"Smart" building ideas

[eternal8phoenix]

I thought I had a brilliant idea which would give me some more crop space, while minimizing the risk of hat attack. So a few hours of work later, I have this

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Pretty sweet farm set up, or so I thought. Under the half-slabs are channels of water from the swamp-lake I terra-formed this from, to keep my crops hydrated.

However there is a problem with this. As it turns out, farmland is not a "solid" block. It has a small gap at the top. And with the changes made a while back about a block's hit-box being exactly what you see...

As it turns out squid CAN and WILL aim in the teeny-tiny gap under the half-slabs and snag you. They will throw you up in the air. You take falling damage, and worse trample your crops...

So...anyone else tried being a smart-ass and got bitten for it like me?

[erikdk321]

I dont think squid spawing down there (if they are even able to spawn in that shallow water) is a problem, i have had farms like yours but that never became a problem.

[the_fodder]

Remember Squids need a certain side body of water to spawn in, they are swimming up the channels. You can fix this by blocking the lake but keeping the source block to your channels.

[Mud]

Slabbing over my water channels is something I do also, it's great for getting around larger crop fields without having to walk through farmland.

Sealing in your channels and keeping them 1-block deep will fix your hat problem.

[eternal8phoenix]

I think the main problem was the fact that my farm plots are just floating dirt in a lake too deep for me to adequately light or block off. For now I'm just avoiding the worst area over by the hemp until dawn. But I was kinda hoping that other people made other similar mistakes while thinking they were being clever and were willing to share their tales of how they were humbled.

[jkievlan]

I don't worry too much about hats when planning my farm. The way I see it, harvesting the farm is just another daytime activity until I get the chance to really secure my base. I put my farms on the water, and don't go near them till the hats go to bed.

[DiamondArms]

Pre Hatsies, I settled on a large island and being a big fan of lanterns, decided to start a pumpkin farm near the docks. ran into the same issue when the hatsie update rolled in. Immediately filled in the water with stone and resolved myself to having dry pumpkin farmland. I suppose this is why planters are a very big deal.

[ExpHP]

and resolved myself to dry pumpkin farmland.

Um... wow, I was not actually aware you could do this.

[DiamondArms]

and resolved myself to dry pumpkin farmland.

Um... wow, I was not actually aware you could do this.

it's a thing, even in vMC. dry farmland has really low growth rates compared to wetland, though.

Another genius move(maybe) on my part: when Nothing to Worry About rolled in, I stuck my nether portal underground and dropped a water flow over it for good measure. Said Waterflow originates from the ocean. I later walked through to find 2 squids drowning in my netherbase. I should probably be more worried, but the hatsies have yet to arrive at the same time I do.

[milkmandan]

IIRC, it's rain that turns said plots hydrated which might be why it's so slow. Only growing during and for a short time after rain.

[ion]

IIRC, it's rain that turns said plots hydrated which might be why it's so slow. Only growing during and for a short time after rain.

you are wrong, crops slowly grow even on a non hydrated soil.

[Calo290]

And rain doesn't hydrate soil. No vMC crop requires hydrated soil to grow, it just speeds it up.

Honestly I'm still surprised FC never made all crops require hydration when he started saying "screw vMC mechanics." Maybe he just didn't want to break old builds. But it always felt weird to me only hemp required hydration.

[dawnraider]

Rain actually does hydrate soil. Plants do not need hydrated soil, but will grow painfully slowly if they are on dry soil.

[Calo290]

Rain actually does hydrate soil. Plants do not need hydrated soil, but will grow painfully slowly if they are on dry soil.

Then my apologies on the rain statement, I'd never once seen it happen in-game. I'll edit my post in that regards :P

[erikdk321]

I actually thought FC changed it so they wouldn't grow without water until today :P Is the rain hydrating soil something FC implemented or mojang?

[dawnraider]

Rain hydration is vMC. While you can grow plants without water, it is not recommended, as even in vMC it is extremely slow, and it is even worse in BTW.

[Six]

Huh, I knew about rain hydration (another vanilla thing they seem to have never come back to), but I always assumed unhydrated plants would pop off and turn to dirt, like unhydrated soil does with nothing planted on it.

Back on to topic (for the first time in the thread):
This isn't one of my "smart" building ideas, but instead one icy did after a suggestion from a viewer. He made a wall of cobwebs around the entrance to his cave, with the thought of it slowing down any creepers of other mobs that tried to attack him in the mornings. However it also made a wonderful barrier for skeletons to hide behind and shoot him from while remaining unhittable due to the webs blocking his attacks. At least he managed to recover his stuff.

[erikdk321]

I also made something similar a while ago over at the cosy builds thread, it was the same princible as icys but much better because it had a roof and cobwebs all around and i never had any problems with it :)