Quick and Easy Picture Tutorial: Automatic Doors

    Edymnion

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    Little things can turn "Meh" sections of your ship into "Wow" sections without a great deal of effort, so I thought I'd make a quick and easy tutorial on how to do some of them.

    Today's Tutorial: Automatic Doors

    Anyone can slap some plex doors down on their ship or station and call it good, but opening/closing those doors every time you go through them can be a pain in the neck after enough time. Plus, its a hallmark of an advanced builder to automate as much as you can, so why not some quick and easy automated doors?

    For this quick and easy tutorial, I'll be showing you how to make a simple plex door that automatically opens when you walk up to it, and closes after you walk through. Lets get started!

    Step 1:

    starmade-screenshot-0000.png

    Make your door, it needs to be out of Plex Door, Glass Door, Blast Door, or any combination of the three. There are ways to make fancy rail based doors, but those are a lot more complicated though they still use this same basic trigger mechanism.

    Step 2:

    starmade-screenshot-0001.png

    Somewhere near the door (I like to put mine directly on top of them), drop an Area Sensor block and an Activator block. C on the sensor, V on the Activator to slave the Activator to the Sensor.

    starmade-screenshot-0002.png

    Hit C on the Activator block, then select all the blocks in the door (you can hit V on them individually, or Shift + V to select them all at once).

    NOTE: An On Activator block means the door is closed, so you should "prime" the system by turning on the Activator block (so that its blue) at this point. Otherwise, you'll have to try walking through the door a time or two before the logic will kick in.

    Step 3:

    starmade-screenshot-0003.png

    Start putting your Area Trigger blocks down one block away from the door. Don't make them touch the door, otherwise as you walk out of the door it may try to close on you while you're still inside of it.

    You can hit C on the Area Sensor block as you put the Trigger blocks down, or your can wait until you're fully done and link them all up at once the same way you did the door.

    starmade-screenshot-0004.png

    Cover the entire front of the door with Trigger blocks, you don't want some smarty pants trying to squeeze around the corners and break your logic on you!

    Step 4:

    starmade-screenshot-0006.png

    Repeat your Area Trigger blocks on the opposite side of the door, making sure to keep them slaved to the same Area Sensor block.

    starmade-screenshot-0005.png

    See how the Area Sensor is selected, and you can see the purple lines of the Area Triggers on either side of the door? This way, when you walk through the first wall of Triggers, the Sensor will toggle the Activator to Off, which will open the door. Then when you walk through the second wall of Triggers, the Sensor will toggle the Activator back to On, which will close the door behind you.

    Viola, you're done. You now have automatic doors that will open and close whenever you or anyone else walks up to them.
     
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    I can't stand plex-doors. The fact that they simply vanish just breaks any immersion I have. I tried to sex them up with activator buttons or area triggers, but people just ignored the buttons, and I've always found area triggers to be unreliable.

    I do use them, but only to cut down on the number of docked entities on a ship. Whenever possible, I will make a door that actually slides or rotates.
     

    Edymnion

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    I've always found area triggers to be unreliable.
    I've used this exact setup on my ships and stations for ages, and they've been completely reliable for me.

    At least after I learned to put the space between the triggers and the doors themselves so that you're 100% out of the door before it tries to close it.

    Long as you prime the logic and mind the gap, they've worked correctly every time for me.
     

    lupoCani

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    but people just ignored the buttons
    There's a remedy for this. Area triggers block line of sight. If you place are triggers on both sides of the door, people cannot open them manually without squeezing themselves against it, forcing them to use buttons.
     
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    Can the area triggers be controlled by permissions modules? Or can this system be easily changed so it only auto-closes doors and never opens them? For security, I like that someone with the right rank/permissions needs to physically, manually open a door, but wish they'd shut themselves afterwards.

    Or, better yet, can opening a door trigger a logic signal? Then auto-closing on a delay/timer ought to be fairly easy.
     

    jayman38

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    Humans are funny creatures. They will spend two minutes wiggling up against the door to open it directly despite area trigger coverage, rather than spend the three seconds it takes to find and push the button. That's why I wish there was a way to turn off the plexdoor manual control.

    The Immersion-breaking is why I once proposed animated plexdoors. Sadly, there wasn't a lot of interest.
     
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    Area triggers work very well with permission modules...in a manner of speaking. Cover the doorway with area triggers so that players can't activate the door by clicking on it, then attach the plex-door to an activator block. Place your faction permission block, and voila.
     

    Calhoun

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    A good tutorial Eddy. I'll probably hook some if these up to my rail doors.
     
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    can opening a door trigger a logic signal? Then auto-closing on a delay/timer ought to be fairly easy.
    StarMade News - StarMade v0.199.234 - More Logic, New Effects, and Radial Menu
    The logic sensor block is part of an entirely new system that can probe the current state of most systems on a structure, such as power or shield percentage. This means you can now include the state of those systems in your logic circuits.


    The following systems can be probed:
    [...]
    ~ Doors: The output is 100% when closed and 0% when open.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    Can the area triggers be controlled by permissions modules? Or can this system be easily changed so it only auto-closes doors and never opens them? For security, I like that someone with the right rank/permissions needs to physically, manually open a door, but wish they'd shut themselves afterwards.

    Or, better yet, can opening a door trigger a logic signal? Then auto-closing on a delay/timer ought to be fairly easy.
    - Area triggers don't seem affected by permission modules. I've had doors with no permission blocks attached and visitors walked right through them.

    - The new sensor block has some potential and I experimented with it for a bit but the sensor would detect the door's open state, then send another signal to close it. It would then detect that signal then reopen it; resulting in an endless open/close loop. I gave up and used activation logic with a timer to close the door after 3 seconds. Press the button or keep out...

    Personally I find area triggers annoying to use. The slightest touch will toggle the door open so that it closes as you approach. I've updated all my new ships to activation-timer setups, which are much easier to use. I figure if someone has an issue getting through my doors, they probably weren't invited in the first place.
     
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    sensor and activation module must be next to each other, linking does not work
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    sensor and activation module must be next to each other, linking does not work
    I'm aware of that. Position wasn't the problem. As I mentioned before, the sensor detects ANY change in the door's open/close state; which in turn generates a new signal and another change in state for yet another signal. Lather rinse and repeat.
     

    Edymnion

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    Yeah, there is no way to faction lock the door if its on a sensor like this. Anything that goes through the trigger wall will make the door open.

    Its highly recommended if you think boarders are going to be a thing that you add a lock-down mode to your doors (namely an AND block to make it so that you have to trigger the sensor and have an "everything okay, let people move around" activator toggled somewhere behind a legit locked door.

    Stop the automatic doors from opening at all if you throw the ship into lockdown mode.
     
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