Residence Update Log! The latest changes in the Empire Town!

Just purchased gold supporter voucher ingame, my second res now holds a public FREE tree farm. 6 types of trees (jungle, acacia, dark oak, oak, spruce and birch) if you appear to use it, please follow the rules! nothing special just wanted to let you guys know :3

EDIT: forgot location lol
Location: /smp3 /v +treefarm

Meh, this was not a day I really enjoyed...

So I come online earlier this evening and to my surprise, and pleasure, I see my friend poweruk2002 online. We hadn't seen each other for a while so I was quite happy to talk to him again. Unfortunately that didn't really last as long as I had hoped for because power had some sad news to share: he's leaving EMC... For reasons which are his own, and I think we should respect that.

5 minutes later poweruk said his goodbyes in the town chat (which is the only reason I'm mentioning it here as well) and I've been granted admin privileges on his residence. "This stuff is now yours", power told me.

Of course I checked what I was dealing with, but I can't say I actually enjoyed it. Sure; having an admin flag is nice and all, but even that will only last until power goes derelict.

And that got me thinking... I have so much free space (2 smp2 residences next to each other, I'm very happy with that) and was already starting to build a "dependance" of some sort; a small extension to my main storage.

Surely I could do more than simply grab his stuff as if nothing happened? Heck; the admin flag and poweruk himself may say otherwise; but this is his stuff, not mine.

As said, that got me thinking....

The Shell vault; access is strictly prohibited...

See that lever over there? That's used to activate the pressure plates which you see before the iron doors. And guess what? Only 2 external players can operate it; the access sign restricts others from using it.

And I know what some people might be thinking: those iron doors can be passed. Either with the use of enderpearls (sorry; that flag has been turned off) or... Well, I'm keeping it a secret for now, but there are tricks to pass it.

As such a second door was required:

A tunnel made of obsidian and 6 iron blocks stand in your way...

See that pressure plate on the floor? I know what some people could be thinking: anyone can use a pressure plate since these are not controlled by the use flag. So getting in should be easy enough, right?

Well; in this case I'm happy to disappoint: unless that lever in the first picture is activated then this pressure plate won't do anything at all. So even if you do manage to teleport yourself past the iron doors then you'll end up getting stuck anyway.

Why all this secrecy and heavy security you ask?

Simple!

A first look into the 'Shell vault'...

Officially this is considered to be my stuff; but I beg to differ. This is your stuff guys, safely locked away.

Yes, my friends may be gone (or soon to be gone) but their stuff will remain safe for some time to come in my vault. At the time of writing they have full access to this area by simply teleporting here and then pulling the lever.

Because there is no exit option (no buttons or such to push) apart from teleporting away I am going to change the lever mechanics with a timer in the near future. So eventually you'll have to push a button and then the doors can be opened for a short period of time and will automatically lock again afterwards.

And how to gain access to all this?

Easy:



You just press the button Of course, this only works for the 2 players who's items I have locked away (you know who you are).

So yah, that's what I call turning something negative into something positive again.

And now here's hoping my friends will indeed come back to EMC soon enough

Because sleep is for the weak, redstone way too addictive and also because I want nothing but the best (the best to my abilities anyway) when it comes to protecting items which aren't mine. (see previous message).

The problem at hand: build a sustain envelope. Oh wait, wrong hobby ;P

Green: lock circuit, yellow: iron door controls, purple: piston door controls.

So this is the original redstone circuit design. The yellow "t shape" section (the tetris block ) is used to pick up a signal from the first pressure plates (before the iron door). The two redstone torches in the back ground (on the yellow blocks) is what actually triggers the doors.

To some extend the same applies to the purple areas; one block in the middle (for one pressure plate) picks up the signal and it gets sent to all pistons.

The green area is where all the action is at. These control the two pistons in the background and the one on the foreground and the pistons are used to (un)lock the several signals. In the background a yellow block is placed between two repeaters (so basically a redstone circuit breaker) which enables the pressure plates before the iron doors.

Then we got 2 redstone blocks; the piston in the background actually does nothing more but control the piston in the foreground. In the current situation (off state) the power for the piston door comes from the redstone block (it powers the purple area). When turned on then the redstone block is pulled away and then the power comes from the redstone torch in the middle. Which will turn off as soon as you step on the pressure plate.

The trick here was the delay timer:

Cyan blocks form a memory module, trigged by the green blocks. The repeaters eventually trigger the reset switch.

As soon as the button is pressed the signal is sustained by the memory module (cyan blocks). This makes sure that the pressure plates are kept enabled for approx. 8 seconds. The trick here is the subtractor (comparator in subtraction mode) between the two bottom cyan blocks. As soon as the piston is triggered the redstone block provides a full redstone signal of 15 which will cut off the memory module. The signal is lost and thus the vault will be automatically locked again (so the pressure plates are disabled).

The reasoning here is simple: you go into the vault, you pick up the items from the chests (optionally dump them in your own /vault I suppose) and when you're done you just teleport away (to your storage?) to sort everything out.

No need to keep weird levers in mind anymore

Readings posts like your two up there make me really want to play Minecraft!
The problem is, I don't think it'd be a very good idea to play Minecraft now (tomorrow I have two important tests, I should get some rest)

I added messages and teleports to my res. Also managed to get my hands on some few jungle saplings :3

Some time ago I showed you guys my new beacon. The only thing left to do was finishing the pyramid and optionally adding a secondary power. I've won a few auctions for iron in between so today I decided that I should finish up. And then the dilemma arose; I was aiming for Speed II and Jump Boost II but was already using Haste. Which I also wanted to keep. So I ended up doing this:

One expanded pyramid with 3 beacons on top...

Now, this is cool and all but a pyramid of this size has one extra side effect besides allowing a secondary power to be used; the range of the beacon effect is also a lot bigger than it was before.

I like having these pyramid effects, but what would my EMC neighbors say? And yes, I know that you can turn the effect off on your residence by using /res set buffs false, but that's not the same. You'd still get warnings / error messages whenever my beacon effects are blocked by your flags.

So one way or the other I risk bothering my neighbors, and I don't like that. As such, further action was required:

A beacon control circuit; to turn them on or off.

On the left are 3 sticky pistons which can move a block within the beacon beam, thus effectively turning off the beacon (a beacon needs a clear view of the sky). In the rear end (cobblestone) is a redstone toggle; 2 pistons and 2 torches which push a block back and forth. The moment its above a redstone torch it'll get powered which will result in the surrounding redstone dust to pick up that signal and powering the sticky pistons.

So basically:

A beacon control button next to the three beacon beams...

All my neighbors have to do whenever my beacons bother them is walk over, hit the button and they'll turn off. Or the opposite is also an option of course; if they like having these effects then they're also welcome to turn the whole thing on.

(I already sent them a PM to explain all this )

SO yah, when the button is pressed then this is the way things look:



As you can see 3 blocks have been pushed into place which makes the beacons turn off, while the whole thing still looks pretty decent where design is concerned (or so I think).

Finally a build which didn't take the whole night

That's very cool! I love the builds, Shel! I may consider "stealing" it for my res, if that's okay. But /res set buffs false doesn't actually work for the res owner/people with admin, so on my parkour residence I still had to deal with the annoying buffs from my first res. I ended up having to completely remove my beacon.

But of course! In fact; if you'd like then I'd be more than happy to show you this build up close and can even help you build it on your res. My pleasure, really.

The main thing is basically getting a few pistons to block the streams. You should not cross the streams (as in Ghostbusters) but blocking them poses no threats

Are you sure? Because it should; you're setting a global flag which applies to all. The only reason I know about the error messages is because I tested this on my own residence. However: keep in mind that the flag only applies to outside beacon effects, not those of your own making.

You know what? If I can't trust my former 'colleagues' then who can you trust?

I gave you some flags. You can go to my res., use the tp button to go to my storage room (the private one ) and from there you should look on the wall to your right. There you'll find 4 buttons which tp you to all of my redstone circuits.

In case the toggle switch doesn't make much sense (I buried parts of it) then check out my redstone room (trapdoor behind the main stairs, please close after use). There you'll find a full example.

Of course; as said, I'd also be happy to give you a tour.

It's really nice how you took the time to do that!

Well, I'm really excited now! I've always wanted a beacon on my res, but diagonal from it was my parkour residence. Because you can't set buffs to false for yourself, I ended up removing the beacon entirely. Until ShelLuser came along and posted his toggle-able beacon.

This gave me a great idea to steal borrow the idea from Shel and I ended up building a beacon on my residence. But there was a problem - I had no idea how to do the redstone. ShelLuser gave me use/namedtp flags on his residence so I could check it out.

I tried to do the redstone, and managed to do the majority correctly, but couldn't figure out how to toggle it. I knew I needed to toggle it from 11217 (the diagonal residence to the beacon) so I ran a redstone line from the beacon to the corner... and then I couldn't go any further.

