Agrarian Skies: VaultCraft

[Rendakor]

The next metal the smeltery wants is bronze, which is an alloy of 3 parts copper, 1 part tin.




I smelt down a tin ingot and 2 copper ore.



Each ore is worth two ingots, so in addition to the 4 bronze ingots I have some copper left over.




I pour the bronze into my ingot cast and finish the task. Next up, I need some gold.



Like the other ore, I get gold from sifting gravel.





I sift it, combine it, and smelt it...




...then pour it and turn it in; the previous ore quests have just give me more of the same for completing them, but this one's the exception. Instead of more gold, Book-U-Tron(tm) spits out a pair of invar ingots. I'll take "Alloys I've Never Heard Of" for 200, Alex!

[Paelos]

So do you win when you get to the end of the quests?

[Rendakor]

I'm not sure, this is the first time I've used HQM. I'm really interested to see if the nether is a skyblock too, or if it's a full dimension. And I wonder if there's a stronghold somewhere so I can get to the end (or some other workaround modded in). If I finish all the quests I'll probably stop playing, that's for sure.

[Rendakor]

Sifting for the gold took a lot of gravel, and yielded several other ores, including silver...



...which is my next task.





Done and done.

Next up, I need to make obsidian, which I get by pouring water onto lava. That sounds a little dangerous.




The water almost pushed me off the island, but I survived, somehow. However, my poor pick isn't strong enough to mine the obsidian. Time for an upgrade!




Using aluminum brass and a stone pickaxe head, I make a cast.




Then, I forge a new head from silver and put it all together. (Swappable parts is really cool combined with the mod that lets you level up specific tools).







I mine the obsidian, smelt it down, pour it out and turn it in.



The next quest wants diamonds, which I already found earlier, so I turn that one in too!

[Rendakor]

The next material quests are all for things I either don't have (Steel, Platinum) or I've never heard of (Enderium, Signalum), so I'm going to revisit an old quest.



It's monster hunting time! But before I even build a place of darkness that, according to Book-U-Tron(tm), will allow the Overlords to conjure monsters to try and kill me, I need a weapon!



A longsword requires a blade, a guard and a handle.





I make the casts from stone and aluminum brass, then forge the parts. I chose a bronze blade and iron for the handle and guard, because that's what I seem to have the most of. I name my blade Slicer, and give it a few swings to test the weight.




I build a small hut out of cobble, with a door to keep the monsters under control. My sword-hand shakes as I wonder what sorts of horrors the Overlords have in store for me...





Spiders, zombies, skeletons, oh my! I avoid blows from the giant spider and the zombie while slaying them, but suffer a grazing wound from the skeleton's arrow. Surprisingly, it closes before my eyes although I do feel a bit more hungry afterwords.



After vanquishing my foes, I light up the dark room and back away to catch my breath.



I open up Book-U-Tron(tm) for my rewards, including a pair of cow eggs which don't even register as strange anymore.



I also got a grab bag which included some mushroom spores...



...and a giant heart, that doesn't seem to do anything (because I'm not playing on hardcore mode and don't intend to).

[Rendakor]

Now that I have cows, time to milk them.



But before I, er, hatch them I need to expand my pen so I make some more fences.



While chopping down the old ones to make room, Choppie leveled up again and became more durable!




I toss the eggs and out pop a pair of full grown cows. Aww, looks they're already warming up to one another!




I grab an empty bucket and milk away.




Book-U-Tron(tm) wants me to get the milk out of the bucket, so I do so by conjuring barrels from thin air. Science!




I milk the other cow and repeat the barrel process, then open up Book-U-Tron(tm) for my reward, another cow egg.

[Rendakor]

Next up I'm going to make a cookbook, which I make by...cooking...a book. In a furnace. I roll my eyes at the Overlords' awful pun.

To make books I need paper, and paper is made from sugar.



Fortunately, I fished up some sugarcane seeds earlier and have been slowly stockpiling some.




I make the paper, then grab some string and a pair of blank stencils and put the book together.





I put the book in the furnace, grab the slightly charred cookbook and collect my diamonds from Book-U-Tron(tm).



Apparently I can upgrade my cookbook...using the two diamonds I just got.




Oh well. I don't actually need the diamonds anyway, so I make the better cookbook. Book-U-Tron(tm) spits out some iron and mutton, which are probably more useful.

[Rendakor]

Now that I can make books, let's revisit the quest for the seed journal.



The journal itself is made of seeds, crop sticks, a book and a quill. Seeds and crops are no problem, but the quill requires squid ink and a chicken feather. Guess it's time to diversify the zoo.




According to Book-U-Tron(tm), the Overlords will conjure squid in any sufficiently large body of water; I make a pretty big tank of water and wait.





After an hour or so, I hear some splashing and run to check the tank. Lo and behold, there are a few squid at the bottom! Slicer in hand, I dive in and chop them up. Covered in sticky black ink, I emerge victorious.

Now, for the feather...



I got 4 chicken eggs from Book-U-Tron(tm) some time ago, so I take them out. As I toss them into the pen in quick succession, I'm surprised that 3 of them are empty and the fourth produces a baby chick. So, cows and sheep hatch from tiny eggs into full grown adults with a 100% success rate, but chickens still have to grow up. Just when I was starting to understand this mad world...



A day or so later, the chicken had finally reached maturity.






I plucked a feather from it, fashioned the quill then finished the seed journal. Book-U-Tron(tm) gave me yet another grab bag and some strange dirt called Podzol.



The grab bag had a full set of leather armor!



I keep on my swimming vest since I still have to go squid diving on occasion, but the rest of the suit fits nicely!

[Rendakor]

Now that I've got steady sugar cane production, I can take care of this quest too.





I make the pointy sticks and the barricades, and turn them in to Book-U-Tron(tm).



The next defensive quest is to make iron spikes...



...which take a whole lot of iron. Maybe later.



Next up, a quest to make a grindstone...



...which takes quartz crystals; I get those by sifting sand.




I sift a whole mess of sand (which I get from hammering cobble into gravel, then gravel into sand) until I have the requisite 3 crystals.





I make the wooden gear, put the grindstone together then make the crank.




I set up the machine and play with it a bit, but I can't quite figure out how it's supposed to work. Oh well.



The rewards are some bones, another heart, and a grab bag containing...



...bees.

[Rendakor]

Another easy quest here.



Clay mixed with Quik-Gro-7000(tm) makes porcelain clay...



...which combines with a diamond to make a doll. This is a much fancier doll than anything my sisters played with as kids, that's for sure! The quest reward is another doll; I don't feel much like playing with them so I toss them in a chest.

Now, time to do some redecorating around the island.



I move all my tool construction stuff to a centralized location around the smeltery...



...then make a few more compost barrels and put an awning over them so they don't fill up with water.



I expand my animal pen so they've got more room to graze...



...and relocate my farm, greatly expanding it.



Last but certainly not least, I give my home a long overdue makeover. It's about doubled in size now, with a proper roof and some windows!

[apocrypha]

The grindstone: put ores in it then right click the handle to grind stuff. You hold the right-click down and the handle spins. Check it every now and then to see if it's done because grinding it when empty will break the handle.

[Rendakor]

Ahh. Seems more efficient to just use the smeltery at this point.

[apocrypha]

Yeah for sure, the grinder is super-early-game ore doubling   Only advantage over the smeltery is that it doesn't use lava!

[Rendakor]

I see. If I had found the crystals earlier it might have been useful. With the crucible and a cobble gen, lava isn't really a limited quantity.