After looking through the guide I sometimes see something that sounds useful only to find out after investing my very last penny into it that it needs a dozen other things to work or that some priv you'll never be given is required. Unfair. But this wonderful mod can fix that! Justice!
Ran into this mod on a server where I'd planted some mystic agriculture plants. The third mod that was involved was dynamic liquids. Alas the water flooded some diamond and mithril and mese plants away. I suppose the combo of these 3 mods isn't that common but watch out when it is...
Now I have a RAISED farm so that the dynamic water has much less chance to swamp it.
I give the mod a thumbs up in spite of my horrible experience with it because it is pretty "cool" to have floods wash away your crops just like in an old song.
P.S. Never played minecraft so I have no clue what all those references are about. To me the mod just seems a good touch of realism. Reality can of course bite but hey that's life.
I've used this on serveral servers and find you can make some very striking looking decorative blocks/tiles with it, especially when combined with Pyrite.
I've seen these on one server and found them to be amusing but useless. Sure you can make useful things from them but I didn't find it to be worth the bother. Just something else to use up inv slots. Never knew that they moved and reproduced though. I guess one would have to be feeling pretty sluggish to hang around them until you see them do so... ; )
When I visit a new server this is one of the things I always check for now. It's best to know right away how to get down in the mines. It has some helpful attributes such as automatically lowering the player as he digs down, passing light through from the sun if the shaft is so aligned, reasonably easy to make and of course at 450m long enough to handle most caverns that one might encounter.
The rope ladder is handy for a "throwaway" short descent as it is quite easy to make.
If there is a flaw... well I guess it does make life pretty easy and it would not be ideal for a hardcore survival.
Heh, funny I actually considered stating the range (3-11 I believe) that one might find on a server but since I am reviewing from the POV of online servers I omitted it since that's in the hands of the owners and not the players. I also almost mentioned the hiding trick. I learned a really cool one on a server from the owner. You can create columns of static water inside hidden protectors which appear to be just floating. But yes you make a good point that any "unsightliness" can actually be taken care of. If only more people knew of it we'd have less skies full of protectors. :) Personally I always want them in plain view (I make sure to never bury them) because I want access to tap them so I can see how far they extend. I use that a lot. Also helpful for faction or multiple player access (useful on a One-Life server I play where I put all my multis on each PB).
A simple way to mark your territory. The main disadvantage compared to the other classic protection mod areas is that it does require one to mine to -256 to get gold before one can protect anything. It is also a much smaller area (default 5x5x5) than an area. Visually it can also be somewhat off putting to see the blocks floating in the sky although that's easily rectified by using the badge form.
A plus vs areas though is that the area you can protect is only limited by how much gold you can mine. Of course that too has been abused by some players grabbing up large areas that they never use. A few servers have both mods installed and I find that actually seems to be best.
Overall though what can one say? Without this mod minetest servers would be nightmarish wrecks. Essential.
Yes indeed, I'd actually thought of that. The tips that appear while playing are very good but they are hit and miss. I don't think players really want to start the game and then sit and wait to read all the tips. No to mention they come in random order. After a little while I think most players start to ignore the ingame tips, either being busy or just tiring of them.
A nice written tutorial would be great. Not a "walk-through" but just something to get players pointed in the right direction, a list of things to start with.
For those of us whose first step is always to make a farm on a server this would be most helpful in freeing us up from always being forced to make the farm at the edge of a body of water. In fact I'm going to belatedly install this for singleplayer use. Wish I'd thought of that earlier...
Oh a suggestion, I don't think the introductory tips or such mention how to get RP. I just found that in a readme (saying it has spoilers but doesn't seem to) which tells one that it is farming. As for farming it is confusing since the ingame tips suggest avoiding the biomes & monsters that have seeds!
I think potential players would really benefit greatly from a very clear initial set of steps to follow. I tried following the set that was there and ended up just gathering loot boxes and losing RP. I did end up gathering an axe & pick and since I was bored I ventured into the savannah and met a monster that I just managed to beat. It had seeds. It seems that as soon as one has a axe one should go after monsters because that's where the seeds (and thus RP) lie.
It is a very interesting alternate type of game for sure but I think, like myself, a lot of new players are getting hopelessly confused about what to do. The usual route does not apply :).
I've only played this singleplayer and only a little bit (since I prefer multiplayer and there are no servers for this yet) but it seems quite interesting. It's more goal oriented than minetest game for sure. You have to attain certain objectives in order to unlock new ones. Looks promising.
