Base 101: The Floating Base

This one is my personal favourite for SSP, and consists into the making of a floating surface where you will live and have all your stuff, safe from mobs if rightly lighted (since there are no flying mobs outisde the Nether at the moment).

Pros: Easy to spot, you don't usually need to make a beacon to mark where is it; You don't need to level any ground, nor you need to worry about mobs reaching the ceiling; you will get very good views of all around, and when going out of the base you will have it easy to see if there are mobs around.

Cons: no access to any resource whatsoever, you will need to set up a farm if you want to have wood avaiable; you will need to descend a long stair to get to your mining operation. And if you are in a SMP server, your base is easy to spot (so if PvP is fair game, it will be easy to get to you. On the bright side, you will see them coming if you are looking).

Finally, there is a mixed pro & con with this base: because you make it over the ground, it will cast a shadow because it blocks sunlight, so if you make it big enough (60x60 for example) you will be making a spawning spot for the mobs (the passive mobs won't be spawning there, however). So you could make a mob grinder, and then cover the light above. If you have Buildcraft, with a pipe line you can get all to your base automatically. Or it can serve as a protection of sorts in SMP, since during the day the monsters might spawn only there...

Let's see now some images from this:

The shadow making a grinding trap:


Underside photo of my floating base (incidentally, under that base there is a forest I call "the thousand candles forest" because of all the torches I placed there XD):


From the top (using the Fly command of the Single Player Commands mod):


Incidentally, all this photos are "outdated": not only were they taken in 1.6.6, but also before the latest versions of Integrated Redstone and Buildcraft were out. While that map is saved (and more advanced, in the case of the floating base), I'm playing now in another installation of the game with the latest pre-1.7 versions of the mods I use, but I will be out of reach for the whole weekend (but I will play in my laptop... assuming minecraft works with it, of course XD), so the next update will be on Monday.

On an off-topic, Paulosoaresjr published a few more videos: two from a 1.7 test, one from Terraria, and the first video of the second season of Man Vs Minecraft. And he really proves he knows how to set the mood in that last one ^^