So, my suggestion has two parts. A simple summary is this: Things that output when connected to redstone (like lanterns or dispensers) should be affected by the power of the redstone signal. For instance, lanterns' brightnesses should be affected. Furthermore, an even more powerful signal should be added to the game, requiring a furnace that burns things like coal. This signal could potentially power a new tier of redstone devices.
If you're interested, read on!
PART 1: SİGNAL-DEPENDENT OUTPUTS
So, I was thinking about capacitors and pressure plates, and the fact that redstone inputs will now focus on signal strength. But why not outputs, too? As it is, a full redstone signal provides just as much power to an output (like a piston, power rail, or lantern) as an almost dead signal, which is one block away from providing no power at all.
So, why shouldn't it be gradual? With the current blocks, we can see how these effects might be at least a little useful. Dispensers: The speed at which the item is fired depends upon signal strength. So a dispenser can be a friendly machine that helps you get all your potions or a deadly sniper. Lanterns: Lanterns can now provide any amount of light. Even better, with capacitors and timers they can flicker through different levels for some spooky ambience. Railway tracks: they either speed up your minecart a lot or a little depending on the strength of the signal.
I don't know if someone has suggested this first part already. But the second stage is where things really get funky:
PART 2: STRONGER SIGNALS:
So I'm thinking of an entirely new tıer of redstone signal: high voltage, if you will. Here's how it would look: ---C---
Where C is the current highest possible strength. The new signal would start out yellow and go to red and finally fade. It would also be twice as powerful, meaning it would travel 30 blocks and make lanterns twice as bright, etc. Additionally, it would cast more light and ignite blocks around it, including the player. No one said high voltage is safe.
How would this signal be created? My idea is a kind of custom furnace, perhaps created with brick instead of stone. It burns coal, wood, or other combustible blocks just like the regular furnace, but instead of having two item slots it only has one for the fuel. The stove can be hooked up to a redstone wire.
On the stove's GUI is a little dial, which adjusts how fast the materials are burned. On the lowest setting, it only applies the current high voltage (15 blocks), but on the highest, it applies the new top signal strength. Another possible idea would be that the stove itself has a redstone input, the signal strength of which controls how quickly the fuel is burned and therefore the strength of the output.
I see two potential questions about this? Why Fuel?
Redstone is supposed to be infinite energy, right? But not everything in minecraft is infinite energy; just look at smelting or tools. The difference is that tools can really change their environment, but redstone outputs can usually only do one thing and revert to their former state. Infinite energy would be truly game-breaking if it could harvest diamonds. But more complex tasks should still be possible to automate, just in a way that there is a cost. I see redstone furnaces as the perfect compromise.
What could this stove be used for? Regular things: Who doesn't want even faster minecarts and brighter lanterns? It might even give TNT more explosive power. It could also be used to create a sort of electric fence, which could be turned on or off. New things: First off, vehicles. Big, custom generated vehicles, like in this thread. (I know he says he doesn't want fuel, but I think it could work.) Special blocks like wheels would be able to go faster or slower depending on the signal strength, and they would require a high voltage (over fifteen) to even start.
There could also be entirely new kinds of machines; machines that create and destroy blocks and automate even more, but require a constant supply of power. I see this as a way to implement some of the incredibly efficient (but also late game and resource-intenslve) features of mods like tekkit, but not in the same heavy-handed futuristic way.
One more thing: none of these things would affect lanterns or repeaters: they would still be binary like before. So all of your crazy supercomputers wouldn't be affected.
You don't have to support everything in this thread, though, to support some of it. Just seeing changeable lantern strengths in minecraft would make me happy.
MOCKUPS: Unfortunately, I don't have photoshop for the time being, but if anyone else has ideas of how the stove, redstone, or GUI would look, feel free to post them.
ALSO if anyone has new ideas for applications of these features, feel free to discuss them here.
Nice ideas but here is my problem:
on one hand dimable lights would be awesome and something i'd realy like to have, just like the dispenser firering at lower velocitys
but on the other hand i dont want to put a repater or capacitor on every Lamp just so it is fully lit same for the Wall of Arrowdispeners. Yea, this could be a problem. But isn't it worth the extra customization power? On the other hand, dispensers don't have to change speed until the voltage goes above 15, so the dispensers people have now won't need extra repeaters.
On going beyond the current maximum current would be ... way over the top imo (sry for the bad puns), also i do believe that this is technically impossible right now, but that may change with the update. Of course it's technically impossible now. That's why I'm suggesting it.
Plus having the furnace output a Signal of 15 strength would be waste of fuel. You're right. Perhaps at the lowest setting it doesn't burn at all.
