Any good base building tips?

[MenaAthena]

     I've never really spent much time refining my base and prettying it up before, so today I made a server specifically for the purpose of building an awesome base. I picked Wickerbottom so I could get an early start and spent the first few days exploring, eventually settling on a spot between a bunch of frog ponds and a savanna with plenty of rabbits and beefalo.

    However, now that I've picked the spot I find myself kind of overwhelmed. I was just wondering if anyone had good tips for a cool looking, functional base. Even just posting some screen shots for inspiration would be great. Thanks in advance!

[imsomony]

@Clwnbaby, you have screenshots of any of your bases? You've got it down to a science, very efficient and effective.

 

@Flare2V, do you still have pics or videos handy of your Wes mega base? Talk about grand!

 

Mena, most of my screenshots are super outdated, from vanilla DS... I don't think I have any from RoG or DST, but I guess the same concepts can still apply. I'm at work without access to my screenshots, and can't find the thread where I had pics posted, my apologies. But this album is one I've saved from a former forum member playing vanilla DS, and has always served as inspiration for me. His bases were lined up so nicely and just beautiful.

 

Once I find a location, what I do is sketch a layout on a piece of scratch paper, and build from that. I should probably stick to the same build each time, but I never do, haha. Anyway, I tend to scratch out square/diamond/rectangle shapes, and make those my "rooms". I use a pitchfork to dig up turf inside the shape of my rooms to keep myself on-track with placement, and lay down flooring as I get it. In my rooms, I group similar items together:

 

• Crockpots, Drying Racks, Birdcage, and Ice Boxes (kitchen). This can actually be a series of shapes right next to one another.  
• Alchemy Engine, Shadow Manipulator, Thermal Measurer, etc, go together (machines/science). I place a chest or two in that area, and magic-like items go into them: gems, nightmare fuel, beard hair, pan flute, reeds, etc.   
• Separate grouped patches, yet close to one another, are: twigs, grass, berries, farms (resource harvesting). I place a chest next to the twig and grass farms, and use them for storing all the harvested grass/twigs.
• Other storage chests are bunched together, and I try to organize items inside that work together or are similar. For example, most winter gear is made up of silk and/or beefalo wool (at a minimum). So those go in the same chest, along with excess winter gear I've made. Rocks/flint/gold all go in the same chest, until I have so much excess that they need their own. If I find myself forgetting what's in a chest, I'll place a single reminder item on the ground in front of it as a visual cue.

 

The very first thing I place down in my base are my firepits (regular and endo). I place them right next to each other, and then place my flingos so the range is just outside of them. That way the Flingo covers as much area as possible without putting out my fires when I need light/cooking/cooling. Lightning rods are scattered strategically throughout my base, growing in numbers as I expand. Lightning rods cover 1-2 screens away from their location, IIRC, and Flingos are a circle of course.

 

I like having pig/bunny and spider/silk farms, but tend to put them further away - just personal preference, I don't like them right inside my base. Sometimes I won't even have them near my base at all, but instead put them in an area I visit or pass by frequently. Both are later-game things to build - on my own, I usually don't get to them until after the first game year. Playing with others I could probably get them going faster though. 

 

Bee boxes are a part of my base, but they're definitely on the outskirts. The constant buzzing irritates me to no end, and bees go hostile in spring, so I don't want them within earshot or immediate view. I'm still close enough though to keep the entities active and producing. Like pigs/spiders/etc, these are often later-game builds... at least 2 seasons in, unless I'm playing with others and we're building together. 

 

Some people place toothtraps within their base, and surround everything with walls. I don't. Walls look nice, but I prefer to save my rocks for other things. For traps, I like to pick a patch of land nearby, deforest it, and place them there all by themselves.

[ailailou]

I've been using the following base layout for my worlds: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/53329-dst-base-showcase/#entry633072 . Just hit the spoilers for the screenshots. The last one has a short explanation on how to start it up.  It's an all purpose base, during summer 1 flingo takes care of all the buildings and stuff. 

 

@imsomony, any idea oft the mod you used for that aerial view?

 

 

[DarkXero]

I put a firepit, a endothermic firepit, a flingomatic that has those two on the edge of the circle, and everything that burns goes inside.

[applebottom]

But this album

*dies from the awesomeness*

[imsomony]

any idea oft the mod you used for that aerial view?

 

It wasn't my base, that's a collection of a prior forum member. That was also back in the days (early/mid 2013) when you could zoom differently in the game and on the map... the aerial view was accomplished naturally, no mods.

 

I haven't tested either myself, but it might be able to be accomplished with one of these: 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=357459277 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=410900681  

 

[Michi01]

You should also (additionally) build a little summer base (seriously you'd need a lot of flingos for a normal base). I recommend you to build an endothermic firepit and a firepit next to each other in the desert (for cacti and goats) and place the fling-o-matic so that the fires are just out of its range. Then you place everything neccesary in its range.

[BipedalBear]

If you need a tip for how to make a base, first draw out the outlines of your base on a notebook. If you don't, just imagine it in our head. What you want to do is to download a handy mod called geometric placement http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=351325790&searchtext=geometry

 

What then? Make a pitchfork to lay out the foundations. When you place your firepit, the firepit should be your center. Anything after than should be customizable. 

 

This is an album of a base I made back in DST Vanilla beta. Hope these will help you!

[Asparagus]

Here's an old one of mine.

Basic principles: Minimalist, proximity, functionality... and hound spawn radius O__O

• http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/50202-a-wendy-erful-time-a-host-world-of-mine-with-wendy/
• http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/49935-magnificent-castle-sever-lag-t-t/

Working on another one...

[Flare2V]

All you honestly need to do for base building is slap stuff in that isn't already there, make sure it's under a lightning rod and (if your base isn't swamped in flingomatics) get the hell out when it's summer. If you want your base to look nice build a temporary one and gather materials for a bigger base while living in the tiny one. Slowly add stuff to the bigger area until it's as habitable as your first base, then move in.
 

base? 

base.

[MenaAthena]

Thank you everyone for the advice and suggesting the geometry mod; it's been very helpful so far. I put a plan together and things were going pretty well, until winter came, I died trying to fight a koalaphant, and the deerclops came. I do not have the resources to deal with the deerclop nor to bounce back from his rampage of destruction. Call me a wimp, but I'm going to have to start a new world with a shorter winter and summer so I can focus more on building up my base instead of running around trying not to starve/freeze/overheat. The world I had didn't have a pig king and some important bioms were blocked off by a swamp and a field of killer bees, so I was considering starting over anyway. At least now that I have a plan I'll be able to set up faster this time.

[imsomony]

The world I had didn't have a pig king

 

If you ever want to confirm you'll have a pig king before you get too far in, open up your log.txt after you start the server. Do a search for the word "king". What you're looking for is an error that says "could not find a spot for default 'Speak to the King' node " (or something very similar to that). If you see that error, you don't have a pig king, restart.

[KarateF22]

If you ever want to confirm you'll have a pig king before you get too far in, open up your log.txt after you start the server. Do a search for the word "king". What you're looking for is an error that says "could not find a spot for default 'Speak to the King' node " (or something very similar to that). If you see that error, you don't have a pig king, restart.

 

...or just c_countprefabs("pigking")

[Flare2V]

...or just c_countprefabs("pigking")

 

If you find a pig village in a deciduous forest with no king there's no king. You folks and your hacker methods, I tell ya.

[thistownneedsguns]

i need some BASIC base building tips! can somebody show me a picture how to build a base in the first autumn/winter, the problem is for me the summer.. i don't know how to place the icemachines.. last time it ended up with 5 icemachines. i don't wanna have so many icemachines in the first summer.

[ailailou]

@thistownneedsguns, in the 3th post of this thread I've posted a base layout using just one flingomatic. Here it is if you wanna take a look at it. 

 

Basically, build your campfires wherever you want, and when you put your flingo make sure they are out of the flingo range. In case you've built structures already during autumn->winter->spring just destroy some to make room for the flingo.