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Jonny, and Joel cover the final features of the upcoming drop in this week’s Minecraft Snapshot, then answer listener email about copper golem compliance, waxing accelerator rails, and powered pickaxes.

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FROM: Doom Walker
SUBJECT: Copper Golem / Copper Gear Idea

Hello, 

I was listening to your Spawn Chunks podcast last night, and got an idea for the copper golem. Since all ores are involved in the emerald economy, even diamonds, it would make sense for copper ingots to be able to be traded with for emeralds. However, Mojang most likely won’t add a whole new copper villager, though that would be cool if they sold copper chests, etc. I thought that maybe the copper golem could buy copper ingots, and perhaps use them to power itself, and the chests somehow, like lore.

As for copper gear, copper could be a way to make new gear beyond a pickaxe, etc, or perhaps even enhance existing gear. What if we can use copper to augment existing gear, and make it mine just a little bit faster or last a little bit longer. Like it makes it stronger, and reinforced somehow. Copper could also be used to craft things like a mining head torch, since Agnes was wearing one in the video trailer for the copper golem, and other things like a grappling hook or some new type of weapon or tool we don’t have yet such as a tool that lets you randomize blocks for texture. Many thanks for your podcasts. They are very entertaining as always.

Doom Walker dug straight down, and fell into lava!

FROM: AtariAtari
SUBJECT: A New Copper Age

Greetings Pix and Joel,

I’m sort of an odd case because I actually don’t play Minecraft that much, but am constantly watching videos about it. At any rate, I have two thoughts about copper things – maybe they’re impractical, and I won’t know that because I don’t play enough, or maybe an outsiders perspective will be interesting. We’ll see…

For Copper Golems: What if clicking on a Copper Golem brought up a crafting-table-like interface to “program” the golem with? Almost like an auto crafter, but the input is red stone “wiring” telling it HOW to sort. Dust in Slot 1 means sort things by their most general trait – “All stone things can go together”.  Dust in the second slot gets more specific – “All Andesite things can go together”. And so on until only exactly matching items can go together. I like the idea of redstone continuing to work like “electricity” inside robotic entities. 

You’d also talked about possibilities for a copper work station. What about a Tinker’s Desk and a villager who’s a Tinker? Maybe the desk allows you to infuse blocks with redstone – making otherwise “dead” blocks transmit a signal. Or maybe it allows armor-stand-like manipulation of objects. Maybe it allows redstone infusion of tools and/or armor to give them some sort of “powered “ version? Leggings jump higher. Shovels throw blocks. Pickaxes shoot out and mine blocks farther away… that sort of thing. Or maybe it could simply allow the making of vertical slabs…!

I just like the idea of a Tinker of some type and copper not just being “weaker than iron”, but a new set of possibilities. A new “Copper Age” as it were. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Thank you both for the podcast and all your Minecraft expertise.

AtariAtari was shocked to death by a redstone infused sword.

FROM: Luke
SUBJECT: Ideas For Copper Rails

Hello Pix, and Joel!

My email is inspired by your discussion in the recent Episode 362, (Happy anniversary by the way!) but this is a thought I’ve had for while. Why are the “Detector Rail” and “Activator Rail” named for what they do, while the name of the “Powered Rail” describes a state of the block itself? To me it doesn’t really imply that it powers passing minecarts to go further, which is what they’re currently mainly used for. 

So here’s my idea: The Powered Rail remains unchanged to uphold backwards-compatibility, but its role is reframed to just deciding if a minecart should stop or start, or pass on, because keeping minecarts moving is way easier with the new, copper-based “Accelerator Rail”. The Accelerator Rail would be crafted like a Powered Rail, substituting gold with copper, and redstone with glowstone dust. It requires no redstone signal, but over its oxidation stages it goes from accelerating up to multiple times the current max speed (basically the experimental minecart changes) down to half as fast, making slower-paced rides possible for those who want to take in the scenery. Players would have to wax their rails (or scrape them) maybe in the manner of the Wallace & Gromit train chase. 

In my opinion the additional effort of including nether items, and requiring waxing would balance out the great benefit of easy high-speed minecart transport, while keeping both Powered Rails, and normal Rails relevant. 

What do you think? 

Luke was sent flying away by his Accelerator Rail-based minecart launcher.