Ladies and gentlemen, riders of the W2TS, and fans. I’m proud to introduce a great partnership that will finally make the World2 Transit System… automated. Please give a warm welcome to Minecart Mania!
Minecart Mania and the W2TS have “teamed up” to bring you automated stations. Call a cart, board it (or don’t), and go.
These automated stations will only show up at main stations, and station hubs of the new line, the LOOP LINE.
The main stations are: Stone Tower of the WAYWARD LINE. House Memorial of the BENIE LINE. And of course, the BENIE/WAYWARD LINE transit hub. All of these stations will be redesigned to be friendly with our partner; Minecart Mania.
The LOOP LINE’s main stations will be all the stations that link to the end point of both the BENIE and WAYWARD lines. Currently, BENIE LINE’s Westbound is part of it. But in the future, WAYWARD LINE’s Northbound (Southbound will not end), and BENIE LINEs Eastbound routes will be connected to it, which will form a loop around the map.
Also currently, the LOOP LINE isn’t the official name for the line.
.
Of course, all of this came with a price. My patience was tested past the limit, trying to get angry to focus exactly what I wanted.
This whole automated thing started after one day I was on Youtube, looking at some Minecraft videos. Then I came along that rapid transit system. Since then I strongly considered doing something like that for my own system, especially when I saw I could download the map and schematics.
I threw in ideas from the guy’s map into mine. A few days later my desire to make my system automated increased to a point where failure was not an option, asking a friend of mine to help me make it automated.
I wanted the W2TS automated before, but didn’t know how to get it working with my existing stations. I knew I would have to have boosters and all other sorts of tracks ruining the scenery of the area the station is in, but I didn’t care. I was willing to redesign the stations if need be.
When he failed, I treated it very badly instead of just moving on. This is when angry tried to help, and too failed.
He told me to go back to Minecart Mania and install Bukkit, which is dead to me and I didn’t feel like going back there and trying to set the blocks just right for the cart to go.
Then he told me to get AUTOCART. Again… I did not want to go back. Using that would defeat the need for Minecart Mania. That is until he told me that it now works in SMP, and with Minecart Mania.
At first, I didn’t like this idea one bit (especially the fact I would have to start working in SMP again).
The problem with Minecart Mania is there’s no tutorials of how to use the catcher and other blocks you use at stations. You’re supposed to just automatically know this shit, apparently. Or love trial and error.
And even with this, angry still couldn’t really get the stations automated.. until he told me to use Diamond blocks. When powered by Redstone, they can spawn a minecart ontop of them. It originally was supposed to be a replacement due to bugged chest dispensers. And when placed with other tracks, acts as a launcher, launching a cart on tracks infront of it. When I saw there was another block that could delete carts, I knew I could finally get it automated.
Simply wire a button or a pressure plate to the diamond block to call a minecart.
Back in the past. Another trouble with the diamond/diamond ore blocks was making my current stations work with it. At the time I had no ideas how to make a cart spawn and go on the same track other carts travel on. I never got an idea until yesterday. The idea is Station blocks.
Station blocks are simple. You place one right under a two or four-way intersection and when a player moves over it, it tells you to left click the minecart which way you want to go, based on the configuration of the tracks.
Near the WAYWARD LINE’s Plains station, I built and made the “W2TS Design/Testing Area” building so I can test any ideas I had in my head, which still stands to this day.
One test was to do the same thing I saw on another video of a station using Minecart Mania. My friend tried to recreate the thing but failed trying to get the redstone current to launch it just right.
I pretty much thought it was over, and I had to admit defeat… until what I felt was an angel trying to get me to visit Minecart Mania’s section in the bukkit forums.
Under Sign Commands, I saw this “Hold For sign”. When placed near a catcher block, it will act like complicated redstone wiring and put a countdown on it. Once the countdown hits 0, the catcher block turns into a launcher block, releases the minecart, and makes it go where I want.
Knowing my idea to make my system automated has been brought back to life, I thought hard of one idea I had floating around in my head. And about a day later I tried it, and made it into a Youtube video (my first one at that). To have a track running alongside the main track, with two small hubs. One for calling the cart and the other for destroying it.
The way I designed this prototype was having two designated areas on the station platform. One for Departure, and one for Arrival. Just watch the video. I’ve pretty much explained how it works.
It still exists in that building to this very day, with the same signs I used as a presentation for the video.
But there was a problem. How to keep a griefer from calling multiple minecarts and clogging up the track with carts. There was no real solution to this problem except doing advanced, complicated redstone wiring.
A week after I made my prototype, angry set up several Repeaters and used it as a very large Delay circuit and told me this is the only way to stop a griefer, by it resetting the circuit so the button could be pressed again.
He suggested of having a single Central Station for this thing, and what better place than the BENIE/WAYWARD LINE switch station. And then having all the other stations where you delete your minecart and do whatever. Unfortunately this involved having to redesign the entire thing.
As much as I tried to accept this as my only option, I also wanted to turn it down. Because he had no solid idea of a station I can use to replace this.
Since Version 0.7 of the Spawner blocks, this entire issue and solution to fix it has been kicked out the door, via a new option. It pretty much does the same thing angry did, without doing anything but setting the option. It now adds a timer so a griefer can’t abuse it.
This means I will not have to redesign that station.
A few days later (before I found out about the new feature with Spawner blocks), I extended the BENIE LINE further Westbound, and made a bypass route to bypass Sunset Bay by going across it, and uncovered the new Birch/Pine trees, with a winter setting. There was a large, flat area begging for a station to be placed on it. I thought this would be perfect for the start of the LOOP LINE. I named the station Frosty Pines.
Angry helped by making a station for it, but didn’t make it Minecart Mania-friendly. I fixed this by making the station bigger and taller by two blocks in all directions.
After thinking of a new idea for the cart call/destroy system (I call it Version 2 of my prototype), I went right to work making it. And I’m proud of the results. With this design, I can use it on all of my existing stations if I wanted to, and it won’t change the design that much.
I just want to say in closing, that I’m glad I went back to Minecart Mania. AUTOCART really saved my ass this time. With it, I don’t have to worry about booster/braker blocks.