[All] F.E.Z - BiWeekly

[Mellorian]

Greetings fellow Zedlings, Zesties and all round Zedworkers!

I've noticed that the forums have become a little quiet of late, but for the occasional pre-agenda and update news, so I thought it would be interesting to start a little series of sorts in a manner akin to the seconds/meeting notes that release once a week. I hope this will inspire some of you to post your own happenings and interests, as the forum is open for any to speak out on and I'm sure many of us are curious as to what we all get up to on Zedwork.

So, without further ado, I welcome you to the first edition of:
F.E.Z - Functional Explanations for Zedwork!

A - hopefully - biweekly (twice a month) post that will aim to elucidate little known facts or mechanics in Minecraft that will expedite or simplify the player's approach to the game, or at least make you a little wiser to the wily ways of the in-game world.
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o1oo1o11 o1o1o1oo o1111o1o o1o1oo1o o1111o1o o1oo11oo o11o1o11
In this edition, I hope to shed a little light on the matter of Saplings.

It is quite a common fact that crops, such as wheat and carrots, have seven growth stages and that using bonemeal on a crop guarantees a jump in at least one growth stage.

A not so common fact, is that trees work in a similar fashion - having two growth stages of their own. While both growth stages are visually identical, you can determine which one the sapling is currently at by using the F3 menu.

The "Stage" status is viewable on the right side of the screen, at the bottom of the text block found there.



A tree starts at Stage 0, moving to Stage 1 after a random interval has passed, before growing into a full tree after another random interval. This usually takes around 5-30 minutes.

Now for the interesting tid-bit!

Bone meal has a 45% chance of increasing the Growth Stage of a sapling by one. As such, when farming trees - whether it be multiple single sapling trees or a four sapling tree such as dark oak - you can save half of your bone meal by checking which saplings have already reached Growth Stage one and bone mealing them instead of the saplings still at Growth Stage zero.

Of course, once you have access to a skeleton spawner, this advice becomes rather obsolete, so here's another use for it:

With big trees such as Jungle, Spruce and Dark Oak, only one sapling has to grow for all the others to grow with it. As such, it's usually a good idea when collecting saplings to place them as you receive them rather than waiting until you have four, since the one you've placed on it's own - more in concern with Dark Oak - doesn't need the other three saplings for it to reach Growth Stage one, making the eventual growth of the tree quicker once you've place down the other three.



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So there you go, hopefully this has highlighted some interesting facts about growing saplings. If you have any cool insights into the mechanics of the game, be sure to post them here so others can learn from them! Things that might be obvious to some might have snuck under the radar of others. Hope you enjoyed this edition of F.E.Z, maybe see you in a couple weeks? ;)

Credits:
Images hosted on: Imgur.com/, I use this for all my images!
Idea by: Memery
Fez in logo by MrDalton

[Mellorian]

Another Functional Explanations for Zedwork, did anyone even read the last one?

Why yes, Timothy! For how else will I find my crowds of adoring fans if I do not first have an epic journey of self discovery and hats! Once more unto the milliner's, dear friends, once more!
Exclamation marks!!!
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In this edition, I hope to make fair the most fortunate of things with a flawless, fun-sized forum... er... post! So without further furore:

The groundbreaking tools which are - Fortune Pickaxes!

Or to be more precise, pickaxes enchanted with both Fortune and Mending.
You see, picking enchantments for our precious picks can be a pickle at times - what with there being so many other tools and armour to enchant as well. So here I hope to impart a tip that will hopefully help save you an enchanting trip. That or a trade with a villager. Take your pick \o/

I open up with a premise of sorts - the Unbreaking Enchant.



This enchant, as I'm sure you all know, slows down the wear and tear our tools and armour face with each use, elongating the time between repairs or simply postponing the tools' eventual destruction. But now enter mending into the equation!

With mending you can repair on the go with experience (xp) gained from various sources, meaning one set of tools can last you practically forever, discounting deaths and inattentiveness.

So how does this affect our need for the unbreaking enchantment? Well, many players reserve their hard-earned fortune pickaxes for exclusively mining fracturable ores such as Diamonds, Lapis Lazuli and Quartz, which all drop experience aplenty.

