Minecraft Java Edition – How to Stop a Minecart at a Random Moment?

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I'm working on a roulette table on a server that I'm playing on, inspired by MagmaMusen's video on YouTube:

It uses a minecart with an armor stand inside it. The minecart is not visible, but the top of the iron helmet on the armor stand is visible like a moving square on top of the diferent-coloured carpets above the minecart. The minecart goes in a circle (about 3×3 blocks big) on powered rails, until a player flicks a lever and stops the minecart by turning off the rails.

The main flaw of this is that the moment the roulette stops isn't random. This could cause some arguing between the players. How can I avoid this problem? Is it possible to have a button that will stop the rails at a random moment instead of the lever?

It would also be nice if you could avoid using too complicated redstone circuits and command blocks.

Note:
You can check out MagmaMusen's video "How to make a Working Roulette Table" if you didn't get the way it works from my explanation.

Best Answer

You want a system that will use a random feature of the game. I used dispensers. The redstone on the image looks a bit big, but I just placed the parts of it farther away to look less complicated. Here's some images:

Now, let's dig deeper:

Start button
Button Switch. Each time the input signal goes off, the output signal changes (goes on if it was off and vice versa) - something like a button to lever converter. Here's how it works:

The input must power both pistons at once.

Fast Redstone clock
Piston on/off switch for the clock
Randomizer. There's a dispenser with 8 stacks of items which won't pass through the water (eg. chicken eggs or snowballs) and 1 stack which will (normal items). The system will power the Dispenser each second until a shooted item powers the pressure plate. To reset it just go to the sign and collect the item. A screenshot:

Roulette (minecart stopper)
Signal shortener - basically a lever to button converter. This sends a short signal each time it's powered.
Minecart releaser. This will release the Minecart onto the roulette rail.

Related Solutions

Minecraft – How do Minecart with Hoppers work

Hopper minecarts are useful for advanced redstone machines and automation, however, in many instances, you'll find that using a storage minecart to be more useful. For simple transport, storage minecarts hold more, and are automatically emptied the same way: with a hopper beneath the track.

The one main advantage with using a hopper minecart instead of a storage minecart would be to automate some farms, such as melon or pumpkin farms. Hopper minecarts can pick up item entities on and around the track, allowing you to break the melon or pumpkin with a piston, and have the minecart pick everything up instead of making you walk through the farm, although in my brief testing, the naive design isn't great.

Like many other things in Minecraft, you're really only limited by your imagination as to what you can build.

Minecraft – How to power a row of droppers efficiently from side or bottom

The most resource efficient way I can come up with to power a horizontal line of droppers is this

enter image description here

with the redstone line on the left being connected to a clock. This works because the repeaters strongly power the dropper they are pointing into causing the droppers to the left and right to be indirectly powered.

The vertical line of droppers is powered as described in this Youtube video, with a comparator being used to send a (inverted by a redstone torch) signal to a vertical stack of redstone torches powering repeaters pointing into every 2nd vertical dropper.

With regards to the specific situation you are in the most resource efficient way to get the mobs from the exit of the spawner to the 'home' area would be to bring them up high enough using a mob elevator (a 1x1 tube filled with alternating water blocks and signs will cause the mobs to swim themselves up to the top) to a point where they can be dropped down the required number of blocks.

The only pitfall with this type of system is ensuring that the mobs fall a consistent distance everytime. All that is required to do this is to ensure that the water stream at the top of the elevator is set up like this

XXXXXXXXXX
X        X
X~~~~~S  X
XSXXXXX  X

(where ~ = water and S is a sign)

So that mobs get pushed into the drop shaft by other mobs pushing against them instead of directly by a water stream.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Minecraft – How do Minecart with Hoppers work

Minecraft – How to power a row of droppers efficiently from side or bottom

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