This guide will cover some basics about one of our plugins, Easy Carts, so everyone can enjoy the extra benefits. Let’s start off by getting a few things out of the way…
- With Easy Carts, rails do not need to be powered; You can use the basic iron rails and the plugin will automatically propel you across the entire length of it.
- However, if you want extra speed, then you should add some powered rails to your tracks.
- This also applies to tracks going uphill, they also do not need to be powered and will work just the same.
- Minecart collisions have been altered:
- If you are in a minecart, and collide with an empty minecart, it will automatically delete the empty minecart from the game without affecting your speed.
- (I’ve opened an issue with the plugin to make it so the minecart isn’t entirely deleted from the game, but instead dropped.)
- If you are in a minecart and there is a mob on the tracks, it will automatically shove them to the side. No need to worry about creepers or other mobs in the way. However, if there is another player in a cart, and you crash into them, you will stop completely, although not bounce backwards.
- If you are in a minecart, and collide with an empty minecart, it will automatically delete the empty minecart from the game without affecting your speed.
- If there are empty minecarts on the track, the plugin will slow them down so they don’t travel the entire distance without you.
- If you are riding a cart and want to stop anywhere, you can simply left-click the air, and it will stop you instantly. You can do the same thing to continue moving forward from a stopped position.
- This is handy if you want to stop in the middle of the track, turn your camera around, and left-click to travel back in the direction you were coming from. Or if you built minecart rails along your strip-mining area, you can stop in front of an area you wish to check out, without having to make train station stops or whatever.
So, basic setups:
So this image above is not part of Easy Carts, it’s just something very simple to get you started. Under the minecart is a powered rail, that activates with the button. It will launch the minecart when the button is pressed. The permanently-activated powered rails are for the extra speed boost.
If you want to get a bit more fancy, you can use a cactus with a block on top to break the minecart when it comes in comes in contact, but the block on top should prevent you from taking damage. You can take this much further by using a hopper under the last rail, to automatically pick up the dropped minecarts, and then deposit them into a nearby chest.
This setup also features the launching station on the far right, that if you were to launch a minecart from that side, it will continue going straight without hitting the cactus. So incoming carts get broken, outgoing carts get to leave.
So now for what the plugin Easy Carts does, it allows you to choose a destination. When it comes across an intersection like in the above middle “+”, it will stop your minecart, and give you a message (above your hotbar). All you have to do is look in the direction you want to go, and press “w” (forward) to continue moving in that direction, no powered rails or fancy setups needed!
For example, if you were in the top middle rail traveling downwards, it will stop you in the intersection, you can just press “w” to continue moving downwards. Later on in the rail, there’s that second intersection in the bottom left. It will ask again, and then you press “w”, and you have reached your destination, a lava pit. Obviously you don’t have to put a lava pit there. But notice that there is a flat rail before the sloped rail before the lava. All sides of an intersection NEED to be flat. The plugin doesn’t work with curved or sloped rails on purpose…
A setup like this where the 2 sides are sloped rails would not function properly, so you would need to make a spacer at the intersection consisting of only flat rails.
Also, none of the rails at the intersection can be curved or it will not work:
And final topic, the plugin will forever push your minecart along the track unless there is either:
- 1) Another minecart WITH a player inside it
- 2) A stop made of blocks
- 3) Broken tracks
- 4) Unpowered rails
- 5) An intersection
But things that it will continue moving through:
- 1) Empty minecarts
- 2) An improperly made intersection with slopes/curved rails
- 3) Mobs
- 4) Huge lengths of regular rails with no powered rails needed.
If you want to slow down a minecart automatically at certain points throughout the rails, you can add a setup like this:
The minecart traveling from left to right will be slowed down by the unpowered rails, but when it gets to the section on the right side, the detector rail will power the powered rails and launch you forward. It is made like this so it will work the same way from either direction.
Enjoy!