Bay 12 Games Forum

OK, after a few rounds of revision, I have finished my lock. It is minecart-based, so any challenge using this design will need to be marked as a lair to prevent item scatter.

Features:

• Resettable.
• Result is unknown until you pull the 'submit' lever.
• Improper use of/attempts to hack the 'primer' and 'reset' levers may create false negatives, but will not create false positives. False positives are theoretically possible, but you'd have to have correctly entered all but one of the levers already, have a speed of 1, and also be very lucky.
• After each lever pull (except for the 'reset' and 'primer' levers), the lever pulled is disabled until the system is reset.
• Expandable to an arbitrary number of levers, limited only by the amount of space you have.
• Logic components can be arbitrarily far away from the input terminal
• No fluid logic=no need for pumps, power, or any geographical feature. (Unless you want to use them as part of the punishment for failure.)

Drawbacks:

• Requires dfhack to export to adventure mode (minecart-based system)
• Reset operation may cause lag
• Large numbers of activated levers may cause lag
• Will break if Toady fixes impulse ramps

The correct combination for this example is 23615. (Lever 4 will cause failure if pulled.)

Screenshots are using Phoebus. If you're not familiar with Phoebus, please note that the purpley-magenta bear-traps are pressure plates. All other graphics should be self-explanatory.

My solution was to model the lever combination as a finite-state automaton.

Spoiler: Logic (click to show/hide)

Level 1


Level 3


Level 5

The minecart starts on level 1, on that hatch. The primer lever opens the hatch and the minecart starts circling in the first state. Pulling a lever opens all of the doors labeled with its number. So, if you start with lever 2, the minecart exits the first state and bounces from closed door to closed door and makes it safely to the second state.

However, if you then pull an incorrect lever - let's say lever 4 - the door marked '4' on the pathway between states 2 and 3 opens, and the minecart stays in the second state. When the exit to the second state eventually opens - whether because you pulled lever 2, the submit lever, or the reset lever - the minecart won't be able to path to the third state, because it will derail down into the failout level.

Level 5 is the failout. It looks complicated, but it just gathers all of the possible failures and spits them out into the failure state, which is the little loop in the top left corner of level 2.

When the submit lever is pulled, it opens all of the doors on level 3. If the minecart is in the success state, it rolls up and activates the success trigger; if it's not in an end state, it rolls into failout and then out through the failure state to the failure trigger; and of course, if it's in the failure state, it rolls up and activates the failure trigger. Finally it comes to rest back on the hatch cover.

When the reset lever is pulled, it opens all of the doors on level 3 but also the doors on level 1. The minecart derails through one of the level 1 doors, avoiding either success or failure, and winds up back on the hatch cover.

Do note that, with the combolock levers now disengaging after a pull, it should be possible to condense the failout options into one failout door per state transition, instead of one failout door per failure lever per transition. I had originally attached the levers directly to the doors they controlled, and after the design change I couldn't be arsed to re-dig my automaton just to save space.

Since pressure plates send an 'off' signal after 99 seconds without re-activation, I needed a way to keep the consequence of success or failure active for longer than that. So I made a separate, mini-automaton for tracking only success and failure.

Spoiler: Maintaining success and failure indefinitely (click to show/hide)

Level 1


Level 2

As before, the mine cart starts on the hatch cover, which opens when you pull the 'primer' lever and drops the minecart into the start state. The doors marked 'Fail' and 'Pass' on level 2 are linked to the fail and pass pressure plates on the main automaton. The pressure plate in the 'pass' state is linked to the entrance door/bridge/hatch, keeping it open. The pressure plate in the 'fail' state is linked to the traps around the 'submit' lever. Naturally, the doors leading out of the pass and fail states are linked to the reset lever.

Now that I think about it, I should have just added loops to the 'success' and 'failure' paths on the primary automaton, with doors leading back to its start-hatch connected to the reset lever. It's funny how you start finding flaws in your designs when you go to share them.

Allowing the user to close failure doors after opening them was a huge security hole in my original design. So I redesigned using more minecart automation!

Spoiler: Disengaging levers after activation (click to show/hide)

Level 1


Level 2


Level 3

This is a battery of lever-to-pressure-plate signal converters, one for each of the combination levers.

