Hey, I'm sorry I haven't been updating, real life intervened and I had too much homework. Also, I've been spending time more on designing the gates.
I've reached a major breakthrough for logic gate technology in general, here's just one example: a Universal Basic Logic Gate.
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☼«☼Dwarf Cake☼»☼[42] Labs present...
Universal Gravity-Based mem(AND/OR/XOR) Gate
Maximum (Practical) Inputs: 16
Power Use: *ZERO*
FPS drain when inactive: Negligable
This is a modular system for a single logic gate, standardized in size. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality.
Using this design, a "circutboard" can be designated and built long before its final purpose is decided.
It has one water input on top, and a single drain on the bottom -an aquifer is recomended and *ideal* for this.
The structure consists of 1-8 holes with hatches (or retracting bridges, if you prefer) in a ring on the floor of a flooded resevoir. (The center tile *MUST* hang from the ceiling or else cave-in!)
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≈≈╬╬≈≈≈
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There are corresponding spaces on the level beneath filled with floodgates etc, and the center tile is a hole.
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The bottom floor has the pressure plate and 1-8 doors/floodgates to serve as drains -either by opening a passage to the drain, or by simply pulsing to delete water.
This feature is to decreace FPS strain: once the gate's chamber is full, water stops flowing. This is more useful in gates that won't stay in the activated state for extended periods of time.
If you wish to have the gate shut down automatically, (good when the gate is only activated for a brief moment) then simply leave the drains uncapped.
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Each one of the stacks on the top two layers is essentially a gate by itself, but all linked together with a final OR.
Each one of the holes on the floor has its own gate, based upon the theory that a closed door (or raised bridge) below an open hatch will not let water pass.
Using a drawbridge instead of a door/floodgate will effectively invert the signal to it.
Removing the hatch or extending a hallway can change the number of arguments for that section, but no more than three is recommended.
So, it goes like this:
NOT»AND»OR
That happens to be the order of operation for Boolean (binary) logic anyways! Many an interesting combination can be made with this, for instance:
¢a»╬b\
¢b»╬a_}=a XOR b
.
.
And my personal favorite...
¢a»╬c»╬b\
¢b»╬c»╬a \
¢c»╬a»╬b }d
¢c»┼a»┼b_/
Equivilent to (!(b||c)&&a)||(!(a||c)&&b)||(!(a||b)&&c)||(a&&b&&c)=d
.
¢c»┼a\
¢a»┼b }c'
¢b»┼c/
Equivilent to (c&&a)||(a&&b)||(b&&c)=c'
A three-bit adder with carry! And in only two gates...
I've got alot more, for instance I have a way to generate a measured pulse with a single gate, an AND gate that can take an infinite number of arguments with almost zero water flow, and a low-flow NOT gate. The former two use water pressure to function. But, I've spent over half an hour writing this down already. I've got more testing to do, and think it might be a good idea to start a new world and build there. I'd give myself TWO aquifer layers with at least 3-Z in between, get rid of (or just move) the annoying caverns and maybe make more z-levels above ground. Either way though, there's still more ☼SCIENCE☼ left before I can actually start building... :\