User:NikWillOrFUU

Well how I got started on redstoning, it's a bit of a long story. So a couple years ago I saw a youtube video by traveler on the householdhacker youtube channel, it was about a bunch of free, online games. one of which was minecraft classic(the version that's free and plays in your browser). I tried it, and I just loved it. I found a server with people I really liked, and to be honest the only thing I did was talked to the people and jumped around. so at one point I found out "there's a paid version of minecraft?!?!" and proceeded to ask my new friends about it. I forget this part here, but it ends up a real life friend gave me a gift code. I redeemed it, and proceeded to play paid minecraft for the rest of eternity. this was all just before minecraft beta came out btw. so around beta 1.2, I saw my first redstone video. it has since been deleted, but it was a huuuge system that was pretty simple. you entered a code on the wall with levers, and you pushed a button. if the code was right, the door would open and all is fine. if it was wrong 3 times in a row, then the floor would fall out(it was sand held up by torches which would be washed away with water). I was so amazed at how amazing the possibilities were with what you could do! so I built the whole thing in survival(I didn't know about mods at the time) and had just barely enough redstone to finish it. (on a side note, bringing up these memories feels amazing. I remember the world I build this on so so well. ahhhh.) so building that, I learned the basic concept of how redstone and redstone torches worked. I felt so proud, but I had no idea what to do next. so for the next few months, I was studying how it all worked. I found out that there were little parts in it that were conected together to make it work. I also made it about 2/3ds of the size. I also forget what happend here, but I found myself on minecraftaddict's youtube page and his server. found sooo many awesome redstone creations. I was in heaven. so I was exploring random peoples plots, then I bump into MinecraftChrizz's plot. I... I just don't know what to do... all these creations are so amazingly good... no one knows about them either. I start taking snapshots left and right. randomly one day I see him on the server. "oh man, this is it! now or never!" and boom. here I am 2 years later. chrizz is now one of my best friends ever, and redstoning in minecraft is one of the only things I do.

=the steps I go through making something= keep in mind, this mostly just applies to what I like working on. fairly small piston devices. this really doesn't work on fully logic based, calculating/visualizing devices.

personally this is the hardest part. usually I can't think of anything, so I just go around looking at random peoples random creations and get ideas from that, or I find something on youtube and that also gives me ideas.
 * getting an idea:

sometimes I spend days on this. thinking of every trick I know to do something as simple as moving a block down by one.
 * I have a goal: to make a 3x3 hole in the ground. what pistons do I need to make this happen?

once I have all my pistons, I test over and over again with sometimes dozens of levers. for 2 main reasons. 1) seeing if I can make the piston setup more efficient. 2) see if I can group together inputs in as many ways as I can. the less inputs, the better. sometimes, reason 2 goes very far. sometimes I bring it down to 2 inputs or so. which is always very useful.
 * making it efficient:

sometimes this takes weeks or months. you just take your inputs, make note of what order they need to go in, and find out how to pulse the inputs properly and timed correctly. if I have other missions such as it needs to fit in a certain area, or it needs to function very fast, it can sometimes be a real pain. I give up very often, but then I find myself craving to do it again. within 3 hours usually. so make sure you take breaks often.
 * making it work:

rebuilding a finished project helps a lot. you see many pointless things you did before, and you can simplify a whole lot. you can often make lots of room for either making it smaller, making a slight modification that makes it silent or faster or whatnot
 * optional:

well usually I tell my friends, see how they like it, and if they don't, I just keep it in my single player world. if they do, then I just make a quick video, edit, render, and upload to youtube.
 * it works! now what...