Tutorials/Defense

Considering the upcoming Adventure Update and the introduction of new creatures, there's a good chance that your base will need defense structures more advanced than just a cobblestone wall. Thus, I propose:

1. All tutorials or mechanisms of defense are brought here.

2. Said articles are organized into chapters

3. Add more defense mechanisms as the game updates or the mind wanders.

By doing this, we can centralize the defenses and make it easier for all players, particularly those new to the game. It will also make updates more manageable as we don't have to scramble all around the wiki.

Overview: A Good Defense
The best defense measures are those that prevent hostile mobs from spawning entirely or at least prevent hostile mobs from ever getting close to the protected area. As such, integral to all defense systems in Minecraft are:
 * Completeness - all defenses need to completely defend the protected area, so that mobs entering from any side or angle and of any type will not break through
 * Light - a regular system of lighting is needed so that, during the night, hostile mobs will be prevented from spawning within the protected area
 * Sustainability - defenses should work regardless of player input and, ideally, would be able protect an area indefinitely, either by never degrading in the first place (e.g. walls) or by renewing themselves automatically
 * Easy to use - The best defense in the world is useless if it kills the owner. A good defense must be safe and easy to use. If you have to press 2 buttons and destroy a block to activate it, it is too complicated.

Passive Defenses
Passive defenses consist of those defenses that, without any input or sensory devices, prevent hostile mobs from entering the protected area. The most common example is walls - they do not have to sense a mob coming or sense its position to prevent it from entering a walled off area. The following sections discuss various types of passive defenses, their construction, maintenance, and applicability.

Walls
These are simple to make, just make sure to:

1) Make them at least 3 blocks high 2) Add an extension around the outside to defend against spiders. 3) Torches should be added to the top or sides of the wall, unless low-visibility is desired (for example, to reduce the chance of other players noticing a camouflaged wall on an SMP server). 4) Ditches or moats can be added on the inside or outside of the wall as an extra barrier.

If the player spawns near a desert, it is quite easy to make a wall of cactii, provided the rules for cactus placement are followed. One cactus block will be required on each sand block, which will then grow to be 3 blocks tall, and damaging to mobs which run into it.

Moats and Ditches
These obstacles, like walls, present a vertical barrier to incoming (and outgoing) mobs and players. The difference between a moat and a ditch is that a moat usually has some kind of liquid in the bottom; so far, only water and lava are available.

Dry ditches, like walls, should be at least three blocks tall on the inside edge, with an overhang or protrusions to prevent spiders from climbing them. Ditches should be (at least) three blocks wide at their narrowest point in order to prevent spiders from jumping over them. It is recommended that players leave a means of escaping the ditch to the outside (not the inside, which would defeat the purpose of a ditch), in the eventuality that they are knocked into it by injuries, explosions or simple mistakes.

Moats are constructed identically to ditches and are filled with water or lava, depending on whether harming the mobs or obtaining their drops is desired. A water-filled moat, while harmless to mobs, slows them down and allows them to be easily picked off with a bow and some arrows, after which the player can swim out and pick them up, or have water currents deliver them to a pick-up point.

A lava-filled moat, on the other hand, will kill any mobs in short order by itself, but also destroy any drops. Lava-moats have the additional benefit of producing light, stopping mobs from spawning nearby without torches. However, it can be labourious to collect large quantities of lava, which requires at minimum buckets and the discovery of a sizeable source of lava. Structures over a lava moat (bridges, overhanging walls, etc.) should have fences or a raised edge to stop players from falling or being knocked in.

Fire
Walls and ditches of all types can be enhanced with burning Netherrack. In the case of walls, the base and/or top can be lined with the burning block, so that creatures running into the wall stand in the flames, or creatures that make it over the wall must pass through flames on the way.

A ditch is easily enhanced in the same way, with the row of fire placed either before the ditch, so that burning mobs fall into the ditch and cannot escape (leaving drops to be collected later), or in the base of the ditch itself, where drops may be destroyed by the fire.

Take note that by itself, burning netherrack is not an effective barrier, as mobs with lots of health can simply run through the flames and attack the player before burning to death.

Creepers
A simple way to protect yourself against Creepers (or any othe 1X1X2 mobs) is a 4 door trap. Place four doors withlefthinges around a pressure pad. place a block above the pressure pad to prevent the mob from jumping free.

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Ghasts
Ghast can not see through glass, so if in the nether with some glass, you could make a glass box around yourself. This is helpfull because you can see when the danger of a Ghast has gone. Building a glass base around your Portal in the Nether is a good idea, because you will be able to see the nether's epic terrain, and still be protected from Ghasts.

Players
1. Arrow Turrets.

These will give any player trying to grief ,or steal from, one of your structures. A nice shock. This turret is fully automatic, and as long as you have the arrows to support it, it will demolish anything in front of it!

They consist of any number of dispensers attached to a rapid pulsar redstone alternater. Simply add a lever to the side of the Pulsar, and switch it on or off at will. (needless to say, loading the dispensers is a must!) -BronzeOregon

Creepers
Creepers have an explotion as powerful a TNT, so they could easly blow through a wall made of stone, and that opens the door for other uninvited mobs to enter your protected area. The only true WALL that will protect against creepers is a wall made of bedrock or obsidian, the prior of which you can only build on a multiplayer server with item spawning enabled or a with a mod.

Ghasts
There is no peticularly expensive way to defend agains ghasts. Glass or cobblestone will do just fine, but you could use an expensive matirial like iron blocks, or obsidian.

All of The Above
A good dose of TNT, however dangerous and lag intesive, will destroy all mobs. Obsidian or self repairing land is recomend in area of use to minimize damage. Most drops wil also be destroyed.

Chapter 4: Defense on the Move
A good offense is a good defense.