What's cooking? Anything you want almost thanks to this great mod. : ) Is it essential? No you can live on bread and apples just fine but it sure is fun to try out all the crops here and make as many of the recipes as you can. Not easy! Some of the crops are hard to find and the crafting can be quite a process. It sure livens up minetest game.
Pros: The tubes and the pushing machines can be figured out reasonably well. Documentation is just about adequate. Watching the stuff float through the pipes is rather amusing as well.
Cons: It drops stuff from the tubes if the target is full. Funny I don't see any holes in the tube for the stuff to escape by... The mechanic is unpleasant, irritating and annoying. Did I mention it gets my goat and I don't like that it does that? Unlike the excellent Techage or Tubelib where it works as one would expect it to: Send an item only if there's room. The documentation should start right at the top telling people about this nasty habit and also the "fix". You need extra pipes to loop back and send the stuff back that didn't go in. It is weird.
The other major flaw is that activation requires either a punch or the presence of another mod called mesecons to "send a signal". Worse still the signal has to be repeated over and over to get it to act as one would expect automatic machinery to. The "fix" here is called a blinky plant that's gotta be pasted adjacent to BUT NEVER DIRECTLY ABOVE the machine to be activated.
While it is an extra thing to take care of it's not as annoying as one might imagine. In fact the need to keep in mind your water sources adds an extra dimension to managing "life" as a cuboid lifeform.
I've used this on several servers and it does make those worlds more interesting than if it had been absent. There's a progression of water canteens one can build but fortunately even the starter wooden one is reasonably capacious. Plans to cross the Sahara though could involve crafting the mithril canteen...
There are even automated (and quite costly) amulets one can make that automate either collection or consumption of the H2O. On Moonlight Falls alas the auto-drink amulet causes you to drink tiny sips constantly leading to an aggravating constant slurping sound. Probably an old version's bug.
The visual quality and the variety of beasts is stunning. The Tigers are gorgeous! I've had it installed locally since day one but sadly not very many servers use it so I've not had much chance to play with it.
I've yet to see a server using it but I've had it locally installed since day one. It's just a no brainer. Moving full chests should not be a chore. You can change your doors with a few digs and places. Same with most stuff you've built in your home. Why not the chests too?
I suppose there are good reasons why some servers don't use this great mod. I can't think of any though. : ) It's realistic and it is helpful (maybe hardcore servers eschew it thusly). Essential.
I've played this a little in singleplayer (no servers seems to run it) and it's pretty good. Wargs abound and my Elf hunts them. The pre-built flets are quite handy as ready made homes. There are a lot of custom recipes so it has lots left to explore. Wish there was a server so I could get more into it (singleplayer seems kind of lifeless).
I've used these on two servers now and I am very pleased. Oh they're hard to manoever at first but once you learn you'll be landing them on the tips of pyramids with precision. The cost is reasonable and the fuel needs are not excessive. Of course one must realize this is not a jet fighter. You won't be zooming about seconds after you get in. Light that fire, make sure you have enough water & wood for the steam engine and wait for the pressure to build.
It looks great too as do all the vehicles by Apercy. You can customize the logo and colours. Oh and it has a big trunk for carrying stuff too.
Milk those cows, shear those sheep and run around after them chickens fer the eggs. Yeah the farming life! Oooh just had a wicked idea about chickens, eggs and hoppers... : )
My faves though are the kittehs of course. Even the hairballs are useful! ROTFL
Essential mod. Where there are swords the armour will soon follow.
It is odd though that bronze has heal and steel not. I believe that's the default (I've seen countless variations of the mod on so many servers) anyways. Seems backwards since Bronze comes earlier than steel. But not a complaint since it actually gives bronze a longer use time. Oh and one does look better in it than steel. ; )
A magnificent work. Intelligently documented both on the web as well as a superb in depth in game guide with examples and even pictures (for the visual types like me).
It also plays like a game within Luanti. You advance level by level, although there is plenty of stuff you can skip if you're in a hurry, but I'd recommend taking your time (or going back) to explore all the wonderful devices you can build with this.
A tip: the examples given on the construction board are NOT the only way they will work. They aren't even the most efficient. I found a better, more compact way to build the gravel rinser for example.
If I had to nitpick (so that this doesn't become some fannish advertisement lol) I'd say that a few of the parts/nodes are not ideally named to match their functions. But it doesn't matter much since the docs will help you there too.
