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No + Keep existing work

11 (20.4%)

Yes + new content in project world

29 (53.7%)

Don't care + Ambivalience

14 (25.9%)

Total Members Voted: 52

[Osmosis Jones]

If there is sufficient interest, I can also attempt to add in a cart tradeback system that will send an empty cart in the opposite direction of any outbound traffic; in theory this would ensure that there is always a constant level of carts at each station. That said, it would be expensive in both redstone, gold and/or iron, and given the redstone bugs we've observed, possibly a cause of FUN (tm).

Yes. You must do this. It must be implemented.

Okay, so I've been looking into what I would need to do to build a cart tradeback system, and this post is basically all my notes on the subject.

Spoiler: Breakdown (click to show/hide)

The biggest issue we would have to deal with is the chunk load distance. For tradeback system to work, you need a redstone signal sent forward to the station ahead. The figure I'm using for the chunk load distance is the best I can find, but no one seems certain, and it feels a bit too small. If it is larger than this, the distance between stations can increase correspondingly.

The simplest way to do this on a low population server is where you don't run the signal longer than 64-72 blocks in any one direction, which keeps the target within the chunkload radius. This has the obvious down side of requiring seperate tradeback points (note, these are not necessarily stops for a player cart, merely nodes at which empty carts are exchanged) every 4 chunks (chunkload radius is ~4.5 chunks depending on location in a chunk, so I'm using 4 chunks to allow a little flexibility), which means more iron/gold would be required for tracks/carts. I might be able to stretch it a bit further, by slowing the redstone pulse so that it travels with the player, but this could also cause carts to be caught between stations as they leave the load radius, and would also be very susceptible to lag and poor connections.

On the image below I've marked out a grid of 64x64 blocks; at any point in the grid, the game will load to just past the equivalent point in the 8 surrounding grid squares. As the best location for a station is adjacent to the tradeback node in the same grid square (this node also acts as the cart dispenser for the associated platform), this basically means that stations should all be in approximately the same location in each grid square. With this in mind, I've marked the most likely points for subway stations with teal squares on the image (I forgot to mark in the lighthouse, southgate and mining camp before I uploaded it, but those would also be serviced). Independant tradeback nodes are not shown, but you can identify their approximate location easily enough.

If I was to use this system, a tradeback node would consist of a cart dispenser that feeds into 2-5 destinations; either delivering a cart to the platform when requested by a player, or mailing a cart to any adjacent tradeback node when called by that the other node. I'd probably build it to hold 2-3 carts, to allow a margin of error.

Individual platforms would somewhat resemble the stations currently set up for the temporary railways, with pressureplates on each outbound line calling the next return node. Due to the nature of the system, a 'grand central' style station is not really necessary; no one node should be anymore important then the next.

Stations would be linked via either 2 or 3 track lines, depending on how the system is designed to work. At the very least, there would be 2 lines, an inbound and outbound. The tradeback system could then send the empty cart along either a) the corresponding inbound line as a player departs on the outbound or b) a seperate 'tradeback line' designed solely for empty carts. I have seen designs that use dual tradeback lines, one for each direction, but for that to have any real benefit in the proposed system, we'd need seperate cart dispensers for players and tradeback nodes. Honestly, 2 lines should be enough. Assuming a 2 track system, tunnels would be 3x3, with a raised walkway seperating the two tracks, and redstone wiring underneath the tunnel floor.

What it all means; while this sounds wonderful, I want to make this clear: This system would be very expensive. Prohibitively so if we are not spawning resources. Even the most barebones system will require a dedicated mining effort for iron; if we want tradeback as well, the iron cost will at least double, probably triple, and we would have a large gold and redstone bill as well. Long distance stations will be 4 or 5 times the price again of closer stations, and the chunk radius puts restrictions on where we can have subway stations closer in. Even if we do get the resources, it will be slow to set up. There will need to be substantial bugtesting even once the miles of wire- and track-laying are complete. Finally, all it takes is a couple of redstone bugs to bring the system to its knees.

As such, considering what I've learnt since my last post on the topic, I do not believe it is worth the effort.

