Org Minecraft Server

[Vladimir]

About Redstone: Do we want to build a telegraph system to let others know we're working at the site? I take it everyone has a ton of it. We can wire it so that if someone is at the site they can flip a switch to activate a torch.

Or whatever. I'm really interested in infrastructure and the rail system is already well developed. I would love to get experience with redstone.

[TinCow]

About Redstone: Do we want to build a telegraph system to let others know we're working at the site? I take it everyone has a ton of it. We can wire it so that if someone is at the site they can flip a switch to activate a torch.

Or whatever. I'm really interested in infrastructure and the rail system is already well developed. I would love to get experience with redstone.

Hmmm... you just gave me an idea. The idea of building an arena/coliseum has been mentioned several times (Tiaexz pointed out that this thread is itself posted in the Arena, thus making the construction of an arena rather meta). Since we're on a survival server, we could make it an actual combat arena. We could have multiple rooms leading to the arena floor. The rooms could be completely dark, so that mobs spawn inside. If we did some good redstone wiring, we could have multiple doors controlled by a central switching station, so that once a person was on the arena floor we could open the doors and release the monsters to fight. We could even install water systems in each one so that we could 'push' the mobs out into the central area for combat. We could line the entire combat floor and walls with obsidian to prevent destruction via creepers.

Thoughts?

[Vladimir]

That's an excellent idea. The only problem is in controlling the monster spawning. Can a pickaxe with silk touch safely transport spawners? If not, we could try to lure monsters into pens.

I imagine we could also develop a lighting system with pistons and glowstone, torches, or lava. Flip a switch and out pops a light source. The scale of this project should preclude the need for a microblocks mod.

[TinCow]

That's an excellent idea. The only problem is in controlling the monster spawning. Can a pickaxe with silk touch safely transport spawners? If not, we could try to lure monsters into pens.

I imagine we could also develop a lighting system with pistons and glowstone, torches, or lava. Flip a switch and out pops a light source. The scale of this project should preclude the need for a microblocks mod.

As I understand it, you can transport a mob spawner with silk touch, but after you replace it it will only spawn pigs. However, we don't need to worry about that because mobs will spawn in total darkness. All we need to do is create a large enough room in total darkness, and have the room be sufficiently isolated from the viewing area (24 squares I think) for mobs to spawn there. If the rooms are large enough and we have enough of them (I'm thinking 3+), they should generate enough mob spawns for some decent fighting. We can add switch-controlled lighting inside the spawn rooms for maintenance purposes, and perhaps some kind of switch-controlled lava trap or something to purge the rooms prior to entering.

The area would need to be roofed over, though, or the zombies and skeletons would burn up during daylight fights.

[rajpoot]

The location seems ideal. I scouted around just now and it can be the perfect place to build with just a little landscaping. I did run into some small caverns below the surface though, so we can't dig too much there, or we'll be filling holes for a lot of time.

Also can the area near the spawn point be made...'un-restricited' now? I struck some diamond veins deep underground but it appears they are below the spawn point and so I can't mine them....

Edit:
The Arena idea sounds nice. How do you plan to stop creepers from spawning though?

Alternatively you can just place mob spawners there. I'm sure they can be placed as a block using server commands......since this is a special case (as monster spawning can't really be controlled through any in game mechanism) I don't see this as cheating....

[TinCow]

The location seems ideal. I scouted around just now and it can be the perfect place to build with just a little landscaping. I did run into some small caverns below the surface though, so we can't dig too much there, or we'll be filling holes for a lot of time.

Eh, it's a megaproject, filling holes is to be expected.

Also can the area near the spawn point be made...'un-restricited' now? I struck some diamond veins deep underground but it appears they are below the spawn point and so I can't mine them....

I'll see if there's a way to do that, as the spawn area protection does seem a bit unnecessary with the whitelist.

The Arena idea sounds nice. How do you plan to stop creepers from spawning though?

I didn't. The plan was to coat the combat area with obsidian, which they can't destroy.

Alternatively you can just place mob spawners there. I'm sure they can be placed as a block using server commands......since this is a special case (as monster spawning can't really be controlled through any in game mechanism) I don't see this as cheating....

