Companion Cube Guard

[Tuschi]

Ok, first thing, I just want to point out that I have no idea of how modding things into Minecraft works, so, if I'm asking for something that's near impossible, please tell me.

Now, to the idea. Something I've always hated is walking outside of my house and finding out that a creeper or other aggressive mob was waiting for me. Of course, using windows has always helped, but I don't want to make my whole house almost entirely out of glass, so I can still get surprised. What I was thinking was of fusing the companion cube with a detector, or something like that. What would then happen was that you could plonk it down in front of your house and it would, I dunno, send a redstone signal, or howl, maybe, if any mob was in it's sight, thus, if you were about to leave, you could have a torch that would light up if any mob was outside. Initially, I'd thought of giving it a visual range, like a 10x10 vision, but I guess that would be pretty hard to add in, so I figured maybe just make it have a direct line of sight, like the detector, but make it only be activated by hostile mobs, not passive ones or the player. I figure this should be possible, since the Obsidian Pressure Plate only noticed the player, I guess you can make a detector that only noticed mobs.This could eventually have other uses, like making traps only activated by hostiles, or a gate that closes whenever enemies are near, but is open the rest of the time.

Thanks for any feedback :)

Once again, I apologize in advance if this is insanely complex or nigh impossible.

[KriiEiter]

You're basically suggesting what the Lens will do (except only detecting hostile mobs).

Pretty sure that the "beam" can detect when it's interrupted by anything passing in front of it, so you can make a tripwire device.

[Tuschi]

ahh, sorry about that, hadn't heard about that planned addition yet. Looked at the wiki's tech tree and didn't see anything like that, didn't find it, didn't know it was planned. Still, if it essentially does the same thing as what I said but without making any distinction between what crosses it, doesn't that essentially make it the same as the detector block? Unless I misunderstood you?

[Stormweaver]

ha, he's got you there. Worth noting is the fact that the lens is still far, farr away, as steve doesn't have nearly the tech to build it yet.

I had a thought earlier today that the companion cube could do something like this, but it only detects wolves. And maybe attract them. But then I realised it's supposed to just be a fun feature, not something remotely useful ^.^

Decent idea though. In the meantime, build a small front garden with fences around it, that does the trick.

[KriiEiter]

Really just build walls and make sure everything is lit up on the inside of them (including your rooftops). And yes, it's similar to a detector block (I think a detector block is used to receive the beam) except that it would be across a straight line path.

Also know that this is somewhat speculation as the Lens isn't completely finished or ready to be implemented.

[the_fodder]

If that detect hostile mobs within X blocks of a sitting wolf was part of the original release they might have been useful.

[Conscript Gary]

Yeah. I certainly wouldn't mind the noise so much if they barked their heads off at creepers

[FlowerChild]

If that detect hostile mobs within X blocks of a sitting wolf was part of the original release they might have been useful.

Not useful? But you can wave them about and throw them!

[Kwilt]

If that detect hostile mobs within X blocks of a sitting wolf was part of the original release they might have been useful.

Not useful? But you can wave them about and throw them!

Flower, I think he's talking about wolves, not companion cubes. >_>

Unless you've invented some form of wolf-launching mechanism. In that case, quit hoarding. D:

[the_fodder]

correct KWilt i am talking about the woofies that Notch put in.

[Tuschi]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Anyways, yeah, I know I can just light stuff up, but even then it's annoying, having to place torches everywhere around my garden, even if I make them kinda like lamp posts using glowstone, still, I guess it's not really a problem or anything, just something I thought might be useful, after all, wolves were given a singular use: dung, so i figured, hey, why not, make this cube be less of a hazard and make it even help you out be barking when it sees a creeper admiring your house. Still, thanks guys :P

[Kwilt]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Anyways, yeah, I know I can just light stuff up, but even then it's annoying, having to place torches everywhere around my garden, even if I make them kinda like lamp posts using glowstone, still, I guess it's not really a problem or anything, just something I thought might be useful, after all, wolves were given a singular use: dung, so i figured, hey, why not, make this cube be less of a hazard and make it even help you out be barking when it sees a creeper admiring your house. Still, thanks guys :P

May I suggest a fence that hangs 3+ over your garden, and glowstone every so many fence posts, purely for stylization reasons? Then, you wouldn't need fence posts.

Or, possibly, a few rows of light blocks as a roof for transparency, with a switch for at night?

[Tuschi]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Anyways, yeah, I know I can just light stuff up, but even then it's annoying, having to place torches everywhere around my garden, even if I make them kinda like lamp posts using glowstone, still, I guess it's not really a problem or anything, just something I thought might be useful, after all, wolves were given a singular use: dung, so i figured, hey, why not, make this cube be less of a hazard and make it even help you out be barking when it sees a creeper admiring your house. Still, thanks guys :P

May I suggest a fence that hangs 3+ over your garden, and glowstone every so many fence posts, purely for stylization reasons? Then, you wouldn't need fence posts.

Or, possibly, a few rows of light blocks as a roof for transparency, with a switch for at night?

