[TIP] [Automation] Water clock timers and counters

[Saturnus]

Often when you want to do an automation circuit that relies on counting time using buffer and filter gates you often find yourself frustrated with the 200s limit of those meaning you have to string several together. Not a huge deal except that the game doesn't store the state of filter and buffer gates on a save, so every time you start the game up from a save they've been reset, often to disastrous consequences.

Enter the water clock timer. There's many ways to build them but the most simple looks like the below. A pump pumping water to a valve and on to a vent in an enclosed space with a liquid sensor. If you set the valve to allow 200g/s throughput then for every 100g interval on liquid sensor one second has passed. Once the set time is up the liquid sensor goes true, open the door to let the water drop back down and reset the clock. With 2 tiles of water that allows a timer working range up to about 16 full cycles with almost on the second accuracy once fine tuned. More if you build the measuring cup larger or reduce the flow rate although that does sacrifice accuracy a tiny bit.

You can use this for a lot of things. For example a 14 cycle clock that tells you when a new meteor season starts since there's a 4 cycle peace season with no meteors after a 10 cycle meteor season which means you can launch rockets in a launch window ensuring the rocket will always land during a peace season.

Similarly you sometimes find that you want to count something, eg. the number of times a dupe passes a certain point, or how many eggs a pacu has laid. You can do that with logic gates and the memory toggle does enable you to store the result even on saves but it gets fairly complex when you want to count beyond just 4. A much simpler solution is to use a water clock counter. It's basically the same as the water clock timer just with a shut off valve activated for a set amount of time every time a positive signal is sent to the counter. Then it's a simple matter of setting the liquid sensor to the amount that corresponds to the counted number. 2 tiles of water with 1s open time on the shut off valve let you count from 1 to about 200, and obviously a lot more if you increase the measuring cup size.

Here's the same water clock as above just with a shut off valve. The input to the logic is on the bottom. Each time that goes positive the positive edge detector (the AND and NOT gates) sends a pulse to the buffer turning on the shut off valve for a short time.

So my tip is that even now good old water clocks are still the best option in many situations.

[crypticorb]

An added bonus, water clocks aren't laggy as hell compared to complex automation systems.

Side question: how do you tell when a "calm season" has started for meteors? Assuming I didn't keep track of when I breached the surface. I'd love to use a water clock to keep track of this, but without a calibration point it'll be all trial and error.

[Saturnus]

2 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

An added bonus, water clocks aren't laggy as hell compared to complex automation systems.

Side question: how do you tell when a "calm season" has started for meteors? Assuming I didn't keep track of when I breached the surface. I'd love to use a water clock to keep track of this, but without a calibration point it'll be all trial and error.

According to @R9MX4s thread the maximum break length in a meteor season is 1200 seconds so if you have no detection from scanners for more than two full cycles that must mean it's peace season, and the next detection marks the start of the next meteor season.

 

[crypticorb]

8 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

According to @R9MX4s thread the maximum break length in a meteor season is 1200 seconds so if you have no detection from scanners for more than two full cycles that must mean it's peace season, and the next detection marks the start of the next meteor season.

I read through that forum, and didn't see anywhere anyone mentioned that the first meteor shower of the meteor season signals the start of said season. Is there any chance the first shower could be delayed, potentially causing a break up to 6 full cycles (4 for calm season + 1200s max delay)?

[Saturnus]

12 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

I read through that forum, and didn't see anywhere anyone mentioned that the first meteor shower of the meteor season signals the start of said season. Is there any chance the first shower could be delayed, potentially causing a break up to 6 full cycles (4 for calm season + 1200s max delay)?

It's fairly easy to make more and more precise over time since if you have a 14 cycle clock but after 10 cycles allows the first scanner reading to reset the water clock (by just sending a positive signal to the door) it will automatically fine tune itself over time.

And even in the worst case scenario and before you have started to fine tune the clock by above method there will still be a guaranteed 2 cycles window in the peace season for landing rockets which means you have a safe 2 cycle launch window as well. Plenty of head room.

