How to make cheap ethereal glass - no diamonds needed!

[Shakie666]

Well, technically it isn't ethereal glass, but it does basically the same thing...

The gaps are wide enough for you to walk through. This means its also wide enough for mobs, but, as if by magic, they'll be repelled.

The way this works is that, even though mobs can fit through the gaps, their AI doesn't know how. They treat the stone wall/fence barrier as a solid wall, so they won't follow you.

Like all ingenious-but-cheap solutions though, this isn't foolproof. If enough mobs stack up against the barrier they can eventually push each other through the gaps, but unless you've got villagers that are attracting zombies this is extremely unlikely to happen. To be on the ultra-safe side, keep your villagers in a separate building to your main base.

I don't think this is very well known, so please let me know if you learnt something new

 

[DREVL]

I applaud your use of exploit. Use of slabs is also your friend, if you want a dark room that you also want to see into.

 

[yoy1zoz2mom3]

Fantastic, it would be good for the gates of a town, methinks...

 

[Alexiy]

Interesting

 

[Someone Else 37]

I've done this same sort of thing before, but with netherbrick fences instead of walls. I originally did that before cobblestone walls existed, but I'd still do it now because the columns are all the same width.

You could probably use netherbrick fence and cobblestone walls if you're worried about the fences burning up.

The actual reason I used this trick a while back was that I wanted a Vanilla gateway thing that I could walk through, but still move with pistons, so that I could replace it with a wall of iron bars or something to lock it, for whatever reason. A friend was building a castle on a server, and I making a "drawbridge" as an interesting redstone challenge.

 

[ratchet freak]

aren't skellies able to shoot you through that rather than with ethereal where they can't

 

[Shakie666]

aren't skellies able to shoot you through that rather than with ethereal where they can't

Technically then can, but they never do, since they don't have a line of sight (air block) through which to shoot you.