"Barrels are cheaper than chests" I will be proving that wrong, today.
So barrels are crafted in attachments. Chests are crafted in attachments. Chest are crafted with 8 planks, barrels, with 9.
Slabs recipe is in attachments, so if you count chest it is 8 planks, if you count barrel it is 9, do the math, use a calculator!
That is my proof.
Your math only works out if you throw away the other four slabs. It's not 9 planks to make a barrel, it's 7 because when reduced down, one plank makes 2 slabs. It's just the recipe needs three planks to make six slabs, so either use the other four slabs to make another two barrels or use them on your roof or something.
Plus barrels don't need a blank space above them to work, chests do, another plus for barrels.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
D_B
To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
"Barrels are cheaper than chests" I will be proving that wrong, today.
So barrels are crafted in attachments. Chests are crafted in attachments. Chest are crafted with 8 planks, barrels, with 9.
Slabs recipe is in attachments, so if you count chest it is 8 planks, if you count barrel it is 9, do the math, use a calculator!
That is my proof.
I wouldn't say barrels are cheaper to make than chests
but when you look at how much space is saved when they're in use, barrels are superior,
reason being is because you can open them even if there is a block on top,
you can't do the same with chests.
Chests need at least a half slab hole above them to be opened,
otherwise they're useless. I've made the switch to barrels for my major builds, and I don't regret doing so.
Whether or not they're useful for shulker boxes is debatable, on the one hand, if your file gets corrupted and your inventory and ender chest items get reset when you somehow manage to get back into your world, normal chest and barrel items can be recovered, however they can also be stolen by other players. Neither the barrel nor the chest have anti grief protections, nor can the ender chest be guaranteed to be safe for the reasons I mentioned.
Whether or not they're useful for shulker boxes is debatable, on the one hand, if your file gets corrupted and your inventory and ender chest items get reset when you somehow manage to get back into your world, normal chest and barrel items can be recovered, however they can also be stolen by other players. Neither the barrel nor the chest have anti grief protections, nor can the ender chest be guaranteed to be safe for the reasons I mentioned.
If you are so concerned about world corruption this is exactly why you make regular backups, every day if necessary, and ideally to a completely different location/device with at least several older backups before they are deleted/overwritten. Also, chunks can also become corrupt so you'll lose everything in the chests it contains, and level/player.dat is a few KB compared to several MB or more for region files and both are being written to at the same frequency, so regions are 1000x more likely to get a corrupted bit (which can ruin the entire file if it affects the header, or an entire chunk as they are compressed, so a single bit changing can cause far more than just single a block or item to change; in the right place it will cause a decompression error and wipe the whole chunk). Chunks can also become misplaced, overwriting the chunk that used to be where they were moved, which is a common issue in newer versions and is likely caused by a bug within the game itself, while a corrupt/missing level.dat is usually caused by improper shutdown (including clicking X to close the window instead of "save and quit to title") and crashes.
Other than that, barrels are better in most cases, except when you want the convenience and capacity of a double chest - I even added them to my own mod for these reasons (I made the recipe use a "U" of 7 planks with a slab at the top, which is still slightly cheaper by half a plank). Another benefit not mentioned yet is performance - barrels have more or less the same FPS impact as blocks like stone while chests are rendered like entities and have one of the highest impacts on FPS of any block (cobblestone, or any other standard block = 280 FPS; barrels = 280 FPS; chests = 5 FPS; this was for 8000 of each but some people actually do make storage rooms large enough that it will be noticeable).
If you are so concerned about world corruption this is exactly why you make regular backups, every day if necessary, and ideally to a completely different location/device with at least several older backups before they are deleted/overwritten. Also, chunks can also become corrupt so you'll lose everything in the chests it contains, and level/player.dat is a few KB compared to several MB or more for region files and both are being written to at the same frequency, so regions are 1000x more likely to get a corrupted bit (which can ruin the entire file if it affects the header, or an entire chunk as they are compressed, so a single bit changing can cause far more than just single a block or item to change; in the right place it will cause a decompression error and wipe the whole chunk). Chunks can also become misplaced, overwriting the chunk that used to be where they were moved, which is a common issue in newer versions and is likely caused by a bug within the game itself, while a corrupt/missing level.dat is usually caused by improper shutdown (including clicking X to close the window instead of "save and quit to title") and crashes.
