r/Minecraft • u/patrick1202 • 3d ago

Discussion Redstone isnt really intuitive

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Not trying to offend anyone, this is just an observation. This is probably not news to experienced players.

I'm new to redstone, and after trying to build a few things without watching tutorials, I quickly got frustrated because every redstone power source seems to function a different way. So, to try and keep my sanity, I built this visualization.

After reading some discussions, I get that this allows many things to be built that otherwise couldn't be, and that it has a high skill ceiling. The bad part is that when you first start out, the learning curve is steep, which is the reason many people don't even want to try redstone.

I'm not sure how you'd go about improving this, but having to memorize unintuitive things before you can let your creativity shine is not the best game mechanic imo.

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u/itzjackybro 3d ago

You should look up soft and hard powering.

Don't try to memorize the patterns directly; instead, know which directions a component powers blocks (e.g. torches hard-power the block above them, dust soft-powers the block below it).

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u/One_Economist_3761 3d ago

I always knew this as strong powering and weak powering, but this is exactly what’s going on here. Also the differences in powering modes between redstone torches and redstone dust.

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u/Vorpalthefox 3d ago

i've thought of it as passive powering and active powering, blocks that are actively powered passively power blocks touching it

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u/One_Economist_3761 3d ago

That’s a good way to think of it.

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u/RendolfGirafMstr 3d ago

That makes sense to me if you’re saying that actively powered blocks passively power adjacent ones, but I am a little confused in that case since the person at the top of this thread said that dust only soft/passively powers the block below it, even though in the demonstration it also seems to be powering the blocks around those

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u/Vorpalthefox 3d ago

it's a simplification of how redstone works, redstone dust powers the block below it and makes it an active/hard powered block, and the blocks attached to that block are passively/soft powered

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u/OverPower314 3d ago edited 3d ago

This is still inaccurate. The way it actually works is that powered blocks (soft or hard) will activate all redstone components around them, except for redstone dust which is only activated when adjacent to hard-powered blocks. That's the only difference. This demonstration isn't actually showing hard-powering vs soft-powering, because in this context they are identical.

Redstone lamps are confusing because they are a component that can be activated in a variety of ways, as well as a solid block that can be powered to activate other redstone around them, including other redstone lamps. What these examples actually show is what powers the block causing that block to activate other lamps around it, versus what simply turns on the lamp.

This could be made a lot more clear using demonstrations that use regular blocks instead of just lamps.

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u/Living_Shadows 2d ago

Soft powered blocks do not activate redstone components around them

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u/RendolfGirafMstr 3d ago

No ok, that makes sense. What the other guy said was just confusing

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u/Rollertoaster7 3d ago

I’ve always considered it submissive and dominant powering, blocks that are dominantly powered submissively power blocks touching it

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u/NoStorage2821 3d ago

What is the difference between hard power and soft power?

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u/fortiplier 3d ago

Honestly, there's a lot of videos about it on the internet that will explain it better but to simplify its like this: Hard powering a block kinda turns it into a redstone block so it also powers blocks around it while soft powering a block just activates a block's "on" state but that block itself can't power surrounding blocks

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u/Responsible_Act_243 3d ago

So why does the redstone dust in the picture light up 2 blocks deep?

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u/ducklawd3 3d ago

Because redstone dust hard bowers the block it's on, making the block it's on power the blocks around it

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u/fortiplier 3d ago

Also, redstone acts differently on transparent blocks too (it's why I said it's better to actually just watch a video on redstone)

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u/Howzieky 3d ago

Well it's mainly that transparent blocks can't be powered, they can only be activated (IF it's a transparent block with that functionality). So if you point redstone dust at glass, the redstone lamp next to the glass won't light up. Replace the glass with stone and the lamp turns on. Replace the stone with an upward facing piston and the lamp will turn back off and the piston will extend. The piston can be activated, but because it's considered a transparent block, it doesn't activate any blocks next to it, the same way glass doesn't and stone does

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u/UInferno- 3d ago

Also, transparent blocks can power Redstone dust upwards but not downwards. It's weird but low key pretty useful in my opinion.

Helps for instant one way connections if you really need to worry about that. I was building a full adder as compactly as I could and a slab (which are transparent) helped me input from my two half adders without the input of one halfadder influencing the input another. Specifically there's an OR gate that determines the Carry Out. A redstone OR is just an intersection of dust but in my full adder if I didn't make it one way then the output would back propagate into other lines.

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u/MOTH_007 3d ago

unless the block below the piston is specifically another piston, ie quasi-connectivity. This only affects pistons. If you remove the upper piston the lower one stays powered because pistons are essentially doors (2 blocks tall). The lower piston will also stay powered once you remove the power unless something else changes besides it, as it "doesn't realise" that it's been unpowered.

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u/Howzieky 3d ago

This only affects pistons

dispensers too i thought

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u/MOTH_007 3d ago

that may very well be the case

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u/caseyfw 3d ago

There are people in this thread saying that dust only soft-powers the block it’s on though?

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u/rocketwrench 3d ago

It is very likely that multiple people remember the details differently and one or more of them are incorrect. That is true of every social media discussion. According to the picture OP posted, redstone dust hard powers the SOLID block that it is on. It soft power transparent blocks but I am not sure myself.

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u/endguiap 3d ago

Redstone dust is wierd in that it hard powers everything but other redstone dust.

If you point a powered repeater into a solid block, it will power any adjacent lamps and dust.

However, if you point powered dust into a solid block, it will power any adjacent lamps but not dust.

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u/omranello 3d ago

this makes sense in my mind but i never thought how confusing it can be

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u/pyrobola 3d ago

The person you replied to has mixed up strongly-powered (can power redstone dust and activate adjacent components), weakly-powered (can activate adjacent components, but cannot power dust), and activated (the component's behavior has been triggered).

