Better Than Wolves Forum

I've been trying to work out how to make an inexpensive, vertically stackable piston pusher pyramid trap thing for farming gold swords. I could do this with repeaters and in a more compact fashion, but the addition of a clock in the crafting recipe for them makes them prohibitivly expensive so I'd rather avoid them.

The cheapest layout I've found uses 1 sticky piston, 1 wood pressure plate and 2 redstone torches like so: (P piston, S solid, \ torch on side, [_] air, _ for pleasure plate)

[P]
[\] _
[_][\]

So whilst it's possible to stack (if you go high enough) and I'd probably end up doing it like that, was wondering how other people have made their traps?

I'm by no means a guru (or good at this game), but that design is the best I've ever seen as well. It also has the useful effect that the pigmen won't try to jump. The vertical space is expensive, though.

I tend to be a cheapskate, accept the efficiency hit, and use vine traps and a fall (unless that's been nerfed while I wasn't watching). :P

If you think in 3D and use an alternating design- you can half that cost again while being more vertically compact.

That's the exact design I use, it has worked extremely well. I find the best way is to make an inverse funnel using that design, feeding into a 2x2 area with saws and chopping blocks. This means mobs that spawn high up hit every successive layer below this, though it still goes through pretty quickly being a fully active design.

This is what I mean:
[P]
[\] _
[_][\]
[_][_]
[_][P]
[_][\] _
[_][_][\]

The only disadvantage is the ungodly amount of vertical space it takes up.

Has anyone tried building a straight piston trap using tripwires? Or is there something about tripwires that makes this unfeasible?

I did. works great.
Per spawn space you will need
1 Pistons
1 Redstone
1 String

Plus the 2 hooks at the end of the line.

I do recommend a DB which resets the redstone to the pistons periodically, because sometimes a mob will get stuck between the pistons and blocks the entire line.

Bio_Logisch wrote:I do recommend a DB which resets the redstone to the pistons periodically, because sometimes a mob will get stuck between the pistons and blocks the entire line.

Is this still an issue if you use a sticky piston + block to push em instead? Also, I assume you can combine it with a pulser line, so it just pushes briefly, instead of staying stuck.

Yeah I had the same problem, unless you stack them directly on top of each other (i.e. to make use of fall damage) then it won't work like that

DiamondArms wrote:
I hear tripwires are a cheap and hopefully more viable option for this case.

Downside of this is you lose spawn spots at the corners since you have to have a place for the latch end point.

angra_mania wrote:I'm trying to apply this design for my own nether mob trap but the redstone torch in red keeps powering the piston below it. Is that right or should I have another solid layer in between?

Agh it's been a while since I've made something like that, I guess I remembered it wrong. The way pistons get powered from above can be a bit janky.
I think that that way had been my original plan, but I had to modify it when I actually built it.

The issue (or at least my issue) with tripwires is it would activate the entire row at once, which may not be a huge issue, but I prefer to have individual activation for each square.

Here's a few options I came up with: -The first is simply the one I stated before shifted up a block, although that eats up a lot of vertical space.
-The second is the former without the offset, however this is much more expensive in terms of killing mechanisms, as it doesn't automatically shove mobs to a central spot (although for a nether trap you theoretically could use lava to push the mobs into an isolated killing room).
-The third is the most compact, but requires a lot of gold because of the repeaters, though you could alternate repeaters and redstone dust EDIT: doing that will activate the pistons below, although it does turn off, meaning it could work, but would just be slower, therefore decreasing output. The other downside is it could cause lag because of all the lighting updates, though you could light the whole thing with jack-o-lanterns or torches, which would still let nether mobs spawn (glowstone would not work because it is not technically a solid block).

Thanks for the tips!

I've managed to come up with a dastardly mix of both tripwire and pressure plate design. Hard to describe. It isn't quite finished as I've run out of resources but have a pic of work in progress:
What happened was I did the tripwires first, then realised I had quite a bit of space left over... so I stuck the pressure plate traps in the gaps, creating what looks like a double spiral. It leads down to a 2x1 gap to the saws, though it could just as easily have been a 1x1 gap with a single saw.

I suck at algebra (maybe someone bored can work it out) but basically the spawn pads start 2x1 (2x), then 3x1 (2x), 4x1 (2x), 5x1 (2x) etc.

Honestly, I haven't tested how effective it is so have no idea if pigmen are going to get stuck there so copy at own risk :)

edit: more pics. simple wiring behind plus easy access