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Double Post to snag the 2,000th post (er, 2,000th Reply), and a quick update on the wiki:
I'm working on the Guild page now, and when it's finished will have a full listing of recommended housing options for every basic rank.
Individual Guild pages will have slight tweaks to this formula depending on their job. But right now I have to go celebrate a birthday/wedding anniversary, so I'll show you what I have.
hmmm.....those Journeyman/Apprentice housing options are supposed to collapse. I'll have to fix that.
Okay, I think I'm about written out after the last 24 hours.
It's time to play my modded Challenge world and have some FUN (Well, I'm having fun writing, but you know what I mean)!
That said, I got a lot of work done.
Check out the all-new Guilds page. Now scroll all the way to the bottom. See, one of the biggest time-consuming problems was that every stage I kept moving the goalpost for new home construction. It took a long time to figure out what needed to be added, what needed to be taken away, and what fit perfectly.
This just lets me go "Build x number of Y for Z" instead of taking up page space (in or out of game) detailing what I mean by that right there and then.
I started to move towards a standardized housing system later in the Challenge, but I was never really satisfied with it. So this time, I'm standardizing the housing FIRST. And instead of building newer houses for just random newcomers later on that were nicer than the original Elder housing in the beginning (probably gonna have those constructions become food storage on Player/Advisor/Noble Estates from Wood Settlement onwards. That way, that nice little place you built isn't wasted like it kinda is now), you're going to be getting an influx of mostly poor people in the beginning, and their housing gets better and better as time goes on and you start to prosper. So while I technically only have 4 different housing options for Guild Members, I technically have 6--Guild Members have 3 different housing options, depending on whether they're struggling, doing okay, or prospering. I may do the same for Apprentices, Journeymen, and Guild Masters eventually. But for now, I need to get on with the challenge. there's.....so much that needs doing.
But the rich folks get most of their finery right away. Or, at least, they will get it before you're done with their Estates.
If you look at the Guild Masters, you will see that they are basically intended to replace the Nobility. Don't get me wrong, I may add Nobility back in a little later on. Nobility that are Nobles first, and don't do anything. But for now, the Guild Masters (and Grand Masters, when I can come back to it) are the proto-Nobility. With pretty massive Estates.
Also, there's a prototype for a new Servants system that I ALSO want to turn into its own page.
I'm really, REALLY struggling to keep a tight-ish focus on getting the basics done. I.....I want to do so much!
EDIT: Also, I added what I think is a clever bit of world-building fluff.
Every member of a Guild is given an Item Frame by the Guild itself, and a tool representing their Guild (or sub-Guild) that denotes their rank.
Apprentices get Wooden tools
Journeymen get Stone
Guild Members get Iron (or Bronze if they're rich enough and want to pay for it)
Guild Masters get Gold (Enchanted Gold if they're rich enough and want to pay for it)
Grand Masters get Diamond (Enchanted if they're rich enough and want to pay for it).
Guild Members, Guild Masters, and Grand Masters get 2. One is placed over the entrance to their home, the other is placed over the entrance to their workplace. Both show that they are fully certified members of a given Guild, and will probably deliver better products and/or service than non-Guild members.
when I said sub-Guild Members may get different items, I mean like a Scoop/Chest/Backpack, Hoe, Grafter, etc as far as examples from Agriculture go--showing that they specialize in something, and aren't *just* doing whatever normally gets done.
The Servants section is a prototype. Let me know if you have any feedback.
Also, yes, the Security section is a prototype for the military. Again, any feedback would be appreciated. When I get to the Military section, I plan for each of the major races to have a unique fighting style (some use swords, Elves will probably use axes, Dwarves will probably use Pickaxes, Humans will probably dual wield two weapons, some prefer to turtle up with walls and watchtowers, and another will prefer Bows. Maybe have Witches prefer Potions if possible).
Up next:
Non-Guild Immigrant Housing.
I'm probably going to go for something like I did with the Guild Members for the most part. Not necessarily the requirements, but a few variations depending on how well off the immigrants are.
And possibly a Base target for Personal Estates.
Basically, instead of (expand x much each cycle), I can point to what you WILL be needing, as a base template, and you can plan room for it accordingly.
