Multiple Soul Cages wired up Redpower-style?

[SmokeLuvr1971]

Plan is to build an all-encompassing mob farm in a mystcraft ocean flatland where I'll have a total of 8 soul cages [Blaze, Endermen, Zombie Pigmen, Wither Skeles, Reg Skeles, Witch, Slime, and Spider] all within a single enclosure with a centrallized collection/killing area using water flows. I'd like to take advantage of Redpower's advanced redstone cables and wire each cage so I can choose which mobs are spawning. Ideally, all cages would be wired through the top of the cage. Individually, I can do this. However, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to differentiate/combine the redstone signals using the bundled cables. And there's nothing I could find on Elorram's ? site to describe how the cables connect to each other.

I know I use insulated wire to differentiate signal paths. And insulated wire connects to both red alloy wire and bundled cable. So I need a piece of insulated wire on each end of the bundled cable to differentiate the signal through the bundle. I know I can place a piece red alloy wire underneath jacketed cable to establish the vertical connection. Same holds true for the jacketed cable using a bundled cable. But running the bundle vertically doesn't allow for any differentiation, so that doesn't work. I can't place the insulated wire underneath the bundled cable, so that doesn't work either. The various forms of jacketed wire all connect to each other, so I can't use that to differentiate signals and this also implies that each soul cage must be separated from any adjacent soul cage by minimum 1 block, since there seems to be no jacketed version of insulated wire.

I just ran a test and the only way I could get a redstone lamp powered off of a vertically run bundle [bundle attaches to top of lamp] was to have insulated wire run down one side of the lamp and then have some red alloy wire connecting the lamp and the insulated wire. Without that bit of red alloy wire, the lamp wasn't being powered.

Am I missing something here or am I trying to use these redpower wires in a way they weren't designed for?

I've seen videos/read descriptions of multiple soul cage setups in single enclosures [wish I'd bookmarked them] and I'm sure they were wired. From what I remember, the cages were right next to each other too. Or were those setups wired to be all or nothing?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

 

[Redweevil]

After running the 1.5 pack for a little while I feel sort of out of touch with Redpower, weirdly. So I'll try my best to help but theres a chance I'll be completely wrong. Unlike normal red alloy wire, insulated wire doesnt pass a signal to the block it rests on, instead (I think) you have to have the wire pointing into a block. If I were building this I'd either use the wires to power blocks which pass the signal to the soul cages, probably going down vertically, or use panels, again vertical, allowing the wire to go into the cage directly. I may just go and test this but I believe this should help

 

[SmokeLuvr1971]

In building various other things, I've noticed that I couldn't place wire on covers. Is there a difference with panels, since they're thicker? Also, ideally I'd like to have the 2 or 3 blocks above the spawner flush with the spawner, so them pesky critters don't have any room to get hung-up. For this I was planning on the hollow blocks with jacketed wire running inside.

I'm about to pass out, but when I rise, I'll give your idea a shot.

 

[Redweevil]

So after a quick bit of testing I built this. Its fairly compact and works great, just ask if you need me to explain anything (Note: I apologise for the task bar at the bottom but I'm currently on a mac and for some reason the in-game screen shot system seems to work poorly)

 

[PhilHibbs]

In building various other things, I've noticed that I couldn't place wire on covers. Is there a difference with panels, since they're thicker?

I think you should be able to place wire on either, so long as it's on the outside of the cover, not on the inside.

 

[SmokeLuvr1971]

So after a quick bit of testing I built this. Its fairly compact and works great, just ask if you need me to explain anything (Note: I apologise for the task bar at the bottom but I'm currently on a mac and for some reason the in-game screen shot system seems to work poorly)

Thanks for this. I assume those are full blocks there and not microblocks of some variety. I say this cause I tried placing wire [unsuccessfully] on various sizes of strips. Covers do accept wire on the outside tho. My only concern with your design is the open area above the spawners. Will the wires prevent mobs from spawning in there? Spawn eggs will allow spawns in that space [I tried with an enderman egg] and I'm pretty sure spawners and eggs share the same spawning mechanic when deciding if a mob can spawn on a given block.

Playing around a little and discovered I can place a triple panel and a vertically-run insulated wire within the same block space. This should solve that problem and I don't think I'll have to sacrifice any more spawning area than usual.

 

[Redweevil]

From the short time I had this set up nothing was spawning on top, though that could be because there was plenty of space for things to spawn. I did use micro blocks for one parts though I realised afterwards that it was completely pointless as I just built a full block anyway. If any mobs spawn on top this could be fixed by just having it set up out of spawn range.

Anyway I'm glad you like it and if I end up using soul cages in the future I may actually use this design.