Spoiler: Image (click to show/hide)

[Meta]

I've only got one thing to say: it's ‼science‼ time!
Good luck OJ!

And for the keep I'll just add that despite its current squareness on the plan its towers will be based upon the round ones built around the city.

[PTTG??]

OK, then we'll work on some other system. I still think some kind of subway system would be good, but a cheaper one that can be made with available resources would be better than one that can't reasonably be done.

[breadbocks]

So. Finally got around to popping onto the server today, and found it quite odd. I spawned in a giant obsidian room, and if that wasn't odd enough, I found a ladder down to a mine where none of the stuff you'd want was mined, and all the plain stone was gone. Can someone explain this to me?

[lordnincompoop]

So. Finally got around to popping onto the server today, and found it quite odd. I spawned in a giant obsidian room, and if that wasn't odd enough, I found a ladder down to a mine where none of the stuff you'd want was mined, and all the plain stone was gone. Can someone explain this to me?

If you mean Sandbox then I have no idea.

[breadbocks]

Nope. It was the Main server.

[shadowsofwhite]

Nope. It was the Main server.

Sandbox.

The obsidian room is for safety against mobs.  It is an unfinished structure.  The "mine" below is just an empty space that I made for the various uses of OPs, considering nothing within is manipulatable by non-OPs.

[breadbocks]

Oh. Huh. TMYK.

[Osmosis Jones]

OK, then we'll work on some other system. I still think some kind of subway system would be good, but a cheaper one that can be made with available resources would be better than one that can't reasonably be done.

Oh, I wasn't saying we wouldn't have a subway system, just that a tradeback system was too pricey. I will get started on mining the subway next time I'm on.

[shadowsofwhite]

Oh. Huh. TMYK.

I... don't even know what that means...

Welcome to planehacked, anyhow!

[Rose]

The more you know.

[electronics]

OJ, surely we could add in the tradeback system afterwards with a seperate line (bit costly, might work on the main line with one way tracks or something) and as it approches the next station, that station knows how many carts it has in it's store and either choses to take that cart or send it on to the next one. This would mean it would not require and redstone between stations for the tradeback system.

[Osmosis Jones]

The issue with that is that is then carts getting sent on will eventually end up somewhere else beyond the load limit. If traffic is typically between two destinations, you could end up with a pile up of unloaded carts just beyond that station. When it is finally loaded, it would overwhelm the cart sorting at whichever station they appear at. In case you're wondering, 2-3 carts in very close succession could break sorting systems simply due to the length of a pressure plate reset.

Putting nodes more than the chunk load diameter apart would also introduce new problems, where the tradeback cart never even makes it back to the original station. More to the point though, the cost in a tradeback system is more in the sorting, storage and shunting system at each tradeback node then the wiring between nodes, (the reason I said long distance stations cost more is that they required multiple nodes).

Finally, we still have the issue with redstone bugs, they would be able to play absolute havoc with this system.

Look, since building each station isn't too costly under the current plan, I'll build them so that they are spaced such that we have the option of converting them later. We don't have to update, but if we get the resources to do so, we will be able to. Just so long as people understand that tunnels and station points are not to be dug near, unless you don't mind having them possibly filled in later.


Also, with the slums, can people please avoid building up onto the bluff to north? No one has yet, but some of the structures are getting awfully close (especially that tower... which also raises the question of why there is a narrow sculpted tower in among a collection of hovels anyway?). I say this because I will eventually be doing some work on the top of that bluff (extending city walls along the cliff edge, for starters).

EDIT: Huuuhhh. Doing some testing, it looks like the figure I have for chunk load is bollocks, on Far I can see almost twice what I should be able to. Considering the source I had said it was independant of render distance, that has me thinking.

[electronics]

But seeing as we're not doing the tradeback system we don't need to worry about the redstone between stations (and I don't think we need that as well). If notch ever makes it so detector rails can be like wood and stone pressure plates that would fix the reset problem. Also are we going with dual track (Inbound and Outboud) for each line/tunnel?

[shadowsofwhite]

Somebody killed one of my dogs on the main(sandbox) server.  That is not nice.