And THEN, when you've reached your target and want to expand further, you get a Personal Estate Outlier where you build yourself a second Estate. and here, you get a vacation/etc home, and plenty of room to expand without having to worry about running out of room in your original.
with Expand X each turn on one of your Personal Estates (or even build a third. or a fourth. Maybe each one has a different focus. Who knows? Only you do!) after you reach your initial template's goal.
EDIT: Can't keep my hands off the wiki.
Cleaned up the main page a bit, added a new page with all kinds of fun concepts, building suggestions, and basic rules. Basically took a bunch of the necessary clutter from the front page and the Dirt Hovel stage, placed it in there, and polished it up a bit.
....also I am so planning on using this little thing I threw in:
There are so many possible combinations, it's ridiculous. One option to make most of your Banners (and Shields) more similar to each other would be to have a base color and pattern that the entire Kingdom uses. Give specific towns their own unique color and pattern. Then, finally, for specific Guilds, give them their own unique color and pattern.
By using a combination of the three, you could be able to tell by glancing at a Banner outside a Merchant's shop front, for example, exactly what Kingdom and Town they are based in. Adding in the fourth symbol of the town in which it is currently placed would tell you a bit about where that particular Merchant plies his wares.
Build a Heraldic Museum
If you decide to start using banners, with individual patterns for individual Guilds, Towns, etc, build a museum, and place samples of the individual patterns here, carefully labelled (and possibly a Chest with a spare Banner and/or ingredients that you can use to copy additional Banners and/or Shields quickly). This helps to serve as another thing to collect, as well as a reminder if you step away from your Challenge for a while and need a refresher course on what you were doing.
Plus I'm going to make sure each town has a unique color for their wool and armor.
Seriously, dyes, hardened clay, stained glass, and banners/shields (or at least their patterns) have, in my mind, an almost totally untapped potential that almost no mod (and most players I see) ever tries to augment or exploit.
Anyway, I've been tinkering with how I want to sort the pre-planned houses, and their requirements. Basically, I've divided Housing into 4 categories:
The Working Class (the poorest of the immigrants, what you'll get for the first few stages), the Lower Middle-Class, the Middle Class, and the Elite. Generally the lower three have (mostly) one house, while the Elite all live on Estates. the Elite are the Nobles, and I'll be borrowing heavily from my previous documentation to write up Estates for the Elites.
With the Working/Middle Class housing options, I will have 3 varieties apiece--those who are Poor by their class' standards, who are are well off/average, and those who are Rich by their class' standards.
A Rich Working Class house will be only slightly less impressive than a Poor Lower Middle-Class. Similarly, a Poor Middle Class house will be very similar to a Rich Lower Middle-Class.
Elites, however, are in a class (no pun intended) by themselves, and not even the richest Middle Class house will hold a candle to a fully completed Estate for even the poorest Elite.
I'm going to be retiring the housing types that played with their stage's names. I am posting a list here for posterity:
Refugee Refuge
Community Cottage
Community Cabin
Settlement Shanty
Settlement Shack
Hamlet Hut
Hamlet House
Village Villa
And I'm going to be chopping off the first half and using just the house type for the new list:
Working Class
Refuge (Poor)
Shanty (Well-off)
Shack (Rich)
Lower Middle-Class
Hut (Poor)
Cabin (Well-off)
Cottage (Rich)
Middle Class
Bungalow (Poor, also--New)
House (Well-off)
Villa (Rich)
The Elites will probably continue to use the Nobility labels to define just HOW rich they are. It won't necessarily mean that they ARE part of the nobility, just a means of sorting the size of an Estate they will need.
In addition to the 4 standard Estates, there are 3 Player-only Estate types that get fairly ridiculous and will be intended to be small towns (or cities) in their own right, with their own support structures, defenses, and more.
Baron/ess Estate
What will be expected to be started in the first few stages for the Player and his Advisors. Won't be too size or resource-intensive
Count/ess Estate
These guys are kind of a big deal. They tend to have a large footprint.
Marquis/Marquess or Marquise Estate
These have a very large footprint, and usually have a few mercenaries protecting them.
Guild Marquis/esses are usually fairly dedicated to their craft.
Duke/Duchess Estate
These Estates usually dominate small Hamlets, and take up a lot of the space of a Village. They are basically a small Village unto themselves.
Guild Duke/Duchesses sometimes build out estates that encompass their entire Guild's spectrum of activities, complete with housing for their employees on-site, a small army to keep their activities secure, and enough Luxuries to bury a large family of Refugees.
