[Project] Intuitive, Switch Free, 1 Pad per 'Stepping Stone' Teleporter Network? -move

[ZeroGravitas]

@Sulejman posted up his simple click-the-number-of-stops-you-want-to-go teleporter network setup on the other thread:

I was wondering if there were some (simple) block configuration that would allow the same kind of 1 pad simplicity, but with a (more fun) walk in the direction you want to go and press down user interface. More like what I showed here:
So I've been trying to wangle a subtle little hoik setup that will re-position the player back a tile or two for each teleport jump, such that they don't leave the pad area (since player's relative position to the pad is always conserved upon teleporting). Some of what I've tried so far:

(Above: various different configuration attempts. Bottom middle example, with square central block, effectively seem to work, but you can start off hedded in the wrong direction if you press down too soon.)

Aiming for behaviour like this (but except without the teleporting at the end when I was just intending to walk over again). Obviously there would be a long distance between each pad:

The principle is that a sloped stair lets you bounce back off a bottom hoik tooth, either activating the pad directly, or stepping you back up too and *then* letting you hit the pad again.

And it works (which I was pleased about), but it also kicks in sometime when you run across the top *without* pressing down (which I was not so pleased about). So wondering if anyone can put the final touches to this, or alternatively put the final nail in the coffin...

[Super-bonus points if you can make it 4 directional, with up and/or down options of the one pad too (without clicking).]

 

[Thiner]

1. We need a good definition of "intuitive". Why should it mean "when we want to stop we release the key" rather than "when we want to stop we press another key", the former being similar to walking, and the latter being similar to riding a minecart (at least I choose to dismount when I just arrive where I want to go. It takes time to decelerate a 102 mph minecart..)? And maybe there are more interpretations.. That's not helpful enough..

2. Why should we stick to 1 pad? The problem is solved readily with 2 pads if you just combine two pads together, with your previous design and a little modification. You can press "Down" and just go through as many pads as you like without difficulty. Actually to connect the teleporting stations takes the most of time. And when saying wiring, we don't care about money. Wiring takes far less money than reforging a best prefix for your best weapons and/or accessories...

Something like this satisfies the "intuitive" easily although it has two pads.

3. Obviously your design is not intuitive enough, at least for me, because it takes quite a lot of time for me to manage out that you used ghost wall + hoik to make the player hit the two rectangles - the pressure plate rectangle and the teleporter collision rectangle - at the same tick. I had thought that the sloped grey brick was for aesthetic uses...

4. Hope I don't look too aggressive... Actually your first video is very inspiring and easy enough to use.

 

[Sulejman]

I must say this: it's always amazing to ZeroGravitas tinkering with existing inventions and designs

Personally, I think using a simple, replicated design of pad with four buttons is simple enough for the user and requires little memorising, but that's just me. Using a design where user has to walk in the direction he desires to be teleported sounds fun, but it doesn't provide a way to go up/down, so buttons still have to be used. I love complicated designs, but when they provide user with simple input methods.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

definition of "intuitive"

Sure, it's open to preference. But I feel that running/walking is a step more natural than (frictionless) minecart coasting. If you dither about stopping, you stop, rather than missing your 'station' and sailing off to the end of the line... I also kind of meant "convienient", non-fiddly, and fun. Running is more exciting, you frequently see big Terraria YouTube players just running back and forth for 15 minutes while monologuing. Relative movement. Not clicking mouse is a big thing too, I think, for this kind of application.

should we stick to 1 pad?

I guess it's an elegance thing mostly. Why do with 2 what you can do with one. And setting up 10 stops it would save you 25 gold, which mightn't be insignificant in early hardmode (not sure of balance now). It is insignificant compared to the cost of wire itself (if you don't scavenge a lot), at 1 gold per 20 tiles. Maybe if setting up an extended arena teleporter runway, etc...

a way to go up/down

Well, you could make the left-right pad(s) actuated and literally drop through to hit a plate/pad that would take you down. Or have a gap between Thiner's 2 plates to drop onto a third pad.