Other than that, barrels are better in most cases, except when you want the convenience and capacity of a double chest - I even added them to my own mod for these reasons (I made the recipe use a "U" of 7 planks with a slab at the top, which is still slightly cheaper by half a plank). Another benefit not mentioned yet is performance - barrels have more or less the same FPS impact as blocks like stone while chests are rendered like entities and have one of the highest impacts on FPS of any block (cobblestone, or any other standard block = 280 FPS; barrels = 280 FPS; chests = 5 FPS; this was for 8000 of each but some people actually do make storage rooms large enough that it will be noticeable).
I do, just recently, last night I plugged in a USB external hard disk into my Minecraft server to be used for daily automated backups.
I had to isolate what the problem was on mine, as Ubuntu for whatever reason crashes on reboot, apparently I am not the only one who had this type of problem with Ubuntu but whatever, you get what you pay for, it's a free OS, as long as it's useable in some way I can't complain.
So I had to edit the crontab settings to make the bedrock server restart the application only, and keep the OS running 24/7 to stop the OS from hanging.
It's definitely not a hardware issue, as I made sure the RAM and SSD were property seated, twice.
I also used an anti ESD wrist strap on a metal touching the ground for proper grounding.
I managed to recover the corrupted file on my end, and the corruption did worse than reset inventory items, it outright prevented me from logging in.
I am well aware that chunks can become corrupted and destroy barrel and chest items, I've had experiences like that in the past on an old realm.
I was lucky I was able to retrieve a backup from a couple of nights back when it happened, when reinstalling Ubuntu I chose the keep documents option to prevent the files from getting erased. I never choose the erase option unless absolutely necessary, otherwise it's a hassle using external drives to get back what was lost.
It's a graph relation in which chests are better for small quantities and barrels are better for large quantities.
However, only considering the wood cost without considering entity/tile behaviour to explosives and fire, sounds when opening, compact storage, double-size storage, etc, gives an incomplete picture.
They're cheaper if you account for the leftover materials, or better yet, if you utilize the right amount of wood so there are no leftover materials at all. For instance, with 42 wood you can craft exactly 21 chests or 24 barrels.
They're cheaper if you account for the leftover materials, or better yet, if you utilize the right amount of wood so there are no leftover materials at all. For instance, with 42 wood you can craft exactly 21 chests or 24 barrels.
And as an added bonus, you can get 24 fishermen, which means you have plenty of fishermen for trading string with per in-game day, and this is very useful if you have a Spider Spawner or better yet a double spider spawner nearby.
Also barrel inventory is completely unaffected by Fishermen using them, your items stay put even if they access the barrel.
Out of all Villager types I'd say the Leatherworker is the least useful, not counting the Nitwit which we all know is useless.
By the time you have trades set up, you most likely are wearing at least Iron armour, so leather armour becomes obsolete
except for if traversing mountains, then leather boots are needed for safely going across powdered snow to avoid falling in.
Although material-wise, a barrel is a bit cheaper, chests are more time efficient.
Crafting chests is way faster. Just take some planks and sweep around crafting table perimeter.
When rifling through chests looking for something specific, double chests cut the search time almost in half.
Surplus chests can be crafted into shulker boxes and hoppers, and attached to mules.
Barrels primarily make sense for decorative purposes.
Unfortunately as was discussed before, chests need a half slab hole above them to be opened. You can technically open them with chests stacked on top of each other, but this looks ugly, not to mention more resources used for a chest you might not even need at the time. And the chest nearest to the ceiling still won't open if there is no half slab worth of space above.
Barrels can be placed under any block and be opened, regardless of whether they had the aforementioned half slab hole or not above them.
Barrels are useful for far more than just aesthetics, they are the best for storing items in massive quantities.
And I highly doubt common materials will be wasted on shulker boxes, perhaps potions which are renewable, emeralds for trading or decor,
but why would you put a stack of torches in this? the benefit of shulker boxes is storing more rare, enchanted or potions inside Ender chest.
If I was to carry a shulker box with me, it would only be one, and I'd rarely take it out of the Ender chest out of fear of losing such a hard to obtain resource. I'd only keep it in inventory if I was traveling in Overworld and not taking risks like riptiding during rain storm, or building at extreme heights etc.
Barrels have advantages in some circumstances, but some of the stated disadvantages for chests are false {as of the last versions with which I'm familiar}.
Chests will open as long as there is not a solid block above (bottom slabs and appropriatly oriented stairs being two options).
Chests offer double the storage of barrels in the same 'frontage' as two half-chests can be combined so one has access to both from the short end of the doubled half-chest.
