Best use for early game pistons.

[emptychild]

So I've recently started playing BTW again after taking a long break and the game has drastically changed since I last played. One of the big changes is the significant delay on being able to get pistons due to recipe changes. I have been pretty lucky and in my exploring have found 2 different jungle temples that had 3 sticky pistons each. So now I have 6 sticky pistons and am wondering how best to leverage my "late game tech" advantage that I've gotten. I'm thinking a self harvesting wheat field for 1 piston (once I find wheat) and a piston door with 2 more pistons so that I have a door mobs can't break without spending so much iron. That still leaves me with 3 available pistons. What would be some neat early game uses for some now "out of place" tech?

[FlowerChild]

If you have wheat in the early game, something is wrong...

Off the top of my head, I think you'd largely be limited to automatic reed and Hemp farms working on a timer for harvesting.

[eternal8phoenix]

Early semi auto egg farm? Use the pistons to drop pumpkins/melons from a smashing height near the chickens. It's only as reliable as you are there to get it though until hopper stage.

Or I guess just use it for easy pumpkin/melon harvesting...
Failing that there's a mob-botherer :P

roof----
You[ Air] outside
You [Pis]
Floor-------hole
Floor-------hole

(Where -- is continued word and [Pis] is piston)

Zombie/creeper comes to get you...you activate piston and push him in a hole. Kinda like anti-whack-a-mole.

[emptychild]

Oh I don't have wheat yet but I imagine I'll have wheat (or another cultivated crop) before I get to soul urns so I'm setting a piston aside for that purpose eventually. The melon idea is interesting. I can think of lots of uses for it once I have hoppers but wanted to see if there were any great early ideas I was missing.

[TheGatesofLogic]

If you have wheat in the early game, something is wrong...

Off the top of my head, I think you'd largely be limited to automatic reed and Hemp farms working on a timer for harvesting.

why a timer? why not just use a lens, a redstone dust BUD, and a pulse stabilizer, all you need is nether access, a lens, redstone, and some gold (slightly substantial. i find this to be the best use of early game pistons as it's maximum efficiency.

[ryoloth]

EDIT: ignore this post, my brain is telling me things that aren't actually happening XP

[FlowerChild]

why a timer? why not just use a lens, a redstone dust BUD, and a pulse stabilizer, all you need is nether access, a lens, redstone, and some gold (slightly substantial. i find this to be the best use of early game pistons as it's maximum efficiency.

Because that kind of BUD is about as exploity as you can get and I'd never be caught dead using one?

[eternal8phoenix]

If you have wheat in the early game, something is wrong...

Off the top of my head, I think you'd largely be limited to automatic reed and Hemp farms working on a timer for harvesting.

why a timer? why not just use a lens, a redstone dust BUD, and a pulse stabilizer, all you need is nether access, a lens, redstone, and some gold (slightly substantial. i find this to be the best use of early game pistons as it's maximum efficiency.

Isn't a lense kinda mid-late game? I mean the guy is talking pre-hoppers here, let alone nether access and substantial gold.

[MaxAstro]

Honestly I think the most useful thing would be an auto-hemp farm on a decay timer. There comes a point in the mid game where you need a LOT of hemp, and I find that having it on an auto-farm as early as possible is very handy.

Plus, surplus of seeds = surplus of eggs = not starving to death. :)

An auto-pumpkin farm is a good idea, also, though, especially if it feeds a chicken farm.

[TheGatesofLogic]

If you have wheat in the early game, something is wrong...

Off the top of my head, I think you'd largely be limited to automatic reed and Hemp farms working on a timer for harvesting.

why a timer? why not just use a lens, a redstone dust BUD, and a pulse stabilizer, all you need is nether access, a lens, redstone, and some gold (slightly substantial. i find this to be the best use of early game pistons as it's maximum efficiency.

