News - Minecraft 1.9

Apparently Minecraft 1.8 was not good enough for Mojang. It has been nearly a month since the release of Minecraft 1.8, and Mojang has already released a beta 1.9 pre-release, with many new blocks and features.

There are many new features in 1.9, but Minecrafters are mostly exited for the "Villagers". Essentially, these villagers live in the small randomly generated houses, found in update 1.8. These strange creatures are harmless, yet frightening.

















Another known feature appearing in update 1.9 is the swamp biome. This biome is much darker than normal, bereaved of life. Grass looks dead, tree's have darker leaves and suspend vines, and water is murky. Also, new with 1.9 are lily pads. These float on water and are found mostly in swamps.

(image showing the new swamp biome, compared with the regular biome)

(Image showing mostly the swamp biome water color difference)

Their are also many other tweaks, not yet confirmed. They can be found here. -Brandon Richardson

News - Minecraft 1.8

As many of you know, Minecraft 1.8 is officially available. It has been released today for the public, and if you havent downloaded it yet, update minecraft. Minecraft 1.8 is possibly the biggest update yet, with all sorts of new features:

+ Added a brand new biome generation code that simplifies life a lot and makes things much more exciting for the future
+ Added new mob; Endermen
+ Added FOV slider
+ Added brightness slider
+ Added randomly generated ravines
+ Killing a monster makes it drop experience orbs
+ The player can level up by gathering experience orbs
+ Added randomly generated houses
+ Added huge mushrooms
+ Using bonemeal on small mushrooms grows the mushroom into a giant mushroom if there’s room
+ Rewrote the light rendering to use multitexturing instead of direct colors
+ Sky light and block light have different tints, cool colors for sky light, warm for block lights
+ Added critical hits that deal +50% damage, plus an extra point to make crits with weak weapons worth it
+ If the player hits a mob while falling, they always hit a critical hit
+ The game now keeps track of damage sources and types
+ Some damage type ignore armor now; drowning, being on fire (but not being IN a fire), falling out of the world
+ Ice now only spreads next to existing ice or from coast areas
+ Made the explosions prettier
+ Made level height depend on a single variable (the level height still is 128, but it’s more moddable now)
+ Added sprinting
+ Added hunger
+ Food is now stackable
+ Improved the logo
+ Added suspended particles to water
+ Added a server list so you can remember multiple servers
+ The player regenerates slowly while the food bar is high
+ Eating food now takes time
+ Skeletons hold their bows better now
+ Added melons
+ Made melons and pumpkins farmable
+ Animals that get hurt will flee randomly for a short while
+ Pigs have snouts now
+ Made a flashier title screen
+ Looking towards the sun during sunset/sunrise changes fog color
+ Added fence gates
+ Added a player list to multiplayer
+ Added Silverfish
+ Added Cave Spider
+ Added huge underground dungeons (stronghold)
+ Added underground mine shafts
+ Added melon
+ Added sprouts for melons and pumpkins
+ Added vines
+ Added iron bars
* Fixed mushrooms spreading infinitely
* Fixed caves generating with too many dead ends
- Removed Herobrine

Pulse Generators

Pulse generators, or "clocks", are devices which create a current that constantly toggle on and off. Pulse generators are variable, which means you are able to make different clocks for each frequency of flickering, to a degree. They can be used for many different projects such as an automatic dispenser turret and self-building bridges/houses.


Creating:

Clocks can be made many different ways. The most efficient clock in terms of required materials is a 4 clock, shown above.
This clock design is very unstable however, because the redstone torch burns out after a while if it is set to either 1 or
2 ticks (0.1-0.2 seconds), otherwise when set to 3 or 4 ticks (0.3-0.4 seconds) is it perfectly stable. The simplest clock, which can be up to 4 ticks, doesn't require a redstone torch, but requires 2 repeaters. Another design, which is semi-simple and somewhat costly in materials, is a sticky piston clock. It uses 1 sticky piston, a lever, as many repeaters as desired, wire and any piston-pushable block.

