Here's an idea for a fun & useful addition to Minecraft: the crystal stave.
You'd craft it by placing a diamond on top of a stick, as if you were crafting a diamond torch.
When placed on a wall or floor it would look exactly like on a post except the pointed side of the diamond would be pointing horizontally away from the player.
When sunlight strikes a crystal stave, or if placed directly on glowstone, it would dimly glow, and focus a thin beam of light that could travel for up to 12 blocks away in a straight line if not blocked before dying out. This light would be visible as a faint glowing beam in midair, unlike other light sources, in addition to also illuminating things normally.
If another crystal stave is in the path of this beam it would redirect the light and beam it for up to another 12 blocks, potentially in a different direction. Using sunlight and crystal staves you could transmit faint beams of light all over the place, and a great distance away from the initial crystal stave that's actually in sunlight or on a glowstone block. Crystal staves do not actually block the beam from continuing, only opaque blocks do, so it would be easy to multiply the beam and send it in many directions at once.
Using Crystal Staves For Illumination
Crystal staves and their beams are pretty dim, so they're not a good light source. Instead you'd have to direct the beam to hit a reflective block. If a beam from a crystal stave hits a diamond block it would glow as bright as glowstone from every face and not intercept the beam, allowing it to pass through.
If a beam hits an iron block it would illuminate just the side that was hit as if there was a torch there, and the beam would be blocked from continuing.
Using Crystal Staves To Control Redstone
The light would energize redstone torches and prevent them from burning out. A redstone torch in the path of a crystal stave's beam would always be on, even if the block the redstone torch is mounted on is powered.
This allows you to project a beam across empty air to turn on a redstone torch.
Summing up, this would be a neat way of sending light and redstone signals through the air. It's expensive, since each stave requires one diamond, but I think that's merited considering how useful this could be.
Thanks! I'd personally love to see a challenge map or dungeon with light beam puzzles, Portal 2 style. Or redstone machines and computers using light beams to transmit information through the air and speed up their operation.
Thanks! I'd personally love to see a challenge map or dungeon with light beam puzzles, Portal 2 style. Or redstone machines and computers using light beams to transmit information through the air and speed up their operation.
Plus it finally adds a simple day/night detector.
I an imagine insane puzzles being designed with this.
It could also help make traps more interesting, I always laugh about the insane ones and this could help make those.
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The Isles, an arctic Sky Dimension that should be used along with the End.
I an imagine insane puzzles being designed with this.
It could also help make traps more interesting, I always laugh about the insane ones and this could help make those.
Yeah, you could use these for traps. For example a machine that only lets people pass by safely at night or during the day, and kills them otherwise.
Another kind of trap could sense if a block is broken or placed, unblocking or blocking a beam, which would activate a device. It could be a way to encourage people not to build in certain areas.
Yeah, you could use these for traps. For example a machine that only lets people pass by safely at night or during the day, and kills them otherwise.
Another kind of trap could sense if a block is broken or placed, unblocking or blocking a beam, which would activate a device. It could be a way to encourage people not to build in certain areas.
Interesting, I suck at using redstone (I only use it for my underwater hidout and my stairway to the top of my mountain sized map room) but this could help if they also include that Whitestone idea I saw a little while ago.
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The Isles, an arctic Sky Dimension that should be used along with the End.
We can build all cool new types of machines, traps, automatic farms and all :wink.gif:
Yeah, it would greatly expand the options for redstone engineers.
However I do think this suggestion is more "wishlisty" than some other things I've suggested. It'd be a lot of work to code, so it's probably a less practical use of coding time than some other ideas here. But if it could be added it would be a lot of fun.
You'd craft it by placing a diamond on top of a stick, as if you were crafting a diamond torch.
When placed on a wall or floor it would look exactly like
When sunlight strikes a crystal stave, or if placed directly on glowstone, it would dimly glow, and focus a thin beam of light that could travel for up to 12 blocks away in a straight line if not blocked before dying out. This light would be visible as a faint glowing beam in midair, unlike other light sources, in addition to also illuminating things normally.
If another crystal stave is in the path of this beam it would redirect the light and beam it for up to another 12 blocks, potentially in a different direction. Using sunlight and crystal staves you could transmit faint beams of light all over the place, and a great distance away from the initial crystal stave that's actually in sunlight or on a glowstone block. Crystal staves do not actually block the beam from continuing, only opaque blocks do, so it would be easy to multiply the beam and send it in many directions at once.
Using Crystal Staves For Illumination
Crystal staves and their beams are pretty dim, so they're not a good light source. Instead you'd have to direct the beam to hit a reflective block. If a beam from a crystal stave hits a diamond block it would glow as bright as glowstone from every face and not intercept the beam, allowing it to pass through.
If a beam hits an iron block it would illuminate just the side that was hit as if there was a torch there, and the beam would be blocked from continuing.
Using Crystal Staves To Control Redstone
The light would energize redstone torches and prevent them from burning out. A redstone torch in the path of a crystal stave's beam would always be on, even if the block the redstone torch is mounted on is powered.
This allows you to project a beam across empty air to turn on a redstone torch.
Summing up, this would be a neat way of sending light and redstone signals through the air. It's expensive, since each stave requires one diamond, but I think that's merited considering how useful this could be.
You'd have the option of using beams directly on torches to turn them on, or on iron blocks to indirectly turn off a torch attached to it.
Thanks! I'd personally love to see a challenge map or dungeon with light beam puzzles, Portal 2 style. Or redstone machines and computers using light beams to transmit information through the air and speed up their operation.
Plus it finally adds a simple day/night detector.
I an imagine insane puzzles being designed with this.
It could also help make traps more interesting, I always laugh about the insane ones and this could help make those.
Yeah, you could use these for traps. For example a machine that only lets people pass by safely at night or during the day, and kills them otherwise.
Another kind of trap could sense if a block is broken or placed, unblocking or blocking a beam, which would activate a device. It could be a way to encourage people not to build in certain areas.
Interesting, I suck at using redstone (I only use it for my underwater hidout and my stairway to the top of my mountain sized map room) but this could help if they also include that Whitestone idea I saw a little while ago.
If so, I could see multiple tripwire-esque uses for this
You could, that would be awesome.
Yeah, it would greatly expand the options for redstone engineers.
However I do think this suggestion is more "wishlisty" than some other things I've suggested. It'd be a lot of work to code, so it's probably a less practical use of coding time than some other ideas here. But if it could be added it would be a lot of fun.