Redstone in Contraption Maker

[deevee]

Hi all !

This thread is about logic circuit made in Contraption Maker. I'm trying to make an 8 bit CPU powered by engines, gears, lasers, and whatever can be used.

If you're interested in that subject, if you have question, want to help, have cool logic based contraption to show, feel free to post here. Any help is welcome !


I first made a full 1 bit adder, here :
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=193303007

Then with eight of them, a 8 bits adder :
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=194999930


This was before lasers were implemented in the game. Thanks to Gorilla Nest, we now have a full set of laser logic gates that are more easy to build than geared ones :
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195310565

I remade a full adder from lasers, far more compact (but not using logic gates):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=195302892

A small bug in the game prevented it to work when I made it, I don't know if it has been fixed yet, so I didn't uploaded it to the workshop.
Update : the bug is fixed now !


I also made a D-Flip Flop and a JK-Flip-Flop to be used as memory cells (D-Flip-Flop below)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=196029083

But bad news, it doesn't work too, and certainly will never. Flip-flops are basically double loops that stabilise a certain state depending on the inputs, and the way the lasers are implemented doesnt' allow the loops to stabilise. That's not something I want to complain to devs, because I know some real life logic simulation softwares that does not allow those kind of loops in circuit either, and I didn't try very hard yet. I'm quite confident this issue could be solved with a mix of lasers and gears or even some fancier parts.


eng761 solved this with a smart use of laser colors and mixer :
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=197957193


Well that's it for the moment, I will update this post as research goes on. Once again if you have question, suggestion, or want to participate to this porject in any way, this thread is here !

[Kevin Ryan]

Awesome!

[deevee]

Thank you, but it seems I can't go any further. Moving things around to make it more compact and optimise it just make the electric plugs jump randomly and the circuit is broken.
Any plan to give more control on those plugs, like the belts work ? It would be great.

[Makies Okami]

Not related to plugs but conveyor belts can be used like gears by connecting a wire on each end. That might help give a better reach.

[Pyren]

We'll take a look at the plug control issue. I agree it would be nice to have finer control when building dense contraptions.

[gorilla nest]

Awesome work, this is very cool! We will most likely be looking into finer plug control at some point as a sort of advanced option that can be turned on. I agree it can get very confusing when you have all sorts of specific things that you need to plug in.

We also have lasers coming up in alpha 3, so get ready for those!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=194265708

[Ꝙ Ghosthunter Ꝙ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez gorilla nest:

Awesome work, this is very cool! We will most likely be looking into finer plug control at some point as a sort of advanced option that can be turned on. I agree it can get very confusing when you have all sorts of specific things that you need to plug in.

We also have lasers coming up in alpha 3, so get ready for those!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=194265708

I hope their visual gonna be better.

Like this it's just look like it was somehow censored by an unaligned line colored with paint.

[gorilla nest]

They are just going in with programmer art initially. Their function doesn't relate to the look, so rather than hold them away while we finish the final art, they will be going in the game as "alpha parts".

[deevee]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Makies Ookami:

Not related to plugs but conveyor belts can be used like gears by connecting a wire on each end. That might help give a better reach.

I know that. In fact I had the idea to build this thing when I realized that the solution to one of the puzzles is to build a OR gate out of a conveyor belt and a couple of engine. I said to myself well, Redstone in Incredible machine, sounds interesting (and time wasting too ^^' ).

The problem is nor reaching far part, it's more making far part nearer so more logic can fit instead of bit carrying from one gate to another.

About electricity, it would be possible to delete most of it from the circuit if 2 problems were solved.
First, counteracting a rotating gear by another rotating in opposit way doesn't chain in gears/belt only system. Each gate uses this effect to work, so you need to put a generator/engine between each of them.
The second reason you have to do that is because you don't know which way the output gear of a gate will rotate, and each input of each gate have to rotate the same way for it to work. I'm going to edit the first post to explain a bit more how the logic works in this contraption.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Pyren:

We'll take a look at the plug control issue. I agree it would be nice to have finer control when building dense contraptions.

Nice ! And a bigger building aera too ? ^^

Początkowo opublikowane przez gorilla nest:

Awesome work, this is very cool! We will most likely be looking into finer plug control at some point as a sort of advanced option that can be turned on. I agree it can get very confusing when you have all sorts of specific things that you need to plug in.

We also have lasers coming up in alpha 3, so get ready for those!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=194265708

Looks cool. Will the angles be restrained to a 45° snap or will we see some rotating mirrors usable with belts and/or gears at some point ?

Thanks for all your comments and for this great game !

[gorilla nest]

Początkowo opublikowane przez MacBernick:

Nice ! And a bigger building aera too ? ^^

The build area is unlimited in size right now. You are able to build outside of the default blue area. The colored area is just the "puzzle area". If you make a puzzle, players aren't able to place parts outside of this zone. holding spacebar or selecting the grabber hand from the top menu lets you pan your view around.

If you want the whole area you are building on to be colored, you can open the puzzle options and choose "resize puzzle".

[Ꝙ Ghosthunter Ꝙ]

Początkowo opublikowane przez gorilla nest:

Początkowo opublikowane przez MacBernick:

Nice ! And a bigger building aera too ? ^^

The build area is unlimited in size right now. You are able to build outside of the default blue area. The colored area is just the "puzzle area". If you make a puzzle, players aren't able to place parts outside of this zone. holding spacebar or selecting the grabber hand from the top menu lets you pan your view around.

If you want the whole area you are building on to be colored, you can open the puzzle options and choose "resize puzzle".

Any plan to make the puzzle area bigger?

[gorilla nest]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Ζ✖­­ 👽 εvαηεϟcεηcε 👽 ­­­✖Ζ:

Any plan to make the puzzle area bigger?

If you open the puzzle options (the puzzle piece at the top of the contraption window), you can choose "resize puzzle". This allows you to size the puzzle area to whatever you want.

[deevee]

Początkowo opublikowane przez gorilla nest:

The build area is unlimited in size right now. You are able to build outside of the default blue area. The colored area is just the "puzzle area". If you make a puzzle, players aren't able to place parts outside of this zone. holding spacebar or selecting the grabber hand from the top menu lets you pan your view around.

If you want the whole area you are building on to be colored, you can open the puzzle options and choose "resize puzzle".

I didn't know that. Cool :)

[deevee]

I'm stuck because of this bug, but with small gears. It poped randomly as I was working on a new contraption.

The generator marked "<---" on the right souldn't be running :
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=194632067

[gorilla nest]

The link you posted doesn't seem to be working, but I assume you are talking about the bug where a jammed gear still runs a generator. We have a fix for that in our internal build right now, and it should be coming to you guys very soon!

[deevee]

The link works here. Yes you're right that's about the jammed gear bug. That's good news, thank you :)