Session 24

“Two Trunks”
Starlight Treehouse has been admittedly demanding regarding resources. Despite having a
tree farm, I’ve found myself farming forests just to acquire enough wood to build the
structure. That’s why today’s first objective is to find a solution to this rather cumbersome
process.
I find that I can semi-automate the tree farm by applying a dispenser system to every sapling,
such that all trees could instantly grow. This would allow farming to not only commence
more quickly, but also allow me to collect bountiful amounts of wood in minutes.
The setup is simple, but the wiring involves a plethora of torches and repeaters. This means
that lag is inevitable. Thankfully, though, the system would only become active upon
toggling a lever.

…Two levers, since I am deciding to split each half of the tree farm to prevent
unmanageable lag. Let’s say I want to acquire oak wood. I’ll activate the half that the oak
farm occupies.
This new farm addition works like a charm. With each harvest, I can instantly replant and
harvest again! Such is especially true of oak trees, which tend to drop saplings more
frequently than the other varieties.
I’m pleasantly surprised that this system also works foolproof on the large dark oak trees!
Indeed, I’ve found no imminent issues or bugs with the way this farm now works. Perhaps a
future improvement would be to install a method of getting on top of the trees. After all,
it’s easiest to harvest both logs and leaves from top to bottom (and, some trees are simply
too big to harvest from bottom to top).
Attempting to remain more organized, I add signs to each occupied chest in the Essentials
Room to remind myself what I’ve allocated to each chest. Since these chests are never
stagnant, I can add or remove signs as project needs change. For example, this chest contains
all materials I am currently using on Starlight Treehouse, redstone and build-related.
The first addition to Starlight Treehouse today is an aesthetic one, built on the second floor
of the spiral staircase we previously built. Using the roof of leaves as a foundation, I’ll
“stack” this room atop the control room and connect it seamlessly to the staircase.
Encasing the entire room with oak logs, I’ll use a dirt padding to orient the logs
appropriately.
What is this room, you ask? Starlight Treehouse can be primitively thought of as a
clubhouse, which means that it will act as an adventure hub of sorts upon completion.
That’s why this room will become the map room – every land I’ve explored in Quintropolis
will eventually be mapped and added to this room.
So far, a full map of Quintropolis Island is displayed on the wall. Remaining areas to map
include: Stonewall Territory, Candyland, the Ice Realms, Stanland, Mooshroom Island, and
Megapolis. I hope to include fully mapped territories to this room by the close of the
season.
Believe it or not, it’s very easy to get my horses up here. A somewhat sideways goal is to
make every part of this base accessible via horse (since that is the fastest method of
transportation for me). Starlight Treehouse complies with this objective.

If you haven’t yet figured, Starlight Treehouse is designed as a redstone house, which means
that despite looking rather primitive, it will be densely packed with all kinds of redstone
features, many of which are hidden in plain sight. The first of these is a block swapper.
This design is rather simple, and swaps between the dark oak log and crafting table. I
couldn’t find a place to keep any crafting tables, so I choose to keep it in the center and give
it some attention.

Though this design requires the pressure plate to both activate redstone dust and deactivate
a redstone torch, I don’t like how the plate sits beneath the rest of the floor. Let’s change
this up.
That looks a little better. We’re still not done with the hub, which means that nothing is
final yet. But I’d rather have the plate flush with the floor than wedged in a pocket. That
isn’t the definition of “hiding in plain sight.”
Protruding downward from the main hub is a small balcony, in which the purpose is to
provide interactive view of the area below the treehouse. This is possible by utilizing fences
for safe passage instead of windows.
Hiding all the redstone for the block swapper, I tidy up the balcony with some logs and
leaves to blend everything together. The exterior will still need work, though.

You can see the kinds of views possible by using fences. This is the same type of balcony
setup that Starlight Castle’s Great Balcony utilizes to see every angle.
Turning my attention to the top floor, I’ll start expanding upward to craft a roof for the
hub. A canopy will set above it much like how we placed the map room atop the control
room.
A bit of trial and error is required to find the best, most natural design for the leaves. After
all, the goal is to frame the treehouse such that it mimics the land around it.

Oak logs provide the foundational pieces, while I use fences for supports. Leaves are
otherwise the principal agent in housing the structure.
I don’t wish for a dome, but rather a curved roof to mimic natural overhangs. I think this
look works, if only a bit too clean-looking.
Though we’ll work on this much more later, I start expanding the second floor onto the
main hub. A canopy will be built here, the purpose of which will be explored later.

Following the trunk of the tree farm, a second trunk will be developed in this session.
We’ve managed a productive start to our trunk on the treehouse, but much work is still
required to attain that natural aesthetic I am aiming for.
Branches and asymmetry is key, but I’ll start with an extra few supports for the main hub
branches.
Dimensional protrusions superbly improve the visuals of this build, as does a myriad of
patterns and angles. You’ll notice also that the bottom of the main hub has been protected
by leaves. This is how I intend to hide the redstone for the Night Lights once we set that
up.
An ostentatious view, I am overall impressed with the progress made today! Slowly but
steadily, Starlight Treehouse is coming together without neglecting the rest of Starlight HQ.
Recognizing its original goal to reduce lag and spread out the base’s overstuffed features,
you may be confused as to how Starlight Treehouse will do that. Fear not, for such
curiosities will be explored in the next session.