Change rail rotators to 15-degree increments.

[TheKingOfSpace]

Right now, you connect blocks to a rotator to make it rotate in 45 degree increments. ( 45, 90, 135 , 180 ,225 , 270, 315, or 360.)

I propose we instead do 15 degree increments - 15, 30, 45, etc., to allow for more variety.

 

[Shibe]

Why not have it as a ratio mechanic like the speed controller?
That way you can have other rotations pretty easy too. For example 15 degrees would be one active and 23 inactive activator blocks.

 

[Zackey_TNT]

Right now, you connect blocks to a rotator to make it rotate in 45 degree increments. ( 45, 90, 135 , 180 ,225 , 270, 315, or 360.)

I propose we instead do 15 degree increments - 15, 30, 45, etc., to allow for more variety.

A logical step would to be instead of doing that add a block that allowed you to manually set it in a GUI and then link the rotator and logic to that block.

The stock "Dumb" Rail rotators would stay the same to prevent breaking of ships and prevent the need for another block in the line.

 

[zigyzigy]

A manual input is definitely more desirable for keeping down the number of blocks placed, it can already be bad for spacing with just 8 blocks. hopefully speed control will also become a manual input. I think the reason they didn't do this though is so that it can all be logic controlled.

I don't know if there would be a way of logic controlling a GUI input, maybe a rotatory controller block that can manually change the number of degrees rotated per active signal received...

 

[CyberTao]

Schema said in the update that he did not want to use GUIs, he wanted block based solutions and mechanics.

Also, setting the angle with activators like the speed controller would take up an ungodly amount of space on small crafts.

 

[Shibe]

Only thing I can think of with the blocks we have now is that OFF signals will give 15 degree rotation per link and ON will give like 90 degree per link.
It's both a blessing and a curse that starmade has no concept of signal strength.

 

[Valiant70]

I think we should have logic blocks with more than two states. Since logic blocks are all cubes, they could use all of the rotation bits for extra activation bits. This could be limited to certain blocks, or worked in for all blocks. ON would be full power and OFF would be zero. Anything between can be processed differently; something like this (O=output, I=input):

• OR block could add two signals up to max signal strength.
  • O=sum of all I
• AND block could add all signals together, then subtract full signal strength times one less than the number of inputs.
  • O = (sum of all I)-(max strength-(#inputs-1))
  • E.G. input 1,1 outputs 1, input 1,1,0 outputs 0, input 1,0.5 outputs 0.5.
• XOR could be an absolute value subtractor.
  • O=abs(I-I)
  • E.G. 1-1=0, 0-1=1, 1-0=1, 0-0=0, 0.9-0.1=0.8, 0.1-0.9=0.8
  • Following multi-input XOR behavior, adding more inputs would keep subtracting each input, then output the final result
  • E.G. abs(1-1-1)=1, abs(1-0-1)=0, abs(1-0.4-0.1)=0.5
• NOT could subtract the input from 1 and output the absolute value of the result.
  • O=abs(1-I)
• Add a block that acts as a transistor.
  • If second input>0, O=I. Else O=0.

• The flipflop (which is technically a latch, schema ) would subtract input from its current value and output the absolute value of the result.

• O=abs((current state)-I)

• An activator, button, step-on trigger, or other input device would have a specific signal value when placed, set by "rotating" it in advanced build mode.

• When receiving a non-zero input, an activator or button would output its value.

• A delay would wait, then repeat its input. The signal strength of an activator next to it would determine the length of the delay.

Come to think of it, I probably should have made a separate thread for this.