So I made a semi auto farm system that uses pistons to hold a water reservoir that when activated, unleashes the water and flows over my crops, sweeping them into a row of hoppers at the end of the field. The problem is that some of the crops get stuck on the edge of the dirt, rendering my system only partially effective because I have to go pick up what doesn't make it into the hoppers. I read somewhere that dirt/soulsand blocks are actually a tiny bit lower than normal blocks like hoppers, so items can get stuck due to the tiny difference in height. Is this true? What are some ideas to get around this? I was thinking maybe making the collection hoppers a block lower than the crop dirt level, but I wanted some second opinions on this topic. Can anyone confirm the dirt/soulsand height factor?
Tilled dirt is definitely a bit lower than a full block, I'm pretty sure normal dirt is a full block but if your hopper is right at the edge of the field then that would be tilled.
The Wiki says that soulsand is less than a full block high though it doesn't seem to say how high it is.
I think the Wiki is wrong about the soulsand, it looks as high as ordinary blocks.
What happens with soulsand is that players and mobs sink a couple of pixels into it, so if you look carefully you can notice a slight step up or down when going from soulsand to a normal block or vice versa, but that shouldn't affect water and objects.
Hoppers are 16 "pixels" tall, farmland is 15 "pixels" tall. So yes, it would be a good idea to lower the hoppers to be one block below the level the farmland is at, or items might get stuck on that single "pixel" in height difference.
I believe you should be able to even put the hoppers directly underneath the farmland to suck up the items (since the items are less than 16 "pixels" above the hopper, as the farmland is only 15 "pixels" tall), though that's up to you to decide if you want to try.
Dirt is a full block. Tilled farmland is not. Since tilled farmland is not a full block hoppers can pick up items through tilled farmland. So you could either make a trench at the collection end that the crops would fall into (with hoppers at the bottom), or you could put hoppers under the farmland.
So I made a semi auto farm system that uses pistons to hold a water reservoir that when activated, unleashes the water and flows over my crops, sweeping them into a row of hoppers at the end of the field. The problem is that some of the crops get stuck on the edge of the dirt, rendering my system only partially effective because I have to go pick up what doesn't make it into the hoppers. I read somewhere that dirt/soulsand blocks are actually a tiny bit lower than normal blocks like hoppers, so items can get stuck due to the tiny difference in height. Is this true? What are some ideas to get around this? I was thinking maybe making the collection hoppers a block lower than the crop dirt level, but I wanted some second opinions on this topic. Can anyone confirm the dirt/soulsand height factor?
Tilled dirt is definitely a bit lower than a full block, I'm pretty sure normal dirt is a full block but if your hopper is right at the edge of the field then that would be tilled.
The Wiki says that soulsand is less than a full block high though it doesn't seem to say how high it is.
I think the Wiki is wrong about the soulsand, it looks as high as ordinary blocks.
What happens with soulsand is that players and mobs sink a couple of pixels into it, so if you look carefully you can notice a slight step up or down when going from soulsand to a normal block or vice versa, but that shouldn't affect water and objects.
See screenshot below.
Just testing.
Hoppers are 16 "pixels" tall, farmland is 15 "pixels" tall. So yes, it would be a good idea to lower the hoppers to be one block below the level the farmland is at, or items might get stuck on that single "pixel" in height difference.
I believe you should be able to even put the hoppers directly underneath the farmland to suck up the items (since the items are less than 16 "pixels" above the hopper, as the farmland is only 15 "pixels" tall), though that's up to you to decide if you want to try.
Dirt is a full block. Tilled farmland is not. Since tilled farmland is not a full block hoppers can pick up items through tilled farmland. So you could either make a trench at the collection end that the crops would fall into (with hoppers at the bottom), or you could put hoppers under the farmland.