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[Hawklaser]

Ok, as the title suggests, I am wanting to build a giant hourglass. The basic construction should not be hard at all, just time consuming

The parts I may need a bit of help on is getting it to reset it self on its own, and a way to have it keep track of how many times it has "flipped". As not too knowledgeable in dwarven mechanics yet, done some simpler things such as automated floodgates for wells, but this will need much more than that.

Also what would work best to use as the stopper in the middle for letting the top refill, and then re-open to start all over? Thinking hatches or a bridge.

Also planning on building in a manual stop switch, that can be used to refill the hourglass with magma or water depending on the map, and reset the counter if desired.

[Vieto]

refill: close a hatch in the middle (with a pressure pad near the top of the bottom half), use pumps to pump water back up, pressure switch to begin timer again. Concerns: Evapouration.

recording: Have a binary system in place involving pressure plates and water.

[Aqizzar]

I think water can flow through bridges, so a hatch would be best.

For counting, you could probably rig up a pressure plate to turn on gearboxes, as counters themselves, or some kind of water counter.

And for proper dwarf-ness, it should be an hourglass of magma.

[Vieto]

bonus: at regular intervals, drop elves into the hourglass.

[Hawklaser]

Yeah, would prefer magma. And to make it better, built out of clear glass, crystal glass would be even better, but Rock crystals are so rare to come across, and I don't want to have the smelter spit them out. After all, whats the point if the dwarfs can't watch it fall down to the bottom?

The setting up the presureplates, and gear assemblies right would be the mechanical part I would have more problems with.


Something I was thinking about using the counter for would involve releasing caged creatures on a adventurer As could lead to lots of crazy forts for an adventurer to explore, such as paths changing while going through the fort.

[Kanddak]

I think water can flow through bridges, so a hatch would be best.

No, I know for certain that water does not flow through bridges. I tested it this afternoon when building a device for drowning adventurers.

But you probably want a single-tile-wide opening for your hourglass, which is best covered with a hatch, because of the way water pressure works.

I recently posted a theoretical design for a 1-bit counter here: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=30514.msg414841#msg414841

[Martin]

Magma and clear glass, hatch cover in the middle. Pressure plate one z above the hatch to detect if top is empty, activates pumps to fill top. Pressure plate also activate dwarfputer which counts how many fillings and shows the count on a 7 segment display.

For extra credit, leak a small amount of magma out on pumping to start a small fire releasing smoke from a stone dragon's nostrils for a pope-like indicator to the dwarves that it's time for a party at the giant cave spider cage.

(I'm trying to condense all of the thread questions/challenges into one solution)

[Hawklaser]

I can say this will certainly be fun to build, of course gonna start with a small water one, then set about finding a map to build a huge one on. After all may as well take my time building the real one and have things worked out so I don't flood the area with magma on accident, though not above letting a troll or something else cause that...

[Raphite1]

Such an awesome idea, I'd love to see you pull this off. A functioning binary counter would be brilliant, but it seems like it would take a huge amount of space to count up to even a modest number. I'm trying to think of a recording method that uses stones, but nothing occurs to me immediately. Dispensing units of water into a makeshift graduated cylinder could record fairly high values, but the evaporation problem seems to make it a no-go.

[Raphite1]

Idea for a counter:

    A dwarf is in a room with a bed, food stockpile, and booze stockpile. When the hourglass is drained, a pressure plate opens a door allowing the dwarf to access a craftsdwarf's workshop, a stone stockpile, and a finished goods stockpile. A single stone mug has been queued at the workshop, the dwarf goes and makes it, then carries it through the hallway to the finished goods stockpile. In the hall, he trips a pressure plate that blocks his passage back to the shop, and blocks the passage from his bedroom to his shop. The counter is the number of mugs in the stockpile.

Problems:
- Have to manually add a job at the workshop every reset, which kinda defeats the idea of automation.
- Have to eventually restock the dwarf's food/booze/stone.
- Erratic dwarf behavior may cause an error.

[winner]

Such an awesome idea, I'd love to see you pull this off. A functioning binary counter would be brilliant, but it seems like it would take a huge amount of space to count up to even a modest number. I'm trying to think of a recording method that uses stones, but nothing occurs to me immediately. Dispensing units of water into a makeshift graduated cylinder could record fairly high values, but the evaporation problem seems to make it a no-go.

just make the drain a layer above the bottom so there is never water only 1/7 deep

[Dorten]

It seems, that even a 1/7 water on top of 7/7 water will evaporate as usual...

[Yanlin]

Yanlin has been ecstatic lately. He has admired a legendary megaproject idea recently. He has admired a legendary megaproject idea lately. He has dined in a legendary dining room recently. He has trolled the forums lately.

[Flaede]

I think water can flow through bridges, so a hatch would be best.

No, I know for certain that water does not flow through bridges. I tested it this afternoon when building a device for drowning adventurers.

But you probably want a single-tile-wide opening for your hourglass, which is best covered with a hatch, because of the way water pressure works.

I recently posted a theoretical design for a 1-bit counter here: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=30514.msg414841#msg414841

You did indeed, Kanddak. I am sorry to not have given it proper testing yet (no extended computer time for DF to test it with). I will still do that testing, but I'd love megaproject competition.

Hawklaser - if you can figure out how fast water flows how far, so you can make this an actual seasonally-flipping hourglass or something.. that would be awesome. I've had difficulty figuring that out. As for "resetting"... depending on how you work it "atomsmashing" drawbridges can destroy/drain all the water in a channel if you make one of the walls out of retracted drawridges.

[Shakma]

I think fluid also flows slower through a diagonal, so you may want to incorporate that if you want a slow flow.  Am I right in that?

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