A closed portcullis.
Retractable bridges and portcullises allow citizens to defend their castles from marauding mobs or enemy forces. Eleutheria uses the power of PorteCoulissante and RetractableBridge . Thank you to Captain_Chaos for designing the plugin and for providing the building instructions.
Portcullises[]
Portcullises are vertical stacks of fences or iron bars that function as a single gate.
Building the Portcullis[]
- Build the portcullis itself by stacking rows of fences (wood or iron), at least two wide and two high.
- Build the wall around it to contain it. Leave enough empty space above the portcullis to allow it to go as high as you want it to go.
- Power the portcullis by powering one of the blocks adjacent to it on either side, by attaching a lever or redstone dust. For now, the power has to come from the side.
- When the block is powered, the portcullis will start moving upwards, and will keep going until it hits something and can't go any further. It moves slowly, since a portcullis is heavy!
- Important: make sure that when it is in the up position, it is still in contact with a powered block (the same one, or a different one).
- When the power goes off, the portcullis will drop down (a lot faster than it went up).
- Decorate the gate by building walls in front of and behind the portcullis to cover the empty space and to make it appear the portcullis is moving in a groove. Of course you can make it look any way you want!
Hints and Tips[]
- The portcullis can be any size you want, as long as it is at least two blocks wide and two blocks high. It must be rectangular though, and have no holes. If the portcullis breaks, it won't move any more until you repair it.
- Try to make the empty space above the portcullis one block less high than the portcullis itself (like in the first picture above). That way, you only need to power one block (the one in the middle on either side), since that block will always be in contact with the portcullis.
- Of course the empty space can be even smaller, if you want. The portcullis only has to go up two blocks to let people through, or three if you want the passage to be a little less claustrophobic.
- The portcullis will go through (and hold back) water and lava, so you can make water gates and water or lava traps with them.
- If a chunk containing a moving portcullis is unloaded by the server (because you log out, or leave the area, or teleport away), the portcullis stops moving. When you come back, it may be half way up. Just power cycle it to raise or lower it fully again. If it stopped while not being adjacent to any redstone powered block, you may have to stick a button or lever on the side temporarily to get it to move. (It is recommend that you build it in such a way that the portcullis is always adjacent to a redstone powered block; the same one, or different ones.)
A simple double-slab retractable bridge.
Retractable Bridges[]
Retractable bridges are horizontal groups of wooden half-slab blocks that can move, like a draw bridge.
Building the Retractable Bridge[]
- Build the bridge itself, out of slabs/half-blocks or double slabs.
- Make sure there is at least one block adjacent to the bridge on three sides, so that it can't move in that direction.
- For the direction in which you want it to move, make sure there is a block to stop at the distance you want it to move to.
- Power one of the blocks underneath the bridge with redstone. Please note: you are powering a block underneath the bridge, not the bridge itself! Note that for the purposes of this plugin, just running redstone wire underneath a block will power it.
- If you power more than one block, the bridge will move faster! Two blocks doubles the speed, and three blocks doubles it once more (so four times as fast as one block).
- Make sure that when the bridge is fully extended it is still in contact with redstone power underneath. It can be the same blocks, or different ones.
- When the blocks receive redstone power, the bridge will move to the south or west (depending on which direction it is able to move in), when they lose redstone power, it will move to the north or east.
Hints and Tips[]
- The bridge has to be at least two blocks long on each side, and it must be rectangular. It can't have holes or bits sticking out. It also can't abut any other blocks of the same height and material (when open or closed), since the plugin will think they are meant to be part of the bridge.
- I highly recommend to make the distance the bridge can move less than its length. That way, the blocks at the forward edge of the bridge (when it is open) are always in contact with the bridge, so you only have to power one of those blocks.
- The bridge will go through (and hold back) water and lava, so you can make water gates and water or lava traps with them.
- The blocks that stop the bridge when it retracts can be steps or stairs. This way you get a smooth walking experience when the bridge is closed, without having to jump, if you are using slabs/half-blocks for the bridge.