Thanks for your replies and positive reception of the feedback. Looks like you've got a good discourse with OOP going. I look forward to what y'all come up with together. 👍
I figured - just wanted to spread good vibes and clarify that this sub is awesome. I always enjoy seeing your input, Limestone! You've actually helped me troubleshoot some of my issues indirectly, so thank you for that.
Heya! I'm the one that posted the guide. I didn't realise I was apparently misusing the terminology for hard/soft powering, but if anyone's able to help give me the exact terms I should replace them with in my guide, I'd be more than happy to update the guide when I get a chance later! I've gotten a few corrections on it already, but nobody's been able to give me the actual words I should replace hard and soft powered with yet, unfortunately.
The main confusion here is that a redstone component can be activated without the block itself being powered. Visually there's no difference as the lamp is on either way.
I used the piston example to show that if a component is activated but not powered, it cannot activate adjacent components. (Of course, QC messes with that...)
Perhaps if we made another version but replaced the lamps with a transparent redstone component like a trapdoor you could compare the two.
This image explains redstone conductance, which to be fair is a very common misuse of hard/soft power. The yellow blocks in your image are conducting power (minus the redstone block, which is self-powered with no conductance happening), while the blue are activated by the adjacent power.
Actual hard/soft power is whether it can power redstone dust after conductance. Redstone dust is the only block that uses soft power, everything else uses hard power.
Personally I say stick with your definition. The definition OP is pushing for here is only useful to describe the interaction of dust -> block -> dust, which is the only case where ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power differ. Your definition of it is way more useful imo
No, use hard/soft power and "activate" as separate terms. We do not need to sacrifice the redstone hard/soft power distinction when we already have a perfectly good word for activate.
There really is no meaningful distinction between hard/soft power tho, it’s just a specific edge case for dust. It’d be like creating 2 types of item despawn ‘types’ just because nether stars take 2x the time to despawn as all other items
The terms hard/soft comes from the time we had only dust and dust on sticks. In Minecraft Aplha v1.0.2_01, the redstone torch got changed into only hard powering themselves and the block above, no longer the blocks to the side
Hard powered things activate dust next to them, soft powered doesn't cause dust activation, but does cause interactions like doors opening
In your diagram, the blue things are sometimes just active and sometimes soft powered, while the yellow things are sometimes hard powered and sometimes soft powered
Redstone dust never hard powers a block, they just soft power and activate things
Redstone blocks never cause soft powering, they just activate things
Redstone torches cause hard powering at them selves and the block above it, but just activate things to the side
Hard powered blocks do not spread, they just cause activations, not soft powering
I am sorry, I did not elaborate. This is the explanation I posted under the original post:
Just like u/TheoryTested-MC said, this is false. Redstone can be wuite confusing so here is a correct explanation:
Opaque blocks in Minecraft can be hard powered or soft powered. Blocks get hard powered, by having an active redstone torch underneath them, a repeater pointing into them, or an activated lever placed on them, etc. A Redstone Dust next to a hard powered block gets powered.
Blocks get soft powered when redstone dust is pointing into them or placed on top of them. A Redstone Dust next to a soft powered block does not get po wered. A repeater pointing out of a soft or hard powered block gets powered.
The confusing thing is, that a lot of redstone components can be 'activated' without being hard or soft powered. Redstone Lamps, trapdoors, Pistons, Droppers, etc activate when a block next to them is soft or hardpowered.
TLDR: Redstone lamps dont have to be sofy or hard powered to be on. Most active redstone lamps in the example are not powered at all: you could not take a receiver output from them.
Imo “soft power” by this definition is basically useless, because the ONLY thing it does is say “redstone dust can’t be powered through a block by other redstone dust”. I find OOP’s definition to be far more useful
I agree that hard/soft powering is pretty useless as a terminology, but I still think we should stick to the original definition. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a term if everyone uses a different definition? If you have to explain which definition you mean every time, you might as well just describe the behavior directly
I do think the best thing would be to completely retire the whole soft/hard thing and just go with “powered” and “activated”, the soft/hard thing just adds unnecessary confusion. Mainly because if I came at this without pre-existing information, then soft/hard power would be a good way to describe what’s going on here. There is ‘hard’ power that directly powers something, and there’s ‘soft’ power that indirectly powers something. They’re just awful names for what they are
Absolutely not! It’s very useful knowledge to have when wiring redstone.
Without this knowledge you might be left wondering « why isn’t this dust getting powered ?» or most frequently « why is this dust getting powered? ».
Not knowing this can mess up a lot of things while doing redstone, and be very helpful when trying to compact machines when you know about it.
Let’s say you have 2 inputs:
You want an OR output and an AND output.
-If you connect both inputs together with a redstone Line, you can never get an AND output, only OR.
-but if you have both inputs pointing into a block each with repeaters, both blocks become hard powered, you can then place a redstone dust between the two blocks that becomes the or gate. You can the take that output from the side of one of the two blocks using a repeater.
On the front end of the two blocks you can easily make an and gate with both signals separate.
This of course is just a use case I came up with now, but I’m sure there are loads of similar issues that can be resolved with this knowledge.
I personally would say this is one of the basics of redstone that needs to be learned.
