Racing Gates, Timekeeping & Path Marking with flowers (2024)

A datapack with gates in different sizes and pointing into different directions, with redstone timekeeping and an easy to use py-script to set flowers to mark the way

GoogleDrive-Download-Link for the Package: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cKsxvbaRWgDQoewymMB6is630BwfgBu2?usp=drive_link

As used in my „CeBit Hannover“-Map (also diagonally positioned gates are possible and all gates are also placeable in an „iceboat version“, meaning that there’s no bottom frame so you can drive through.

1_SPAWNING THE GATES

2_GATE-CODE
3_FUNCTION-CODE

4_FIRST GATE (first and last gate are special)
5_LAST GATE (first and last gate are special)

6_TICKED FUNCTION
7_MARKING THE PATH
8_OTHER GATE DESIGNS

SPAWNING THE GATES

(text color █ = parameters to adapt to your individual project)

Paste a gate with the /function which is named after the respective cardinal direction you need: For example „gate_ston_small“ would lie on the axis from „S to N“, south to north (with its Opening pointing from E to W).

The Command Block and its command are automatically pasted with it.
You’d just have to adapt every Gate’s code to your project’s needs to make it work (see below)

/execute if entity @p[dy=4, dx=2, dz=2] run function namespace:gate17 *

This checks whether the gate is passed or not and then calls the respective function. E.g. Gate17’s command calls the function called „gate17.mcfunction“ which you’d have to create in the datapack (copy&past then adapt).
Be aware that big and medium gates got multiple command blocks to change, so they all point to the right .mcfunction.

FUZZINESS WORKAROUND: I added „dx=2, dz=2“ (enlarges detection area) because without that the gates sometimes did not count me flying through with a FPV-Drone. It however now counts you even if you closely miss. This could be improved.

FUNCTION – CODE

scoreboard players set @p gate17 1

This command inside of the function sets the gate17 variable from 0 (=false) to 1 (=true) meaning that the gate was passed.

btw the functions also play a sound (that you could change there) when the player passes the gate:

playsound minecraft:block.note_block.bit ambient @p

FIRST GATE STARTS RACE

The first gate does an additional job: It starts the race counter by setting the variable „racedidstartornot“ to 1 (=true).

scoreboard players set dummyPlayer racedidstartornot 1

LAST GATE CHECKS IF ALL PASSED

The last gate’s function checks if all previous gates were passed

execute if entity @p[dy=4, dx=2, dz=2] unless score @p gate2 matches 0 unless score (…) unless score @p gate18 matches 0 run function namespace:finish

if all gates were passed, it calls the function named „finish“ which counts your lap as finished

FINISH – FUNCTION
It outputs the time and the laps.
And it resets the gates from 1 („passed“) to 0 („not passed“)

scoreboard players set @p gate1 0
scoreboard players set @p gate2 0
…
scoreboard players set @p gate99 0

Adapt the above code to the number of gates you want.

TICKED FUNCTION
A „ticked function“ is a Minecraft function that is constantly clocking – every „tick“ (1/20 of a second) it is executed.

Our ticked function opens variables for every gate. If you need more gates, add more entries here.

„scoreboard objectives add gate<gatenumber> dummy“

„/data get entity @s Pos“
or
„/teleport ~ ~ ~“

to Minecraft to get your momentary position. Go to the next waypoint in a more or less straight line and execute the command again to mark a waypoint when a turn arrives. Then you have to set some new waypoints to mark it. The coords will be written in „logs/latest.log“

*Function names must be typed in lower case.

Troubleshooting:
Strange error messages like „float() wrong value“, „string etc.“ often means you got a superfluous page break in „input.txt“ or some other interfering character.

Those errors are occurring bc the script received coordinates it couldn’t process. Normally the script is made to cut away everthing uncecessary that is normally found on the same line as the coords in the log. But maybe you got another Quotation mark in your text software than the anticipated one, then it cannot find the right coordinates because everything is shifted and so the script tries to calculate with some other value it happens to get. I think it’s like if we humans would be told to calculate e.g. „513 + grey concrete – ¥„.

Just remove those error sources/superfluous symbols and it should work, or freshly copy&paste the coords.

In folder „iceboatVersionofGates“ I included versions of the gates that are more suited for iceboat racing as they dont have the bottom frame bar so you can drive through.

just replace the gate-mcfunctions in the current datapack by these altenative ones:

Folder „bottomless_IceboatVersionGates“
Folder „topbottomless_IceboatVersionGates“ (also no top bar)
Folder „topbottomless_RedVersionGates“ (red and white colour)