With the new Redstone update just around the corner, and its inclusion of two new minecart types, I'm honestly shocked no further consideration has been given to the rail system itself.
Yes, there is little that can actually be done with rails and the power rail and sensor rail are quite useful. But these are only truly useful when the cart is already in motion. What about a method for actually beginning the process? Oh, sure, you can put a powered rail on a slope; but building small 'stations' in order to utalise momentum to get a cart moving can be tedious, clunky and, at times, downright ugly.
In the name of efficiency and aesthetically pleasing scenes, I propose the addition of an "Accelorator Rail" which, when powered, will propel any stationary cart on it forward. Obviously the distance the cart is propelled would not be any different to the distance a normal powered rail propels a cart. But, with this new type of rail, the need to place and work around elevations in order to create stops will be eliminated by merely placing a single piece of rail like any other. Lovely looking train stations can be built in numerous locations with ease and without the hassle of needing to construct entire structures just to get the cart to stop and/or go.
I believe that the Accelorator Rail should direct its current (the direction in which it propels the stationary cart) away from the player when placed. Like any other powered rail, when not powered, the Accelorator Rail should stop a cart. If a cart is already in momentum when it crosses onto a powered Accelorator Rail, I believe it should redirect that cart in the opposite direction if the Rail is positioned to send carts that way. Obviously if it is positioned to send carts in the same direction the cart is already moving...
Unfortunately the Accelorator Rail can potentially prove prblematic if used in the construction of some T-intersections designs. For that reason, I would propose a lever type device that can be placed on the block next to the Accelorator Rail and, when activated, reverses the direction the Accelorator Rail sends a cart.
For the creation of an Accelorator Rail, I believe that it would be fair to combine an already existing Powered Rail with another item (possibly a repeator as they already direct current?) to yield a single Accelorator Rail. Powered Rails are already fairly made and the Accelorator Rail would likely be used along side them, though not as frequently placed. The player would simply be 'upgrading/converting' an existing Powered Rail to perform a more refined function.
As for the lever (or button?) used to alter the direction of the Accelorator Rail, I'm not sure as of yet what sort of recipe would create it. In truth, this is only a recent developement in this idea for directed power rails.
For your enjoyment, I've mocked up a few gifs to show how an Accelorator Rail might look. There are 2 styles and the left is unpowered while the right is powered.
I hope you will find my suggestion worthy of consideration and perhaps even add your thoughts and/or opinions in an attempt to try and improve upon the idea if any faults or flaws are seen.
Welcome to the Forums! Your suggestion is not actually that bad. It can really help simplifying the building of stations. For you naysayers up there, sure you might be Redstone fanatics and you can do it with Powered rails, but think about this: What if you had no clue how Redstone even works? For every Redstone engineer, there is probably 100 or so that have no idea what it does.
The only criticism I have is the graphic. It looks too similar to the Powered Rail and could confuse players. How about making the rail in the shape of an arrow? That could help differentiate it.
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The only criticism I have is the graphic. It looks too similar to the Powered Rail and could confuse players. How about making the rail in the shape of an arrow? That could help differentiate it.
I thought of possibly some form of arrow style. But then I thought that perhaps a directional pulsing pattern might be a bit more clearly noticable, indicating the direction (which I forgot to mention up there). I did some editing on a gif I found on the wiki for the Powered Rail. Although, it seems to be a bit hard to see with the 4 of them bunched up like that. None the less, I will give some more thought to other possible visual ideas and see what I can come up with.
But the idea sounds quite nice. But we do need a proper way to tell the rail which way to send the cart. We can't use a lever because we also need to activate the rail. It shouldn't be right-clickable, since that would mess up railway stations on public servers. Maybe a repeater powering it causes it to reverse, and a simple redstone pulse causes it to activate and send the cart forward?
It needs some more thought though.
Well, a direction would already be set when the rail is placed (directed away from the player placing it). Then all that would be needed would be for power to be supplied. The 'lever' idea came from the switch track levers used to change pathes a real train travels. In a similar manner, the lever device would be an entirely solo piece that, when placed next to an Accelerator Rail, would be able to change the direction it sends the cart, essentially allowing the direction to be toggled. The Accelerator Rail would not require the lever to function, but instead would permit the Rail's direction be changed. I guess you could say the 'switch direction lever' would be, in simplest terms, a specific purpose button designed solely for interacting with that particular piece of railing.
