So I built an automated minecart system and figured I'd share it but I can't do screenshots and I can't do video. Some details may be missing but feel free to ask any questions.
No buttons need to be pressed, nor does the cart have to be "broken" by hand and picked up.
Since it's a personal subway between my houses I use one rail line for both directions (could be split into two one-directional lines for public use). The track runs at elevation 44 and thus there's a large climb at each end of the track. The first piece of rail after ascending the hill is a detector rail which is wired to a rail intersection a few blocks ahead. The incoming cart flips the intersection and sends the cart to the left side. The right side is for departing minecarts. The entire station (visible anyway) is only three blocks wide. The track looks like a tuning fork if you look down on it.
ARRIVALS
After the intersection, the track ends of couse. But here's how I do it. The rail line ends with two powered rails. Then I drop down a block and put a half slab. The next block in line is again one down but it's air. The final block in line is a regular piston, facing the air block.
When the rider enters the station, the cart drops into the air block. Directly to the left is the "Arrivals Room", which is accessed with a half slab stairway/entraceway (i.e. first block is up one-half, next block is up one full block). The idea is that the rider clicks into this stairwell area and exits the cart. They exit thru a doorway back into the station area, stepping on a pressure plate to open the one-way metal door. The pressure plate also doubles as the cart collector.
The cart collector utilizes three pistons. The first, already mentioned, pushes the cart into the half-slab area. But of course, before doing that, the half-slab must be pulled away, to the side. That's done with a sticky piston under the station floor. Opposite this piston is a third piston, also a sticky, and this one pulls back (in the opposite direction) the full block next to the half-slab that was just pulled away.
This leaves a two block hole for the minecart. I placed a downward sloping track here, perpendicular to the main line, and the regular piston pushes the cart onto this track and it rolls down and away. With the rider exiting off the pressure plate, the three pistons shut off, reset, and the arrivals bay is ready for the next rider.
DEPARTURES
The departure side is offset from the arrivals side slightly, a little closer to the hill exiting the station. The reason is so that the one piston on the arrivals side that extends under the station floor can be covered somehow (I use half slabs and glass between arrivals and departures).
Departure layout is very simple and takes advantage of the fact that a minecart on a sloping detector rail will not activate the detector until a player is in the minecart, which provides a means of "self-starting".
So walking toward the departure area, the first block is a pressure plate. Second block is floor. Third and fourth blocks drop down one level. First comes the detector rail (downward sloping), then a powered rail (upward sloping). The next block is back to floor level, and is regular rail for 2-3 blocks until the "T" intersection.
The block over the powered rail is the location for a sticky-piston-pushed block. The wall block pushes out and stays there, which serves to hold the minecart in the correct position for launch.
The minecart is placed into this "holding bay" right onto the detector rail by a line that wraps around and under the station and connects to the cart collection rail line on the arrivals side. The cart collection line enters perpendicular to the detector rail, coming down a one-block slope. Even tho the lines are perpendicular to each other, just like on the arrivals side, the game will automatically reorient the minecart and place it on the track.
With the block in the way, the cart is now on the detector rail and ready to go. All the rider needs to do is step on the pressure plate (which does nothing), and enter the cart. I use a "falling edge detection" circuit to detect this "stepping off" action, and this triggers the block ahead of the cart to pull back into the wall. A "monostable" circuit serves to lengthen the pulse from the falling edge detector so the block only returns to it's normal place after the cart has left.
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Well that was probably clear as mud, but like I said I'm happy to answer any questions and I can possibly bring you into the map to see it all in action, if you've been trying to build a similar thing. However, I didn't build it on my map so that's not an open offer at the moment, I'd have to get the permission of the map owner to let you in.
Anyhow... an automated minecart system was my great goal in this game, and I finally achieved it this week. Don't ask me why but pushing a button every time just was too much for me. haha I went thru a lot of trial and error (plenty of error, mainly the diagonal power bug with pistons which really sux bigtime). But there it is. And it works perfectly, 100% of the time. My pride and joy to date.
Next tasks include adapting the system to multiplayer use as a public subway system. This means I obviously have to use dual one-direction tracks and add a "pez dispenser" type of queueing system for the minecarts between arrival and departure sides. But for my needs at the moment it works wonderfully and blessed me with "baller status" on the server.
Not sure if I need to do pics or video really, but if you wanna see it to get some ideas, we can prob hook up and I'll give you a tour tomorrow.
Also, I should probably add a mention that the server I built this on is looking for baller builders, the admin has a anti-griefer spawn prison and we're extremely careful about letting people in. His game is running most days, all day. I like to build the smaller scale, detailed mechanisms and some of the other guys like to do big scale mega construction but it all comes together somehow.
If interested and capable of building stuff like I described (baller stuff), the admin is always looking for new players (and new ideas). I play every day. Personally, I'm looking for piston elevator experts since I can't seem to find a good design for xbox so far, they all either work crappy or don't work at all, zipper elevator keeps frying torches for some reason.
Not sure if I need to do pics or video really, but if you wanna see it to get some ideas, we can prob hook up and I'll give you a tour tomorrow.
Also, I should probably add a mention that the server I built this on is looking for baller builders, the admin has a anti-griefer spawn prison and we're extremely careful about letting people in. His game is running most days, all day. I like to build the smaller scale, detailed mechanisms and some of the other guys like to do big scale mega construction but it all comes together somehow.
