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[godisdead132]

so i had an idea for creating a kind of mechanical capacitor/timer/ROM for some kind of short term application all you would need is a 3x3 tower of water or any other size being filled from the top with a varyable flow rate into it. it could be used with some work to fire some kind of timed fluid trap or something else. you could even make some kind of incremental timer by putting pressure plates at different levels set to trip as it filled. or you could put a trench at the bottom filled with water wheels you could send the flow through a diagonal to depresurize it letting you get a temporary power source to drive somthing big. by putting lots of water wheels in a line you could generate huge amounts of power on demand without having to constantly frag your fps.

Z-0
 ____
 l~~lO   ->
 l~~X O -> to water wheels (or whatever)
 l~~lO   ->

Z-1-∞
 ____
 l~~l
 l~~l
 l~~l

Z-whatever (potential timer idea) as each level fills it could trip a plate or mutiple. so by adusting the flow rate into the tower you could set it to send a specific set of comands in a specific order to various devices kind of like a chunk of ROM
 ____
 l~^l
 l~~l
 l^~l

[slothen]

I don't get it.

[Doc_LaKock]

I'm afraid I don't understand either, friend.
Could you try to rephrase it?

[Auto Slaughter]

It makes sense to me and it's a nifty idea.  "Capacitor" doesn't quite seem like the best description for it, though I do see the analogy; maybe better to just call it a water clock.  (It's probably most directly analogous to an hourglass or stopwatch but "water clock" is the conventional term for a timekeeping mechanism powered by water.)

Assuming that it hasn't already been invented (and that it works the way you think it will, if you haven't built it yet) it seems worth adding to the wiki.

[mrtspence]

The thing fills up to the top, where excess pours out, if I assess correctly.

[godisdead132]

all you need is a hollow tower that slowly fills with water it could be used for many things ( i use it as a combined timer and temporary power source) to make a timer all you would have to do is put a pressure plate on one of the levels as it fills with water the level rises untill it reaches the plate the farther from the bottom the longer until it triggers. the power soure idea was what it originaly was hence "capacitor" i used a large tower full of water with a door at the bottom. when you opened the door the water was depresurized by a diagonal then flowed into a trench full of water wheels they turned as long as it kept flowing which depending on the volume of the tower and how full it was could be for a second or hours. i used this to power a quick magma trap so as to avoid having a pump stack constantly running or disconected water wheels constantly turning (which also drains fps)

mrtspence: as for filling just seal the top once its full no more water can go in so nothing happens

[slothen]

tower + pressure plates at various heights + slow drain from the bottom = water clock.  I see.  Sounds fun, but a caveat would be you need to calibrate it depending how precise you want/need it to be, depending on what you're using it for.  In particular, would a tower twice as tall take twice as long to drain?

I see how you can use it to supply power for a limited time.  However the current best water reactor design is quite fps efficient.  Using levers+gear assemblies is probably more useful.  I still like it for the timing aspect though, although I can't think of what I'd use it for.

Maybe as a giant death clock for fortress self destruction.  Or you could make it out of clear glass, and build it next to your enemy execution device.  I imagine a chained enemy civ leader watching the water drain out from an adjacent tower.. counting down the minutes until the bears are released on him or the floor drops away and he falls 20 stories.

[godisdead132]

I use it as a power source cause it dosnt require as many parts and can be easily reperposed but as to a timer you got the idea I always loved hooking it up to an obsidianizer with caged gobbos the target just thinking of what there feeling seeing the level slowly drop knowing that when it raches the bottom it will kill them is great. another Idea I had was to make a multi stage design hooked up to a maze made of draw bridges so that it constantly changed as time went on.