Hopper/Chute cases of use beyond Quern & Pulverizer

[Shoom]

Curious if any of you have come up with any creative uses for chutes/hoppers/A-screws beyond automating querns and pulverizers. I just love the look of these things and the sound they make when items tumble through them. 

I somewhat automated quenching (hot item goes into hopper which drops it into water, item cools as it sinks to the bottom where it reaches another hopper that leads into a chest) I did this because I lost some items laying on the ground to despawning, I also found that it's easier to put an item inside a hopper than trying to throw the item into a 1x1 pool of water. (I kept missing and having to pick the item back up and throw it again)

Looking for more ideas (doesn't have to be practical)

Edited September 10, 2025 by Shoom

[Michael Gates]

There was a guy on here who made an item sorter out of chutes once. There was one input hopper, and then the chute led over about five thousand different crates, each holding one of a different item. Since a crate can only hold one kind of thing at a time, the items in the chute would pass over all the crates with the "wrong" items, and fall into the one with the "right" one.

It was MASSIVELY inefficient, and very silly, but it worked. And creative mode's got to be good for something, right?

[Vratislav]

1 hour ago, Michael Gates said:

There was a guy on here who made an item sorter out of chutes once

I did not know that my small item sorter made in survival grew in storytelling to such epic magnificence!!  
 

Also, do not forget that this is probably still cheaper than comparator hopper locks or copper golems. 
 

[Vratislav]

What also works is an animal feeding

[Krougal]

2 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

I did not know that my small item sorter made in survival grew in storytelling to such epic magnificence!!  
Also, do not forget that this is probably still cheaper than comparator hopper locks or copper golems. 

Well, being as it is the first and possibly only for VS, yeah, it's epic.

Cheaper for sure, probably more performant too.

[Vratislav]

6 minutes ago, Krougal said:

being as it is the first and possibly only for VS

Let's admit that in the latest world, I returned to humble pile of crates too.
But the temptation to have something, where I can throw all stuff brought from the journey just to hear that metal bouncing.... 

[Shoom]

46 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

I did not know that my small item sorter made in survival grew in storytelling to such epic magnificence!!  
 

Also, do not forget that this is probably still cheaper than comparator hopper locks or copper golems. 
 

That's awesome! I might build something like this eventually, I can see it being quite useful for sorting rocks especially, since you usually end up with a variety of them on mining trips, and they all sort of look alike, especially when mining in areas with sedimentary rock, just chuck all of them in one unload chest and have them automatically sorted. 

[Facethief]

3 hours ago, Vratislav said:

What also works is an animal feeding

That’s a lot of pigs…

[Shoom]

26 minutes ago, Facethief said:

That’s a lot of pigs…

Holy Moly, I didn't even notice the pigs! 

I guess a fully stocked, chute-automated pig feeder would also double as a lag machine if left unattended for too long.

[Krougal]

2 minutes ago, Shoom said:

Holy Moly, I didn't even notice the pigs! 

I guess a fully stocked, chute-automated pig feeder would also double as a lag machine if left unattended for too long.

It might take a while. They won't breed every day like in MC. The gestation period is quite a bit longer here.

[Shoom]

13 minutes ago, Krougal said:

It might take a while. They won't breed every day like in MC. The gestation period is quite a bit longer here.

In a single-player/LAN world I suppose it wouldn't really be a problem but what about a server running day and night? Is there animal population cap, or any system in place to prevent overloading the server with trillions of pathfinding pigs?

Wouldn't the population growth be exponential, assuming there's an absurd amount of food in the input chest?

Edited September 10, 2025 by Shoom

[Krougal]

9 minutes ago, Shoom said:

In a single-player/LAN world I suppose it wouldn't really be a problem but what about a server running day and night? Is there animal population cap, or any system in place to prevent overloading the server with trillions of pathfinding pigs?

Wouldn't the population growth be exponential, assuming there's an absurd amount of food in the input chest?

Good question, but I don't know about that since I play SP.

Yes, growth eventually would become a problem if left unchecked.

Pigs take 25 days. Then there's a cooldown of 6-11 days in between. Also the new sows need 7 days to mature.

Exponential or logarithmic or what, one of the math brains can tell you.

Chickens would probably be your best choice if you are out to cause intentional mischief.

https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Animal_husbandry

[Vratislav]

51 minutes ago, Shoom said:

I guess a fully stocked, chute-automated pig feeder would also double as a lag machine

It is possible, however I did not try. In fact I was a bit scared of the feeder effectivness, so I was putting like four stacks of flax grain at once, and then waited for empty troughs. The actual amount of pigs does not make any noticable lag in singleplayer. 

Of course may I use all my flax deposit...  
(But I have not enough salt for dealing with results of such enterprise.)

Edited September 10, 2025 by Vratislav

[Shoom]

9 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

Of course may I use all my flax deposit...  

Now I am become Life, feeder of worlds. 

[Tom Cantine]

I am a little surprised no one has mentioned the usefulness of a hopper/chest as a secure mailbox on a claim, but maybe that's so well-established as to not need mention. Or maybe this is just a single-player thread.

Okay, well, another use I am planning is in my in-game physics research. I have already established that falling damage is linear with height, just as one would expect from a potential/kinetic energy model. This data was collected by jumping off ladders of varying heights and recording the values in the Damage Log.

I have read that items falling down chutes gain momentum with height fallen, and that this speed is translated to horizontal momentum at an angled chute. So my plan is to drop items down chutes of various heights and measure how far away they come to rest after the bend, to see if I can work out more of the physics of this world. 

Basically, Galileo stuff.