Underwater Base/Airlock Issue - Can't Get Liquid Sensor Working

LexiPixeL

Terrarian
Hey hey I'm super new, I just unlocked the mechanic and I'm trying to understand wiring. I've been trying to work on an underwater base of sorts, and I'm trying to create an automatic airlock so NPCs can live in housing underwater. In the picture, this is sort of more of a baseline concept, just trying to get it to work so I can apply that knowledge elsewhere.

The pressure plate on the bottom left is connected to that door to autoclose once someone gets inside. It's a little crude, but it works. I have two outlet pumps set to dump water on either side of the room, connected to the inlet pump, connected to the liquid sensor. The lever above, I assumed would function as an on/off switch. However the problem is the pumps only function if I keep repeatedly flipping the lever. The same thing happens if there is a switch there instead. If I don't have the lever/switch, the liquid sensor next to the inlet pump doesn't work at all, and if I remove the liquid sensor entirely, it still functions the same way, having to repeatedly flip the switch to get it to work.

I asked on Discord, and I was told that T-MEC would probably know right off the bat what I was doing wrong, so here I am. Can anyone assist me in figuring this out? Thank ya in advance!
 
If you need to keep flipping try using a timer instead
Thanks, that seems to work.
Also I'm dumb and forgot to include my picture(s)!

This one is the original I was working with:
Airlock Probs.png


This one is where I'm at now, without the Liquid Sensor at all.
Airlock Probs2.png


The Timer all on its own works just fine. I'm still rather curious as to what I'm doing wrong with the Liquid Sensor itself, though. Thanks again!
[doublepost=1540581729,1540580985][/doublepost]Oh I've got a secondary question as well!

I was wondering if there's a way to use a Liquid Sensor to open the door to the airlock ONLY when it DOESN'T detect water. I assume that would require some kind of logic gate, but I have no idea how those work.

Edit: Is there a creative mode of any sort? I don't plan on using it to cheat (cheating takes all the fun out of things), but it would be nice to have the ability to place whatever so I can learn how this stuff works without getting attacked. In the last two weeks, RNG seems to have blessed me with several consecutive Blood Moons every couple of days.
 
hi i might have something that might help with this air lock it works a lot like the minecraft repeater it will make a delay in the signal to make it longer then 5 seconds just repeat the 2 and 4 second versions by adding 1s and 3s timers. if you need to know more about how it works i can tell you if you ask. anyways the water censor is finicky as moving water can count as not being there and being there making the censor tick on and off. a way to stop that is to use a one lamp faulty logic gate that will turn itself off when triggered having that hooked up to the repeater timer powered pumps will drain the water once it is triggered once. as for it triggering when there is no water might be a bit harder as there isnt anything that will trigger without the player or something starting the signal so you might have to be the one to trigger the water lock ether with a switch, pressure plate or, player sensor (note the player sensor will trigger twice once when the player enters the zone and again when they exit) getting the faulty logic gate to reset isnt hard just have a wire from the repeater timers end gate link to the lamp please make sure that no wires of the same color connect as it will mess things up. if you have any questions just ask ^.^ oh and as for creative sorry nothing like that in vanilla but there are mods that have items that turn spawns off like fargo's mutant mod's builders soul that is fairly close to creative as it stops mob spawns and give unlimited reach to player interactions like placing blocks and such as well as not using up most blocks when placing them down, but you still need to get the blocks to use them as for creative where you get any block you need mods like cheat sheet lets you get any item in the game modded or vanilla
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot (77).png
    Screenshot (77).png
    112.1 KB · Views: 340
  • Screenshot shutoff logic.png
    Screenshot shutoff logic.png
    27.1 KB · Views: 257
Last edited:
Thanks, that seems to work.
Also I'm dumb and forgot to include my picture(s)!

This one is the original I was working with:
View attachment 212044

This one is where I'm at now, without the Liquid Sensor at all.
View attachment 212045

The Timer all on its own works just fine. I'm still rather curious as to what I'm doing wrong with the Liquid Sensor itself, though. Thanks again!
[doublepost=1540581729,1540580985][/doublepost]Oh I've got a secondary question as well!

