Introduction
I've often been on servers where I found a lot of simple "wood cubes" as houses. They were often built by new players who need a cheap and useful shelter. As a survival player I know this issue too but as a builder it just makes me cry. So many great servers and their player citys loose their lotr atmosphere because of these "cubes". So I started developing starter bases. They should look nicer as the cubes but should cover everything a new player needs. You'll find everything from a crafting table, to a small kitchen garden in a faction specific building. I only use blocks from the lotr mod and vanilla minecraft, so everybody can build this. Please note that it will take longer to build such a base and that it might be difficult for some new players but I'm very sure that these starter bases will help to improve the look of many servers even if you just take this blog as a source of inspiration.
I hope you'll like these buildings! Please let me know if you find the post interessting/useful!
lg Fingowin
Bree farm
Most of you propably already explored the new update and therefore have visited bree. As update 36 will be the last major update for the 1.7.10 Minecraft version of the mod, I thought that I have to build something that honours all the amazing people that worked on this mod for years now. It had to be something that shows the new features and the whole glory that this mod presents us - I had to build the most beauttiful starter base ever. Of course there are many people around here that build better than me, I think, I at least managed to create the most beautiful starter base I've ever made. I hope this building may inspire some of you to not destroy the lovely land of Bree with ugyl dirt houses. As always I'd appreciate feedback of any kind and I'm willing to anwser any upcoming questions in the comment. (And please forgive me my bad english. It didn't get better since I startet on this wiki... I know...).
As Bree is an fertile land and one of the first attemps of any new player ist to get a lot of food (especially if you're a hobbit) I thought it would be the best to create a little farm. Because I really liked the new hatches around the Bree towns I adapted the design to the sice of the building. As you need to move carts with your supplys in and out, I uncluded a big gate. As you see the house and your fields are well protected against rabbits and ruffians. I tried to make the fields as big as possible to create a real farm look even if the plot itself is pretty small. However this desin isn't only effectiv for early survival players. In my opinion the narrowness creates a very natural feeling and adds up to the feeling that the little folk is still present in these lands. To even extend this feature I stole some shire heater from the hobbits and combined them with the new lavender. They fit perfectly! I really love this combination. To complete the outside decoration I used gravel, dirt paths and barren dirt to creates paths around the farm. I'm not quite sure but I never found barren dirt in surivival. If it's not available, they should change that immediatly. We need barren dirt to fight dirt houses!
However, before this ends up in a list of suggestions I as a builder would like to see implemented into the mod, we should take a closer look at the farm house. For the design I used oak beams an the new drystone, which is amazing! Exploring the new blocks and texture really excited me to build more and more! As most of the rural buildings in middle earth my farm house has a thatched roof (with an improved texture but I think you already got that). It is really important that you detail your roofs. I know it's hard because I'm still learning this too but a good roof makes your whole building look nicer! To detail the outside I also used fences and glass panes. On the sides I implemented a little bit of wattle and daub. This gave the facade some variaty and added some rural feeling. Using stones is propably more expensiv than just buildding with wood. Therefore a farm house shouldn't be made out of stone completly.
The entrance room inside the house is made out of simple materials too. It works mainly as a storage room and provids everything you need in the early game. As always you have a crafting table and the faction version of it, some chests and two barrels. The decoration consits of thatch flooring and a hay stack on one corner of the room. Through the door in the wood and thatch wall you get to the sleeping room. Here you'll find a fur bed, another chest and barrel and a hobbit furnace. Please note the new trapdoor mechanics I used to decorate the room. Bevore we finish this post we have to go back outside. Those of you who've followed this series for some time likely know why. As in every starter base we're still missing a forging area. This time we find it on the backside of the house. As this isn't the home of a warrior I wanted to make the smithy look small and simple. Form the design you can easily guess that this area's purpose is to repair simple tools of every day life. The new reed bar design works very well as an improvised cover to prevent wind to mar the fire or to blow away a lot of dust.
The last feature of the farm is the small chicken pan next to the crop yard. There's nothing special about it but I wanted to include some animals and in survival I always found the chicken to be the best animals to domesticate.
That's it for the building. I hope you like it as much as I do. If you have anything to tell or ask me about it, please do! A good community is a great inspiration both for the desingers of a mod and the ones using it! Even thought mevans and the other developers won't read this I want to thank them for their awesome work. I'm very excited to explore the renewed version of the mod as soon as I've completed my current survival project!
Materials and Variations
Materials I used in the building:
- drystone
- thatch (blocks, slabs, stairs)
- oak beams
- oak pwood slabs
- oak fences (and gates)
- oak and aspen leaves
- dirt paths
- gravel
- cobble stone
- wattle and daub
- stone brick stairs
- beech planks (stairs, doors, trapdoors)
- bricks (stairs, slabs, mossy wall)
- utility blocks (chests, barrels, hobbit oven, alloy forge, fur bed, anvil, cauldron, stone chest)
- decorative blocks (fine glass panes, chandeliers, torch, weapon rack, wood button, reed bars, different types of flowers and grass)
Variants:
cheaper or easier variations are marked by numbers. More difficult or expensiv variations have letters as prefixes.
1. use wattle and daub instead of drytone and oak wood planks instead of thatch
A. use the storage area of the house as a living room and build another barn next to the farm, extend the fields, maybe add some stables
B. If you want to build a huge mansion you'll have to use a completly different setup but you can use the same materials and some of the patterns.