Chests are not used as a POI by any villager profession. (Having barrels nearby can be problematic with fishermen claiming a non-accessible POI after losing their proper barrels, as well as with unemployed picking a POI other than what one would prefer. Chests are therefore preferrable in and near villager trading halls.)
If, however, one is unconcerned with 'frontage' AND there are no nearby villagers, barrels are less laggy than chests.
Droppers are more advantageous than either in piglin trading.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
By 'decorative' I mean 'aesthetic', if the player is going for a certain look. I.e. barrels produce a great 'kitchen cabinets' look. But barrels and chests offer EXACTLY the same amount of storage per block occupied, but as above player posted, double chests placed sideways provide access to 2x storage within same amount of wall front.
For me, the time factor is the most significant. Opening a container, I can determine at a glance if it contains what I am looking for, no matter if I am looking at 27 or 54 slots. So, checking 6 barrels will take about 2x time compared to 3 double chests.
Personally, I find myself crafting barrels only when wanting fishermen in a village.
By 'decorative' I mean 'aesthetic', if the player is going for a certain look. I.e. barrels produce a great 'kitchen cabinets' look. But barrels and chests offer EXACTLY the same amount of storage per block occupied, but as above player posted, double chests placed sideways provide access to 2x storage within same amount of wall front.
For me, the time factor is the most significant. Opening a container, I can determine at a glance if it contains what I am looking for, no matter if I am looking at 27 or 54 slots. So, checking 6 barrels will take about 2x time compared to 3 double chests.
Personally, I find myself crafting barrels only when wanting fishermen in a village.
But when you have warehouses with chests in the middle of the facility room there is no wall to build into except for at the 4 edges of the building, and presumably the room you use to house the staircase or ladder you use to access these rooms.
In that case you don't want double chests, because double chests offer the same capacity as 2x barrels, but still take up 2 blocks of space each. The problem comes in when you don't stack the chests or place chests too close to a solid block, at the ceiling of the room as I had mentioned previously.
That's why I said barrels overall save space, because it's true.
If you don't want fishermen then I can see why barrels existing near your trade kiosks would be a nuisance for you.
Since staircases are not solid blocks, it's treated as if it's a half slab even though it technically takes up 3 quarters of a block.
half slabs also need to be appropriately orientated or the chests won't open with them either.
Since I design my warehouses with solid block ceilings, I would need to use barrels for this design to get the most efficient storage facility possible.
My villager trade area is already set up and all the job blocks have been taken and locked in, so I don't need to worry about barrels causing them issues.
Who cares about saving space? Minecraft has 60mil x 60mil x 380 blocks of space. I really couldn't care less if something takes up an extra block here or there or needs some air above it. I can always knock out a ceiling block if needed.
My last three posts in this thread specifically state that chests save TIME - which for me is by far more important. Comprende? T-I-M-E.
Double chests mean I can locate what I need with half the clicking, and a lot less moving.
"Barrels are cheaper than chests" I will be proving that wrong, today.
So barrels are crafted in attachments. Chests are crafted in attachments. Chest are crafted with 8 planks, barrels, with 9.
Slabs recipe is in attachments, so if you count chest it is 8 planks, if you count barrel it is 9, do the math, use a calculator!
That is my proof.
But with crafting the slaps from 3 planks you will get 6 slabs
So you do not need new slaps for the next two barrels
Calculate it for 3 Chests/Barrels:
3 Chests = 3 x 8 planks = 24 planks
3 Barrels = 3 x 6 planks + 3 planks (for 6 slabs) = 21 planks
So approximately you will need:
8 planks for a chest (24 planks / 3 chests)
and
7 planks for a Barrel (21 planks / 3 barrels)
I know you get 6 slabs, I didn't add extra wood to the total.
I will recaculate right here:
3 Chests = 3*8 planks = 24 planks
3 Barrels = 3*12 planks = 36 planks
So you will need:
8 planks per chest
6+3 planks per barrel
(6+3=12)
But that is incorrect - and why 12?
Maybe that's exactly the point why you don't understand the statement "Barrels are cheaper than chests"
Your math only works out if you throw away the other four slabs. It's not 9 planks to make a barrel, it's 7 because when reduced down, one plank makes 2 slabs. It's just the recipe needs three planks to make six slabs, so either use the other four slabs to make another two barrels or use them on your roof or something.
Plus barrels don't need a blank space above them to work, chests do, another plus for barrels.
D_B
To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
I wouldn't say barrels are cheaper to make than chests
but when you look at how much space is saved when they're in use, barrels are superior,
reason being is because you can open them even if there is a block on top,
you can't do the same with chests.