Isn't a lense kinda mid-late game? I mean the guy is talking pre-hoppers here, let alone nether access and substantial gold.

if you don't have hoppers, then auto hemp farms are already useless :P a lens only takes a bit of mining to acquire and is a massive bonus to your stores. Once you have enough pistons to utilize it, where you are in the tech tree is much higher than necessary for it.

[ryoloth]

if you don't have hoppers, then auto hemp farms are already useless :P

That's not entirely true, you can use a cauldron until you get to the hopper stage.

[Gilberreke]

why a timer? why not just use a lens, a redstone dust BUD, and a pulse stabilizer, all you need is nether access, a lens, redstone, and some gold (slightly substantial. i find this to be the best use of early game pistons as it's maximum efficiency.

Circumventing the BTW tech tree and the Buddy Block by cheating huh? I thought we went over this before in another thread somewhere...

[derekiv]

I don't think there is any cheating occurring...
He found the pistons in a jungle temple.

[FlowerChild]

I don't think there is any cheating occurring...
He found the pistons in a jungle temple.

The pistons aren't what we were talking about here.

[OldMarriedDude]

why a timer? why not just use a lens, a redstone dust BUD, and a pulse stabilizer, all you need is nether access, a lens, redstone, and some gold (slightly substantial. i find this to be the best use of early game pistons as it's maximum efficiency.

Circumventing the BTW tech tree and the Buddy Block by cheating huh? I thought we went over this before in another thread somewhere...

I know Ive been gone a while but how is this circumventing the tech tree?

[Ethinolicbob]

I know Ive been gone a while but how is this circumventing the tech tree?

I believe they are utilizing a bug as a BUD well before the ability to craft a Buddy Block

[OldMarriedDude]

ahh ok Didnt know there was a bug that did that.

[Mr_Hosed]

@OldMarriedDude

If I recall correctly, the Buddy Block was FC's answer to people exploiting Pistons to create that kind of switch in vanilla when they first came out (pistons that is). Of course, in vanilla almost all interesting contraptions still require that exploity solution since there is no buddy alternative.

@Original poster

Early pistons I've found are best used for doors (as previously mentioned). You just don't have enough pistons to do useful automation otherwise... beyond maybe a water based timer to dispense seeds to chickens (piston as a flood gate for the water channel). What Battosay called a water-clock in his LP a long time back.

[derekiv]

The pistons aren't what we were talking about here.

I apologize. I didn't understand the discussion of a Redstone BUD. Similar to the poster above, I didn't know about it till this thread.

[jkievlan]

ahh ok Didnt know there was a bug that did that.

Numerous bugs actually...which I imagine is why FC hasn't done anything about it. Basically, to keep people from exploiting bugs for BUDs, you'd have to fix a whole slew of annoying little vanilla bugs, and people would probably just figure out new ones. The other option is...just don't exploit bugs, people, it's cheating.

To the OP: have you considered playing around with logic circuits? With a few pistons you can make some really cool compact logic switches that can do various things in automated setups. I wouldn't use them for actual piston functionality (i.e., pushing or harvesting blocks) because you won't have enough of them to really make much of anything.

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, it would also break existing builds, some totally legit, left and right if I started fixing these things. Overall, I think it's best that I work instead towards making sure these kinds of things don't entrench themselves in my own game.

[FlowerChild]

K, I moved me and Gil's tangent over to my dev diary thread to prevent more off-topicosity. My apologies for that :)

[Caboose]

Man, everyone else was thinking on a whole other level than me, here I was thinking, "Use it for a zombie-proof door". =P

[Ethinolicbob]

Man, everyone else was thinking on a whole other level than me, here I was thinking, "Use it for a zombie-proof door". =P

Well since the OP mentioned that it seems redundant saying it again :P

[Caboose]

Man, everyone else was thinking on a whole other level than me, here I was thinking, "Use it for a zombie-proof door". =P

Well since the OP mentioned that it seems redundant saying it again :P

I'm very good at reading comprehension, if you hadn't noticed.