Chest content stealing - What to do about it?

It looks like some believe content of my chests in my outpost are free to take away. It also seems that staff has no way to tell who took what from chests.

Have you got advices to protect a large number of chests from unauthorized players (in the Wild, town is no issue)?

You can place a protected block over each chest so that you have to destroy the block to get into the chest, alternatively you build a room with all of your chests and protect all of the blocks so that only you and your friends can break the wall to get into the room

Shouldnt the wall be 2 blocks deep as there have been instances ive heard of people breaking the wall and almost glitching just right through so they can gain access to the chests?

I haven't heard of that but if you want to be extra safe then yes 2 blocks thick would be a good idea

I don't get it. I personally lock my chests with signs. Never had issues yet?!

Did that change?

It can just cost a lot of money if you had many chests you want to lock

True. I spent over 250k in my Outpost haha

No, it didn't. It just costs a lot to lock chests like that, and I lived with the naive idea that staff was able to track down robbers. (And chest signs require free space above chests, too, which doesn't exist in my case, requiring significant redesign of the chest vaults).

Maybe I should post a screenshot of my storage area. I found a somewhat good way to keep all my stuff organised and locked. I haven't needed any additional area so far other than random chests to expand my land.. a railway made sure I could pick their stuff up and migrate it to the main storage area.

Are you on smp8?

Before I had them stacked on top of each other. All I did was shift the top rows over 1 block. Allowing me to place in /buildmode protected dirt. Didn't cost me anything but time to shift the chests with items over.

Maybe try this... Not sure of how much space your working with but I like this method as it saves me money.

The people you have as friends will be able to break your blocks and get into your chests.

I've got that /ps setting to false at least on the server of my outpost. I then give out vouchers or actual rights to break blocks on an individual basis.

Well, your best options are indeed locking chests (note that you add up to 3 players to the sign) and/or placing uncommon ("automatically protected") blocks above those chests. Easiest kind of blocks are the polished variants (polished diorite, andesite and granite). You get a polished variant by combining 4 regular ones together.

If you do go this route (protected blocks) then make sure that you can either trust your friends (/fr list) or that you disallow them to break your blocks (see the anti-grief /ps setting). You can also change this setting on a per-friend basis (/fr blockbreak theothershell t; I used this to ensure that my alt can always break my blocks, while most of my friends cannot).

Another liable option is to ensure that no one can enter your storage. Encase the entire build using uncommon blocks, this will make sure that no one can break the walls (don't forget about the floor/roof too). Then all that's left to do is add a door which can actually be locked.

This doesn't officially exist (yet?), but you can abuse a shulker box as an alternative door

Basically: put a shulker box above an open space, and place it in the floor of a 2 block high corridor. If you stand directly on top of it while you open it then it'll "drag you in" and pull you down. It's a crude example (still haven't found time to set up a good one) but this may give you an idea:

The advantage here should be obvious: you can actually lock chests, and a shulker box is nothing more but a chest. A chest which I'm (ab)using as a door right now

Maybe this could help?

If you want to be creative. Why not have it be where pistons will move the blocks above the chests upon entering a room. Although in order to enter, you need the combo lock code it enter...

When the pistons move the blocks, it will look like it's just a wall.

Problem solved. 3x security.

I personally wouldn't trust that as a way to get in. I mean: combo locks are nice and all, but they don't automatically reset themselves. So if someone else is in the area or you forget to reset it yourself... Also: by adding something like that you're also drawing attention to it. In which case a redstone piston lock might be better (place a redstone torch, this triggers some pistons and that will open the door).

But IMO a piston door would definitely be the best way to leave such a locked storage again.

Mine auto locks... why not also tie it in where it will auto lock when you leave the room?

A inverted into door is also very secure

I developed a locking door system that utilizes the anti grief system. Basically, access can be granted via locked hoppers. Advantage is you can chain hoppers together to add more names that have access. Just be sure to cover hoppers with grief protected blocks. It doesn't even need to be specially named items. Once the hoppers have items, they activate the piston door via comparator. It auto closes when the items filter through. Then you can collect your items from a chest. I have mine set up so the same hoppers can be accessed from either side of the door.

Anyone interested I'd be happy to show you. It is in the nether & "locks" access to my wild base via the nether. (About a 5 min trip from town.)

Nice thought, but how would you get out? Perhaps a 2nd locked shulker box pointed in the other direction? (Will they pull you up?).

If you want to spend that much time, effort, ressource and energy building a closed in protected area for you chests, You must have enough money to spend on those sign locks. Otherwise if it is a smaller footprint storage area, sign lockage is still applicable for the price. Don't fight it, resistance is futile...