Princ/ess Estate (Player Only)
A Town unto itself
Non-Player Estates if the Player wants to have "Children" (Feature being considered for a LOOOOONG ways away)
Nice post on Guilds @Maul_Junior. I definitely like the idea of housing improving with the wealth of your nation. With the guild tools idea I think is pretty neat. In my mind the first of the guild to arrive in my settlement will always be apprentices, those disenfranchised from where they're from or young and adventurous enough to strike out and build a new home in a new land. They would start with a wood tool but with every stage gain more knowledge and get a tool for themselves with every stage of your kingdom. So the first farmer would have a wooden hoe when they first arrive, stone at the next stage, iron, gold, diamond etc with better tools at each stage to be displayed proudly.
The grandmasters really would be the ones who were there from the start. In successive stages, I'm thinking Gold City when the first guild members start becoming masters, you will get lower level guild members attracted to your city to learn allowing for more than just apprentices to arrive. When you have grandmasters you can build conference halls that attract masters from all over to discuss the finer points of their craft.
And for my world update the last building of my wood settlement, and home for a future master, the Forester's House.
The Mobius Archives I had considered doing that, and for people that want to go that route it's certainly feasible. But unfortunately for stuff like this I have to write for, and pardon the term, the lowest common denominator. Not saying stupid people (necessarily ), just mostly people that either don't have a lot of time, personal inspiration, or the least amount of work. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that.
So I figured I'd get things sorted out in the beginning, and if people wanted to do stuff like you are doing, they're more than welcome to. That is, of course, why the Rule of Cool has been around since (I think) the very beginning, and has stuck around as long as it has.
So I'm taking a slight break until January 3rd (with a possible burst of inspiration here and there thrown in because I feel like it). Mainly because I want to breed up as many Tipsy Bees as I can. I managed to get 4-5 Merry Bees (would have gotten more, but was travelling 26-27), and want to get at LEAST that many Tipsies.
of course, now I need to go out and find some more Meadows because I don't have any pure/Pristine Meadows anymore. I have 2 pure Wintry, but I was over-excited and threw all of the Meadows into the 6 Apiaries I've managed to scrape together from Villager trading.
Gotta say, I do like the Merry Bees. They cause snowfall, and water to freeze. .....if only that didn't make it hard to find the Bee Houses they're in sometimes. lol
The Mobius Archives I had considered doing that, and for people that want to go that route it's certainly feasible. But unfortunately for stuff like this I have to write for, and pardon the term, the lowest common denominator. Not saying stupid people (necessarily ), just mostly people that either don't have a lot of time, personal inspiration, or the least amount of work. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that.
Sorry if implied this is something that should be added to the requirements, it's just something I'd like to do with my world and if anyone else would care to do the same the idea is out there.
*smacks head* This reminded me, I'm only using bee houses. Bees can't interbreed until you use at least Apiaries! I need to start doing Villager trading too!
Nah, you didn't imply that at all. Just thought I should clarify in case someone was reading and thought that that was what I had meant.
Regarding bees:
Do you have ANY idea how irritating it is when the Tipsy/Merry Bees decide that it's too damn warm for them in Temperature 20% locale you've been breeding the Wintries? I eventually got fed up with yet ANOTHER cold Extreme Hills and EVENTUALLY found a Taiga (should be 5% Temperature). Plus the Taiga ended up near an overhang. I am a sucker for a sweet overhang.
I keep finding new Merry Bees--I think I'm up to 8 now. I think that you can't add on new traits in BEe Houses, but I think it MIGHT be possible to change an inactive trait to an Active one by selective breeding once they're in the Bee Houses (thus changing their Breed). Because I'm finding all kinds of Wintry Bees turning into Merries.
.....not complaining.
Either that, or Merry Bees are still possible to breed despite it being post Dec. 30/31st when I played/post.
I also think that I'm going to put in a rule about 1 advanced (that would ordinarily be out of your reach, ie Diamond long before Gold City, etc) technology being allowed if there is a city devoted to the craft. Because Blood Magic is basically not really possible without a Weak Power Orb, which requires a diamond.
You would still have to mine the Diamonds yourself, BUT you could now use them.
But only one Diamond-required thing, and it has to be portable. This is to allow people to use said mods, but not sneak around the general crappy tools in the beginning. tools that would be better than the axe/pickaxe/sword/etc would not be allowed.