Remember if it's random if a meteor season starts with a break and a meteor shower than eventually it will start with a meteor shower and the first time it does that the clock is perfectly timed, no more fine tuning needed. 

[Saturnus]

Maybe I should explain to the uninitiated why it is so important to keep track of the peace season. The scanners can detect a space craft returning, unfortunately it is currently impossible to open bunker doors in time to avoid damage if they are closed at the time the space craft returns. So if you instead keep track of the 4 cycle peace season where there is no meteor shower the bunker doors can be left open, and then it's a simple matter of checking the space craft itinerary to see when you should launch so the return landing will always happen during the peace season where the bunker doors are already open. 

[crypticorb]

33 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

Maybe I should explain to the uninitiated why it is so important to keep track of the peace season. The scanners can detect a space craft returning, unfortunately it is currently impossible to open bunker doors in time to avoid damage if they are closed at the time the space craft returns. So if you instead keep track of the 4 cycle peace season where there is no meteor shower the bunker doors can be left open, and then it's a simple matter of checking the space craft itinerary to see when you should launch so the return landing will always happen during the peace season where the bunker doors are already open. 

You read my mind precisely; that is exactly what I was planning to do.

NASA keeps track of planetary alignment for optimal windows of travel, for reduced time in transit and fuel costs (and weight). ONI has obstacles, but rather than having us fool around with rocket trajectories, our obstacles are the meteor showers. With the water clock, we have all the mechanics needed to find optimal safe launch and landing windows. People keep whining that they can't delay landings, but as with everything in ONI, preparedness always outplays quick solutions.

NASA wasn't handed a schedule of when Mars would be closest, they had to observe and calculate it, and so shall we for meteor calm seasons.

[Saturnus]

@crypticorb Then this might help

The Meteor Clock

Buffer Gate is just set to 1s.
Power consumption is 4.8W average.

You can make the pipe between the pump and the valve longer if you fear brown out and power cuts. Each addition pipe section gives you an additional 50s buffer.

[Lifegrow]

I wondered if you'd bang something on the forums after the stream the other night @Saturnus - you're a hero.

Out of interest, the scanner array fine tuning thingy - how does that work ?

I'm assuming the peace season port is what you'd connect to your "rocket bay doors" ?

 

[Saturnus]

7 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

I wondered if you'd bang something on the forums after the stream the other night @Saturnus - you're a hero.

It's something I've been meaning to post for a while because making multi-cycle timers or high number counters is practically impossible with how automation currently works. Another example would be the pacu clock I currently use. A fed tame pacu lays 13 eggs in it's life cycle, the last one at cycle 24.5 of it's life. If you then have a clock that stop the sweeper from sweeping eggs at 24 cycles and resets when the egg is hatched at 29.5 cycles you have a continuous system that picks up 12 eggs (for making omelettes or breeding) and makes sure the 13th egg is hatched. Just 6 Pacus is then enough to feed 16 dupes continuously with omelettes but it does require 840kg algae per cycle. So at some point you should switch from egg laying for omelettes to breeding for meat.

7 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

Out of interest, the scanner array fine tuning thingy - how does that work ?

Discussed in the posts above

7 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

I'm assuming the peace season port is what you'd connect to your "rocket bay doors" ?

The Peace Season output is used to open the bunker doors, yes. However, a break in meteor showers detected by the scanner array should also open bunker doors. The Peace Season output is just an override that tells the bunker doors that it is safe to remain open.

[Fischer_L]

It's interesting idea but now you have less launches - that means less resource per cycle. E.g. if you launch rocket on 9 day trip, it arrives on first day of peace season, than you'll need to wait like 5 or 6 day before next launch.

[Saturnus]

17 minutes ago, Fischer_L said:

It's interesting idea but now you have less launches - that means less resource per cycle. E.g. if you launch rocket on 9 day trip, it arrives on first day of peace season, than you'll need to wait like 5 or 6 day before next launch.

I disagree. If you do not set your rockets to land in the peace season it's completely random if you can land them at all without wrecking havoc to your set up. Or do you normally whimsically keep the bunker doors open hoping there's not going to be any meteors hitting your launch site?

