controlling multiple rails

[Postosis]

I'm trying to find a way to control multiple layers of rail rotators from a central location. the 2nd and 3rd layers of rail rotators are traveling around the 1st rail rotator so placing the controls centrally causes them to rotate and therefore must have clearance to move or the whole system binds up. in the included screen shot you can see what i have mocked up. there is the main ship labeled Z attached to a central rotator labled A which has an entity Y attached at rotator B to swing out 90 degrees into the position shown. from there entity X is attached to rail rotator C to pivot in the opposite direction of rotator B by 180 degrees. essentially when reversed the 2 rotators will "fold" the entire arm into the side of the ship. the sequence would need to first activate B and C to pivot Z and Y out of the ship. then you can activate A to rotate the entire assembly.

without being in edit mode for the other entities i cannot link anything to the rotators.

 

[J_MASTER]

Most simple solution I see would be attaching wireless logic to each entity in the chain. Each corresponding wireless logic block on the parent entity can then activate them all at once, or in sequence.
The control you get over the child entities is pretty neat with the use of wireless, because a child entity's own wireless block can activate unique logic instructions to rotate that particular section differently from the rest in the chain.

There are other wacky ways to send a signal through a chain of entities. A couple examples would be: Rail Collision Checking or Power Tracking. Power Tracking isn't one I've had the chance to test, but the idea is that you have a module that consumes power set up to logic to fire every so often depending on how many power regen modules/etc. you have on the structure. When the weapon can't fire due to lack of power, I think you can send a signal from the weapon module to a logic block >.> but now that I think about it I'm not sure if that's possible.

 

[Arintone]

Here's a hint. Besides wireless blocks (which are essential no workaround), if you place an activation module or button against the rotation block, it will toggle whenever those arms operate.

And, if you've adjusted the rotation period (like it appears you have) then they only toggle every time the new period rotation is achieved. So 90 deg they activate every 90deg. If you change rotation to 180, then they toggle every 180.

Attach those to a wireless block and you can send feedback to a command center, then wire them to activate in sequence.