Describe a memorable interaction with nature.

Something I picked up from ianXOfour's elegant system is that scaffolds can be used to transport signals up and down almost instantly, by changing the support at the bottom and this signal can be projected in different directions spiralling off the central point. This can be used to even fork signals (like above) and the scaffold can be structural to the building project as well as part of delivering signal.

This here is a bone meal machine where there are three components that need to trigger:

• a stone generator with lava and water that needs to regularly pulse all at once
• a water flooder that needs to toggle on, stay on, then toggle off
• a bone meal distributor that needs to pulse half as often as the other two

And all the signal distribution here is handled by observers looking at scaffolding

Oh, link to the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xe4I4EqnFw

indeed scaffolds are an excellent, high throughput, and cheap method of transmitting, however signals propagate at 1 block per game tick, meaning they may not be fast enough for some conditions. or when synchronization between levels is required.

so some while ago back in 1.16.3 my friends and i did some research into various methods of signal transmission to see what might work as alternatives.

for upwards communication, the most promising method, other than a simple direct slimestone connection we found was utilizing water columns. there are two types of water column circuits, ones with just toggled soul sand, and ones that toggle between soul sand and magma. both have their pros and cons.

soul sand only can be tied to a flip flop on the outside to directly repeat the state of a signal, however, switching from soul sand water to normal water is instant, but switching from normal water to soul sand water has a significant delay (12 redstone ticks)

soul sand and magma blocks have instant response both ways for the initial signal, but send out a second pulse 12 ticks later that must be dealt with in some way, making them rather annoying to use in practice.

an interesting method is the leaf and log based system, which has the advantage of working in any direction and being able to make turns, but the disadvantage of having a very short range limit and is also not instant, but faster than an observer chain.

going downward has other issues, and there were a few methods i tried, such as daylight detectors, but those proved to be so unreliable as to be useless. but fortunately there are walls. which are instant on both rising and falling edge, but they cannot repeat to multiple levels, and as such require 1 line per receiver.

it was good fun digging up this old world. hope the information here is useful to you or anyone else designing their own machines

Happy bday to my first EP!

New full length album out this year 😈

In the meantime you can listen to the full album on all streaming services.

And if you like it a lot, kick me a few bucks over at http://tvma.bandcamp.com

i can't complain, really. what with only having to leave the guardhouse every thirty minutes I get a lot of reading done. and you meet a lot of people. there always seems to be someone trying to cross. haven't you read the sign, I say. no crossing.

people always seem understanding when I turn them back, but they do still keep trying. there's always someone new having a go at it. i work hard and make sure I'm there looking out every half an hour on the dot. I'm sorry madam it's just my job. it's the rules. got to have rules. sometimes they'll make a bit of a scene, plead a bit, stamp their feet or the like. but their heart isn't in it. they know they've got to follow the rules. my commanding presence helps them along.

now I'm only human. it does feel a bit cruel sometimes. these people, sometimes they have everything they own on them. sometimes they bring their kids. all they want to do is get to the other side of the bridge that takes exactly one hour to cross. and I have to look them in the eye and tell them they can't.

one of these days I'm going to let one of them pass. one of these days I'll walk the whole rest of the way with them. I'll make sure they get where they want to go.