[Project] Calculator with Decimal Inputs and Output (puzzling issues with dummy ghosts)

[DicemanX]

That'd be the first thing to eliminate, particularly if you can't be sure you haven't edited, in any way, tiles with dummies in. Double checking the 100 limit definitely doesn't include town NPCs might be worth while (but I'm fairly sure it's a unique limit).

There are no town NPCs in this world so at least that can be ruled out. I think the next step will be to delete the dummies in-game, copy the mechanism over to an in-game freshly generated world, place the dummies in-game, and then see what happens.

The version of TEdit I'm using never seems to copy over dummy ghosts, so hopefully my plan will work.

Edit: oh, and nice build, of course, fast but definitely be cool to have some kind of progress bar or calculating animation.

I think this is a good idea! I was thinking of triggering a bird statue that would cause the bird to move back and forth along a track, activating and deactivating torches along the way. The moment the dummy ghost makes the final jump, it would also open a path so that the bird shuts off all the torches and gets killed at the end of that path (closing it off again upon death).

I'll include something along these lines in the "official" video, but hopefully this Tedit/dummy ghost nonsense will be resolved by then.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

a bird statue that would cause the bird to move back and forth along a track, activating and deactivating torches

Perfect. Unless you want to go more complex and have a circular pattern of torches looping... But actually seeing the bird would be amusing. (Cool to see the lower tech, less mysterious, Terraria mechanisms in actions too.)

 

[z26]

Gotcha?

I've found an evidence for a ghost right there:

(hitting it with a breaker sword)


However this ghost isn't always there. to find it, open the map, go left, then a little bit up ( until you bang your head on this ceiling) then left until you arrive where I am on this picture.


Also, I've found another ghost in another spot, but this one was even trickier in that it spawned only briefly.

This is sufficient evidence however to declare that ghost sometimes are on this map.

ps terraria is crashing relatively often today... maybe because the map is set to read only.

 

[DicemanX]

Gotcha?

I've found an evidence for a ghost right there:

However there is quite a problem: While the ghost was there for as long as I was, going away and coming back made it despawn. I haven't been able to make it spawn again since.

Also, I've found another ghost in another spot, but this one was even trickier in that it spawned only briefly.

This is sufficient evidence however to declare that ghost sometimes are on this map.

Nice catch. So a possible explanation is that there are unwanted ghosts in the map, but they despawn and are replaced by ghosts of dummies that currently exist in the map.

The solution should be to rebuild this mechanism in TEdit without dummies on a fresh world, and then place dummies in-game, just as inomanoms suggested already.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

I've found an evidence for a ghost right there

When there's something weird,
in your hoiktronics world,
who you gonna call?...
@z26 - ghost hunter!

 

[inomanoms]

Gotcha?

I've found an evidence for a ghost right there:

Yeah. I take it back. This precisely the problem I've been having, and your world is screwed. Luckily you still have the bits and pieces? If those builds do not have any perma- ghosts, perhaps try removing the existing dummies in game, exiting and re-entering the world to make sure the dummies you've just removed have not left any ghosts behind, and then perhaps you can use the map for copy paste.

A second word of caution. If you are finding yourself in the position of having to rebuild from scratch, do not try to do this by having two instances of TEdit open to be able to look at the old version, and build in a new world. TEdit can only save a .tmp file when you do this. That was part two of my heartbreak. Look at the world in-game or make a screenshot for reference.

 

[DicemanX]

OK I created a new world, and used TEdit to copy over the entire mechanism after removing all the dummies by hand. I then placed the dummies back in their original positions in the new world.

This solved two issues:

1) The numbers pop up on screen after a single pull of a lever
2) The glitchy final dummy ghost is no longer an issue

I still need to fly around to "activate" all the dummies, but I'm OK with that since I can activate everything relatively quickly. This mechanism is more of a proof of concept anyways as opposed to a final build, so I don't really mind.

Thanks to both @inomanoms and @z26 for their help in identifying and trying to fix the dummy issues. At least we now know to be very careful using TEdit when dummies are part of the build.

 

[z26]

Killing two birds with one stone, pretty cool.

 

[DicemanX]

I'm really liking how smoothly the adder functions now .

I incorporated a progress bar:

It's in the bottom right corner. The blue light comes on when the BCD-to-binary converter starts operating, then the red light comes on when the ripple-carry adder starts working, and the green light comes on when the binary-to-BCD-to-decimal starts operating. Pulling the C(lear) lever shuts off all the lights.

So now I'm all set to shoot a more in-depth video, which will in part discuss giant logic gates and the dummy signaling agents. I might also add a thousands digit to the output display (only need to add a 1 to the display) so that all calculations can be handled, all the way up to 999+999.

 

[AeonicEclipse]

@DicemanX Your builds are insane, very well done. I did think of a somewhat silly idea from this that could be useful for these big builds:
You could use a bank of dummies within a screen width (multiple layers probably) set upon teleporters, and have a player/statue powered track to teleport each one to their respective station (where they are now in your mechanism). It could also involve a dart or something to run through and check and/or activate all the dummies before teleporting them out. POSSIBLY (this could be a stretch) also involve a trap at each "station" to continually check the status of each ghost.
Issue have been solved and a little off-topic but this thread got me thinking of that kind of thing.

 

[DicemanX]

OK, here's the latest version of the machine:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4b_4cIU1vVBcXVwb01rRkNJcjA/view?usp=sharing

As mentioned above, you still need to fly around to "activate" the dummies.

I expanded the output so that it can now display numbers up to 1998. This adder therefore works for all addition of two numbers from 0+0 all the way up to 999+999.

The only thing left to add is a single-pull clear function (currently you need to pull C three times).

@DicemanX Your builds are insane, very well done. I did think of a somewhat silly idea from this that could be useful for these big builds:
You could use a bank of dummies within a screen width (multiple layers probably) set upon teleporters, and have a player/statue powered track to teleport each one to their respective station (where they are now in your mechanism).

Indeed, this might be the route to take to ensure all the ghosts are "activated". The alternate approach is to send the player through the region with the dummies via teleporters and have them activated that way.

Nevertheless, it's probably best to wait until 1.3.1 before optimizing builds, since the update might obsolete many things. Since multiple dummies have thus far been used to reduce latency of giant logic gates, and since non-hoiktronics gates are coming with the new update, we might not need to mess around with dummies.

 

[inomanoms]

The alternate approach is to send the player through the region with the dummies via teleporters and have them activated that way.

I know you have already seen this, and I know you say that how to teleport dummies to their positions in a mechanism is a consideration best made after the upcoming update, but perhaps for @AeonicEclipse 's sake, I would like to draw attention to how I did this in the 1 Tick Logic Gates Thread, because I was very happy at how compact I was able to get the tele-hoiking to the dummy initializing track there (four tiles width)

 

[DicemanX]

So I decided to add a player teleporter system consisting of several modules in close proximity to all the dummies. When the player steps into the initial teleporter he or she teleports around the mechanism, activating all dummies in the process. The teleportation to the keyboard+interface happens within 3 game ticks so the player doesn't really notice getting teleported to various locations within the entire structure. All problems are thus solved and now the entire adder works perfectly. Next up will be a full video with an explanation of how the entire mechanism works along with a more general discussion of giant logic gates.

EDIT: New video is up!

My next video (coming shortly) will be a tutorial on giant logic gates. I'll post that separately once I release it.