How do I make an effective Minecraft SMP trap?
Unfortunately on a server where there are no rules against griefing and everything is destroyable, there is no foolproof way to "trap" enemy players.
- Any redstone contraption can easily be avoided, as it requires stepping on a pressure plate which can be seen by anyone looking for them.
Traps in pitch black can easily be avoided by small investments in torches by an opposing player.
Any wall can be tunneled through.
Aside from triggering redstone traps, the environment won't "update" in response to a player, thus any crafty player can avoid all traps with a little resources.
The best way to keep your stuff secure is to hide it. The best way to do this is to use a servers /home and /sethome commands. Simply go deep into the wilderness. Dig deep into the ground and ideally try to find a naturally occurring lava source. Replace the blocks above you and put your chest inside the lava source and /sethome. Even players using x-ray tools will only see the natural lava source (torches are a dead giveaway of a base) and won't be able to see the chest.
TL;DR: Bases can not be secure, and hiding is difficult from x-raying players. Put a chest in lava and walk away.
The most effective SMP traps are not the most complex ones, or the ones with best disguise, but the ones that are inevitable and unexpected against common mindsets. The art of SMP trap lies at how you can discover and exploit the common mindsets, think in the way raiders think. The following is a small list of the exploitable mindsets that I have thought about:
- Players will dig straight down in order to obtain resources (wood, ore) under certain conditions. A deep pit underneath is unexpected. (Also called tree trap at the Minecraft Wiki)
- Players will be distracted by items of interest, or decoys. Traps in the opposite direction will attract less attention.
- Players will get annoyed by and overlook terrain irregularity because of the failure to keep continuous movement. A deep pit hidden in a long and messy circular or slanted mine shaft is likely ignored, even with full lighting.
- Players will take the shortest path when possible, especially for impatient players. A deep pit under a diving pool is unexpected.
- Players will try to use blocks to clear incoming water or lava, sometimes. A popped up furnace (workbench, chest) interface is unexpected and disruptive.
- Players will make incorrect predictions on how high and far they can jump, especially when there are blocks above them or they try to jump onto a halfblock.
- Players will forget the details on the way they come. Unexpected things can happen when they go back, in a panic.
Only pitfall trap is used here because it can be easily built and resetted. I also prefer pitfall trap without lava or cactus because that wastes more time for raiders to get stuff back. Once I fell into my own type 3 trap (with lava) because I wasn't concentrated and forgot the trap. Hopefully there will be more creative variations than the above crude ones.
There are also some standard security advices:
- Your home will go through X-ray inspection. You'd better have idea on how it looks like and what will be discovered.
- Your home will attract less attention if it looks worthless, uninhabited, messy, or raided.
- Artificial traces (cobblestone, dirt) around your chests hiding place will be examined. Make them consistent to the environment.
- Multiple false targets can divert effort of search.
- Furnaces are better than obsidian for robust construction. Obsidian takes immense time to collect and only attracts lots of attention and gets easily destroyed. For example, I have experience tunneling through obsidian wall with bare hands for 1 hour.
Dig a large hole in front of your front door, with water at the bottom. Put a block of TNT just under the surface layer, then put sand/gravel over it, and put a pressure plate on top of it. Don't forget to make a secret entrance to your house so you can get in.
Now, if someone tries to get in your house through the front door, they will step on the pressure plate thinking it will open the door. Instead, it will trigger the TNT and it will fall, the gravel will fall, and they will fall. If the fall doesn't kill them, the TNT will. But because the TNT will be submerged in water, there will be no explosion, but they will take damage and most likely kill them.
If you want, you can make a one-block wide tunnel at the bottom of the hole for their items to go through, and you could link it to an underground part of your house for you to take. The only downfall to this is that you need to reset it each time, with one more TNT and gravel/sand each time.
If you want, you could replace the dirt/stone at the bottom with multiple layers of obsidian, so that if in the unlikely event that they survive, it will take them ages to get out.
Hope this helped!