OK, so here I present a problem, and a call for possible solutions from the community!
What is it?
I wanted to create an automatic Chicken Grinder... one that ostensibly (but not necessarily) provides cooked chicken as output along with feathers.
So... I've spent the better part of the week trying different concepts, all of which have a particular drawback, which I'll outline below.
Now, *cooked* chicken would be a bonus, but I would accept raw, and cook it manually in my free time.
To Wit: I first tried dropping chicken through lava, but they are WAY too light... unlike heavy mobs like cows, sheep, and pigs, they die as soon as they touch, and the drops burn up.
OK, so the lava-dip is out, as far as a strategy.
Forcing a chicken down a confined water-chute over magma cubes is a viable alternative, one I've used in Creative (using command blocks as spawners)... as long as they take burn damage from a magma cube, you can get cooked chicken.
This leads me to the second problem I've encountered:
A chicken is ONLY 0.7 cube (meter) tall!!! This makes top-burning impossible, and it also makes top-pushing (like you do with big mobs) impossible!!
A cow, you can have a piston on the second-high block, and push it of the grass block it spawns on. That clears whatever detector you use. A chicken, the piston would have to push through the detector, breaking the system.
For example: I have a spawner, and a single grass block for the spawn point... about the only way to detect the presence of the chicken, is to use a tripwire. And, the ONLY way to push the chicken off would be with a piston, breaking the tripwire that sends the signal to grind.
SO... I had the brilliant idea to spawn the chicken on a grass block under a tripwire... and upon signal, PULL the grass block out from under the chicken, dropping it into the grind-works.
PROBLEM: chickens often do NOT spawn close to the center of the block!! The center of the chicken will spawn *somewhere* over the grass... but that means as many times as not, it will be far enough to one side, such that the chicken's hitbox will overlap the neighboring block.
In this event, the piston retracts the grass block, and the darned chicken hangs on the edge of the next block (hugging the tripwire hook), giving you the troll-face while it's SUPPOSED to be falling to its demise.
Now here's the tickler:
it IS possible to create a smash-grinder that uses no detection to discover a chicken spawning on the grass. It consists of a clocked piston continuously stomping the grass block where chickens will spawn. Of course, there is no detection apparatus to be destroyed by the piston; it is taken for granted there will be a chicken there at some point which will be smothered by a piston-driven block.
This can be combined with a bit of clever redstone to alternately wash the block(s) with water to shove drops to a hopper between suffocation mashes.
So, MY CHALLENGE:
Can anyone brain-up a system that
1) detects the chicken spawning (without using a free-running masher),
and
2) successfully grinds it every time, no hangups. (cooking not required, but a bonus!)
Looking forward to your thoughts, everyone. Have fun with this!
What is it?
I wanted to create an automatic Chicken Grinder... one that ostensibly (but not necessarily) provides cooked chicken as output along with feathers.
So... I've spent the better part of the week trying different concepts, all of which have a particular drawback, which I'll outline below.
Now, *cooked* chicken would be a bonus, but I would accept raw, and cook it manually in my free time.
To Wit: I first tried dropping chicken through lava, but they are WAY too light... unlike heavy mobs like cows, sheep, and pigs, they die as soon as they touch, and the drops burn up.
OK, so the lava-dip is out, as far as a strategy.
Forcing a chicken down a confined water-chute over magma cubes is a viable alternative, one I've used in Creative (using command blocks as spawners)... as long as they take burn damage from a magma cube, you can get cooked chicken.
This leads me to the second problem I've encountered:
A chicken is ONLY 0.7 cube (meter) tall!!! This makes top-burning impossible, and it also makes top-pushing (like you do with big mobs) impossible!!
A cow, you can have a piston on the second-high block, and push it of the grass block it spawns on. That clears whatever detector you use. A chicken, the piston would have to push through the detector, breaking the system.
For example: I have a spawner, and a single grass block for the spawn point... about the only way to detect the presence of the chicken, is to use a tripwire. And, the ONLY way to push the chicken off would be with a piston, breaking the tripwire that sends the signal to grind.
SO... I had the brilliant idea to spawn the chicken on a grass block under a tripwire... and upon signal, PULL the grass block out from under the chicken, dropping it into the grind-works.
PROBLEM: chickens often do NOT spawn close to the center of the block!! The center of the chicken will spawn *somewhere* over the grass... but that means as many times as not, it will be far enough to one side, such that the chicken's hitbox will overlap the neighboring block.
In this event, the piston retracts the grass block, and the darned chicken hangs on the edge of the next block (hugging the tripwire hook), giving you the troll-face while it's SUPPOSED to be falling to its demise.
Now here's the tickler:
it IS possible to create a smash-grinder that uses no detection to discover a chicken spawning on the grass. It consists of a clocked piston continuously stomping the grass block where chickens will spawn. Of course, there is no detection apparatus to be destroyed by the piston; it is taken for granted there will be a chicken there at some point which will be smothered by a piston-driven block.
This can be combined with a bit of clever redstone to alternately wash the block(s) with water to shove drops to a hopper between suffocation mashes.
So, MY CHALLENGE:
Can anyone brain-up a system that
1) detects the chicken spawning (without using a free-running masher),
and
2) successfully grinds it every time, no hangups. (cooking not required, but a bonus!)
Looking forward to your thoughts, everyone. Have fun with this!