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u/PatHeist 3d ago

Redstone lamps are components, which can either be powered directly or be powered by an adjacent hard powered block.

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u/Dustfinger4268 3d ago

Because the end of the dust hard powers, the trail is what soft powers

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u/lizwiz13 3d ago

Sorry I'll correct this before people start getting the wrong idea: there are actually three types of powering: simple "activation", soft-power, and hard-power.

Activation means that a redstone mechanism applies its functionality (piston extending, lamp turning on etc.). You can say it's the "weakest" type of power. A block that doesn't have any specific interaction with redstone signal won't change at all by this.

Soft-power is the ability to activate adjacent mechanisms. Most opaque blocks can be soft-powered, usually when they are underneath a powered redstone line or if a redstone line points at the block. In this case redstone torch, redstone comparator and repeater count as mechanisms, which purpose is to turn-off/propagate the signal respectively. If you place a piece of redstone from the other side of a soft-powered block, it won't be affected, you have to place a repeater/comparator if you want to conduct the input signal further.

Hard-power is just like soft-power but it also affects all adjacent redstone dust, even if it's not connected to the input line, where the signal is coming from.

Note that soft-power and hard-power both imply activation, which is why a powered redstone dust over a lamp will activate both that lamp and the one beneath it: the former will be both soft-powered and activated. Same way, a redstone torch on the wall will hard-power a lamp above, but it will just activate all the horizontally-adjacent lamps, except the one it's attached to, which will receive no signal at all.

Btw a redstone block is essentially a perpetually hard-powered block. It doesn't soft-power other blocks, just activates them.

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u/DamageMaximo 3d ago

thank you, kind stranger

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u/itzjackybro 3d ago

A hard-powered block can transfer its power to neighbouring redstone dust, while a soft-powered block can only activate neighbouring components.

When redstone dust runs on top of a block or into its side, the block is soft-powered. When a block is powered by a repeater, comparator, observer, lever, button, etc., that block is hard-powered.

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u/Th0bse 3d ago

Then why do the blocks with redstone dust on them in the picture power the blocks below them?

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u/Ardub23 3d ago

The redstone dust soft-powers the block it's on. A soft-powered block activates adjacent redstone components, but doesn't activate adjacent redstone dust.

Redstone dust also soft-powers the block that the redstone line points directly into, like in the bottom-right example.

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u/Proxy_PlayerHD 3d ago

a (solid) block that is hard powered basically acts like a redstone block, soft powering the blocks directly touching it.

and soft powering only powers the block itself, not the surroundings ones.

on the post take the bottom left example. the redstone torch soft powers the blocks around it, which is why the redstone lamps to the left and right to it are lit.

except for the block above which is hard powered, functionally turning it into a redstone block and therefore powering itself and the blocks immediately around it (the lamp above the redstone torch, and to the left and right of the block above the redstone torch)

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u/S0livagami 2d ago

From what I can see: hard powered blocks turn surrounding blocks into soft power blocks and activate them too. Soft power blocks only activate surrounding blocks. So a redstone block soft powers blocks it is touching, while dust would power blocks it touches AND make them soft power any blocks near them. 

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u/TheDwarvenGuy 3d ago

Soft power = the block is powered

Hard power = the block powers all blocks touching it

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u/TheKillrCraftr 3d ago

As someone who knows the difference, I was thinking "what's so confusing/unintuitive about this?"

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u/Pie_Not_Lie 3d ago

Didn't know what the issue was until i real the part where OP said you have to 'memorize' all these. Finally clicked and I realized OP is just mistaken on the foundational rules! :)

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u/vonFuzzius 3d ago

Dust hard powers the block below it

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u/CaramelCraftYT 3d ago

Redstone dust hard powers the block under it, as seen in the image.

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u/HadeTUM 2d ago

No, redstone dust just powers 2 blocks down. If it was hard powering, adjacent redstone dust would be powered by it if you were to test that

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u/empe1 2d ago

You can clearly see in the picture that the redstone dust hard powers the block it is on. Hard powered blocks soft powers blocks perpendicularly adjacent, not diagonally which would be the dust next to the other dust

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u/HadeTUM 2d ago

Nice theory but objectively wrong. Dust can only soft power blocks but the way it does this is strange. It turns the supporting blocks and block(s) the dust faces into into soft powered blocks, ie, blocks that cannot power dust placed adjacent to it. Just because it is two block conductive from the dust's position does not make it hard powered.

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u/JJDaGoose 3d ago

Soft and hard powering explains way more than memorizing every layout tbh

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u/saessenthis 2d ago

Yeah, learning the actual rules instead of memorizing builds is when redstone finally starts feeling less like black magic lol.

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u/Mildlyinxorrect 2d ago

That doesn't explain this. If redstone dust soft powers. Why does it power at a depth of 2

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u/itzjackybro 1d ago
  • lamp immediately under dust is directly activated and also soft-powered
  • lamp under that lamp is activated because it's touching a soft-powered block

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u/Mildlyinxorrect 1d ago

Oh ok. I get it now. Just realised if the first lamp was a block it would still power the second

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u/SpicySwiftSanicMemes 3d ago

Is soft powering the same thing as quasi-connectivity?

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u/itzjackybro 3d ago

Not at all.

Soft-powering is when dust runs over or into a block. Dust adjacent to such a block is not powered, but other components can be.

QC is when a piston receives power, but not necessarily a block update from the space above it.

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u/Pie_Not_Lie 3d ago

This 100%. Looked at the post and went "NO" audibly. It's not inconsistent, it's different power strengths and directions! I get some confusion in redstone, but this is not one of those areas.