Minecraft Survival worlds that are long term should contain features which reflect the time spent on the server. From cool building ideas to functional farms, these are 26 builds every Minecraft Survival world Needs
True Minecrafters know that the real game begins after the Ender Dragon is beaten and the elytra is secured. Some of the things on this list can be built before this point. Other builds are big projects that will require enhanced mobility and late game items.
Upgrade Your Minecraft House
If the player is able to score on a lush cave this is simple. This cave variant generates below areas marked by a naturally spawning azalea tree on the surface. Once the player digs straight down, all that will be in sight is building materials. Blocks of clay to collect and smelt into terracotta. Collect them with a shovel that has silk touch on it. It is smart to fill several shulker boxes to bring back as many stacks of clay blocks as possible in one run. Also grab as many spore blossoms as possible along with a couple of axolotl to keep as pets.
There are plenty of different Minecraft houses on the internet to gain inspiration from.
The player’s Minecraft house should be their own with interior decorations and features which make sense to the person who built the structure.
Crafting Room
It is most important to have some area on the server which is for crafting. This place should have every workbench style block in this area, an enchanting room, and a lava trash bin. It is best to build this room in the basement of the player’s main base. This is also a chest room where the mass of the world’s items should be kept. That is until the player is able to create Shulkers to easily transport lots of gear. This is going to be the place where all the wooden logs and cobble stone wait for use.
Most of the time spent on the Minecraft server will be in a room like this one
It is also smart to store a chest with natural items and the weapons and armor you loot/ don’t use anymore. Also recommended is it to bank leftover building materials to cut down the cost of building lots of houses and farms. Set up a jukebox, and listen to some tunes while playing Minecraft in this room.
I even have an axolotl exhibit in one of the walls of my crafting room because I think their little squeaks are funny.
Music Disc Farm
Most players understand that the way to acquire a music disc in Minecraft other than to find them in spawner chests is to make a skeleton kill a creeper. This leads many to set up a basic eight piston contraption to trap a creeper and a skeleton and to agro the skeleton through the creeper so it is the creeper which is shot while the skeleton tries to hit the player. Watch this tutorial by EKGaming on YouTube.
This method is somewhat effective, but is slow and the server’s members want to listen to Cat ASAP.
Basically, a music disc will drop any time a skeleton directly damages a creeper resulting in its death. This makes the most optimal farming strategy for music discs in Minecraft creating an obsidian hole in the ground. Then filling the hole with creepers, trapping the skeleton, and setting up a lava source block which directly aligns with the TNT in front of the skeleton. Once the pit is full of creepers place a TNT block at the center of the pit. The skeleton will agro the player, and fire arrows through the lava source block, igniting the TNT and killing all the creepers in the hole. They will each drop a music disc. Watch this short by the Nuttist on YouTube to see how to build this farm. This method of farming’s only restriction is how many creepers the player can get into the pit in one night as well as unfortunate despawns on occasion.
Gunpowder Farm
This is a farm which is mandatory for a consistent supply of firework rockets. A series of dark platforms should be layered over each other with water sources funneling to the middle of each one. Scaffolding should also be placed in specific places on each layer too. Creepers spawn on these platforms and funnel into a trident pusher.
It also looks pretty cool from a distance as an added bonus.
This farm will leave the player with loads of gunpowder which can be use to craft TNT for ancient debris mining, or for the most coveted rockets for flight. It is smart to build this farm over an ocean. This video by OinkOink details how to build this farm better than I can explain in words.
Super Smelter + Lava Fuel Farm / Minecraft Forge
This next entry is actually two different builds, but both are pretty simple. The first is a mechanism which will alleviate all fuel related stress for the rest of your Minecraft gameplay. First, locate a dripstone cave. These caves contain stalactite and stalagmites which are essential for this farm. Nine of these blocks per farm, as well as nine buckets of lava and nine cauldrons. It is basically a 3×4 of cauldrons directly under a 3×4 of dripstone spikes. Above the downward facing spikes is a 6×5 platform of non flammable blocks and on top of this platform is a 3×4 of lava source blocks. The lava, which should have blocks surrounding it for safety, drips from the spikes into the cauldrons filling them infinitely.