Chests need at least a half slab hole above them to be opened,
otherwise they're useless. I've made the switch to barrels for my major builds, and I don't regret doing so.
Whether or not they're useful for shulker boxes is debatable, on the one hand, if your file gets corrupted and your inventory and ender chest items get reset when you somehow manage to get back into your world, normal chest and barrel items can be recovered, however they can also be stolen by other players. Neither the barrel nor the chest have anti grief protections, nor can the ender chest be guaranteed to be safe for the reasons I mentioned.
If you are so concerned about world corruption this is exactly why you make regular backups, every day if necessary, and ideally to a completely different location/device with at least several older backups before they are deleted/overwritten. Also, chunks can also become corrupt so you'll lose everything in the chests it contains, and level/player.dat is a few KB compared to several MB or more for region files and both are being written to at the same frequency, so regions are 1000x more likely to get a corrupted bit (which can ruin the entire file if it affects the header, or an entire chunk as they are compressed, so a single bit changing can cause far more than just single a block or item to change; in the right place it will cause a decompression error and wipe the whole chunk). Chunks can also become misplaced, overwriting the chunk that used to be where they were moved, which is a common issue in newer versions and is likely caused by a bug within the game itself, while a corrupt/missing level.dat is usually caused by improper shutdown (including clicking X to close the window instead of "save and quit to title") and crashes.
Other than that, barrels are better in most cases, except when you want the convenience and capacity of a double chest - I even added them to my own mod for these reasons (I made the recipe use a "U" of 7 planks with a slab at the top, which is still slightly cheaper by half a plank). Another benefit not mentioned yet is performance - barrels have more or less the same FPS impact as blocks like stone while chests are rendered like entities and have one of the highest impacts on FPS of any block (cobblestone, or any other standard block = 280 FPS; barrels = 280 FPS; chests = 5 FPS; this was for 8000 of each but some people actually do make storage rooms large enough that it will be noticeable).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
I do, just recently, last night I plugged in a USB external hard disk into my Minecraft server to be used for daily automated backups.
I had to isolate what the problem was on mine, as Ubuntu for whatever reason crashes on reboot, apparently I am not the only one who had this type of problem with Ubuntu but whatever, you get what you pay for, it's a free OS, as long as it's useable in some way I can't complain.
So I had to edit the crontab settings to make the bedrock server restart the application only, and keep the OS running 24/7 to stop the OS from hanging.
It's definitely not a hardware issue, as I made sure the RAM and SSD were property seated, twice.
I also used an anti ESD wrist strap on a metal touching the ground for proper grounding.
I managed to recover the corrupted file on my end, and the corruption did worse than reset inventory items, it outright prevented me from logging in.
I am well aware that chunks can become corrupted and destroy barrel and chest items, I've had experiences like that in the past on an old realm.
I was lucky I was able to retrieve a backup from a couple of nights back when it happened, when reinstalling Ubuntu I chose the keep documents option to prevent the files from getting erased. I never choose the erase option unless absolutely necessary, otherwise it's a hassle using external drives to get back what was lost.
3 planks = 6 slabs.
3 barrels =18 planks + 6 slabs = 21 planks
3 chests = 24 planks.
It's a graph relation in which chests are better for small quantities and barrels are better for large quantities.
However, only considering the wood cost without considering entity/tile behaviour to explosives and fire, sounds when opening, compact storage, double-size storage, etc, gives an incomplete picture.
In all honesty this isn't a big saving, it still needs 6 logs unless you find wooden planks from elsewhere,
7 logs if you don't already have a crafting table.
I use barrels not because of the wood they save, but for the space saved.
They are superior to chests in every area except one, making shulker boxes, which the chest is needed for.
They technically consume less wood if going by raw math, but in practice you still need the same amount of logs
which means the same amount of work is put into making them.
Barrels and chests have the same capacity even if placed side by side.
Two barrels will take up two blocks of space, but still have the total capacity of a double chest.
They're cheaper if you account for the leftover materials, or better yet, if you utilize the right amount of wood so there are no leftover materials at all. For instance, with 42 wood you can craft exactly 21 chests or 24 barrels.
42 wood → 168 planks →
→ 21 × (8 planks) → 21 chests
or
→ 144 planks + 8 × (3 planks) → 144 planks + 48 slabs → 24 × (6 planks + 2 slabs) → 24 barrels
Exactly. Thank you for the mathematical legwork.
And as an added bonus, you can get 24 fishermen, which means you have plenty of fishermen for trading string with per in-game day, and this is very useful if you have a Spider Spawner or better yet a double spider spawner nearby.
Also barrel inventory is completely unaffected by Fishermen using them, your items stay put even if they access the barrel.
Out of all Villager types I'd say the Leatherworker is the least useful, not counting the Nitwit which we all know is useless.
By the time you have trades set up, you most likely are wearing at least Iron armour, so leather armour becomes obsolete
except for if traversing mountains, then leather boots are needed for safely going across powdered snow to avoid falling in.
Although material-wise, a barrel is a bit cheaper, chests are more time efficient.
Crafting chests is way faster. Just take some planks and sweep around crafting table perimeter.
When rifling through chests looking for something specific, double chests cut the search time almost in half.
Surplus chests can be crafted into shulker boxes and hoppers, and attached to mules.
Barrels primarily make sense for decorative purposes.
Unfortunately as was discussed before, chests need a half slab hole above them to be opened. You can technically open them with chests stacked on top of each other, but this looks ugly, not to mention more resources used for a chest you might not even need at the time. And the chest nearest to the ceiling still won't open if there is no half slab worth of space above.
Barrels can be placed under any block and be opened, regardless of whether they had the aforementioned half slab hole or not above them.
Barrels are useful for far more than just aesthetics, they are the best for storing items in massive quantities.
And I highly doubt common materials will be wasted on shulker boxes, perhaps potions which are renewable, emeralds for trading or decor,
but why would you put a stack of torches in this? the benefit of shulker boxes is storing more rare, enchanted or potions inside Ender chest.
If I was to carry a shulker box with me, it would only be one, and I'd rarely take it out of the Ender chest out of fear of losing such a hard to obtain resource. I'd only keep it in inventory if I was traveling in Overworld and not taking risks like riptiding during rain storm, or building at extreme heights etc.
Barrels have advantages in some circumstances, but some of the stated disadvantages for chests are false {as of the last versions with which I'm familiar}.
Chests will open as long as there is not a solid block above (bottom slabs and appropriatly oriented stairs being two options).
Chests offer double the storage of barrels in the same 'frontage' as two half-chests can be combined so one has access to both from the short end of the doubled half-chest.
Chests are not used as a POI by any villager profession. (Having barrels nearby can be problematic with fishermen claiming a non-accessible POI after losing their proper barrels, as well as with unemployed picking a POI other than what one would prefer. Chests are therefore preferrable in and near villager trading halls.)
If, however, one is unconcerned with 'frontage' AND there are no nearby villagers, barrels are less laggy than chests.
Droppers are more advantageous than either in piglin trading.
By 'decorative' I mean 'aesthetic', if the player is going for a certain look. I.e. barrels produce a great 'kitchen cabinets' look. But barrels and chests offer EXACTLY the same amount of storage per block occupied, but as above player posted, double chests placed sideways provide access to 2x storage within same amount of wall front.
For me, the time factor is the most significant. Opening a container, I can determine at a glance if it contains what I am looking for, no matter if I am looking at 27 or 54 slots. So, checking 6 barrels will take about 2x time compared to 3 double chests.
Personally, I find myself crafting barrels only when wanting fishermen in a village.
But when you have warehouses with chests in the middle of the facility room there is no wall to build into except for at the 4 edges of the building, and presumably the room you use to house the staircase or ladder you use to access these rooms.
In that case you don't want double chests, because double chests offer the same capacity as 2x barrels, but still take up 2 blocks of space each. The problem comes in when you don't stack the chests or place chests too close to a solid block, at the ceiling of the room as I had mentioned previously.
That's why I said barrels overall save space, because it's true.
If you don't want fishermen then I can see why barrels existing near your trade kiosks would be a nuisance for you.
Since staircases are not solid blocks, it's treated as if it's a half slab even though it technically takes up 3 quarters of a block.
half slabs also need to be appropriately orientated or the chests won't open with them either.
Since I design my warehouses with solid block ceilings, I would need to use barrels for this design to get the most efficient storage facility possible.
My villager trade area is already set up and all the job blocks have been taken and locked in, so I don't need to worry about barrels causing them issues.
Who cares about saving space? Minecraft has 60mil x 60mil x 380 blocks of space. I really couldn't care less if something takes up an extra block here or there or needs some air above it. I can always knock out a ceiling block if needed.
My last three posts in this thread specifically state that chests save TIME - which for me is by far more important. Comprende? T-I-M-E.
Double chests mean I can locate what I need with half the clicking, and a lot less moving.