house questions

[Kneller]

There two things I try to do with my houses. First, I keep my NPCs from wandering too much (and opening/closing doors). Second, I make sure it's blood moon proof from the start. Normally, this works with a combo of putting the house on "stilts" (wooden beams) and then putting the door a few blocks up from the floor. The stilts are fine, but raising the door just makes for an awkward looking house. Is there any other way to accomplish these goals in a more aesthetically pleasing way from the start (i.e. no electrician, so no activated blocks, no steampunker, so no teleporter, etc.)

Thanks.

[prpl_mage]

I usually use fences since they are backgrounds to imitate stilts. Then I place the actual buildings 4 tiles from the ground and shape the house like I normally would. Most enemies need to stand on something to break the door. So leaving out a block or platform outside the door also prevents monsters from getting in. However it sometimes gets a bit annoying to open them yourself.

[Kneller]

But how does that keep the NPC from opening the door?

[prpl_mage]

If you don't want them to open the doors at all, then not giving them access to the doors is one way. Another is to place something on the outside so the doors only open inwards. Palmtree candles are pretty cool like that. They are small and rather discrete.

[Kneller]

I've done the treehouse thing before, but I still had to do the door three up. The candle thing is interesting, but if the door can still open inward, then zombies can still break it down during a blood moon, right?

[itssirtou]

Pressure plates of the appropriate color blocking the doors are great to keep doors from opening without looking too awkward. Althought before you get the mechanic you will have to deal with whatever colored plates you find from underground traps... You can also use torches... pretty much anything adjescent to the door on both sides.

[Kneller]

I'm a ways away from the mechanic. I can't even lay wire until then, so the plates will do me no good. I was looking for something that looks good to last me at least until then.

[Kneller]

I had to do the tree house door three up from the floor on the inside, too. That's how I kept NPCs from opening it. That's also what I'm trying to avoid. It looks terrible.

[Super Moogle]

The answer is quite simple: don't use the actual "door" furniture item. If you convert some wood blocks to wooden platforms (or whatever platform material you prefer) and place them vertically from floor to ceiling, that acts as a "door" for the sake of housing suitability. What I tend to do is create buildings that have completely solid exterior walls and roofs, and put an access point up to the building through its bottom using either rope or chain. You can climb ropes and chains, zombies can't. All the separate 'rooms' I create by separating them off with a single, unbroken, vertical column of platform pieces from floor to ceiling.

That just leaves the demon eyes who could fly up through the opening in the bottom of your building. That's where you build an enclosed 'mud room' that uses doors that aren't within reach of your npcs... either because the npc rooms are above/below the mud room entrance, or because the interior building layout simply doesn't allow the npcs to get close to the entrance.

[Kneller]

Even if the house is high enough to damage the NPCs from a fall, they will still open the door, and worse, leave it open when they turn around. I've tried this and this is what happens.

I do use platforms to seperate NPC rooms, but that doesn't help me for getting in and out of the base. I have to have something that can keep demon eyes out.

I was thinking of doing some kind of "well" using rope/chain to make an access point, but I haven't found a way to do it, make it look organic, but also be able to keep out demon eyes.

[prpl_mage]

I don't find demon eyes to be a problem in 1.3 since the npcs help out to kill enemies. They even killed the eye of cthulhu for me once.

[Kneller]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my NPCs could handle themselves against some demon eyes, but I'm kind of a perfectionist about this. I want my NPCs to be hermetically sealed away from all dangers. :)

[Pixel Peeper]

Vertical houses are just amazing for everything IMO. NPCs don't wander at all, they're pretty much entirely boxed in, and you can talk to them easily if you need to.

The aesthetic value, now... that's up to the one looking at them.

I set this up real quick in a short half-playthrough (pre-Hardmode Thrown-only playthrough):

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493556334

[itssirtou]

Originally posted by Kneller:

I'm a ways away from the mechanic. I can't even lay wire until then, so the plates will do me no good. I was looking for something that looks good to last me at least until then.

I don't think we understand each other.

http://i.imgur.com/jlSWlwP.png?1

The pressure plates keep them from opening the door because it simply has no space to open. It keeps NPCs (or Blood Moon zombies) from opening doors and wondering around. Ideally you would use a plate of the proper color, I used red here to make it obvious, but you would want to use brown on wood. That said you wouldn't have a great deal of choice before getting the mechanic.

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Vertical houses are just amazing for everything IMO. NPCs don't wander at all, they're pretty much entirely boxed in, and you can talk to them easily if you need to.

The aesthetic value, now... that's up to the one looking at them.

I set this up real quick in a short half-playthrough (pre-Hardmode Thrown-only playthrough):

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=493556334

That looks like it could make a very nice prison. Replace the wood with Grey Bricks or Tin Plating, the chairs with Toilets, the torches with a single Glass/Chain Lantern, and put a few Iron Fences in the back walls as prison bars.

[Kneller]

I've actually done a prison with vertical housing before. It was fun, but I'm looking to do something different this time around.

Even with the plates, can't the zombies make it to the door and still bash it down? Also, how would I get in and out of the house if it is blocked?

[itssirtou]

Originally posted by Kneller:

Even with the plates, can't the zombies make it to the door and still bash it down? Also, how would I get in and out of the house if it is blocked?

Zombies won't, but one of the goblins will, the Peon i think. And you... wouldn't. Unless you built a sewer system or something and came in from the underside. I didn't know you wanted to be able to go into ther houses.