The Spawn Chunks 099: Sodium Solutions

Jul 27, 2020

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Jonny and Joel quickly cover the latest snapshot before talking Fabric performance mods for Minecraft, and how to potentially make Minecraft loot chests into closets of fun.

Joel Duggan

Twitter | YouTube | Twitch JoelDuggan.com The Citadel Cafe Forge Publishing

Pixlriffs

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  • Jonny
    • Took over and restored a treasure room bastion, and converted the magma cube spawner into a farm!
      • I have more appreciation for the ‘deliberate ruining’ of Bastions now, but I still think they look super cool once restored. 
    • Starting the museum this week!
  • Joel
    • Running the Fabric mod API client side. More on this in our Chunk Mail section.
    • The Netherite Hall build is starting to take shape despite a memory refresh on the tedium of putting the ceiling of a build under a lava lake… on purpose.
      • Blackstone opinion progress:
        • Side texture works as a backdrop or small frame element. Top texture is still noisy and hard to work with.
        • You are able to use polished blackstone next to basalt in specific cases.
        • Polished blackstone bricks are much higher contrast and noisy. I’ve only used the walls very sparingly in a very low light build.
        • In my opinion, two thirds of the blackstone textures are still a missed opportunity for Mojang to add a more versatile black block to the game.
        • Worth noting, this is all in the Nether, in the dark. No Overworld building in daylight yet.

Minecraft News

Chunk Mail

Email The Show

FROM: Sky Phaziz
SUBJECT: Better Optimization Than Optifine

Hi Jonny and Joel.

I recently came across a Fabric mod called Sodium and it supposedly works even better than Optifine. The only downside I have seen so far is that it does not offer as much customization as Optifine is able to give you. It potentially gives you almost twice the amount of frames Optifine is able to provide. That is with a render distance set to 16, vanilla gives about 90 fps. With Optifine running it gives 150 fps, but with Sodium it is able to give 290 fps. And just to top it off if you combine Sodium with a mod called Phosphor the chunks load incredibly fast.

Just wanted to give you guys a heads up, and just maybe this can help Joel play minecraft without getting ill. 

Cheers from Norway,

Sky

FROM: Marco89lcdm
SUBJECT: Teleporting Time Saver

Hi Jonny and Joel! 

I’ve noticed on the Xisuma episode that Joel said that on the Citadel they have some /tp command blocks in order to travel from point to point because the adult player needs to have free time to do adult things.

I’m really glad to hear that because I’ve been feeling bad using some commands on my single player world (most of the /tp commands) in order to save me some time. I am a 31 year old father of three wonderful children and having a full time shift job.

I would love to hear your opinion on this matter: Do you consider that cheating? Knowing that all grindy stuff in Minecraft is done legitimately, but some of the most time consuming things like travelling or locating good terrain generations or structures has been done with some “help”?

Absolutely love your show, keep the hard work! 

Marco89lcdm

July Roundtable

  • Joel
    • Is using the teleport command, and command blocks “cheating” in Minecraft survival?
      • Chunk Mail from Marco89lcdm
    • Obviously this needs to be assessed on a case by case basis, but no, I don’t think utilizing teleport commands is “cheating”.
      • Command blocks are included in the “vanilla” game, they are just not on the player side of the survival game mode.
    • I think learning to craft the back end of the game through utilizing command blocks is a great way to add depth and experience to the game.
      • Examples like teleport commands on The Citadel used in player made “portals” or the teleport commands in the sailing ships of The Realm of Vasten, used to get around a massive world, but inline with the established lore.
    • Fast travel has been part of a lot of video games for ages. It usually it unlocks in gameplay. In Minecraft you just have to make it yourself.

  • Jonny
    • How to add value to loot chests in Minecraft.
      • The problem with chest loot is that its value decreases over time. Very few things in Minecraft can only be obtained one way, so players often have easier (or more reliable) ways to find the stuff they acquire from loot chests.
      • Cosmetic items are desirable at every level of gameplay because they do not affect gameplay at all.
      • Give every loot chest a ~33% chance of providing a unique cosmetic item which affects armour, tools, or Elytra.
        • Examples could be armour which looks more like the armour you see in Minecraft Dungeons, giving players an incentive to raid structures looking to complete their full set.
        • Or implement something similar to “runes” in Quark, and allow players to change the enchantment glint colour.
          • A fire aspect sword that glows orange? 1000% yes!