I do personally like the idea of new rails like this, but I really see no point in this new rail track. You said that the slope with a powered rail is tedious and such, but it's really not. Also, with the new update, all you need to do is press the [W] key when in a minecart, and move forward just like that. I don't give support to this, but, just for fun, I thought up some more different rails: Brake Rail - Stops the cart dead in its tracks. Pretty self explanitory, right? Motion Rail - Keeps a minecart at the same speed, instead of slowing down when there isn't a powered rail. Perfect for in-game train stations and such. Flip Rail - Stops the cart and reverses the direction. Maybe scare the pants off of someone by putting a pool of lava, then this rail right in front of it.
I don't really want my ideas here in minecraft, I just put them here for fun.
Sorry, no support, but good, well thought out post. I'm sure you could think up more ideas and explain them as thoroughly as you did here. Good post, useless idea, sorry.
Yes, there is little that can actually be done with rails and the power rail and sensor rail are quite useful. But these are only truly useful when the cart is already in motion. What about a method for actually beginning the process? Oh, sure, you can put a powered rail on a slope; but building small 'stations' in order to utalise momentum to get a cart moving can be tedious, clunky and, at times, downright ugly.
In the name of efficiency and aesthetically pleasing scenes, I propose the addition of an "Accelorator Rail" which, when powered, will propel any stationary cart on it forward. Obviously the distance the cart is propelled would not be any different to the distance a normal powered rail propels a cart. But, with this new type of rail, the need to place and work around elevations in order to create stops will be eliminated by merely placing a single piece of rail like any other. Lovely looking train stations can be built in numerous locations with ease and without the hassle of needing to construct entire structures just to get the cart to stop and/or go.
I believe that the Accelorator Rail should direct its current (the direction in which it propels the stationary cart) away from the player when placed. Like any other powered rail, when not powered, the Accelorator Rail should stop a cart. If a cart is already in momentum when it crosses onto a powered Accelorator Rail, I believe it should redirect that cart in the opposite direction if the Rail is positioned to send carts that way. Obviously if it is positioned to send carts in the same direction the cart is already moving...
Unfortunately the Accelorator Rail can potentially prove prblematic if used in the construction of some T-intersections designs. For that reason, I would propose a lever type device that can be placed on the block next to the Accelorator Rail and, when activated, reverses the direction the Accelorator Rail sends a cart.
For the creation of an Accelorator Rail, I believe that it would be fair to combine an already existing Powered Rail with another item (possibly a repeator as they already direct current?) to yield a single Accelorator Rail. Powered Rails are already fairly made and the Accelorator Rail would likely be used along side them, though not as frequently placed. The player would simply be 'upgrading/converting' an existing Powered Rail to perform a more refined function.
As for the lever (or button?) used to alter the direction of the Accelorator Rail, I'm not sure as of yet what sort of recipe would create it. In truth, this is only a recent developement in this idea for directed power rails.
For your enjoyment, I've mocked up a few gifs to show how an Accelorator Rail might look. There are 2 styles and the left is unpowered while the right is powered.
I hope you will find my suggestion worthy of consideration and perhaps even add your thoughts and/or opinions in an attempt to try and improve upon the idea if any faults or flaws are seen.
No support.
Also, here is an awesome suggestion I had: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1745550-biome-effects/
The only criticism I have is the graphic. It looks too similar to the Powered Rail and could confuse players. How about making the rail in the shape of an arrow? That could help differentiate it.
I thought of possibly some form of arrow style. But then I thought that perhaps a directional pulsing pattern might be a bit more clearly noticable, indicating the direction (which I forgot to mention up there). I did some editing on a gif I found on the wiki for the Powered Rail. Although, it seems to be a bit hard to see with the 4 of them bunched up like that. None the less, I will give some more thought to other possible visual ideas and see what I can come up with.
Well, a direction would already be set when the rail is placed (directed away from the player placing it). Then all that would be needed would be for power to be supplied. The 'lever' idea came from the switch track levers used to change pathes a real train travels. In a similar manner, the lever device would be an entirely solo piece that, when placed next to an Accelerator Rail, would be able to change the direction it sends the cart, essentially allowing the direction to be toggled. The Accelerator Rail would not require the lever to function, but instead would permit the Rail's direction be changed. I guess you could say the 'switch direction lever' would be, in simplest terms, a specific purpose button designed solely for interacting with that particular piece of railing.
Brake Rail - Stops the cart dead in its tracks. Pretty self explanitory, right?
Motion Rail - Keeps a minecart at the same speed, instead of slowing down when there isn't a powered rail. Perfect for in-game train stations and such.
Flip Rail - Stops the cart and reverses the direction. Maybe scare the pants off of someone by putting a pool of lava, then this rail right in front of it.
I don't really want my ideas here in minecraft, I just put them here for fun.
Enderpearls need more uses! Go to http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1584591-ender-dust/ to fix that!