Tutorials/Mechanisms

Mechanisms are simple systems of blocks used to achieve complex tasks, such as opening a door from afar or revealing a hidden staircase. These complex systems are built from simple components, and involve some kind of user input, like breaking a torch, and some kind of result, like a door being revealed.

Mechanisms are different from traps in that they generally help the end user instead of trapping or killing them.

This page is a work in progress, so feel free to add your own components and mechanisms as you build and the game develops.
 * (pictures are requested but not required)

Components
These are the basic, modular parts which can be combined to form any complex mechanism. Please note that individual items in the game are not considered components.

Physical Components

 * Sand Switch
 * Sand placed above a torch will not fall until the torch is broken. This can be used to control water flow above the user or cause torches connected to the falling sand to break.


 * Pit
 * Pit into which sand or water may fall.


 * Reservoir
 * Natural or user-made lake which stores water to be used in a mechanism.


 * Water Channel
 * A channel in which water can flow. Often used to break torches, causing things to fall

Electrical Components
See Crafting and Electricity for these components.

Mechanisms
Useful devices made from the combination of components.

Standard Mechanisms

 * Airlock

Hidden Mechanisms

 * Traps
 * Hidden Door
 * Simple hidden opening revealed by breaking a torch.
 * Make a sand switch which opens a reservoir allowing water to flow down a short channel to a pit. The pit allows the water to drop below floor level and break torches supporting a sand wall above a pit.  When the sand wall falls, an opening is revealed.


 * Hidden Floor Staircase
 * Hidden staircase in the floor revealed by breaking a torch.
 * Make an inverted sand or gravel staircase in the floor of a room(one block wide), supported by torches. Make a water channel or water channels adjacent to the torches so that when they are filled, the torches break and the stairs will fall.  (IMPORTANT: make sure that that the sand or gravel will cover the water hole after it falls to avoid flooding) Make a sand switch which opens a reservoir allowing water to flow down a short channel to a pit.  The pit allows the water to drop beneath the floor and run to the torches holding the staircase.

Electronic Mechanisms

 * Item Activated Door
 * A door that only opens when an item is dropped into a pit of water.
 * Make three-deep a pit near a metal door. Build a level channel away from the base of the pit.  Place a wood pressure plate in the channel no more than 8 blocks from the base of the pit.  Wire the plate to the door (you will have to run the wire back up to the surface, or very nearly so, but it can be concealed under will-placed walls).  Cover the channel and place a block of water at the top of the pit.  Any item thrown in the pit should flow down to the plate and cause the wire to activate, thus opening the door.