The Obelisk

Basics: The idea is that there will be an obsidian obelisk that the city is centered around, which would double as a secure place for factories and chests. Here are some pictures of the rough idea, and one more. In the final design the rings will be gears and it will have a gear theme throughout the city.

Location: One of the inhospitable shards, ideally it would be in a shard rich with rare metals. The shards will hopefully be inhospitable enough that people would have a very hard time surviving. The city would have basic amenities (food, materials not available in the shard) and provide a safe place to reside while you are collecting these rare resources.

Buildings: The four paths coming out from the obelisk will be dividing the city into four parts, two of them being residential, one a market and the other industrial. The idea is to have just one main level (at the same level as the paths) that will be built on. Plots won't be partitioned out so new players will come, mark out a plot and build on it (There will be a limit on size but there will be a lot of space and I don't think there will ever be enough people to fill it up). The next player to come would make a plot around the previous player's plot and so on. It should introduce some interesting randomness but there still will be a height limit as well as some basic color conformity in the materials used for buildings (maybe no color conformity but that hasn't been decided).

The Obelisk: Inside the obelisk there will be different tiers of access. Here is a rough breakdown of it, this will most definitely be improved and changed but it should give you a rough idea. You enter by dropping from the vertical gear (the ring in the picture), the vertical gear will also be used to get to bedrock. There will be trapdoors to access shafts that drop down to their corresponding levels, extra trapdoors will be added on higher tier areas and reinforced with more obsidian. One tier (iron/grey shown in the breakdown picture) will be basic factories and accessible by a majority of the cities residents. The other tiers will have upgraded factories and possibly small individual vaults. These will be accessible by trusted residents who also contribute towards the cost of the factories and reinforcements. There is quite a lot of space in the obelisk as it's 200 blocks tall and 50 blocks wide at its widest. To leave the obelisk you drop down a 2x2 shaft going straight to the bottom of the vertical gear. There will be multiple layers of water along the shaft to prevent any griefing leaving it a death trap (or bastions will just be added).

Construction:

• Phase 1: Laying out the basic shape of the obelisk with stone while obsidian is collected. Based on the estimated number of residents a diameter will be chosen (In the pictures above the diameter is at 300 blocks) and some basic boundaries will be laid out.

• Phase 2: Main construction of the obelisk with obsidian will be underway, the gears will start to be shaped and cut out of the ground as well as cutting out the paths dividing the city.

• Phase 3: Residents will be able to start constructing their own homes, then hopefully take to mining underneath the city which will help clearing out the ground under the horizontal gear.

• Phase 4: Main construction is complete and it's a bustling city with a thriving market district, an industrial district and the residential district continues to expand.

Any input would be appreciated, and let me know if you would want to contribute to the city during construction or just be a resident.

I'll post an updated overview of the city as we get closer to 3.0 and more information is known about the shards and mod changes.

Edit: Also a couple clips of the obelisk:

Overview

Entering and Exiting