How to create the ultimate survival base in Minecraft

Building a good survival base is one of the most important parts of Minecraft's early game. A survival base acts as the player's respite from the game's plethora of hostile mobs and environments and acts as a recharge station and place to keep valuable items. However, adding in all the right features and extras is essential to setting up one of the best survival bases possible.

Detailed below is how to build the ultimate survival base for the early days of the world. These design tips should help players make it to and past the game's final fight against the ender dragon, where resources can then be spent working on a larger megabase.

Note: Opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer.

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How to build the ultimate base for Minecraft's early game

1) Build up the foundation for a base

The foundation of a simple starter house (Image via Mojang)

You must start by creating an outline of the farm. The easiest way to do this is to build up a square or rectangular frame that can be expanded and customized throughout the base-building process. Additionally, try to avoid beaches or sandy areas, as it can be annoying to build on the surface while dealing with falling sand.

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2) Add the basics

The basics of a base added in (Image via Mojang)

With the main hub of the farm created, add in the basics for a good survival base. This will include a bed to set a new spawn point, a crafting table to make items at, and an ender chest to keep any particularly valuable items safe. Additionally, include a few furnaces, blast furnaces, and campfires to convert resources from their useless raw counterparts into useful processed items.

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3) Add an enchanting area

A fully set up enchanting area (Image via Mojang)

Enchanting is one of the most powerful systems that players have access to. Mending, looting, fortune, and silk touch are some of the best enchantments in Minecraft and can all be obtained through enchanting. This makes adding an enchanting area important to long-term, successful survival. Make sure to add an anvil for combining items and a grindstone for removing bad enchantments.

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4) Add a crop farm

A moderately sized survival crop farm (Image via Mojang)

Having consistent access to the different crops is one of the most important aspects of any Minecraft farm design. These crops are all useful as food, but they each have unique miscellaneous uses as well, such as pumpkins and melons being amazing trade items for villagers. This is why adding some kind of farm, even if it's not huge, to a base is important in survival mode.

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5) Farm animals

Two small animal pens (Image via Mojang)

In addition to a crop farm, you must set up at least a small area for a passive Minecraft mob farm. Sheep, cows, and chickens are all amazing options to raise this way. Sheep drop wool, which is an amazing building block; cows drop steak and leather, both very useful items; and chickens drop feathers, needed to craft arrows.

Optionally, the cow farm could be upgraded to a cow crusher, and the chicken farm could be upgraded to a chicken cooker. This would help speed up their farming, making the base much more convenient to live in in the long run.

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6) Light a nether portal and build a surrounding netherwart farm

A Nether portal with netherwart farms (Image via Mojang)

One of the most important aspects of any Minecraft survival base is access to the Nether. This dimension is filled with resources and even acts as a way to quickly travel huge distances in the overworld thanks to Nether fast travel.

Since this area already has a Nether portal in it, this is also the perfect spot to add in some soul sand and grow netherwart, needed to brew any of Minecraft's best potions.

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7) Add a storage area

A portion of a survival base's storage area (Image via Mojang)

The next thing you'll want to do while building up a survival base is add a Minecraft storage area that should be filled with chests either labeled with signs or item frames. Nothing is more frustrating than hunting for the right chest because a storage system isn't labeled.

Make sure there's room for expansion as well, as storage systems always need more space than you'd assume. Adding in extra empty chests now or leaving room in the build for more to be placed will save time in the future.

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8) Create a super-smelter

The final step in building the ultimate early-game survival base is to add in a Minecraft super smelter. These contraptions use minecarts and hoppers to automatically feed furnaces with both fuel and items to smelt before moving the finished goods to an output chest. Adding a super smelter is optional, but it makes collecting resources after a long mining session much more convenient.