What do you mean about the lighting levels? Different blocks can have different lighting levels, like redstone torches and regular torches. Why can't lanterns just split up into different data values or something?
As for the ceiling, remember that repeaters and torches still bring everything to full power. They are sort of like the transformers of minecraft.
I think that dispensers should fire f.e. arrow items instead of arrow entities below .... lets say 7 Power. That would be enough of tolerance to not have to worry about repeaters to much.
Redstonelamps on the other hand produce a lightlevel of 15 so you can dim them for 1 per 1 power but have to fully power them to get full lighting or overpower them via your generator that in turn has to be fueled : a real pain if you want to have large area ceiling Lights.
Also a torch ,that can output below 16 Power would be nice to have to have dimed lights without huge heaps of redstone behind them.
And with technical impossible i meant it would require a fundamental change in the way blocks are stored in the Map-data to change it.
At least that is, i think, what Jeb_ said during the Panel.
1. I agree
2. It wouldn't be that much of a pain, I don't think.
3. I can't tell what ideas you're getting at
4. No it wouldn't, redstone would just have to be stored as a 5-bit tile entity. That might actually reduce lag since the position of redstone could be stored in the data (which sides it is sending current to, each bit representing a side) making it so that the layout of redstone would no longer need to be calculated at runtime.
What do you mean about the lighting levels? Different blocks can have different lighting levels, like redstone torches and regular torches. Why can't lanterns just split up into different data values or something?
As for the ceiling, remember that repeaters and torches still bring everything to full power. They are sort of like the transformers of minecraft.
1. Lanterns can't just go up to light level 30 because it would require the ENTIRE lighting system to be changed. Not only that, but the lighting system calculates the brightness from the highest brightness and highest value, going down. If the current lighting system pattern was resumed, light level 30 would be over 28 times brighter than light level 15. I'm not sure about most computers, but I know my computer can't handle it.
2. I suppose you could say that.
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Why does everyone think I don't have an avatar? Is there anyone who can see the one black pixel.
Please click the dragons, they need to grow. Also, my fully grown dragons can be found in my bio.
2. It wouldn't be that much of a pain, I don't think.
3. I can't tell what ideas you're getting at
4. No it wouldn't, redstone would just have to be stored as a 5-bit tile entity. That might actually reduce lag since the position of redstone could be stored in the data (which sides it is sending current to, each bit representing a side) making it so that the layout of redstone would no longer need to be calculated at runtime.
1. Lanterns can't just go up to light level 30 because it would require the ENTIRE lighting system to be changed. Not only that, but the lighting system calculates the brightness from the highest brightness and highest value, going down. If the current lighting system pattern was resumed, light level 30 would be over 28 times brighter than light level 15. I'm not sure about most computers, but I know my computer can't handle it.
2. I suppose you could say that.
Your computer can't handle bright light? I'm pretty sure it can. Unless your computer can't display white, that is.
And everywhere, I see comments like 'oh, we can't do this, it would require rewriting the engine.' Since when was rewriting impossible? Sometimes it's the best solution, especially when you have something that's totally broken. In fact, I've read in several places that Mojang actually is rewriting it, so why not?
I support the only thing that should change is that,There is no dial, the power that the stove generates depends of the power of the fuel.
I intended this feature to be able to power vehicles. Imagine a train where you had to take the coal out of the furnace and put wood in just to slow it down. Kind of impractical.
Anyway, everyone seems hung up on lanterns. The main objective of my suggestion, though, would be to enable future tekkit- and vehicle-like machines, which would require fuel to run. A redstone update seems to have so much potential to me: there are so many kinds of things that could be built, yet all the update now is a few bugfixes and minor changes. The main objective of this suggestion isn't to improve what we already have; it's to do MORE!
Things that output when connected to redstone (like lanterns or dispensers) should be affected by the power of the redstone signal. For instance, lanterns' brightnesses should be affected. Furthermore, an even more powerful signal should be added to the game, requiring a furnace that burns things like coal. This signal could potentially power a new tier of redstone devices.
If you're interested, read on!
PART 1: SİGNAL-DEPENDENT OUTPUTS
So, I was thinking about capacitors and pressure plates, and the fact that redstone inputs will now focus on signal strength. But why not outputs, too? As it is, a full redstone signal provides just as much power to an output (like a piston, power rail, or lantern) as an almost dead signal, which is one block away from providing no power at all.
So, why shouldn't it be gradual? With the current blocks, we can see how these effects might be at least a little useful.
Dispensers: The speed at which the item is fired depends upon signal strength. So a dispenser can be a friendly machine that helps you get all your potions or a deadly sniper.
