Insane! How to Build Basalt Generators and Auto Bridges

Hello everyone my name is pixel riffs and welcome back to the Minecraft Survival Guide hope you guys are having a good day I’m having a really a great one today I think we’re probably going to start off this episode with one very important thing which I’ll find in my

Backup gear here yep we need this we’ll need some of these welcome to my new debris mining outpost by the way we’ll need one of these and we’ll do this with all of the nether right pieces in my inventory we get the challenge complete for getting a full suit of nether right

Armor somehow I neglected in the episode where we were upgrading everything to nether right to do a chest plate because I don’t really wear one all that often I tend to wear a lighter and most of the time and I had a backup chest plate in here that

Was going to fit the bill I didn’t want to upgrade this diamond chestplate because I want to preserve that as it was when we created it but now of course now we have a nether oak chest plate we have the full near the right set which I’m immediately going to put back in

This box because I prefer wearing my light tray and I need a gold helmet to stop the pig lines attacking me but still we have a little bit more of this set put together now and I honestly think it’s probably overdue so with that out of the way we are going

To continue with today’s episode in which we are going to be acquiring a fair amount of this stuff this is basalts you can typically find it in Basalt deltas and soul sand valleys in columns hanging from the ceiling or rising up from the floor and it is actually possible to generate a large

Amount of basalt if you don’t feel like going mining for it which is actually kind of great because while basalt does not have any kind of other uses than just as a decorative block it has it won a single crafting recipe which you can use to craft polished basalt which looks

A little bit more like a rundown at quartz pillar I think it’s a really nice block and the fact that we can get it renewably is very cool so in today’s episode we’re going to take a look at exactly what the method is for acquiring large amounts of basalt how you can

Generate it whether in the overworld the nether all the ends and how we can use this to our advantage so at this point I’m pretty sure you’re all familiar with how to set up a cobblestone at generator but just in case you aren’t I will run through the specifics of that here we

Need a four block deep trench like so we need one block to be slightly deeper than the others and we place water on this side and let lava flow into it from the other side the reason the water needs to flow downwards is because it flows faster

Than lava and if water makes contact with the source of the lava over here it could end up turning it into obsidian and we lose the lava entirely which is not a big deal when you’re in regular default survival worlds is a big deal when you’re playing something like

Skyblock and you have a limited access to lava but using this of course we can create an infinite amount of cobblestone and this process can even be automated thanks to the fact that you can place a redstone torch underneath there hook that up to a piston here and have that

Basically automatically shuttled along every time some cobblestone is generated basalt generators work a little bit differently basalt is a material native to the nether and you cannot generate it using water because in the nether water simply cannot exist even if you break ice or something like that in the nether

It is not possible for water to exist there it will simply evaporate you can spawn it in using commands of course for that is cheating that’s not something we’re going to be doing here in the survival guide so basalt has to generate by method that does not involve

Lava and water lava is still involved but there are a couple of other materials here first of all we will need some soul soil which can be found in soul sand valleys and we will also need some blue ice we have a material that is definitely native to the nether and we

Have a material that is definitely not so blue ice is kind of tricky to find if you find an iceberg biome chances are a couple of icebergs will have spawned out there made of blue ice you can also get blue ice from trading with a wandering

Trader or by grabbing a bunch of regular ice crafting it into packed ice and crafting it down from there into blue ice and the method for generating basalt is actually fairly simple and quite similar to a cobblestone generator we want one block of soul soil at the

Bottom here the lava is going to flow over that and then adjacent to the area above the soul soil we want a single block of blue ice now this is blue ice not packed ice not regular ice it doesn’t work with either of those has to

Be blue ice so if we place some lava here it’ll flow a couple of blocks and once it flows over the soul soil it converts directly into basalt which of course I then lose in the lava when I break it because this is kind of like a cobblestone generator and the basalt

Can go any which way when it drops now an interesting factor about this is that the block of blue ice we have to use silk touch to get that by the way the block of blue ice can be above the area that’s going to generate the basalt

Rather than to the side of it so it can actually flow this way and be perfectly fine but the sole soil always has to remain underneath the flow of the lava that’s the most important part of this the position of the blue ice can change a little bit the position of the sole

Soil cannot the other thing that’s worth noting is it’s not just a lava flow that is converted by this it is lava sources as well so if I was to place a lava source right here it would be immediately converted into basalt and we would lose that bucket of lava so we are

Gonna have to go and get another one it’s alright we have plenty of that in this world so back here in our nether research lab I’ve created this little offshoot wing here where we can do a couple of experiments with how we can automatically generate basalt and how we

Can automatically harvest it which should be a fairly simple process kind of similar to the way a cobblestone generator works but unlike the cobblestone generator we have to contend with the fact that the soul soil has to be below at the block of basalt at all

Times and a block of blue ice has to be adjacent to it meaning that we can’t use the methods we’ve already used to move blocks around in fact the same methods we’ve already used to move blocks around in our no Liam generator over here we cannot power the block from below and

Allow Pistons to do the work from this so this is going to work slightly differently as far as a generator mechanism goes I think over here we’re going to put some sort of blocks around the outside I guess we can use polished basalt for that so let’s make that in a

2×2 there I always end up thinking it’s like a peeler recipe because that’s what it ends up looking like kind of like the quartz pillar so anyway we’re gonna put the polished basalt around here like so that’s where our lava source is going to sit and we may as well just have that

Convert immediately into the basalt right here so put the sole soil there and we’ll put the blue ice there once the lava flow goes in like so it’s going to generate a block of basalt there basically right away the problem now is once that generates we need a way of

Detecting that to make sure that it gets pushed out of here and that is where things get a little bit more tricky because most of the compact methods of moving a block out of the way here involve observers so let me quickly set up an observer where it detects this block for

Right here we’ll have some redstone dust a trailing over to this piston as soon as the block generates there the push and pull of the piston creates a redstone clock because the observers detecting every time a block gets pushed in front of it when another basalt peace eventually generates it just obliterates

The lava source so one way we can get around this is by using something called a monostable circuit which was a circuit that used to be used a lot more before observers came along but it’s still useful in very specific circumstances right here we’ve got a sticky piston

Which is wired up through this block here so when the block gets placed or formed by this basalt making process the signal is going to continue through this comparator or a repeater it could be here and it’s gonna go through this block which actually has a sticky piston

Underneath it pushing it upwards that will channel a signal into this repeater which is going to output to this piston so when we place this it immediately gets pulled back out of the way so with a little bit of an expansion to the redstone all we need to do is place a

Repeater there and a little bit of delay just an extra ticket delay there and put a piston here so that after the block is retracted here this Pistons going to fire immediately and hopefully any block that we place there is now going to be shoved over this way not the most

Compact setup in the world and I expect there are people smarter than me with the Redstone who’ve been able to come up with something a little bit more compact but I think this does the job pretty well now for the moment of truth we have to actually generate this stuff

Naturally so by placing the lava bucket in there yep there we go it is generating basalt and everything is getting pushed out towards me in this direction not too bad and if you want to set up a system where the basalt is harvested automatically of course all

You would need to do is pissed and feed tape it like so around into an area where it’s gonna be gathered up much like the automatic cobblestone farm I created a while ago just feed it into a TNT blast chamber and let a duplicator do the rest of the work and of course

All you would need to do is replace the redstone block here with a lever and that allows you to switch the machine on and off making sure the power is cut to the circuit which moves the blocks around in the first place but if we really want to kick this design into

Overdrive we don’t need to build it in the overworld we need to build it in the nether that’s right folks the best place to build one of these farms is going to be in the nether and this all comes down to the difference in how lava flows here

So I grabbed some more soul sound and I’ve come out here to what is hopefully a relatively gas to free section of the nether so that I can build this contraption one more time block for blocks so you guys can really see how the entire thing comes together first of

All we need to choose exactly where the lava and soulsand are going to be placed I’m gonna put those there we all need to build up one block in place our block of blue ice well put some blocks around the outside here like so and when the lava

Flows over the top of this Seoul soil it’s going to generate a block of basalt we’re going to break down these redstone blocks into redstone dust and we’re gonna have a lever here with some redstone dust feeding into this block so that every time we turn on that lever

This block receives power from there we’ll grab some sticky pistons that will put one of those buried in the ground here with a block over the top of it we’re gonna use cobblestone for that and we’ll put a repeater facing into it like so I’m gonna switch off the circuit for

Now so that this doesn’t interfere too much we’re gonna have a repeater coming out of this as well we’re gonna put down at 3 blocks like so and one there and that’s going to have a redstone dust on all of it from there we’re going to place another repeater

Facing this way set to two ticks and then all we need to do is place in the sticky piston attached to this block here facing towards where the passat is going to generate and the regular piston facing in this direction so that the basalts will all feed out past the lever

Now it should be the setup before this whole rig but watch what happens when we activate the machine this time there we go because of the increased lava flow here in the nether is actually generating the basalt at an absurdly high rate and that has already filled up

The machines so if we wanted to mine this efficiently all we would need to do would be to set up a haste beacon around here grab our most efficient pickaxe in this case of course I’ve got my efficiency 5 near the right pickaxe and this thing would generate the salt

Probably about as fast as we could gather it as it is my nether right pickaxe can just about keep up with the salt production but that leaves me very little time to dodge over here and switch off the lever there we go just about manage that and yeah if you

Wanted to feed this into a TNT blast chamber here in the nether you could of course that you would end up needing something other than water streams to collect the items into hoppers maybe just put a bunch of hoppers down there on the floor of the machine or something

Like that but I really think this could end up generating a whole lot of basalt for you very very quickly but believe me my friends this is not all the potential basalt has in the nether there are some very very neat things we can do with basalt because

Remember a lava source block can be converted to basalt if it has both blue ice and soul sand adjacent to it and some very smart people figured out early on that it’s possible to build contraptions that will let you create automatic bridges across the lakes of

Lava so I’ve come out here to a nice big lava lake we basically have lava as far as the eye can see in this direction you can just about see the terrain here but my render distance is set to like 24 chunks so this is a pretty sizable area

Of lava the first thing we’re gonna want to do is prepare an area that we can dig down into and start building ourselves a flying machine or in this case a lava submarine I guess you could call it but we’re gonna need a little bit of vertical space here we’re going to need

To be able to dig down a little bit so I need to make sure that we are right up close to the shoreline of the lava here and that we have enough space to work and the way this mechanic works the ice is going to have to be level with the

Lava itself the soul soil is gonna have to be the next block down and then the flying machine is going to have to be a block below that so we are really gonna have to dig down a few blocks here I reckon we’ll need about four blocks of

Vertical space mainly because the flying machine is gonna be made out of sticky blocks like honey blocks or slime blocks which are going to stick to anything that is below them or as attach to them in that way so I’ll need to make sure we have a lot of space grabbing some slime

And honey blocks out of my redstone box we’re gonna come out one block from the wall and this is where we’re gonna start building our flying machine so we’re gonna build a kind of L shape like that so that one block is sticking up and three along here and this is actually

Where the flying machine components are going to go so we’ll place one sticky piston there another sticky piston there have a slime block here and this is where we’re going to start putting in the observers grab a couple of observers from the redstone shelcha box we’ll put one facing downwards into that slime

Block we’ll put another one facing downwards into that slime block there and that is the flying machine portion good to go now we need to add the blocks which I don’t you make the basalt in this case we’re gonna add Sol soil to this side and this side here over the

Slime block and soul speed effect again then the blue ice is gonna go on there and it’s very important that the soul soil goes on the back of the flying machine and not the front because if it goes on the front it will generate basalt blocks in front of

This blue ice and the flying machine won’t be able to push them very far or alternatively it will just generate one block of basalt and that will get pushed across the surface of the lava so what this is doing is effectively generating basalt behind it rather than in front of

It we’re going to do exactly the same thing on the opposite side and we could make this out of slime blocks but I also feel like we could make it out of honey blocks so I’m gonna include another flying machine over here and I think this is where we’re gonna have to expand

That wall slightly there we go it can be a little bit tricky to get rid of all of the lava but that should be fine and now we just want to make a honey block flying machine on this side and making sure that we orient the Pistons and

Observers the right way for this one because it does require a little bit of a different approach from the slime blocks instead we’re going to have an observer facing that way into that honey block and an observer facing that way into this block here the sole sound

Blocks and the blue-ice are going to be attached exactly the same way so what you end up with is this formation here with two soul sound blocks in the middle one sticking out the back on either side and the blue-ice there with the flying machines good to go on either side now

We need to start a firing mechanism which is just going to be a couple of trapdoors activated simultaneously using the same redstone circuit and we will need to make sure that there are not going to be any blocks in the way of this thing which means tearing down this

Entire front wall letting the lava flow in and checking the surrounding area for anything that’s going to obstruct it which will unfortunately mean we have to take one of these fire resistant potions and go for a bit of a swim I am gonna remove this observer from the circuit

And this observer over here just so I can place the trapdoors without these things flying off immediately it’s also worth making sure you don’t have any of these redstone at conducting blocks getting in the way of any of the Pistons causing the Pistons to permanently extend and therefore

Breaking the flying machine that way but now comes the fun part this is the part where we get to take down the entire front wall of this I am gonna remove my ender chest from in here although that won’t burn in lava it will be a little

Bit difficult to retrieve after I’ve set this whole thing going so I’m going to splash myself with three minutes of fire resistance and let’s get to work thankfully another one of the quality of life features of this update is you have a slightly improved visibility underneath lava if you are under the

Influence of a fire resistance potion so this is going to prove a little bit more useful when it comes to excavating the remainder of these blocks under here but really all I’ll need to do is make sure that they are taken out below at the level of the flying machines which as

You can see is I guess about this level here so we should hopefully be okay along here and if I can swim into position yep I would guess that basically everything is looking good from of this side and I’m gonna be on fire for the next five years it feels

Like but I think the only thing that is left to do is to activate this thing and see how we get on okay folks this is the moment of truth let’s see if we can get this thing moving in three two one and launch and there we go the bridge is

Being formed and it’s working flawlessly that is such a relief for a start because that was quite the setup process but look at this we have a full block wide bridge that is taking us all the way across this lava lake to roughly the other side it will stop a couple of

Blocks from the shore but that’s where we can go in and manually place them and unfortunately yes you may have to sacrifice these redstone components to lava because you’re fairly guaranteed not to be able to retrieve them unless you completely drain the area of lava on

The opposite side but I think this is absolutely fantastic as mechanics go and you will even find that some very very smart people out there have made automatic bridge construction kits which will follow behind with another flying machine and pull these basalt blocks out of the water or the lava rather and

Shape them and end up making them into a whole tunnel that can even be enclosed from Gast attacks or frankly look a lot more stylish than a simple flat bridge but as lava bridging contraptions go that is pretty spectacular and that is where we’re gonna leave this episode of

The Minecraft Survival Guide folks I do hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the salt generation and how it can be used to great effect let me know if you like this episode in the comments leave a like on it for me as well subscribe if

You want to see more and I’ll see you guys soon take care bye for now You