This is mainly because not all mods' power creep is created equal. Some are perfectly suited to the Challenge, and others have basic, basic things that require expensive materials.
I am still considering this but unless I see any good arguments put forth I think I will stick with this. Just so it's
.....also because Bee Breeding is DAMNED difficult without a Portalyzer (again, a Diamond). almost impossible, if you have multiple possible inactive traits, and you're not sure which one you bred into which bee.
I'm also considering a rule for the Custom NPC Transporters for super far away locations. Generally discouraged, to encourage building up infrastructure, roads, etc. However, for places that are 4-10k away, I'm considering putting in a rule that says that you can use them, but you have to destroy a half-stack of Haybales (32x, each one is 9 wheat, or 288 Wheat) per kilometer (1k blocks--x,599 rounds down; x,600 rounds up) traveled. This would be good for one round trip for one character.
The Transporter would have to be housed in a Trade Hub. for the one in most of your Kingdom, it would have to be in your Primary trade hub. For the far side, that settlement would have to be a Trade Hub. If the place is less than 3,000 blocks from any part of your kingdom at the time of setting up the Transport links, probably can't set up the Transporter.
And probably only a handful of said Transporters allowed total.
But this would let people who don't have, say, Jungles, Mushroom Biomes, Mesas, etc nearby to be able to use said biomes in their challenge even if they're SUPER far away.
I may have come up with this because the massive Mesa biome in my world is 6k away from the nearest settlement, and I've never really built on a Mesa--and they look REALLY FREAKING COOL.
Again, none of this is set in stone, but I think it sounds reasonable and will probably eventually do something like this as a lower-tech form of teleportation until Nether/magic/tech would become avilable, and would appreciate feedback. I was considering a full stack per km, but I settled for a lower (but still fairly massive undertaking) price for the Transporters. I'm gonna fiddle around and see if it's possible to come up with a script (that I would share) that can be put into Transporter NPCs that demand x numbers of Y product.
That said, I've converted my former mining town into a Tech town, because I kinda want the Mesa (and its surface Mineshafts) to become the new Mining center of the country. I say Tech, but what I really mean is Forestry town. Bees, Trees, Butterflies, and basic bee product reclamation.
Also its multi-colored Hardened Clay and Red Sand.
Once again, I am limiting myself to a Carpenter (packaging, More Bees' Super Cooled Frame, Woven Silk for beekeeper's outfit--not allowing myself Woven Backpacks yet), Centrifuge, and Squeezer (to get that sweet, sweet icy water to make Super Cooled Frames that I pray will let me use the bees that refuse to work at Temperature 20%--because hte Taigas I've found are 25% grrr).
Exports will be Bee products, bred (and/or analyzed saplings, etc) trees (to the Jungle biome where they will be grown en masse), and basic IC2 batteries, fully charged. Imports will be food, minerals, metals, Charcoal, and other day to day sundries. I am allowing the Forestry settlement 1 advanced product, which is the Portalyzer.
EDIT: Number one import?
ALL THE GOD DAMN HEMP SEEDS.
I literally have multiple Double Chests full of the damn things. I may also have a Storage Drawer (1x1, no upgrades) full of 'em. they're gonna get sent to the Forestry town and gonna get god damn squeezed into something useful.
don't get me wrong, the hemp plant (IIRC Extra Utilities? Immersive Engineering?) is great for string and wool. but the seeds drop from what seems like 1 in 10 grass patches, and 1-2 drop every time you cut down a hemp plant--these are 2-block tall, so you can leave the bottom layer alone so it will regrow faster.
HALLELUJAH.
EDIT 2:
GOD DAMMIT. I've figured out how to do butterfly breeding.
I am going to be breeding so many butterflies, and trying to collect them all, now.
*sighs*
hello, my name is Maul_Junior, and I have a Collecting problem.
.....there's just so many Forestry Bees.
and trees.
and butterflies.
I MUST HAVE THEM ALL
Disclaimer: binge-reading Girl Genius to catch up may have warped my brain slightly for this edit. I feel like I'm raving like a Spark.
HOW is there no documentation to be found, ANYWHERE on the internet, about butterfly cocoons?
Scoops destroy them. Breaking the leaves above them destroys them. Grafters destroy them if you use them on the cocoon OR the leaves above them. I can't find even the barest whisper about the at all.