Lanterns: Lanterns can now provide any amount of light. Even better, with capacitors and timers they can flicker through different levels for some spooky ambience.
Railway tracks: they either speed up your minecart a lot or a little depending on the strength of the signal.
I don't know if someone has suggested this first part already. But the second stage is where things really get funky:
PART 2: STRONGER SIGNALS:
So I'm thinking of an entirely new tıer of redstone signal: high voltage, if you will. Here's how it would look:
---C---
Where C is the current highest possible strength. The new signal would start out yellow and go to red and finally fade. It would also be twice as powerful, meaning it would travel 30 blocks and make lanterns twice as bright, etc. Additionally, it would cast more light and ignite blocks around it, including the player. No one said high voltage is safe.
How would this signal be created? My idea is a kind of custom furnace, perhaps created with brick instead of stone. It burns coal, wood, or other combustible blocks just like the regular furnace, but instead of having two item slots it only has one for the fuel. The stove can be hooked up to a redstone wire.
On the stove's GUI is a little dial, which adjusts how fast the materials are burned. On the lowest setting, it only applies the current high voltage (15 blocks), but on the highest, it applies the new top signal strength. Another possible idea would be that the stove itself has a redstone input, the signal strength of which controls how quickly the fuel is burned and therefore the strength of the output.
I see two potential questions about this?
Why Fuel?
Redstone is supposed to be infinite energy, right? But not everything in minecraft is infinite energy; just look at smelting or tools. The difference is that tools can really change their environment, but redstone outputs can usually only do one thing and revert to their former state. Infinite energy would be truly game-breaking if it could harvest diamonds. But more complex tasks should still be possible to automate, just in a way that there is a cost. I see redstone furnaces as the perfect compromise.
What could this stove be used for?
Regular things: Who doesn't want even faster minecarts and brighter lanterns? It might even give TNT more explosive power. It could also be used to create a sort of electric fence, which could be turned on or off.
New things: First off, vehicles. Big, custom generated vehicles, like in this thread. (I know he says he doesn't want fuel, but I think it could work.) Special blocks like wheels would be able to go faster or slower depending on the signal strength, and they would require a high voltage (over fifteen) to even start.
There could also be entirely new kinds of machines; machines that create and destroy blocks and automate even more, but require a constant supply of power. I see this as a way to implement some of the incredibly efficient (but also late game and resource-intenslve) features of mods like tekkit, but not in the same heavy-handed futuristic way.
One more thing: none of these things would affect lanterns or repeaters: they would still be binary like before. So all of your crazy supercomputers wouldn't be affected.
You don't have to support everything in this thread, though, to support some of it. Just seeing changeable lantern strengths in minecraft would make me happy.
MOCKUPS: Unfortunately, I don't have photoshop for the time being, but if anyone else has ideas of how the stove, redstone, or GUI would look, feel free to post them.
ALSO if anyone has new ideas for applications of these features, feel free to discuss them here.
As for the ceiling, remember that repeaters and torches still bring everything to full power. They are sort of like the transformers of minecraft.
1. I agree
2. It wouldn't be that much of a pain, I don't think.
3. I can't tell what ideas you're getting at
4. No it wouldn't, redstone would just have to be stored as a 5-bit tile entity. That might actually reduce lag since the position of redstone could be stored in the data (which sides it is sending current to, each bit representing a side) making it so that the layout of redstone would no longer need to be calculated at runtime.
1. Lanterns can't just go up to light level 30 because it would require the ENTIRE lighting system to be changed. Not only that, but the lighting system calculates the brightness from the highest brightness and highest value, going down. If the current lighting system pattern was resumed, light level 30 would be over 28 times brighter than light level 15. I'm not sure about most computers, but I know my computer can't handle it.
2. I suppose you could say that.
Why does everyone think I don't have an avatar? Is there anyone who can see the one black pixel.
Your computer can't handle bright light? I'm pretty sure it can. Unless your computer can't display white, that is.
And everywhere, I see comments like 'oh, we can't do this, it would require rewriting the engine.' Since when was rewriting impossible? Sometimes it's the best solution, especially when you have something that's totally broken. In fact, I've read in several places that Mojang actually is rewriting it, so why not?
I intended this feature to be able to power vehicles. Imagine a train where you had to take the coal out of the furnace and put wood in just to slow it down. Kind of impractical.
Anyway, everyone seems hung up on lanterns. The main objective of my suggestion, though, would be to enable future tekkit- and vehicle-like machines, which would require fuel to run. A redstone update seems to have so much potential to me: there are so many kinds of things that could be built, yet all the update now is a few bugfixes and minor changes. The main objective of this suggestion isn't to improve what we already have; it's to do MORE!