Fun With Explosives

I've been unsure what to do with myself recently. I've got lots of bases, plenty of non-diamond resources, a rapid transit system. What more do I need?
I tried multiplayer, but the problem seems to be that some other people are just jerks and enjoy killing and destruction which are totally counter to my goals. I played for a couple of hours to build and mine, only to come back the next day to find my house destroyed and my shit gone. meh. I know one of the upcoming updates has lockable chests so at least people won't be tempted to steal my gear. Maybe I'll give it another shot then.

While I was there though, I saw a lot of TNT being used. I've never even made TNT before so I was a little curious. I've seen it create some pretty impressive explosions so I figured I'd see how much gunpowder I had from creepers to make explosives. Turns out I could make about 10 blocks.

I picked a spot near the bottom of my sub oceanic mine that I felt had been pretty much exhausted. and loaded all the TNT into a little space and set them on fire. Good times ensued! But nothing very exciting. The hole it created wasn't that impressive.

So no matter what I do next, I'll probably also be building a monster trap to aid in the collection of much much more gunpowder from dead creepers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzAofFVTTGQ

$#@%#$%#

I discovered recently the joys of using diamonds for armour and tools. It's awesome. I survived a ton of creeper attacks wearing my diamond armour, and cleared away a ton of dirt with my diamond shovel. For example, I obliterated this hilltop. This is the before picture:

Anyway, I ran out of diamonds so I figured I'd head back to my beach front cave system. I was feeling pretty cocky in my new armour and wasn't finding any diamonds so I kept going deeper and deeper. I scored a lot of iron and gold and then I finally found diamonds. Not a lot, but a little. And then I trapped myself in a dark cave. I was trying to claw my way out and a zombie came up behind me and killed me. Boo-urns.

So now I've got to try to remember my way down to where I was and I've got to do it fast. I had my watch with me, my diamond armour and lots of raw materials. Miraculously I found my way down but too late. I lost my shit. So the next time down I grabbed a couple of signs to help me find my way down faster.

I was besieged by creepers and skeletons and zombies and everything. but I had fresh iron armour, I was holding out okay. So fuck you guys:

I dug deeper and deeper and found one piece of diamond. And then eventually a creeper caught me by enough of a surprise that I couldn't escape. I tried so hard to get down there fast enough but I got hopelessly lost. My shit was gone again.

So I rage-quit to write this blog post and now I think I'll go back and build a rail line down to where I was.

Done

I tried all kinds of crazy things with the wiring in the railway hub. I tried having a separate button for each destination but that there were timing issues with the track changes. I built an elaborate system to slow the circuit down and it looked like this:

Anyway, it didn't work. In the end I decided on switches instead of buttons. It's not an elegant solution by any stretch. Two of the three destinations require both switches to be in a particular position.. and sometimes I accidentally hit one of the switches on my way out of the station. As a result I may move the button to the far left with the switches on the right but this is how it looks now:

And that's that. Now I have speedy travel between my:

Spawn Point

Beach House

Hilltop Fort

Floating Island

Castle Pit

For the most part I can travel anywhere at night and gather supplies from anywhere they might be. There are only a couple of dangerous areas where monsters and animals can get too close to the track. I guess more fences come next.