The redstone thread!

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Egeau, Sep 19, 2016.

  1. @ShelLuser:
    Don't you think there's also an other side to it? I totally see what you mean and I actually agree, but I would like to mention that it could be a bit of a shame that some of the more interesting redstone components have been reduced into a single block.

    Perhaps we will get multiple 'movements' so to speak, one using command blocks, one using only redstone, and one using only the more 'classic' redstone blocks. :p (or go back even further: remember when repeaters and pistons weren't even a thing?? :eek:)
    ShelLuser likes this.
  2. I see what you're getting at and I can also agree with that. It's why I'm actually happy that Mojang only added the Observer but didn't bother to "repair" the BUD switch mechanics. Basically all BUD switches are (ab)using a glitch in Minecraft. So all the current builds will still be working.

    Still... I can't help think that this method will be a lot more reliable than the regular switches (less noisy too when you rely on pistons).

    When we got the new chain command blocks in 1.9 I was quite skeptic at first. Especially because I thought (in a way I still do) that although it made things easier it also alienates new(er) users from the redstone requirements to actually trigger the whole thing (so instead of chain command blocks you'd have a row of regular command blocks and a line of redstone dust on top to trigger things).

    But that was soon over after I started using chain command blocks myself.

    On my redstone world I have a command block sequence which clears my inventory and then gives me the tools I always use (you can see an example above): Redstone dust, torch, repeater, comparator, sandstone block and a buton. But in that same specific order. Yet to make this work I always had to use a different order in the command blocks, because for some reason the last two or three could end up getting reversed.

    As I learned more I discovered that this was partly because of timing as well as the redstone 'ticks' (long story, and I'm still not sure I fully grasped it). Yet this problem is completely gone if you rely on a command block together with chain command blocks. The order is exactly the same as the sequence which you set up.

    SO yeah, it's a very double sided story I think. I agree that it defies the tinkering and experimentation a bit, but on the other hand we probably also get much more reliable stuff back ;)
    607 likes this.
  3. So yesterday I made my first fully automated redstone (pumpkin or melon) farm, and what better place to share it here! The only caveat: it's a 1.11 design, so at the moment of writing it won't work on the Empire because of the observer block. But as soon as we're updated to 1.11 I'll be sure to build this thing here as well, and I'll also share a detailed guide on how to build it yourself.

    I already talked about this a little bit on the 1.11 thread, but meh... This is the fully working design so I think it also deserves to be mentioned here :)

    Right now I can't share any tips or structure files yet because I'm still in the process of optimizing & compacting it some more. But... this thing works flawlessly. Better yet: on a server, so no risk of the classic "it worked in singleplayer and now doesn't" :)


    It works very easily: every time a pumpkin grows this will get noticed by the control section, and when the (customizable) threshold is reached the device will harvest the pumpkins and then reset itself. In my setting I'm aiming for the maximum amount of 8 pumpkins, but you can also use smaller amounts.


    Here the magic is handled ;) The observer block in the top middle gets triggered once the threshold has been reached and it'll activate the piston switch in the middle. This does several things:
    • It locks all the hoppers under the chest to lock in any remaining items (as well as upcoming returned items). It also activates the pistons below the pumpkins, which raises the ground to break the pumpkins and protect the plants. This is done in one sequence.
    • Next it will trigger the dispenser which releases the water to collect the pumpkins.
    • Finally it'll start a hopper timer.
    Once the hopper timer has finished it'll activate the dispenser once again which removes the water after which it'll lock the 'dispenser control lane' in order to prevent it from getting toggled again (normally happens automatically when the piston switch in the middle is activated). This also starts another hopper timer which activates a redstone clock which in its turn triggers the hopper item elevator to return all the items to their chests.
    The second hopper timer and the redstone clock

    Finally a 2nd lock is activated: one which temporarily prevents the hoppers under the chests to get unlocked. This is needed because by removing the items from the 'collecting dropper' the observer block in the top middle (2nd picture) gets triggered once more and this will reset the piston switch. Normally this would immediately unlock all the hoppers, but that would pose a problem because the items are still being returned.

    Item elevator.
    Right now I still have some work to do, I want to see if I can compact the design a bit more. But for a first automated farm design I don't think this is too bad. And the best part is that I also won a bet with it ;)

    (EDIT)

    I've done some reading up and it turns out that this isn't the most efficient design where growth rate is concerned. Apparently pumpkins & melons will grow faster when the stems got more options to place something. In my build they only got 1, the most optimal seems to be 3.

    Still, my design seems to be very lightweight where server resources are concerned (no trains, no timer, no nothing) and it also has the advantage that you can configure the threshold.

