Minecraft Forums

Quote from Crunkatog

I'm paranoid and always build at least 1000 m from spawn (preferably about 1300 m or more) on SMP. My homes are absolutely invisible on Dynmap (built into a cave, under an overhang, planted around with trees). Even if you're physically in the area, you're likely to miss it unless it's night and you can see the faint glow of torches deep underneath.

Only after I get a sense of the community do I go ahead and build something closer to spawn or more visible and even then, I'm compelled to have underground exits, hidden staircases, escape routes, hidden storage, booby traps, and absolutely untouched and pristine surrounding landscape.

Not because I like nature...but because people are less likely to muck around with my settlement if all the creepers, zombies, spiders and whatnot are left to cavort around the place at will. No torchlit fields, no aboveground wheat farms, nothing.

Snow biomes are a special challenge for this type of settlement. If you settle in a snow biome and cut trees and screw around, the loss of snow cover is a dead giveaway. New conifers springing up without any snow cover on their leaf blocks is also a gimme. So I cut and plant by the cycle of the weather and am meticulous about going inside after sunset. One creeper blasting your snowy lawn into a dirt pit is all it takes to give away your location. I have a special chest in my base called "Biome Repair Kit" wherein sit a stack of snow blocks and some pine saplings. If creepers should happen, I fill in the crater and cover it over with snow blocks (which from afar look like just so much more snow). Then I plant a sapling over it to cover the depression until it snows again.

I never sleep. Snow cover is my friend. That said, I have a substantial tree farm, wheat farm, cactus farm, and reed pond inside. A fully functional mob fall trap (entirely contained underground, no tower) keeps me stocked with arrows and bonemeal. Even underground chambers have irregular borders and natural cavern-like shapes so people using X-ray viewers and cave viewers won't pick up on it right away. (OF course X-ray mod can't be helped. There's chests and stairs everywhere)

Natural lighting is provided by roof windows that surface underneath tree canopy, so they aren't visible from overhead maps. They are sunk 1 block into the ground, so they are not conspicuous from the next hill.

Cavern entrances for say 200 m around my base are left unlit and any coal/iron at the surface is left unmined. This is all to say "THIS AREA IS UNINHABITED, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVING RIGHT ALONG". A recent server event drew unwelcome attention to a spot uncomfortably close (~300 m) to my main base. I made a point of making the area as uninteresting and bleak and dull as possible. Picked all the flowers, cut back the biome trees, filled in a natural lava pond, etc. To the casual visitor it's a barren icy wasteland. Creeps and skeletons keep the riff-raff out and lack of resources keeps the scavengers away by day.

Meanwhile I'm busy developing another site equidistant from spawn on the OTHER side of the map...just in case.

Like I said, I'm paranoid as hell.

Quote from DeletedUnit

Shouldn't a normal bed just recover a little bit of health?