Help needed with wiring on a mob spawner attempt...

[Sarelth]

Hoi, I have to admit that redstone wiring vexes me...

Anyways, I was attempting to build a decent mob spawner based off a tutorial video I found.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6PIuNTL6RQ for anyone interested.
And when it gets to the Redstone wiring part I get completely lost and confused.

I was wondering if anyone cared to look over my build and see if there was a good way to wire it so that it worked properly.
Any help would be muchly appreciated.

Here is a dl for a ripped out copy of my mobspawner.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11163785/MobSpawnTesting.rar

[Eriottosan]

BTW (IIRC) fixes mobs not moving when you aren't nearby. My mob trap in my latest world (restarted to test out hardcores from a starting PoV) has no redstone at all, and is outputting rather well. It just has spawner pads with drops, water on the bottom level leading to a wall-o'-saws, and soulsand/normal hoppers on the other side. I haven't got to filtering drops yet, but I will. So yeah, BTW strikes again.

[Sarelth]

I know BTW fixes the *Stand still with thumb up ass* mobs issue.
I would like to be able to make a good mob spawner that works with or without BTW though.
This build is new to me and I suck at Redstone badly. I liked the layout for the build though, just can not figure out the best way to wire it up to get the results for it.

I am still looking for a really nice spawner layout. And this was my goal to find before BTW updates. :)

On a side note:
Bats are fucking annoying......
And I found Silverfish blocks randomly in the depth of my world. No stronghold anywhere nearby...

[ExpHP]

I don't think a manual mob trap like that will provide nearly enough of output for the kind of stuff you need for e.g. Infernal Enchantments. Also, while this design works in vanilla, it requires HCB to be off in BTW. In general, a vine trap-based mob trap would be much easier to build and far more productive. (and when playing in vanilla, you can use the same design with signs instead of vine traps) (never mind; this is exactly the kind of thing that the new AI prevents)

Nonetheless, I'll take a closer look and try to work out the redstone for it. And we should definitely put this thing on a clock.

[ExpHP]

First, the piston wiring:

Pistons, like most vanilla blocks, are a bit too easy to power. Strangely enough, you can power a piston like this.

Spoiler

Show

Power flows into the block under the redstone and indirectly powers the piston.

Secondly, because the levels are 2-high each, it's tricky to get a nice looking repeating pattern, but it's easy enough to improvise if you just watch which torches actually end up powering the redstone over each piston (make sure they're all the same state). Here's something I threw together in a couple seconds:

Spoiler

Show

The basic rule of thumb here is: Blocks are powered from torches below and/or redstone to the side. A torch on a powered block turns off. Just keep messing around until you get something that works. After you spend enough time with redstone, this sort of stuff just becomes second nature.
The pistons are behind the iron blocks. There is redstone on top of bricks and iron.

You should also notice that I inverted the signal leading to the left. That way, the pistons on the next side will be in the opposite state from this side.

For Vanilla, the current setup at the bottom is fine. Pressing the switch will toggle everything. But if you're playing BTW, you really need to automate it:

Spoiler

Show

instead of the manual switch, you'll want a timer leading into a T-Flip-Flop. A timer will send a pulse every now and then to flip the mob trap, and the T Flip-Flop will toggle on and off every time it gets that pulse; together, they're like an automatic switch. You can find examples of both of these on youtube (try to get a timer of decent length though; having that thing toggle every 5 seconds will lag you to hell). BTW allows for some especially nice T Flip-Flops using BDs.

You'll also want a killing mechanism at the bottom. Punching mobs to death is pointless in BTW.

[Sarelth]

Thanks. That is pretty much the kind of thing I needed.
I am trying to find a effective and reliable mob trap that I can make in Vanilla that will port over to BTW.

This really helped, thanks.