EDIT: see my post a little bit further down - the OP is unnecessary for filling your inventory with only gunpowder (you can just seed it with 32 single gunpowder stacks, as was pointed out). But selective killing of mobs can still increase the rate of the item you want due to the 200 mob limit.
So... spiders are a different shape than creepers.
And zombies and skeletons burn in sunlight, unlike creepers.
Thus, it should be possible to make a gunpowder only mob trap by exploiting these things. Spiders can be filtered out by a diagonal flow of water up against a 1-high ceiling that sweeps them to a lava pit, but not the other mobs. This is on the left hand side of the picture. Zombies and skeletons can then be sent through a long hallway exposed to the sun, which has water flowing through it for a little while every 30 seconds or so (requires a floodgate, though! =/). Thus, it is dry most of the time, allowing them to burn, but water then sweeps through and moves the creepers along (and pushes the arrows and feathers into the lava, just like spiders). This is on the right hand side of the picture, extending as far as needed.
Creepers then exit on the right, and are disposed of as desired, and their gunpowder flows to you unadulterated by other items, allowing you to let your whole inventory fill up with only that.
Without a floodgate, it is still possible, using something like a stairway of long narrow stairs exposed to sunlight. All mobs will hop down to the bottom eventually (each stair is 2 high so they can't get back up), but it's dry, so zombies and skeletons will burn. Possible, but not nearly as efficient...
ENTRANCE
[] [] [] sunlight falling on these stairs.
[] [] [] []
[] [] [] []
[] [] []
[] [] []
[] []
[] []
[]
--> EXIT to normal mob trap, creepers only.
Also, a light sensitive block would be great for turning this whole machine on or off with daylight, but even without that, you can still make a day long clock cycler circuit with current game mechanics.
And of course, a more advanced version would not send everything else into lava, but rather make it so that all the different types of drops simply were delivered to separate places. (except feathers and arrows)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Przerwap, upon looking at some code I had just written: "...Gav... That's not how programming works."
nice idea, but instead of stairs, make a pitfall which damages the creepers, skeletons and zombies for 4.5 hearts, leaving them 0.5 a heart, the skeletons and zombies will burn on the way down by sunlight, killing them when they land. for pigs, sheeps and chickens, just do the same as you do with spiders. for cows, flow them into a 1x1 hole leading up that is filled with water, cows will get stuck and die, while zombies, skeletons and creepers will flow up to the water surface flow into the pitfall. i dont know how to kill the zombies and skeletons while leaving the creepers alive while its night, though.
this works, but an even easier way is jsut to seed your inventory, fill each slot in your inventory with 1 gunpowder then use a regular mob trap, it wastes items, but you obviously dont want the other ones, and you can do this with any of the items so you get what you want too =)
this works, but an even easier way is jsut to seed your inventory, fill each slot in your inventory with 1 gunpowder then use a regular mob trap, it wastes items, but you obviously dont want the other ones, and you can do this with any of the items so you get what you want too =)
Oh. Oh my. Alright then, that was very clever. One internet for you!
Now I'm going to pretend that the above ideas were designed for an item vending machine... =P
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Przerwap, upon looking at some code I had just written: "...Gav... That's not how programming works."
this works, but an even easier way is jsut to seed your inventory, fill each slot in your inventory with 1 gunpowder then use a regular mob trap, it wastes items, but you obviously dont want the other ones, and you can do this with any of the items so you get what you want too =)
Yep that's the best way to only get the materials you want.
Selectively killing things would actually be useful for increasing RATE of gunpowder too, although not using the devices in the OP.
By killing spiders and zombies and things very quickly after they spawn, you can free up space in the 200 mob limit for a greater proportion of creepers, leading to actually getting more gunpowder per minute than if they are all killed at the same time. Assuming you have a large, near-capacity mob trap.
Spiders are the easiest. For example, cacti right at the very beginning of any water channel that restrict movement to a 1 wide entry.
