Inactive [MECH] PorteCoulissante - Easy and realistic portcullises

Discussion in 'Inactive/Unsupported Plugins' started by Captain Chaos, Mar 6, 2011.

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  1. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    ****************************************************************************************
    PorteCoulissante moved to BukkitDev!

    PorteCoulissante has moved to BukkitDev! I will no longer be updating this thread, please use the BukkitDev page to keep track of developments, download the plugin and source code, read how to configure it and other details, etc.
    ****************************************************************************************

    PorteCoulissante - The easy and realistic portcullis plugin:

    Build redstone powered portcullises, without using commands! This is my first ever Minecraft plugin, so please be gentle! I needed a project for my first plugin, and I've always wanted a working portcullis in my town gate, so I decided to write this. I subsequently discovered that there already is a portcullis plugin (which is why I named mine after the French word that the word portcullis was derived from), but I think mine has enough distinguishing features to be useful.

    Download the latest release from the BukkitDev page.

    Also check out the new sister plugin, RetractableBridge, which does basically the same thing, only horizontally.

    Features:
    • It doesn't use commands. Just build the portcullis and it will work.
    • Stateless, i.e. it does not have to save anything on the server.
    • It's redstone powered, giving you flexibility in controlling it.
    • It is realistic. The portcullis does not disappear, but moves up and down just like a real one would.
    Usage:
    • Build the portcullis itself by stacking rows of fences (wood or iron), at least two wide and two high.
    • Build the wall around it to contain it. Leave enough empty space above the portcullis to allow it to go as high as you want it to go.
    • Power the portcullis by powering one of the blocks adjacent to it on either side, by attaching a lever or redstone dust. For now, the power has to come from the side.
    • The result should look something like this:
    [​IMG]
    • When the block is powered, the portcullis will start moving upwards, and will keep going until it hits something and can't go any further. It moves slowly, since a portcullis is heavy!
    • Important: make sure that when it is in the up position, it is still in contact with a powered block (the same one, or a different one).
    • When the power goes off, the portcullis will drop down (a lot faster than it went up).
    • Decorate the gate by building walls in front of and behind the portcullis to cover the empty space and to make it appear the portcullis is moving in a groove. Of course you can make it look any way you want! Here is an example:
    [​IMG]

    Hints and tips:
    • The portcullis can be any size you want, as long as it is at least two blocks wide and two blocks high. It must be rectangular though, and have no holes. If the portcullis breaks, it won't move any more until you repair it.
    • Try to make the empty space above the portcullis one block less high than the portcullis itself (like in the first picture above). That way, you only need to power one block (the one in the middle on either side), since that block will always be in contact with the portcullis.
    • Of course the empty space can be even smaller, if you want. The portcullis only has to go up two blocks to let people through, or three if you want the passage to be a little less claustrophobic.
    • The portcullis will go through (and hold back) water and lava, so you can make water gates and water or lava traps with them.
    More information:

    For download links, source code, configuration information and change logs, please see the BukkitDev page:

    http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/portecoulissante/
     
  2. Offline

    robbert777

    YAY he's dutch :) i remember using this plugin, i powered it and it flew away, i never saw it again, wait, that was 5 minutes ago :O
     
  3. Offline

    Ghostaunt

    I Think you don't understand me. I would like to say, on my server there are wars. It for an hour every week, a general war. And during this time they are required to open doors, And to be sure we would like it was us.
     
  4. Offline

    Maxis010

    This would require a database to track every portcullis, if it is up or down etc
    To me this seems like overkill for such a simple plugin

    I think what the Capt meant when he said that wouldn't be fair is he turned down a request for commands and configs less than a week ago, that or he doesn't think it's fair to force everyone to have a database and commands for the sake of one server

    Tell your users to open their culleses and if someone doesn't or closes one then punish them for it, seems simple enough
     
  5. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    No, I mean not fair in-game. IMHO it would not be fair to users if all their portcullises would suddenly and uncontrollably open, but of course it's different if it's a timed and regulated event, and in the end it's up to the server admin. You're right about the administrative overkill though, that's another reason.

    There are other reasons why I don't think it would be a good idea. The portcullis might be part of an intricate system, which will break if the portcullis unexpectedly opens (a lock, for instance (like an airlock, with two gates), or a combined portcullis / retractable bridge). It also may not be being used as a gate at all, but for instance to hold back water or lava. And finally it would probably create huge amounts of lag if all portcullises on the map would rise at the same time.

