Why Do People Always Build Boxes?

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Malexion

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Jul 29, 2019
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I really wanted to do the railings with black abyssal covers with the holes, but I can't do it with drawbridges.
 

Tylor

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Nov 24, 2012
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Painted IC2 concrete looks great. Too bad it can't be automated with buildcraft.
 

DeathGoth

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Jul 29, 2019
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In real life it's more practical to build boxes, so the majority of houses are similarly shaped (at least in this part of the world). Not everybody looks at the world in the same way. Some might see a bunch of boring houses that look like boxes, some might see safe, warm environments for families to live and grow. Same in minecraft, although the warmth and growing families might not apply.

Personally, I'm challenging myself in the current map to aim for a bit more interesting building, but I don't judge people who don't care for that style of play, as someone mentioned up there, sandbox game. Something I have found useful so far in life is the ability appreciate diversity amongst other human beings. Not everyone is the same as you. That's a good thing, no matter how awesome you might be.

Dude this is an awesome ass post.. If more people thought like this imagine where Humans would be today..

I am a box kinda guy but meh, I do pixel art from time to time.
 

Tylor

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Nov 24, 2012
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I wanted for a long time to make a 200 meters-high tree-shaped (and looking) base. But it's just too much work to place all that leaves by hand. And it's just one flint and steel away from disaster.
 

RedBoss

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I wanted for a long time to make a 200 meters-high tree-shaped (and looking) base. But it's just too much work to place all that leaves by hand. And it's just one flint and steel away from disaster.
Get a bunch of saplings from a Natura redwood and plant two or three trees close together. That'll give you a nice tree house platform
 

Hambeau

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Jul 24, 2013
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Tree1.png
If you run "Unleashed" and have the "Natura" mod installed, you can find a giant sequoia in plains biomes. They're rare, but they exist. Note the nearly invisible door dead center. It's made of the tree bark and is IDed as a "Secret door". Mobs don't try to bash it down or steal it.

The 3x3 window is the second level and the 3x2 is the third. There's an un-windowed (yet) fourth level as well as the ground level.
 

Conguy97

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Jul 29, 2019
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Tree1.png
If you run "Unleashed" and have the "Natura" mod installed, you can find a giant sequoia in plains biomes. They're rare, but they exist. Note the nearly invisible door dead center. It's made of the tree bark and is IDed as a "Secret door". Mobs don't try to bash it down or steal it.

The 3x3 window is the second level and the 3x2 is the third. There's an un-windowed (yet) fourth level as well as the ground level.
You'd be way to cramped in that
 

Malexion

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You could always expand out of the top in a tree-house like fashion as well.

I usually do that with my farms
 

Tylor

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You'd be way to cramped in that
Machines with piping along the walls, floor made of metal chests and RP2 crafting tables. Enchantment table and library for it on the ceiling. This is your living (i.e. crafting) room. Everything else - on other floors. You can even cramp a small forest of rubber trees inside that trunk.
 

Hambeau

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@ Conguy97, you've got to admit... At least it's not a box :p

The center post you can see through the second level window is my ladder. It also extends down to block level 40-ish to my livestock farm and from there about 60 blocks to the chasm where I've set up my mining/manufacturing operation.

I've got an ore-berry farm on the third level that will be relocating to the mine soon, freeing a second empty floor and making the tree almost exclusively living space. I'm using just over 10% of the total tree height... about the first 15 blocks of a tree at 60-ish ground level to 214 high. I found the tree using creative mode and checked out the top before landing and switching to survival mode.

It may have been misrepresented due to the ID issue a few weeks back, but one of the first trees I found was called a sequoia by NEI. I've just called them that since.

@RedBoss, what is the diameter of trees grown from the saplings? I've found 9, 11 and 13 block diameter natural trees... I thought the one in the picture was 15, but I checked when I took the screenie.