I suppose that is a possibility, though I would want there to be unanimous consent to doing that, as creating blocks is otherwise prohibited on the server.

[Vladimir]

Spawners themselves are gamey goodness covered in cheese. I think we can allow them. All hail the server god!

[TinCow]

BTW, I think I know what happened to Pest's chest in the nether outpost. I recall placing a bed in there when I constructed it, though I never used it. Apparently that's a bad thing, as beds explode when slept in in the Nether. The hole was certainly centered around where the bed used to be, so I guess some unlucky person got nuked by it and took out the rest of the stuff as well.

[TinCow]

Ok, here's a very rough sketch of my thoughts on the operative level of the arena. This image is a cross section of the bottom level of the arena, with all roofing and seating and such removed.

The black lines are walls.
The gray area is the combat floor.
The light orange areas are the mob spawning rooms. Each room would be slanted, higher at the back and lower at the front. There would be water sources at the back that would move all spawned mobs towards the doors, which are the red dots.
The blue ring behind the mob spawning rooms is an access corridor for maintenance, and the green dots are manually controlled access doors to each mob room. Switches would be placed by each green dot door to control interior lighting and maybe some kind of lava or cactus system to purge any monsters already inside.
The light blue square at the bottom is where I imagine the control room and access area to be, likely two levels. At the bottom level would be a large corridor for the 'gladiators' to enter. Above it, probably on the seating level where the arena floor is visible, would be the control room. The red dot doors would all be individually controllable from this room, so that one person can control the release of the monsters. Perhaps some door control here as well to lock in the 'gladiators' and prevent them from leaving once they enter.

On top of all of this would be stadium-style seating going all the way around, and the whole thing would be covered by a roof, probably in a very basic dome style, or maybe just flat depending on how high the seating goes.






If we want to get more elaborate, we could also add a 'loot' box that was suspended over the very middle of the combat floor (like a scoreboard), with a maintenance access route to the control room. This loot box would contain multiple dispensers, and each dispenser would contain a certain kind of item, like swords, arrows, food, potions, armor, etc. The dispensers themselves would also be controlled from the control room, so that one person could selectively drop various 'rewards' to the 'gladiators' in between rounds of fighting.

[rajpoot]

So I guess a gigantic cobblestone building is out then....

[Tuuvi]

For the broken window, that may have been me. I got nuked by a creeper while walking next to your house a really long time ago and a good chunk of wall was destroyed. I fixed what I could at the time and I think Csargo fixed some as well, but we might have missed the window. The animals probably escaped on their own. My animals constantly get out of their pens even though they are completely fenced in. Since you haven't logged in for so long, I'm not surprised there are none left. I have no idea about the wheat, iron, or gold, but you are welcome to take whatever resources you need to rebuild from my house.

Oh ok haha I should probably build a wall around my area and light the whole place up so that doesn't happen again.

[TinCow]

So I guess a gigantic cobblestone building is out then....

Well, this thing would be really, really large, so cobblestone would probably have to be the main building material due to sheer resource scarcity, as the only other option would be dirt. While that wouldn't look the best, we could probably spiff it up a bit with various lines and layers and such in stone, wood, brick, and nether brick.

[Vladimir]

So I guess a gigantic cobblestone building is out then....

Hopefully. I saw enough furnaces at everyone's house that they can easily produce enough stone. Fuel, coal or wood, is easy enough to find. All those cobblestone structures look horrid.

TC: Great start. Concerns:

Each room doesn't need to contain a spawner. That's a lot of work setting up lighting, water, and purging systems. Three systems per room and I don't think we can run lava and water at the same time. Four if you count door controls (4 x 11). Maybe we can have one primary and three secondary entrances to fill up space.

The central control room would need to contain a massive amount of switches and wiring with the current setup. If we're going to have so many spawners, keep the controls decentralized. Loot dispensers from the control room sounds excellent!

For purging I recommend lava as it is easiest.

Do you want to construct the entire floor out of obsidian? Maybe sandstone or checkered sandstone/obsidian flooring is best. Slabs are fairly blast resistant. I would like to have a more authentic looking floor.

