I've been thinking about this one for a long time.
Many of the more interesting things you can craft and place have an orientation. Sometimes that orientation is set by the direction you are facing when you place the block (pistons, repeaters, doors) and sometimes the orientation is determined by the surrounding objects (tracks). In such cases, to change the orientation you have to pick up, move, and re-place the object, or (as with tracks) do a funky object juggle to get the end result you want.
The new tool I propose is a screwdriver. We would use it to CHANGE the orientation of objects. So you dig a hole and drop a piston into the bottom, but you want it to point to the side and not up. The old way would be to dig down to get next to it and re-place it. But with the screwdriver you'd just click it till it faced the right direction. Six clicks gets you every possible direction. With a repeater, it takes just four clicks to cycle through the possibilities.
I started wishing for this when I first encountered a situation where, to properly place the object, I'd have to destroy some of what I'd already built so I could stand in the right place. It felt silly.
Most of us have seen tutorials that involve the laying of track or done lots of it ourselves. If so, you know how it can be a pain when corner tracks keep rotating away from the direction you need them to face, either because of the S/W rule or because you just dropped some unrelated bit of track next to it. I've never found an arrangement of track I couldn't assemble, but it often meant tearing up two or more other blocks of track to get it to work. I'd rather just "screw" with it till it's right.
And of course, once there is a screwdriver, other uses can be found for it. Any block that can't be fully adjusted by just clicking it, can also be clicked with a screwdriver for an alternate set of possibilities. (Change audio properties of note blocks? Firing angle of dispensers?)
And since the crafting patterns are often offered along with such ideas, I'll suggest an iron above a stick. Simple enough - Doesn't need to be elaborate.
I wont lie. I didn't even read any of your post. The title and description of this post seemingly FORCED me to come here, + you, leave this comment, and leave this thread.
Edit: Unfortunately I've reached my quota of +'s for today.
Good idea. Could I suggest that left clicking with the screwdriver rotates items horizontally and right clicking rotates items vertically? That little bit of added control would be convenient.
Another function: Use it on detector rails to cycle through what they can detect... Any minecart, one with a rider, a player rider only, riderless, container cart, empty container cart, full container cart, and I guess powered carts for completeness sake. (Though WHO uses those anymore??)
Or generalize to just a "sensitivity" number, like adjusting repeaters. At the minimum setting, it only triggers on empty minecarts. Setting 2 - empty container carts. Setting 3 - mob-ridden carts. Setting 4 - full container carts.
OR, forget about special treatment for container carts (maybe weed them out with this suggestion) and just go with: empty, player or empty container, mob or non-empty container.
I mean, with a screwdriver tool that makes adjusting settings and orientations easy, such things are possible when they would otherwise be really clunky or require many different item types.
To be sure, this functionality could be added as a CONTROL as well ("Hit E to toggle state on the currently targeted block") but no other keyboard command does that, and making it a tool you have to craft just makes more sense.
Actually, one thing I forgot to mention was almost exactly that, but for a different reason.
The pattern in Minecraft is that no matter what you are holding, you can break things with it. It might be nice to have ONE tool that CAN'T break anything. So when you are surrounded with hours of work laying redstone wires, repeaters, and torches... Hold onto your screwdriver so you won't delete any of it by accidentally clicking. (People that live in glass houses, rejoice.)
And if that were the case, then left clicking could rotate in a different way, though that would only help for pistons right now. The other orientable objects are all "2D". But it could definitely be put to other purposes.
And one more additional idea... It could be made with materials other than iron, to have different types of screwdrivers. Now I wouldn't suggest adding those to the main, vanilla Minecraft. But by leaving the possibility open, mod-makers could use those other variants instead of using feathers and arrows as tools, as I've seen done. (Not that there's anything particularly wrong with that...)
~ Nonsanity
That could also be useful. I'm generally pretty careful around fragile stuff, but an item that stops you from breaking things would be nice.
There was a thread dealing with a similar issue in which right clicking redstone, tracks, etc would make it change direction in a clockwise manner. I kinda like that better than this, but this is okay too...
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At a loss for words? Here's a few you can use: Welcome, to Night Vale...
There was a thread dealing with a similar issue in which right clicking redstone, tracks, etc would make it change direction in a clockwise manner. I kinda like that better than this, but this is okay too...
I know I've accidentally changed the timing on repeaters while working in the bowels of a complex circuit, and never noticed the accident until things stopped working right. I shudder to imagine how easy it would be to short circuit a design if an accidental right-click on a redstone wire changed how it connects to adjacent blocks.
I'd much rather have this only happen when a specific item is in my hand. It would limit accidents.
It also allows us to have more than one action when right clicking. Right click a repeater with any other tool and you adjust its timing, just as usual. Right-click it with the screwdriver to rotate it 90 degrees. Without the tool, you can't do both.
I know I've accidentally changed the timing on repeaters while working in the bowels of a complex circuit, and never noticed the accident until things stopped working right. I shudder to imagine how easy it would be to short circuit a design if an accidental right-click on a redstone wire changed how it connects to adjacent blocks.
I'd much rather have this only happen when a specific item is in my hand. It would limit accidents.
