The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Hey all, noob here. I first worked on this treehouse 8 years ago then stopped because life got busy. I recently started up again working on it. Now I realize it isn't the prettiest. I just wanted to have fun while trying to stay alive in survival. I've been much more concerned with trying to withstand the ever increasing hostility of the mobs and making sure the structure is mob proof...especially from creepers. The base of the structure was reinforced with cobblestone with double slabs of wood planks used for the flooring. Supposedly mobs don't spawn on them.
In the future I will continue refining the design as now that the first priority of safety has been met I will start to focus on the aesthetics. The going theory was for a design that blended into the countryside. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks all.
The base of the structure was reinforced with cobblestone with double slabs of wood planks used for the flooring. Supposedly mobs don't spawn on them.
Mobs do not spawn on bottom slabs. They spawn just fine on top slabs. A good rule of thumb to go by is that if it's a full block face on the top a mob can spawn on it.
Your use of torches is, frankly, ridiculously foolish. For starters, there's no light in the farm at all so not only will your crops will stop growing at night but the entire area is a dark spot for mobs to spawn in...and you have it right next to your house. Secondly, some of your torches are doing absolutely nothing at all because their neighbors are covering all of the same territory; torchlight does not stack, so packing them together like sardines isn't going to make the area brighter.
Torches (and light sources in general) are not the only spawnproofing tools one can use. Water (and lava) prevents dryland hostile/passive spawns. Mobs also cannot spawn on certain blocks: leaves (ocelots and parrots can do so in a jungle), carpet, trapdoors, rails, upright stairs, bottom slabs, buttons, pressure plates, fences/gates, walls, path/farmland blocks, among lots of others
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
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Posts:
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I already had the suspicion that I was over doing it with the torches in one area and not enough in others. The torches all around the building was a knee jerk response to the hostile mobs spawning on or very near the house. I got frustrated and started putting torches everywhere. Perhaps I went overboard with the torches but being able to spot your home from a great distance at night has proven to be helpful. Also, I've been monitoring the farm area for a while now. I have torches all along the perimeter of the farm and to date no mobs have spawned in that area. Even so, I will add outdoor lamps closer to the crops so they would continue to grow at night. I didn't know that was a thing.
As for the slabs....
What you mentioned is troubling. I actually had flooring with just bottom slabs but placing items on top became problematic so I thought double slabs would do the trick. I've replaced the flooring twice. Not going to do it again anytime soon. I will have to rely on the torches. Now that I think about it, with the SEUS shaders I'm running I think the torch stacking does actually make a difference in terms of brightness. But I will adjust. The torches have always been place holders anyway until I was about to mine more iron ore for lanterns.
Not sure about the lava to be honest. But making a moat is interesting. I will explore that option along with the other suggestions for spawn proofing. As I get better with the treehouse I will be better prepared for the village I'm planning on making.
First of all, I think your treehouse base is quite lovely. It reminds me of an End city, and has given me the inspiration to build my own similar structure using a lot of the new nether materials.
You do need far fewer torches on the fences and they need to be spread out more evenly across the entire area so you don‘t have dark spots. A simple fence surrounding a well-lit area will keep mobs out, so I view lava, moats, etc as merely design elements to use for aesthetic reasons. Mobs never spawn in my farms, so torches in the corners and on the sides and on the occasional irrigating water blocks (covered with a half slab) are sufficient (that is how I light them up). I actually use jack o‘lanterns a lot because they are plentiful and cheap and provide more light than torches. After my base or a village is bright enough to prevent mobs from spawning I usually gradually replace the torches with less intrusive-looking light sources.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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You're right about the torches. I never thought about covering the water blocks with slabs then putting a torch on them. I'm gonna try that. Over time I will try to mature the treehouse and farm. What I'm thinking about though is right next to the treehouse is an open area surrounded by small hills which I think will be great for a small village. I'm going to fly over the area in creative to better visual how I will design it then build it in survival. I think survival builds are better in general than creative builds.
I'll update the thread with any improvements I do over time.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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The front entrance at the base opens up to the basement so to speak. I have a portal down there (notice the on/off switch) and some supplies. There was a noise down there so I went to investigate to find an enderman just walking around. How the hell did he happen to teleport inside there? Was it because I have a portal nearby? I didn't think to take a pic of him because he started attacking me. Luckily I had my 5 dogs with me. They tore him up!