[Fischer_L]

14 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

I disagree. If you do not set your rockets to land in the peace season it's completely random if you can land them at all without wrecking havoc to your set up. Or do you normally whimsically keep the bunker doors open hoping there's not going to be any meteors hitting your launch site?

i just babysit rocket's landing and open door manualy despite meteor season. Comet can't damage rocket. Regolith tiles doesn't prevent landing or lift up... they destroed by engine. Only weak point - gantry, but it's low chance that they will be damaged, and even not that neccessary, cause you can use jetpacks. For 100 cycles of launches: 1 repair of gantry (20 steel), 2 repair of mafic rock insulated tiles.

If Klei doesn't change scanner or rocket landing behavior somehow i will use "manual landing" or will use water clock but based on trip length instead of meteor season.

[Saturnus]

9 minutes ago, Fischer_L said:

i just babysit rocket's landing and open door manualy despite meteor season.

Your choice. I couldn't be bothered when I can just build a 2nd rocket instead and have everything automated.

The more you need to babysit any build, anywhere on the map, the more tedious and less enjoyable the game becomes, at least in my opinion.

[Fischer_L]

Just now, Saturnus said:

Your choice. I couldn't be bothered when I can just build a 2nd rocket instead and have everything automated.

The more you need to babysit any build, anywhere on the map, the more tedious and less enjoyable the game becomes, at least in my opinion.

Well of course. You can fully automated completly safe rocket landing with meteor clock, but at the cost of resource per cycle.  But from my experience at current game, at that point your base is pretty much runs themself. So you only need rare resource for advanced design... and fast and a lot. So resource per cycle - kinda important. And in example of 9 days trip - landing at any season is not like 10% more efficient, but 50% more...

In the conclusion, it's players choice - invest player's attention or player's time for current very minimal rare resource collection.

[Saturnus]

1 hour ago, Fischer_L said:

So you only need rare resource for advanced design... and fast and a lot.

Why fast... and why a lot?

The only material you need any significant amount of is isoresin really. Fullerene to make super-coolant is 1:100 conversion. And niobium you only need 5kg of, ever, as you can make 100kg thermite out of it, crush that in the rock crusher and get 50kg back, enough to make 1000kg of thermite, and so on. I may cost a some wolframite.

At the time you have access to all these materials you have found solutions for almost all set ups to work without them so they're really just for eye candy building. It's not worth spending a lot of time optimizing how many rockets you can send and how fast. Instead I see it as far more important to make it safe and easy. 

[Fischer_L]

@Saturnus I don't know about planets past 30k km, and may be that is where i'm mistaken. But for me -  one 9 day trip takes to get almost 200 kg of super-coolant (with 1 cargo container). So to get 1 tile of super-coolant i need 5 trip - 45 cycles. 45 cycles to get 1 tile of supercoollant. If i would use season staggered launches - it would take me 70 cycles!!! Almost 10% of time that i invested into my current base... to get 1 tile of supercoolant.

[Saturnus]

5 minutes ago, Fischer_L said:

@Saturnus I don't know about planets past 30k km, and may be that is where i'm mistaken. But for me -  one 9 day trip takes to get almost 200 kg of super-coolant (with 1 cargo container). So to get 1 tile of super-coolant i need 5 trip - 45 cycles. 45 cycles to get 1 tile of supercoollant. If i would use season staggered launches - it would take me 70 cycles!!! Almost 10% of time that i invested into my current base... to get 1 tile of supercoolant.

And what exactly do you need tiles of supercoolant for? It's mainly for circulating in pipes so 1000kg supercoolant is 100 tile long pipe.

Anyway. This pointless discussion have gone on far enough. If you have something to add about the subject, water clock timers and counters then please do so, otherwise I'd suggest you start your own thread.

[Fischer_L]

5 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

And what exactly do you need tiles of supercoolant for? It's mainly for circulating in pipes so 1000kg supercoolant is 100 tile long pipe.

It's just example...

[Saturnus]

33 minutes ago, Fischer_L said:

It's just example...

It's a good example of a build made in debug mode that has a totally unrealistic view of what is achievable in a survival game.