I review based on mods I use on servers and I don't think that one's in the wild yet as far as I know. I don't mind complexity at all btw, just inadequate rulebooks. I used to study 100's of pages just to play ultra-complicated board wargames back in the day but those were properly written.
No instructions for use. The wiki web pages are a laugh. Maybe if you studied Engineering they'd be worth something. For the rest of us it's a waste of time.
No instructions for use. The wiki web pages are a laugh. Maybe if you studied Engineering they'd be worth something. For the rest of us it's a waste of time.
No instructions for use. The junk in-game help is a joke and the web pages are a laugh. Maybe if you studied Engineering they'd be worth something. For the rest of us it's a waste of time.
Addendum. I looked through the code for the grinder and the costs to double your diamonds are far more than the worth of the diamonds. To wit: You need to have stacks and stacks of mese/diamonds to be able to upgrade the battery and grinder to a level where it can actually grind diamonds. Unlike the technic grinder this one will not make you rich, it first requires you to be rich as Croesus in order to work.
N.B. There is a alternate way to work the grinder using coal (or some burnable) as power instead of the battery. You need to add the fuel (at most 1 per second) to the fuel slot slowly until the grinder grinds. 16 coal for mithril/diamond btw. Then you need to add some organic materials (blue flowers/wheat/cotton etc.) to the dust and smelt it 3 times. Mithril takes 27 minutes (per smelt I think) to cook. Diamond 18. The cost in furnace fuel is high. If you're already sitting on stacks of coal blocks you're all set. :)
The one advantage this has over the technic grinder is significant though. It's infinitely repeatable not a one time deal (and works on mese/diamonds to boot). But by the time you can practically set this up you won't even want diamonds or mese anymore. Catch 22.
While they can be a pain in the rear they add an extra problem to be solved when playing on tough servers. How to get a permanent light?
They don't last very long (not sure if that's configurable - on every server where I've used them it seems quite short) but they can be relit with only a little hassle. Easiest makes use of the usually ignored flint & steel where you just point and click to relight a dead torch. If you collect dead torches instead they can be relit using 2 coal -> 12 coal dust & crafting.
It appears also that if the mod is added to an old world the existing torches all will burn out. Bit of a shock for old constructions expecting torches to last... : )
Oh and finally dead torches apparently still glimmer a wee bit. Luminance 1. I guess that's to help find them in the dark.
These torches are lotsa fun if you like to solve problems.
It's like playing with a 50 pound chain hung on your neck. Inefficient and hard to use. Endless clicking to get anywhere. No helpful features like other more advanced invetory mods have. Dull looking too.
The problem is that steel buckets whose recipe it overrides are required in many common and widely used mod recipes. Specific example: Mint tea requires a standard bucket of water. It fails when this mod is installed.
I used this to lock some decorative doors on Xanadu but when I came back next session they were not locked anymore. Does it only last while you are logged in?
Seeing this on mesecraft servers and it is quite fascinating to explore and then suddenly come upon footprints letting you know someone's been there before you. It's even a fine aid to navigation on servers where there is no teleport. Follow your own tracks! Surprisingly effective.
Also amusing is how the entrance to your home tends to get hard packed from the constant travel through the door. It takes a lot to create a trail. So far only a square or 2 in front of the doors.
The crop flattening I didn't realize was due to this mod. Makes sense though. It's not quite as amusing or fun. Gotta watch your step while farming. Large and deep fields are probably impossible when using this mod. The common 7x7 (water and 3 in each dir field) is just small enough although the centre crops require careful harvesting. On the servers I've seen this it seems that only wheat and cotton can be flattened although I've not dared to experiment (hardcore servers).
Cheap and very powerful. Rope Ladders cost a few cotton and go down a whopping 50 nodes. You can make dozens and just add another when you reach 50. Similarly for the boxes although they need to be removed to be upgraded. The boxes also are trickier to mine from as you might just accidentally cut the rope. Both have a cute feature whereby as you dig straight down the ladder/rope extends automatically and lowers you one node also!
The extendable ladders look nice but are pointless because the default wood ladders can be stacked up infinitely although they do look hideous stacked. The extend ladders also have an annoyingly shaped hitbox which, if you don't aim precisely, causes you to dig past the ladder.
After looking through the guide I sometimes see something that sounds useful only to find out after investing my very last penny into it that it needs a dozen other things to work or that some priv you'll never be given is required. Unfair. But this wonderful mod can fix that! Justice!
I like to relax and play as slowly as I wanna. This is just a bad idea.
