[Aardwolf]

The booster tracks, which are made with redstone?

[Pred the Penguin]

Redstone rarish? Then why do I have loads of it...

[-Sara-]

Just had a silly idea, if you put a touch rail in front of a booster rail, wouldn't it activate that booster when you go over the touch rail? It may put strain off the server as redstone-torches don't burn all the time.

edit: tested, works like a charm!

[Scourge of Ages]

Just had a silly idea, if you put a touch rail in front of a booster rail, wouldn't it activate that booster when you go over the touch rail? It may put strain off the server as redstone-torches don't burn all the time.

edit: tested, works like a charm!

Parts of the railroad are already set up like that. I was wondering what was up with that, but that makes perfect sense.

[achtung]

For a railroad to function properly, is redstone neccesary? If so, anyone interested to help extend the rail line to somewhere in between of trashmania and my territory for dual purpose? Hope to hear if anyone's willing and able to.

I can help.

[KyadCK]

Just had a silly idea, if you put a touch rail in front of a booster rail, wouldn't it activate that booster when you go over the touch rail? It may put strain off the server as redstone-torches don't burn all the time.

edit: tested, works like a charm!

Redstone doesnt 'pulse' without a clock, its simply on and so is anything attached unless there is a change. I don't think a single torch would actually add any load, its just 'on' and so are the rails next to it. There is no chunk change, and so server doesnt send any extra info. Presure rail, while it looks nicer, does force a change, both set to on and set to off, theoretically causeing more lag by those two changes (and data sends accordingly) per pressure rail. I doubt it would be noticeable with the chunks loading from minecart travel anyway, but its the same lag concept as a pressure plate in front of a door.

Example:

Torch -
server: torch is on, rail is powered (1st chunk load)
client: minecart passes rail
server: minecart speedup
(minecart speeds up)

pressure rail -
server: pressure 'off', rail 'off' (1st chunk load)
client: minecart passes pressure
server: pressure 'on', set rail 'on'
client: minecart passes rail
server: minecart speedup
(minecart speeds up)
(count down timer for pressure)
server: pressure set to 'off', set rail to off'

This can be seen during times of serious redstone lag when you press the button and nothing happens for a few seconds.

In terms of any lag caused by the animation, that is 100% client-side (as shown by optifine being able to disable it) and cause no network lag though it may hurt really low-end systems a bit.

Simply put: pressure rails for every powered rail will cause -more- strain by forcing chunk updates, and torches cause -no- strain due to the lack of chunk changes.

For a railroad to function properly, is redstone neccesary? If so, anyone interested to help extend the rail line to somewhere in between of trashmania and my territory for dual purpose? Hope to hear if anyone's willing and able to.

You can just use a switch (1 cobble + 1 stick) set to 'on' to power the rails, though the powered rails themselves still need a bit of redstone. (one per 16 rails, 1 rail per 32ish meters)

[achtung]

I do every 40th rail, because lag. I do this because the extra .28 m/s doesn't seem worth the extra material.

EDIT: I hate writing posts on a phone.

[Mongoose]

So who dug the Prime Meridian tunnel that starts in town?  The scale of it is absolutely mind-boggling...the half I managed to explore stretches across almost the entire width of the known map.  There's a huge spur out to underneath CP's tunnel, as well.  It'd be awesome to lay down some rails along it.

[FlamingCobra]

Finally finished the first floor of my castle. Except the carpet. I originally planned to do a red carpet but I think I'm going to do a blue one instead.



I also haven't done the walls. Consequently there are no rooms. I really don't know how to go about doing that. I want it to look good and be functional at the same time.

There are also no windows yet (hence all the torches). I think I'm going to make 1x2 windows, one block off the ground. However, I was thinking about replacing the first layer of blocks with cobblestone (to make a baseboard).

Additionally I want to make a double staircase leading up to the second floor. I was thinking about coming 5 blocks in from the door and then start building up a 3 block wide staircase from each wall. I'm not sure how good that would look though.

