Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[darkflagrance]

Clocks were mentioned in the pre-1400-technologies-not-implemented-in-the-game-thread, but the people who talked about them only came up with limited uses for them.

The real use for any kind of timing mechanism is to in turn regulate the functioning of machinery or doors. I imagine a clock device would use a mechanism and be built like a gear assembly to be linked to gears, or else used as an optional component in upright spike traps or supports. Then, one would be able to go to the clock and set a number of frames to either send inputs or halt inputs, and whether or not to repeat.

For example, I could link up a door and then tell it to be locked all except for say, 100 frames, once a year, at the same time each year. Or I could have a device that regularly replenishes the magma in my slow burning trap that allows the magma to evaporate after a small amount was released to burn victims.

[Warlord255]

It'd need power, I can tell you that much.

I'd love to see the ability to have an absurd setting so that you might have, say, a time-locked vault that won't open until 100 years from its creation, so that if you trade around a world enough, someone's adventurer might get to visit the mysterious vault.

[Bricks]

The biggest problem with time is the extreme haziness as to how time passes in-game.  If you tried to set night watches or something by actual time, you'd have dwarves running to and from their posts every few minutes.  (Not that that directly ties to clocks, I'm just sayin'.)

But yeah, more on what you mentioned, timing-based mechanisms, especially for the silliness that is spike traps.

[sonerohi]

We could have actual Maths!

[darkflagrance]

I actually imagine that time based mechanisms would function by frame counting, so that every x-number of frames they trigger an effect. They might also be synchronized with the Dwarven year or something. Imagine a device that auto-flooded the map with magma in the spring, and then drained it by the arrival of summer.