EDIT: Been using the Escritoire to get rid of the ~300 misc. drones that have been piling up. Here's a list of festive drones I have found:
Trickster (Halloween, don't have exact dates for this one because I didn't think to do this until after I had destroyed the repeat notes)
Leporine-March 29-April 15
Merry (December 21-December 27--confirmed via Escritoire note)
Tipsy (December 27-January 2nd)
I now have research notes for ALL of those, and basically all of the Forest, meadow, Wintry, and probably about 1/3 of the Commons.
And used up ~280 drones plus a few stacks of combs.
woo.
My Apiarist's CHest is now exclusively for pure drones, Queens that can't operate in this temperature (6 basically pure Merries, a pure Tipsy, 3 Wintry/Tipsies, a Wintry/Merry and a Wintry that can't be arsed, plus a handful of Modests and an odd Marshy or Tropical)
Quick tip for folks with bees that make snow fall (ie both Tipsy AND Merry)--plant flowers. They will prevent all snowfall, and will allow you to make paths and/or bee acces
Less than 24 hours until my holiday vacation ends and I'm back to the challenge from my Merry/Tipsy vacaton. I've got pure and steady common, Steadfast (yay random dungeon find), Tipsy (3 drones, Temperature +/- Both 2), and I'm working on stabilising my Merry drones, and getting the rando Forest Queens back to their baseline. Meanwhile, both Rock Queens are pumping out a steady 2 drones apiece (More, not Extra Bees the lone Valiant is doing the same, and the Meadow Queens are pumping out combs (but more importantly drones) at an acceptable pace. Along with that, the remaining 5 pure Wintry are doing the same.
A lot of the Ignoble Queens are going to be banished to Bee Houses for the rest of their life, but I don't really mind. the few Pristine that I have will be more than enough to do some careful breeding, and the Ignobles in the Bee Houses will provide a steady stream of pure Drones to stabilise the Pristines (or cause initial mutations) when needed.
Plains/cold Extreme Hills border for the Forestry town I've started to call Arborvale is useful. Just like the minor bee/tree breedingworks in Timbervale will be for the Jungle/Desert border (and Plains/cold Extreme Hills a long way--~800m--through the jungle).
I desperately need to import Leather to get the one Pam's bee that I have here running. lol
I've also got some ideas for indoor tree breederies that are juuuuust big enough for two trees.....filled to the brim with butterflies. With a 2x2 infinipool outside and a collection of clay buckets that I can use to flush all butterflies away so they don't pollinate the wrong thing onto the wrong tree once a breeding project is complete.
......also walkways and access stairwells for easy tree choppage.
In my Vanilla world I have a fairly massive framework set up that is ~90 blocks tall, which is just high enough to get to the top of the 2x2 spruce trees. those things are fucking TALL. but their leaves don't extend more than 4-5 from the trunk, and they NEVER branch out. just a solid 2x2 all the way up. They don't have vines for easy climbing, buuuuuut the log output more than makes up for it, once you have sufficient infrastructure in place.
I also discovered that Birch trees are the best trees to use if you're just growing trees to chop them down. all the others grow weird, but you can literally get a solid block of Birch logs, without pistons, if you place tons of Birch saplings on the ground next to each other and wait long enough.
You'd think it would be Oak that is best for this (and in a certain case you're right), but Oaks have the chance to have the massive tree randomly, which can be fixed by an overhang.....
But Birch grow at preditable heights....though there is some issue sometimes of them not dropping enough saplings to keep doing it if you repeat it enough times.
......I'm a gatherer and a Collector usually in Minecraft. kinda why I'm writing this challenge. If I didn't challenge myself like this, I would throw down everything haphazardly on the lawn randomly, and rarely put any thought at all into building.
And in the year or so that I was vanilla only (well, vanilla/custom NPCs), I came up with some interesting (toolless or nearly so) ways of gathering lots of materials that is incredibly easy to do thoughtlessly with automation with mods (not knocking it, just saying it comes way easy) that is a PITA to do with (almost) vanilla.
I'm still hella proud of my massive wood-gathering framework. 2 stories of birch and oak, 2x2 jungle, 2x2 spruce, 2 stories of Accia (in theory, but because it grows weird I tend to only go 1 because I never have neough saplings because I can't be arsed), and a 2x2 Dark Oak.......with a lumber yard building nearby, and a clearly defined roadway between villages.
