What does the Redstone comparator do in Minecraft? Minecraft 1.5

Posted in minecraft

It's almost time for Minecraft 1.5 snapshots and Dinnerbone has already explained the concept of the 'comparator' which is a new Redstone device that's the logical replacement for the capacitor idea mentioned at Minecon 2012.

The comparator is similar in many ways to the capacitor. It has a simple rule which is triggers based on the two Redstone inputs applied to it. To help you understand the idea, there are two rules:

• If input A is greater than or equal to input B then it repeats input A
• If input A is less than input B then no signal is outputted from the comparator

The comparator device has one additional option that applies for rule 1. If the signal should be retransmitted but you would like a full strength signal rather than just repeating signal A, then you can right click on the comparator and change the setting.

You're probably thinking that the comparator is a pretty lame idea given that Redstone only has an on/off strength (0/1). Well think again because starting in Minecraft 1.5, Redstone will have varying strengths from 0 - 15. There will also be new blocks that transmit varying signal strengths! Yeah, plenty of new ideas to play around with.