Those are hatches the minecarts are resting on on level 1; I just caught them mid-blink. The level 1 hatches are linked to the primer lever, which drops them down onto the hatches on level 2. Pulling a combination lock lever opens the hatch on its corresponding battery, dropping the minecart down into the loop on level 3. The pressure plate on level 3 is linked to the corresponding doors in the main automaton, and the looping minecart holds them open until the reset lever is pulled. Because the combination levers are only linked to the hatches on level 2, and the minecart remains on level 3 until reset, the lever has no effect on the state of the doors in the logic automaton!

The submit lever is linked to all of the hatches on level 2, so pulling it is equivalent to pulling all of the levers at once - guaranteed failure, unless the user has already finished inputting the correct combination!

When the user pulls the reset lever, the rightmost door on level 3 opens and allows the minecart back up onto level 2. This triggers the pressure plate on level 2 to open the hatch on level 2, and the leftmost door on level 3. Opening the hatch on level 2 is vital, because it means that 99 seconds later, that hatch will be closed. If there weren't a mechanism to automatically close those hatches, priming the system after a reset would drop the minecarts associated with any levers left on, through the open hatches on level 2 and back into the loops on level 3.

The minecart then derails through the door it just opened and rolls back to its primer hatch on level 1. Occasionally it takes an extra loop to build up speed, but that doesn't cause any problems.

For those tracks in the battery which haven't been activated, the reset door opening has no effect. That's OK, because they're already in an acceptable state.

Spoiler: The levers and entrance (click to show/hide)

Level 1


Level 2

To use:

Ensure the primer lever (marked P) is in the 'off' state. Turn the reset lever (marked R) on, wait briefly, then turn it off again. Then do the same with the primer. Both are linked to the lock on the combination chamber, to remind you to have them both 'off' before beginning.

If you reset with the primer on, there's a chance that you will automatically fail on the next submit (i.e. if you turn the reset off while the main automaton is in failout). Turning the primer off and resetting again will fix this, if you do it by accident.

Originally I was going to pump magma up to the chamber above the levers, but since I wanted it to refill automatically, that turned into such an undertaking that the thread would have been long-dead by the time I finished it. So for now, the bridge above the lever chamber opens on failure, but nothing pours out. However, the lock bridge still traps the failing submitter, which is good enough for anyone who came alone.

After a submit, turning on the reset lever will close the entry-bridge, or close the magma chamber and open the lock, whichever applies. Though as noted, if you failed, you're trapped in the lever chamber, so you'll have to wait for someone else to come along and do it for you.

Oh, some nice details in this one. I particularly like the single-use (resettable) levers and the 'held' states.

I agree with Larix, very nice design Button! Trying to understand all the logic made my head hurt, but it was worth it. Added to OP.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I dunno.. I can usually defeat that kind of puzzle in 2 steps when #toggled items <9.

To pose a significant challenge, it needs to have about 16 compound triggered obstacles, with no ordering between the order of presented levers, and the kinds of connection they have.

Let's say we have 16 doors in a hallway:

O==============================================O
_D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D__D_
O==============================================O

And 12 levers:

/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Lever 1 triggers doors 1 and 7
Lever 2 triggers doors 5 and 6
Lever 3 triggers doors 2 and 3
Lever 4 triggers doors 4 and 9
...etc

With some of the levers triggering a door that is triggered by a different lever, but only one of them. (Each lever triggers 2 doors to toggle state)

There is no logical sequence between the levers and the doors. This makes it considerably more difficult to solve for intuitively, and also makes multiple possible sequences for solution, some much longer than others.

The "penalty" could be introduced by having the room with the levers slowly begin to fill with a liquid, and if not solved in time, the adventurer drowns in 7/7 water. Succeeding in opening the hallway allows the adventurer to walk the hallway, and step on the (ahem) "reset" pressure plate, which opens the drains in the entry hall, closes the flood system, and slams all the doors.

The toggle states of the levers will be all mismatched, having gone through the solution once before, giving no useful clues as to the solution.

A "reset on critical failure" should also be implemented with a pressure plate sensitive to 7/7 water, that resets the puzzle as well. That way when the adventurer drowns, the puzzle will still reset.

I might see if I can implement this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Did any of you guys play those games where you could "toggle" the color of a series of objects in a square and had to make a certain patter to win?

You can toggle gears, right?

Why not have an array like so?

Code: [Select]

{L = Lever G = Gear}
L L L L L     G G G G G

L L L L L     G G G G G

L L L L L     G G G G G

L L L L L     G G G G G

L L L L L     G G G G G
Where each "L" Corresponds to the center of a 3x3 (nxn) area on the grid, or picks its x line and y line. There'd be axles underneath the gears that all run into a master gear once all the proper gears are fitted to drive a water-activated pressure plate.

