The most functional base layouts

I'm still relatively new to the base-building world, but I've been having fun working with my little base. I really enjoy seeing some of the awesome stuff that people have created here in the base forum. Rhynwa's shopping mall base and Turbo's volcano base were amazing!

However, I'm more of a functionality-type builder. I spend most of my time ingame doing taskforces, crafting, or doing mission arcs. So my current base is designed for

1)quick med to portal transport
2)Intuitive locations for TPs for visiting teammembers
3)Easy access to Tps
4)Easy crafting/storage access

I'll try to post some screen shots of my base once i get back home.

Do any of you have functional base layouts? I'd love to see them. Post pics!

The best thing about the base builder is that there is no "right" way to lay it out. I have seen bases that are downright confusing to navigate, others that very basic. The best bet for a small base is to find what you do most with it, i.e. craft, tp, rez, find internal peace, and have that closest to your entrance portal. Everything else will then fall into place. Best of luck to you on your base. I look forward to your pics.

I have gone the functionality route as well. Maybe a little to far that way as my bases are positively spartan. My goals were a 1 room transit to get to the teleporters from the main entrance no more than 2 from the med bay, and an intuitive layout of salvage storage and IO storage.

Did you manage anything worthwhile with the storage ? About the best I could come up with was binning by type and putting common IOs in their own room. For the salvage turnover seems to be frequent and I have been resorting to vault storage.

Echoing what other people are saying, there really is no specific functional base layout that works best. In my opinion, its easier to plan your base if you think ahead of time as to what you want to have in it and how you want to lay it out. I use Microsoft Paint all the time when coming up with new ideas and plots.

I am in the process of rebuilding my base into a Space Theme, which was designed around functionality first, then decoration. For example, it holds 4 TP rooms (14 TP units, 1 base raid TP unit), 1 secure energy plot (2 fusion generators), 1 medical bay (8 rez units, 2 auto docs), 1 secure control room (1 autonomous expert system, 1 supercomputer), 1 workshop (6 storage bins, 1 enhancement bin, 2 inspiration bins, 1 crafting table, 1 vault, 2 workshop stations, 3 empowerment stations, 1 IoP room and 1 decoration room.

I tried to limit “fluff” as much as I could, but eventually had to add the decoration room to fit the plot. If you look at the layout, it resembles a space station, or so I like to think so. Here is a MS Paint image that I am following.



I still have a lot of work ahead of me. The rooms in blue are not done yet, and the ones in gray are. If you would like some help planning your layout, I can help you come up with a design, just PM or /global me. I worked with Sidhe on her Secret of Nimh Base and its looking amazing!

Here's what I use for my solo VG on red side. Still have the initial 8x8 plot and it works well for me
I have Teleporters to all the red zones, medbay, Ouros Fire/Ice Pillar, and of course lots of salvage bins and worktables in the workshop.

Thanks Turbo and you really did help me out a lot!!! I don't use paint like others here however I used Adobe Photo shop and used the same principals. After working with Turbo I went back to my red side base and redid that lay out again for functionality that I had gotten comments on was not working. (parts are still in shambles as I rebuild but that is the fun part)

I also recently got my hands on a base on the Test Server after getting an invite to the SG there and fliping out about how they had it.

Good luck to you and I will try and post pics later of my layouts but if you follow the link to my base thread you can see the idea of the layout of my hero base. Need a few more TFs to finish getting all of my rooms.

Having almost built this exact same base 3 times now, if not functional, it's pretty darn cheap... and while definately not as streamlined as Bubblegums (very, very nice, by the way), it seems to flow nicely.

Built on a 12X12 plot and costing just over 2 million prestige:

and now for more pics:
Control Room and workshop

Function is king for me. I feel you should be able to see the porters right off, if you enter from either the med, or base port. Having an invention table near the base port/porters helps for hoppin in to just create something quickly.

That said, my current storage is a lil out of the way, via a security corridor, connected to the porter room, and at some point, would like it closer to the porters.

Okay I did promise that I would post my layouts so here they are:

Bounty Hunters Inc AKA Screct of NYHM Base



and Cobretti Mofia



yes in this base there are a few more "decorative" rooms but they help with the feal of the base and yet do not take away from the flow of the needed rooms.

In the NYHM Base it would be more effective to have the Med Bay linked to the teleport rooms and the entrance for quick return to the fight. It is kind of isolated as it is. Assuming you are going for a more functional base layout.

I'll have to try to move things around again, but I think I recall having trouble connecting the TP rooms directly to the exit portal. How were you guys able to do that?

I basically made an exaggerated "T" for mine - you run down a corridor for your ouro and med bay, then either a left or right for TP / storage. I also hid all the maintenance type rooms, such as control and energy.

Feel free to contact me and I'll show you if interested. I'm on Justice, so just make a temp toon.

My personal SG base has a diagonal layout and is a compromise between functionality and aesthetics.


I have no "decorative" rooms except for the two passageways that currently have power generators hidden in the walls, to be replaced with a Dimensional Vortex in the garden. My central hall has an Ouro crystal. I put frequently-used facilities near the entrance and lesser-used ones further away, and also keep the entrance and infirmary next to the teleporter wing. High value items that I don't frequently touch go in the vault room.



Everything else goes in the workshop. I put the worktable at the corner closest to the entrance so it's less than a dozen steps from zoning in to crafting. The enhancement table at the bottom left of the picture is always empty; I use it as temporary storage for stuff I want to keep but don't have time to sort properly. I have other tables divided into 3 categories: 1) Singles - Thngs like -KB IOs that are useful on a wide range of characters without consideration as to set bonuses; 2) Maximum level - Maximum level set IOs, generally for frankenslotting; 3) Exemplar level - Level 35 or minimum level set IOs. I don't store common IOs, cheap set IO, or salvage.



As far as TP layout goes, my teleporters are arranged by the zone's level range, ascending clockwise. IMO, for a more spartan base you can do with just the 5x5 room and 8 telepads. The reason is that of the 22 heroside beacons, 6 are reachable by either O-portal or the Pocket D VIP pass (Atlas, Talos, IP, FF, PI, Pocket D); so there is no time saved by zoning into the base to use those telepads. I included all the telepads only for completeness.

Okay, I'm one for centralizing the entrance in some way.

(Note: All views have North at the top of the map.)
(Note: Click on the provided image for a larger copy.)

Here's what I did with my original base.
Superheroes Anonymous



Now SA's base grew "organically". This basically means I slapped it together as the prestige came in. As such, it's not really horrendously symmetrical. But it IS organized.

In the center you have the entrance. Everything "spokes" off that. The medbay is immediately to the west of the entry. The teleport hangar is due south. And the workshop area (with a second story storage area) is due east. A second workshop area is due north of the first and not very organized. I use it (and spare prestige) to show people about base crafting and stacking tricks.

The control area is immediately north of the entrance and it's left unblocked as that's where the Ourboros crystal is. Plus I want to show off my splefty AES on the ceiling too (that big black thing blocking off your view of the floor).

Immediately west of the control room is the energy room. We're dual power (because I think the Arcane Vault looks schmexier than the Tech version.


Next is my VG base.

Darkest Deeds




Again, this one grew organically too. But some effort was made to make it so.

Again, a more or less centrally located entrance. The medbay just north of the entrance. The teleporters is a bank down the west side. I found that, for villain-side, the largest TP room was just a waste of space.

The decorative room is holding our meager air force of two Arachnos fliers and a few captured Longbow fliers.

The latest addition is the crafting area in the southern-most end of the map.

Control and Power are off on their own little spur.


Then, here's how I did it for the MidLevel Crisis marketing SG. When I came in, we had a couple million prestige built up and stuff dropped with some vague-ish plans of organizing it later. The kind of thing that makes my fingers just ITCH.

So here's what we did.


MidLevel Crisis



Again, the layout is somewhat similar to the Darkest Deeds base. But a bit more in the way of organization. The base is, essentially, three corridors.

At the northernmost, and mostly central point, you have the entrance at the top of the service corridor. Immediately south is the med center with the ubiquitous inspiration storage and AutoDoc in addition to the reclaimator.

South of that you have the control and power rooms.

To the west, you have the transport corridor with the teleporters.

To the east, you have the crafting corridor (we're the fricking marketing group, could you expect anything less?)

This base, save for adding the rest of the telepads when we get the prestige, is essentially done. We're coming close to max storage items as well and we have several people dedicated to making sure the storage bins are neatly organized too.

I'd also show you the SA base or my VG (which I didn't design, but which IS raid-worthy) on Test, but I don't have a test install on my laptop and the Win7 machine produces black screenshots which I haven't had time to troubleshoot yet.

Hope this post, basic as it was, provided some insight, and maybe a couple ideas (be they "what to do" or "what not to do"). I'm a big fan of "basic". I like elaborate bases too. But I'm a big "functionality over form" kinda person. I've been to a couple base mazes (and I am using the term disparagingly) and been driven nuts just trying to find my way around.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.