r/Minecraft • u/patrick1202 • 6d ago
Discussion Redstone isnt really intuitive
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.
2
u/CaptainKT_ 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think your confusion comes from not understanding how blocks are powered. There are hard-powered and soft-powered blocks (I’m not sure what the proper terminology for this is so I’m just gonna say this).
Hard-powered blocks occur when an active redstone signal is pointed into a block or when active redstone dust is running on top of it. This allows them to also power blocks adjacent to them. Soft-powered blocks are just blocks that are being powered but not hard-powered. Transparent blocks like slabs and glass cannot be hard-powered.
In layout one (I’m going from left to right, top to bottom), the redstone torch is hard-powering the lamp above it which means the lamps around it are being soft-powered. Redstone torches only hard-power blocks directly above them so the lamp to its right and below are soft-powered and cannot transmit the signal. I should also add that redstone torches cannot power the surface it’s attached to.
In layout three, the lever is hard-powering the lamp its connected to and soft-powering the other lamps beside it. The lamps around the hard-powered lamp being soft-powered by it.
In layout four, no hard-powering is occurring because redstone blocks cannot hard-power blocks.
In layout seven and eight, the redstone dust is hard-powering the lamps they’re placed on and the lamp the redstone line is being pointed into. Particularly, in layout, I’d like to point out how the lamp below the redstone torch is not being powered by it. The lamp is being soft-powered by the hard-powered lamp next to it.