......and yet I could have done so much more if I didn't spend all my time happily chopping down trees for yet more wood that I didn't really need. lol.
MAN it's been a long time since I've stretched my modded MC legs
EDIT:
Okay, vacation over. I had actually finished building requirements for the houses yesterday but browser issues wrecked it all.
Basically the richest lower middle-class house will have 1 servant, the poor middle-class will have 2-4, and they'll go up from there, along with room requirements.
Also 1 servant=1 2-4 man security team.
I had also copied all the servant info from the guild page to the residential page. grrr.....
I have stabilised the Merries, the Tipsies, Meadows, Forest, Commons, Rock, Steadfast, Valiant, a Cultivated Queen and a Noble Queen.
And somehow I have a common bee with nausea?
I'm considering making an out-of-challenge base somewhere super far away where I can use Gendustry to make sure I don't lose out on any traits, to be reintroduced much later on when the Challenge catches up with Gendustry.
Anyway, I've been spending my downtime between resetting the bees to do some wood harvesting. Although lately it's devolved into lots. and lots. of Cherry Trees. then sitting around waiting unti they're ripe, and then getting more cherries than the single Squeezer I'm allowing myself can handle.
Oh, and I've figured out the cocoon thing. They hatch by themselves. And interbreed amongst themselves. I had figured it out just before I decided to punch down a forest while I was bored waiting for bees or cherries, whichever came first. Also to find a new Forest hive to make sure I have the default Forest bees (I apparently have 2 separate strains of pure Forest).
....then when I was partway into the forest the sun came up and what had to be 20-50 butterflies were in the air in front of me. My reaction ranged from "Aw, that's so pretty" to "I MUST HAVE THEM ALL" to "DESTROY THEM BEFORE THEY BREACH CONTAINMENT!"
it was right about then that I discovered that my Lepidpterist's pack was full. curses.
Refuges are barely more than a windbreak that you can sleep in, while Villas are basically mini-Estates. I'm very satisfied with them.
Next up, gonna get started on the Estates.
I also introduced something else in the Villas:
Guest Suites. Where Guest Rooms begin in the Cottage, in the Villas they have 5 Guest Bedrooms, but also have Guest Suites, which are a Bedroom, a small Reading/Sitting Room, and a room to Taste.
On the Estates, there will eventually be Guest Houses, which will be roughly equivalent to a Cabin without food prep.
aaaaaand Servants are ported over to the Residential page. they may eventually get their own page.
Okay, and the Baron/ess Estates are finished. it's.....quite extensive.
EDIT2: Tacked on a section at the end of the Baron/ess Estates to deal specifically with Guild Masters and Grandmasters. I'm going to be removing the Estate sections from the Guild sections, replacing them with links to the Estate section of the Residential page. I may eventually give Estates their own page.
EDIT3: Just realized that I hadn't ported the preferred fighting style over from the MC forums. derp.
So I did a quick Race page update.
Testificates: Walls/Watchtowers (Watchmen armed with Bows)
Humans: Sword/Board
Gnomes: Guns/Bows/Tech
Witches: Splash Potions, Potion Arrows, Magic (Bows if none are available)
Dwarves: Pickaxe and Shield
Elves: Axe and Shield
If you have a multiracial army, and stick to this, that would give you a nice bit of variety. Although Witches could end up being more a liability than an asset in some cases. Unless you could figure out how to program a Custo NPC to use good splash potions (regen, healing, etc) onto friendlies during combat.
Then again you'd run into the same problem as withering, damaging, poisoning, etc potions that would be used on the enemy catching your own troops in the crossfire. Inevitably, hostile mobs would get caught in splash potions/potion arrows/etc and you'd end up right back where you started.
Still, I couldn't think of a better (Vanilla) fighting style for them that would make sense.
EDIT: I think for now I'm gonna set up an auto-command block to exterminate all the butterflies. gonna have to do some research into that, but I don't want them to get out of control. eesh.
"/forestry butterfly kill" is gonna be my new best friend. Until, as I'm now in the wood stage, I get my tree bunkers set up. I'm going to be putting the trees mostly underground and under glass. Basically I'm going to set it up so that the leaves will be at ground level, regardless of what breed of tree it is. This will let me start from the top, and cut my way down more easily than starting from the bottom and trying to cut my way up.
For some of the taller trees, most of their trunk will be underground, and will be allowed to grow above the surface, into a scaffolding specially built to facilitate easy chopping.