Ergo:

Fortune pickaxes with mending, depending on care, are self-sustaining; they repair themselves at a magnified rate in comparison to their use, and so need not be enchanted with unbreaking.

Said excess of experience in higher tier ores usually allows for the player to be wearing other mending items (such as armour) while making use of said mechanic, though it would perhaps be best to monitor this as the randomness of the mending enchant can be skewed, at times.

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Hopefully this was an interesting proposition of picks and prosperity, perhaps surpassing the previous post? I'm sure some of you would prefer to have unbreaking on your fortune picks regardless, but sometimes an early game tip can have precedence late game when seeking to rebuild after an unfortunate setback, and I hope that, regardless, you enjoyed reading this product of a paucity of pastimes.

There'll be another F.E.Z out in a couple Wednesdays, but until then I ask that you feel free to post your own tips and tricks, no matter how small they may be - what might be obvious to one may have evaded the attention of others! Sayōnara and thanks for all the picks!


Credits:
Idea by: Memery
Fez in logo by MrDalton

[tim]

Great series so far i thing every break down deserve's its own wiki post tho. As well as its own forum post to discus it also needs more attention in the server chat. I'm looking if i can do one on wheat if i have time no promises.

[Mellorian]

Great series so far I think every break down deserve's its own wiki post tho.

That’s a neat idea, and the wiki could see more use, though I prefer the forums for the ability to reply and discuss. Would be pretty easy to duplicate editions across to the wiki though.

I'm looking if i can do one on wheat if i have time no promises.

That’d be great, if you have the time. Feel free to reply here with it, or create your own thread!

[Mellorian]

Interest, Intrigue and Iguanas! Included in this iteration one of these is not!

Of course, lounging lizards aside, I hope this episode will be a lucratively useful addition to the lexicon of likable legups - an addition edition, if you will, to add munition to your ambition, by my own admission! So with your permission:

The Inventory Exposition!
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I'll jump right into it with an incredibly useful time saver that I know some have over looked:

The Pick Block key!



This handy little button allows you to either summon the block or item you're looking at in-game to an empty slot on your hotbar - if you have said block in your inventory - or simply switch to it if it's already located on your hotbar. In the event of moving a block from your inventory, it will attempt to place the block in your hand - if it is empty - or on the first empty slot in your hotbar after your hand(from left to right), or then, finally, it will simply switch the block for the item in your hand.

While a little complex in it's workings, this allows players building with a pattern or simply filling in any surfaces with a sole material to quickly refill their hand with said material without the need to open their inventory, or to switch to the next block in the pattern with only one button - rather than using their various hotbar hotkeys.

The Pick Block mechanic of Minecraft is, by default, bound to middle mouse. This can make it a little bothersome to press comfortably, and as such I find it's nicer to bind it to a key near your movement keys - such as 'R'.
A "Block Reload" key, almost.
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Now I'm sure some of you at least knew of, or even use, the pick block key, so I shall spring forth a more specific tidbit, in hopes of surprising you:

Quick Switching Armour!

With the addition of Elytra to Minecraft, late-game players are faced with an interesting conundrum - Is it better to wear a chestpiece for its respective enchants and protection, or to wear Elytra in order to traverse terrain faster and allow the potential to negate fall damage.

Everyone will have their own preference here, and there really is no wrong answer, and as such players often carry around both - switching to each as the situation calls for it.



The trouble is, switching to your chestpiece when you've fallen into a spawner room of cave spiders and are stuck in the clutching claws of a cobweb, slowly, slowly falling to your inevitable doom at the hands of the most annoying mob to ever be created in the entire histor-

cough

-or switching to your elytra when you've fallen off a build can take far too long to be practical.

As such, a quicker method of switching to either chest garment would be to keep it on your hotbar.

Then, when in need of switching to more appropriate attire, simply open your inventory, hover over the chest armour slot to the left of your character portrait and then press the corresponding hotbar key.

This will switch the places of your armour and elytra immediately, gaining you hopefully enough precious milliseconds to close your inventory and activate your wings or ready your sword.

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Well that's all for this edition!

I hope this inventory of backpack tricks can help include some who may have missed said tweaks. A few small improvements to the way we play can save a lot of time and effort in the long run, and I hope that if you know of any tips and hints that you'll reply here to help out someone new! I know I still have a lot to learn, and I hope to learn it with you.

