FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hi:

I'm absoluttely new to Minetest (or Minecraft). I've spent a bunch hours learning how to play and started my first big building projects. My main dissapointment is about how to locate my buildings. I tried to build towers and light houses to act as references but still I'm getting lost in my world and most of the time I'm not able to get back the places I want.

Am I missing any map feature? Any trick I can use?

Thanks in advence.

you can press F5 to see your position and other stuff.

We don't really have a convenient GUI mapping tool like Minutor for MC, but Minetestmapper works nicely.

If you cannot compile that, try Python Minetestmapper (Python and NumPy required).

Don't delete the world by accident.

Does this happen when you die and respawn on a different place?

Most simple trick is using the /sethome command for a place you see as base and then the /home command to go to that base.

When I was new to the game, I did build pillars in the hope of using them as lighthouses/landmarks. It didn't work due to them not beeing loaded and view range beeing too limited.

F5 is one way to do it. Turn it on, write down the coordinates, and do a screenshot to be sure. This is helpful on servers.

Another way is to add a teleportation mod. I usually walk around with a load of travelnets in my singleplayer world. Whenever I encounter a place I want to be able to go back to, I place a travelnet and name it accordingly.

I've met a few people who managed to navigate in a Minetest world, but in general too much changes, and especially when mining, orientation is a lost case, so I just go wherever it looks promising and then return via /home or /spawn.

I think my warp mod proves his usefulness in such cases :)

What about increasing the viewing range ?
It's by default set to 35 nodes. But the recent computers can easily tolerate more than 150 nodes of viewing range, so it will be a lot simpler to locate your buildings.
You can set it very simply by pressing + or - on the numpad.

Sokomine wrote:When I was new to the game, I did build pillars in the hope of using them as lighthouses/landmarks. It didn't work due to them not beeing loaded and view range beeing too limited.
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Hahahaha. I made exactly the same. My greatest success was a lava made lighthouse X-)

Thanks for the tips :-)

I use CompassGPS too keep track of important places and guide myself around.

I highly recommend the CompassGPS mod, I use it all the time to mark areas to explore, current mine shafts, and of course my base.

Another good tip is to build structures that stand out from the natural terrain and have them well lit to make them easy to see any time.

Or make your own physical map like you're playing metroid for NES.

I went through all the same beginners tricks as well, but in the end I discovered it's easier to do it exactly the same as you would in real life.

Just explore locally at first, learn all the local landmarks within 150 or so squares at first then expand on that slowly.

After a while you still get turned around and lost a lot but then all of a sudden you spot a bunch of trees next to a cave that you recognise, or similar.

When I explore cave systems I always take a heap of white glass with me, a block of white glass with a torch on it shows up from a long way away in the dark. But when I come to a dead end and turn back I don't forget to pick them up again or they'll create more confusion, I just leave trails to places I want to return to.

I suppose you could use the same trick on the surface, then if you get lost you just have to wait till night time to find your way home.

Cheers,

Andrew.