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I have an underground village all planned out on graph paper, and am ready to start building it. I have decided to have three block thick walls, with the middle being obsidian. Overall, I need a space 53 blocks long, 53 blocks wide, and 31 blocks high. What would be the most efficient way to do this?

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Do you have mined obsidian on-hand or do you plan to do obsidian by cooling lava? – Danny T. Jan 31 '12 at 15:26
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Alright, I know it is cheating, but I plan to use INVedit to build my village, but from then on I plan on playing legit. – CodeAdmiral Jan 31 '12 at 15:29
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@CodeAdmiral A quicker way to obtain materials inside the game is using TooManyItems, which not only can give you items ingame but also allows you to set the time to sunrise again and to temporarily switch to creative mode so you can fly (quite helpful for building) – Zommuter Jan 31 '12 at 20:18
Alrighty, that sounds like a better idea. – CodeAdmiral Feb 1 '12 at 15:13

4 Answers

up vote 36 down vote accepted

BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

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I know, I know. But then I have a bunch of pits, and then the base that is below my bottom floor is not flat... Funny though :) – CodeAdmiral Jan 31 '12 at 15:31
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Well you have a choice between mining every block, or blowing it to kingdom come and filling in the gaps. The latter is more efficient. – fredley Jan 31 '12 at 15:33
Otay, You are right, thank you – CodeAdmiral Jan 31 '12 at 15:34
I will accept it when the site allows me to. – CodeAdmiral Jan 31 '12 at 15:35
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Awesome answer, and absolutely correct. Not to mention SOOO MUCH FUN muahahah... – Michael Jan 31 '12 at 16:17
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up vote 19 down vote

A bit faster and more coordinated than TNT, but requiring a mod, is WorldEdit, which allows you to select regions and remove or replace blocks (all or only a certain kind, which is quite handy). I also recommend WorldEditCUI then.

I'm not sure I understood your wall design, but to clear the area, let's say you stand on top of your future site and enter these commands (omit the # comments!) into the console (t):

//pos1
//pos2                # select the block below you
//outset 26           # expand (53-1)/2 = 26 blocks in all directions
//contract 22 down    # that's 22 to much up because you wanted 31 only
//shift 4 down        # shift the selection 4 blocks down so you stay atop
//set 0               # make every selected block air
//outline stone       # make the outer wall stone
//inset 1             # make the selection 1 block smaller in each direction
//outline obsidian    # make the middle wall obsidian
//inset 1             # again 1 block smaller
//wall glowstone      # make the inner wall glowstone, leaving floor and ceiling air

Now the hole should be below the block you're standing on and be embedded in a stone-obsidian-glowstone stack. To quickly get through it, equip a pickaxe and enter // to toggle the Super Pickaxe mode which destroys any block with one click (// again to get the normal pickaxe properties back). Alternatively, equip a compass and right click below you, this will teleport you to the floor in your still isolated space.

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Alright, I can try that. +1 – CodeAdmiral Jan 31 '12 at 16:57
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I'll race you, you download and install WorldEdit, I'll start placing TNT... – fredley Jan 31 '12 at 17:05
:) I'm on my school computer, so I can't do that right now.... – CodeAdmiral Jan 31 '12 at 17:06
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@fredley: Ok done. Did you get 9 gunpowder yet? – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jan 31 '12 at 18:32
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Best of both worlds? /set 46 instead of /set 0. ;-) – Ben Blank Jan 31 '12 at 21:08
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up vote 9 down vote

Another alternative to WorldEdit is Zombe's modpack. The 'build' mod can be configured to work much like WorldEdit but without the console commands.

Once configured (your hotkeys will vary), you can select the corners of the box you wish to hollow out, then remove all the blocks first by changing them all to a single box then removing all of that one block.

Step One: Make selection by pressing X, moving to the other corner, and pressing Xagain.

Selected Cube

Step Two: Fill the selection with your selected item (in this case dirt) by pressing Z.

Fill With Dirt

Step Three: Remove all of your selected item (again dirt) in the selection with LSHIFT+Z.

Remove Dirt

If you're looking to make outer walls, redefine your selection to be smaller after filling the area with stone or Obsidian.

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hey thanks for pointing it out, I think I'll also have a look at it – Zommuter Jan 31 '12 at 20:20
yes, that's nice and quick. Can you directly select air blocks with zombe's modpack? – Zommuter Feb 1 '12 at 4:24
That looks sweet! So does it just create a hollow cube, or is it solid? +1 anyways – CodeAdmiral Feb 1 '12 at 15:14
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@CodeAdmiral—It creates a solid cube, but you can create a solid cube, hollow it out, and repeat. You would need to dig into the cube to find the corners, though, but the build mod also lets you destroy blocks in one click, and makes your inventory infinite, so it's not that hard. – Dan Rasmussen Feb 1 '12 at 17:07
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@TobiasKienzler—Zombe's build mod selects either the block containing your head or (by holding CTRL) the block containing your feet. So yes, you can (and must) select two air blocks to make the corners of your box. In my example I stood on the hill and placed the selection over my head, then went down in the valley and placed it at my feet. – Dan Rasmussen Feb 2 '12 at 16:07
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up vote 3 down vote

I would suggest using a mod such as TooManyItems or InvEdit if you want a piece of land cleared very quickly, but that is no good if you're playing legit. If your playing properly I would suggest a diamond sword and a creeper rampage.

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How exactly would going on a creeper rampage help?! – fredley Feb 1 '12 at 17:50
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It's the first step in harvesting gunpowder. – Kalamane Feb 1 '12 at 18:25
BTW, I know this kid, he sits like right next to me at school. What he is saying is that if you have a bunch of creepers, they can set of a chain explosion... – CodeAdmiral Feb 1 '12 at 19:42
When you kill a creep, creepers drop gunpowder. – ProZantrex Feb 1 '12 at 20:05
@CodeAdmiral that's actually a good point - why kill creepers when you can try to lead them to your construction site and have them explode. Mwahaha – Zommuter Feb 2 '12 at 11:30
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