[MEGA IDEA!] Cross Map Canal

Archive crew and friends server
1

So…I’ve come up with a huge idea, that could take weeks to do, and I wanted to get out servers’ community involved! You all know the oceans on each side of the spawn, right? Well, I have a fun and crazy idea for us all to do! What is it? Building a canal from the lagoon [-14328, 65, -1210] SW from spawn, to the ocean [-14079, 65, -4497] NE of spawn. There will be a minecart railway running alongside the canal too, as well as a road. There are a total of 6 bridges to get across the river (in between docks), 3 ports, and one lake (by the spawn). This is going to be a huge advantage, and it will incorporate the nether hub as well.

ADVANTAGES
-This will connect the 2 oceans making exploring easier
-Fishing areas to get food
-Quick transportation across the spawn peninsula (boat, minecart, horse)
-Expansions will be easier
-Economy will be boosted by access to new areas and supplies
-Expansion of shops down to the reservoir
-Supply transportation will be easier by using the cargo track

Now here comes the hard part. We are going to need thousands of wooden fences, rails (powered, regular, detector, activator), stone bricks and buckets of water (which is THANK HEAVENS renewable), hundreds of regular oak planks, cobblestone, dark oak wood (NOT PLANKS), glowstone (or redstone lamps), cobblestone fences, beds, torches, glass, levers and buttons. Not to mention the tools that will be needed and the time that will be needed to pull this off.

Basics: The stone brick roads (on each side) are going to be 4 wide. The canal will be 15 blocks wide (always) with a gentle slope and a maximum depth of 4 blocks of water. The railway will run on each side of the canal (taking up one block of the road on each side) slowing to a stop at docks/ports and the option to continue on (press a button to power the rail) or hold up for the night in safety. You will have ender chests at the wharves. There also will be SOME food there, in chests, as well as spare boats, but don’t steal it all.

IDEA AS OF FEBRUARY 4th: Possibly add a cargo track next to the regular one.

Here is a BASIC idea for the canal.

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Tango/Minecraft/mc-canal_idea.png

It might help to have an approximation of the materials that will be needed. When I make a survey in game, I’ll let you know the near exact amounts.

20,000 Stone Bricks
23,000 Wooden Fences
20,000+ buckets of water (hey, its renewable fairly easily)
100 Beds
500 Panes of glass
150 Signs
50 Ender Chests
300 Chests
300 Dark Oak Wood
5,000 wooden planks (regular oak)
300 cobblestone fences
5,000 glowstone blocks (or redstone lamps)
20,000 rails (various types)
60 furnaces
20 crafting tables
300 stone slabs
200 doors
1,000 boats (as spares)
Hundreds of tools

Here is how it will be done

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Tango/Minecraft/mc-canal-2.png

Dig down like so, the width of the canal is 15 blocks wide. The depth is 2 on the first block in and 3 on the rest. What you do next is fill the area with water. Adding onto the canal can be seen below.

http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Tango/Minecraft/mc-canal-1.png

Now, you fill up the lowes point. Just fill up the area [pictures to be posted soon] and then break the walls down. The area can be 10 wide.

Now here is the question: Should we do this? I can enlist several MC loving friends of mine IRL to assist (and I’m sure you all would have some help come too). This is going to take a while, and first I want to know if we should do this. You can build shops down by the water, and make your own dock on the reservoir. This isn’t impossible, nor is it unrealistic. The nether hub will come in handy for the people who want to establish a villager trading system. Additionally, imagine all of the rare items and resources that you could discover!

ALSO BEFORE YOU POST. This idea is still in the making! I want to know if I have your support and help.

THE OFFICIAL LIST OF HELPERS
-Monstarules - Chief Engineer
-Froelich131 - Supplier/Digger
-Anonymous - Digger
-Altoids
-haux - Supplier
-fruityxz - Digger

Tell me if you want to help out! I’ll add my friends here too if they want to help

2

I really like this idea, but it would be better to finish up the spawn area first before moving onto an even larger project.

3

Agreed. As thufman said in IRC, I’ll need to provide you with some basic models for the canal, road, wharves (docks) and bridges.

4

I better start playing in this server again for just this project.

5

Good luck!

6

Someone call haux.

7

Great project. Good luck. Maybe I’ll pop up in again one of these weeks.

8

this looks and sounds really exciting, great planning…

please do this. get your friends. they’re trustworthy, eh?

9

They better be.

There is one snag, though. It crosses through 2 cold areas, and it is going to be hard to make the canal there, as the ice clogs it up and ruins parts of the canals. (I’m doing some tests on a superflat world and the problem has come up in areas with spruce trees). Unless someone knows any ice prevention that doesn’t involve covering it, please come out now so we can solve the issue.

EDIT: I know that under the bridges will be fine because they will be lit underneath by glowstone, and on the outside of the bridge will be torches (kind of like navigation lights), its the stretch where the area has no light in the canal that would bug me. The roads will be fine (lamp posts and shit), as well as the rails (made of fences). Maybe we need to light up the water on the sides of the canal in the cold areas? I don’t know.

I also will need about 10,000 wooden fence posts to use as survey stakes for the future pathways, so please donate some! This will be about 170 stacks of fence posts, which isn’t all that hard to get because I have a huge forest growing near spawn. You can drop them in the payment bin in my shop.

10

There’s a river that goes right through spawn, why not start the canal there?

11

Well, I wanted to, but there are a lot of buildings that might need to be relocated, and bridges that would need to be lengthened. I’ll post a poll on how wide the canal should be.

EDIT: I hate my keyboard… #1 should be 15 blocks, not 5

12

If this truly is a mega project then 10 blocks!

13

I wanted it to be 15 not 5 :3

I cant edit my poll

14

Ok I changed it to 15 for you

15

And everyone loves 15. I’ll let that poll run for a few more days. Also I’m updating the main topic again with more information. By the way, beta bridge, road, rail track, and canal pictures will be up later today. They are made on a superflat world so that you can see them easier. Keep in mind, we will need to terraform several areas, gouge out mountains, fill certain rivers/pools in, and destroy forests.

By the way, the carving of the path for the canal will probably supply us with most of the items we need…except ender chests. I’ll run a donation for blaze powder and obsidian near spawn, since we have an unlimited supply of ender pearls available.

On this subject, I just thought of something great. We can shoot chest minecarts down the track with powered minecarts/powered rails to the people who are digging so they have easier access to supplies. They can then shoot it back to us with the empty chest, which we can fill again and repeat the process.

ADDITIONS
-Added the cargo track idea
-Added “enlistment list”

A few people who I assume would help have been added.

16

Here’s thought… we have themes for particular “towns” around the river. so a town maybe around every 200 blocks or more and each town will have a theme and have one person who would be the “mayor” who would be in charge that the theme is maintained. anyone would be allowed to build as long as they follow the them.

Personally i would like to be the “mayor” of an old english theme…

if anything i said doesn’t make sense, sorry.

17

However wide you go with the canal, just don’t make every spot 15, make it longer or shorter in some spots…Or ignore me completely but just try to make it natural is all I ask ;_;

18

Canals aren’t really supposed to look natural :3 they are man made, and they kinda look man made.

Thufman: Good idea!

By the way, the pics will be uploaded an a little bit!

19

UPDATE Pictures posted on page on on how to dig and fill the canal

20

For some reason I was thinking a canal was a river like thing :stuck_out_tongue: