Minecraft Minecart Stations More Than 15 Tracks Part 2

Channel:

TroZ

Subscribers:

909

Published on November 14, 2014 5:35:36 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPQvNMFJwQ4

Game:

Minecraft (2011)

Duration: 58:32

296 views

3

This is part two of my Minecraft Minecart Stations More Than 15 Track Stations video. This continues where the previous video left off and covers vertical track switches and ways to extend the dual track piston pushed every block switch that I showed off in the previous video.

The first station in this video is a 64 track station that is partially laid out vertically, with 8 switches horizontally and then 8 switches vertically. The vertical switches use two pistons per switch to either have a sloped track that you fall on to, or the pistons move the sloped track and the block it is on so that you fall to the track below. These can be stacked so you fall past several potential exit tracks very quickly, as terminal velocity is above 70 blocks per second!

Having just one wall of 64 tracks begs the question or what would happen if you made 4 such walls into a building. Well, I did that and created a building with 4 separate 64 track stations, resulting in a building with 256 tracks leaving it, that 4 people can use at the same time!

Next I quickly show off the boxy 64 track that I featured in a video about 2 months ago. This is a bit less awkward to build than wall of 64 tracks, as all the sides are basically the same and the ride to the top is 1/2 as long.

Most of the rest of the video covers a way I found to extend the double track piston pushed every block switch. I originally thought that it would be limited to 15 tracks coming off one side (using a RS latch array). But then I figured out that it would be possible to have a normal T track switch, and have 15 tracks coming off of both the left side and the right side of a set of torches (of which only one was lit. That would extend the the number of tracks to 30, while keeping the size about the same. Then I though that redstone actually has 16 values (off and 15 different power levels), so it's possible to have 16 torches with only one on, with only a single line of input. With some additional thought, I came up with this: A spinner has 8 positions; 8 options are three binary bits. If I had 2 spinners the one spinner could be use as analog 0-7 normally, but I could use one of the bits from the second spinner to 'shift' that output to 8-15, allowing a 16 torch selector, with 2 binary bits left over. Another bit would be used for choosing the left or right side of the switch. Then assuming that I could build two of these mechanisms close together, the final bit could be used for choosing the first or the second of these.

That is what I did. I was able to build a 16 torch analog to uniary converter (a row of 16 torches where a different torch is on for every power level). This feeds into a dual sided double track piston push every block track switch, giving 32 tracks outputs in a space that is 16 blocks long, and about 18 blocks wide. The way I built it, I only needed a one block gap before I could build a second copy that would be enabled (and the first copy disabled) if the final bit was on. Including the spinners and the circuits to convert one spinner to separate bits, and the normal lockout and empty cart detection, the station is about 19 blocks wide, 47 blocks long, and 14 blocks high for having 64 output tracks! This is less than 1/2 the size of the 64 track boxy station.

There are two separate circuits that I had to develop for this. The first is the analog to 3 bit conversion circuit. My version came out to be 7 blocks wide, and 4 blocks tall. The other circuit was to somehow switch the one spinner's output to change between a 0-7 range and a 8-15 range. This turned out to be simpler than I thought it would be. Having a comparator in subtrack mode read a half full inventory through a block, it is possible to run a spinners output into the side of this comparator after a 2 block long wire reduces the spinner output by one. By fully powering the block or not, this causes the subtraction comparator to ignore the inventory so now it is subtracting 0-7 from 15, giving 15-8. This isn't exactly in number order, but that doesn't matter to us.

If you have such a small 64 track station, what would happen if you stacked 8 of them, and added another spinner for selecting which of the 8 you would be using for your exit? You would wind up with a 512 track station. Well, in the video I have a proof of concept station that is the same width and length, but is now 112 blocks tall, that has 3 spinners and has 512 output tracks! It is only a proof of concept, and not everything is hooked up. I then discuss some improvements that would reduce the size of this station, and also have it react quicker.

In the world download below, I have a station that implements some of these improvements, allowing it to be only 84 blocks tall!

Thanks for watching these tutorials. Pleas leave any comments, feedback, or ideas in the comments below!

World Download:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/38917782/minecraft/Station%20Tutorial.zip

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