Forbidden Ant Farm Guide

STRATEGY GUIDE / WALKTHROUGH

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Starting off

You start off in a relatively safe place. The surface has a total of six trees. For now, your wood is extremely limited, so chop the trees only when necessary, as you have a higher chance of losing spare wood blocks if it’s in your inventory.

Without wasting any time, head to the source of light, which is glowstone. Get as much of it as you can, and spread it through the surface, remembering to light up the surface spawners. If you made a sword, which you probably have, use it to get the cobweb from the trees to make a bed. A bed is extremely important in the FAF, otherwise you will respawn in the EAF and have to get 15 levels before returning. To return to the EAF & RAF, break the bed.

In this part, avoid confronting mobs as much as possible. Full diamond zombies are slow, but they can gang up on you and it won’t take long to get killed. You also can’t destroy their spawners right now, as it requires TNT. But once you do have TNT, I recommend keeping at least one diamond zombie spawner. They are a renewable source of diamond armor and swords, which if you can trap it, will help you immensely, particularly in the start.

Being killed is particularly painful if you don’t have a bed. But if you are careful enough, you will get through this part without dying at all. Once you are done lighting the surface of the FAF, time to make an ender chest and get your items here.

Food
The only easy food source at this point is rotten flesh, though strategically killing yourself to fill hunger bar is allowed.

No Coal!
Like the regular ant farm, there is no coal here. You can make charcoal, but that is a colossal waste of wood. You can do it, but I’d use blaze rods instead.

No more wood?
In AFS 7, if you run out of wood before making an Ender Chest, game over. In AFS 7.1, there is a villager that will trade Blaze Rods for wooden planks. Keep that as a last resort though.

 

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Achievement 1
Ender Chest
Difficulty:
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

This may prove to be quite challenging, so why only 3 stars, you ask? You will see when we get to the final Forbidden Dungeon. It will make even the Forbidden Ant Farm look like cakewalk.

Here are the things we need to make an Ender Chest: water bucket, diamond pickaxe, blaze powder, obsidian and ender pearls. I’ll have an extremely ambiguous guide on how to get it all right here, as I’m trying to not spoil everything!

  • Ender Pearls

Endermen spawn randomly, so finding one may be very easy, or may take you ages. There is only one enderman spawner in the FAF, but it’s hidden in a cave. If you find it, it will make everything a lot easier. And of course, don’t break it.

  • Blaze Powder

Location of blazes is quite evident from the start, but getting it can be quite tricky, as there is lava right below the spawner.

  • Water bucket

In AFS 7.1, finding water is not as hard as there are several water sources scattered through the FAF. But in 7.0, there is only one place to get it, and that is a hidden lake of water. Finding it is a challenge, you will need to explore quite a bit. The only tip I’ll give is that it’s on the farther side of the FAF, the one opposite from where you start.

This is the point where you really have to explore the underground, so here are some notes:

Armor
You will probably encounter many angry custom mobs before the fabled lake, so make sure to farm the full diamond zombies on the surface for some armor and possibly a sword.

Forbidden Temples
You may find teleportation temples to the Forbidden dungeons, but I highly recommend to ignoring those for now, as the Forbidden Dungeons are huge and filled with angry custom mobs, which you are probably not ready to tackle just yet.

Spawners
I recommend not breaking any spawners you find, and lighting them up instead, as the mobs can provide useful resources if trapped.

PlayerBane
There are two PlayerBane spawners in the FAF. Those are speed-buffed auto-aggressive zombie pigmen, with full enchanted diamond armor and sword, except with no head. They have a chance of dropping rubies, which makes PlayerBane spawners by far the most effective way of making loads of money in the map. But of course, if not trapped properly, they are extremely dangerous. I recommend avoiding them for now.

Rogue Shops
You may find rogue shops along the way. They are not too hard to find, you may even dig into them. If you find all four from this point, you can already cross out the third achievement. You can already trade with them if you know what to do.

The magical lake is actually one of the safest places in the FAF. So feel free to… chill, or something.

  • Diamond Pickaxe

There are lots of diamonds and emeralds close to the bottom of the FAF. There are also lots of spawners close to the bottom of the FAF. I recommend trying to get diamonds as quick as you can, to use the least amount of wood possible in tools.

  • Obsidian

Not that hard to get once you have everything else, you probably know where to find it at this point.

Now you finally have the Ender Chest! Now return to the EAF, put all your super equipment (and wood!) in the Ender chest and bring it here if you haven’t already.

 

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Achievement 2 (Optional)
Destroy / Conquer all spawners
Difficulty:
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

I have made this achievement optional as there are so damn many of them; 66 in total. But hey, this whole area is optional anyway.
I don’t really know how to make a guide on this without just outright giving it away. So you’re on your own on this one! 😀

 

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Achievement 3
Find All Rogue Shops
Difficulty:
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

There are four rogue shops in the FAF. They are: the Magic Shop, the Currency Exchange, the Smuggler’s Den and the Variety Shop.
Before you can really buy anything, you must find the Currency Exchange and obtain Forbidden Coins. Forbidden Coins cost four regular coins, and an emerald.
Interesting things in the shops:

  • Magic Shop: Staff of Gathering, which has a huge looting enchantment on it. It can be later upgraded to the Quasar Staff of Gathering.
  • Smuggler’s Den: Cheap TNT and Splash poison potions! Nothing else.
  • Variety Shop: Many things, including The Do-It-All, which is a nice and cheap pickaxe that can also be used as a sword.
  • Currency Exchange: You can get emeralds back from rubies and coins back from emeralds here, but for a conversion tax of 50%. Lame.

