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[taptap]

Bridge trouble: Is it possible that a bridge tied to a *working* edge detector (fluid based) simply occasionally stays open? Why would that be? And if there is some design mistake, why does it happen only occasionally? Weirdly the door linked to the same plate (internally) does close, so an off-signal was definitely sent.

[Larix]

That's the design using two pressure plates, right? On each "edge", one sends the "on", the other the "off" signal. There's always a chance that they end up slightly out of sync and the "off" fires a few steps too early for a bridge (bridges ignore all signals that come during their reaction delay of 100 steps).

So while the design works without trouble for doors, hatches, gear assemblies, spikes and track stops, it's not fully fit for the long-reaction buildings bridge, installed bars, floodgate and grate. You might need a one-plate "edge detector" for those, making sure the plate's activity condition is fulfilled for two steps at least.  The lowest-tech version for that is probably a minecart guided or pushed across a pressure plate (needs judicious depart condition juggling, so convenience is a bit lacking):
S1═^═S2
Cart gets pushed/guided from Stop 1 (S1) to Stop 2 (S2) or vice versa when a signal pulse is desired. The pressure plate produces the signal. Only needs one pressure plate, one minecart, a few engraving jobs and a designated hauling route.

[taptap]

That's the design using two pressure plates, right? On each "edge", one sends the "on", the other the "off" signal. There's always a chance that they end up slightly out of sync and the "off" fires a few steps too early for a bridge (bridges ignore all signals that come during their reaction delay of 100 steps).

So while the design works without trouble for doors, hatches, gear assemblies, spikes and track stops, it's not fully fit for the long-reaction buildings bridge, installed bars, floodgate and grate. You might need a one-plate "edge detector" for those, making sure the plate's activity condition is fulfilled for two steps at least.  The lowest-tech version for that is probably a minecart guided or pushed across a pressure plate (needs judicious depart condition juggling, so convenience is a bit lacking):
S1═^═S2
Cart gets pushed/guided from Stop 1 (S1) to Stop 2 (S2) or vice versa when a signal pulse is desired. The pressure plate produces the signal. Only needs one pressure plate, one minecart, a few engraving jobs and a designated hauling route.

It is the low-water-door-plate-door design with internal link (simply the better design I believe), it should deliver a short interval between ON and OFF with little variance. Since the bridge is only linked to a single pressure plate, I wonder, how exactly it would be possible, that a plate w/ its delay equal to the bridge can be fast enough for the OFF not to be registered, but apparently it is *occasionally*. (Some build order magic? It must depend on single ticks.)

[Larix]

<sfx>Skkkrriiitch

EDIT: skip that, it really should be a minimum activation time of the pressure plate, i.e. the trigger condition is only fulfilled for a single turn. This might really be an effect of having a too good water supply (multiple pumps, water dropped from above) or pure weird luck. Slowing down the water supply a little bit might help.

[PintOfBass]

Is selecting mineral occurrence to 'everywhere' in world gen still causing various bugs?   

[NJW2000]

What is bismuth like as an armour material? Or what do its stats suggest, as I can't understand them.

[PintOfBass]

What is bismuth like as an armour material? Or what do its stats suggest, as I can't understand them.

Bismuth alone can't make armor or weapons, it can be used to make a type of bronze.  Bismuth bronze has much more value then normal bronze but as I recall it has the same combat effectiveness as regular bronze.  Its better then copper by a good amount but not as good as iron.  Its not as good as silver for warhammers but a good deal better when making edged weapons then silver.

[NJW2000]

Artifact. What is bismuth like, I can't comprehend material properties on the wiki.

[BlackFlyme]

Bismuth ain't very good by itself. If it was bismuth bronze, it would be alright, but pure bismuth has a duller edge than silver and its impact values are sub-par.

[locustgate]

I've currently always have "Clear Rain Snow" at the bottom left of my screen when it rains or snows and "Clear Snow" when it's clear.

[NJW2000]

So bad armour?

[BlackFlyme]

Not going to hold up against edged weapons, but it may be able to take a blow or two from blunt ones. It is fairly dense, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.

Depending on the type of armour it is, you may still be able to have someone wear it though.

[NJW2000]

So a bismuth breastplate won't be much use? Ok, I can put it with the other artifact armour on my blingy war hero crippled guard captain who's only ever killed a few magma crabs and crawls everywhere.

[taptap]

<sfx>Skkkrriiitch

EDIT: skip that, it really should be a minimum activation time of the pressure plate, i.e. the trigger condition is only fulfilled for a single turn. This might really be an effect of having a too good water supply (multiple pumps, water dropped from above) or pure weird luck. Slowing down the water supply a little bit might help.

Yes, this is it - the randomness was a hint this was about the water. Even w/ only two ticks active conditions (usually it were 3-5, never more in the test run) it works fine, but just in my last test run I found a single tick activity phase. One tick it was still 034 next tick 777 and the bridge stays open. (I already were contemplating to propose putting low water plates on 1-6 instead of my custom 1-4, but this would not have mattered here.) I spent fortress years to build that water battery and the cell is just in the lowest level of that battery... and now it is too fast. Without pressure, however, fluid logic is too sluggish, realised that much in my experiments with diagonally connected wave repeaters, they repeat fine, but it takes ages for the flooding (= turning off) to propagate.

It was a fun debugging session, which produced plenty of obsidian as well. Obsidian mechanisms available at discount in Subtlehammers, if anyone is interested.

P.S. Even with minecarts this can be a problem or a feature, when operating fast minecarts while forcing single turn visits on a plate. News at least to me.

[Ghills]

A strange mood is stalled on "blocks...bricks", but I've made the preferred items with block options and no dice. The blocks are out of the workshop that created them, so the moody dorf should have spotted them, right?

Anyone have ideas what to try supplying next?  Preference list:

Amber
Emerald
Trifle pewter (have blocks)
Obsidian (have blocks)
Armor Stands
Leather Armor
Mules
The color buff
Pineapple Wine
Pig Cheese

She also wants logs, but has no wood preferences.  Logs are available, so it's likely the blocks are what's blocking the mood.