Motorway Extension Gurus
The Motorway Extension Gurus (MEG) are a Nether highway mining group on the 2b2t Minecraft server.
The central objective of the group is to build, widen and extend the server's highways. Before the group's inception, the existing highways were generally small, short, and not suitable for long-distance travel. The members of MEG are tasked with digging tunnels that enable smooth and efficient travel between spawn and different regions of the nether with relative ease. Ultimately, this allows players to travel efficiently, as well as venture to previously unreachable regions of the map.
The dimensions of the tunnels that the group digs vary from project to project. The minimum tunnel size is 3x3, that being 3 blocks wide and 3 blocks tall. More recently, the group has switched to digging highways with a tunnel size of 6x4 for straight highways and 7x4 for diagonal highways. This change was actioned to 'future-proof' the highways and support cheat-assisted travel (i.e. ElytraFly, BoatFly, and/or EntitySpeed) with elytra, boat, or entity.
History
Founding
On October 15, 2019, Citadel2222 was traveling to the -X, -Z overworld border via the nether and stopped at -5M, -5M (-625K, -625K nether) to check if any interesting structures had been built. He flew around the area and stumbled upon a player name illville502 about 3,000 blocks away from the portal location. Both individuals expected immediate death. However, neither were hostile and so forth a friendship began. An interesting note is that at the time, the nether highway did not extend to -5M, -5M (it ended at approximately -4.8M, -4.8M at the time). With this in mind, the meeting of these two players in and of itself was highly improbable.
The two players decided to build a milestone at -5M, -5M due to there being nothing more than a small sign wall. For two weeks, they built a large milestone. This cooperation between two strangers on this relatively unmaintained highway was a significant achievement.
After this mini-project, the two players decided that their next project would be to extend the -X, -Z nether highway to the overworld border (-3.75M, -3.75M nether). However, to their surprise, upon re-entering the nether the highway had suddenly been dug. Both players were understandably confused, so they followed the extended tunnel and left several signs at the end in an attempt to make contact with the unknown digger(s).
The unknown digger was a player named VeryVon, who happened to be extending the highway with a custom baritone-based digging bot. After a short introduction and discussion, the three decided to band together and dig to the -X, -Z world border as a collective. It was on this date, November 28, 2019, that the Motorway Extension Gurus was formed.
Growth
In the months that followed, several players would run into Citadel2222, illville502, and VeryVon. While most encounters were brief, three individuals demonstrated a clear interest in supporting the group's objectives - they were DantezWrath, harritaco, and KevinKC2014. These were the next three members to join the group.
Upon completion of the -X, -Z world border dig, the group received a huge influx of people interested in digging nether highways, especially after well-known 2b2t YouTuber SalC1 released his video about the project. Most notable of these new members were Jonanen, Paragon, Kurakuea, and Parzi who joined in May and June 2020.
Several notable diggers joined the digging team in the late summer of 2020, consisting of Yesnik, JenixBlue, and ToxicAven, all of whom have contributed massively to the digging process.
Stash Incident
In late July of 2020, tycrek discovered a massive stash belonging to a shop owned by the reputable player ufocrossing on one of the highways. Being a relatively new player with little need for the absurd amount of items, he donated the stash coordinates to MEG to assist with future projects. At the start, the group decided to just steal crucial items such as pickaxes and golden apples. Partway through the operation, misinformation spread that a member of the group, maksitaxi, leaked the coordinates to the group Infinity Incursion. Upon learning about the leak, MEG decided to set up a self-grief trap on stash in an effort to take away the satisfaction from the Infinity Incursion. This plan backfired, as the tnt blew up only half of the stash, and the Infinity Incursion never ended up coming to the stash anyway. They kept it a secret from ufocrossing, but a member of the group messaged ufocrossing about the grief. This caused the first member in the history of MEG to be kicked out of the group because they did not want a bad relationship with such a well-known player. The relationship between ufocrossing and MEG was hampered after the incident. Though, due to MEG maintaining a low profile this has mostly been ignored. MEG retains a neutral relationship with the majority of groups on the server.