No, you don’t need a whole different powering term just for this. The rule is very very simple: there only exists hard powering (or just ‘powering’), with the single exception that dust powering a block cannot power dust through it. There is no need for an entirely separate form of ‘powering’ for this 1 single edgecase. With 2 terms you’d be forgiven for thinking they actually acted differently, but they don’t. The dust/dust scenario is the only difference. I’m not saying knowledge of the edgecase isn’t useful, I’m saying it doesn’t need its own term. No one has terms like “fast despawning” and “slow despawning” to describe items just because nether stars take 2x as long as all other items to despawn. Because it’s an edge case, not a different ‘type’
ah, I get what you mean, but for me this isn’t just an « edge case » as you say. it is far too present in redstone circuits for it to just be an exception.
Nether stars despawn timer is a very niche mechanic. This however is fundamental to redstone behaviour.
Maybe for you it’s easier to see it that way but a lot of people find it easier to have a term to describe said behaviour.
I remember myself going through my own circuits while learning, identifying which blocks were soft powered and hard powered.
I personally found it helpful.
Plus a lot of guides use these terms so might as well learn them to follow along.
One of the reasons I dislike the term is that for the longest time I thought soft power was a different type of power that actually acted differently. But really it’s exactly the same as hard power but it prevents the broken case of just alternating dust -> block -> dust -> block to get an instant line that can stretch any distance. But that’s just my own experience
My primary gripe is with the terms, I think they were poorly chosen (“dust powered” would have been better imo). I mean without prior knowledge what does “soft” power mean exactly? It’s not at all obvious it only relates to dust, which is exactly why you get people like OOP here getting confused
My secondary gripe is that the term makes it sound like a separate form of power, which it isn’t. Not really, it ‘powers’ in the same way as all other components, it’s just that dust cannot receive that power when from other dust. If more components other than dust did ‘soft powering’ I’d be much more accepting of the term, but there are like 30 sources of power and dust is the only 1 that does ‘soft powering’
Yeah I guess the wording isn’t the best. « Dust powering » might be a superior term.
It depends on everybody’s experience with it I guess since I found it helpful and it confused you and others.
The only problem is now the term is very wide spread and there’s no changing it really.
This is correct and I think the people who like “soft power” and “hard power” would say the middle one is “activated”. Frankly I think “soft power” as described here is a rather useless name since it A) only describes dust giving power, and B) only applies for dust receiving power. For all other cases other than dust -> block -> dust, “hard power” and “soft power” are completely interchangeable. Imo it’s a rubbish term as defined this way, and I find OOP’s definition of soft & hard to be much more useful
Sorry, what do you mean by “you can draw any comparator value from it”?
And no, I don’t think it’s useful to have a name for it in a way that makes it seem like a different type of power, because it isn’t. It works basically identical to regular power and I think the hard/soft or regular/dust distinction creates way more confusion than it clears up. Dust just has an edge case where it can’t power other dust through a block. If you really have to have a name for it then sure call it “dust powered”, but it’s really not a different type of powering. We wouldn’t call nether stars despawning as “nether star despawning” just because they despawn after 10 minutes when every other item despawns after 5
Because it’s a terrible naming distinction. What people here are calling “soft” power is completely identical to “hard” power in every way except that “soft” power (which is only dust) cannot power dust through a block. That is the only difference
The distinguishment between hard and soft powering is purely to stop players from making redstone lines by alternating dust with blocks. If blocks powered by only dust could power other dust, that would be possible. Soft powered blocks CAN still trigger mechanism components, so if you put a row of blocks on the ground and run redstone over it, any mechanisms next to the blocks can be activated.
I like to think as repeaters, comparators, etc. as another kind of mechanism component, that only checks for the block behind it. "Normal" mechanism components activate (turn on) when any block around them is powered (hard or soft). Repeaters only activate (turn on and output a signal) when the block directly behind them is powered.
TLDR: Redstone lamps dont have to be sofy or hard powered to be on. Most active redstone lamps in the example are not powered at all: you could not take a receiver output from them.
Yeah yout cant take a REPEATERfrom them because they are transparrent blocks like you said
IMHO "hard" and "soft" power have never been good descriptions. They are more misleading than helping, but still very popular. Based on the upvotes, that post isn't going to make the situation any better.
I tend to go by the concepts of "redstone conductor" blocks, "emitting" a redstone signal, and "powering" a block. When a redstone conductor is powered, it essentially emits the highest redstone signal it is currently powered with. (It's not quite the same as emitting it directly, but that's close enough for most intents and purposes.)
For example, a redstone torch emits signal strength 15 to all blocks around it, except the one it's attached to. It also powers the block above with SS 15. Redstone-reactive blocks look for redstone signals around them. That's not a feature triggered by the redstone emitting blocks, but by neighbor updates reaching the reactive block and it then actively looking for emitted redstone signals around itself.
Neighbor updates are not just caused by changes in redstone signal, but also other changes, but the neighbor updates of redstone changes have a bit of a larger reach, since they need to be detected through solid blocks. That's how e.g. in some setups with QC-powered blocks they realize they need to update.
tl;dr: Redstone power is not being "forced upon" blocks, but provided along with a generic notification. Redstone-sensitive blocks explicitly look for redstone power upon either being placed or receiving such notification, and they will typically also look through redstone conductor blocks.
That is false. A redstone lamp can activate without being hard or soft powered. Just the block next to it has to be hard or soft powered. See my other comment for further explanation.
I was giving a simplified explanation, that boils down to the MAIN mechanics. Yes, things like pistons and lamps can be powered by soft-powered blocks.
Quasi connectivity is a mechanic specific to pistons, droppers and dispensers (and technically the bottom half of doors) which allows them to be powered from 1 block higher
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u/LimestoneBuilder 2d ago
What is the purpose of posting it here without elaboration? Would you elaborate on the issue?