I recommend keeping the "roof" more authentic (i.e. Like in the movie Gladiator). We need lots of wool and red dye.


This should be fairly easy to do with the resources everyone's gathered. Some people are stockpiling cobblestone and dirt(???) and you people love your furnaces.

Well, this thing would be really, really large, so cobblestone would probably have to be the main building material due to sheer resource scarcity, as the only other option would be dirt. While that wouldn't look the best, we could probably spiff it up a bit with various lines and layers and such in stone, wood, brick, and nether brick.

Again: I think stone is better. It's on a server so the furnaces should burn continuously.

[rajpoot]

BTW, I don't mean to be pushy, but I really want those diamonds...

Please do look into the spawn point thing whenever you have sometime to spare Tincow.

[Vladimir]

BTW, I don't mean to be pushy, but I really want those diamonds...

Please do look into the spawn point thing whenever you have sometime to spare Tincow.

Aren't you from India? I thought you people had lots of diamonds. Or did the British take them all?

[TinCow]

Hopefully. I saw enough furnaces at everyone's house that they can easily produce enough stone. Fuel, coal or wood, is easy enough to find. All those cobblestone structures look horrid.

I tend to agree. I'm willing to put in the time to smelt it all back to stone if everyone else is. We've got easy access to blaze rods now, so furnace fuel shouldn't be a problem. We also only need to coat the visible areas, nonvisible could just be cobblestone. For the record though, furnaces do not burn constantly on the server. Chunks are not active unless people are near them, so if you put stuff in a furnace and log off, they will not continue burning if no one is around.

TC: Great start. Concerns:

Each room doesn't need to contain a spawner. That's a lot of work setting up lighting, water, and purging systems. Three systems per room and I don't think we can run lava and water at the same time. Four if you count door controls (4 x 11). Maybe we can have one primary and three secondary entrances to fill up space.

The reason I put so many in was due to respawn time. The more rooms there are, the more mobs that can be stored up and released. If we only have two or three rooms, then we'd have to wait a long time between fights for the mobs to respawn, and we also wouldn't be able to unleash massive hordes. It's an issue though, and one that should be discussed more.

The central control room would need to contain a massive amount of switches and wiring with the current setup. If we're going to have so many spawners, keep the controls decentralized.

Yeah, a lot of switches and wiring would be required. To handle it easily, we'd need to have some really thick walls and floors to allow us to run many lines of redstone without them getting in each others' way. However, we're talking about a structure that's sufficiently large that I think it could be done. The problem with decentralized controls is that you'd have to run all over the place to release the monsters, and you wouldn't be able to observe the action while it was going on. I really like the idea of a single person up in a control booth with total control over which mobs are released and when, as well as all loot reward drops.

For purging I recommend lava as it is easiest.

We might be able to do without purging. In fact, if we're going to use mob spawners, the lighting itself is irrelevant since light doesn't stop spawners from creating mobs. Maintenance would be super dangerous, but I suppose it would simplify the design.

Do you want to construct the entire floor out of obsidian? Maybe sandstone or checkered sandstone/obsidian flooring is best. Slabs are fairly blast resistant. I would like to have a more authentic looking floor.

The purpose of the obsidian would just be to prevent creepers from damaging the building itself. We could do a layer of obsidian right underneath the walls and floor, so that any destruction was only superficial. The walls could then be stone and the floor could be sand, and both could be easily repaired if we kept some supplies on hand.

[TinCow]

BTW, I don't mean to be pushy, but I really want those diamonds...

Please do look into the spawn point thing whenever you have sometime to spare Tincow.

I can't do anything about it while I'm at work, which is where I have been for about 9 hours.

[Vladimir]

The reason I put so many in was due to respawn time. The more rooms there are, the more mobs that can be stored up and released. If we only have two or three rooms, then we'd have to wait a long time between fights for the mobs to respawn, and we also wouldn't be able to unleash massive hordes. It's an issue though, and one that should be discussed more.

I guess I assumed we'd be using spawners. I believe (please correct me if necessary) spawners will continue to function without a player nearby. If so, we don't need that many rooms. It depends on game mechanics.

