So, to clarify, if i build my floodgate first and then my bridge and both link them up to the same lever/pressure plate, the floodgate will have a 100 step delay and the bridge a 101 step delay? Also 1 "step" is one "frame" then (which is very confusing on wiki).
Thanks for the response.
No; the delay depends on what you build first, the lever/plate or the building. The order the "other" buildings are built, if there's more than one linked to the same lever, doesn't matter, except inasmuch as whether or not some get built before and after the mechanical building.
Basically, if you built a lever, then a floodgate and bridge, in that order, then linked them all up, the gate and bridge would have a 100-step delay. If you built the floodgate, the lever, and then the bridge, the gate would have a 101-step delay, while the bridge would have a 100-step delay. And if you built the bridge and floodgate, then the lever, both would have a 101-step delay.
Steps are not quite equivalent to frames. Regardless of other concerns, steps are the unit of time ingame; units move every x steps based on their speed, fluids move only when a step changes, it appears to take a certain number of steps to complete each job, and mechanical delays are measured in steps. I'm pretty sure that, since dwarves move every 10 steps unless they have an agility attribute, steps-per-frame-while-unpaused is not 1-to-1, as I'm pretty sure that dwarves don't cross 10 squares per second at 100 FPS. I could very well be wrong about that, though.