So here I am building a mob grinder with an on-off toggle on top for some glowstone lights. I wire up the four separate apparatuses identically, yet there are three different behaviors. Two work exactly as expected, one is just completely odd, and the other reverses itself immediately from the two that work as expected.
I just want to know how people can put up with all the technical glitches with redstone & pistons and build such amazing contraptions. I also would like to voice my hopes that redstone is relatively stable and usable in the most intuitive way for the full release.
TL;DR: I dislike redstone mechanics and I hope it will be more usable by the full release. Pointless thread, one may argue.
There are a few (mostly graphical) bugs that should be fixed, but learn them in five minutes and you're good. Though some mechanics may be a little hard to learn, change one rule about how wire is powered and you break almost anything more complicated than a door switch, and make many things impossible. In short, you cause chaos for redstoneers. So I say no.
Some things, like the new repeaters, turned out well because they don't break anything.
So here I am building a mob grinder with an on-off toggle on top for some glowstone lights. I wire up the four separate apparatuses identically, yet there are three different behaviors. Two work exactly as expected, one is just completely odd, and the other reverses itself immediately from the two that work as expected.
Most likely one of:
- Too close together and you've got a crossed wire (which can sometimes be hard to see if the "cross" is actually a block being powered unintentionally from an unexpected side).
- An inadvertant BUD (these things mess me up all the time).
- A north/south glitch. These are pretty rare as they only affect a small number of devices. Can usually be compensated for by adding an extra repeater delay somewhere.
I just want to know how people can put up with all the technical glitches with redstone & pistons and build such amazing contraptions. I also would like to voice my hopes that redstone is relatively stable and usable in the most intuitive way for the full release.
You get used to them and after a while you start being able to notice certain errors on sight.. and a while after that you just get the hang of when these errors are likely to occur and how much space you need to avoid them. You still mess up once in a while, but it becomes less over time and quicker to find/fix the problems.
And once you're really really good, you can start figuring out how to intentionally use these quirks to do neat things. That's how BUDs came along -- someone discovered (probably by accident) the delay in certain circuit configurations and then realized that it could be put to good use.
TL;DR: I dislike redstone mechanics and I hope it will be more usable by the full release. Pointless thread, one may argue.
Well hopefully there'll be less bugs, but I don't really see the fundamentals changing much. I don't even expect BUDs to be "fixed" as they allow for neat things that you can't do without them, and I'm pretty sure Notch and Jeb are fans of neat things. Just a matter of what they decide is a bug worth fixing, a bug not worth fixing (or at least, not worth fixing now), or an unintentional "feature" that they end up keeping because they like what people have done with it.
Personally I don't encounter too many bugs with redstone, unless I'm building something huge like a calculator. I have encountered some glitching, but not much. I actually doubt Notch will fix any glitch with redstone, as he's too busy working on turning this from an epic mining and building sandbox to a weird sandbox/RPG cross by adding "potions" and all that stuff.
The redstone bugs are easy to get used to and similar to the difference between if(a=d) and if(a==d) in c, for instance. In other words, they can be annoying gotchas for newbs at times, but if you know about them you can avoid them pretty easily, or even find a way to use them.
Pistons, on the other hand, are quite buggy and could probably use a major overhaul in a few areas. This will, of course, annoy a ton of people. However, the original fixing of redstone torches way back in alpha and the removal of the cart booster are valid analogs, so it just might happen.
Most likely one of:
- Too close together and you've got a crossed wire (which can sometimes be hard to see if the "cross" is actually a block being powered unintentionally from an unexpected side).
- An inadvertant BUD (these things mess me up all the time).
- A north/south glitch. These are pretty rare as they only affect a small number of devices. Can usually be compensated for by adding an extra repeater delay somewhere.
Add race condition to that list, which could be quite likely in a block swapper design.
If you have multiple pistons doing an action on a block in the same game tick = race condition. The game has to decide a winner... it is random based on the location of the circuit, but consistent at any given location.
Pistons, on the other hand, are quite buggy and could probably use a major overhaul in a few areas. This will, of course, annoy a ton of people. However, the original fixing of redstone torches way back in alpha and the removal of the cart booster are valid analogs, so it just might happen.
This is actually a good thing to know. It probably isn't the red stone that's messing up my circuit, as there's literally no logic involved except on/off. It's the pistons! My block swapper design is by no means complicated (two pistons pushing in opposite directions), but it only works half the time.
If only it would work all the time. Redstone, I guess I don't have issues with you.
kthxbai
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Prob'ly an inter dimensional rip between the Nether and the Overworld.
I just want to know how people can put up with all the technical glitches with redstone & pistons and build such amazing contraptions. I also would like to voice my hopes that redstone is relatively stable and usable in the most intuitive way for the full release.
TL;DR: I dislike redstone mechanics and I hope it will be more usable by the full release. Pointless thread, one may argue.
Some things, like the new repeaters, turned out well because they don't break anything.
Most likely one of:
- Too close together and you've got a crossed wire (which can sometimes be hard to see if the "cross" is actually a block being powered unintentionally from an unexpected side).
- An inadvertant BUD (these things mess me up all the time).
- A north/south glitch. These are pretty rare as they only affect a small number of devices. Can usually be compensated for by adding an extra repeater delay somewhere.
You get used to them and after a while you start being able to notice certain errors on sight.. and a while after that you just get the hang of when these errors are likely to occur and how much space you need to avoid them. You still mess up once in a while, but it becomes less over time and quicker to find/fix the problems.
And once you're really really good, you can start figuring out how to intentionally use these quirks to do neat things. That's how BUDs came along -- someone discovered (probably by accident) the delay in certain circuit configurations and then realized that it could be put to good use.
Well hopefully there'll be less bugs, but I don't really see the fundamentals changing much. I don't even expect BUDs to be "fixed" as they allow for neat things that you can't do without them, and I'm pretty sure Notch and Jeb are fans of neat things. Just a matter of what they decide is a bug worth fixing, a bug not worth fixing (or at least, not worth fixing now), or an unintentional "feature" that they end up keeping because they like what people have done with it.
Pistons, on the other hand, are quite buggy and could probably use a major overhaul in a few areas. This will, of course, annoy a ton of people. However, the original fixing of redstone torches way back in alpha and the removal of the cart booster are valid analogs, so it just might happen.
Add race condition to that list, which could be quite likely in a block swapper design.
If you have multiple pistons doing an action on a block in the same game tick = race condition. The game has to decide a winner... it is random based on the location of the circuit, but consistent at any given location.
This is actually a good thing to know. It probably isn't the red stone that's messing up my circuit, as there's literally no logic involved except on/off. It's the pistons! My block swapper design is by no means complicated (two pistons pushing in opposite directions), but it only works half the time.
If only it would work all the time. Redstone, I guess I don't have issues with you.
kthxbai