Thanks for reading, and as usual - check back in a fortnight for some new small ways to aid efficiency and fun!


Credits:
Idea by: Memery
Fez in logo by MrDalton

[Mellorian]

Nether before, Nether again!

Nether before have two portals joined so freely, and so fast.
In this edition of F.E.Z, I'll be going over transdimensional travel that's sure to last!
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Building Portals

Ah, obsidian. These cool fellows were quite the hot topic once. Requiring a diamond pickaxe to mine, these resilient blocks take a sleep inducing ten whole seconds to break without aid, only for them to gleefully jump into the lava below! Quite infuriating.

So to help with times when enchants are scarce and diamond pickaxes are all being used to mine cobble, I can tell you that you can acquire this most monotonous acquisition in mere moments with the use of just three of your common iron ingots, diamond pickaxes be damned!

Well, you've probably guessed it - a bucket is our saviour!

Having looted a lug of lava, you're ready to start on making a portal.

You'll want to place a water bucket down above the soon to be ceiling of the portal, and then use the lava bucket to form the obsidian:

This is best done with the requisite ten lava buckets in your inventory or near a lava pool to save trips back and forth.

Now simply break out the flint and iron steel, light that portal and you're ready to go!
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Thinking with Portals

For those with too much obsidian on their hands, portals can also be a great way to travel. It's well known that the Nether is a smaller dimension than the Overworld - if you travel to a different portal in the Nether, you'll have traveled eight times that distance in the Overworld.

This is a wonderful way to shorten arduous journeys, but it can also make linking portals in the Overworld to portals in the Nether a chore. A chore, I might add, which involves math D:

Let's take a set of coordinates in the Overworld:



Now we simply divided the first and last numbers (X and Z) by 8 to get the coords in the Nether.

Oof, none of those look divisible by eight. Calculator to the rescue!

775 ÷ 8 = 96.875
170 ÷ 8 = 21.25

So we have our coords in the Nether:



It's best, but not vital, to keep a similar Y level (the middle number) to make sure the portals link up properly.

Now, if we create our portal at our chosen Overworld coordinates, the corresponding portal in the Nether is bound to appear in the closest safe space to the second set of coordinates. Vise versa, if we were to create a portal in the Nether at the second set of coordinates, the corresponding portal in the Overworld would be at the first set of coordinates.

If you want to work out where a portal would appear in the Overworld, from coordinates in the Nether, simply multiply the X and Z coordinates by 8. Much simpler than dividing. Though the Nether is probably not the best place to stand around working out equations...

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A Meme

Studies have shown that including memes in an informative post improves viewer enjoyment by over 7%! That means we'll go from one viewer to........

Erm....


....2 viewers!

From Reddit
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That's it for this portable edition of F.E.Z!

As always, if you have any tips or tricks you'd like to share, feel free to reply here with them or make your own post, if you wish! In the words of Miss Piggy:

"And Nether agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNN~"
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Credits:
Idea by: Memery
Fez in logo by MrDalton

[Mellorian]

Time to make like a Zigzagoon and Pickup!

Ever dropped an item beyond your reach?
Ever built a wall, only for a cobble to fall from your grasp?
Well this is the F.E.Z for you!
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Item Grouping

Dropped items of identical make will group together like sheep, penguins or those teenagers you see at bus-stops on cold Tuesday mornings. Using this magnetic mechanic, we can summon items that, usually, would be beyond our reach!

I've found that the bigger stack of dropped items usually teleports to the smaller stack, that this tends to be more reliable on Zz than Lvs, and that you can usually retrieve items up to 3-4 blocks below and above. Either way, this is a great way to save time/enderpearls/rockets retrieving waylaid items!
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I've decided to keep this one short and concise, since it's such a neat little trick.

I hope you've picked up a useful tip here! Simple things can make a world of difference over the hours and days and I'd say again that if you know of any tips and hints then reply with them here to help out someone new! I'm still finding out new stuff everyday, and I hope I always will.

Thanks for reading, and as usual - check back in a fortnight!

Credits:
Idea by: Memery
Fez in logo by MrDalton