 

[SmokeLuvr1971]

You misunderstand. Not on top where the levers are, but on top of the soul cages themselves. Even though the spawning rates are increased for these type of spawners; if enough mobs [of the same type] gather in that enclosed space, they could potentially shutdown their spawner. From my vanilla builds, I seem to recall that transparent blocks will prevent spawns in the space where the transparent block resides [ex: glass blocks directly above a mob spawner]. My concern is how much. if any, do the wire's hitbox? play in the spawn calculation. Will the wires alone prevent spawning on top of the cage or are microblocks required? I did read that microblocks are considered transparent and the triple panel I used was almost a full block in size. So if the wire's hitbox is too small, the triple cover should suffice.

Using this idea of microblocks to fill in the gaps around the wires, I came up with 4 cages placed around a central block which the insulated wires will run down to connect with the cages. The bundle sits atop the central block. I can squeeze 8 cages and wiring into a 3x8 area with most of the remaining space up to the ceiling filled in with the triple panels. This would make for a 14x11 spawning chamber. I'm still puzzling out a water stream to funnel everything to a single point. Once that's done, I can get to building/testing this. And if the microblocks or wire prevent spawns on top of the cages, this multi-cage design can also be used for animal farming too.

 

[Kellgoth]

Conveyors from Minefactory Reloaded work great for moving mobs around, may be a better choice than flowing water.

 

[Saice]

Conveyors from Minefactory Reloaded work great for moving mobs around, may be a better choice than flowing water.

AND if your going MFR you can do this for mob control thanks to RedNet.


2013-06-26_02.05.30 by Saice, on Flickr


2013-06-26_02.05.42 by Saice, on Flickr


2013-06-26_02.05.50 by Saice, on Flickr

Supports up to 16 before you need to do anything weird with a PRC. And the lamps are for show you don't even need them,

 

[EternalDensity]

I have multiple soul cages hooked up with MFR's rednet cable. It's all fun and games until you accidentally break one of the cables between the cages and the switches.
Which is why I ought to build a piston-gated liquid redstone flooding system to rapidly deactivate all the cages in case of emergency.
That speedy shoop quoted my post before I was done editing it!

 

[Saice]

I have multiple soul cages hooked up with MFR's rednet cable. It's all fun and games until you accidentally break one of the cables between the cages and the switches.

I have an answer for that too... once sec let me get screen shots it is slightly bigger.

 

[Saice]

you can do this


2013-06-26_02.19.13 by Saice, on Flickr

or This


2013-06-26_02.20.22 by Saice, on Flickr

Do this one for each page so 6 pages on one and 2 on the other. (or use an upgrade on one to get more circuts)


2013-06-26_02.20.08 by Saice, on Flickr

To be really safe put the RedNet controller as close to the spawners as you can like right above them

 

[PhilHibbs]

Will the wires alone prevent spawning on top of the cage or are microblocks required?

Wires are microblocks.

 

[Redweevil]

Nothing seems to spawn on top of the cages thanks to the wire

 

[SmokeLuvr1971]

Sad days. Firstly, I don't see how no one saw any spawns on top of the cages with just the insulated wires above them. I had cows getting stuck up there within the first minute of turning on the spawner [2 block space above the spawner for maximum spawning]. Adding the triple panel stopped those unwanted spawns.

The sad news is I was planning on utilizing the sentry turret as my killing mechanism for everything but the Blaze. Tried it out on the cows and now I see how ineffective the item is. They randomly die for no apparent reason. And no, they're not shooting each other or getting bumped around. Completely enclosed in opaque blocks, placed on an opaque block with an iron bar window to shoot thru, no mobs in sight...and they still randomly die. Edit the config so they become invincible...and they glitch through the floor.

Now I have to redesign everything to make use of more traditional kill mechanisms. Thanks for the help in understanding how the various forms of bundled redstone work tho.

 

[Saice]

You could always go with a quicksand system.


Jazz Hands by Saice, on Flickr

 

[EternalDensity]

You could always go with a quicksand system.


Jazz Hands by Saice, on Flickr

I like quicksand but don't know where to find any on the server. (I didn't realise we have any actually. I thought it went out with EBXL)

 

[fergcraft]

I like quicksand but don't know where to find any on the server. (I didn't realise we have any actually. I thought it went out with EBXL)

oh no biomes a plenty has it too I stumbled on some

 

[Bellaabzug21]

So after a quick bit of testing I built this. Its fairly compact and works great, just ask if you need me to explain anything (Note: I apologise for the task bar at the bottom but I'm currently on a mac and for some reason the in-game screen shot system seems to work poorly)

I don't know much about mob spawners, but I don't think that they're able to spawn anything if there's a solid block adjacent to them. Not sure about SS spawners though.