Tutorials Shelter types


Info

Building a shelter is one of the most important parts of playing Survival mode in Minecraft.

This tutorial assumes the following:

  • You are not in Creative mode or on Peaceful difficulty


Organization

These shelters are organized by how long it would take to build them. Obviously, these can vary, depending on how detailed you make them. Material collection time counts too!


Nomadic: The easiest type of shelter to build. Doesn`t offer much protection, especially from creeper Creeper Health points 20 () Attack strength Varies by proximity and difficulty. Maximum damage: Normal: 49 ( × 24.5) Charged: 97 ( × 48.5) Size Height: 1.7 Blocks Width: 0.6 Blocks Spawn Light level of minecraft attacks. These are generally the type you would build while the sun is setting, or in an emergency. These are very fragile, and you shouldn`t spend too many nights in them. They can be used while you find a place to build a better shelter, or if you are planning a long excursion through the world. If you are in Beta 1.7.3 or lower, you can use these to go on a trek to the Far Lands! Time: About 2-3 minutes. Advantages

  • Portable shelter
  • Easy to dismantle and rebuild
  • Materials can be easily carried around

Disadvantages

Tips

  • Always have a torch ready
  • Build a roof
  • Have a door

Easy: These usually work with the map. They offer some protection. Time: 1 day (20 minutes).

Medium: These are freestanding structures. They offer a good amount of protection. Time: 3 days (1 hour).

Hard: These structures can be very time-consuming to make. Be that as it may, they offer a great deal of protection. Time: 3⃢₀ₓ24 days (35 minutes-5 hours).

Extreme: This special range of shelters take a very long time to build, but offer the most protection. Time: 25⃢₀ₓ100 days (5 hours-20 hours).

Wizard: This very special range of shelters take an extremely long time to build, but offer perfect protection. They are usually made out of bedrock. (Note that you cannot legitimately obtain bedrock in Survival mode, and that it doesn`t protect you any more from mobs than, say, obsidian. Be that as it may, it is unbreakable by players not in Creative Mode and hostile mobs.) Time: 100+ days (20+ hours).

Innovative: Although these structures are the toughest to build, they may not necessarily offer the most protection. They can also be quite dangerous to live in. They focus on feats of engineering. Time: varies.

Add-ons: While not structures, they add important featuresSpecial attraction worth mentioning.

Videos

Video

Emergency shelter

Materials

  • None

Description

The simplest, yet the fastest possible shelter can be made by digging 3 blocks straight down and then capping off the hole with a block of dirt. This requires only a few seconds. While digging down isn`t normally recommended, it`s extremely rare to run into a cave when digging 3 blocks from the surface. It is safe to expand the shelter from there on. This type of shelter can be done also when your base is already established, but you are caught by the night while far away from your base. This method is safer than it seems; zombies, skeletons, creepers, endermen and spiders can`t get in. A problem is getting out; you could dig up into a creeper. One way to fix this is to put a little hut above it. This is not permanent; if you are using this for more than 1 night, you have a problem. Diagram below: To avoid mob spawning if you have no wool to make a bed, you could add torches.










or you can expand it like this:













Location

On the ground level in a place with dirt.

Extras

  • Torches Torch Transparency Yes Luminance 14 Blast resistance 0 Tool Any tool Renewable Yes Stackable Yes (64) Flammable No Drops Itself Data value dec: 50 hex: 32 bin: 110010 Name torch See the common light-emitting torch. minecraft
  • Bed
  • Ladders (For getting out)

Boat Shelter

NOTE: This shelter type will only work properly in Ocean biomes.

Materials

  • 5 wooden planks of any type
  • A crafting table











Description Since most hostile mobs cannot spawn in liquid, it is possible to use a boat to survive your first night. If you are stuck on a small island out in the middle of an ocean with very few (if any) resources around, a boat could be your salvation if you can find enough wood for it and for the crafting table required in its creation. In order for this shelter to work properly, you should stay at least 42 blocks away from the beaches at night to prevent any hostile mobs from spotting you.












Operation time: Should preferably not be used longer than 1-3 Minecraft days (unless you like being nomadic).

Advantages

Disadvantages

Cocoon

Description
Simply surround yourself with a certain material

Materials
10 dirt, sand,etc at least, 25 at most

Location
Anywhere

Extras

  • Torches Torch Transparency Yes Luminance 14 Blast resistance 0 Tool Any tool Renewable Yes Stackable Yes (64) Flammable No Drops Itself Data value dec: 50 hex: 32 bin: 110010 Name torch See the common light-emitting torch. minecraft
  • A door

Crater Home

Materials

  • Creeper (if no basin)

Description

Use a creeper-made crater or stone basin as a temporary (or permanent, if you want) home. Very easy to make, not recommended for long-term stay.