One of the worst stresses in Minecraft is being low on coal while things need to be smelted. This is a permanent solution to this problem.
Lava buckets smelt 100 blocks before being consumed, and the bucket is kept. This is the best fuel in the Minecraft. Build several of these contraptions.
The Super Smelter requires fiddling with redstone a little bit so refer to this video of YouTube creator Mysticat building it here.
It is smart to build several of these machines as well so that different items can cook in mass simultaneously. This is how the player gets all of the glass/terracotta/smoothstone/bricks they need for builds.
Build multiple Super Smelters and lava farms in a forge structure on your Minecraft server.
Mark the Mine With a Structure
The player’s mine up this point is likely a natural cave leading to a strip mine or a staircase that emerges from a hole in the ground. It will always be functional, but that doesn’t mean it can’t look good too.
Just a little something to mark the entrance of the strip mine.
Build a mining shack with chests to store stone collected in the quarry, and have the stair case leading to the strip mine accessible from the entry of this shack.
Minecraft Villager Trader
This is a very important feature for farming experience, and getting lots of emeralds for beacons and building. In Minecraft, there is a feature where zombie villagers can transform into regular villagers with potions of weakness and golden apples. Once they are normal again, they will discount their trades as a display of gratitude. Zombies will attack villager and transform them back into zombie villagers. But a zombie will never kill villagers, it will only make them zombies too. Meaning this discount is replicable until all of the villager’s trades are worth one unit of whatever they are trading.
Holding the villagers in these boxes and forcing them to trade doesn’t feel completely ethical… But we need emeralds.
Clerics, masons, fletchers, armorers, librarians, and toolsmiths have useful trades. Once they are at max discount, mending books, diamond tools, and armor are all one emerald. And the mason will give an emerald for one stone, so it is like each of these items are worth one stone.
The mason is one of the best means of getting emeralds in Minecraft. Also name your villagers with name tags to prevent them from despawning.
Gold/Iron Farm
Useless is the debate between which of these things is more important for the Minecraft server, just build them both.
It may look challenging to build, but it’s actually quite simple and worth it because it is the best method of farming XP in Minecraft.
The Gold farm is nice since it is an AFK XP farm and the yields are so high. So high players can eventually build with gold blocks. JC Playz has another video of how to build a relatively simple one.
This video features a tutorial for an item sorter to manage the massive amount of gold swords dropped by the pigmen.
The most nefarious farm in Minecraft.
The Iron farm works slower but doesn’t require the player to be right next to the build in order for it to work. If an iron farm is next to the player’s main base, iron accumulates in the background without the need for anything but checking the chest. Rediscover Redstone has a video on YouTube video detailing how to make this farm.
This farm requires moving villagers, lots of them, which can prove tedious. However once this farm is up and running, impossible Minecraft projects seem much more doable. This farm is also pretty unethical, it relies on melting innocent iron golems in lava.
Nether Hub
Ghasts blowing up the Nether portal and leaving the player Nether-locked without flint and steel is a noobie mistake. It is necessary to cover the portal with explosion proof blocks and make a hub in the Nether that is safe enough to AFK inside of.
Your nether hub should contain a chest full of fire resistance potions, a respawn anchor, and a fresh set of gear to go retrieve your items in case you die.
After the portal is secure, it is also a good idea to build a highway though the Nether with blast resistant materials. This is for fast transport and access to the nether fortress. One block on the X and Z axis in the nether is equivalent to eight blocks in the Minecraft overworld. That its why it is recommended to build networks from the hub to portals which will spawn the player in locations close the end, any ancient cities, or other far away bases and points of interest the player has.
This is a long stone brick bridge leading to the ancient city in my Minecraft world.
MegaBeacon
Once the player has 1476 emeralds, gold, or iron ingots, a four layer beacon is available. It is also worth farming Nether fortress for wither skeleton heads so that the player can get many Nether stars. The effects of the buffs from the beacons can stack granted the player is in the radius of several beacons.