Now you know why I get so paranoid and put torches everywhere!
The interior of your base is very nice, thank you for posting the pics. You have the same issue with lighting, though. There are far too many clusters of torches on the walls while the floors are dark. Mobs don‘t spawn sideways on walls, so the purpose of wall lights is to light up the floor. Putting all the torches 4 blocks up makes them less effective because less light reaches the floor. Having torches too close to each other is also ineffective. The floor of your basement looks very dark in your screenshot. I am surprised that you don‘t have mobs in there all the time. You can safely remove 3/4 of the torches on the walls, spacing them evenly and placing them lower to increase the amount of light reaching the floor. Putting them at the height of 2 blocks works well. If the middle section of the room is still too dark, you can hang a lantern from the ceiling or put a jack o‘lantern, glowstone or shroomlight in the floor. Your inactive portal also looks very dark, so theoretically something could spawn in it. On Java Minecraft you can see the light level of a targeted block by pressing F3. Mobs can spawn below a certain light level (7?).
The Enderman might have teleported in from outside your house or simply spawned in the room if it is as dark as it looks in the screenshot.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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I actually tried the half slab on the water blocks to see how it would look with the lanterns. I didn't like it. So I went with the lamp posts in the farm. I doubt mobs will spawn there now. I suppose I'm going overboard again but I wanted sufficient light so the plants would grow at night. I already started removing or spacing out the torches along the outside of the treehouse at the base to get them closer to the ground. I will start doing the same on the inside. My ceilings are so high as you can see.
I think I added too many light posts but I'm not sure. What do you think?
If you like the lanterns on the posts, go with it! The farm has to be a place where you enjoy being, so design it the way you like it.
I hope my previous comments about all the torches on the walls didn't come across as criticism of your design, they were only pointing out issues with light levels. You can of course keep as many torches as you want and place them as high as you want if that is the look you are going after. However, if you don't want mobs to spawn, you need to make sure the entire spawnable area has a high enough light level. My comments were only about efficiency, not design.
Your current farm design is also very inefficient because so little of the farm area has crops on it. You can actually plant tiles of 9x9 block areas, each area with only a single water block in the middle which increases yield immensely. Since you have tilled so little land, I can understand why you want the crops to grow at night. I always sleep through the nights (unless I am fishing), so this isn't an issue for me. By the way, I read somewhere that mobs don't spawn on actual tilled farmland, but they could spawn in the areas between your crops if your farm wasn't lit up.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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9x9 block areas? I didn't know that either. I suppose I could rework the farm with less water and more crops. I'll look into it. I've already started spreading out the lanterns and checking blocks for light levels. Geez.....so I've been wasting the farm area all this time? Crap.
9x9 block areas? I didn't know that either. I suppose I could rework the farm with less water and more crops. I'll look into it. I've already started spreading out the lanterns and checking blocks for light levels. Geez.....so I've been wasting the farm area all this time? Crap.
The most fun I have in Minecraft is improving on stuff. Here is my favorite tip for manual farms that I saw somewhere: place a composter near your farm vertically between two hoppers: one hopper on top going into the composter and one on the bottom coming out. When you farm, dump all your left- over seeds into the top hopper. It will go into the composter and bone meal will collect in the bottom hopper. I usually bury the bottom hopper and access it through a trap door to keep the contraption from getting too tall. I don't bother to add a chest, preferring to collect the bonemeal periodically directly from the hopper. Bonemeal is incredibly useful. Not only can you bonemeal your crops or saplings to get them to grow faster, you can use it on the ground to grow flowers (which you need for bees), turn netherrack into crimson and warped dirt blocks, use it on the crimson and warped dirt blocks to get crimson and warped mushrooms and grow those mushrooms into the new Nether "trees".
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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I'm definitely going to try the composter idea. In the meantime, I've been reworking the wheat farm for efficiency using the 9x9 method. The lamp posts are planted where the water blocks are and they seem to be working out great. To the right I've cleared out some real estate for more sugarcane. I might be wasting space for the sugarcane but I prefer straight lines of water for those.