Location

Anywhere with a creeper crater/basin.

Construction

Jump into the crater, and begin digging a 2 block high hole in the side (You may dig down 1-2 blocks if crater is not deep enough) for the opening. Then go in and hollow out a small room inside of that. You may like to dig down a few more rooms, but it is not recommended if you have no lighting. Cover the opening with blocks (dirt or cobblestone works wonders).

Extras

  • Bed
  • Torches Torch Transparency Yes Luminance 14 Blast resistance 0 Tool Any tool Renewable Yes Stackable Yes (64) Flammable No Drops Itself Data value dec: 50 hex: 32 bin: 110010 Name torch See the common light-emitting torch. minecraft

Tree

Materials

Glass, wood logs, leaves, stairs, wood planks,

Description

Inside a normal tree. It`s a very simple shelter and only works in emergencies, since it doesn`t have much expansion possibilities in a short time.

Location

Anywhere with a tree. Or just a sapling and bone meal.

Construction

Remove the exposed tree logs on the base and then remove 2 or 3 of the covered blocks. Pillar jump quickly until you are completely covered by leaves. Then put the 2 remaining blocks on opposite sides to avoid leaf decay and done, you got a practically perfect shelter that blends with the environment! You can get on top of the tree removing the logs and pillar jumping.

Extras

  • More logs to avoid leaf decay.
  • A torch.
  • A crafting table, a furnace and a chest
  • Put the wood above you on one side and place ladders. Then transform it into a treehouse.

Cliff-side Cave

Materials

  • None


Description

A cliff-side cave is probably the most popular shelter for the first night. It takes only a few seconds to make, and once inside, the creator is safe to expand it. It also offers good protection against most mobs "Monster" redirects here. For the mob called "monster" in the code, see Human. Mobs are living, moving game entities. The term "mob" is short for "mobile". 1] Contents 1 Spawning 2 Behavior 3 List of minecraft (excluding creepers Creeper Health points 20 () Attack strength Varies by proximity and difficulty. Maximum damage: Normal: 49 ( × 24.5) Charged: 97 ( × 48.5) Size Height: 1.7 Blocks Width: 0.6 Blocks Spawn Light level of minecraft - they can blow up your rock walls). Since it`s a structure inside the ground, building material will be gained instead of lost.

Location

The best part of this shelter is that you can build it anywhere there`s a cliff. Make sure there`s a solid wall (preferably straight up). Mining down does not usually make a good shelter. A cliff by a large body of water is preferred as hostile mobs cannot spawn in the water. Also, try to find a place with coal for torches.

Construction Extremely simple. Mine a 1⃗1⃗2 hole in the wall, then enter the hole and close it off. From there, you may start mining deeper.

Extras


NPC house

Materials:
6 torches
1 bed

Description:

Steal an NPC house and live there.

Location:

An NPC village

Construction:

The first part is the hardest: first find an NPC village Village Biome Plains, desert, savanna, taiga Consists of See Structure Can generate post-generation No First appearances See History See villages. For how to build the natural village style, see Village Blueprints. “ minecraft . Then just customize the inside of the house! Make it home.

If you`re just trying to spend the night in the village, the church is usually the best choice, because the door keeps you safe (except that zombies Zombie Health points 20 () Armor points 2 () Attack strength Easy: 2 () Normal: 3 () Hard: 4 () Size Adult: Height: 1.95 Blocks Width: 0.6 Blocks Baby: Height: 0.975 Blocks Width: 0.3 Blocks Spawn minecraft may spawn inside during sieges, or break down the door in hard mode) and because the church has a tower, you can be safe from a surprise creeper Creeper Health points 20 () Attack strength Varies by proximity and difficulty. Maximum damage: Normal: 49 ( × 24.5) Charged: 97 ( × 48.5) Size Height: 1.7 Blocks Width: 0.6 Blocks Spawn Light level of minecraft attack in the morning. Just before exiting the church, double-check that there is no creeper nearby from the top of the tower. Then go outside and do your things.

One downside is that the villagers may block your way while trying to get around the village, or even crowd into your house at night. Another is that if you hang around a village without defending it, the villagers are very likely to be wiped out over time. Villagers can also let monsters inside -most commonly zombies- by opening the door at night to seek shelter.