Up is tricker, since plate don't work with up... but like an up-hellevator, I'm not sure there's nearly as much need for upwards teleportation (mostly just to clouds, sky), since you can magic mirror home and TP out again quickly for most trips. but you could hop up onto a platform, though again you'd have to actuate the teleporter (which would get irritating, perhaps, dependant on scale).

An issue with 2 pads is that I'd tended to site them symmetrically either side of the local drop-shaft, hence you can't just hold down, but have to avoid tripping over the drop. Easy, just set them both to one side, I guess.

Possible bug: have any of you experienced issues with teleporters sometimes not firing when you have pressure plates on their sides. It kept happening to me during these tests. Sometimes the button would even click, but then nothing. I'd be prepared to forget about it, but then just watched our @HappyDays repeatedly struggle with an apparently similar issue: during the first fight around 8 minutes in.

So given that they have reworked the pressure plates in 1.3 (sprite looks different, can place on flat side of sloped blocks, etc), which there is some real bug...? (No matching bug report found in forum section.)

 

[Sulejman]

Possible bug: have any of you experienced issues with teleporters sometimes not firing when you have pressure plates on their sides. It kept happening to me during these tests. Sometimes the button would even click, but then nothing. I'd be prepared to forget about it, but then just watched our @HappyDays repeatedly struggle with an apparently similar issue: during the first fight around 8 minutes in.

Oh, really? I will try replicating this bug, does it happen to you always in specific conditions, or just randomly when plates are on a tile adjacent to the t-pad? I almost don't use pressure plates tbh, I used to accidently walk on them too much. And got used to using switches, since 1.1 hasn't had player-only plates, so with introduction of t-pads I kept to my habits.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

pecific conditions

Erm, I think, maybe, when plates are on the edge of the pads, as seen in Happy's vid. Although his right-most pad might not have been wired, unknown, the one he stepped-up onto also didn't seem to trigger reliably. Possibly because player counts as moving upwards through plate there, but I was standing about more with my setups, above. (Although some of the time it was that I was at the side of the pad, just out of TP catchment range when the pad triggered, so that could be part of it; pre-emtive pad triggering.)

 

[Sulejman]

I think, maybe, when plates are on the edge of the pads, as seen in Happy's vid.

Ah, I didn't read your post to the end, missed the part with the link. Mea culpa.
Let me run some tests then.

 

[Thiner]

Erm, I think, maybe, when plates are on the edge of the pads, as seen in Happy's vid. Although his right-most pad might not have been wired, unknown, the one he stepped-up onto also didn't seem to trigger reliably. Possibly because player counts as moving upwards through plate there, but I was standing about more with my setups, above. (Although some of the time it was that I was at the side of the pad, just out of TP catchment range when the pad triggered, so that could be part of it; pre-emtive pad triggering.)

The same problem occurs when I tried to dash through dummies using unicorn while set two teleporters like HappyDays did in order to form a loop. What I can say more is that the dummies that were put on the teleporters were teleported, which means that the player actually made the teleporter work, but the teleporter merely failed to teleport the player. It is hard to see why the bug occurs without debuggers, so I think it should be easier when the devs go for the bug.

==

Before I saw the video I had thought that the failure-to-trigger teleporter problem is this: (teleport[0] is the nearest teleporter connected with the switch, and teleport[1] is the farthest teleporter.)

if ((double) Wiring._teleport[0].X < (double) Wiring._teleport[1].X + 3.0 && (double) Wiring._teleport[0].X > (double) Wiring._teleport[1].X - 3.0 && ((double) Wiring._teleport[0].Y > (double) Wiring._teleport[1].Y - 3.0 && (double) Wiring._teleport[0].Y < (double) Wiring._teleport[1].Y))return;

which means that teleporters that are put in specific orders with switches put on specific positions will make teleportation fail to trigger. But this will be circumvented by changing the spot of the switch without changing the position of the teleporters. It is likely a buggy feature, too.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Ok, I think what myself and Happy Feet experienced was a mismatch between plate hitbox and teleporter active zone, in that the plate can get triggered before you're in range, only on the left side. Have reported it as a bug here: http://forums.terraria.org/index.ph...roach-with-pressure-plate-on-left-edge.30148/
With gif to be clear, of course:
I'm now wondering if this is the same issue @DicemanX had with his NPCs getting stuck when pushed onto teleporters in hoiktronics builds...?

