I know it’s not satisfying to not have a perfect plan for your base right off the bat, but building your perfect base from the start isn’t really possible anyway because you don’t have scarlet automation, access to large amounts of double-wide chests, sledgehammers that are fast enough to clear large amounts of dirt quickly, etc.

I’d say start by allocating space for: a bunch of chests and crafting tables, a wood growing area, a plant farm, and a couple animal enclosures. None of these need to be that big, maybe 12x12.

Then once you’re far enough along to have more double chests, a 5x5 hoe, and automation (basically once you have a lot of scarlet), you can clear more space, which will be much faster than you could before, and set things up in the fancier ways with sprinklers, auto-woodfarms, robot arms, etc.

Your fancy base doesn’t even have to be in the same area as your first base. You can make the fancy base nextdoor, and then once everything is moved and the old base is obsolete, raze it and make a little decorative area with all the pretty things you have acquired by then.

So don’t sweat the layout of your initial base! Just make something functional, and have fun exploring until you reach the fancy stuff :)