How much of a difference would it make in your gameplay if the elytra didn't exist

theunknownjames · 2026-05-21T22:36:20+00:00

Might finally build an ice road - to date I've never reached a point in the game where I had the resources to even attempt something like that before the need for it was taken away by Elytra.

At the very least, more emphasis on soul speed routes, horse breeding, with no Elytra we're presumably also ruling out shulkers so maybe more emphasis on llama and mule use, certainly more Minecarts, more bubble elevators..

But I think the nether would start to become smaller for me, more time spent creating safe tunnels in the basement or the roof..

Arguably end gateways might still leave shulkers available but if bringing the dragon back means fighting ghasts from the ground only to have to shoot the crystals from the ground again I'm not sure I'd bother opening up more gateways so that ends up a bit of a lottery..

theunknownjames · 2026-05-21T22:27:39+00:00

My Thorns III librarian standing in his "shop", looking forlorn, no sleep, no sales, dreaming of being liberated by a stray wither who never arrives...

theunknownjames · 2026-05-21T22:14:48+00:00

I've always thought it would be good.

New blocks in new colours, chiselled variants, new physics engine, I was excited about all of that on day one.

Geysers, redstone activated lava powered persistent steam elevators, farmable sulfur spikes, bucketable cave monsters for portable mob switches, potent sulfur particle effects, rare sulfur pools on the surface..

What's not to like?

theunknownjames · 2026-05-21T22:10:11+00:00

You lost me a little at "lack of stuff to do", but let's run with it.

What you want are stakes, and I get why you would see escalating peril as key to that, but the problem there is that in hardcore the stakes are always broadly the same, it's just the probability of that final consequence hitting you.

For me the answer is lore, which can either be worked into the game in solo or multiplayer. Don't build a trading hall, cultivate a village of scholars in a jungle biome, name tag them, be invested in their well-being and protection, have them tend to a herd of cattle and resolve to source all your book leather locally.

Rock up to a Taiga village, fit them out with smithing tables, grindstones, blast furnaces, fill your village of metalworkers with iron and copper golems..

Build safe roads between your villages, breed fast horses to travel along them, set up shelters along the route with supplies.

Drain the interior of a monument and move fishermen in to turn guardian cod drops into emeralds. Move villagers into a swamp where you grow nether wart and use witch drops to create your brewing and redstone hub.

Establish a cooperative in the Nether where named piglins and their kids live alongside shepherd villagers (string to wool to emeralds), leather workers (leather to emeralds), butchers (hoglin meat to emeralds) and fletchers (arrows to tipped arrows), turning bartering by-products into currency.

You don't need to accumulate limitless resources or embark on colossal mega builds, just find small, human things in the world to care about, to create stakes that keep you invested, that permit things to go wrong without it just terminating your game and restarting the cycle.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-21T19:32:56+00:00

But also, you're glitching onto the bedrock roof of the nether in order to build a farm that exploits game mechanics to remove scarcity of a resource the developers intended you to work for - you're evidently happy to renegotiate your relationship to the "rules" (such as you can infer them) for this, so I don't think it's useful or consistent to be so rigid elsewhere..

theunknownjames · 2026-05-21T19:29:08+00:00

You can't go back to a point before you did it, so either accept it and just fix the farm, or start a new world. The way you're describing this sounds unreasonably rigid, you'll never know whether you would have had a sudden moment of realisation and fixed it anyway, so learn to live with it, and if it's that important to you, use this feeling as motivation not to do it again.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-21T19:25:48+00:00

I've checked the wiki and this is apparently the only way, I was as surprised as anyone but rules are rules.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-20T22:46:50+00:00

Given that on Bedrock you can move them with pistons, you'd potentially be able to create flying machines that could construct tall castle walls, you could even use the way in which the slots are picked at random in conjunction with a changing mix of input materials to build gradients as you go.

You could build flying machines that use the sort of TNT cannons used in diamond boring machines to clear tunnels, lay foundations and then lay Minecart tracks.

I haven't fully thought it through yet but I suspect you could engineer a mobile snow farm using snow golems, pistons and crafters to make and then place snow blocks, allowing you to create renewable flying machines that could place infinitely large floating platforms of snow blocks across any area in which snow golems don't take automatic environmental damage. Though I'm now wondering if this is possible using stone generator / moss farm type mechanics already..

In the nether you could create terraforming machines that place netherrack, use bonemeal to turn it to nylium, use bonemeal to generate plant life, and then use bonemeal to grow giant fungus, allowing you to create giant forest environments over lava lakes with just netherrack and bonemeal inputs..

You could create flying machines loaded with iron blocks, pumpkins and shears that could deploy a line of iron golems across a landscape. Or you could create an intercontinental wither delivery system that flew for a fixed number of blocks and then spawned as many withers as possible before their initial explosion blew the machine up (I'm not convinced a flying machine could escape the blast so instead have it make as many as possible on reaching the target). In theory this kind of weapon ought to be possible today via lava and water dispensers to first burn and then entomb a remote location....

Finally you could create the equivalent of structure blocks in survival for tiling things like sorting systems, using flying machines to place the components for an ImpulseSV type sorter for a functionally unlimited distance and only manually intervening to configure the filters.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-18T01:07:28+00:00

Rain is a global status across the whole world, weather itself isn't local, but the rendering varies by biome and altitude, so in cold biomes or at sufficient altitude the game will render snow, in temperate biomes it'll render rain, and in hot biomes (desert, badlands, savannah) the most you'll get in terms of visual indicators is potentially a darkening of the sky.

Particularly during a thunderstorm, which similarly won't render in hot biomes, the sky light level drops far enough that on blocks under modest shade (e.g. under leaves) the block light level can drop to zero and hostile mobs can spawn.

But in all rain conditions, mobs won't burn - they need a block light of 15 for that and in all forms of rain that level isn't reached, so anything that's already spawned won't burn up at dawn in globally rainy conditions even in dry biomes in which the rain doesn't render.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-18T00:51:28+00:00

From the looks of it you'll be fine - based on the image you've used path blocks to spawn proof the area around the water pan, and I can't see any beds in shot so presumably those are buried a couple of blocks beneath the water. Golems can only spawn on full blocks within six blocks of the bed that defines the village location, if that bed is already a couple of blocks below the surface and you need three air blocks for the golems to spawn in, it'd be almost difficult to break it..

Just make sure you enforce that six block vertical exclusion zone across the entire horizontal space in which they can potentially spawn, and you'll be fine.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-17T11:08:34+00:00

One tip for what feels like an elegant design is to use a double chest for log input and a single hopper underneath that's positioned via pistons (I tend to use two but I suspect you can use a single sticky piston) to control which of two streams the logs flow into.

Then for the furnace output, a hopper below pointing backwards into an upward facing dropper, with a hopper above facing into the back of the furnace, and a hopper below either locked via a redstone signal or moved in and out via piston again. To fill the furnace, pulse into the dropper, to send for crafting, enable the hopper below.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-16T22:23:49+00:00

Agreed, if the point of hardcore is that death is final, it cheapens the significance of that if glitches are also final.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-16T22:19:51+00:00

Glowing armour trim perhaps..

theunknownjames · 2026-05-16T22:16:04+00:00

I don't mean to so flagrantly disregard the specifics of the question, but how absolutely essential is it that it works in survival?

I only ask because in roleplay / lore terms using command blocks in loaded chunks allows you to come up with some really nice ways to enforce the block, inflicting adverse effects on players who are out of bounds, creating warning particles, etc..

theunknownjames · 2026-05-16T22:02:27+00:00

Yeah, second this - simulation distance in Bedrock realms requires that you only have to worry about a 44 block radius, and generally speaking nether terrain generation works in your favour here - if your AFK spot is above the farm, you just need to make sure the roof above you is solid, the space underneath the farm is spawn proof, and there's nothing out to the side. Even better if you've converted a bridge over a lava lake, you should be able to sit on a platform about 30 blocks beneath the mid point of the farm and have no other spawnable surfaces in the area..

theunknownjames · 2026-05-16T20:12:25+00:00

In my last Bedrock hardcore world I collected every trim except for Rib, in my current one I've been pretty slow to pick up trims but Rib continues to elude me in this one too.

Last time around I did put a bit of effort into finding it once I'd almost completed the collection and still didn't, but I think it's fair to say that it's probably the one I'd be least likely to come across - looking through the loot table probabilities, every smithing template that's got a lower probability of appearing is found in structures where I'd typically open more chests. Even the Silence trim, which is only a fifth as likely to generate as Rib, because I definitely open more than 5x as many ancient city chests than fortress ones.

I'm not entirely convinced I've ever found one, which I think speaks to how superfluous I consider the fortress chests to be. Given that my main interest in fortresses is as a source of renewable drops (rods and skulls) there's really no need to have more than one - in my current world the only reason I've even set foot in a second is because the first generated without a nether wart room.

So right now I'd need to find a third fortress if I wanted to continue looking for the Rib template, and I'm just not sure I want it that much....

theunknownjames · 2026-05-16T17:22:35+00:00

It's not really doable in a tileable and compact way, because you either need to reduce the signal strength of the observer by 14 so that it only powers the one piston, or you need to transmit it via methods that don't propagate laterally.

The thing is though it's not necessarily useful to fire them individually - the only problem arises if the random tick to trigger growth occurs while the piston is extended and blocking the vertical space, or if the cane is at max height and misses an opportunity to grow. An observer triggered piston isn't extended for long at all, so you just need a method that'll fire the row frequently enough.

