User blog:Scooter8pie/Brown Mobbed Beacons

I have to admit it, this test was challenging. It took the creation and resetting of more than a few moons. It was also a lot of trial and error. But I finally did it, I got a Brown Mob to explode inside a group of Beacon blocks and the results are in: Beacons transmute into Dirt (Topsoil) when destroyed by a brown mob's explosion. I have to say that I was more than a little disappointed with the result, we already have two other ways to get topsoil (Colorwood and Blue Gravel). I was hoping for something a little more exciting for all of my trouble.

I did learn a few things along the way:
 * If a beacon is placed underground the friendly astronaut will appear on the moon's surface. (If a beacon is placed at the upper block limit the astronaut will appear up there.)
 * Turrets are an effective way to kill friendly astronauts before the repetitive shooting noise glitch can start. (Thanks anonymous wiki contributor for suggesting this.)
 * I may hold some kind of lunacraft record for the most friendly fire casualties in a five minute period.

With this test I couldn’t use as many blocks as I did with previous experiments. All I wanted to do was have at least one beacon transmute into something else. I had to ensure that only beacon blocks were within the blast radius. I did the majority of work well in advance of placing the beacons. I trapped the brown mob as described in my Alchemy and the Brown Mob blog. I removed all the blocks from around its trap shaft or chimney. Then I dug a giant cave around where it was going to explode.

Placing the beacons, dropping it down the chimney and removing the chimney blocks took less than 5 minutes. My turrets up top needed replacing a couple of times and near the end I stopped doing that. I did start getting the repetitive firing bug shortly before the brown mob exploded, but for some reason that stopped and I was left with one friendly astronaut. He must have been a pacifist because he never tried to shoot anything (you can see him in last photo).

I killed him too.

The Killing Field
Mrob27's comment about fragging reminded me that I didn't include any photos of the blood bath on the surface, above my test chamber. That was the more interesting, or exciting, result of this test. As you probably know, when an Astronaut dies he drops a Disk. So, each disk in these photos represents a dead astronaut (48 in my inventory & at least that many still on the ground). I would feel bad about it if they were't so annoying.