The player can build a pyramid with a top layer that has a base of 4×4 or 3×2 to fully power 4 or 6 beacons at once.
These speed buffs make building easier and your Minecraft compound easier to traverse. It is also worth having a full beacon with haste built underground to make a stone quarry.
Haste II plus efficiency V on a netherite pickaxe is a combo that produces monstrous results.
It is equally worthwhile to carry around a beacon along with the materials to make the full pyramid in a shulker box. This is to be able to place it in places like The End, in lush caves, or in deserts to mine quickly.
Large Farm/ Animal Enclosures
The usefulness of a farm past decoration is minimal especially if the player is rapidly progressing through the game. Typically, Minecraft worlds start with potato farming, then there is a graduation to cooked beef, and then a return to farming with golden carrots after the world contains a gold farm. Although the player is not consistently reliant on farming to survive, nothing will ever take away from the beauty of large plains strewn with crops.
Farm houses are a nice touch to make the fields feel more purposeful in your Minecraft world.
The animal enclosure is another morally subjective farm which can yield lots of food, XP, and animal items like wool, leather, and eggs. This farm is worth building before crafting an enchantment table to guarantee the player can build all the bookshelves required for level 30 enchantments.
Boy are these guys noisy.
Breeding lots of animals in the pen with wheat can easily take a player from level 27 to 30 and kills will give the player lots of food. Use a fire aspect sword with looting.
Construct Tall Buildings in Your Minecraft World
A testament to late game progression in Minecraft is building an insanely tall tower which is well designed and tall enough to look down on your complex from the clouds.
It’s so fun to fly to the top of these structures with elytra.
Water elevators can make getting up and down the tower without wings no issue. This is a vantage point to observe the beautiful server.
I like to AFK in this glass room at the top of the tower I built in my Minecraft World.
Bamboo Farms/ Sugarcane
The Minecraft 1.20 title update brought new bamboo wood to the game. Bamboo wood has a vibrant yellow hue, and is very inexpensive to produce. Bamboo is easy to source granted the player can locate a jungle, or a shipwreck. And constructing a farm for this material takes nothing more than a minecart, a few hoppers, some pistons and observers. Refer to RealJayden’s guide on YouTube.
Players can use the same type of farm to collect sugar cane. Video by Moretingz
Build a Trophy Case for the Dragon Egg
Acing the Ender Dragon fight on a Minecraft world where nobody has cheated is always a big deal. The dialogue that rolls before the credits after the fight is inspirational enough to make a grown man stand up at his gaming chair and begin clapping. Commemorating this moment at some location in the player’s compound is a must. With a piston the egg can be collected and placed again.
I keep my dragon egg inside of a glass case in this gazebo.
Map the Minecraft World + Collect Boss Heads
The cartography table allows the player to create a map which displays a region of the world from an aerial view. Enough of these maps can be and item frames can cover a wall with a diagram of the things that exist on the Minecraft server. It is very fun to look at.
I really enjoy showing this map to my friends who sometimes join the Minecraft world.
It is also worth sourcing a trident with channeling to be able to create charged creepers during thunderstorms. Getting these electrified creepers to kill other mobs with their explosions will get them to drop their heads. These can be worn and placed.
Horse Stable
It’s cruel to leave a horse tied up to a fencepost outside of the player’s front door when it isn’t in use. Build the horse a home to house it and other horses. Once an elytra is retrieved, the horse becomes pretty obsolete, but can be fun to ride at times and is very helpful early game.
It can be bothersome to have to drop your horse back here and walk back to wherever, so I’d pretty much always opt to fly with elytra rather than ride a horse in Minecraft.
Tame All Pets in Minecraft
Solo Minecraft players likely have domesticated an animal or two by the time they defeat the Ender Dragon. But it may be worth getting creative. Imagine an enclosure of pandas, or a pet turtle.
They just eat bamboo and do not pay any bills.
Many delay going to the jungle and picking up parrots. Or going to the woodland manor to make friends with an Allay. Dogs and cats will always be solid companions, but it’s worth thinking outside of the box.
These lot aren’t forking over any rent either.
