Friday Seecrets Update
Entry 12 ()
It’s almost time for the next big adventure! Yes, the second (still as of yet nameless) village has been built up, a cartographer has been recruited, and I have a map in hand. Our first trek out to the Halo (and beyond) awaits!
So far the village has two butchers, a farmer, two leatherworkers, two shepherds… and, of course, a cartographer. Already a master cartographer, in fact!
Ah, but it still just felt too soon to go questing. So I headed home and did a little more work around there before getting ready to set out.
The first priority, as always, involves the thing this game is really about: Railways! Yes, to quickly get back and forth to this second village, the Nether hub has gained its third main line, due east. And – and – Roam finally has a proper station worthy of its “home base” status and location at Spawn, not just some temporary track in the tunnels.
Like the vault at home, it appears to be carved right out of its surroundings and polished up with care. (Brand new deepslate bricks have been imported from the Overworld to substitute for polished basalt in the floor and ceiling, as I felt the end texture clashed with the rest of the design.) It’s also the first station to include a proper exit out into the Nether cavern!
Being the interchange where all three (eventually four) main lines meet, and the showpiece of the entire network, I decided to break my usual “it’s the Nether; keep it simple and hard to break” rule – so when you head up those stairs to set off, you’ll find the user‐friendly interface panel of a brand‐new state‐of‐the‐artnote 1 CARTS unit!
Yes, the Bromtech‐designed Completely Automated Rail Transit System offers the discerning rider a convenient, one‐touch transportation experience. No more manually thrown levers here: Simply hop in, press the button for your chosen route, and CARTS does the rest, whisking you off onto the iron highway while setting the switches ahead of you.
Of course, the new station means the nether portals have been moved as well. Roam may not have an Overworld rail station yet, but it’s coming along and the portal has finally been relocated closer to home.
I still need to get a few more bookshelves together to complete the walls (and do… something with the ceiling), but there’re almost enough.
Yes, I considered adding a secret piston door, and in the end, I did in fact add a secret piston door. The first I’ve ever built, actually! They’re not as complicated as I thought – I followed Biggs87x’s design for the mechanism itself but hooked it up to a couple buttons instead of using a “key,” and added a delay circuit to prevent inadvertent squishing. No, not the buttons on either pillar there by the door; that’d be too obvious. It’s actually the ones by the cartography table.
Things look all sealed up in the vault, too.
Not pictured: A pressure plate in the seecret tunnel opens both doors, timed so you can walk right on through without waiting.
The sheep pen now holds a full rainbow set of 16.
This is an animal cruelty‐free world, so I still rely on shearing by hand for all of my wooly needs. Sure, you could automate the process with dispensers and observers, like so, with a hopper cart circling underneath to collect everything:
But who would do such a thing? Confinement is no way to live.
I also took down the glow squid farm out back and restored the environment to its natural state.
But enough prep and procrastination. I’m getting eager to start on that adventure and see what’s out there. Are you?
Let’s see where we’re headed…
Somewhere to the southwest. And apparently below sea level, which isn’t exactly promising for actually finding a mansion and bringing a totem home.
Well, conveniently, Intersylva is already a good ways to the southwest. I headed there next for another look. Seems it won’t be long before we find out, at least…
In site update news, I’ve been convinced by my new webring neighbor Seirdy’s argument against “lazy loading” and removed that attribute from the screenshots here. I may in time flip‐flop on that again (I am still but a babby hobbyist web dev, not an expert); I see the points on both sides of the debate. But it does seem likely to have the opposite effect than intended when it comes to slow or unreliable connections. And while that article’s recommendations are for primarily textual sites, I think this point still applies here, where the images largely are the content. Not that I have a large audience to be concerned about in the first place, but I’d still like to “do it right” and get those best practices mentally ingrained.
On that note, I know I still have lots to learn, particularly about accessibility. (Alt descriptions for images are an obvious miss on here, though that’s mostly because my brain goes blank trying to come up with them, and there are a lot because, again, the images are the content here 😅 Not that that’s an excuse.) And there are other things to look at like tap targets and non‐interactive space on mobile, proper contrast, even color choice for reducing overstimulation (something I hadn’t even thought about despite dealing with that very problem myself.). At some point – definitely after we peek beyond the Halo, and probably even waiting until after freeing the End – I’ll have to take a hiatus from playing and writing to sit down and do a big revamp here. Make a new style sheet from scratch(ish) and hack on Zoner a bit.
Next time: The long journey begins!