Base design question...

[Kalagorn]

I've been building my base, which has towers in 4 corners, which are all for different purposes, and a large centre, and I have to make a decision:
do I make all the towers identical in design, or different to symbolize their purpose?

I kind of want to make them identical so they all fit the theme of marble and pine wood, and are easier to build, but then it would be a little boring. On the other hand, I want to make them identical so they are all unique, and I would be able to recognize them easier, but then it is a little harder because I have to make four separate designs, gather more resources, and they wouldn't all fit the theme, making the base a little erratic.

What do you think? I have been stressing myself over this, and I usually ragequit when I have to make multiple hard decisions like this one in a row, so I've come to the forum to help ease the process.

 

[jordsta95]

Have the exterior look the same, but the interior massively different?

 

[malicious_bloke]

+1 for internal design to make them distinguishable.

There is beauty in a nice uniform exterior. As long as it's pretty and detailed, having the exterior of each tower made of the same stuff doesn't look at all bad.

Also battlements and open fire. DO IT.

[addendum] Thaumic tinkerer elemental fires enclosed in a transparent block it doesn't know how to transmute. Looks great and the different colours for the primal aspects are a neat way to colour code your towers

 

[Inaeo]

+1 for internal design to make them distinguishable.

There is beauty in a nice uniform exterior. As long as it's pretty and detailed, having the exterior of each tower made of the same stuff doesn't look at all bad.

Also battlements and open fire. DO IT.

[addendum] Thaumic tinkerer elemental fires enclosed in a transparent block it doesn't know how to transmute. Looks great and the different colours for the primal aspects are a neat way to colour code your towers

You just want to see the aftermath of a "containment failure.". You're a sick man.

 

[Kalagorn]

Thanks, I'll do the exterior same interior different, then, it seems like a fair compromise.
Also, as a side question, what colours do you think best represent magical and non-magical mods? I was thinking dark, cold colours for magic with low level lighting, and sterile, clean colours for machinery.

 

[Inaeo]

Thaumcraft already has a purple-ish pallet. Botania comes across as either green or pink in my mind (default flower for my subconscious is a pink rose for some reason).

I prefer an older, lived in feel to my tech, although it doesn't always work. Due to that, I like some of the rusty blocks from Chisel. I'm not sure if they are the factory blocks or chiseled iron/copper/steel blocks. I love the clean look of a Soartex manufacturing facility in picture, but to live in, its just too sterile for me. A bit of rust and disrepair makes it feel like the place has aged since I built it.

 

[RJS]

For tech, I often seem to use marble and sky stone blocks. I like that it looks futuristic, yet still manages to have a certain charm

 

[Bibble]

Depends largely on what mods you are putting in.

Thaumcraft is slightly purple, and fairly light to my mind.
Blood magic is red (obviously), but dark, and mixed with browns.
Botania is kind of green, but I'd probably characterise it as more blue.
Industrialcraft is off-white.
Thermal expansion is grey with lighter touches of various colours.
Mekanism is more of a dirty blue/brown.

One option would be to make the towers out of similar materials (stone, marble, fitting your castle), then trimming the towers with mod-appropriate colours, giving them the touch of identifiablity, without breaking the style.

In minecraft (especially modded MC), pure uniformality looks inhuman. Theres so much procedurally generated stuff, it kind of blends in.

 

[jordsta95]

One option would be to make the towers out of similar materials (stone, marble, fitting your castle), then trimming the towers with mod-appropriate colours, giving them the touch of identifiablity, without breaking the style.

Or seeing as it is a castle, each tower could have a flag, and the flag represents the mod.
So purple for thaumcraft
Whitey-creamy for Thermal Expansion
Etc.

 

[KingTriaxx]

For industrial, I tend to prefer either the chisel cobble, or some of the iron. Either chiseled iron blocks or the tinkers iron brick. They just look properly worn so everything looks like it's actually been doing something.

 

[zemerick]

It might be a bit late, but consider making the towers physically identical, but with some accents. These accents would then be mod/tower specific. This would let you identify them from anywhere, help break up the structure so it doesn't look copy and pasted, and yet still be essentially the same.

 

[Kalagorn]

Okay, so that's how I built the first tower (It's not finished yet, it will be two floors eventually), and it's interior.

Based on what you guys have been saying, I think I'm going to try to accentuate it, but then what materials would I interchange with the marble?

 

[Kalagorn]

To be honest, I'm still deciding what each room would be for. Obviously one would be Thaumcraft, and one would be for machinery, but past that, what would the other two rooms be for? Keep in mind each tower has two floors, and each floor is roughly 20*20, so there is a lot of space in each tower.
I want to make the towers be for the most content rich mods, but I don't know which mods take up the most space. Does Botania take up space? I know Blood Magic has it's altars, and Thaumcraft has the infusion altar and essentia jars, but Botania? One tower I was thinking of dedicating to bees, which I haven't done before. Do Forestry and Gendustry take up space?