Sorted Chests
Even if too lazy to build a massive item sorter, the least a player can do to keep tidy is stick an item frame on the front of the chests in the chest room.
Nice and neat.
Labelling is useful for organization. Eventually it’s going to be better to have named shulker boxes inside of an ender chest, and ender chests all over your world.
This is the only way to transport items in Minecraft.
But it’s always important to have a storage room with some form of labelling system so that items are easier to keep track of.
Collect all Wool Types In Minecraft
This mission will require exploration to collect flowers for dyes, and also a wool farm of some sort. The wool farm, (especially if built near where the player often AFKs) will produce maybe too well and leave the player with more blocks than they’ll likely know what to do with.
This farm is super easy to set up.
However, having access to a bottomless supply of wool has utility for flooring in houses, and raiding end cites. All wool colors are worth having for the achievement and to show how advanced the player’s Minecraft server is. Maybe even try building some pixel art. Check out this video by angryadmy03 on YouTube Shorts to learn how to build the farm pictured above.
Put Some Fresh Trims on Your Armor
If playing on a Minecraft world that existed prior to title update 1.20, there is a chance that the player went into the update with full netherite armor. 1.20 adds new armor trims along with newly generated locations where they can be found. The easiest trims to source are the Dune trim from desert temples and the ward trim from villager outposts. There are also three different trims which can spawn in trail ruins and all look nice. The legend Eyecraftmc has a brilliant guide on armor trims out.
Build Lots of Minecraft Houses
Building in Minecraft can prove to be therapeutic. The player watching his vision come to life while building a house in accordance with what he pictured in his head is the reason why he plays this game.
Experiment with using different blocks and with different building techniques in Minecraft.
Building is worth practicing many times to be able to build different styles of houses. This guarantees that each new world will contain more and more impressive builds. By the time that the player has built the super smelter and wool farm, the world is basically in creative with a few minor limitations. So get building!
Gold blocks look amazing with glazed terracotta.
Replant Beautiful Trees
After the houses and farm have been constructed, the player can notice his world is quite barren even though there are builds everywhere. This is because there is no foliage. Terraforming for building requires the complete deforestation of a large region. Trees make an area look more lived in and cozy. Personal favorites are Jungle trees since they can be bonemealed in a 2×2 to make a giant one, and the new cherry blossom trees for their particle effect and unique pink leaves.
The cherry grove trees were a wonderful addition to Minecraft.
Conduit
This one thing which many players maybe have never done before. But for the underwater explorers in Minecraft, is nothing short of a necessity. The player can earn the conduit by combing eight nautilus shells gained from killing certain drowned carrying them. And also the heart of the sea, a special item found by locating chests on buried treasure maps. Players must construct the conduit underwater. There is also a frame the they must build the Conduit inside of in order to receive benefits.
Any form of prismarine blocks can be used to build this frame.
Make the frame with aquamarine blocks or sea lanterns. These benefits are nightvision while underwater, waterbreathing, and improved mining speed while submerged. Worth building if the player has hopes of creating an underwater structure.
Use sponges to remove water from closed structures below sea level.
Fishing Hut
At this point you’ve pretty much done everything, so go catch some fish. This can be rewarded with good loot like mending books and is very relaxing.
Sometimes you don’t get anything good, I guess that’s why it’s called fishing and not catching right?
Build Bridges
If the player settles down near a body of water with many connecting rivers, bridges are super necessary. But it is wise to not only make them functional, but also beautiful. Utilize the precious metals from prior farms to create a regal means of transport across water or cliffs.
Build the floor out of amethyst blocks to listen to ringing chimes as you walk across.
Make Copies of Your Minecraft World
Backing up your worlds is so important. Especially if they are larger than 300MB. On console, sometimes the game will run out of local storage and will prevent you from successfully quitting to the menu without closing the game. This has lead to many save files being corrupted and lost forever.
My Minecraft world is 500MB large!
After every play session make a duplicate copy of your main save file and delete the oldest copy. This is handy for never losing your progress and also for being able to return to a much more primitive version of the Minecraft world if early saves aren’t deleted. It can be crazy to see how far the world has come along.