And zombies and skeletons could theoretically be purged very early on, IF there is some way to turn the ceiling transparent and opaque back and forth automatically. I.e., let mobs spawn for 30 seconds or so, then lights on and burn the unwanted ones for 5 seconds. Enough that when they fall into a particularly deep pit to begin processing, it will kill anything but creepers at the very beginning of the waterway. OR if they stay on fire even after sunlight is gone, then you don't even need any special pit, and you can have an even shorter burn time. Obviously a block that just does that would be ideal, but it is quite possible that there's a way to do it right now. Ideas?
edit: now that I think of it, it might be best just to kill EVERYTHING super quickly for this reason... or to kill creepers faster, rather than everything else faster? I am confused... but the killing speed thing is certainly important somehow or other.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Przerwap, upon looking at some code I had just written: "...Gav... That's not how programming works."
Selectively killing things would actually be useful for increasing RATE of gunpowder too, although not using the devices in the OP.
By killing spiders and zombies and things very quickly after they spawn, you can free up space in the 200 mob limit for a greater proportion of creepers, leading to actually getting more gunpowder per minute than if they are all killed at the same time. Assuming you have a large, near-capacity mob trap.
Spiders are the easiest. For example, cacti right at the very beginning of any water channel that restrict movement to a 1 wide entry.
And zombies and skeletons could theoretically be purged very early on, IF there is some way to turn the ceiling transparent and opaque back and forth automatically. I.e., let mobs spawn for 30 seconds or so, then lights on and burn the unwanted ones for 5 seconds. Enough that when they fall into a particularly deep pit to begin processing, it will kill anything but creepers at the very beginning of the waterway. Obviously a block that just does that would be ideal, but it is quite possible that there's a way to do it right now. Ideas?
dont forget about animals.
also, combined with my suggestion of a mobtrap, add a clock or just active manually a cart booster once it daylight (so zombies and skeletons die) the carts will go into the pit, hopefully hitting a creeper, then back and suffocating the creeper in a block, causing the gunpowder to drop. you just have to stand near the suffocating block, getting the gunpowder as it drops. the creepers wont do anything to you, as they will move too fast to ount down to zero and explode.
EDIT: you can also make a chamber with lots of portals and cacti walls, ghasts will spawn, hit the cacti, die, and drop gunpowder down into the collection river leading to your safe room, where youll get the gun powder.
For zombies and skellies, look into a block mod that allows you to change blocks to a different one with redstone. Using that mod, you could fill a room with all the mobs, have a redstone pulse go through, open the ceiling for 5 seconds so they die, then it closes, and the floor opens, dropping everything out. Then, in this new room, have a single water source block that drags all spiders into the corners, and have lava or something. Then, the water block is turned into air, again, using the mod block, and the floor opens to a drowning trap, killing the creepers that way. This would require a great amount of redstone knowledge, but if you felt like it, you could probably just flip all the switches yourself.
For zombies and skellies, look into a block mod that allows you to change blocks to a different one with redstone. Using that mod, you could fill a room with all the mobs, have a redstone pulse go through, open the ceiling for 5 seconds so they die, then it closes, and the floor opens, dropping everything out. Then, in this new room, have a single water source block that drags all spiders into the corners, and have lava or something. Then, the water block is turned into air, again, using the mod block, and the floor opens to a drowning trap, killing the creepers that way. This would require a great amount of redstone knowledge, but if you felt like it, you could probably just flip all the switches yourself.
Well yes, I could do this easily with controller block, but that is pretty cheap... and doesn't result in all that much satisfaction, I don't think. Primarily because the controller blocks are way too overpowered (so are bridge blocks, even).
What we need I think is a pair of blocks, one that is loaded with objects and will place them in front of itself when activated, and one that bashes blocks in front of it when activated.
No magic involved, much more difficult and minecraft-y to design things with, limited to actual placeable blocks.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Przerwap, upon looking at some code I had just written: "...Gav... That's not how programming works."
So... spiders are a different shape than creepers.