Completion of Diagonal Highways and Some
Following the completion of the (-X, -Z) world border project, the group made it their objective to dig the remaining three diagonal highways to the world border. The first of these new digging projects (+X, +Z) was completed in just three months and was primarily dug by harritaco, Jonanen, and KevinKC2014. All three were digging nearly 24/7.
Upon the completion of the (+X, +Z) world border dig, the digging bot was further optimized and the diggers learned how to use it effectively without disruptions for longer periods. This meant the remaining two diagonal highways could be completed at a faster pace.
On October 14, 2020, the third diagonal highway, (+X, -Z), was completed to the world border. It was dug out by the now well-known diggers illville502, Citadel2222, and tycrek.
The dig of the final diagonal highway, the (-X, +Z) highway, was markedly delayed, having been severely impacted by Elytra-flight being patched on September 4, 2020. The dig was also slowed due to block-breaking not working as intended on the server. That is until a member decided to email Hausemaster, who was then able to fix the problem and improve digging speeds. At the start the project was slow-moving, but it quickly picked up pace as the diggers 'hyper-focused' on the final dig. Being only halfway in after 3 months, the pace really picked up after New Year. The final highway dig was completed on February 12, 2021. This marks the date on which all diagonal nether-highways had finally reached the Overworld world border on the server.
Due to the growing size of the group at this point, MEG expanded its ambitions in late July of 2021 and started working on more projects at once. Most notable of the completed projects include the +X highway expansion (widened to 6x4), digging of the 125K, 250K, 500K, 750K, and 1M ring roads. The 125K ring road was also paved.
1B Netherrack Dug and The Highway to Connect Them All
With 2021 came the release of an extremely powerful and digging tool known as Highway Tools, which was developed by Constructor. After benchmarking this new tool and comparing it to the old digging bot, MEG decided to try and hit 1 billion total netherrack dug before the end of 2021. This goal proved easy with the new automation provide by Highway Tools and MEG hit 1 billion total netherrack dug on the 17th of May 2021.
It was joked around in mid-2020, but MEG now realized they had the capability to dig the World Border Ring Road within a reasonable timeframe due to the aid of the new Highway Tools module. Near the end of 2020, MEG started the project by assigning eight different 'legs' to the diggers. This would be the biggest project in 2b2t history, with over 720,000,000 netherrack being dug and thousands of hours being dedicated to the project. The project was completed on the 1st of August, 2021.
The Highway to Nether World Border
A lone digger, Hare_Hare_Yukai took the task of digging to the +X nether world border into his own hands. He began digging a 1x2 tunnel which was parallel and 28.5k blocks away from the +X highway. He documented the entire journey in a detailed report, while also experimenting with the fastest way of digging. In the end, he got to around 300k nether per day (which is about 3x as fast as a normal 6x4 tunnel). Upon reaching the world border, Yukai asked to be part of the MEG crew, which was accepted with delight.
Race to the 10th digit
Since the start of the World Border Ring Road, the netherrack count has exploded. This has largely been carried by 3 main players; Kurakuea, Hare_Hare_Yukai and Harritaco. These players has (as of 10th of March 2022) collectively 2.4 billion netherrack mined. Digging has almost been an addiction for these 3; especially for Kurakuea, who has been digging virtually non-stop since July of 2020. The limit of how many blocks can be mined per second has been reached with HighwayTools, which means the only way of increasing the netherrack count is by adding more digging accounts. This has especially been true for Hare_Hare_Yukai, who since reaching the Nether World Border, has been digging with 6 total accounts at any given moment. With these accounts, there was a new goal for each individual: Hit 1 billion or die trying. On the 16th of February 2022, Kurakuea was the first player in Minecraft history to reach this milestone, with Hare_Hare_Yukai close in his footsteps at 750 million netherrack. Even though the 1 billion milestone is reached, all 3 players are still actively digging with a collective 13 accounts online at any given moments.