Ran into this mod on a server where I'd planted some mystic agriculture plants. The third mod that was involved was dynamic liquids. Alas the water flooded some diamond and mithril and mese plants away. I suppose the combo of these 3 mods isn't that common but watch out when it is...
Now I have a RAISED farm so that the dynamic water has much less chance to swamp it.
I give the mod a thumbs up in spite of my horrible experience with it because it is pretty "cool" to have floods wash away your crops just like in an old song.
P.S. Never played minecraft so I have no clue what all those references are about. To me the mod just seems a good touch of realism. Reality can of course bite but hey that's life.
I've used this on serveral servers and find you can make some very striking looking decorative blocks/tiles with it, especially when combined with Pyrite.
I've seen these on one server and found them to be amusing but useless. Sure you can make useful things from them but I didn't find it to be worth the bother. Just something else to use up inv slots. Never knew that they moved and reproduced though. I guess one would have to be feeling pretty sluggish to hang around them until you see them do so... ; )
Never seen it in use on a server I think though which is a pity. It sure would make Zoos and Farms easier to have.
When I visit a new server this is one of the things I always check for now. It's best to know right away how to get down in the mines. It has some helpful attributes such as automatically lowering the player as he digs down, passing light through from the sun if the shaft is so aligned, reasonably easy to make and of course at 450m long enough to handle most caverns that one might encounter.
The rope ladder is handy for a "throwaway" short descent as it is quite easy to make.
If there is a flaw... well I guess it does make life pretty easy and it would not be ideal for a hardcore survival.
Heh, funny I actually considered stating the range (3-11 I believe) that one might find on a server but since I am reviewing from the POV of online servers I omitted it since that's in the hands of the owners and not the players. I also almost mentioned the hiding trick. I learned a really cool one on a server from the owner. You can create columns of static water inside hidden protectors which appear to be just floating. But yes you make a good point that any "unsightliness" can actually be taken care of. If only more people knew of it we'd have less skies full of protectors. :) Personally I always want them in plain view (I make sure to never bury them) because I want access to tap them so I can see how far they extend. I use that a lot. Also helpful for faction or multiple player access (useful on a One-Life server I play where I put all my multis on each PB).
A simple way to mark your territory. The main disadvantage compared to the other classic protection mod areas is that it does require one to mine to -256 to get gold before one can protect anything. It is also a much smaller area (default 5x5x5) than an area. Visually it can also be somewhat off putting to see the blocks floating in the sky although that's easily rectified by using the badge form. A plus vs areas though is that the area you can protect is only limited by how much gold you can mine. Of course that too has been abused by some players grabbing up large areas that they never use. A few servers have both mods installed and I find that actually seems to be best. Overall though what can one say? Without this mod minetest servers would be nightmarish wrecks. Essential.
Yes indeed, I'd actually thought of that. The tips that appear while playing are very good but they are hit and miss. I don't think players really want to start the game and then sit and wait to read all the tips. No to mention they come in random order. After a little while I think most players start to ignore the ingame tips, either being busy or just tiring of them.
A nice written tutorial would be great. Not a "walk-through" but just something to get players pointed in the right direction, a list of things to start with.
For those of us whose first step is always to make a farm on a server this would be most helpful in freeing us up from always being forced to make the farm at the edge of a body of water. In fact I'm going to belatedly install this for singleplayer use. Wish I'd thought of that earlier...
Oh a suggestion, I don't think the introductory tips or such mention how to get RP. I just found that in a readme (saying it has spoilers but doesn't seem to) which tells one that it is farming. As for farming it is confusing since the ingame tips suggest avoiding the biomes & monsters that have seeds!
I think potential players would really benefit greatly from a very clear initial set of steps to follow. I tried following the set that was there and ended up just gathering loot boxes and losing RP. I did end up gathering an axe & pick and since I was bored I ventured into the savannah and met a monster that I just managed to beat. It had seeds. It seems that as soon as one has a axe one should go after monsters because that's where the seeds (and thus RP) lie.
It is a very interesting alternate type of game for sure but I think, like myself, a lot of new players are getting hopelessly confused about what to do. The usual route does not apply :).
I've only played this singleplayer and only a little bit (since I prefer multiplayer and there are no servers for this yet) but it seems quite interesting. It's more goal oriented than minetest game for sure. You have to attain certain objectives in order to unlock new ones. Looks promising.
Yeah this one is fun. Step into the booth, take a seat and choose your destination. All with some familiar sounding sci fi sound effects.
