Hi, so I started another huge building project a few days ago. As all my projects, I started in Explore mode, just because I think building in it is much more exciting and rewarding than in creative mode. What I was going for this time was a southern-states Mansion, heavily inspired by Dunleith Mansion, Natchez, Mississippi. Look it up, it's a gorgeous building. After placing the outer ring (Pillars and foundation), I started constructing the west wall of the first floor. These were SINGLE plank blocks.
So I haven't worked with paint in Explore mode before. Now here's the issue: Painting a SINGLE block takes six white pigments. Mortaring a white plant gives you ten white pigments. Let's be generous, say every block needs half a plant. Making two floors worth of walls, a balcony, the foundation and the pillars from SINGLE blocks is... A LOT of paint required. I'm not gonna do any maths, I choose sizes how I think they look good, not based on measurements. But I'll say, that's thousands, tens of thousands of pigments. I found 200 spawned in a structure, and it was really not much. Getting tens of thousands of these plants would be a massive grind. I do realize you can technically exponentially increase the amount of plants gained by just breaking them down into seeds and replanting them, but even that would be a LOT of work. The planting animation is slow, and breaking stuff down is a chore. While at it, I think Ylands needs automation. Something to rapidly farm low-value items while you are off doing something else. Automatic mining drills, crafting stations, industrial furnaces, grinders, all that stuff.
So what would you recommend me to do? Is there a way to cheat items (Pigments)? Can I change the mode into creative? Or should I just abandon this project all together?
Whatever the case, I probably won't be doing big builds like this in Explore mode anymore. Whenever I tried something unusual, there was always something holding me back. So many failed projects. Well, thanks for any tips.