Fancy Armour

I have spent a little time recently trying to get netherite armour in Minecraft. It used to be relatively easy – you “just” needed to get some ancient debris to make netherite ingots. Then they went and added a “smithing template” to the list of requirements and it took me a while to a) want to get a smithing template, b) be bothered to look for a bastion and cope with the general sense of death in the nether, c) feel netherite armour was worth it.

I have now done such a thing. I expected the bastion to kill me over and over but I actually managed to wander around relatively unscathed. It could be my gold armour saved me some injury – I don’t know. I not only found a netherite template but I also found an armour decoration template and that made me super happy. Although the templates are destroyed in the manufacturing process once you have one template you can craft more so I don’t have to go searching around other bastions, but I might just for the challenge.

So, armour has been upgraded and prettified.

Minecraft Armour Front View
Minecraft Armour Front View
Minecraft Armour Back View
Minecraft Armour Back View

For information and nothing else I’ve just checked my Minecraft world database file size and it’s coming in at 6GB at the moment. I have no idea in terms of average world size but it seems impressive.

Un-Mined

I like playing Minecraft. It’s a better world than the one we live in. I know there are creepers and zombies obsessed with trying to kill me but the farming is fun and apart from the strange slavery the game is mostly peaceful. I only play in survival mode, I have entered a creative world, once, but I hated it. The offspring don’t really play in this world much anymore so it’s mostly me just wandering around and doing little projects. I do want to get elytra soon so I will need some help in The End.

There are many cheats that could be applied to the game but having played since Covid-times I have a good idea of which ones keep me playing and which ones make the game far less fun. In the past I have used teleportation and even edited the contents of chests and inventories. I don’t use these cheats anymore. As much as travelling around the map in real time seems frustrating, teleporting from one place to another really kills the fun and sense of acheivement.

I use one main cheat these days and that is software that produces a map along with coordinates on the screen. This does mean I can easily find resources underground such as coal, diamonds and gold. But I think it balances out the time I spend. I don’t have to strip mine, I just mine but in calculated directions.

A Mine Map - Minecraft Level 17
A Mine Map – Minecraft Level 17

In the above picture you can see the routes I have mined and also some of the resources that remain, ready for me to plunder. Brown is copper ore, silver is iron ore and the grey is coal, I think. I can hover over the map in the application and it informs me the type of block I am over.

The mapping software I use is called Unmined, and it needs you to be able to access the world database. I normally FTP this from my server so I can explore using the map but without live updates.

A Minecraft Item Sorter
A Minecraft Item Sorter

The above picture shows my item sorter which is placed underground. The red squares are all redstone. I will be making a video about this soon as the last one I uploaded covered my dugout mountain.

This is what the current base looks like from above:

Minecraft Mainbase
Minecraft Mainbase

Flight Sim Photos

This is just a page of flight sim photos.

T-7A - 2024-08-21 08.23.39
T-7A – 2024-08-21 08.23.39
T-6A - 2024-08-05 07.47.24
T-6A – 2024-08-05 07.47.24
T-7A - 2024-08-04 07.48.08
T-7A – 2024-08-04 07.48.08
T-7A - 2024-08-06 06.51.32
T-7A – 2024-08-06 06.51.32
T-7A - 2024-08-21 08.04.00
T-7A – 2024-08-21 08.04.00

What A Shocker

You know how it goes. You’re flying along over the Netherlands and then BOOM, there’s a lightning storm in front of you. Fortunately for me I was already planning on landing before the storm but I don’t recall seeing lightning before in X-Plane.

T7 Red Tail Over Netherlands with lightning
T7 Red Tail Over Netherlands with lightning

You might need to click on the picture to embiggen it and then be able to see the lightning forks.

These Were A Surprise

Not much more to say than I was travelling my Minecraft world when I came across these beauties.

Ice columns in Minecraft
Ice columns in Minecraft

I was surprised as I hadn’t expected to see things of such amazingness.

The Portal

I have and have not wanted a PlayStation Portal since I saw they were released. There was a period of time that I had a notification from a stock checking site to try and buy one but I was always too late to the party. I nearly managed to order one from Currys but then the order got cancelled as they had run out of stock. So, I gave up on stock checking sites and just thought I’d be ok without one.