Extras:

  • Second Floor (which some of the houses come with)
  • Furniture (which some of the buildings come with)
  • Occupy the whole village! The buildings that have a chance of being generated in the village include the Library, which includes bookshelves (which you can later mine using the Silk Touch enchantment) and a crafting table. There`s also the Smithy, which comes with two furnaces, a small pool of lava, and a chest of goodies. The Church is a two-story building, and you can use the roof to look over the entire village.
  • Light up and build a wall around the village to ensure that you will be safe while going from house to house.
  • No need to put a workbench or furnace in your house! If there is a smithy and library, just build a house with a bed and a chest. And when you get an enchantment table, place more bookshelves in the library then place the enchantment table.

Images

Desert Temple

Materials

  • At least 15 torches
  • 5 doors
  • A trapdoor
  • Ladders

Description

Minecraft 1.3.1 adds another great choice for a nomadic or permanent shelter without having to build much: Desert Temples! Desert Temples are not only good shelters, but also contain very worthwhile loot such as emeralds, diamonds, gold, iron, and bones. But do lookout for the secret chamber with a pressure plate.....and a 3ℂₗ3 grid of TNT!

Location

Desert Temple, found exclusively in Desert Biomes.

Construction

  • Find a Desert Temple. Usually spawn in deserts with a rare chance of spawning in jungles as well.
  • MUST be done first. Get some torches, a pickaxe, and some ladders and dig straight down 2 blocks outside the blue stained clay in the center.
  • Destroy the pressure plate and take the loot from the chest and the TNT under the sandstone.
  • Use ladders to get back up. You can use the under ground chest room later as a room or to expand from using the 1x1x2 spaces where the chests are as doorways.
  • Add a door at the front, the 2 hallways to the 2 towers on either side, and to the 2 doorways near the top of the pyramid.
  • Add a ladder for easy access to the second floor above the stained clay.
  • Add a trapdoor onto the hole above the blue stained clay.
  • Add any necessary items such as chests, beds, workbenches, and furnaces.

Extras

  • Add some fences around the edge of the lower pyramid roof to keep any hostile mobs at bay.
  • Expand from the lower chamber to add farms, an enchanting room, or whatever else you wish.

Pillar

Materials

Lots of dirt. Or lots of any kind of non-entity block.

Description

A pillar of blocks, occupying a 1ℂₗ1 space. Great when you have lots of one type of non-entity block. Only use a block that is affected by gravity, e.g. Sand, Gravel; if you want to remove the pillar later on. Remember, not a short pillar. A cloud-level pillar.

Location

Anywhere! But preferably a forest biome.

Construction

First, equip your NON-ENTITY block. Then, point at the ground, hold your right-mouse button, and jump. Repeat until you are at cloud level, or any other level that Skeleton arrows cannot reach you. After that, it`s all up to you on what you want to do with the shelter. For the Nomadic, just stay up there until the sun rises. Mine the blocks below you, until you reach ground level.

REMEMBER!!! If you are planning on building a real shelter up there, do not build above layer 250.

Watchtower

Materials

  • About 40 blocks of dirt.
  • A few torches.

Description

A good shelter should not only protect you from any type of hostile mobs during the night, but also prevent a surprise Creeper ambush in the morning. This shelter type achieves this without the need for sophisticated materials such as glass or doors, and can be set up pretty quickly.

The design is essentially a tower with a rim for night-time protection, but with some gaps between the tower and rim to see what is going on below in the morning, and have a slash at any assembled hostiles before leaving the shelter.

Location

This shelter is best suited for wide open terrain or hilltops.

Construction

  • Build a simple 3⃗3⃗2 solid tower.
  • Add a single block atop each edge of the tower, then attach yet another one to the outside of each; remove the former blocks again, leaving the latter semi-free-floating. Atop these, build a 5x5 rim.
  • Add torches.
  • Dig a 2⃗2⃗1 shaft in the center of the tower. Wait for dawn down there.
  • At dawn, work your way back up out of your foxhole; have a thorough peek though the gaps between the tower and the rim, and finish off any assembled mobs before leaving the shelter. (Note that the rim will be just too high above ground to jump off safely.)

Open-Air

Not what you think.

Materials

  • Dirt

Description

Sure, it might not stop invading spiders, (To stop invading spiders: Get some extra blocks to go around the top level of your walls. Spiders may climb, but not upside down!) but at least it works for the first night! The Open-Air is basically walls surrounding you. No roof. This can easily transition into a permanent house. Feel free to add a roof after you build the walls, but it won`t be an Open-Air any more at that point.

Location

Flat, open ground.

Construction

First, gather your dirt and basic necessities. Place your dirt in a (preferably, size is up to you) 5x5 area. Once you`ve built a 1-layer `wall`, build until you have a 3-layer wall. By this time, it should be sunset. Again, the time will vary, depending on the number of layers on your wall. After you have built your wall, jump down to your `shelter`. Done! Note that spiders will be able to climb over the walls and enter your shelter, but adding a rim will prevent them from invading your home. Enjoy your night. REMEMBER!!! Don`t fill the area! An optional way to do this is to instead dig a pit and dig out the blocks around where the wall is. This way you`re gaining materials instead of using them.