I'm going to make sure that the butterflies never again get this out of control. Once I deem it safe, I'm gonna remove the command block and keep 'em all underground. I plan to basically have airlocks where the trees themselves will be. Or at least doors. And underground passageways lined with Storage Drawers between trees. In the tree complex, at least.
Underground is planting and item storage. aboveground is for processing and living. probably gonna post pictures soon.
Along with some of the places I put the clay houses. I am a total sucker for an overhang.
So I've begun work on a project I've decided to call the Cherry PIt. Literally a pit, designed to help me grow Forestry Cherry Trees, and harvest them efficiently (without any more than the base mod to give me the Sapling).
Here we have the base pit, dug out from an area that I have used to grow multiple kinds of trees. from BoP Willows to (far too many) IC2 Rubber Trees (seriously, I have 17 stacks of IC2 rubber tree logs stashed away, and untold numbers of the IC2 sap/rubber crated up and stored safely away), and/or Cherry Trees, I've converted it into the proof-of-concept for my tree harvesting.
I came up with the concept based on Pam's Paper/syrup trees, and IC2 rubber trees....because they crap goes flying in any direction and it can be a PITA to track down. So I thought that putting them in the ground with limited room on all sides would make it easier to find them after I try to harvest them. Then I converted an old vanilla project into this as well, which was a large, wooden structure (described in earlier posts) designed to facilitate wood harvesting.
I built a proof of concept on the surface on a lone cherry tree I had planted for this purpose, and carefully counted out the distance its leaves stretched. Some modifictions to the pit were required, but not many. I had done the initial calculations well while I still had a standing Cherry Forest ripening on the surface.
For explanation, the central shaft is 1x1, centered on the sapling itself. Cherry trees grow 3 blocks tall, then sprout leaves (and occasionally log branches) in a directly horizontal fashion. Therefore, the flooring should be placed 3 blocks above the sapling (coneniently leaving enough room for maintenance/sapling storage down below). Access to the Maintenanceways is provided by the Hatches, which (post 1.8 or so) function as ladders. This allows me to keep the hatches closed for the most part, and allowing minimal tree leavings to fall into the maintenance-way.
It should be noted that the dirt raised 1 block was a mistake. I thought I needed it but further testing confirmed that that was completely wrong. Current design of the Cherry Pit has it flush with the floor, and the canopy rests perfectly on the Cherry Planks.
The completed prototype Cherry Pit.
This design can be made more efficient by stacking them on top of each other, leaving ~8 blocks of vertical room for basic Cherry Trees. However, since I am also concerned with aesthetics, I'm going to be leaving them as they are, with support infrastructure sprouting on either side of the Pit, and intermedite storage of materials inside the walls of the Pit itself.
Except glassed over.
As you can see, there is JUST enough room for ground-level glass without interfering at all with the cherry trees. I have yet to experiment to see if I can make Storage Drawers face up, and replace the Cherry planks completely with Storage Drawers. Just because I can.
A similar (if shallower) design will be employed for Rubber Pits, Syrup Pits, and Paper Pits. A variation on this theme will be employed for Pam's fruit trees.
One last look back at the entire Pit, from the top of the stairs you can see in the previous picture.
I may eventually refine this design further, to make sure that ONLY the vertical stalk grows, and there are no side-branches. This would simplifiy harvesting, as I would only have a single, vertical shaft of logs to cut. This would be done by simply placing blocks (probably glass, for aesthetic reasons) in strategic places so leaves could not form there.
This would constitute a slight loss in the number of cherries that would drop, but would make overall harvesting easier, and would make it possible to do without straining to chop at an angle--and ensure that it could all be done, easily, from the maintenance-ways.
An alternate design would be to dig down three blocks, and leave the leaves flush with ground level Or, alternately, the very top of the cherry tree barely visible, and you would simply cut straight down from the surface.
This design is offered in the spirit of cooperation and improvement (as basically all Minecraft designs are). This could certainly be made untold times easier by simply using the Multifarm or another mechanical (or magical) means of harvesting, but I find this more interesting.
Once you reach iron, and have sufficient amounts, Hopper flooring could also accelerate the process, then you need only break blocks and retrieve them from a central gathering point. (Depressingly no Buildcraft with it's awesome Obsidian Pipes.)
Always best when people settle things for good instead of just spitting at each other.
