Hey everyone! BenDragonsword here with a brand new tutorial! I thought I'd show you all my new system for Capture the Flag in Minecraft! I'll go over the upsides and downsides, how to build it, and how to incorporate it into your maps.

Overview:

So, one of the servers that I get on a lot of the time is a private server hosted by my friend from school, wandering_ent. I've talked about him before=Even dedicating a skin to him ~LoTR: Treebeard (Ent)~

So, we build a lot of arenas on the server. I'm the one who normally incorporates Redstone and Command Blocks into our arenas. I wanted to make a Vanilla Capture the Flag system that works well. I had a few goals in mind.

1. 
   
   Make a system that only accepts the Flag
   
   
2. 
   
   Make it reset itself so you can score more than once
   
   
3. 
   
   To not make it uber-complicated.
   
   

My System:

I set to work creating this perfect system. I've created hopper doors previously, but this was more complicated. By setting a hopper at a certain number of items with a comparator, It will emit a signal of a certain length. I knew it had to be further than one block of redstone, or else I couldn't make it so that it only accepts the flag. So, I set it to emit a signal length of two, then connect to a repeater.

In a hopper, a signal strength of two takes 23 items. You can set this to take up all slots of the hopper in this fasion: 5 5 5 4 4. I needed it to take one item out of the hopper when it reaches that number, so that it can be used again. For this I needed to power the hopper so that it won't send an item through until it reaches 23 items.

After some failed attempts where the wrong hopper got powered, or two items flowed through, I came up with my current system. It powers the hopper, then when it reaches 23 items, it sends out the signal, activating the command blocks and very briefly turning off the power so that one flag goes down to the chest. I had achieved success!

How Its Built:

The building of the system itself is definitely the easiest part. Most of it you can understand from the picture that I used for the blog. If you take a look at that, you'll see the stack of hoppers. Make sure as you place each hopper you shift-click on the hopper or chest below it so that it will flow into that hopper/chest. The comparator needs to be facing outward from the hopper just above the chest. You can use a small chest too, the large chest just has more storage space.

If you see the three repeaters with the command blocks, you can attach different redstone devices, such as a door or rs nor latch. But for Capture the Flag, these need to be specific. Use one of them with the [/clear @p 35] command to clear the flag so they can't score more than once. Use another to add a point to the player's or team's score. And use the third with a /say to broadcast a message informing the other players that you scored. You can rename the Command Block "Announcer" for added effect.
<----- The Inventory for the hopper connected to the Comparator.

Upsides:

• 
  
  Very compact: Takes only a 4x4 area for the main piece.
  
  
• 
  
  Can be hidden completely under the ground if three hoppers are used.
  
  
• 
  
  Resets itself so you can score as many times as you like.
  
  
• 
  
  Set one of the Command Blocks to [clear @p 35]. This will clear the user of any wool in their inventory. If you want to use another item, just change the item value [35 is for wool].
  
  
• 
  
  Doesn't take advanced redstone or logic gates.
  
  

Downsides:

• 
  
  It will jam if you throw 5 items into it that are not the right item. I'm going to work on this problem and see if it can be fixed.
  
  
• 
  
  (The chest will eventually need to be emptied, but thats really not a big deal.)
  
  

Conclusion:

I'm really happy with the way that my system worked out. I hope that you all can use it and I hope to be back with more tutorials in the future! If you enjoyed, check out the rest of my work! I'm always open to requests, so ask away!