Insanity truly begins
MEG's mission has been relatively straight forward from the start: Expand the servers nether highway infrastructure. This was a simple mission, as the network was not very large in the start. However, as the projects became larger and larger, so became the effort required to complete them. Ring roads and highways started going out in the millions, which meant the distances became further and further. This discouraged a lot of beginner diggers, as new players had to travel weeks or months to even begin digging. The projects became equally bigger, which meant that the projects started taking much longer, upwards of a whole year. However the momentum has not stopped for the diggers, as MEG has dug over 5.3 billion netherrack in 2022, which is more than 2.5 times what was dug in 2021. A lot of giant projects were completed during the year, however they will be announced in 2023, when everything is completely finished.
Members
| Role | Names |
|---|---|
| Founders | Citadel2222, illville502, VeryVon |
| Staff | DantezWrath, KevinKC2014, harritaco, tycrek, Kurakuea, FreedomHolland
Jonanen, Jenixblue, Yesnik, reitano12 |
| Ranked Diggers | Roy4lRondi, ToxicAven, Fiofri, apcayss, Cap Digger K, Dane_Jah, frencheagle, Hare_Hare_Yukai
Paragon, Queen Kazma, Rhino, Yikyu, Zock, Juderenee |
| Prospectives | ana, EBS, entropy_d, megamasterbloc_86, wemonitoryou, yeetus, Zeenyo |
| Illville502 was a new player in the 2b2t scene when he decided to make his own stash far out. He made it near the 5-million checkpoint on the -,- highway, as he didn't expect anyone to be so far out. However, by chance, another player, Citadel2222, showed up at the stash and those two became friends. They decided to dig the -,- highway to the world border, which started the basic principles of MEG. Illville502 is not digging actively recently, however, he is still very active on the community discord, and a beloved member of MEG. | On his way on the -X,-Z highway, citadel2222 decided to stop at the 5-million checkpoint. This highway was barely dug, and getting there required a lot of manual work. Randomly, Citadel2222 stomped on a dupe stash with illville502 in it. The two decided to team up, which is essentially the start of MEG. Being one of the founders, he is extremely active and manages the community on a day-to-day basis. | A lone digger with big ambitions, who made his own custom bot to dig diagonal highways. VeryVon had the same ambitions as citadel2222 and illville502, which was to reach the -,- wb. The day illville502 and citadel222 teamed up with VeryVon, was the day MEG was officially created. VeryVon's bot was the backbone of the group at the time. Sadly, VeryVon left 2b before the -,- wb dig was complete. | DantezWrath is a core member of the MEG crew from very early on. He joined MEG after hearing about the -,- wb dig, which was in its early stages when he started. He was a crucial and active digger, and his digging efforts were key to the completion of the highway. Nowadays DantezWrath isn't very active on 2b2t due to his personal life but appears sometimes in the discord server. His legacy is known by all diggers in MEG. | KevinKC2014 came across the -8M, -8M milestone built by MEG, after further findings from Reddit posts, he joined the group about a month before the -,- wb dig was complete. A proficient programmer, he took over the bot VeryVon made. Over the coming months, the bot was improved to be faster, more stable, and secure due to his improvements. KevinKC2014's improvements to the bot were crucial for the last 4 highways to be completed. KevinKC2014 took a break after the completion of the +,+ wb dig, but is planning to return in the summer of 2021.*Currently still away | After returning to 2b2t in March 2020, harritaco, also known as superbad0315, sought out an active group as he wanted to participate in a server project. He decided to search for an infrastructure group, and MEG was the most appealing. He assisted in the first MEG highway project, the -- diagonal highway. He later led the ++ dig. harritaco has also contributed to the widening of the -Z highway, as well as the digging and paving of 125k Ring Road. | From the second Jonanen joined the server, he had one objective: To help extend/maintain the highways. After going solo for about 2 weeks repairing highways near 0,0, Jonanen heard the -,- dig was complete. He gathered up a full echest of pickaxes, and made his way to the +,+ dig site, where he met up with Harritaco and joined MEG. He was the first European to join the group. Ever since then, Jonanen has been an active contributor to MEG involved in projects such as the ++ wb dig and 250k ring road. |