If interested and capable of building stuff like I described (baller stuff), the admin is always looking for new players (and new ideas). I play every day. Personally, I'm looking for piston elevator experts since I can't seem to find a good design for xbox so far, they all either work crappy or don't work at all, zipper elevator keeps frying torches for some reason.
I understand, I do have a piston elevator on my map that works about 80% of the time, I would say I'm average with pistons, and I don't really have experience building big stuff, my biggest "build" is a minecart tunnel using TNT.
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No buttons need to be pressed, nor does the cart have to be "broken" by hand and picked up.
Since it's a personal subway between my houses I use one rail line for both directions (could be split into two one-directional lines for public use). The track runs at elevation 44 and thus there's a large climb at each end of the track. The first piece of rail after ascending the hill is a detector rail which is wired to a rail intersection a few blocks ahead. The incoming cart flips the intersection and sends the cart to the left side. The right side is for departing minecarts. The entire station (visible anyway) is only three blocks wide. The track looks like a tuning fork if you look down on it.
ARRIVALS
After the intersection, the track ends of couse. But here's how I do it. The rail line ends with two powered rails. Then I drop down a block and put a half slab. The next block in line is again one down but it's air. The final block in line is a regular piston, facing the air block.
When the rider enters the station, the cart drops into the air block. Directly to the left is the "Arrivals Room", which is accessed with a half slab stairway/entraceway (i.e. first block is up one-half, next block is up one full block). The idea is that the rider clicks into this stairwell area and exits the cart. They exit thru a doorway back into the station area, stepping on a pressure plate to open the one-way metal door. The pressure plate also doubles as the cart collector.
The cart collector utilizes three pistons. The first, already mentioned, pushes the cart into the half-slab area. But of course, before doing that, the half-slab must be pulled away, to the side. That's done with a sticky piston under the station floor. Opposite this piston is a third piston, also a sticky, and this one pulls back (in the opposite direction) the full block next to the half-slab that was just pulled away.
This leaves a two block hole for the minecart. I placed a downward sloping track here, perpendicular to the main line, and the regular piston pushes the cart onto this track and it rolls down and away. With the rider exiting off the pressure plate, the three pistons shut off, reset, and the arrivals bay is ready for the next rider.
DEPARTURES
The departure side is offset from the arrivals side slightly, a little closer to the hill exiting the station. The reason is so that the one piston on the arrivals side that extends under the station floor can be covered somehow (I use half slabs and glass between arrivals and departures).
Departure layout is very simple and takes advantage of the fact that a minecart on a sloping detector rail will not activate the detector until a player is in the minecart, which provides a means of "self-starting".
So walking toward the departure area, the first block is a pressure plate. Second block is floor. Third and fourth blocks drop down one level. First comes the detector rail (downward sloping), then a powered rail (upward sloping). The next block is back to floor level, and is regular rail for 2-3 blocks until the "T" intersection.
The block over the powered rail is the location for a sticky-piston-pushed block. The wall block pushes out and stays there, which serves to hold the minecart in the correct position for launch.
The minecart is placed into this "holding bay" right onto the detector rail by a line that wraps around and under the station and connects to the cart collection rail line on the arrivals side. The cart collection line enters perpendicular to the detector rail, coming down a one-block slope. Even tho the lines are perpendicular to each other, just like on the arrivals side, the game will automatically reorient the minecart and place it on the track.
With the block in the way, the cart is now on the detector rail and ready to go. All the rider needs to do is step on the pressure plate (which does nothing), and enter the cart. I use a "falling edge detection" circuit to detect this "stepping off" action, and this triggers the block ahead of the cart to pull back into the wall. A "monostable" circuit serves to lengthen the pulse from the falling edge detector so the block only returns to it's normal place after the cart has left.
------
Well that was probably clear as mud, but like I said I'm happy to answer any questions and I can possibly bring you into the map to see it all in action, if you've been trying to build a similar thing. However, I didn't build it on my map so that's not an open offer at the moment, I'd have to get the permission of the map owner to let you in.
Anyhow... an automated minecart system was my great goal in this game, and I finally achieved it this week. Don't ask me why but pushing a button every time just was too much for me. haha I went thru a lot of trial and error (plenty of error, mainly the diagonal power bug with pistons which really sux bigtime). But there it is. And it works perfectly, 100% of the time. My pride and joy to date.
Next tasks include adapting the system to multiplayer use as a public subway system. This means I obviously have to use dual one-direction tracks and add a "pez dispenser" type of queueing system for the minecarts between arrival and departure sides. But for my needs at the moment it works wonderfully and blessed me with "baller status" on the server.
GT: Rushing Fox
I'll be on tomorrow 4:00PM CST If my list is full send me a message, then I'll add you
Also, I should probably add a mention that the server I built this on is looking for baller builders, the admin has a anti-griefer spawn prison and we're extremely careful about letting people in. His game is running most days, all day. I like to build the smaller scale, detailed mechanisms and some of the other guys like to do big scale mega construction but it all comes together somehow.
If interested and capable of building stuff like I described (baller stuff), the admin is always looking for new players (and new ideas). I play every day. Personally, I'm looking for piston elevator experts since I can't seem to find a good design for xbox so far, they all either work crappy or don't work at all, zipper elevator keeps frying torches for some reason.
I understand, I do have a piston elevator on my map that works about 80% of the time, I would say I'm average with pistons, and I don't really have experience building big stuff, my biggest "build" is a minecart tunnel using TNT.