So Thiner, that's some clever sounding code reading, do you think you could find/show your potential bug in-game? (I'm unclear what it would entail.)

teleporters that are put in specific orders with switches put on specific positions will make teleportation fail to trigger.

 

[Thiner]

Ok, I think what myself and Happy Feet experienced was a mismatch between plate hitbox and teleporter active zone, in that the plate can get triggered before you're in range, only on the left side. Have reported it as a bug here: http://forums.terraria.org/index.ph...roach-with-pressure-plate-on-left-edge.30148/
With gif to be clear, of course:
I'm now wondering if this is the same issue @DicemanX had with his NPCs getting stuck when pushed onto teleporters in hoiktronics builds...?

So Thiner, that's some clever sounding code reading, do you think you could find/show your potential bug in-game? (I'm unclear what it would entail.)

Maybe we are talking about many separate bugs (or strange mechanics?)

The bug that you demonstrated with a video is about collision box (or not because I didn't found any collision failure.. Maybe it needs debugger to remove this bug.)
The bug that DicemanX had is related to pressure plate(not teleporter), in which the "step down" mechanics carry a bug. I have talked about "step down" mechanics in that thread and unnatural occurrences from it.
The bug that I proposed in that thread is also about pressure plate, which is an obvious collision box failure rendering it difficult to hit the pressure plates from the bottom.
The bug that I speak of in this topic is about teleporters. (sorry for I cannot provide video now, but I found this bug/feature when I am trying teleporter connections. You can have a try as well and make a video.) For example: if you stack two teleporters together on the ground, then connect a switch to the teleporters, then the position of the switch and the specific wiring circuit will affect whether the teleportation could take effect.
If the top teleporter is the teleport[0] then it fails to trigger; but if the bottom teleporter is the teleporter[0] then it will trigger. By the way the teleport function first teleport the valid entity from teleport[0] to teleport[1], then from teleport[1] to teleport[0]. Teleport[0] is the nearest teleporter to the switch, and teleport[1] is the farthest one.

So lovely devs are!

 

[ZeroGravitas]

"step down" mechanics

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten to mention that one, added it as a comment to my first report, now.

collision box failure rendering it difficult to hit the pressure plates from the bottom.

You think you should be able to hit plates from below? Not a design feature?

if you stack two teleporters together on the ground

Ah, yes indeed. That's a bit of a fail too. Well spotted!:

By the way the teleport function first teleport the valid entity from teleport[0] to teleport[1]

Oh, so it does! You go from the first teleporter the wire impulse reaches to the second one, when you overlap both:

 

[inomanoms]

Ok, I think what myself and Happy Feet experienced was a mismatch between plate hitbox and teleporter active zone, in that the plate can get triggered before you're in range, only on the left side. Have reported it as a bug here: http://forums.terraria.org/index.ph...roach-with-pressure-plate-on-left-edge.30148/
With gif to be clear, of course:

I'm now wondering if this is the same issue @DicemanX had with his NPCs getting stuck when pushed onto teleporters in hoiktronics builds...?

Yes to all of this. Pressure plates have gone all wonky .

 

[ZeroGravitas]

And so your insight allows a very simple, significantly improved teleporter engine design!:
Clocking in at a somewhat respectable ~22 and ~14 activations per second, respectively (+-0.4s, on my old counter apparatus). I think I must have tried this before, but only did the more obvious wiring pattern which didn't work, of course. Not exactly a big deal these days though, what with hoik engines and such... But still, nice work gang!
[DOUBLEPOST=1439125703,1439124802][/DOUBLEPOST]

Mea culpa.