I'll have to experiment on one of my older throw-away worlds to see how big I can grow one... I ruined my base by using a mining turtle outside the front door. :oops:
 

Skirty_007

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Jul 29, 2019
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Build however many boxes that you like, but please, please, please use a different block for your floors and walls. Whatever room you are in right now, I'd bet my lunch money that your ceiling, floor, and walls are 3 different colors and materials. I slightly cringe when I see stone bricks on the floor, walls, & ceiling in a build. :eek::p:p:p


This is something I really struggle with. I often take a few blocks that I like, and they don't necessarily actually work well together, but I like them so I put them all into a build/room/whatever. Then it just looks like "I want to use *all* the blocks!" (that should probably be all in caps and in leetspeak to get the point across). Kinda got round that in current build by building sandstone houses in a desert. I don't have the flair for design that some other people do, I'm afraid. I have been following the "9x9 challenge" thread quite closely, it's great to see how other people put things together, helps me to decide what I like and what I don't like.
 
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RedBoss

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@RedBoss, what is the diameter of trees grown from the saplings? I've found 9, 11 and 13 block diameter natural trees... I thought the one in the picture was 15, but I checked when I took the screenie.
I don't remember, but the smallest the base trunk should be is 7x7 from how the saplings are planted. If I remember later I'll post a pic of 2 redwoods that spawned next to each other in a test world.

I have been following the "9x9 challenge" thread quite closely, it's great to see how other people put things together, helps me to decide what I like and what I don't like.
There are lots of good tips in that thread. Go into creative and just place blocks that you think will work together. There's no hard and fast rules for "flow." Even if you live in a cave, using varied blocks can make a space look amazing.
 

Hoff

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Oct 30, 2012
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In functionality, no advantage, but at least its not a big prism
I see this as the main issue. Now you are free to your opinion of the look of boxes/prisims/etc. but I would challenge you to look beyond merely the shape. To dislike something purely because it has some quality that is generally in-conclusive of what it offers is a bit silly. This is much like those people who hate pop/rap/bieber/metal/country/etc. simply because they are. Not because of any sort of qualitative or true dislike but simply "because". This often leads to a very narrow path that is best not taken. Explore all possibilities as valid options until you have actually explored it and found yourself against it.

tl;dr: The mainstream is a fake. You flow with it and you branch off and merge with other steams still carrying everything from before with you. This is known as innovation.
 

GPuzzle

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I see this as the main issue. Now you are free to your opinion of the look of boxes/prisims/etc. but I would challenge you to look beyond merely the shape. To dislike something purely because it has some quality that is generally in-conclusive of what it offers is a bit silly. This is much like those people who hate pop/rap/bieber/metal/country/etc. simply because they are. Not because of any sort of qualitative or true dislike but simply "because". This often leads to a very narrow path that is best not taken. Explore all possibilities as valid options until you have actually explored it and found yourself against it.

tl;dr: The mainstream is a fake. You flow with it and you branch off and merge with other steams still carrying everything from before with you. This is known as innovation.
Wow, that's deep, man.

Anyway, I always decide on a new style of build every world I make. Currently, I'm living inside a cave, with little to no modifications, but I soon plan to turn it into a mine, so I'll use a lot of wood. On other worlds (namely, the single chunk challenge, which ended up with a giant mage tower made out of blood-stained fitted bricks, quarried fitted bricks and frost fitted bricks, the ravine base, which used a lot of drawbridges - actually quite fun, and CC is amazing at making a cheaper PRC - and the spaceship repair station), I always try to build something with a theme or a challenge. The ravine ended up like a dwarven base, the single chunk, a square tower, the spaceship repair station was like a mix between the Enterprise, the TARDIS and the Death Star, just square. The craziest part? They were all essentially boxes. There's no need to be overly fancy. The single chunk ended up being a challenge material-wise. The repair station was hard to build. But they were better than most of my non-box bases.
The problem is not it being a box.
Is what you do with that box.
And creativity can turn a box into something exciting.
After all, didn't you toy around with a box of something (just the box) when you were a kid?
 
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