It also allows us to have more than one action when right clicking. Right click a repeater with any other tool and you adjust its timing, just as usual. Right-click it with the screwdriver to rotate it 90 degrees. Without the tool, you can't do both.
~ Nonsanity
TBH I think the only thing I don't like about this is the name. Sounds too modern. I like the idea, but what about the name.....? Screw it, I can't name things for the life of me! (Pun intended)
TBH I think the only thing I don't like about this is the name. Sounds too modern. I like the idea, but what about the name.....? Screw it, I can't name things for the life of me! (Pun intended)
Schraubendreher? Tournevis? At least that's what they were called in The Medieval Housebook of Wolfegg Castle back in 1490 or so. The implement has been around for at least that long. "Screws were used in the 15th century for constructing screw-cutting lathes, securing breastplates, backplates, and helmets on medieval jousting armor, and eventually for multiple parts of the emerging firearms, particularly the matchlock." says Wikipedia. Interesting.
Pistons are more modern anyway, and it's not like the names for any tool are ever used by Minecraft. It's all pictures there. :smile.gif:
But I get your point. Still, I can't think of a more immediately recognizable tool that adjusts things...
~ Nonsanity
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Many of the more interesting things you can craft and place have an orientation. Sometimes that orientation is set by the direction you are facing when you place the block (pistons, repeaters, doors) and sometimes the orientation is determined by the surrounding objects (tracks). In such cases, to change the orientation you have to pick up, move, and re-place the object, or (as with tracks) do a funky object juggle to get the end result you want.
The new tool I propose is a screwdriver. We would use it to CHANGE the orientation of objects. So you dig a hole and drop a piston into the bottom, but you want it to point to the side and not up. The old way would be to dig down to get next to it and re-place it. But with the screwdriver you'd just click it till it faced the right direction. Six clicks gets you every possible direction. With a repeater, it takes just four clicks to cycle through the possibilities.
I started wishing for this when I first encountered a situation where, to properly place the object, I'd have to destroy some of what I'd already built so I could stand in the right place. It felt silly.
Most of us have seen tutorials that involve the laying of track or done lots of it ourselves. If so, you know how it can be a pain when corner tracks keep rotating away from the direction you need them to face, either because of the S/W rule or because you just dropped some unrelated bit of track next to it. I've never found an arrangement of track I couldn't assemble, but it often meant tearing up two or more other blocks of track to get it to work. I'd rather just "screw" with it till it's right.
And of course, once there is a screwdriver, other uses can be found for it. Any block that can't be fully adjusted by just clicking it, can also be clicked with a screwdriver for an alternate set of possibilities. (Change audio properties of note blocks? Firing angle of dispensers?)
And since the crafting patterns are often offered along with such ideas, I'll suggest an iron above a stick. Simple enough - Doesn't need to be elaborate.
~ Nonsanity
The title and description of this post seemingly FORCED me to come here, + you, leave this comment, and leave this thread.
Edit:
Unfortunately I've reached my quota of +'s for today.
Or generalize to just a "sensitivity" number, like adjusting repeaters. At the minimum setting, it only triggers on empty minecarts. Setting 2 - empty container carts. Setting 3 - mob-ridden carts. Setting 4 - full container carts.
OR, forget about special treatment for container carts (maybe weed them out with this suggestion) and just go with: empty, player or empty container, mob or non-empty container.
I mean, with a screwdriver tool that makes adjusting settings and orientations easy, such things are possible when they would otherwise be really clunky or require many different item types.
To be sure, this functionality could be added as a CONTROL as well ("Hit E to toggle state on the currently targeted block") but no other keyboard command does that, and making it a tool you have to craft just makes more sense.
~ Nonsanity
That could also be useful. I'm generally pretty careful around fragile stuff, but an item that stops you from breaking things would be nice.
I know I've accidentally changed the timing on repeaters while working in the bowels of a complex circuit, and never noticed the accident until things stopped working right. I shudder to imagine how easy it would be to short circuit a design if an accidental right-click on a redstone wire changed how it connects to adjacent blocks.
I'd much rather have this only happen when a specific item is in my hand. It would limit accidents.
It also allows us to have more than one action when right clicking. Right click a repeater with any other tool and you adjust its timing, just as usual. Right-click it with the screwdriver to rotate it 90 degrees. Without the tool, you can't do both.
~ Nonsanity
TBH I think the only thing I don't like about this is the name. Sounds too modern. I like the idea, but what about the name.....? Screw it, I can't name things for the life of me! (Pun intended)
Schraubendreher? Tournevis? At least that's what they were called in The Medieval Housebook of Wolfegg Castle back in 1490 or so. The implement has been around for at least that long. "Screws were used in the 15th century for constructing screw-cutting lathes, securing breastplates, backplates, and helmets on medieval jousting armor, and eventually for multiple parts of the emerging firearms, particularly the matchlock." says Wikipedia. Interesting.
Pistons are more modern anyway, and it's not like the names for any tool are ever used by Minecraft. It's all pictures there. :smile.gif:
But I get your point. Still, I can't think of a more immediately recognizable tool that adjusts things...
~ Nonsanity