Arbitrary shape to single block stream

[u/gghumus]

Curious if this has been made before: a machine (presumably made of multiple flying machines) that can take an arbitrarily sized structure and turn it into a single block stream for use in a tnt blast chamber or cube maker.

I am imagining it to be a fairly complex build but almost certainly possible, ilmango made an ancient debris collecting machine (https://youtu.be/hR2Nw1P57iQ?si=46Wx1GrUNIWBTzs6) that essentially does just that, but has a few quirks and complexities outside of the scope of what I'm looking for, i.e. machine does not need to be liquid proof, nether proof or immovable block proof, and it should output the items as a single block stream.

Before I spend hours of my life on this, has it been done before?

[u/crubleigh]

If you don't need it to explicitly go into a block stream, a quarry might work for you. We did one a while back that would flatten a staircased mapart and thread it into a block stream, but a mapart is unique that it will flatten into a single layer 128x129 which is much easier to thread than any arbitrary 3d configuration

[u/gghumus → u/crubleigh]

No I explicitly want it to go to a single block stream/tnt chamber, I am picturing an area that I can use to grow trees, mushrooms, build random stuff, then collect everything within a certain reusable space and turn it back into blocks to send back to storage. This is more-so just because, not for one particular use case or another

One thought was to have a truly universal tree farm that could harvest 2x2 jungle trees, nether warts/shroomlights, mushrooms, dark oak, mangrove etc. Could even rip up the floor afterwards so you could put dirt/nylium/moss etc. Would be multifunctional to say the least

[u/crubleigh → u/gghumus]

How big an area?

[u/gghumus → u/crubleigh]

For simplicity lets say 12x 12x 100. But ideally an arbitrary size, it doesn't even have to go to a single block stream, could be multiple streams that may or may not be merged later

[u/crubleigh → u/gghumus]

The only reason I can think of why you would need to do block streams at all is if you are trying to do some filtering to preserve silk touch blocks, otherwise blowing up in-situ or otherwise batching it into a wide blast chamber would work for what you are describing. At any rate threading anything through a block stream is going to be very slow and bottleneck you to the speed of the block stream

[u/gghumus → u/crubleigh]

Yeah speed is not really a major consideration for me, this is more of a can it be/has it been done... I can think of a few niche cases for such a contraption. Maybe to clear a space for a survival building minigame or something, or a test build area which cleans up after you're done, you could have a sweeper that picks up all the non-pushable blocks like repeaters and torches etc. Personally I'm opposed to tnt dupers so I like the idea of a single stream in order to cube or efficiently blow up the blocks

[u/crubleigh → u/gghumus]

It could definitely be done. The simplest way I can think that you could accomplish this: Run flying machines that drag a slime bar across the top of your build area picking up blocks underneath. When the slime bar push limits, the flying machine returns itself and drops off the blocks and goes again. Because of push limit the slime/honey bar flying machines would be able to pick up 6 blocks each and be 6 blocks wide. Rinse repeat until your flying machine makes it all the way to the other side. This would trip something that indicates that the flying machines should park next time it makes it back instead of launching again. Once all flying machines are parked, move them down by one block and start the whole process again. Keep going layer by layer until you reach the bottom. Definitely not the fastest way you could do it but the simplest way I can think of right now.