Very nice! If you like, you can increase your sugar cane yield and still have straight lines of water by lining up your rows like this with fewer water rows: SWSSWSSWSSWS
(S= Sugar Cane, W=Water)
Keep in mind that mobs can still spawn in the unlit areas between your farm and your house. The only thing to really worry about though is a Creeper surprising you when you leave your house. You don't want to have your front yard blown up! If you tame a few cats and place them outside your house, that will keep Creepers at a distance. Don't place pets right next to pumpkin or melon patches though because they can be crushed or suffocated by ones that pop up.
This is a really great discussion! Just wanted to pop in and say that I LOVE your treehouse design, with all the geometric shapes. Very cool! Looks like a fun and interesting place to live!
Some of the things I do to ensure 100% peaceful area at my base:
- Fence your farm / safe area. Move the fencing out as you expand.
- Initially place torches in a grid, with 4 spaces between torches. A bit wider spacing is OK but the 4-space seems to work best. You can "ungrid" as you make things more attractive but you must preserve sufficient lighting.
- It is easy to make an automated and compact afk pumpkin farm, and with lots of pumpkins you can make jack-o-lantern. A buried jack-o-lantern is a great "flush" source of light.
- For your more artistic style of play I would suggest getting the mod that let's you view the light level of any block. I don't remember the name but you can Google it. Just keep the light level of every block inside your fence above 8 and you will never need to worry about hostile mobs.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
7/4/2020
Posts:
62
Member Details
I've learned a lot since I first started. It is being built in survival and the design is motivated by me wanting to stay alive. lol
The long term goal is to make an entire treehouse village with the jungle biome right behind it. I also want to build a small regular village at the base nearby the surrounding countryside. When I get some more free time I will start working on it.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
7/4/2020
Posts:
62
Member Details
Everything is in contual flux. The video upload is how the site currently looks. I removed those lights and excavated the ground to make room for more surgarcane. But the overall goal is to light up the perimeter again. So in the beginning I had too many lights and recently I have been trying to remove some. Even though I think Toadrunner's point was that I was too uneven with the light, I'm going to re-add lights needed or not. But this time it will be lanterns everywhere. Going to need to go on an expedition to find a new source of iron ore.
Hey all, noob here. I first worked on this treehouse 8 years ago then stopped because life got busy. I recently started up again working on it. Now I realize it isn't the prettiest. I just wanted to have fun while trying to stay alive in survival. I've been much more concerned with trying to withstand the ever increasing hostility of the mobs and making sure the structure is mob proof...especially from creepers. The base of the structure was reinforced with cobblestone with double slabs of wood planks used for the flooring. Supposedly mobs don't spawn on them.
In the future I will continue refining the design as now that the first priority of safety has been met I will start to focus on the aesthetics. The going theory was for a design that blended into the countryside. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks all.
Pics below....
Mobs do not spawn on bottom slabs. They spawn just fine on top slabs. A good rule of thumb to go by is that if it's a full block face on the top a mob can spawn on it.
Your use of torches is, frankly, ridiculously foolish. For starters, there's no light in the farm at all so not only will your crops will stop growing at night but the entire area is a dark spot for mobs to spawn in...and you have it right next to your house. Secondly, some of your torches are doing absolutely nothing at all because their neighbors are covering all of the same territory; torchlight does not stack, so packing them together like sardines isn't going to make the area brighter.
Torches (and light sources in general) are not the only spawnproofing tools one can use. Water (and lava) prevents dryland hostile/passive spawns. Mobs also cannot spawn on certain blocks: leaves (ocelots and parrots can do so in a jungle), carpet, trapdoors, rails, upright stairs, bottom slabs, buttons, pressure plates, fences/gates, walls, path/farmland blocks, among lots of others
I already had the suspicion that I was over doing it with the torches in one area and not enough in others. The torches all around the building was a knee jerk response to the hostile mobs spawning on or very near the house. I got frustrated and started putting torches everywhere. Perhaps I went overboard with the torches but being able to spot your home from a great distance at night has proven to be helpful. Also, I've been monitoring the farm area for a while now. I have torches all along the perimeter of the farm and to date no mobs have spawned in that area. Even so, I will add outdoor lamps closer to the crops so they would continue to grow at night. I didn't know that was a thing.
As for the slabs....
What you mentioned is troubling. I actually had flooring with just bottom slabs but placing items on top became problematic so I thought double slabs would do the trick. I've replaced the flooring twice. Not going to do it again anytime soon. I will have to rely on the torches. Now that I think about it, with the SEUS shaders I'm running I think the torch stacking does actually make a difference in terms of brightness. But I will adjust. The torches have always been place holders anyway until I was about to mine more iron ore for lanterns.
Not sure about the lava to be honest. But making a moat is interesting. I will explore that option along with the other suggestions for spawn proofing. As I get better with the treehouse I will be better prepared for the village I'm planning on making.
One step at a time....
First of all, I think your treehouse base is quite lovely. It reminds me of an End city, and has given me the inspiration to build my own similar structure using a lot of the new nether materials.
You do need far fewer torches on the fences and they need to be spread out more evenly across the entire area so you don‘t have dark spots. A simple fence surrounding a well-lit area will keep mobs out, so I view lava, moats, etc as merely design elements to use for aesthetic reasons. Mobs never spawn in my farms, so torches in the corners and on the sides and on the occasional irrigating water blocks (covered with a half slab) are sufficient (that is how I light them up). I actually use jack o‘lanterns a lot because they are plentiful and cheap and provide more light than torches. After my base or a village is bright enough to prevent mobs from spawning I usually gradually replace the torches with less intrusive-looking light sources.
I would love to see how your build progresses.
You're right about the torches. I never thought about covering the water blocks with slabs then putting a torch on them. I'm gonna try that. Over time I will try to mature the treehouse and farm. What I'm thinking about though is right next to the treehouse is an open area surrounded by small hills which I think will be great for a small village. I'm going to fly over the area in creative to better visual how I will design it then build it in survival. I think survival builds are better in general than creative builds.
I'll update the thread with any improvements I do over time.
Some pics from the interior....
The front entrance at the base opens up to the basement so to speak. I have a portal down there (notice the on/off switch) and some supplies. There was a noise down there so I went to investigate to find an enderman just walking around. How the hell did he happen to teleport inside there? Was it because I have a portal nearby? I didn't think to take a pic of him because he started attacking me. Luckily I had my 5 dogs with me. They tore him up!
Now you know why I get so paranoid and put torches everywhere!
The interior of your base is very nice, thank you for posting the pics. You have the same issue with lighting, though. There are far too many clusters of torches on the walls while the floors are dark. Mobs don‘t spawn sideways on walls, so the purpose of wall lights is to light up the floor. Putting all the torches 4 blocks up makes them less effective because less light reaches the floor. Having torches too close to each other is also ineffective. The floor of your basement looks very dark in your screenshot. I am surprised that you don‘t have mobs in there all the time. You can safely remove 3/4 of the torches on the walls, spacing them evenly and placing them lower to increase the amount of light reaching the floor. Putting them at the height of 2 blocks works well. If the middle section of the room is still too dark, you can hang a lantern from the ceiling or put a jack o‘lantern, glowstone or shroomlight in the floor. Your inactive portal also looks very dark, so theoretically something could spawn in it. On Java Minecraft you can see the light level of a targeted block by pressing F3. Mobs can spawn below a certain light level (7?).
The Enderman might have teleported in from outside your house or simply spawned in the room if it is as dark as it looks in the screenshot.
I actually tried the half slab on the water blocks to see how it would look with the lanterns. I didn't like it. So I went with the lamp posts in the farm. I doubt mobs will spawn there now. I suppose I'm going overboard again but I wanted sufficient light so the plants would grow at night. I already started removing or spacing out the torches along the outside of the treehouse at the base to get them closer to the ground. I will start doing the same on the inside. My ceilings are so high as you can see.
I think I added too many light posts but I'm not sure. What do you think?
If you like the lanterns on the posts, go with it! The farm has to be a place where you enjoy being, so design it the way you like it.
I hope my previous comments about all the torches on the walls didn't come across as criticism of your design, they were only pointing out issues with light levels. You can of course keep as many torches as you want and place them as high as you want if that is the look you are going after. However, if you don't want mobs to spawn, you need to make sure the entire spawnable area has a high enough light level. My comments were only about efficiency, not design.
Your current farm design is also very inefficient because so little of the farm area has crops on it. You can actually plant tiles of 9x9 block areas, each area with only a single water block in the middle which increases yield immensely. Since you have tilled so little land, I can understand why you want the crops to grow at night. I always sleep through the nights (unless I am fishing), so this isn't an issue for me. By the way, I read somewhere that mobs don't spawn on actual tilled farmland, but they could spawn in the areas between your crops if your farm wasn't lit up.
9x9 block areas? I didn't know that either. I suppose I could rework the farm with less water and more crops. I'll look into it. I've already started spreading out the lanterns and checking blocks for light levels. Geez.....so I've been wasting the farm area all this time? Crap.
The most fun I have in Minecraft is improving on stuff. Here is my favorite tip for manual farms that I saw somewhere: place a composter near your farm vertically between two hoppers: one hopper on top going into the composter and one on the bottom coming out. When you farm, dump all your left- over seeds into the top hopper. It will go into the composter and bone meal will collect in the bottom hopper. I usually bury the bottom hopper and access it through a trap door to keep the contraption from getting too tall. I don't bother to add a chest, preferring to collect the bonemeal periodically directly from the hopper. Bonemeal is incredibly useful. Not only can you bonemeal your crops or saplings to get them to grow faster, you can use it on the ground to grow flowers (which you need for bees), turn netherrack into crimson and warped dirt blocks, use it on the crimson and warped dirt blocks to get crimson and warped mushrooms and grow those mushrooms into the new Nether "trees".
I'm definitely going to try the composter idea. In the meantime, I've been reworking the wheat farm for efficiency using the 9x9 method. The lamp posts are planted where the water blocks are and they seem to be working out great. To the right I've cleared out some real estate for more sugarcane. I might be wasting space for the sugarcane but I prefer straight lines of water for those.
Pics....
Very nice! If you like, you can increase your sugar cane yield and still have straight lines of water by lining up your rows like this with fewer water rows: SWSSWSSWSSWS
(S= Sugar Cane, W=Water)
Keep in mind that mobs can still spawn in the unlit areas between your farm and your house. The only thing to really worry about though is a Creeper surprising you when you leave your house. You don't want to have your front yard blown up! If you tame a few cats and place them outside your house, that will keep Creepers at a distance. Don't place pets right next to pumpkin or melon patches though because they can be crushed or suffocated by ones that pop up.
I really enjoy seeing the progress on your base!
I've been noticing a LOT of cats hanging around the area now around the treehouse base. I'm going to try to tame them and see what happens.
This is a really great discussion! Just wanted to pop in and say that I LOVE your treehouse design, with all the geometric shapes. Very cool! Looks like a fun and interesting place to live!
My Youtube channel! You have a downright fantastic day!
The simplest protection is fencing and lighting.
Some of the things I do to ensure 100% peaceful area at my base:
- Fence your farm / safe area. Move the fencing out as you expand.
- Initially place torches in a grid, with 4 spaces between torches. A bit wider spacing is OK but the 4-space seems to work best. You can "ungrid" as you make things more attractive but you must preserve sufficient lighting.
- It is easy to make an automated and compact afk pumpkin farm, and with lots of pumpkins you can make jack-o-lantern. A buried jack-o-lantern is a great "flush" source of light.
- For your more artistic style of play I would suggest getting the mod that let's you view the light level of any block. I don't remember the name but you can Google it. Just keep the light level of every block inside your fence above 8 and you will never need to worry about hostile mobs.
I've learned a lot since I first started. It is being built in survival and the design is motivated by me wanting to stay alive. lol
The long term goal is to make an entire treehouse village with the jungle biome right behind it. I also want to build a small regular village at the base nearby the surrounding countryside. When I get some more free time I will start working on it.
Hey all!
Uploaded a quick walkthrough video of the treehouse just for fun. It's my very first YouTube upload. lol
Enjoy.
I personally think (even tho they are too close together) these lights make the path look awesome
Nothing can go here but time itself.
Everything is in contual flux. The video upload is how the site currently looks. I removed those lights and excavated the ground to make room for more surgarcane. But the overall goal is to light up the perimeter again. So in the beginning I had too many lights and recently I have been trying to remove some. Even though I think Toadrunner's point was that I was too uneven with the light, I'm going to re-add lights needed or not. But this time it will be lanterns everywhere. Going to need to go on an expedition to find a new source of iron ore.