Depending on how large you make it, you could easily starve an adventurer deep underground with this and never require a reset switch so long you can remember the pattern, and you could make a "clear" switch to reset all the gears. Maybe. At least flip the pattern.

Should I add these concepts to the OP or wait until working designs are submitted?

When you create the site it first asks you for a name, then for a number, for the type of site. Since I Had no clue what i was supposed to type in there I typed in a question mark, and everything worked splendidly. I later typed in a number at a different site, and at that site constructions were not saved. We should experiment a bit more to see what different numbers result in.

The created site is very small, you'll have to build within It's boundaries.

So, I did a bit of experimenting on this and got these results:

non-numeric character=lair (mound type)-creates empty mound-lair upon reloading area
0=white (dwarven) ruin, cannot travel through, acts like abandoned fortress
1=dark grey (goblin) ruin
2=cave, constructions remain built, no cave formed upon reloading site
3=light grey (human) ruin, constructions do not remain built
4=yellow (elven) ruin, constructions do not remain built
5=town, constructions do not remain built
6=red X, constructions do not remain built
7=lair (burrow type)-creates an empty burrow type lair when site is reloaded-constructions outside the lair deconstruct, constructions within it do not
8=fortress
9=bandit camp
10=tomb
11=pink X
Every number tested that was above 11 produced a site marked with a pink X.
There might be more sites available, but I did not feel like typing out every single number from 12 to infinity...

Note that I did not test to see if constructions remained built in all the sites. Also, I discovered that for some of the sites where constructions normally deconstruct, if you leave them on the local map instead of fast-travelling out, they will remain built permanently.

Excellent writing, love the story. Eagerly awaiting more.

Quote from: Atomic Chicken on July 21, 2013, 01:31:30 am

Has anyone built the tables in the museum using adv-fort yet? If I remember correctly, furniture remains built even if a site isn't marked.

You remember correctly, if you replace "remains" with "does not remain" and "even" with "especially".

I just tested this by building a table in the middle of nowhere without marking a site, leaving the area and returning after travelling around randomly for some time. The table remained built. Are you sure it isn't your memory that needs correcting, Putnam?

Oh frig, mine (development stalled by work I actually get paid for) is minecart-based. I never play adventure so I was trying to make a design that wouldn't require any special geography (volcano, aquifer, river, etc). Back to the drawing board.

What's wrong with it being minecart-based?

(development stalled by work I actually get paid for)

Hello Bay12ers! I am back from hiatus and I bring with me a new challenge for the community:
create a combination lock and show us your design!
Such a creation will surely be a worthy contribution to dwarven technology and security; a wondrous machine for protecting socks from undeserving thieves by securing the vault from those without knowledge of the correct combination required to open it.

Requirements:
1.Activating a number of levers/pressure plates (levers are preferred, as pressure plates don't work well in adventure mode if discovered*) in a set sequence causes the vault's door to open.
2.The sequence should feature at least 3 levers/pressure plates, the more the dwarfier.
3.Can be reset after both correct and incorrect attempts at opening. We wouldn't want our vault to remain open forever after withdrawing a single sock, now would we? And we definitely wouldn't want some forgetful dwarf permanently sealing off the vault by inputting an incorrect combination.
4.The use of creature logic gates is discouraged, as these currently do not work in adventurer mode, and so *would be a blow to players who come here seeking combination locks for their adventurer dungeons. (all pets die instantly and all other creatures scatter around randomly upon abandoning the fortress).

Bonus Points:
1.Causes a penalty (such as flooding the room with magma) when levers/pressure plates are activated in incorrect order .
2.Although this is Dwarf Fortress, where it is usually mandatory for projects to be overly-complicated, this certain challenge encourages you to try to keep things simple, as I would like combination locks to be an addition to fortresses and not megaprojects in themselves. Don't worry though, your superdwarfputers will still be accepted if they can get the job done.

Also, here's a tip for those who wish to use combination locks as adventurer challenges:

Since adventurers can look at levers to count the number of mechanisms attached, dummy links should be added to some levers to mislead or equalize.

Once you have designed a working combination lock, post a couple of screenshots/diagrams of it as well as a short description of how it works. A save file containing a prototype of your lock will also be greatly appreciated (but is not necessary).

Good luck! Science is waiting.

Entries:

PTW
This is amazing.