways are complicated ways of tricking the Wither into only attacking one spot or focusing its attention on one thing, usually to force the Wither to stand still and power a farm of some kind (wood farm, obsidian farm, etc.)
However, the simplest way to trap a Wither is trap it with bedrock, since it can't break bedrock. To do this in 1.8, we need a specific configuration of bedrock -- a 3x3 flat sheet of bedrock with an air pocket above it, and another sheet of bedrock above that. Luckily for you, I have already prepared such a location!
Head back to Spawn Portal and go the upstairs route this time. A ladder marked "Wither Management" is available off to the right. Take this ladder all the way to the top, go down the hallway, and enter the room!
First, you'll make sure the switch is DOWN:
Then you'll build your Wither on the iron platform, and immediately flip the switch UP. I now back up all the way into the doorway, to avoid the blast radius of the Wither as it spawns:
You can stand here and swing at the Wither's tail until it dies. The Wither will be unable to injure you (or any of your surrounds) in any way! (As long as you stay in this room until it dies, anyway.)
At last, the Wither is dead and we can collect the Nether Star:
Happy Day!
Spawning and Killing the Wither - The Hard Way
I have punched a hole in the bedrock using the dark oak method, so you can get up and down whenever you want. Right next to the ladder up to the Wither Management room is a small doorway marked "Special Project 37". Take this long stairway, and when you reach the fork, turn left. There will be an iron door directly in front of you -- open it and proceed up the ladder. This will take you above the bedrock.
I would recommend traveling a hundred meters or so from the ladder before spawning the Wither, but don't forget to mark down the coordinates of the ladder! If you get lost above the bedrock, you'll be lost for a long time.
Closing Thoughts
Hopefully you found this post helpful! Let me know if you have any questions, or have suggestions on easier ways to farm the Wither Skeleton Heads, etc.
Of course, getting that Nether Star and crafting that Beacon is only the first step... You'll also need enough iron, gold, or emerald to build a pyramid to place it on. I can help with that, too -- but I'll save it for another post!
whoops I should probably have @introp
I have the whole FTB map, but it's 4.9 GB compressed. So two questions:
1. Can you handle gzipped tar files (.tar.gz)? I could rearchive it as a zip if that helps, but be aware that some (probably unimportant) metadata might get smashed in the process.
2. Can you handle downloading a 4.9 GB mapfile over HTTP... reliably? If not, I could send it to you via torrent, but that's always a bit of a PITA.
I should be fine finding a way to unzip whatever compression you fancy, and I think I should be alright to download something that big on my new fibre connection.
How do you wanna do it? What's easiest for you?
I also have a silk touch + unbreaking 3 golden pickaxe if someone wants it.
I got a job, I'm finding an apartment, I'm having my laptop shipped, and I got an itch to build. See you guys again soon!
Having not played much multiplayer, and having a poor memory of peoples wishes for things from this thread I left most things undisturbed. I did grab some eggs from the free eggs bin, hoping to start a farm in the future.
I quickly ran out of town and started punching trees. I couldn't really find any starter tool sets so I just ran off on my own. I built a boat and started checking out the jungle coast at night. Built a little sand hut, then decided it was a bad move and kept sailing. I bumped into a jungle temple and ransacked the place for some nice stuff. Score!
After more sailing I found the server map line, and quickly discovered that yes, boats will be quickly be destroyed by ramming into the map line. Swam to shore and found Frostheim(sp). Wow. Kept running as it was night and didn't want to creeper any of it, and found a huge, cleared out, flat area with torches as far as I could see. I... just don't know. Thats some dedication.
I finally settled in a grassy meadow somewhere and setup a little mossy cobblestone hut for the time being. I look forward to building my little home on the prairie.
Also, to whoever was typing in chat last night, saying hello and wondering who let your sheep out. I'm sorry I didn't respond. I did not know how to chat at the time... I'm edge56 on the server.
Thanks for the welcome!
Yet again Defster and I built every resource and then got distracted by something else entirely as building ramped up. Damn you WoW!
I didn't want to be a big moocher so I got some iron gear and a stock of food locked down. My little mine ended up connecting with an already lit up cave so I sealed it up. I'm slowly making my way back to spawn with a full inventory. And I fully anticipate dieing and losing all my junk.
Fun!
Do you have tiger.pennycraft.org, default port?
Lovie found it, but in case anyone else needs to know -- Spawnington's nether portal is in the basement of the Dreadfort, which is the big stone brick building with a beacon on top of it.
...which is pretty much the same as the old map because the resolution isn't fine enough to show much of anything.
Like this thing along the northern border:
It runs for 481 meters, from a plateau in a savanna biome to another plateau in a dark oak biome, crossing a forest, small plain, and dry riverbed in between. This secondary defense behind the superior magical barrier I call the Decent Wall of Victor's Bounty (it's not great, but it's alright.) I put a few ladders along it so people can climb up. Try not to fall between the wall and the barrier - there's no way up on that side.
(Thanks @sarukun for the four double-chests of cobble. And everybody else I mooched cobble off.)
Let me get my beacons.
Guess this was a bad idea?
Enc is apparently having that problem I had with the nether. Do whatever you did last time!
Set new spawn point
Kill him
Hey Enc Do you know which portal you're stuck in, and what side? I don't know if it will help, but if we broke both portals maybe you could login.
I got stuck at the white circle.
Flamingo, I was looking at building a new project at the green circle but I saw you had a cathedral in the area. Do you plan on expanding or continuing that project?
That project is mostly complete, and will not expand larger than it currently is. As long my building remains surrounded by water, feel free to build in that area.
Your nether-side nether portal, located at X -57, Z 54, has been deactivated. The overworld-side nether portal, located at X -466, Z 434, is still intact, but temporarily pops out at the nearby Briarthorn portal in the nether. We're hoping that when Enc logs in he'll be able to spawn without crashing (that may have nothing to do with portals, but here's hoping).
Was there something wrong with my portal that made it catch him like that?
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos