This is the beginnings of the tree farm, facing north. The building itself actually faces to the south as per the city's outline rough draft. Each quadrant is going to have 100 saplings of its particular tree type. Right now I have logs where the saplings go so trees don't block the paths. From the upper left corner going clockwise we have redwood, jungle, birch, and oak logs. Given the speed at which trees will doubtlessly regrow in this system, the supply of wood will be basically inexhaustible.
Here's a detailed view of what each sapling are will look like. There is the sapling and then on its north side, a piece of glowstone to provide it and the immediate area light. This way the trees will grow and there won't be any areas dark enough for mobs to spawn.
Each quadrant will have a pair of double chests by it. These will hold any logs not yet sent to the storage warehouse, saplings, and bone meal. I suppose I could add a double chest to this and have one dedicated to each of those three items.
The dirt will have a ring of stone slabs around it, and there is also a ring of smoothstone by the walls. The space that is currently empty between the stone slab rings will be a gravel path. The inner cross between the dirt quadrants is a three-block wide gravel path, while the outer ring is two blocks wide.
I went ahead and picked up a texture pack, the Faithful Pack. It's an HD texture pack, 32x32, and it looks really nice. It might have a marginal affect on my frame rate, however. So I may not use it all the time.
I don't have any windows or doors added yet, however as it stands the place might just become a high stone brick block. I'd really appreciate ideas for designs that don't look so bland. Perhaps vary the blocks used, change the shape, etc.
Besides the obvious additions of needing doors and windows, there are a couple things I'd like to implement. I may return to the tree farm after working on other buildings and include these.
- Fire extinguisher system. Inside the tree farm's ceiling will be water source blocks separated from each other, held up by the extended arm of a piston. Each cluster of pistons will be wired to a single redstone torch, which sits on top of a wool block. In case of a fire, the bottom of the wool will eventually catch fire and the wool block disappears. When that happens, the power to the pistons will be lost and water will flow down, extinguishing the flames. The clusters could be wired to one or more switches, which when activated will power the pistons once more and cut off the water.
- Lava pit: by the chests will be lava pits. Let's face it, we don't need the thousands of saplings the tree farm could potentially produce over its lifetime. Just toss them in the pit.
- Workbenches: for making sticks and tools.
- Water system: I would like the Ultimate City to have an underground water system that acts both as a sewer system to a single lava pit, but also a way of channeling items and blocks around. Near the middle of the City will be a control building and it would be neat if I could, with the hit of a single button, activate every farm and trap in the city, and have everything flow directly to where I stand.
