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[Squirrelloid]

Ok, so i know the game uses something called 'steps' to mark time.  I have some questions:

How many steps in a month?
How many steps in a year?  (Is it 12 x steps/month)?

[darkrider2]

I thought about this a while ago... and the whole fact that dwarves have a 12 month calender raises a lot of questions.

Do they have astronomers to study the movement of the stars and planets? and I've never seen a dwarven telescope. (not sure if the telescope is pre-1400 but I know the mayans had very accurate calenders and star charts)

I'm now bubbling with mod ideas...

[Squirrelloid]

Here's a deeply interesting question: are days the same length?

I have some anecdotal evidence which suggests the 28th of the month, at least at the end of a season, is a 'short' day...  WTH?

[Nexii Malthus]

Wasn't someone working on machinery, fluid logic, dwarven computing, to create a digital clock? That would come in useful.

Imagine an LED-like display with green bridges on a black background to tell what day it is

[Quatch]

1200 ticks to the day.

I'm currently building my own clock. I believe you want the following if you want to try it too:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=39962.0

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=30514.msg414841#msg414841

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=33563.msg495183#msg495183

Which should get you started.

[Squirrelloid]

Are you sure its 1200 ticks/day all the time?  I tried counting out repeater actions per day, and was somewhere between 3 and 4 for most of the days.  However, the 28th had just started (was rapidly entering/exiting 'z' menu at the time to check timing), and then one repeater operation later it announced the next season had started (and i 'z'ed in to see it was the 1st of the next month), which confused me greatly.

Repeater i was using:

WF|+^|

Where W is water supply, F is a fortification, | is a floodgate, + is a drawbridge, and ^ is a 7-7 water pressure plate.  Water-ward floodgate is an on-off switch controlled by a lever, other floodgate and drawbridge are slaved to the pressure plate.

Anyway, despite floodgates and drawbridges requiring 100 ticks delay before opening/closing, i still couldn't build a repeater with an integer number of operations per day even for the normal days - something you'd think would be trivial when you can more or less guarantee an instantaneous repeat signal when W is pressurized.

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, tell me if i'm on crack, but the following would seem to be true:

-Pressurized water takes 1 tick to move 1 square.
-Bridges built *before* a pp take 100 ticks to open or close. 
-Floodgates take 100 ticks to open or close.

P|+^| therefore takes 202 ticks to cycle - 2 ticks for water to 'fill' it, and 2x100 ticks to cycle the floodgates/drawbridges.

(P = pressurized water, | = floodgates (first one a shut off switch from outside), ^ = 7-7 plate, + = drawbridge)

240 ticks would be a convenient number.  The best way to add exactly 38 ticks is to make water travel 38 squares farther.  However, we can't do that *inside* the repeater above, because it'll effect the water level dynamics too much.  Thus, we need a front end:

      >    >
P|+__...__ (+^|)
      >    >

-() is the back end from above, the minimal repeater.
-We've moved the control floodgate to the absolute front of the structure.
-> is drains long the sides of the structure.  (Might need to use hatches to keep it from draining too much water while filling the repeater)
-Total length from + to end of front end is 38 tiles.  Ie, we're adding 38 ticks to the time the repeater takes to function.

Of course, this requires a larger water resevoir to pressurize with.  But if it works, it'll be a repeater that counts a day in 5 iterations exactly.  (Not that 5 is an especially convenient number, but getting up to 300 exactly strikes me as rather wasteful of water...).  Probably need to ensure complete drainage of front end, which means i probably need hatches slaved to an inverter or somesuch so they open at the right moment.

[Quatch]

No, I'm not certain about the 1200/day being constant, its what people told me when I asked. A full day/night cycle should be the same length though, thinking real world. I'm way too lazy/inaccurate to count out multiple days in . steps. I suspect my clock will have leap ticks in there somewhere, I'm much more of the adjust afterwards mentality.

[TBot Alpha]

I thought about this a while ago... and the whole fact that dwarves have a 12 month calender raises a lot of questions.

Do they have astronomers to study the movement of the stars and planets? and I've never seen a dwarven telescope. (not sure if the telescope is pre-1400 but I know the mayans had very accurate calenders and star charts)

I'm now bubbling with mod ideas...

I imagined that was the Philosopher's job.

[Count Dorku]

I thought about this a while ago... and the whole fact that dwarves have a 12 month calender raises a lot of questions.

Do they have astronomers to study the movement of the stars and planets? and I've never seen a dwarven telescope. (not sure if the telescope is pre-1400 but I know the mayans had very accurate calenders and star charts)

I'm now bubbling with mod ideas...

I imagined that was the Philosopher's job.

No, pulling levers is the philosopher's job. Astrology/astronomy is simply his/her hobby, much like making infeasible mandates is the hobby of every other noble.

[MrFake]

-Pressurized water takes 1 tick to move 1 square.

May or may not be true.  How is the water "pressurized?"

With a pump?  The pump would have to be hooked to a constant 7/7 water source (like the bottom of a very large cistern).  The pump would put 7/7 water into it's output tile, but 1/7 can still flow off from that in the same step.  It's not a big problem for a 2-tile long repeater, but after adding a certain length, you can't ensure that 1 tick/1 tile holds true anymore; it could move slightly faster (7/7 sliding water riding on top of 6/7).  A large cistern would be more reliable as it teleports water in a single step, so long as you have enough surface tiles in the cistern, but it becomes infeasible after a certain length.

But, that means nothing, as the second stage of the repeater uses depressurized water.  As in, the water flows randomly and may take any number of steps to flow off the plate and open the bridge.  And, of course, there will already be some water in the repeater when the bridge is next opened, which may complicate things even more.

      >    >
P|+__...__ (+^|)
      >    >

What's the purpose of the drains?  If that draining corridor is 38 tiles long, it adds much more than 38 ticks.  Consider the drains are closed (via hatches).  Water needs to fill 38*3, or 114 tiles before hitting the repeater.  Yes, water can reach the repeater before the corridor is full, but when you're going for a certain depth, the random flow is much more pronounced given a larger space, and it will kill any determinism.

Another design might be

P|+ + ... + (+^|)

where those drawbridges in the middle are lowered while the corridor is filling, so you only have 38 tiles to fill, then smash all that water when the bridges raise, to clear the space for the next cycle.  That doesn't overcome the flow limitations, but it will be more reliable, unless I made a wrong assumption about the drains.