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[timesavatar]

I've seen some people comment on making one, but has anyone ever actually done it? I was thinking of doing it, making the model of the inner planets. I was going to try like one guy mentioned and use a magma track with hatch covers over it for the planetary orbits tracks. The best way I can think of to make the hatch covers open and close is to have a pressure plate repeater set up with as many plates as there are hatch covers. I'm thinking so many days activates this like using a normal water clock, and then each one of these plates opens one hatch and closes the one behind it. Any thoughts on making it easier or more efficient?

[darkflagrance]

One could theoretically make an orrery with a goblin tracking the planet. After capture, goblins always path seeking to escape to the edge of the map. You could fill a circular area with nothing but lever-linked doors or floodgates and hook them all up to a repeater, so that at a certain interval, the doors would all open, the goblin would move, and then the doors would close, trapping the goblin wherever he happened to end up. Multiple exits ensure that the goblin never reaches any of them.

[Greyejoy]

Goblin-slave powered orrery? I approve of this.

[Necro910]

Goblin-slave powered orrery? I approve of this.

Dwarf approves this statement.

[PTTG??]

I'd say use the goblin as the hidden regulator, with him running on a circular track of pressure plates. When he is on the west side of the track, a door on the east side opens, and vice versa; additionally, two more doors exist to prevent reversing. All these pressure plates are then hooked up to the display level above. Each pressure plate below connects to one floodgate directly above it. When viewed, one gate would close, becoming visible, then open as the next one activates.

Problem: The gate might not cycle fast enough, and would get stuck in one state or another.

Perhaps hatches are faster.

[Sadrice]

does anyone know how many steps are in a game year, so we can do the math for how long of a period each planets orbit will have?

[Chessrook44]

does anyone know how many steps are in a game year, so we can do the math for how long of a period each planets orbit will have?

Well to start, how many steps are in a day?
Then how many days in a month?
Multiply those two together, multiply the result by 12, and you have A FRACKING HUGE NUMBER FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

[Aramco]

I won't lie; I had to look up what an "Orrery" was. Now that I know, it sounds like an awesome idea.

[Necro910]

I won't lie; I had to look up what an "Orrery" was. Now that I know, it sounds like an awesome idea.

Me too.


One problem with this thread: THERE ARE MILLIONS OF WORLDS AND DIMENSIONS.

lol.

[CapnUrist]

does anyone know how many steps are in a game year, so we can do the math for how long of a period each planets orbit will have?

According to the wiki, one year in Fortress Mode is equal to 403, 200 time units.

[Sadrice]

thats exactly the article i was looking for earlier.  odd that years in df are shorter than real years.  either the planet orbits faster or spins slower.  perhaps you cant assume that the four inner planets have orbital periods resembling those in our world.

[Necro910]

thats exactly the article i was looking for earlier.  odd that years in df are shorter than real years.  either the planet orbits faster or spins slower.  perhaps you cant assume that the four inner planets have orbital periods resembling those in our world.

There are over one million planets and dimensions.

There might be a lil difference.

[Vattic]

You might want to check out this repeater design. They can be used nicely for accurate clocks.

[Jeoshua]

Once moving fortress parts are in, I fully plan on using a procedural planet system generator to create a system which I will then do my damnedest to simulate with moving fortress parts.  The central star? Magma.

[Sadrice]

perhaps if you have any seasonally changing fortress elements, you could place the trigger for them at a certain point on a track in the orrery, and have a cool automated fortress ala anathem. maybe in a temperate biome, for a stupid dwarf trick, you could have an artificial lake that you drain into an underground frost proof cistern every winter (bonus points if the winter gate is in the bottom of the lake, and it automatically opens as it is exposed and all fortress traffic goes through it for the winter), and then pump it back after spring thaw (automatically shutting the floodgates on the winter gate, of course).