What's cooking? Anything you want almost thanks to this great mod. : ) Is it essential? No you can live on bread and apples just fine but it sure is fun to try out all the crops here and make as many of the recipes as you can. Not easy! Some of the crops are hard to find and the crafting can be quite a process. It sure livens up minetest game.
Pros: The tubes and the pushing machines can be figured out reasonably well. Documentation is just about adequate. Watching the stuff float through the pipes is rather amusing as well.
Cons: It drops stuff from the tubes if the target is full. Funny I don't see any holes in the tube for the stuff to escape by... The mechanic is unpleasant, irritating and annoying. Did I mention it gets my goat and I don't like that it does that? Unlike the excellent Techage or Tubelib where it works as one would expect it to: Send an item only if there's room. The documentation should start right at the top telling people about this nasty habit and also the "fix". You need extra pipes to loop back and send the stuff back that didn't go in. It is weird.
The other major flaw is that activation requires either a punch or the presence of another mod called mesecons to "send a signal". Worse still the signal has to be repeated over and over to get it to act as one would expect automatic machinery to. The "fix" here is called a blinky plant that's gotta be pasted adjacent to BUT NEVER DIRECTLY ABOVE the machine to be activated.
While it is an extra thing to take care of it's not as annoying as one might imagine. In fact the need to keep in mind your water sources adds an extra dimension to managing "life" as a cuboid lifeform.
I've used this on several servers and it does make those worlds more interesting than if it had been absent. There's a progression of water canteens one can build but fortunately even the starter wooden one is reasonably capacious. Plans to cross the Sahara though could involve crafting the mithril canteen...
There are even automated (and quite costly) amulets one can make that automate either collection or consumption of the H2O. On Moonlight Falls alas the auto-drink amulet causes you to drink tiny sips constantly leading to an aggravating constant slurping sound. Probably an old version's bug.
The visual quality and the variety of beasts is stunning. The Tigers are gorgeous! I've had it installed locally since day one but sadly not very many servers use it so I've not had much chance to play with it.
I've yet to see a server using it but I've had it locally installed since day one. It's just a no brainer. Moving full chests should not be a chore. You can change your doors with a few digs and places. Same with most stuff you've built in your home. Why not the chests too?
I suppose there are good reasons why some servers don't use this great mod. I can't think of any though. : ) It's realistic and it is helpful (maybe hardcore servers eschew it thusly). Essential.
I've played this a little in singleplayer (no servers seems to run it) and it's pretty good. Wargs abound and my Elf hunts them. The pre-built flets are quite handy as ready made homes. There are a lot of custom recipes so it has lots left to explore. Wish there was a server so I could get more into it (singleplayer seems kind of lifeless).
I've used these on two servers now and I am very pleased. Oh they're hard to manoever at first but once you learn you'll be landing them on the tips of pyramids with precision. The cost is reasonable and the fuel needs are not excessive. Of course one must realize this is not a jet fighter. You won't be zooming about seconds after you get in. Light that fire, make sure you have enough water & wood for the steam engine and wait for the pressure to build.
It looks great too as do all the vehicles by Apercy. You can customize the logo and colours. Oh and it has a big trunk for carrying stuff too.
Two enthusiastic thumbs up.
Milk those cows, shear those sheep and run around after them chickens fer the eggs. Yeah the farming life! Oooh just had a wicked idea about chickens, eggs and hoppers... : )
My faves though are the kittehs of course. Even the hairballs are useful! ROTFL
Essential mod. Where there are swords the armour will soon follow.
It is odd though that bronze has heal and steel not. I believe that's the default (I've seen countless variations of the mod on so many servers) anyways. Seems backwards since Bronze comes earlier than steel. But not a complaint since it actually gives bronze a longer use time. Oh and one does look better in it than steel. ; )
A magnificent work. Intelligently documented both on the web as well as a superb in depth in game guide with examples and even pictures (for the visual types like me).
It also plays like a game within Luanti. You advance level by level, although there is plenty of stuff you can skip if you're in a hurry, but I'd recommend taking your time (or going back) to explore all the wonderful devices you can build with this.
A tip: the examples given on the construction board are NOT the only way they will work. They aren't even the most efficient. I found a better, more compact way to build the gravel rinser for example.
If I had to nitpick (so that this doesn't become some fannish advertisement lol) I'd say that a few of the parts/nodes are not ideally named to match their functions. But it doesn't matter much since the docs will help you there too.