 

[KingTriaxx]

Botania has mana generation, and storage, which can take just a little space, or a considerable amount. Plus ritual space, plus there's two different kinds of mana pool catalysts, which each need a separate pool I believe. Plus a fair sized mid-game multi-block.

Forestry can take a heck of a lot of space, but only if you want lots of bees. Gendustry will seriously compact that, but it's power hungry.

 

[RJS]

To be honest, I'm still deciding what each room would be for. Obviously one would be Thaumcraft, and one would be for machinery, but past that, what would the other two rooms be for? Keep in mind each tower has two floors, and each floor is roughly 20*20, so there is a lot of space in each tower.
I want to make the towers be for the most content rich mods, but I don't know which mods take up the most space. Does Botania take up space? I know Blood Magic has it's altars, and Thaumcraft has the infusion altar and essentia jars, but Botania? One tower I was thinking of dedicating to bees, which I haven't done before. Do Forestry and Gendustry take up space?

Blood magic's altars won't fit inside one of those towers once you get up to T5/T6. Witchery needs a bit of space for farms, ritual circles, and various bits of apparatus.

 

[Kalagorn]

Blood magic's altars won't fit inside one of those towers once you get up to T5/T6. Witchery needs a bit of space for farms, ritual circles, and various bits of apparatus.

Oh, well there goes Blood Magic. I didn't really want to do that anyway, was going for Botania.

Botania has mana generation, and storage, which can take just a little space, or a considerable amount. Plus ritual space, plus there's two different kinds of mana pool catalysts, which each need a separate pool I believe. Plus a fair sized mid-game multi-block.

Forestry can take a heck of a lot of space, but only if you want lots of bees. Gendustry will seriously compact that, but it's power hungry.

Well, then I think I'm going to Thaumcraft, Machinery, Forestry and Botania.

I've never actually really gotten to the endgame, so I don't know all the intricacies of all the mods, just the basics. The last time I got close to endgame the world got corrupted and I ragequit for a while. I can't play Minecraft for long periods, I just get really tired of playing.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Needs more trains. Trains make everything better. So when the game bores you, you can just go for a train ride.

Blood magic is fun, what I've played of it, so it's worth it once you get done with the castle. One of the fun things to do with bees is to breed trees. Both trees/bees and blood magic take a long time to get completely done, so I'd suggest setting those up a little way away from your base, and running a train out to them. So you can visit while things are running at your base. Early Botania managen is kind of slow so you've got time to build your Blood Magic system up while you generate that initial mana reserve. Doesn't take too long to get up to the point where it can be chunkloaded and let run while you do other things. Admittedly, I'd have started before the castle to let it build up while I was working, but that's fine. The toys are worth the effort.

 

[Kalagorn]

Needs more trains. Trains make everything better. So when the game bores you, you can just go for a train ride.

Blood magic is fun, what I've played of it, so it's worth it once you get done with the castle. One of the fun things to do with bees is to breed trees. Both trees/bees and blood magic take a long time to get completely done, so I'd suggest setting those up a little way away from your base, and running a train out to them. So you can visit while things are running at your base. Early Botania managen is kind of slow so you've got time to build your Blood Magic system up while you generate that initial mana reserve. Doesn't take too long to get up to the point where it can be chunkloaded and let run while you do other things. Admittedly, I'd have started before the castle to let it build up while I was working, but that's fine. The toys are worth the effort.

How long do you make these railroads? Far enough so that it's completely isolated or just in view?
I like the idea, but then I do like everything to be in one place so that it doesn't feel stretched. In my base plan I have two courtyards between my buildings that are each 30*55, so if I wanted to I guess I could do bees/trees there.

 

[KingTriaxx]

My last trees were just to one side of my base, but stretched well out of view distance when all was said and done. Normally if it's long enough to need a railway, it's going to be out of view distance. My Thaumcraft base for example, was way up on a mountain while I was on some nearby plains, and thus had a train running to it.

Those courtyards would be enough for the smaller trees. The bigger ones will want more space, but the breeding of the basic trees would fit.

 

[Ieldra]

To be honest, I'm still deciding what each room would be for. Obviously one would be Thaumcraft, and one would be for machinery, but past that, what would the other two rooms be for? Keep in mind each tower has two floors, and each floor is roughly 20*20, so there is a lot of space in each tower.
I want to make the towers be for the most content rich mods, but I don't know which mods take up the most space. Does Botania take up space? I know Blood Magic has it's altars, and Thaumcraft has the infusion altar and essentia jars, but Botania? One tower I was thinking of dedicating to bees, which I haven't done before. Do Forestry and Gendustry take up space?

Here's the space I dedicated to my mods in past games:
*Thaumcraft: two 19x19 rooms (21x21 on the outside). It may look like you can do with one at the start, but that will change.
*Blood Magic: at least (!!) two 19x19 rooms (won't be enough for the L6 altar, though L5 is a close fit). All the rituals, the automated alchemy and the spells take up a crazy amount of space.
*AE2: one 19x19 room, including some auto-processing machines if their number is low.
*Botania: one 19x19 room, though this may get a little cramped if you want to include the Gaia ritual.