Without further ado... post your bases! No matter how meager or grand, put some screenshots forward.
My current world is one year old this week, I think. Some folks have the privilege of surviving and building up a base in spawn. Well, I died a lot and eventually found my first diamonds on another continent, so I had to build up my spawn base on untouched land.
Here is the aerial view, taken from a piece of scaffolding atop my mob trap:
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I am severely attention deficit, so I have to have my essentials close together or I will get nothing done. The central cobble road connects the nether portal, farms, and industrial/crafting center in one straight line.
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Each of these funny boxes has a dog inside. The kibble dispensers are hooked up to a 10 minute decay timer. Once you have a mobtrap going, kibble is as close to free as things get in BTW. The wooden box is just a shed for storing extra cobble and such.
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The brown wool trade is either pure hell or really easy depending on how much wool you manage to save up across your time in the game. I had practically none, so I needed to find some livestock. The benefit of not playing out the early game at spawn is that animals were abundant and easy to catch.
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Above ground:
Basement:
Two semi-automatic kilns, eight turntables, a dirt packer, six saws, millstone, and a chest/crafting area all within reach. As far as pre-soulforge bases go, this is about as cutting edge as they get I think! It is very noisy. Credit to Sockthing for his lazy kiln design!
This is actually the second centralized industrial area at this base. You will see the husk of the original below.
Basement:
Two semi-automatic kilns, eight turntables, a dirt packer, six saws, millstone, and a chest/crafting area all within reach. As far as pre-soulforge bases go, this is about as cutting edge as they get I think! It is very noisy. Credit to Sockthing for his lazy kiln design!
This is actually the second centralized industrial area at this base. You will see the husk of the original below.
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This baby produces more than enough shrooms for my needs. It is right underneath my cow pasture, so I like to think that the mushrooms are feeding on shit. Unfortunately, mobs spawn on unlit light blocks, so I still have to deal with a creeper in here every now and then.
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Inside the stone tower:
The old industrial center:
Ah, relics from my days of anguish. I had a very limited supply of perma-torches when I first conquered spawn, so I had to wall in my base like a peasant. Unfortunately, I did not realize at the time that I had placed the base within the 2 inactive chunks of the 10 chunk spawn radius. It's a shame, because I wasted some good cement on the stone chest tower! This entire area is largely defunct now, but I still have a waterwheel there to power my urn bottler, and the cauldron is filled with old food.
The old industrial center:
Ah, relics from my days of anguish. I had a very limited supply of perma-torches when I first conquered spawn, so I had to wall in my base like a peasant. Unfortunately, I did not realize at the time that I had placed the base within the 2 inactive chunks of the 10 chunk spawn radius. It's a shame, because I wasted some good cement on the stone chest tower! This entire area is largely defunct now, but I still have a waterwheel there to power my urn bottler, and the cauldron is filled with old food.
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I set this up so that the good stuff (the iron) is right at the base of the ladder.
I have noticed a lot of people opting to skip sorting in favor of other projects. I get it, making a sorting system is a major pain in the ass. However, waiting until you desperately need large amounts of bones/oysters/flesh is an even bigger pain in the ass.
Solution: Do as I did and build the sorting system in TIERS! At first, I only sorted between iron and other stuff. Then, I added more and more sorting over time. I still have yet to add packing, but at least I don't have to sift through a handful of full hoppers and manually liquidate them.
Here are my post-portal base building priorities:
1. Amass a ton of axles and gearboxes. Don't wait until you have a critical mass of planters, or you will find yourself bottlenecking hard. The extra time spent weeding will be worth it.
2. Find a stable source of blaze rods. I made a safe path through the nether straight to a blaze spawner. It took a long time, but now I don't have to worry about being conservative with hibachis.
3. Build some semi-auto kilns. I firmly believe that these are the heart of your production, as soul urns and planters are always in demand. If you have easy access to blazes, you can build the kilns as big as your heart desires. The only other showstopper I can think of is dung and leather for the bellows. That wasn't a problem for me, as I had a puppy at my old base.
4. Dedicate a few days to hunting clay so you can set up hemp planters and any other seeds you might have. I was lucky to have wheat and melons by the time I got to spawn, so I didn't need to think too much about food conservation. NOTE: you can still starve to death with just melons. If you want to go the melon route, dedicate most of your planters to them at first or you might find yourself in a constant state of malnutrition.
If you have auto-kilns and a large number of hemp plants, you can build just about anything!