| Tycrek was an early bright light in the digging scene. A week after it was announced -,- was completed, tycrek decided to join in the digging efforts, primarily focusing on the completion of the +,- and -,+ highway. Tycrek is a proficient programmer and has contributed to the group with a custom website, along with other projects such as the MEG netherrack bot. Tycrek was the one to find the UFOCrossing stash, which would later result in a large conflict between the 2 groups due to another member leaking the news. Tycrek is still an extremely active and respected member of the community and has contributed massively to recent MEG projects. | An absolute behemoth of a digger; Kurakuea is the top digger in MEG, being the first Minecraft player to have mined over 1 BILLION netherrack, making up 26.7% of the group's total netherack mined. Kurakuea joined the MEG discord after running into Jumboman, Paragon, and Rondi at the (then) end of -+ diagonal at 140,000 nether. After establishing himself on the server, he agreed to dig +X to the world border at 3x3 and became an official digger. Kurakuea is well known for his "botfarm", due to his 3 accounts digging 24/7. He's now one of the administrators of the discord server, making him one of the most influential people in MEG. | After hearing about the completion of the -,- wb dig, Roy4lRondi was intrigued by the community goals of MEG. He strapped himself on board and went down to the least popular -,+ dig, which ended at the time at 325k nether. Here he met up with Citadel2222, who ended up inviting Rondi to the group. Rondi thereafter spent 8 months digging the -,+ highway, which he for the most part did alone. Roy4lRondi is still digging for the crew and is still active on the discord server. | MEG was a group that Yesnik wanted to help out in since his start in 2B. His first steps into MEG was when he handed over a 20-ish double chest dupe stash he made of various highway worker's supplies. He also assisted with paving the 125k RR funded by his own means. Since then, he has been an active digger himself and the rest is history. | After 3 months of lurking on the MEG Discord server, ToxicAven decided to join in on the massive effort MEG was doing at the time. On the 19th of December, ToxicAven became an official digger for MEG. She's a proficient programmer, who often contributes to the programming tasks that MEG offers. She made the "Traveller" bot on the discord server, which helps keep track of the current netherrack count of the group. ToxicAven was one of the most active diggers in the early parts of 2021 and continues to stun with her impressive contributions to the Lambda client. | JenixBlue joined in mid-October 2020 after seeing the video SalC1 made on the group. He was dedicated to improving the infrastructure on the server, and on New Year's Eve, JenixBlue officially joined the crew and has helped dig and pave the 125k Ring Road and has over 100 Million netherrack mined. | After a recent patch, Fiofri became bored as he couldn't dupe anymore. He decided to walk to the +,+ world border and found the checkpoint was griefed. He started renovating it while being in contact with MEG. After he fixed it, Fiofri was asked to join a new project with MEG, which he happily accepted. Fiofri has been extremely active and digging away like there's no tomorrow. |
Highways
Diagonal highways
The diagonal highways extend from 0,0 in each of the four diagonal directions (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest) to the overworld world borders. Diagonal highways are 5.3 million blocks or 5,303 kilometers long.
-X, -Z
This was the servers and groups first completed diagonal highway, which was dug from spawn to the -X, -Z world border. This dig was completed by Citadel2222, illville502, VeryVon, DantezWrath, KevinKC2014, and harritaco.
Milestones
- -10M, -10M reached on 8th of January, 2020.
- -20M, -20M reached on 12th of April, 2020.
- -30M, -30M reached on 26th of May, 2020
+X, +Z
This was the server's second completed diagonal highway, which was dug from spawn to the +X, +Z world border. This dig was completed by KevinKC2014, Jonanen, harritaco, Paragon, and 5K5K.
Milestones
- +10M, +10M reached on 9th of July, 2020.
- +20M, +20M reached on 13th of August, 2020.
- +30M, +30M reached on 4th of September, 2020.
+X, -Z
This was the server's third completed highway, which was dug from spawn to the +X, -Z world border. This dig was completed by illville502, Citadel2222, and tycrek.
Milestones
- +10M, -10M reached on 24th of July, 2020.
- +20M, -20M reached on 2nd of September, 2020.
- +30M, -30M reached on 14th of October, 2020.
-X, +Z
The fourth and final highway was finally completed in 2021. The completion of this highway marks all diagonal highways finished to the world border at MEG's 3x3 minimum tunnel size. This dig was completed by Roy4lRondi, tycrek, Citadel2222, Juderenee, and Frencheagle.
Milestones
- -10M, +10M reached on 5th of August, 2020.
- -20M, +20M reached on 31st of December, 2020.
- -30M, +30M reached on 13th of February, 2021.
Cardinal highways
These are secondary highways that are not the main focus of MEG. They are being worked on but are not the main priority, at least until the diagonal highways are completed.
+X
This tunnel was originally dug by the +X Digging Group 1 wide, 2 high. MEG subsequently widened this highway to 3 wide, 3 high to improve travel speed for individuals using elytra and/or boat flight.
This dig was completed by Kurakuea and Justen.
Milestones
- +10M 3x3 reached on 23th of August, 2020.
- +20M 3x3 reached on 4th of September, 2020.
- +30M 3x3 reached on 26th of September, 2020.
- +10M 6x4 reached on 16th of March, 2021.
- +20M 6x4 reached on 13th of April, 2021.
- +30M 6x4 reached on 4th of May, 2021.
- As of May the 16th, 2021, player Hare_Hare_Yukai would complete digging the + X to the nether world boarder (30 Million Nether) under the MEG name
-X
The highway was extended from the Overworld worldborder (3.75M) to the Nether world border (30M) in the usual 6x4 format with clean walls, ceiling and floor. This extension started on the 19th of September, 2022 and took 10 months to complete. This dig was completed by Justen and Duke (Frencheagle).
Milestones
- +10M 6x4 reached on 22th of February, 2021.
- +20M 6x4 reached on 28th of March, 2021.
- +30M 6x4 reached on 2nd of May, 2021.
- -30M (nether) reached on 20th of June, 2022.
+Z
Milestones
- +10M 6x4 reached on 2nd of February, 2021.
- +20M 6x4 reached on 13th of March, 2021.
- +30M 6x4 reached on 19th of April, 2021.
- +30M (nether) reached on 30th of April, 2022 by Hare_Hare_Yukai and Harritaco.
-Z
The first cardinal direction to be widened for paving to 6x4, previously only 1x2. Originally the widening project was started by 2 Highway Workers Union workers, but within a week the project was halted as the 2 workers disbanded. The project started getting traction again after the completion of the 250k ring road, as Harritaco started digging it. Yesnik soon joined in on the action as well. FreedomHolland came in a little bit after Yesnik and together, the three crushed it in no time.
This dig was completed by Harritaco, Yesnik, and FreedomHolland
Milestones
- -10M reached on 14th of February, 2021.
- -20M 6x4 reached on 11th of March, 2021.
- -30M 6x4 reached on 31th of March, 2021.
- -30M (nether) reached on 28th of May, 2022 by Hare_Hare_Yukai, Harritaco, Yikyu and Enderlover.
Ring roads
Nether ring roads make it significantly easier to travel between each of the eight highways, allowing a player to reach off-axis coordinates with minimal open nether travel. MEG has completed several of these ring road projects to reduce travel times for the server's player base by several magnitudes.
125K
After completion of the -X, -Z highway, MEG created the 125K nether ring road, which equates to 1M overworld. The dig was started on the 9th of June, 2020.
Once the dig was completed, paving of the 125K ring road was initiated on the 19th of August, 2020. This project would use 5 million obsidian and took approximately 5 months to reach completion. This project was completed by Harritaco, Paragon802, CorruptedSeal, illville502, and DantezWrath.
Milestones
- The 125k ring road was completed on the 1st of August, 2020.
- Paving the entire ring road was completed on the 13th of January, 2021.
250k
Along with the last diagonal highway being dug, MEG raised its ambitions to dig out yet another ring road. This time it would be at 250k nether or 2 million blocks overworld. This project required 18 million netherrack to be mined. This dig was completed by Harritaco, Jonanen, and Paragon.
Milestones
- The 250k ring road was started on the 1st of December 2020.
- The dig was completed on the 3rd of January 2021.
Statistics
As of the 23rd of December 2022, the group has dug 7,059,817,487 netherrack.
Since the group's inception (28th of November, 2019), 262,407 netherrack has been dug per hour, or 6,297,785 netherrack per day.
MEG currently digs around 119 million netherrack per week. This varies a lot, between 33.6 million and 154 million from a week to week basis.
A digger account digs on average 750,000 netherrack per day, meaning between 6 and 30 digging accounts are online and digging at any given moment. MEG is currently averaging 22 accounts online at all times.
Each highway (3.75 million blocks) takes on average 2900 hours to complete, and even more before HighwayTools was the standard tool.
MEG has used over 1.1 million pickaxes, or over 42000 shulker boxes full of pickaxes.
The most influential diggers with the highest netherrack count are as followed:
| Member of MEG | Netherrack dug | Accounts |
|---|---|---|
| Kurakuea | 2,396,958,737 | 6 |
| Hare_Hare_Yukai | 1,033,214,538 | 7 |
| Harritaco | 834,000,000 | 3 |
| Yikyu | 823,953,278 | 6 |
| Queen Kazma | 157,901,382 | 1 |
| reitano12 | 137,455,835 | 2 |
| Fiofri | 133,259,559 | 1 |
| JenixBlue | 121,071,544 | 3 |
| Mr. Potato | 120,649,922 | 2 |
| Citadel2222 | 110,000,000 | 2 |
| Yesnik | 101,541,170 | 1 |
| Free Memes | 95,000,000 | 2 |
| illville502 | 78,343,535 | 1 |
| FreedomHolland | 73,657,884 | 1 |
| Cap with a K | 70,000,000 | 1 |
| frencheagle | 69,696,969 | 1 |
| tycrek | 60,500,000 | 1 |
| entropy_d | 54,809,585 | 1 |
| Plentover | 53,500,000 | 2 |
| Orange | 51,143,026 | 1 |
| megamasterbloc | 50,000,000 | 1 |
| Aven | 43,391,972 | 1 |
| BloodyNoah | 43,000,000 | 1 |
| eternal_fin | 43,000,000 | 1 |
| Zock | 42,600,000 | 3 |
| katmite | 33,000,000 | 1 |
| Tullybob | 27,500,000 | 1 |
| Rhino | 25,000,000 | 2 |
| KevinKC2014 | 19,352,381 | 1 |
| jumboman32 | 18,125,000 | 3 |
| goodbobonline | 16,115,000 | 1 |
| Alligaytour | 13,000,000 | 1 |
| Roy4lRondi | 12,000,000 | 1 |
| howlhatesdemons | 11,652,154 | 2 |
(Note: Only diggers with +10m netherrack is accounted for here)
Media
YouTube
On May 29, 2020, 2b2t YouTuber SalC1 uploaded a video titled "The Longest Road Ever Built in Survival Minecraft (The 2b2t Nether Highways)". The video highlights the accomplishment of reaching the -X, -Z world border corner, as well as the group's plan to extend the remaining highways.
On January 30, 2021, the YouTuber SalC1 uploaded a video about the highways, titled:"I Went to 2b2t's World Border". The video tells how the youtuber traveled to the +X worldborder using nether highways and a new elytra hack while visiting the major milestones on the way.
On March 29, 2021, the YouTuber Fastvincent1 uploaded a video about the group, titled:" How a 2b2t group revolutionized diagonal nether highways". The video showcases the group's achievements and history, going into detail about how the group has evolved since the completion of the initial -,- highway.
On July 3, 2021, the YouTuber fitMC uploaded a video about the highways, titled:"2b2t's Nether World Border Has Been REACHED (30 Million Minecraft Blocks)". The video underlines the complete history of the race to the nether world border with the various teams involved in this project.
- The first diagonal highway to WB (-X,-Z)
- The second diagonal highway to the WB (+X,+Z)
- The third diagonal highway to the WB (+X,-Z)
- The fourth and final diagonal highway to the WB (-X,+Z)
- +X widened to the world border
- MEG's stash being discovered on the +,+ highway
- Wide photo of the +X,-Z wb, taken by u/No_Sorbet_3317
- Nether World Border Reached
External links
- https://discord.gg/meg- Group's discord server vanity URL.
- https://discord.gg/UhjJNQ9fBW - Group's permanent discord server invite.