And zombies and skeletons burn in sunlight, unlike creepers.
Thus, it should be possible to make a gunpowder only mob trap by exploiting these things. Spiders can be filtered out by a diagonal flow of water up against a 1-high ceiling that sweeps them to a lava pit, but not the other mobs. This is on the left hand side of the picture. Zombies and skeletons can then be sent through a long hallway exposed to the sun, which has water flowing through it for a little while every 30 seconds or so (requires a floodgate, though! =/). Thus, it is dry most of the time, allowing them to burn, but water then sweeps through and moves the creepers along (and pushes the arrows and feathers into the lava, just like spiders). This is on the right hand side of the picture, extending as far as needed.
Creepers then exit on the right, and are disposed of as desired, and their gunpowder flows to you unadulterated by other items, allowing you to let your whole inventory fill up with only that.
Without a floodgate, it is still possible, using something like a stairway of long narrow stairs exposed to sunlight. All mobs will hop down to the bottom eventually (each stair is 2 high so they can't get back up), but it's dry, so zombies and skeletons will burn. Possible, but not nearly as efficient...
ENTRANCE
[] [] [] sunlight falling on these stairs.
[] [] [] []
[] [] [] []
[] [] []
[] [] []
[] []
[] []
[]
--> EXIT to normal mob trap, creepers only.
Also, a light sensitive block would be great for turning this whole machine on or off with daylight, but even without that, you can still make a day long clock cycler circuit with current game mechanics.
And of course, a more advanced version would not send everything else into lava, but rather make it so that all the different types of drops simply were delivered to separate places. (except feathers and arrows)
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23440
Oh. Oh my. Alright then, that was very clever. One internet for you!
Now I'm going to pretend that the above ideas were designed for an item vending machine... =P
Yep that's the best way to only get the materials you want.
By killing spiders and zombies and things very quickly after they spawn, you can free up space in the 200 mob limit for a greater proportion of creepers, leading to actually getting more gunpowder per minute than if they are all killed at the same time. Assuming you have a large, near-capacity mob trap.
Spiders are the easiest. For example, cacti right at the very beginning of any water channel that restrict movement to a 1 wide entry.
And zombies and skeletons could theoretically be purged very early on, IF there is some way to turn the ceiling transparent and opaque back and forth automatically. I.e., let mobs spawn for 30 seconds or so, then lights on and burn the unwanted ones for 5 seconds. Enough that when they fall into a particularly deep pit to begin processing, it will kill anything but creepers at the very beginning of the waterway. OR if they stay on fire even after sunlight is gone, then you don't even need any special pit, and you can have an even shorter burn time. Obviously a block that just does that would be ideal, but it is quite possible that there's a way to do it right now. Ideas?
edit: now that I think of it, it might be best just to kill EVERYTHING super quickly for this reason... or to kill creepers faster, rather than everything else faster? I am confused... but the killing speed thing is certainly important somehow or other.
dont forget about animals.
also, combined with my suggestion of a mobtrap, add a clock or just active manually a cart booster once it daylight (so zombies and skeletons die) the carts will go into the pit, hopefully hitting a creeper, then back and suffocating the creeper in a block, causing the gunpowder to drop. you just have to stand near the suffocating block, getting the gunpowder as it drops. the creepers wont do anything to you, as they will move too fast to ount down to zero and explode.
EDIT: you can also make a chamber with lots of portals and cacti walls, ghasts will spawn, hit the cacti, die, and drop gunpowder down into the collection river leading to your safe room, where youll get the gun powder.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23440
Well yes, I could do this easily with controller block, but that is pretty cheap... and doesn't result in all that much satisfaction, I don't think. Primarily because the controller blocks are way too overpowered (so are bridge blocks, even).
What we need I think is a pair of blocks, one that is loaded with objects and will place them in front of itself when activated, and one that bashes blocks in front of it when activated.
No magic involved, much more difficult and minecraft-y to design things with, limited to actual placeable blocks.