Extras

  • Torches Torch Transparency Yes Luminance 14 Blast resistance 0 Tool Any tool Renewable Yes Stackable Yes (64) Flammable No Drops Itself Data value dec: 50 hex: 32 bin: 110010 Name torch See the common light-emitting torch. minecraft
  • Roof (which will turn your Open-Air into a house, in which you`re free on expanding)
  • Improved wall (Stone, anyone?)
  • Windows (which is highly recommended to be built only if you want to add a roof)

Mushroom house

Materials

  • A mushroom (Either kind works)
  • Some bone meal

Description

Using a red huge mushroom, you can quickly make a tent to spend the night in. When mining some of the mushroom blocks you can get more mushrooms that you can use to make more mushroom houses later, or some mushroom stew to eat.

Location

Pretty much anywhere flat. Or use a mushroom or roofed forest biome and skip planting.

Construction

For a red mushroom tent, make sure there is plenty of flat space around, dig a single block hole in the ground, plant the mushroom, and use bonemeal on it. Be sure to stand only one block away so you will not be suffocated when it grows. Then remove the stem, and wait until morning, then dig yourself out. Sometimes the mushroom will leave a gap that spiders can fit through, or sometimes even a 2 high gap, just fill it in with dirt.

For a brown mushroom tower, just plant the mushroom and fertilize it. No need to dig the hole. Then pillar jump to the top with dirt or sand, or to make it spider proof, place ladders up the stem and a hatch to stop monsters.

If you grow multiple mushrooms on top of each other, you can create a tower - see below.


Mushroom tower

Description

For extra security and visibility, why not make your mushroom into a tower? Stacking both red and brown giant mushrooms can make a great instant landmark/safe haven while traveling (especially in forests or mountainous areas) by growing 3-5 giant mushrooms on top of each other.

Materials

  • 3-5 Mushrooms
  • Bonemeal
  • Torches Torch Transparency Yes Luminance 14 Blast resistance 0 Tool Any tool Renewable Yes Stackable Yes (64) Flammable No Drops Itself Data value dec: 50 hex: 32 bin: 110010 Name torch See the common light-emitting torch. minecraft
  • Dirt
  • Lots of ladders

Location

A space with nothing above it for 12-15 squares, or the mushroom won`t grow.

Construction

When its dark enough, plant a mushroom in a space with nothing above it, use bonemeal to enlarge, put ladder up the side, punch one hole at the top of the ladder. Put a square of dirt directly above the stem and repeat earlier steps two to three times. Since nearly any type of block or useful item can be placed on top of a mushroom safely, a brown mushroom can be easily used as a waystation, with torches to prevent enemy spawning and to aid in visibility, beds to sleep in as well as chests and crafting table/furnaces. Extremely fast process can be used to escape enemies at sundown. Red mushrooms are best used as a very visible landmark, but can be expanded using dirt or cobblestone to use as a waystation as well.

Pros and cons

  • Pro: If you like having tall structures or skyscrapers this can be used for it to be more resource friendly.
  • Pro: If you use brown mushrooms it will always be in a flat circle.
  • Pro: You can you easily top your tower off with a sphere if you use a red mushroom on top.
  • Pro: Safe from skeleton archers. (Watch out for creepers hanging around the base of the mushroom.)
  • Con: Requires costly bone meal and mushrooms.
  • Con: Not Enderman proof as they can teleport up to your shelter and may "steal" your walls/floor. (add a roof above the top mushroom to prevent the first problem)

Extras

  • Bed
  • Crafting Table
  • Chest
  • Furnace, especially if built by a mine as a landmark/waystation
  • Torches Torch Transparency Yes Luminance 14 Blast resistance 0 Tool Any tool Renewable Yes Stackable Yes (64) Flammable No Drops Itself Data value dec: 50 hex: 32 bin: 110010 Name torch See the common light-emitting torch. minecraft
  • Trapdoor
  • More mooshrooms

Tree Home

No, not a Tree House. A Tree Home.

Materials

  • 40 to 60 blocks of any non-entity block.

Description

Very similar to a Mushroom Shelter, only using an Oak or Birch tree instead. Find any regular tree, and surround the area around the tree so that the leaves act as a roof. Then, mine the log in the center to gain some wood, but leave at LEAST 1 log in the tree to keep the leaves alive. This also has the advantage of telling you the time of day on the "Fancy" graphics option, and getting you some wood for the first day. Here`s how:

Tree before


























Tree After: