Mining Mystcraft ages

I've created a bunch of Mystcraft ages, and they're all unstable, as I think the first dozen or so of everyone's Mystcraft ages will be until you get a set of symbols that you can make a nice stable age with.

Being unstable, I don't want to spend much time there, but of course there could be some sweet ores or glowstone to be had.

Enter the trusty Mining Turtle!

Has anyone tried this - jump into the Age, drop a charged-up turtle and a chest, and set it off excavating? It would need a World Anchor of course, so I'd need to slap one of those down before I duck out.

Is there anything in an unstable Mystcraft age that would scare a turtle?

My first 3 ages I made for personal use had no instability. Quit picking so many parts. Geez.

Has anyone tried this - jump into the Age, drop a charged-up turtle and a chest, and set it off excavating? It would need a World Anchor of course, so I'd need to slap one of those down before I duck out.

I did that on my server once: me and another player went to a mystcraft age (which had dense ores and "only" enemy regeneration) and quarried out the layers 12 and 13. We got about 5 stacks of diamonds :D/>

Is there anything in an unstable Mystcraft age that would scare a turtle?

decay could eat our turtles, but before they vanish, they will mine very much.

On our server, there is a dense ore world that everyone is mining with turtles. It has slowness and mining fatigue, but these don't affect turtles.

When you specify a world to have dense ores, you are guaranteed that it will be unstable. Presumably this is to offset the ease of finding ores and not make things too easy for you. I wouldn't bother with mining a decaying world, or one with nausea, but when you get one that has just mining fatigue you have a good place for turtles to work.

Glotz659, on 08 February 2013 - 08:24 AM said:

decay could eat our turtles, but before they vanish, they will mine very much.

So decay causes random blocks to disappear, and that block could be a turtle? I should probably check for decay first then. Is there a way to do that other than just watch for it happening? I don't want to lose a chunk loader.

PhilHibbs, on 08 February 2013 - 09:08 PM said:

So decay causes random blocks to disappear, and that block could be a turtle? I should probably check for decay first then. Is there a way to do that other than just watch for it happening? I don't want to lose a chunk loader.

I have made over 45 ages on a server me and my friend runs, and I have never seen Decay, even though some of them are pretty unstable. This may be caused by me making my mining ages myself, giving stabilizing symbols I can live with (charged, wooden tendrils, such things.). You might want to make lots of books and get lots of feathers before using ages for mining.

PhilHibbs, on 08 February 2013 - 09:08 PM said:

So decay causes random blocks to disappear, and that block could be a turtle? I should probably check for decay first then. Is there a way to do that other than just watch for it happening? I don't want to lose a chunk loader.

as far as i know, decay blocks "spread" to other blocks (replace them with themselves like gray goo) until the world is entire decay. I am not sure where it starts, but if the start is far from the spawn point, it should take a long time. i'm also not sure what it does to forcefields with mining upgrades. testing…

EDIT:
tested, black decay causes nearby blocks to fall down like sand/gravel, and it does even effect bedrock o.O
red decay (with metadata 1) spreads very slow and eats bedrock as well. but it looks like it can't get throug force fields (mffs containment field and cube projector)

Mtdj2, on 08 February 2013 - 10:32 PM said:

I have made over 45 ages on a server me and my friend runs, and I have never seen Decay… This may be caused by me making my mining ages myself, giving stabilizing symbols I can live with (charged, wooden tendrils, such things.). You might want to make lots of books and get lots of feathers before using ages for mining.

So Wooden Tendrils and Charged help to stabilize? And yes I've got plenty of books from raiding a Lich tower Twiglet Forest, and plenty of feathers from an automatic chicken farm.

Glotz659, on 08 February 2013 - 10:56 PM said:

I am not sure where it starts, but if the start is far from the spawn point, it should take a long time. i'm also not sure what it does to forcefields with mining upgrades. testing…

I haven't hung around in any unstable worlds long enough myself, but in Direwolf20's Mod Spotlight he shows decay by creating an age with multiple copies of the Dense Ores symbol and there are sinkholes forming all over the place so it isn't just one place that the decay starts.

some screenies:

Spoiler

[attachment=996:2013-02-08_11.34.50.png]
that's red decay in a containment field with a cube field partially inside. ignore the bedrock building in the background :P/>
[attachment=997:2013-02-08_11.35.12.png]
that's the corner of the decay. it does not spread into the force field

Glotz659, on 08 February 2013 - 10:56 PM said:

but it looks like it can't get throug force fields (mffs containment field and cube projector)

#winning. Thank you for your valuable research. If I ever come across a decaying world, you will have saved my connection to it (for traps)