    But the main reason I probably won't implement this (definitely not anytime soon) is that it would require adding commands, and I don't like commands. Currently the plugin has no commands, and I did that on purpose. So adding this feature would require adding the entire command functionality, so it would be more work than the feature is worth (IMHO), as well as go against the plugin's commandless philosophy...

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 11, 2016
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    K4l3bMines

    Umm im new to this and i don't know where to put the file once i've downloaded it can anybody help me? please and thanks
     
  7. Offline

    gonk

    Put the .jar file in the folder named "plugins" generated first time you run the server, and enable the plugin in server.properties. There are tons of tutorials btw ^^
     
  8. Offline

    Maxis010

    Ignore that enable part, I have never needed to alter the server.properties for plugins so I have no idea where gonk is getting it from
    Any plugin inside the plugins folder is loaded by bukkit
     
  9. Offline

    gonk

    I tried to just place the .jars in my plugins folder but nothing happened ingame, then I trued to enabled them in the properties file and it worked. Maybe it's just some plugins that needs to be enabled?
     
  10. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    Did you restart the server after placing the .jar in the plugins directory? It only scans for plugins at startup. Maxis010 is right, there is no need to change server.properties, Bukkit does not look at that file at all. Although I guess it's possible that there are plugins which check for themselves whether they have been enabled in the server.properties file. That should be clearly documented in such a plugin's documentation though.
     
  11. Offline

    gonk

    No, I didn't, and after a little testing it seems you're right! :) Thanks.
     
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    tharvoil

    I've been using this plugin on my server for awhile now and I love it! I'm running into an issue however where the portcullises are staying up, even after the redstone power is removed. I've checked it multiple times and it's still next to a redstone power source at the top(the same as the bottom) and it's stuck up. I've tried walking to the top of it and putting redstone wire to try to cycle it, but again it stays up. On build 798 with a few plugins, though they've never affected it before now.

    EDIT: Forgot to add that the gate will lower fine until it's up all the way.
     
  13. Offline

    jamescosten

    Ok so im building a castle, i have an issue with timing the gates as per the picture. Anyone able to help me because my understanding of Redstone is primitive :(

    [​IMG]
     
  14. Offline

    Xordaii

    just to be clear, you want the top and bottom gates to meet in the middle at the same time? (I am assuming you are well aware of the fact one will move MUCH faster than the other.)

    I would say to put some redstone repeaters (diodes) before the gate on the top, that would delay it going down enough to meet in the middle, with some fiddling. However, nothing you can do to make them go "open" at the same time, and doing that will delay the gate "opening".

    Just curious, but is it an optical illusion that you have two dirt blocks between them? Or am I wrong about your intention to have the gates meet?

    edit: my other thought is that you want one to go up while the other goes down? Let us know what exactly you are trying to do and what the timing issue is (timing of what?)
     
  15. Offline

    jamescosten

    No you are correct i want them to meet in the middle the blocks are there so one doesnt go all way to top and bottom. The repeaters i will try however having one line of currnt on and one off and when i switch the lever will they switch states. Because for the top gate to go down i have to turn off and bottom on and vice versa.

    I forgot they open at different speeds....will have to place around with repeaters i guess..
     
  16. Offline

    Xordaii

    yes, they switch states. To use them in delay mode, try hitting them after they are placed. I hate to tell you which mouse click, because I always get it wrong and end up mining them out again! lol
     
  17. Uh, my portculls is only going up, it won't come back down. It used to work for 1.4 when i didnt use fencestack but now its not working...i'm doing everything correct.
     
  18. Offline

    jamescosten

    Ok well obviously not lol, post a pic of the layout so we can see more clearly
     
  19. i will, dont have a pic at the moment. james costen, do you play xbox 360 by any chance? your name sounds very familiar.

    here's my port, in 2d
    r+ is redstone activated
    sand sand sandd
    sand
    sand fence r+sand
    sand fence sand r+ sand lever

    the resdtone works, and the fence goes up. it will not fall down...
     
  20. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    I see others are already helping you with the redstone, which is great, since I'm not that much of a redstone wizard either.

    But one thing: you do realize that if you allow the two gates to touch each other in the middle they will fuse and become one gate? Is that what you want to happen, or are you not going to allow them to actually touch?

    It's not clear to me what you mean with "r+sand". Would it be possible for you to post a screenshot of what you built?