Repeaters

(For creating repeaters, see *Redstone Dust crafting combinations)

Redstone repeaters have three main fuctions. They act as a repeater, a diode and a delayer. They can be used to delay the charge given off from a button, they can also be used for pulse generator or clocks (see Pulse Generators for more information). They are the simplified and compact version of NOT gates, which have the same uses. Repeaters can be set to 4 different delays: 1 to 4 ticks. Each tick represents 0.1 seconds, so 1 tick = 0.1 seconds, 2 ticks = 0.2 seconds, and so on. Repeaters are generally used to "refresh" a current, allowing it to travel another 16 pieces of wire.

(Click for larger Image)
As wire/diode:

The repeater only accepts input from its "back" (the side closest to you when you place it) and only sends output to its "front" (the opposite side). It does not interact with any of its other neighbouring spaces. This makes it quite useful in tightly packed circuits.

Any of the following can serve as an input to a repeater when placed dirrectly behind it:
-A piece of redstone wire, which will automatically attach itself to the repeater (as of 1.7)
-A redstone torch
-A block charged by wire or any other method
-Any type of switch (See Switches)
-Another repeater pointing in the same direction

Any of the following can serve as an output to a repeater when placed dirrectly infront of it:
-A piece of redstone wire, regardless of the orientation
-Any type of block that can be charged
-Any device that can be controlled by redstone
-Another repeater pointing in the same direction

As delayers

As mentioned above, repeaters can be used as a delayer for redstone current. They have 4 different presets, each adding 0.1 seconds to the delay, and can be chained to provide longer delays.

Repeaters greatly simplify the construction of delay lines and provide far more granular timing than chains of redstone torches. For example, a repeater with a long line of redstone for delay would blink faster than the same design with repeaters set to four every other piece of redstone, allowing for more compact slowed down clocks.

-Joshua Richardson

News - Minecraft 1.8 Trailer

Minecraft's massive Adventure Update 1.8 has been leaked -- by Mojang right-hand man, Jens Bergensten, or Jeb. Minecraft creator Markus Persson is content with the leak, as shown through his subtle use of a winking emoticon in this tweet, and the following message, which says, "(I am fine with you using it. Make sure you get it from the leaked url we are hosting, though)."

















Jeb affirmed his part in the leak with yet another emoticon, in the long-eyed equals-sign style, on a Reddit post. Jeb had previously tweeted he would upload the jar file for "expert users," which is exactly what he did nine hours later. If you're an expert Minecrafter, download the file here and get your adventure started.

When a developer leaks its own game a few days early, we think that should just be called a release. But hey, what do we know?

-Brandon Richardson

Redstone Dust Crafting Combinations

Redstone circuitry is a fairly complex Minecraft phenomenon, thus allowing you to create several complex apparatuses. With redstone dust, you can create wire, as well as several combinations such as Redstone Torches, Repeaters, Clocks, Compasses, Note Blocks, Powered Minerails, Detector Rails, Dispensers and the fabulous Pistons. Below is images of every Redstone combination on a workbench.




-Brandon Richardson

Powering

Redstone wire, has two simple states. On and off. To power redstone wire, 1 of 4 switches must be activated. Redstone wire can be used to power various items from a distance, such as doors, trapdoors similarily, powered rails and pistons. Redstone wire can send a charge through a block and into any of the items listed above and more. It cannot send a charge through a block and into more redstone wire unless a redstone repeater is on the other side of that block, facing away from the switch.

Here's an example.
* = switch
- = wire
> = repeater
[ ] = block (stone, wood, grass)
a = item Unpowered
A = item powered

(Click for larger view)




*---[ ]---a

(Click For Larger View)

*---[ ]A

(Click For Larger View)



*---[ ]>---A

(Click For Larger View)

You can also chain redstone signal through blocks using repeaters, which doesn't require redstone wire, however it is not efficient because repeaters use much more redstone dust to be fabricated. Here's an example.




*>[ ]>[ ]>[ ]>[ ]>--A

-Joshua Richardson

Switches

There are currently four switches that allow you to power redstone, including buttons, levers and pressure plates(Wooden and stone).

Levers power redstone until they is switched off, buttons, after being pushed, send a charge to
objects for 0.9 seconds, then powers off. Pressure plates are activated many different ways: They can be aciftivated
by a mob or player walking on one, by a minecart landing on one, if an item lands on one (wooden pressure plate only) or if arrows are shot at one.

Methods to activate pressure plates are subject to type, as only wooden pressure plates are activated by arrows and dropped items. Detector rails can also be used as

-Joshua Richardson