Conway's Game of Life circuit development thread!

[GalactusX]

take a look of this youtube video, i think i can help you a bit

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

Thanks for the vids! But this is a very old project of mine, so I already understand the rules by heart, lol. It is interesting to know that John Conway hates the game of life, simply because it became to most something he did not want it to be. Most people's emphasis on the "life" in the game is, I think, what annoys him.

The logic for each square is already completed, as it was last year, but Im restructuring the timing of the circuit. mostly because, yet again, I didn't keep proper notes on my last attempt and It just confuses me to look at it, lol. Another reason, however, is that the old circuit made heavy use of delay blocks, which I think I can avoid now. Meaning that in theory, it can be oveclocked to whatever starmade's limit is on the matter.

The timing pulse is rather strange, it isn't just a simple turning on / off of an input, because each module needs to have things happen in three stages. The calculation step instantly changes what the current state is, meaning that with instant pules, it messes the results up, since the current state of each module affects the states of all the others around it. So I THINK what needs to happen is this: calculation stage, then a brief pause, to remove the instant pulse problem, then a transfer stage of the "next" state to the "current" state. It actually became more clear to me as I typed it here, maybe I can solve the riddle now!

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

update 2: So I figured out the timing problem, it needed to be in 4 stages, not three.. *shakes fist at instant pulses*
I also tried hooking up 3x3 grids together with wireless to reduce lag, and it seems to work pretty well. The only issue is that if there's lag, sometimes inputs will stay high when they aren't supposed to, either the wireless blocks or the actual inputs on each of the modules...

 

[DrTarDIS]

I tried that to make a "holographic" display indicating docking platform status.

Spoiler: image

View attachment 16694

The problem is, faces obscured by another force field don't render at the moment, even if that other force field is deactivated, so it kind-of works for a two-dimensional array where you can see the top faces, but as far as I can tell, it wouldn't work in a three-dimensional setup where the inner force field blocks are obscured by outer layers.

try useing rails themselves as indicators for your display
"can see, something is there" -> changes to basic rail
can't it's not there. -> green/red invisible without f9 or build mode.
Maybe you could try some variant of "floating text" for the holo: use a docked core+ screens in the ceiling and have it physically raise or lower "text art" through the console?

 

[GalactusX]

I tried that to make a "holographic" display indicating docking platform status.

Spoiler: image

View attachment 16694

The problem is, faces obscured by another force field don't render at the moment, even if that other force field is deactivated, so it kind-of works for a two-dimensional array where you can see the top faces, but as far as I can tell, it wouldn't work in a three-dimensional setup where the inner force field blocks are obscured by outer layers.

Try using different "shapes" of forcefields, i mean 3/4 + 1 full block + 3/4 + ....
When you use the same "shape block" yess... the faces of connected blocks look transparent.. but if you use differents shapes instead of full blocks, i think that can solve a bit your problem

 

[Valck]

I tried that to make a "holographic" display indicating docking platform status.

Spoiler: image

View attachment 16694

The problem is, faces obscured by another force field don't render at the moment, even if that other force field is deactivated, so it kind-of works for a two-dimensional array where you can see the top faces, but as far as I can tell, it wouldn't work in a three-dimensional setup where the inner force field blocks are obscured by outer layers.

try useing rails themselves as indicators for your display
"can see, something is there" -> changes to basic rail
can't it's not there. -> green/red invisible without f9 or build mode.
Maybe you could try some variant of "floating text" for the holo: use a docked core+ screens in the ceiling and have it physically raise or lower "text art" through the console?

Try using different "shapes" of forcefields, i mean 3/4 + 1 full block + 3/4 + ....
When you use the same "shape block" yess... the faces of connected blocks look transparent.. but if you use differents shapes instead of full blocks, i think that can solve a bit your problem

Thank you for the kind advice, you may note that the image was taken (and the post written) before slabs even were a thing, much less non-physical rails ;)

This project hasn't been touched since then, and I'm certain I could find a better solution if I tried today. It was a quick-and-simple proof of concept which didn't work out too convincing, but I didn't pursue the idea any further.