BTW, are you a Magicka fan? Their naming of "Mea culpa" DLC/patch chimed with me and I think about that phrase for admitting blame ever since... Or just a common saying round your way?

 

[Sulejman]

BTW, are you a Magicka fan? Their naming of "Mea culpa" DLC/patch chimed with me and I think about that phrase for admitting blame ever since... Or just a common saying round your way?

It's funny that you ask. I am a fan of Magicka (and played Wizard Wars more than once), but that's just latin for "I'm sorry" (lit. "my fault"). I've learned the phrase in school from a fantasy book, I think, and use it sometimes. Mostly when I want to say "sorry", but don't know other words for that in English (pardon is french in origin, and is not commonly used either). Well, while you ask me about that, we could add each other on steam

As for the tp pads, I've used my switch-activated network since 1.2 update. My new main world has them placed in 500 tiles distance from each other, placed on a skybridge, with vertical shafts dug all the way through to the Underworld. Shafts incorporate vertical teleport "lines" when needed, to reach crystal farms or testing areas. I did such construction to easily reach any point in my world, and to have control over hardmode biome spread (shafts are at least 3 tiles wide). Switching to your design would take a while, and changing my clicking habits, so I'll stay with mine for a while. However, you're right that switches are small and fiddly. I think I'll redesign the tp pad stops with levers, probably.

 

[Bahamut2001]

I don't think the problem is with the pressure plates, they seem to work just fine. The teleporter is just missing the player when the plate is hit for whatever reason.
[DOUBLEPOST=1439163982,1439160985][/DOUBLEPOST]Maybe its a differences in the hit boxes of the plates and the teleporter?

 

[Thiner]

And so your insight allows a very simple, significantly improved teleporter engine design!:

Clocking in at a somewhat respectable ~22 and ~14 activations per second, respectively (+-0.4s, on my old counter apparatus). I think I must have tried this before, but only did the more obvious wiring pattern which didn't work, of course. Not exactly a big deal these days though, what with hoik engines and such... But still, nice work gang!

Well maybe off the topic, but I want to say: What's wrong in this video? I saw the same content as what you have posted, and my computer crashes because of the video(really crashes, with a blue screen of death..) . Who has the same problem with me?

 

[ZeroGravitas]

I think I'll redesign the tp pad stops with levers,

That's what I was going to go with, if/when I showcase you setup style. Unfornutaly 2 wide levers don't go well into 3 wide pads, so was thinking of staggered rotation symetry around a central empty tile (or torch, or something).

its a differences in the hit boxes of the plates and the teleporter

That is how I tried to describe it in my bug report.

my computer crashes because of the video

You mean that my Gif killed you PC? I had FireFox hang and crash trying to access an Imgur hosted Gif sent to me yesterday on the forum (an HTML5 issue?)... Or do you mean you were in game and teleporters crashed you? Either way, it's all weird.

 

[Thiner]

You mean that my Gif killed you PC?

I'm using Chrome and I saw it as mp4. Whatever, you posted a same video again(which is kind of weird), and the repeated video killed my PC to the blue screen of death, twice.(Maybe a hardware issue? Because when I first opened the video, my graphics card seems to fail which is shown on my taskbar; when I opened it again, it gave me the first Blue Screen...) It definitely shouldn't be your fault, but I'm very, well, terrified to enter the thread....

 

[HappyDays]

Great to see you playing with this concept Zero! I've been using an 'endless teleporter' run in my last few series (especially versus Golem). I might have a tinker with it but it worked reliably enough (just) to get through the expert Golem battle!

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Oh hey Happy!

I've been using an 'endless teleporter' run in my last few series (especially versus Golem).

Yeah, I refered to that glitchiness you had in in my bug report, did you see it? I was curious to know if you did have the 1s timer wired into the teleporter by mistake too and/or the second plate not wired up at all (don't think you showed the wiring after the problems).

Anyway, well done on building such a comprehensive channel so quickly; the best of the big YouTubers for showing off builds and mechanics, I think.