Yeah, a lot of switches and wiring would be required. To handle it easily, we'd need to have some really thick walls and floors to allow us to run many lines of redstone without them getting in each others' way. However, we're talking about a structure that's sufficiently large that I think it could be done. The problem with decentralized controls is that you'd have to run all over the place to release the monsters, and you wouldn't be able to observe the action while it was going on. I really like the idea of a single person up in a control booth with total control over which mobs are released and when, as well as all loot reward drops.

Perhaps centralized controls, literally, as in having the door controls in the center. This makes it easier for one player to control the doors. Waterslides and door opening should be linked to the same lever to control the flow of baddies. This way it won't conflict with lava purging. The reward drops should be controlled from the control booth. Controls for purging and lighting (if not using spawners) should be decentralized as a player will be there anyway.

Edit: My apologies. Now I see you wrote that the light and purge switches should be decentralized.

We might be able to do without purging. In fact, if we're going to use mob spawners, the lighting itself is irrelevant since light doesn't stop spawners from creating mobs. Maintenance would be super dangerous, but I suppose it would simplify the design.

Simple is best and risk is fun.

I'm glad that we agree on the stone/fill issue. I want this thing to look amazing with great attention to detail. If we want to get REALLY fancy we could have an actual, if not simple, scoreboard using redstone torches. Thumbs up, or thumbs down.

[Vladimir]

If anyone thinks I'm being overly critical I want to share this with you:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HD9A0IVP

This is my project, mostly finished, and I likely won't make any major changes to it. Among other things it has a smoking chimney, two secret exits, a glass underwater walkway, and secure armory.

Most everything there, except the animals, came from either the immediate area or below it. It is virus scanned and I think everyone will enjoy a walkaround.

I would also love any critical reviews as we head into this megaproject.

[TinCow]

BTW, I don't mean to be pushy, but I really want those diamonds...

Please do look into the spawn point thing whenever you have sometime to spare Tincow.

Spawn protection has been disabled, mine away.

[TinCow]

I've put down a ton of torches all over the construction area, so that it can be worked more safely at night. It certainly needs more, but its a start. I think the first stage is simply leveling the entire area. I think we should take the entire thing down to one above sea level.

[rajpoot]

Spawn protection has been disabled, mine away.

Thank you!


Edit:
I've also near enough finished my castle. I'd be really grateful if you could help me build that sticky piston drawbridge your were talking about.

[Vladimir]

From getting blown up a couple times last night it seems that even stone is blast resistant enough for the arena floor. Creepers were usually taking out a single block.

[TinCow]

From getting blown up a couple times last night it seems that even stone is blast resistant enough for the arena floor. Creepers were usually taking out a single block.

This page has a chart that shows the blast resistance values of all blocks. Normal creeper explosions will do 49 damage to squares immediately adjacent to them, which is enough to break everything except water, lava, obsidian, enchanting tables, and bedrock. The blast damage decreases as the explosion radius spreads out though, which is why stone tends to survive if it's more than a square or two away. We might be able to get away without using obsidian for the open floor, but I'm still inclined to use it in the combat floor wall because that wall is likely going to be hiding circuitry and other important stuff. Dealing with a few holes in the combat area isn't a big deal, but it would not be good if a creeper took out the circuitry that allowed us to close a door to a spawn room.

Also, there's a problem with the idea of using mob spawner blocks in the spawn rooms. Those only spit out mobs when players are within 16 blocks of them. That's really not practical, as someone would have to constantly hang out near each room to get them to work.

[Vladimir]

Agreed on the walls, plus it would look cool.

Well, the mobs don't disappear once they spawn, do they? Short of server commands, it's going to be difficult to control spawn rates.

[TinCow]

Yes, mobs despawn if players are sufficiently far away from them.

I installed Bukkit last night, as that seemed the simplest way to turn off spawn protection. A side effect of that is that I can now install bukkit mods very easily. This one looks kind of interesting:

http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/mobarena/

If I understand it correctly, we could use that mod to generate the mobs and we would only have to create the arena itself.

[edit]I've read further, and that does indeed seem to be the case. The mod has all kinds of different options and is heavily automated. All we need is the actual building, and we can design it however we want, as we can set it so that explosions do not impact any blocks (or even let explosions destroy things, but have the arena automatically rebuild itself after every fight). Fighters enter at a certain area and select a 'class' to fight as, at which point their inventory is replaced with customized items for that class (old inventory is restored after the fight is over). Players are then teleported to the combat floor and then fight customized 'waves' of enemies, which can even include boss monsters. Mobs are spawned wherever we want them to be spawned. Spectators (and dead players) are teleported to the spectator area, which is wherever we want it to be. Rewards are handed out automatically and can be customized however we want them to be.

So, we could essentially build the arena to look however we want it to look, and the mod will take care of the rest. Do we want to use this?

[rajpoot]

Sounds perfect for the arena.

But I'll suggest that if we're building this arena as an arena (I mean for practical instead of aesthetical purposes), then we should also eventually build something big purely for the sake of building something nice.

[TinCow]

But I'll suggest that if we're building this arena as an arena (I mean for practical instead of aesthetical purposes), then we should also eventually build something big purely for the sake of building something nice.

I agree. I'd like for this to be just the first of many community projects. That's one of the main reasons for having a MP server in the first place.

[Vladimir]

I installed Bukkit last night, as that seemed the simplest way to turn off spawn protection. A side effect of that is that I can now install bukkit mods very easily...

If I understand it correctly, we could use that mod to generate the mobs and we would only have to create the arena itself.

[edit]I've read further, and that does indeed seem to be the case. The mod has all kinds of different options and is heavily automated. All we need is the actual building, and we can design it however we want, as we can set it so that explosions do not impact any blocks (or even let explosions destroy things, but have the arena automatically rebuild itself after every fight). Fighters enter at a certain area and select a 'class' to fight as, at which point their inventory is replaced with customized items for that class (old inventory is restored after the fight is over). Players are then teleported to the combat floor and then fight customized 'waves' of enemies, which can even include boss monsters. Mobs are spawned wherever we want them to be spawned. Spectators (and dead players) are teleported to the spectator area, which is wherever we want it to be. Rewards are handed out automatically and can be customized however we want them to be.

So, we could essentially build the arena to look however we want it to look, and the mod will take care of the rest. Do we want to use this?

Well it looks like we have to for the monsters. This would also answer a question I had about equipping players before fights. Aside from the actual construction I would like to keep this a simple as possible. I quite like the idea of an arena falling into disrepair and don't like automated rebuilding. I'd prefer player controlled spawning from inside the arena and like your idea about having access tunnels and the idea of manually repairing the structure. I also don't like the idea of teleporting.

I hoped to have a door opening/repeater delayed piston and water push mechanism to feed monsters into the center.

But I'll suggest that if we're building this arena as an arena (I mean for practical instead of aesthetical purposes), then we should also eventually build something big purely for the sake of building something nice.

I thought that was the point of this. I'm imagining obsidian obelisks, an elaborately decorated control room, complex wiring, red (woolen) overhangs, etc. All produced naturally in game and created by the player. Check out my save for comparison.

This isn't going to be some floating cobblestone box.

[TinCow]

Well it looks like we have to for the monsters. This would also answer a question I had about equipping players before fights. Aside from the actual construction I would like to keep this a simple as possible. I quite like the idea of an arena falling into disrepair and don't like automated rebuilding. I'd prefer player controlled spawning from inside the arena and like your idea about having access tunnels and the idea of manually repairing the structure. I also don't like the idea of teleporting.

I hoped to have a door opening/repeater delayed piston and water push mechanism to feed monsters into the center.

The teleporting of players and spectators to the proper location is an integral part of the mod and I do not believe it will operate without it. We could still have mobs spawn inside of rooms and get pushed out, though that seems redundant and inefficient with the built-in system. If all we want to do is create some complex redstone circuitry, it would be better to find some other aspect of the arena to use it on, or to build something entirely different instead. I'm not so in love with the arena idea that it absolutely must be constructed. It will take a fair amount of time to clear the construction site anyway, so we've got more time to discuss other options.