Lol, I'd been thinking about making a glass roof like that, definate idea, although I'll probably go with the glowstone lamps, since I made a very large base, so the amount of light blocks i'd need for the roof would be absurd, base has 120x80 territory surrounded by a wall, so it would be... 9.6k blocks, or, considering the space the castle/fortress takes up, maybe half of that, still, thanks, I'll get right to it after my next nether expedition.

[Fracture]

If that detect hostile mobs within X blocks of a sitting wolf was part of the original release they might have been useful.

Not useful? But you can wave them about and throw them!

Flower, I think he's talking about wolves, not companion cubes. >_>

Unless you've invented some form of wolf-launching mechanism. In that case, quit hoarding. D:

Ah, the pistons, pre-integration. Wolf launching at its best.

[Kwilt]

If that detect hostile mobs within X blocks of a sitting wolf was part of the original release they might have been useful.

Not useful? But you can wave them about and throw them!

Flower, I think he's talking about wolves, not companion cubes. >_>

Unless you've invented some form of wolf-launching mechanism. In that case, quit hoarding. D:

Ah, the pistons, pre-integration. Wolf launching at its best.

Well, you could just download the post-integration rollback patch that allows for pistons to launch entities. :D

/totally uses it for his TNT cannons.

[KriiEiter]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Anyways, yeah, I know I can just light stuff up, but even then it's annoying, having to place torches everywhere around my garden, even if I make them kinda like lamp posts using glowstone, still, I guess it's not really a problem or anything, just something I thought might be useful, after all, wolves were given a singular use: dung, so i figured, hey, why not, make this cube be less of a hazard and make it even help you out be barking when it sees a creeper admiring your house. Still, thanks guys :P

May I suggest a fence that hangs 3+ over your garden, and glowstone every so many fence posts, purely for stylization reasons? Then, you wouldn't need fence posts.

Or, possibly, a few rows of light blocks as a roof for transparency, with a switch for at night?

Lol, I'd been thinking about making a glass roof like that, definate idea, although I'll probably go with the glowstone lamps, since I made a very large base, so the amount of light blocks i'd need for the roof would be absurd, base has 120x80 territory surrounded by a wall, so it would be... 9.6k blocks, or, considering the space the castle/fortress takes up, maybe half of that, still, thanks, I'll get right to it after my next nether expedition.

You'd need WAAAAAAAY more glowstone dust to make glowstones. You only need 1 glowstone dust for each lightblock. 3 glass, 1 glowstone dust, 1 redstone dust is way more cost effective than 9 glowstone dust in my opinion.

[Battosay]

You only need 4 dust to make Glowstone now ;)
But you're still right ^^

[Kwilt]

You only need 4 dust to make Glowstone now ;)
But you're still right ^^

It'd still be a lot of redstone. Fairly inefficient if he was making the whole ceiling out of light blocks.

[Deepsniper]

the most efficient source of light yet to be found by Steve i would have to say is lava as it can spread and doesn't involve any crafting whatsoever...

[Tuschi]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Anyways, yeah, I know I can just light stuff up, but even then it's annoying, having to place torches everywhere around my garden, even if I make them kinda like lamp posts using glowstone, still, I guess it's not really a problem or anything, just something I thought might be useful, after all, wolves were given a singular use: dung, so i figured, hey, why not, make this cube be less of a hazard and make it even help you out be barking when it sees a creeper admiring your house. Still, thanks guys :P

May I suggest a fence that hangs 3+ over your garden, and glowstone every so many fence posts, purely for stylization reasons? Then, you wouldn't need fence posts.

Or, possibly, a few rows of light blocks as a roof for transparency, with a switch for at night?

Lol, I'd been thinking about making a glass roof like that, definate idea, although I'll probably go with the glowstone lamps, since I made a very large base, so the amount of light blocks i'd need for the roof would be absurd, base has 120x80 territory surrounded by a wall, so it would be... 9.6k blocks, or, considering the space the castle/fortress takes up, maybe half of that, still, thanks, I'll get right to it after my next nether expedition.

You'd need WAAAAAAAY more glowstone dust to make glowstones. You only need 1 glowstone dust for each lightblock. 3 glass, 1 glowstone dust, 1 redstone dust is way more cost effective than 9 glowstone dust in my opinion.

true, but than again, with glowstone, I'd be placing a few lamp posts, with a roof, I'd actually need enough for a whole roof.

the most efficient source of light yet to be found by Steve i would have to say is lava as it can spread and doesn't involve any crafting whatsoever...

true, but I don't want huge fire hazards everywhere, I mean, I don't want it to be "slip here and burn to death, although perhaps I could replace the water moat with lava...although it would take an insane amount.

[KriiEiter]

You only need 4 dust to make Glowstone now ;)
But you're still right ^^

When did that happen? I haven't made glowstone since installing BTW, as I like the option to turn my lights on and off as well as the fact that they look better than most glowstone textures.

And I have overabundances of redstone at all times. Glowstone dust involves some danger of Ghasts, and or lava below it.

[Urian]

When did that happen? I haven't made glowstone since installing BTW, as I like the option to turn my lights on and off as well as the fact that they look better than most glowstone textures.

And I have overabundances of redstone at all times. Glowstone dust involves some danger of Ghasts, and or lava below it.

It's a vMC change that was introduced 1.6.6