Hi gang, and Lottie especially of course So in another thread Lottie said: That sounds like a challenge and I think I can do that. So let's dive right in! Now, I did write this one for Lottie but of course everyone is invited to read this as well Unfortunately baby steps might be a little rough on me, but I can always try! Step one: baba, blblblb, prrr, dada! buuu! Ok, sorry, I couldn't resist that one To make a piston door we're obviously going to need pistons. But.... What is a piston? A piston is a block which can push other blocks around. As you can see there are 2 variants. The normal piston (shown on the left) can only push things, but that's it. The sticky piston on the right can both push and pull blocks: The sticky piston also pulled the block back, the normal piston only pushed it. So to make a door which opens and closes we need a sticky piston. You can make a sticky piston by using a normal piston and putting a slime ball on top of it (icky!). And you can make a normal piston like so: A sticky piston is made by using a normal piston in your crafting grid with a slime ball above it. Now, pistons are cool and all but they have their limitations. There are some blocks which they cannot push. Some of which are: Obsidian, mob spawners, bedrock, command blocks and structure blocks cannot be pushed. So be sure not to use any of those blocks. Though good luck trying to get your hands on any of these other than obsidian while playing on the Empire What should a piston door actually do? This may sound funny but think about it for a second... A door should be closed, right? So it needs to be closed and when we walk up to it then the door needs to open and we can walk through. Now, a piston is a redstone thingamagick so obviously we're going to need some redstone to make it 'do' something. In this case: pushing those blocks ('extending') so that it closes the door. So lets start by building the actual door. Here I used wool to mark the pathway, and I used glass because I like using that. Of course you're free to use any other block you'd like, as long as it isn't one of those which cannot be pushed. So here's the first problem: how do we close this thing? Obviously we need a redstone power source, but preferably one which can also be turned off. Basically: when we walk onto a pressure plate then the door needs to open. The funny thing is that using a pressure plate creates redstone power. While we want this to be inverted. Fortunately this is perfectly possible by using a torch: What is happening here? The torch powers the sandstone block above it. And because this block sits right next to a piston that piston gets triggered and it extends. So that part of the door is then closed. But this door consists of two pistons. That's why the redstone dust lies on top of the sandstone. Although redstone looks flat it is actually a real block, just transparent. So because that block is now also powered it will trigger the second piston. And so one half of the door is now closed! All that's left to do is to open it. Now, fortunately for us a redstone torch can do something special: if you send redstone power into the block it's attached to then it will turn off! And guess what? A pressure plate does just that: it generates redstone power! Just be careful what kind of pressure plate you use. For a normal door I recommend using stone or wood pressure plates and not the gold or iron variants. Here I did use the gold pressure plate to demonstrate something, though it is a bit hard to see: If you use a pressure plate then the redstone signal can be picked up by placing redstone dust under the block it's on. Like I said: it is difficult to see but that redstone dust beneath the wool is actually powered ("active"). Basically this is the opposite situation which I showed earlier with the torch. The torch powered a block so the redstone dust above it also got powered. Here the pressure plate powers a block, so... logically the redstone dust below the block also gets powered. Anyway, the above picture shows why you don't want to use gold or iron pressure plates: they don't create a useful signal. So use normal ones and then place redstone like this: You need to use this small detour because redstone goes on into a straight line and also auto connects to itself. So you need to specifically point it at that block on which we placed the torch. Oh: and also be sure to do this for the other side as well! And how do we get out again? If you looked closely then you'll notice that we only placed pressure plates on one side of the door. Works perfectly to get in, but getting out again might pose a bit of a problem. The solution is simple of course: place 2 more pressure plates on the other end, and connect them with the circuit which we already build. Like so: This is on the other side of the door, I dug a hole down and placed 3 more redstone dust. Maybe this makes it easier to see, here I removed all the blocks around the circuit: And that's all there is to it! This is all you need. You can fully cover everything up with blocks, you won't risk blocking anything. The only important thing here is the redstone dust on top of the blocks next to the pistons. That needs to be there and you also cannot replace it with something else. This is also why players sometimes 'bury' these doors a bit. Hope this helped, and if there's still something not fully clear then be sure to ask! I'd be happy to come over and help build this thing too
Neato! If only EMC had a Player Written Guides/Tutorial section, this should totally be stickied there!
Wait, so you right click the piston with slime to make it sticky...? Nah, I'm not THAT dumb... But thanks so much Shell
Thanks for making this guide! I am sure it will help everyone if they ever want to make a piston door.
Never said you were The thing is: I really like messing with redstone and because of that I also like to talk about it. So yeah, if I then start a guide like this I try to cover as much as possible. Even those small details which everyone probably already knows That's just me Go back to your computer you! No, not the one you're sitting behind, I mean that redstone computer you build!
Looks awesome! Maybe I should have to build a 4x4 door for me sometime soon. I hear those are a bit difficult.
I'm not sure if it should, because then the entire first page of the section would probably be full with stickied ShellGuides...