I review based on mods I use on servers and I don't think that one's in the wild yet as far as I know. I don't mind complexity at all btw, just inadequate rulebooks. I used to study 100's of pages just to play ultra-complicated board wargames back in the day but those were properly written.
No instructions for use. The wiki web pages are a laugh. Maybe if you studied Engineering they'd be worth something. For the rest of us it's a waste of time.
No instructions for use. The wiki web pages are a laugh. Maybe if you studied Engineering they'd be worth something. For the rest of us it's a waste of time.
No instructions for use. The junk in-game help is a joke and the web pages are a laugh. Maybe if you studied Engineering they'd be worth something. For the rest of us it's a waste of time.
Addendum. I looked through the code for the grinder and the costs to double your diamonds are far more than the worth of the diamonds. To wit: You need to have stacks and stacks of mese/diamonds to be able to upgrade the battery and grinder to a level where it can actually grind diamonds. Unlike the technic grinder this one will not make you rich, it first requires you to be rich as Croesus in order to work. N.B. There is a alternate way to work the grinder using coal (or some burnable) as power instead of the battery. You need to add the fuel (at most 1 per second) to the fuel slot slowly until the grinder grinds. 16 coal for mithril/diamond btw. Then you need to add some organic materials (blue flowers/wheat/cotton etc.) to the dust and smelt it 3 times. Mithril takes 27 minutes (per smelt I think) to cook. Diamond 18. The cost in furnace fuel is high. If you're already sitting on stacks of coal blocks you're all set. :) The one advantage this has over the technic grinder is significant though. It's infinitely repeatable not a one time deal (and works on mese/diamonds to boot). But by the time you can practically set this up you won't even want diamonds or mese anymore. Catch 22.
Big improvement over the default leaf behaviour.
Dumb idea, badly executed.
While they can be a pain in the rear they add an extra problem to be solved when playing on tough servers. How to get a permanent light?
They don't last very long (not sure if that's configurable - on every server where I've used them it seems quite short) but they can be relit with only a little hassle. Easiest makes use of the usually ignored flint & steel where you just point and click to relight a dead torch. If you collect dead torches instead they can be relit using 2 coal -> 12 coal dust & crafting.
It appears also that if the mod is added to an old world the existing torches all will burn out. Bit of a shock for old constructions expecting torches to last... : )
Oh and finally dead torches apparently still glimmer a wee bit. Luminance 1. I guess that's to help find them in the dark.
These torches are lotsa fun if you like to solve problems.
It's like playing with a 50 pound chain hung on your neck. Inefficient and hard to use. Endless clicking to get anywhere. No helpful features like other more advanced invetory mods have. Dull looking too.
I see a lot of overlapping messy windows. No thanks.
The problem is that steel buckets whose recipe it overrides are required in many common and widely used mod recipes. Specific example: Mint tea requires a standard bucket of water. It fails when this mod is installed.
I used this to lock some decorative doors on Xanadu but when I came back next session they were not locked anymore. Does it only last while you are logged in?
Adding this to MTG creates a fantastic fairy like wonderland.
It's the sugar for a cup of coffee (MTG).
Seeing this on mesecraft servers and it is quite fascinating to explore and then suddenly come upon footprints letting you know someone's been there before you. It's even a fine aid to navigation on servers where there is no teleport. Follow your own tracks! Surprisingly effective.
Also amusing is how the entrance to your home tends to get hard packed from the constant travel through the door. It takes a lot to create a trail. So far only a square or 2 in front of the doors.
The crop flattening I didn't realize was due to this mod. Makes sense though. It's not quite as amusing or fun. Gotta watch your step while farming. Large and deep fields are probably impossible when using this mod. The common 7x7 (water and 3 in each dir field) is just small enough although the centre crops require careful harvesting. On the servers I've seen this it seems that only wheat and cotton can be flattened although I've not dared to experiment (hardcore servers).
Cheap and very powerful. Rope Ladders cost a few cotton and go down a whopping 50 nodes. You can make dozens and just add another when you reach 50. Similarly for the boxes although they need to be removed to be upgraded. The boxes also are trickier to mine from as you might just accidentally cut the rope. Both have a cute feature whereby as you dig straight down the ladder/rope extends automatically and lowers you one node also!
The extendable ladders look nice but are pointless because the default wood ladders can be stacked up infinitely although they do look hideous stacked. The extend ladders also have an annoyingly shaped hitbox which, if you don't aim precisely, causes you to dig past the ladder.