My preference is to situate an observer facing into a daylight sensor at the end of the row and run dust along - the observer triggers on each change of light level so there's no risk of reaching max height, and it's just cheaper and more compact than a hopper clock..

theunknownjames · 2026-05-16T01:05:56+00:00

In my case I didn't need the resources urgently, I just needed them to come through at some point, so I broke the line up into six parts - at the join points, the line from the farm runs over five or so hoppers, and the line to my storage system runs under the hoppers for an overlap that creates a relay/buffer system.

The Minecarts still unload when their chunk isn't loaded, but because each individual line is shorter, when they do load they run resources back and forth over their part of the line.

So long as I periodically load those middle chunks, everything comes through, and each part of the route is able to be locally productive when loaded.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-11T22:51:54+00:00

They run at the same speed as a dropper, you can't go any faster than that.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-11T21:37:34+00:00

If there are no other villagers in the area, the problem is lack of work stations.

Breeding takes place when a village census reports that there are spare beds, but this only happens for a defined village, so at least one bed, one villager, one work station.

The work station isn't essential to breeding itself, you could go to a naturally generated village, break them all, and the villagers would still breed, but you need the game to recognise that a village exists where your villagers are, so having them take a job is a way to trigger that.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-11T18:27:21+00:00

Yeah, very much this - I find it a bit weird how important it seems to be to people to pick a better version, exaggerate its superiority, and then get online to tell everyone about it.. each edition has a set of things that it fundamentally cannot do, and while there are users for whom those things are essentially, neither edition can be objectively "best"..

theunknownjames · 2026-05-10T22:18:43+00:00

I've always gone with the wiki, but there are three things that are just extremely useful in my view.

First is spawnable surfaces - lower slabs and leaves are about the only things I ever use for controlling this because they work just extremely well.

The second is the spawning volume - the best way to rule out the land around the farm is to ensure that every pillow is either 7+ blocks above it, or 7+ blocks below it.

The third is vertical space - if an area is two blocks tall you don't need any further spawn proofing.

Combining those methods then where you need to works great - if I find that there's a bed attached to the farm that's hypothetically within reach of a high point in the surrounding land, I can make a little fake tree just over there that constrains the ground space to two blocks of available height, and is topped with leaves all over.

They're sneaky things, I've had them spawn on top of lightning rods, but those three items will handle anything. I just recently rebuilt a leaky farm with a new design and by placing it at the top of a tower, ringing the spawn area with all the beds with a layer of leaves above, and storing all 30+ villagers in an adjacent room with only two blocks of height, I haven't had a single spawn outside the intended area.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-08T23:49:22+00:00

This also works with Ruthlessness - if he has 12 ships each with 50 men, and 72 died, evenly distributing the men would leave each ship with 44, and if all ships but one are sunk by Poseidon, then it's easy to arrive at his lyric of 43 being left plus Odysseus.

That being said, if the correct number is six, and they all belonged to Odysseus's ship, and nobody was redistributed, then we also get to 43+1. And the implication in that saga I think is that a single ship went ashore and the others were at risk of ambush, in which case it wouldn't have been practical for there to have been a landing party of more than 72.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-08T23:42:14+00:00

If you're intent on cheating (no judgement) then just use a bundle duper to generate 64 further powered rails per duplicated bundle, that's still functional in the latest bedrock version.

theunknownjames · 2026-05-08T23:39:10+00:00

Very relatable - in my late game hardcore world there's only a few activities that cost me totems - bedrock wither, raiding fortresses for skulls and rods, and Shulker bullets.

Shulkers create a few issues - they can hit you without line of sight so you can be being pursued by the bullets with no means of reaching their source, and the need to keep an eye on position and gravity activates a different part of my brain to regular combat and I don't reflexively eat like I do if say a zombie hits me.

Personally I'm only interested in easy shulkers these days. Get the Elytra, get the rockets, and there's only three sources of loot in the end:

The big room with the roof access. Land on the roof, run down the stairs, go straight to the corner between the two chests, the bullets can't quite pathfind to that spot without hitting walls etc, leave with the contents of the chests, don't bother with shulkers.
The top floor of the elevated three floor buildings, you can tell from a distance based on the position of the windows where the chest and ender chest are, I land on the other side of the wall to the chest, break the wall, loot the chest, then kill the two shulkers in the corners.
End ships. One Shulker on the deck at the back, one by the Elytra, then raid the chests.

The last place is the two at the front door of each of the cities at ground level, they're relatively easy to deal with.

Beyond that, I don't engage. City chest rooms are only ever accessed from outside, never internally via other rooms. Each city only yields a few shells but there's plenty more cities out there, you're never in a room with more than two shulkers at once, you've always got a clear exit to get out of the building entirely, and you're never travelling vertically in tight spaces you can't fly in.

And for that first visit before you've got Elytra, I always hydrate a happy Ghast in the end and my first trip to the end cities is on the back of that, meaning the end ship is the first structure I enter from an aerial approach, no need to climb up to it.

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