I was wondering if there's a way to use a Liquid Sensor to open the door to the airlock ONLY when it DOESN'T detect water. I assume that would require some kind of logic gate, but I have no idea how those work.

Edit: Is there a creative mode of any sort? I don't plan on using it to cheat (cheating takes all the fun out of things), but it would be nice to have the ability to place whatever so I can learn how this stuff works without getting attacked. In the last two weeks, RNG seems to have blessed me with several consecutive Blood Moons every couple of days.
I'm not entirely sure, but if you acutate the blocks before the water/sensor are placed, then I think it will work
 
I remember there was a series of posts in here a long time ago (pre-water sensors, I think) with people trying to make big fancy airlocks lol. Fun times.
 
oh the amount of water a pump can pump is fixed but they do stack as in the more inlet and outlit pumps you have the faster the water is moved. also water duplication is a thing so some air locks can suffer from that when using a water sensor. a fix for excess is to have a lava pit with an lava immune object placed in it (placed before the lava is placed down) that will make any water that falls onto the lava to disappear (as the object in the lava keeps it from forming obsidian)
 
I tried following along and it sorta just made me more confused haha. I made a world with Hero Mod on so I could make a space where I could test all this stuff out without getting attacked, aaand I still have no idea what I'm doing. I ended up coming up with an alternate idea where it would rely on Player Sensors instead, and mucked around with the detection range to get it to activate only when a player is right up against the door. Here's a couple photos with and without range/wire overlay.

I tried using AND gates, and XOR gates to try and get it to go off at the proper time. My first use of AND gates didn't go correctly. The door opened when all the lamps were lit up, but the door ALSO opened when none of them were. I can't seem to replicate that, and now the door only shuts if all lamps are lit, or just the center one. Moving back and forth through it leads to there not being any consistency in the overlap. This ended up being the same problem when using XOR gates, or a combination of XOR and AND gates, except with different lamps being lit and not following the logic I assumed they would from the tooltip.

I also attempted to try and use the lamps on logic gates to activate other logic gates, but I'm assuming that either doesn't work like it does in Minecraft, or it doesn't work at all, or I'm just stupid lol. I might have an easier time following it if like in Minecraft, a lamp was just a lamp and relied on just wiring to figure out whether it would be on or not. Instead, I had also attempted to use lamps that were already on to try and get them to switch off and I am just utterly baffled by using any of it.

Is anyone on Discord lol? I really hate asking for a tutorial, but at this point I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall trying to figure this stuff out. >_<

Edit: Well I just learned that bulbs can stack so I'm gonna screw around with that and see if that helps anything.
Edit again: It only activated one bulb, and then the bulbs stayed lit instead of shutting off, even after I was out of range, even after cutting the wires. Smh.
 

Attachments

  • Gate Probs w Overlay.png
    Gate Probs w Overlay.png
    37.6 KB · Views: 188
  • Gate Probs no Overlay.png
    Gate Probs no Overlay.png
    36 KB · Views: 146
Last edited:
the lamps will not turn on or off without a signal. stick to one lamp for the air lock. only the box of the logic gate will send a signal but the signal will not travel backwards. all gates send a signal when they turn on and when they turn off they act the same with one lamp the faulty makes it where it will send a signal with a % if any of the lamps are off (the number of gates that are off set the % i dont remember the numbers as i only use a one lamp type that is 100%) the one lamp with a faulty lamp gate will send a 1=1 signal if the lamp is on and if the the lamp is off it wont send a signal at all like powering a block in minecraft. to wire faulty gates the signal source is wired to the faulty lamp (the little white and blue lamp) and the output wire from the logic gate's box to what ever you want.
 
I kinda ended up rigging together something that works pretty well. It requires a lot more space than my initial testing area (cloudy area in the first post) did, and I certainly don't have some of the pre-requisite items for this unlocked in my main playthrough, but at the very least I have a working proof on concept for when I do get there. Here's a picture of how I wired it up and a gif of it in action. The gif is a little slow, idk if it's the program I used or what lol.

I read a bit about faulty gates over the course of the day, and tbh I still don't understand how they work lol, but I'll screw around with some more testing at some point. Thanks for the help and the info!
 