That's where RainbowChin came in, and in under 5 minutes I had a redstone line running through the road. So now I needed to get the signal up 50 blocks or so to where I needed to toggle the beacon, and I asked Shel for help, which he readily provided. The first idea, a torch tower, failed miserably because of a misunderstanding.

Finally, Shel got it to work (I sat around and tried to act helpful), and finally I was able to actually play my own parkour! The beacon is toggle-able by me, and buffs are set to false so there will (hopefully) be no more issues.

Speaking of parkour, I have 8 courses up and running, free to play, at 11217... buffs free! Come down to SMP5 if you want to try it out!

Ha, ha, that is awesome!

Well, throwing stuff down into the hole where I was working in was actually helpful. And me "spleefing" you (I only noticed you after I had removed that dirt block) was also kinda funny IMO

But yeah, I really enjoyed helping you build this thing. Here's the thing (seriously): I was going to post a help question somewhere next week to ask if a redstone line between residences would work. After all; redstone is controlled by the redstone flag, and since we have no flags on town property.. Well, now I know it works.

So I might even end up stealing back, err: borrowing your idea there.

No idea what you asked Chin exactly, but he did a really good job IMO. I liked the way the repeaters were placed in between.

And as to your parkour: I just might SMP5 is my vacation server after all, and since I hardly play parkours...

...and so it begins....

Update:



/v 5066 if anyone wants to see it

I'm demolishing my horse mall on 12233 at the moment and rebuilding it. So far I've been building a new one of singleplayer before I start on EMC. Here's what it looks like so far:
http://imgur.com/a/kPCVq

So I don't know quite how to say this but I am building a SKY MALL on smp1 (the best smp EVER!) It will be all out of glass so it needs a TON of glass. So if you want to see it, go to smp1 /v 2584 or /v 2583 and look up (make sure you have your render distance to far it is 200 blocks up)

So if you want to fall and fail a lot and probably rage quit, I've made a nice parkour course at 11217 on SMP5. I have 7 courses there currently, and the newest (and in my opinion, the best) is the White course. After you spawn in, just step on the respective pressure plate. Here's a sneak peak of the 11217 White Course:







It's very difficult (even I haven't completed it without res locations) but 100% possible - I'm getting just this course approved by BlackKnight. Feel free to check it out. Best of all, it's free!

Coming soon to the 11217 Parkour


Psst... this is a teaser.

I've expanded my storage a little and am already making some (vague) plans for a connection between the two. Probably railroad lines, but it's way too early for that.

Anyway, when I started out I recreated the storage space I was accustomed to but also kept my smaller supplies in mind. Well, that and the fact that I need to sort my items myself. So the less chests I have the easier it is on me. So that resulted in this:



Nothing too special, many people have already seen this part. Anyway, here I'm combining items to keep used space somewhat small. For example wood; those get stored in 3 separate DC's. One for the logs, one for the planks (and plank-like items such as stairs and slabs) and one for the saplings and leaves. Works like a charm!

My wood logs storage chest...

The obvious problem eventually arose, as can be seen above: what to do when I'm running out of space? Dark oak and birch are almost completely filled up and I don't like the idea of mixing things just because I don't have enough space anymore.

And that's where my vault storage came to mind. Now, the vault usage itself is limited to item storage and bulk storage of some of my more valuable items (blocks of redstone, iron, gold, diamond and emeralds). But I still had lots of other unused space outside of the vault. And plenty of materials to store. So I ended up building myself a "bulk storage", only meant to store items of which I have at least 9 stacks or more....



That's much better than letting all this precious space go to waste. What I also like is that I got my "wood storage section" back exactly the way I was used to having in the past:



The only items which get stored together here are leaves and saplings (top chests) and stairs and slabs (second row from the top). Everything else is now stored in bulk. I'm curious when I'll manage to get hold of a SC of logs

And in the rest of the room I'm using smaller "sub areas" which are used to store certain items somewhat grouped together:



But I'm still working on a few improvements here. Still not sure if I'm going to keep on using the same collection / sorting I have now. But that's also something to worry about "later"

As of 4/17/15 (that's today, right?), my main residence is finished enough for me to want to show it off a bit.




Although there's not much to see yet besides Digby the receptionist dog (above), unless you have a strange affinity for 18 completely empty rooms, if you want to visit KB Towers (or if you want to suggest a better name for the building) yourself, you can come to /v 16002 in SMP8, or you can simply turn west upon entering spawn--it's the first residence you'll see.


Since I've grown very tired by now of interior decorating, my next task will likely be building some out-of-sight (mostly underground) farms and a more practical area to keep my horses. Screenshots of those might come eventually if I think they look nice enough.