The Mechanite Forge!
You may find a shop-like area with a bunch of lit furnaces on the ground. That is the Mechanite Forge. Things made out of Mechanite are very expensive, but very powerful. It may help you a lot in the Forbidden Dungeons. I thoroughly recommend checking it out.

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Achievement 4
Complete the Simmered Cave
Difficulty:
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Your best friends:
Fire Resistance Potions, Water Buckets, and Über Golden Apples

You can enter the Forbidden Dungeons in any order you like, but I will list here from very hard to hardest.
First is the Simmered Cave. It is very apparently a fire-themed dungeon. Navigating through it is not too bad with water buckets, but to thwart that, there are what I call Lava demons, or what you may call “Stupid, annoying midget zombie pigmen with fire helmets.” They are very fast, have a jump boost, are fully armored and their purpose is to push you to lava. They are, however, a renewable source of fire.

You may want to use blocks to just go above them, but beware of Blazes and invisible Ghasts. Yes. Invisible Ghasts.

When you get to the end of the main tunnel, look carefully for an opening in the lava. That can be tricky, and may lead you to think it is a dead end and that the only option is cry in a corner. It’s not.
The opening leads to a smaller corridor, with many lava flows and midget pigman spawners. Go through it, you will need to go up at some point, and you should see the end of the dungeon.

Break the obsidian in the shrine, which will reveal a chest. There, you can find the mighty Forbidden Pickaxe!
Press the button behind the shrine to return to the teleporter.

With the Forbidden Pickaxe, you can get up to a stack of diamonds / emeralds / redstone / coal with one ore, and it will take an eternity to break. It’s very easy to make money with it.

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Achievement 5
Complete the Withering Catacomb
Relative Difficulty
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Your best friends:
Swiftness II Potions (or the Ultimate Elixir), Potions of Night Vision, Potion of Invisibility, and Über Golden Apples

The Withering Catacomb is basically one huge corridor filled with soul sand, unbreakable wither spawners, and not light. The best thing you can do here is not fight back, instead just get to the end as quick as you possibly can. I have made a video showing a beta-test of it, but there are many spoilers there, including the whole FAF seen from the side.
The Swiftness II potion will help you traverse this hellhole quickly, Potions of Invisibility will make it so that Wither Skeletons don’t see you (Though the Withers will,) Potions of night vision will help you get through the dungeon, as it’s pitch black, and Über Golden Apples will keep you not dead. You don’t need everything I’ve listed here, but it makes it all a lot easier.

Once you complete it, you will receive the Forbidden Wand, which sends mobs flying, and never breaks. Very handy.

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Achievement 6
Complete the Tomb of Demons
Relative Difficulty
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Your best friends:
The Ultimate Elixir, Many Splash Potions of Healing, Potion of Invisibility, Über Golden Apples, and Mechanite everything

This dungeon is truly the stuff of nightmares. Not only it is ginormous, it has two floors, and it is filled with the worst mobs from the FAF. What more could you possibly ask for!

There is a good strategy to winning it; most mobs are vulnerable to Splash Potions of Healing, and it knocks them back when you hit them with it. So if at any time you get cornered with a billion mobs ganging up on you, Splash Potions of Healing can both heal you and knock them back a little. If you want an upgrade from that, get a Mechanite Elixir, which should kill every mob in its radius, and give you near-invincibility for 15 seconds. Downside: It’s expensive.

Potions of invisibility can help you out in the start, but even if you have more than one, it will probably not last you through the whole thing, and you may get completely mauled when the effect is over. So be prepared if you plan to use them. If you’re playing on 7.1, the Last Resort sword will be very handy as it lasts 10 uses instead of only 1.

As for an actual strategy, the best way of getting around might be using blocks to go above ground, and try to stay as far from the mobs as possible. When you reach what seems to be a dead end on the main corridor, look up. The second floor has PlayerBane spawners, so stay as far the ground as possible. Also, there is no rule against camping, so feel free to place a bed as a checkpoint anywhere inside the Tomb of Demons. Keep in mind though that when you press the button in the end to get back to the FAF, you can’t return here.

Once you reach the end, the chest will contain the Forbidden Blade! It would have been very useful in this dungeon, wouldn’t it?

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Achievement 7
Getting the Quasar Sword
Relative Difficulty
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

This achievement shouldn’t be overly hard, specially when you have the Forbidden Pickaxe. Just get two Mechanite Gems, combo it with your Forbidden Blade in the Mechanite Forge, and you get the much better looking Quasar Sword!

ERMAHGERD YOU WIN
AAAAA