Cactus Farm Reworked [Ultimate City Post 4]

I redid the cactus farm building and I like how it turned out. The exterior, although a little dull, is definitely not as blocky and square as I thought it might be. In fact the back side seems to be like a semicircle.

I feel it is much smoother looking. The sand is now held in air with dirt, instead of intersecting and complicating the water streams themselves.

When you see the pressure plates that hold back the water, you may be tempted to think it's wired so that stepping on one of those will activated. It's actually button operated,  however in the future I could possibly add a switch which would control which one of those activates it. Here's a look up to the top of this massive building.

I've already begun prototyping for the wheat farm and I've realized, I could make this a much shorter building by having more than just 8 cacti growing per level and using a gradual slope. This would compact the redstone wiring too. The building is somewhere around 50 meters tall. I could easily shrink it to about half of that. Maybe in the future.

Internally, not much of the design has changed except for the addition of levels. The double chests and workbench are still tucked in the corner. To provide some lighting, I've placed glowstone underneath the double chests. Kinda neat looking.

In the last model, the redstone wiring was placed on sandstone blocks. I want to differentiate the blocks used for the wiring from the blocks used for design. So now all the wiring is done with planks. I may decide to make this a theme throughout the city, wires on planks. The redstone scheme is no different from what it was before, so I shall refrain from explaining it again. I did remove the testing switch though. I couldn't find a good way to sneak it in without having long rows of planks and redstone. Just another thing to add to the possible to-do list.

The entrance to the wiring room.

And a nice sunrise shot of the two buildings, the starting points of the Ultimate City.

The Ultimate City is going to probably be a perpetual project. As in, I don't know if it will ever actually be formally finished. There's so much you can add to a city, so much automation and redstone that can be put to make things ever more efficient and convenient. In a way, the City is organic. It grows, evolves, expands. As people provide input and I learn more, parts of it may appear, disappear, or change. That's the nature of Minecraft for you, always more to learn and do!

Cactus Farm Prototype [Ultimate City Post 3]

Next to work on in the City is the cactus farm. Ideally I wish to get it so each time I harvest, it will yield about a stack's worth of cactus. I expected the current design to do that. However I get half a stack on average. When you see how large the farm is as well as how much redstone goes into it, I feel that it's not worth it. Therefore I am going to basically tear down the current one and replace it with a simpler design that should do the trick.

Shown above is the current design inside the farm. Four levels of 8 cacti. On the sides and the back is a compartment where all the redstone is. The wiring is not very complex.

Close up of a typical level. The upper three just float in the air, no water. In an earlier design on my 1.0.0 non-legit world I had water on the upper level, not realizing cactus could grow without water.

Where the cacti collect. The pressure plates serve to conveniently stop the water. The button shown is what activates the pistons to harvest.

This door and button lead to the room where the redstone is stored and accessed. On the other side of the door is a pressure plate because hey, if you were permitted to enter, there's no reason exiting should be any more difficult than walking out.

Now we are getting to the redstone. The two torches on the right side of the screen react to the button for harvesting. This is its default state. The lower torch is on the same block as the button. When the button is hit the torch turns off. Then the upper torch is turned on, and it powers the wiring and activates the pistons.

Notice the switch and signs? That's a testing feature for maintenance work. Each level has a torch which turns off when the level is powered. The switch forces the circuit to turn on. If I ever see one of the torches doesn't turn on, I can know the circuit has been damaged some how.

The redstone staircase that connects the four levels. Compact spiral formation. I could have used torches instead but this is quicker and in any case, I couldn't figure out the right orientation of torches.

Looking up into the completed farm system.

The four test torches. The circuit is not powered so they are on. If I were to power the circuit and they didn't go out, something would be wrong.

Facing down from the top of the farm. Notice the first signs of a floor pattern - a smooshed Creeper face. Perhaps in the reconstruction stage I will expand the building to accommodate a full face.

What I'm going to do is make a single water current that takes all the water to one location and then have the sets of 8 cactus floating above it. Going to need 8 levels. Not impossible, but time consuming. I want to consider also making something of a panel of test torches so that instead of looking up, I just need to turn my head to, say, the left.

Livestream Recording - Tree Farm 1

http://www.livestream.com/youssarian/video?clipId=flv_9487045f-1910-4569-a974-7606eb320b86&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb

That is the link to the live stream of me building the tree farm. Check it out and let me know what you think! It's about 28 minutes long, nothing too lengthy.