    One thing to keep in mind is that the redstone has to come from the side of the block that's going to power the portcullis. It won't work if it comes from the front or back. Although I'm not sure if that's your problem, since the portcullis does go up.

    Remember that you don't have to have only one redstone contact point with the portcullis. You could have one at the top most row, and another at the bottom most row (of the portcullis' full travel). The portcullis would never contact both of them at the same time, so they could be powered by different circuits, so you could have a delay when closing the top most portcullis, but no delay when opening it.

    The powered blocks could even be on opposite sides of the portcullis, to make it easier to separate the circuits.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 11, 2016
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    jamescosten

    Ummmmm......No i did not. I will have to reconsider this..Thanks to everyone who has helped though im sure i will find a way round that issue.

    Yes i am, iM a legend on it in fact. My Name is AS1LV3RRAMBO and my clan also has AS1LV3RN1NJA and AS1LV3RHUNT3R in it, in case they are familiar as well.
     
    AS1LV3RN1NJA likes this.
  22. oh lol no they are not. i have a friend named james costen or costan or something. can you please explain to me what i did wrong? i kept powering the same brick, the fence was touching it at all times. when power was turned off, it was stil at the top
     
  23. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    Do you still have this problem? If so, could you post a screenshot showing exactly what you built (make sure the redstone is clearly visible)?

    I've seen a few of these reports now, so I'd like to get to the bottom of it. Perhaps something has changed in Bukkit or Minecraft, or another plugin is interfering, such that the gates will sometimes not lower any more even if they are built correctly.

    On 1.6 compatibility:

    As of CraftBukkit build 812, the RetractableBridge and PorteCoulissante plugins don't work (and probably other plugins as well). This is due to a bug in CraftBukkit, as a result of which background tasks don't get executed, including those in my plugin which move the bridges and portcullises. Please help to get this bug fixed quickly by voting for it at: http://leaky.bukkit.org/issues/817

    On the other hand, the bug where fences are invisible if there are no other adjacent blocks has been fixed, so you can now see all those runaway portcullises hanging in the air. Guess you'll finally have to clean those up now... ;)

    Alright, that was quick. The bug has been fixed in CraftBukkit build 813, and I can confirm that both RetractableBridge and PorteCoulissante work fine in that version!

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 11, 2016
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    camosniper

    Hey man thanks for all your hard work. I use both your portecoulissante plugins and retractable bridge plugins for my server,and they work great. I hope that there are some more awesome things out there you could make. maybe an elevator. just an idea. Thanks!!!
     
  25. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    Thank you very much! :) Yeah, you're not the first to ask for an elevator mod. Who knows, some day... ;)
     
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  26. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    I just confirmed that both PorteCoulissante and RetractableBridge work fine in the latest recommended CraftBukkit build (#818), and therefore in Minecraft 1.6.6!
     
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  27. Offline

    camosniper

    Ya, my favorite type of plugins are the mechanic ones. and your's are perfect. cant thank you enough.keep up the good work!
     
  28. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    Not without a bit more information! Are you sure the plugin is loading (there should be a line in server.log)? Can you post a picture of what you're building, from such an angle that we can clearly see the redstone?

    You're not putting the .zip file in your plugins folder, are you? You should extract the .jar file from it, and put that in your plugins folder.
     
  29. Offline

    Xordaii

    Correct:
    [cobble][wood][wood][cobble]----

    Not so correct:
    [cobble][wood][wood][cobble]|
    [gravel][gravel][gravel][gravel]|

    Don't know if this will help, but my first mistake when I first built one of these was the second diagram. I tried running the wire to beside the block I wanted to power, rather than straight to it. The wire won't power a block "beside" it, only directly in front of the line you make, like in the first diagram.
     
  30. Offline

    Captain Chaos

    That's not true actually, PorteCoulissante does not care what the direction of the redstone dust is. Assuming these are top down views the second version should work just as well as the first. There must have been some other reason why it didn't work.
     
  31. Offline

    IceBlueFire

    So i'm a bit of a redstone nubbie. I was wondering if someone could perhaps explain how i could make this a gate. Example: You're in the Castle, you hit the switch to open the gate. You go outside, you then want to close the gate, so you hit a second switch on the outside to close the gate. You come back home and do it in reverse (open it on the outside, and shut it on the inside). I'm sure its a type of circuit, but i can't seem to figure it out...

    I'm currently using an OR circuit, but the problem is that when its off (gate down), if someone is outside, there is no way for them to turn it on and get in...
     
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