In other words; a n00b trap.

The whole set up work with minor changes and only need about 600kg of supercoolant total.

[Parusoid]

21 hours ago, Saturnus said:

Often when you want to do an automation circuit that relies on counting time using buffer and filter gates you often find yourself frustrated with the 200s limit of those meaning you have to string several together. Not a huge deal except that the game doesn't store the state of filter and buffer gates on a save, so every time you start the game up from a save they've been reset, often to disastrous consequences.

Enter the water clock timer. There's many ways to build them but the most simple looks like the below. A pump pumping water to a valve and on to a vent in an enclosed space with a liquid sensor. If you set the valve to allow 200g/s throughput then for every 100g interval on liquid sensor one second has passed. Once the set time is up the liquid sensor goes true, open the door to let the water drop back down and reset the clock. With 2 tiles of water that allows a timer working range up to about 16 full cycles with almost on the second accuracy once fine tuned. More if you build the measuring cup larger or reduce the flow rate although that does sacrifice accuracy a tiny bit.

You can use this for a lot of things. For example a 14 cycle clock that tells you when a new meteor season starts since there's a 4 cycle peace season with no meteors after a 10 cycle meteor season which means you can launch rockets in a launch window ensuring the rocket will always land during a peace season.

Similarly you sometimes find that you want to count something, eg. the number of times a dupe passes a certain point, or how many eggs a pacu has laid. You can do that with logic gates and the memory toggle does enable you to store the result even on saves but it gets fairly complex when you want to count beyond just 4. A much simpler solution is to use a water clock counter. It's basically the same as the water clock timer just with a shut off valve activated for a set amount of time every time a positive signal is sent to the counter. Then it's a simple matter of setting the liquid sensor to the amount that corresponds to the counted number. 2 tiles of water with 1s open time on the shut off valve let you count from 1 to about 200, and obviously a lot more if you increase the measuring cup size.

Here's the same water clock as above just with a shut off valve. The input to the logic is on the bottom. Each time that goes positive the positive edge detector (the AND and NOT gates) sends a pulse to the buffer turning on the shut off valve for a short time.

So my tip is that even now good old water clocks are still the best option in many situations.

I don't get how passing dupes are counted. You didn't explain clear enough how does it all work. having pump that drains 240w 24/7 is a lot more than buffer gates that drains 0 energy 

[Saturnus]

21 minutes ago, Parusoid said:

I don't get how passing dupes are counted. It all seems weird, complicated, and not user friendly, let alone having pump that drains 240w 24/7 is a lot more than buffer gates that drains 0 energy 

First, neither of these designs use 240W constantly. With a flow rate of 200g/s as limited by the valve for the timer it uses 4.8W on average, less if you sacrifice precision for even lower flow rate. The counter variant uses 240W for one second for every count, so for example to count a pacu egg farm will use 0.208W on average (13 counts over 25 cycles) per pacu.

Second, counting passing dupes is easy. I apologize for thinking that everyone knew how to do this. You just need 2 pressure plates, a buffer and an AND gate. The buffer is set to 0.1s. In this picture the set up on the left pulses on when a dupe moves from left to right. And the set up on the right does the reverse.

[Fischer_L]

O well, i have a feelling that you think a have something against you or you build, but i don't.

Facts: season launches less efficient resource per cycle wise then back-to-back launches. I had no problems, so far, landing during meteor season. It's would be fully automated when i'll implement your waterclock but based on flight length. I could be wrong because limited experience. I need rare resource, and not planning run game in afk mode, so can spare a little attention to manually manage rockets.

Thank you for waterclock idea.

 

[Katsunari]

So far I prefer this one

Not the best thing to do but at least it won't decrease effectiveness of my solar panels if I built on top of it.

[crypticorb]

1 hour ago, Katsunari said:

So far I prefer this one

Not the best thing to do but at least it won't decrease effectiveness of my solar panels if I built on top of it.

I can't see what's going on with your automation, can you provide a zoomed in screenshot?

Also, keep in mind that if you are relying on buffers or filters retaining a value over multiple days, they will reset after a save/load.