    On my LAN server (not the best hardware) I got the best results when I set it back to 5 (instead of 8). Because the machine resets decently quick it still manages to gather a good load. (IMO).
  4. I did also do a few thing with redstone last time, most of it doesn't work (jet) but there are a few things I like to share:


    (457, 85, -1362)


    This is exactly what it looks like, an invinity expandeble 3 high fence gate door, it's currently open, but if you flik the lever on the back, it will close itselve, or, that is what a normal person would think, this door actually contains a hidden entrance:

    this is what the door looks like during the opening sequence (I did almost get the full 3 extension on a screenshot) if you walkt, during the sand is on it's highest point, in the sand, it will take you downwards with it, I one discoverd that that works with someone else's version, but that one didn't have the 3 high needed place to actually make it an entrance, I did have to make my own verson of the tripple piston extender, with about only redstone at one side, to make this posseble, to make this, in my oppinion, one of the best hiddem emtrances there are, exept for the torch key in connection with a fluch door/hidden staircase.


    (495, 83, -1348)


    I''m quite a fan of all different kinds of hipster contraptions, as you can see, this is a consept by mombo jumbo, and I have made my own design here, it's quit funny, and totally useless, btw, there is an even more useless one on the right of it, that one includes a staircase that also comes down from the seeling, so that you can use it in a flying base



    (507 97 -1367)

    This is somethomh that does do the same as shelly's PVP this does, or, about, the oney thing is that this one is really usefull if you actually want pvp battles, I only think that this one will actually work, since it really takes a long time to let it go from the first to the second place, using the really really really old consept of a piston engine, wich is way easyer with slime blocks btw, the nice thing aboutt it is that it actually does go back afterwards, (if you want to test it with a friend, start standing in the holes with the glass block, by jumping in one at the moment the slime block thing goes under it, it will firstly go away from you, and come back afterwards :) (I'd also flik the lever to turn it on, btw :p)
    Zrugite and ShelLuser like this.
  5. Hm, odd. I only see a small orange strip in your post Jelle and even more bizarre: nothing below it on the second page. Not even the option to respond. I wonder what you tried to share because it would appear the forum doesn't like it ;)
    607 likes this.
  6. Minor issue with the tags used in the post. It's been fixed.
    ShelLuser likes this.
  7. Yeah, that was interesting! I am really curious as to how that was done, actually. :p
  8. The most intrusive redstone contraption of them all I'll bet. I know Elfin mentioned tags but I'll bet it were redstone tags, but he simply can't go into more details :D Redstone conspiracies I tell you! :eek:

    (yes, that's a completely bizarre theory, my weekend just started :cool:).
    Jelle68 and 607 like this.
  9. this kind to be specific - coffee hasn't kicked in yet :p
    ShelLuser likes this.
  10. I know of another design that has the observer looking at the pumpkins/melons, so the moment one appears it is immediately broken by a piston.
  11. nor I can give much more details, The only thing I can say is that I tried to hack the forums to make it all with a background of little cute bunnies, I did also try to do this on my first post, but the same happend, it all turned out to be going quite weird... on thing I can say is that I used "hipster" in my spoiler names, that might be the reason it didn't work...

    (I finally made all spoilers work, so you can now see all three of the systems)
    TomvanWijnen, ShelLuser and 607 like this.
  12. I have been bussy, it seems...
    This aretwo redstone contraptions I made this morning and this evening, I did alredey have both in my head for quite some time, so I did "only" have to build them, they both worked imedeatly, without problems to fix.


    (318 65 -1145)

    This indeed is a really old consept, it has been the alternative for slime block flying machines, in the time slime blocks weren't introduced jet, they do about the same, but they are slower and you need to place them on a rails, that needs quite some repeater timing sercuits, as you can see. so, why did I make some agian, well, I actually found a really old one in this world, one from the time they were usefull, and I made two that actually go back and forward, so they will go back to the place they started. why? because I maybe want to use something like this as a "loading" sign in one of my computters (I'm originally someone who makes redstone computters, but I haven't got enough time for that kind of projects at the moment), so I just want them fun to look at, and, to be honest, it gives quite a nostalgic feeling)


    (547, 83, -1368)


    This is what it looks like at the moment you didn't flik the lever


    This is what it looks like if you do:

    So, it retracts and extands some blocks to make the cube shape, than swipes all blocks to make the wall and floor, AND opens a fluch piston door, but that isn't the reason I like it, the reason I like it is that the well-known youtuber Mumbo Jumbo also made one of thease, but, the redstone bihind thas one is about three times larger, and it takes about 5 more seconds to open it, so, this one just is better, wich actually makes me quite proud on it :)
    ShelLuser and Zrugite like this.
  13. So I had a friend come over and he took a look at my pumpkin farm design. He was very honest (and I prefer that): according to him it was a nice design but not very efficient because of the single lane. The more space a plant has to produce something the higher the growth rate becomes.

    And so I decided to double the area:

    Ignore the lamps, that was a small mistake on my part ;)

    The main problem: how to get that redstone signal from one end to the other? Also make it trigger the torch so that the hopper gets released for a moment.

    Well....

    Not sure if this is efficient, but it works!

    My solution: tons of observer blocks :D Observer blocks can be chained, which means that it becomes very easy to move a signal up or down, no more messing with torches or having some kind of repeat every 15 blocks. Just stack 'm up!