Attachments

  • Working Airlock.png
    Working Airlock.png
    61.9 KB · Views: 404
  • Working Airlock.gif
    Working Airlock.gif
    3.5 MB · Views: 249
ok that works lol but output pumps will not move water if they are covered in water and they can duplicate water so keep that in mind. was working on something but that is alot more simple then what i was doing lol
 
Hmm, good to know, perhaps in my main playthrough, I'll have to put the output pumps underground somewhere it's not likely to ever fill up. Or high up somewhere if I need it to continue filling that one area (depending on how deep the water at the the entrance is). I still have plenty to learn but I'm happy I got a good start! Thanks again!
 
There are already many tutorials and guides on this site for wiring stuff. You should play this map Tales of the Terrarian 1.3.1 Map and have a look on How It's Made: Tales of the Terrarian.

I'm sure you will learn a lot about wiring from seeing other things people have made.
First thing I did after a little testing to make sure I knew how this wiring system functioned was make this Duck Hunt mini-game I called Duck Duck Dart.
Then I also made this speedrun map which is not really as big of a wiring thing, it's just a map with a stop watch that starts after a countdown and stops the timer when the player reaches the finish line. You can find it here. -> Gotta Go Fast!
You should have a look at them so you can reverse engineer the wiring stuff and learn more about it. And feel free to ask me any questions you might have about them or wiring. I'm always popping onto this site to see what people are up to and it's always nice to see more people get into wiring. `:)
 
Oh wow, thanks a bunch. I got through Tales of the Terrarian after some time (I'm kinda bad at aiming and only slightly less bad at platforming x.x), and went to check out the How It's Made, and my eyes just glazed over lol. There's soooo much going on that I think I'm a bit out of my element. I'd compare it to say, trying to learn Calc when you've barely got a grasp on Algebra (oh no, high school flashbacks); I think I might need to learn some more basics first haha.

I watched the video for Duck Duck Dart, and plan on trying that and the Gotta Go Fast map out a little later. Perhaps I'll be able to follow those a little better.

I don't have many wiring plans at the moment, since apart from the airlock, I have no idea what I would make for my base lol. Though I imagine it's similar to playing music, when you learn more skills, more creative energy emerges as you ponder how to implement those skills.

Thanks again for the offer to help! :) Is there a generally preferred way to contact you if I have questions?
 
Hey so in my single-minded pursuit to make my airlock work, I didn't consider the possibility that NPCs wouldn't trigger the airlock when they enter the correct field. I tried looking up pressure plates and such, but since all the pressure plates that are triggered by NPCs are also triggered by enemies, I can't seem to consider a method of which would allow ONLY myself (or other players potentially) and NPCs to enter.

Do you know of any mods that modify/add sensor/pressure plate behavior to allow something like this to occur?

Edit: Aaaaaaa, my airlock test (from an above post) was working perfectly and now it's not triggering at all. orz
 
gray, blue, brown and, Lihzahrd pressure plates are player only. there isnt one for friendly NPCs but they will always teleport to their house at night once they are out of sight of the player
 
I noticed those, but I assume those won't work for my NPCs, right? Essentially I want to allow in anything except enemies lol. I considered keeping the Player Above Sensors and then adding pressure plates for the NPCs, but that'll let enemies in too. x.x
 
i edited my post just now so check that by refreshing if it hasnt changed for you but friendly NPCs do not have their own plates sorry but again they will teleport home at night when the player isnt around
 
Hmm, in the meantime I suppose that'll work. From a role-playing perspective, I wanted them to be able to move around freely on their own accord as they do now on dry land; I kinda want things to be mechanically sound, if that makes any sense lol. It's not exactly equivalent, but one of the mods I have has a side-feature I was unaware of that allows me to teleport anywhere I've been to, and I just straight up refuse to use it lol.

Edit: There's also the problem that my current airlock worked perfectly yesterday and now none of the Lamps, Logic Gates, and Player Above Sensors simply do not detect me AT ALL. I dunno what happened.. ;-;

Edit 2: Wtf, I opened the gate to see if the pumps were at least working, and the water just stayed in place like it was made of gelatin lol. But really, wtf.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom