Base Design Paradigm

[quantumllama]

After restarting in a new world, I have begun to think about how I would like my base this time. The main issue I've had with my past bases has been the lack of foresight about how I would want things later.

For example, I've never planned for automation, scalability or storage and this always hurts me in the long term because by the time I want to do these things there are so many things to break and relocate I might as well start over.

Which brings me to the starting point again. How do you design a base? Do you plan for automation and where pipes will go from the beginning? Do you build 5 macerators at the start because that's how many you'll use later? How does it all come together?

 

[MalevolentHoneybadger]

I kinda just make 1 massive room and use that, or I dig underground and just do the same, just with alot more space

 

[Virgoddess]

I usually do plan ahead, but all of my power goes below ground, so I don't have to do anything special for it. Storage is always a room connected (via wall) with my processing area for easy sorting. When I build, I always make my walls three thick for pipes running through them.

And I don't build machines in advance. I always start out with a sawmill, pulverizer, powered furnace, and TE's steam engines, then build more as needed. My "house" (compound ) is usually a string 12x12 rooms. Entrance, Thaumcraft room, enchanting room, mystcraft room (etc), storage (this is usually 27x27) and machines (again 27x27).

 

[Ammaneus]

I've started to plan out things now that I'm trying to become a better builder, so my base-building in the future is probably going to go something like this;

1) Find hilly area (fitting buildings around hilly terrain makes for much prettier bases)
2) Survey area, find out what caves are there, size of hills/underground area
3) Open paint and zoom into the pixel level, draw out a basic plan, including underground maintenance tunnels to carry wire and pipes
4) Settle on a building style using Google images and try to replicate it in Creative SP
5) Dig out/build first room and live in said room whilst i gather resources and put an infrastructure down
6) Expand infrastructure and base as time goes on roughly according to the plan.

 

[Matthew83]

It is very strange mention Direwolf20 and design in the same sentence but I admit the way he uses cobblestone to plan out where machines and things are going to go is really useful.

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

I like flat areas, I generally build a smallish hut 11X11 or chunk sized (I've got a cave base in one world atm and I hate it lol) and live there until I'd ready to start proper automation of my resource flow. At that point I usually make a large base and plan what is going to go where, often 3x3 chunks with a basement and quarry out the underneath. Going to do things different next time though.

 

[Dackstrus]

I've a few rules i build by to keep things organised in my own way, you've really got to develop your own method to your madness.

I build my house on a specific pattern, usually 3 8x8x4-5 boxes, connected in an L shape. Underground, i carve out a much taller space then my above ground house. Meaning i make a 32x32x10 basement about 6 blocks under the floor of my house. Then a tiny space inbetween those two for wire and piping and whatever else mods need to work before hitting the floor of the house again to hook into machines and such. With the bottem basement for power and all automation. Then again, I'm one of those people who does'nt overbuild everything just because i can. I just want my certain stuff i want to work.

 

[Poppycocks]

It's easy!

step one: Build a dirt house
step two: fill it up with rats nest of machinery and unlabled chest and a ton of barrels.
step three: Build a serious base, move everything there, toss everything you have in your old base into a sorting machine /AE
step four: realize that your new base doesn't have nearly enough space for extending as you've envisioned it and that you've got a rats nest once again
step five: go to step three
step six: PROFIT

 

[sir_schwick]

It's easy!

step one: Build a dirt house
step two: fill it up with rats nest of machinery and unlabled chest and a ton of barrels.
step three: Build a serious base, move everything there, toss everything you have in your old base into a sorting machine /AE
step four: realize that your new base doesn't have nearly enough space for extending as you've envisioned it and that you've got a rats nest once again
step five: go to step three
step six: PROFIT

This is exactly why I have restarted so many times. My model is sort of an organic village approach. 1. Make an ugly probably cobble hut in which I can hide at night. 2. Make a nice rectangular building with room for lots of chests and a stair shaft leading to fan mines. 3. Label chests with signs and be OCD about putting items into those chests. 4. Put in basic manual equipment. That being bed, quartz grinder, project table, and a furnace. 5. Use Barrels in original ugly hut to hold cobble, stone, and dirt. 6. Keep making nicer and more intricate buildings for use of powered equipment. I really don't mind the ugly old buildings because it reminds you of what squalor you once lived. Also gravel paths around the base give it a very theme-park feel.

 

[TangentialThreat]

I find it easier to fit the machines into the building than to fit the building around the machines.

Being unwilling to redesign a huge portion of your base is a trap. Once in a while I spend a day spelunking in my catacombs, wrangling the pipes and cables into more logical shapes, removing and filling in unused sections (I am developing OCD about forgotten empty spaces under my house), and adding new pipes. I also like stone, cobblestone, and stone brick; the server admin described it as like being lost in an Edgar Allen Poe story which I took as a compliment.

Part of the problem is that FTB is so complicated that there are *still* whole mods I know nothing about. It is difficult to plan for the unknown, and I can solve most unforeseen routing problems and unexpected space requirements by adding more and more pipes.