User blog:Mrob27/Hollow Hill Project

This page documents my massive ongoing project to hollow out almost an entire superblock full of hills and convert the inside into a sort of "Space Mountain".

Chronology

 * Nov 2011: I use my maps to find the highest hill and make a path to the top
 * Aug 2012: I add a connecting passage from the Block 130 exhibit chamber, ending in a staircase emerging at the summit.
 * Aug 2012: Add the future Dome 7 as a langing on the staircase.
 * Sep 2012: Add astronaut trenches around the edges of the hills. Begin enlarging the Dome 7 chamber into a hollow hill
 * Sep 2012: Add perimeter surface-level balcony; connect the Hollow Hill to the subway.


 * Like the ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, the sky outside is often seen from inside Hollow Hill

Path to Summit
Several months ago I used my mapping software (see Internal Data Format) to locate the highest hill in the entire moon, and made a road leading up it. Here is the view from the summit:



And here is most of the path, viewed from above:



I left this hill alone for many months, and didn't even go near it. Recently though I decided to make a Space Mountain out of it (well, everything except the roller coaster): carve out the entire inside of the hill, paint the inside black and stick a few mini lights on the ceiling to simulate stars.

The Main Project
Most of the work is carving out all the rock, but leaving the gravel and dirt on top. I do this in layers:



I happen to have a superblock boundary next to my hill that lets me take nice cross-section pictures from the side, showing how I hollow it out. After removing as much rock as possible, the hill looks kind of like this:



Then I removed the gravel, using the rock floors to work by layers:



Then finally covering the bare exposed dirt with black graphite.



Cross Sections
Here is a cross section of the hill before I began any excavations:



After adding the connecting passage to the Block type 130 exhibit room, it looked like this:



Partway through the excavation project the hill was like this:



This panoramic view shows the hill at about the halfway point. Parts of the project are just starting, and other areas are complete:

Here is a map view, color-coded to show the various "layers" or "floors" of excavation:

The bottom floor appears magenta; the 2nd floor is yellow and the 3rd is cyan. In places where two or more floors were excavated, the colors overlap: magenta plus yellow makes red.

Progress Gallery
Here is a gallery showing the stages of hollowing out one side of the hill and "painting" the inside black:

Other Stuff
During this project I did several side-projects and learned a bit more about the game.

Buried plants
There were several Plants growing on my hills and I frequently found bits of them below the surface, buried in the Dirt. Here is the bottom of a Spiral Light Tree:



In another part of the hill I uncovered parts of two GFL (Green For Light) plants:



Here is an aerial view showing these two plants from above. You can see where the branches poke into the hill:



Terrain Regen Bug
I have had frequent crashes during this project, and encountered the dreaded terrain regen bug for the first time.

Many of the photos above were taken from the adjacent superblock to the north, which (for whatever reason) happened to have a section of ice right next to a big piece of the hill. I made an archway, shown here from the inside of the hill and looking north:



One time after a crash I discovered it looked like this:



So far this has happened to three adjacent superblocks, but never the block I was in at the time of the crash. Since I make frequent backups of my iPad and save a copy of the Mooncraft files each time, I have been able to recover the lost terrain by manually copying backed-up superblocks into the main backup folder and then restoring the iPad from its backup in iTunes. (This is not an exercise for the faint of heart, and is impossible if you are using lunacraft Version_1.8.0 under an iCloud-capable version of iOS. I still use Version_1.7.0 mainly so I can get the backup files and make maps).

Underworld
Hollow Hill will probably eventually have a network of underground passages. There are presently just a few isolated underground chambers, such as this store room for blocks (in case a Blue_I steals a rare material).


 * The northwest corner has a dappled floor and an underground vault