The Sand Battle Dome is a current Player vs Player project.

Since the Atlantis project in Daniel Turner’s Fantasy Realm is on pause, maybe for good; I decided to start work on a new SkyThrusters Project. This is planned to become the Sand Battle Dome (that’s its initial name).

I am developing this Minecraft Bedrock project in a Vanilla world so it can be used anywhere and on any kind of Bedrock Minecraft Server or realm. I learned the hard way with the first project for SkyThrusters Development, when I used a world from the official Minecraft Marketplace to build it on. The problem with Minecraft Marketplace worlds and mobs, is they are locked with encryption that only allows that world to be used directly in your own offline Minecraft, or on the official Minecraft Realms server.

I didn’t realize that they were all locked down when I began the very first project, until I attempted to upload it to a non-official Realms Minecraft Server, and also a Minecraft Server on my own computer. It simply wouldn’t work. The only way to make a Minecraft world and template or mod work on a non-official realms server, is to start off with a completely fresh new world.

At least initially, the Sand Battle Dome is being based on the Nightmare Dome that appears on SellerThink’s SkyThrusters videos. The Nightmare Dome is one of those locked projects that can only be used on my own Minecraft accounts offline or on the official Mojang Realms for Bedrock. But for what it’s used for, that is not an issue.

Differences are of course apparent since the new dome is being built from scratch. It would have been great if I could have copied the Nightmare dome and pasted it into a new world. The Nightmare Dome is a SkyThrusters Development favorite.

While the Nightmare Dome, was built to pit mobs vs mobs initially, the Sand Dome idea is for a Player VS Player battle dome.

I’ll be developing the project with its own unique features as I go. It could be very basic, or I may implement some unique challenges that make PVP battles more risky. I tend to like to develop things that no one has done before. Even the “Escape from hell“, and “Catacombs of Sadness” mini-battle games are 100% original. Each new project gives me ideas for the next one, and there is a part of the Catacombs of Sadness, that popped in my mind as an interesting idea I could build into the Sand Battle Dome to make player vs play battle unique.

Of course it partly depends on how complicated I want to go with it, since I intend to release it for public use. If I can get Daniel Turner’s help in the Fantasy Realm to get that single repeating spawn block destroyed, than I will pick up where I left off on the Atlantis Theme area and finish it.

Otherwise I’ll focus on the Sand Battle Dome. I generally prefer to complete a project before moving on, but since SBD is still early in developing, for the next week I should be able to set it aside if needed to finish Atlantis.

Stayed tuned for updates. I’ll be making updates directly to this specific post as they happen.

Day 3 ended with one area now empty of water. But there is still 75% more to do.

Day 4 and still filling up the water slots of the Sand Battle Dome with glass cubes.

Some #Minecraft players talk about using sponges, but sponges are really slow to work with compared to the glass blocks. Glass blocks are easier and faster to place as well as destroy. Sponges on the other hand, have to absorb water when they are placed, which creates a mini-delay in their placement. I’m in a hurry, I want to place blocks as fast as possible, because it’s already going to take days and weeks to manually remove the water.

There is the option of using a FILL command code, but in my experiments, its not a very reliable method since at least in my experience, the fill occurs off to the side rather than around you in the center. It’s also hard to duplicate the natural block placement of biomes, in Minecraft, which I believe is really an important aspect to Battle Domes, both for appearance, but also for game play.

Using a fill command on the other hand generally creates block walls. The very best the could be achieved using a fill command would be a pyramid shaped dome, and only if you could control the placement and removal of the filling blocks. (Which either isn’t possible, of I haven’t mastered yet.)

Day 5 – Finally got all the water replaced with glass blocks. Yay! Next its time to remove the glass blocks from the Sand Battle Dome.

Day 6 – No more ocean or glass in the Sand Battle Dome. So it was time to install the new floor of Lapis and Emerald.

Day 7 Sand Battle Dome.

Things are moving along. Was able to get a lot of the initial design work done on the Sand Battle Dome. Including removal of the dunes at either end of the battle starting places. Installed glass walls to make the ocean visible from within the dome, and edited and cleaned up all the sand walls. Next I’ll probably begin installing the ceiling.

Final Battle Dome Design Work.

Final #Minecraft Battle Dome design. Now comes developing the theme of how it will work. Currently leaning towards calling it something related to survival and island, since its located in the middle of the ocean on an island and surround by other islands. Most of the islands around it are desert, except a few that have trees.

I’ll probably insert some of the following.

• Operator Reset Command Code – Reset’s all in-game triggers and commands to their defaults for the next time the game is played with new players
• Controlled mob and entities triggers
• Selectable day/night switch. The battle dome area is designed to look best at night, but there may be times that day or rotating time would be better for a survival experience.
• Battle Dome Trigger which sets time to midnight once a player enters the dome.
• World boundaries – To limit the range and distance from the Battle Dome a player can travel and restrict resources.
• Independent spawn points, so each player has to respawn at their own starting location. This would initially being wherever the players enter the world.
• A protected spawn location within the dome, so player can not be attacked immediately after dying. – DONE
• Unbreakable Ender-chest so player can store the supplies the collected. – Working on this with the help of Reddit Minecraft Coders.
• Players change from survival mode to adventure mode once they enter the Dome Island. – DONE
• Unbreakable Ender-chest at each players start island. That way they have access to their food, supplies, weapons within the battle dome area. (This would have to be placed within a boundary restricted location on their island)
• Mob entities roaming on islands would be Super-Entities like those created for the Washington Has Fallen Adventure Project, in which entities have armor and are invisible. (Quantity would be command controlled)
• Sub-Terrain Master Command Code Area (Area where all of the command codes and blocks are located.)
• NPC Guides on each Island to provide players with instructions, hints and tips.

Pondering these ideas for within the dome battle (Some may be used, or none may be used)

• Spontaneous Flash Mobs to attack battling players within the dome.
• Randomly appearing lava pits within the dome.
• Randomly appearing shooting arrows
• Randomly appearing higher level weapons in a single quantity, that players have to fight to obtain.
• Random lightening strikes
• Spontaneous Invisible Armed Mobs
• Perimeter around Island Battle Dome preventing survival abilities in order to protect the dome, limit activities to battling only. – DONE

Possible Game Play

• Players arrive at opposite specific locations (on different sub-islands near the battle dome.)
• Players begin in Survival mode – DONE
• Players have to scout for resources on local islands and pillage to create the weapons they will use to fight in the dome with. – DONE
• Timed initial Survival Mode. Players have a set amount of days and nights to locate resources and create their weapons, before battle dome.
• Scoring based on killing the other player (Weapons and Items are lost when player dies. A specific item introduced into the game (battle dome) that players have to battle each other for. Collected items have to be deposited into a Redstone machine which tabulates up to a specific quantity. Whichever player collects the needed quantity of specific items first, wins the battle dome. These specific items will appear only in the battle dome and only once battle has began. (A similar concept to making hoops in basketball.)

Had to tap into some additional brains for this project.

Thankfully, there are some great brains over at Reddit in the Command Codes Minecraft Reddit. Though I have already developed two mini-games and have a massive adventure world in beta testing, I am still learning. Just like in school, I need to understand what something is doing and why. That used to drive my math professors crazy, but that is the way I learn. You can follow the current Reddit Discussion here if you like. I’m trying to work on the Ender Chest task currently.

Download this world for free.

Want to download this world for free? Visit the official SkyThrusters website for details.