I could use the towers to go up to the second and third floors but I only want the towers' spiral staircases to go to the top of the towers.

Furthermore, I want to have a basement entrance but I don't know where to put that :/


I'd like to get feedback from you all. Questions. Comments. Praise. Constructive criticism. Oh, and one more thing. If I ever want to start a multiplayer server, can I convert my singleplayer map to a multiplayer map?

[pecenipicek]

Oh, and one more thing. If I ever want to start a multiplayer server, can I convert my singleplayer map to a multiplayer map?

Yes.

[Flipside]

Looks like we going to have to change the name of the thread, seems Minecraft will be going Gold at the end of the month...

[Mongoose]

I just bought it for my youngest brother for precisely that reason. He'd played it at a friend's house before, and I knew the price was going to increase in the near future, so I figured if he wanted to get it, now was the best time.

[JCDNWarrior]

That was also one of the reasons for me to purchase the Beta (twice in total). 25% off, saves some money I hope 1.0 (or should it be 2.0?) will have plenty of new features and things to do, and that the upgrade won't be too tough on Qaz and the server...

[TrashMan]

Any news on the height limit in 1.0???

[Sandwich]

Any news on the height limit in 1.0???

No change.

[TrashMan]

RAAAAAAGE.

I hit the ceeling with my palace again... I need more height!

[JCDNWarrior]

Ah, that's definitely a shame, I'd like a higher limit as well. I suppose a good counterbalance is the lowering of terrain as I did in the meantime, though I know you TNT'd the heck out of a area. Making it something like 3 blocks above bedrock may provide sufficient space for the moment. Still, hope the limit can be raised soon too.

[Sandwich]

Apparently the map height issue is a matter of performance... chunks are 16x16x128, in other words, they're 16x16 meter patches of land that stretch from bedrock to the sky. Loading and updating them is the main performance and memory drain, both in SSP and SMP. Doubling the height also doubles the memory requirements, etc.

There have been some advancements in the area, however, through the Cubic Chunks mod, which converts your saved games to use a different format for storing chunks. Since it only stores cubic chunks (not columns), the map height is irrelevant to performance. I don't know the details, but I can't imagine that it's a simple thing to apply, and I know that it would have to be supported by the server for SMP (if it even exists for SMP). One can only hope that Mojang likes the mod enough to incorporate it into vanilla Minecraft, much like they did with Scaevolus's McRegion mod.

[KyadCK]

Apparently the map height issue is a matter of performance... chunks are 16x16x128, in other words, they're 16x16 meter patches of land that stretch from bedrock to the sky. Loading and updating them is the main performance and memory drain, both in SSP and SMP. Doubling the height also doubles the memory requirements, etc.

There have been some advancements in the area, however, through the Cubic Chunks mod, which converts your saved games to use a different format for storing chunks. Since it only stores cubic chunks (not columns), the map height is irrelevant to performance. I don't know the details, but I can't imagine that it's a simple thing to apply, and I know that it would have to be supported by the server for SMP (if it even exists for SMP). One can only hope that Mojang likes the mod enough to incorporate it into vanilla Minecraft, much like they did with Scaevolus's McRegion mod.

It does have support for SMP (though not for the current version yet), and if you think Cubic Chunks makes life any easier on the cpu or ram you haven't used the built jar I linked a while back. It takes forever to load the world with those awesome mountains and I could barely hold a reasonable framerate (compared to my 150fps MC standard).

[Mongoose]

Grimper and I wound up rambling halfway across the map last night to check out something I'd noticed on dynmap way down in a desert in the southwest, which happened to be an NPC village.  Right around there, we stumbled across an amazing little area:



And here are a few other cool mountain formations in the general vicinity:



This one's at night, so you might have to crank up your brightness:


It's amazing what you can stumble across when you poke around.