So, I had settled myself to not owning a Portal, I can always use remote play on my iPhone if I wanted to even though I really hate using screens as controllers. Then, one day, EE sent me a text message saying they were selling Portals in their shop. Even though I had mentally settled on not owning one, I somehow went through the entire order process and ended up having a Portal delivered to my home.

Playstation Portal
PlayStation Portal

The above image is a poor photograph because you can’t see the main features of the Portal which would be the controller part of it. But you can see that I am logged into Fortnite. I have found that the Portal works really well on my home network. I haven’t tested it fully on another Wi-Fi network yet, but I am going to do so this weekend. So far it seems a great little device, as long as you have connectivity. If you don’t then it’s just a lump of plastic and electronics.

One of my main methods of connecting to my PS5 will be via my phone’s hotspot. I figured that I pay for quite a bit of data so I might as well start to use the allocation. However, when I first tried to connect to my iPhone the Portal said it couldn’t connect. I tried again and I still got an error message. I spent a little while using Google and I found a number of pages where they said it was not possible as iPhone doesn’t support the particular NATs or whatever. I was somewhat upset at this.

Then, through a random Reddit post I saw that someone had connected to an iPhone using manual settings in the Portal and so I tried that. It worked!!! I now have the best of all worlds. I am a happy chappy.

Portal Gateway

This communication should come after the next one as I have some writing to do about my new toy. I bought a PlayStation Portal and have been using it to play from somewhere that isn’t my lounge. I was quite worried when I tried to connect to a hotspot from my phone because the Portal refused to connect. What would be the point of having a Portal if I can’t connect wherever I get mobile service?

I spent some time googling and there were many pages saying that “nope, it’s an iPhone thing” and also that the wrong type of NAT is supported or something like that. So, I started looking into a wifi device just for the Portal to use when I am not in wifi range.

Then . . . . . today I stumbled onto a Reddit post that listed the manual wifi settings to connect to an iPhone hotspot. I tested it and I am very happy to announce that it worked, so I am now able to connect and play via my iPhone hotspot. I have decided to write the settings here, mainly as a reminder for me in case the Portal resets itself or something. Also, maybe other people will find these settings if they need them.

SSID – whatever your iPhone is called
Password – WPA2, and the password is whatever your iPhone says in the “allow other devices” section.
IP – 172.20.10.10 [the last number you can change from 02 to 15.
Subnet Mask – 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway – 172.20.10.1
DNS – 8.8.8.8

I’d Been Aiming For This

Over the time of playing the recent chapter/season or whatever it’s called of Fortnite I had hoped that the opportunity to jump the train in a vehicle would arise. I had tried before and it didn’t really work. But recently I did manage it and I managed to capture the video of it. I have removed the sound as other people were talking while I did this.

It Takes Skill

A favourite thing to do in the game Fortnite is to drive around and surprise people. Even better is to be in a convoy of a few vehicles just driving around the map because it’s fun. I recently drove through some of the Underworld and then somehow managed to park my Jeep exactly sideways in a corridor – it takes skill.

Just Park - Fortnite
Just Park – Fortnite

Consoles I Have Owned

The Commodore 64 – I know it’s not a console but it was used for “educational purposes” [gaming].

C64 hardware
Public Domain, Link

The Sega Megadrive – bought in second year of university.

The original Japanese Mega Drive
Public Domain, Link

The Sony PlayStation – Used to play Gran Turismo on my Landlord’s PS. Got my own eventually.

PlayStation-SCPH-1000-with-Controller.jpg
Public Domain, Link

The Sony PlayStation 2 – installed a network card, played Navy Seals online and hated it.

PS2-Fat-Console-Set.jpg
Public Domain, Link

The Sony PlayStation 3 – bought from an airport. The original had multi memory card readers and Super Audio CD capabilities. It died and I got a newer one which had none of those capabilities. It now lives at work.

Sony-PlayStation-3-CECHA01-wController-L.jpg
Public Domain, Link

The Sony PlayStation 4 – This lives on the wall in the dining room. LAN connected rather than WiFi, obviously.

PS4-Console-wDS4.jpg
Public Domain, Link

The Sony PlayStation 5 – this takes pride of place in the lounge. Wired connections obviously and HDMI through 7.2 amp into 4K HDR television.

Black and white Playstation 5 base edition with controller.png
Public Domain Link

Honourable mention goes to the Sega Saturn which I hired for a weekend in around 1994/5, possibly hired from Blockbuster.

The original NA Saturn
Public Domain, Link