    In case you're wondering: the only thing those repeaters do is generate block updates. The update is then picked up by the observer block below which in its turn sends the signal all the way down:


    Here dozens of comparators move the signal from one end to the other. At the end a new stack of observer blocks picks it up again and now moves it upwards. In the first picture you can see that the right side has become a bit larger. That's because the original observer blocks now powers a block of stone, this signal is then picked up by a repeater (set to two ticks). That same block of stone is also getting triggered by the "observer block stack" from below.

    I've been trying this design for a few hours now and it's most definitely true: the pumpkins grow much faster than before, so that's a pro :)

    Right now the idea is to stack this design while only 1 level will be monitored by the control section. So once the threshold is reached it will trigger all floors at the same time, this should seriously increase the drop rate while still preserving the whole idea: a farm which doesn't cause too much lag (no constantly running timers).
  14. Something occurred to me today while I was waiting for a server deployment to finish (not related to Minecraft but work: currently working on setting up a Bugzilla / (???)-wiki environment (mediawiki or tikiwiki, has yet to be decided by management).

    What world do you guys prefer to use (assuming you have a dedicated redstone world)?

    You see, my regular redstone 'experimentation' world is very plain, based on the flatworld preset: bedrock layer, 3 layers of stone and then sandstone all the way to (I think) y64. But when I started experimenting with the snapshots I started out with a regularly generated world (also because I wanted to check out llama's and mansions). Then I simply began building some structures right in that world, eventually exporting them using the structure blocks.

    Sure, I had my share of mishaps; I removed one block too many and saw water pour in, effectively washing away all my comparators (for example). During those moments you don't like your world choice ;)

    But on other moments I liked it. For example:


    As you can see this sat right on top of a cliff, so I had to improvise a bit to make things fit in (I did expand a bit by making a stone floor). Harder to see: but on the right you'll see a small blue strip (in the middle). That's a water pool which has caused me some troubles, and because I didn't want to bother filling it all up I tried to come up with other design options.

    Another advantage (or so I think): because there are tons of things happening around you (mobs spawning / dying / moving around, plants growing, day/night cycle, weather cycle) I also believe you'll get a better impression of how much lag your contraption generates. And that might help you optimize things ;)

    What do you guys think?
    607 and TomvanWijnen like this.
  15. Very interesting! :)

    I personally mostly build my redstone things in a world with 1 layer of bedrock, and then 63 layers of quartz blocks. In the past I've always used sandstone, instead of quartz, but I once tried quartz, and quite liked the even cleaner, white look, so I'm using that now. :D

    I don't think I've posted here before, have I... Hmm, then I guess I should try working on something today... I don't know what, though. :p
    ShelLuser and 607 like this.
  16. This thread is awesome!!! Once I've finished my redstone pet, I'll share it with you. I have a few other things I've made as well, including a modular chorus fruit/flower farm, a torch key jeb door, and a multi floor elevator. Pics when I can get em. ;-)
    Jelle68 likes this.
  17. That's quite interesting. I don't think I've ever seen redstoners use a regular world while in creative.
    I can see how it could be fun, though. There's certainly more immersion and more to look at, plus it's nice to integrate multiple contraptions close to each other in different structures.
    All while you don't have to worry about running out of resources.
    Nice! :)
    TomvanWijnen and ShelLuser like this.
  18. My main test world is in a normal terrain generated world, which I like because the terrain breaks up the emptiness that would otherwise be a superflat world and is generally nicer to look at while building. It also allows me to work with the terrain and design the contraption with that in mind. I also have a superflat world, but only use it for specific builds that I have planned out beforehand.
    607 likes this.
  19. This was not a very healthy way to spend the night, but fortunately I don't pull these stunts very often :D

    My redstone world is now upgraded to 1.11, and I even managed to copy all the structures which I build in the wilderness and import them here as well (structure blocks ftw!).

    The AMBox, automated pumpkin farm & the piston arena.

    Speaking of which: one of the first things which I'll be doing once we've moved to 1.11 is to rebuild that pumpkin farm, and I'll also add a second level for melons. I noticed that it's quite efficient, right now I added a command block on my world to warn me when a batch is ready (8 pumpkins) and right now I'm already looking at 1 stack and 40 items.

    BUT.... I'm not sure if I shared this before, but... Here is the ultimate in transportation:


    Just add hoppers to go into the shulker box, and then start your item transport. Eventually the shulker box will be dropped, collected and moved through the outgoing hopper which you can see in the lower right corner.

    Here's how it works:


    The torch powers the repeater, which makes the comparator check for the maximum value of 15. In other words: one full single chest (shulker box in this case). When the box is full it'll trigger the piston which will push the red wool above the torch, powering the wool. That will power the redstone dust in front which extends the piston. This will break the shulker box and collects it in the hopper chain.

    Then a (delayed) signal will find it's way down which triggers a dispenser to place a new shulker box.

    The only downside so far: it's a little hard to refill the dispenser right now ;)

    Now if you'll excuse me... I discovered a new command just now: /scoreboard objectives setdisplay sidebar revenge (revenge is a dummy score in my world, which I'm using to keep track on people opening a trapdoor to kill villager #19) and I plan to study this while I finish my tea :)
    607 likes this.
  20. I do usually hate doing this, but let's just give this thread a little bump :)
    607 and ShelLuser like this.