Archive: 12 posts

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Hi, I'm new here. Probably should have stopped off at the introduce yourself bit first, but whatever. I'm trying to get my first level off the ground, and would really like a puzzle type element in a few spots. The level is themed after casanova's escape from the leads in 1756, and I wanted to have a part with a little clock riddle/puzzle. Unfortunately, I'm having a heck of a time trying to get the cogs to reliably turn, much less the hands of the clock. I've seen the levels with the mechanical clocks, so I know it's definitely possible. I've tried using the set from '$LittleBig Mechanical Clock', but even they break; it seems, no matter how I try, the motor never ends up in the middle of the cog, so it shifts a bit as they turn. Is there a trick to it that I've been missing? Thanks in advance for any help.

2010-06-13 23:22:00 Author: MobiusDT Posts: 89

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By motor you mean motor bolt? So you don't get it perfectly in the middle? Use one of the grids (via pause menu) and re-scale the cogs fit your desgin after you placed the bolts. With grid, they snap to certain points, a little bit of experimenting should quickly lead to success. I think if you make the cogs fit an even number of grid squares, bolts land in the exact middle. That would be my easy and first attempt for advice.

2010-06-13 23:52:00 Author: Xario Posts: 238

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It's really hard to notice, but the game does actually have a "snap to centre" feature in it - you have to zoom the camera in a LOT to see it though. Some advice for connecting up gears: Put the motor bolt on one gear only, preferably the smallest, and leave enough space between them that the teeth intersect, but don't touch the inside line. Hope this helps!

2010-06-13 23:55:00 Author: Holguin86 Posts: 875

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Oh. Yeah. Blame me. Jokes aside, any kind of bolt SHOULD snap to the center of a cog. Just keep trying and wait until theres a 'leap' to the center, then you know it's worked.

2010-06-14 01:22:00 Author: Kog Posts: 2358

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I thought that snap to middle thing was what I was doing, but the gears still undulate. I'm going to try the resizing business later tonight, hopefully that helps. edit: It seems to have helped with the undulating. I'm curious if anyone knows, would the movement overall smooth out the more gears I add? I'm trying to make it look believable, so there's going to be a few gears spinning, but I'd like to know if I'm barking up the wrong tree. I've been fiddling with the tightness of the regular bolts, which I'm certain will have to be toned down a bit the more I throw on there, and that seems to alleviate a lot of the lockup issues.

2010-06-14 01:55:00 Author: MobiusDT Posts: 89

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It seems to have helped with the undulating. I'm curious if anyone knows, would the movement overall smooth out the more gears I add? I'm no cog expert, but I could imagine that more cogs not in a straight line add some ease through a bit more tolerance. Sideway forces, that may crush the cogs also won't add up so easily. So yes, thats a good hypothesis.

2010-06-14 04:20:00 Author: Xario Posts: 238

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The more cogs you use in a line, the more likely the whole system is to lock up. If you look carefully at the junctions between the cogs, the gear teeth themselves don't interlock properly, but move at slightly differing speeds past and through each other. As this occurs over several gears, the game starts miscalculating things and sometimes causes breakages. If you are using gears of the same size, you can simply attach a motor bolt every now and then along the line to keep the gears turning smoothly. Just ensure that the gears are not too close together - the teeth should touch about halfway down their length.

2010-06-14 13:16:00 Author: Holguin86 Posts: 875

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If you are using gears of the same size, you can simply attach a motor bolt every now and then along the line to keep the gears turning smoothly. I noticed that some people don't even bother to try to make these work properly, and just fake it by having the cogs close to each other, but not touching, and just stick a motor bolt on every one.

2010-06-14 17:33:00 Author: Aya042 Posts: 2870

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The more cogs you use in a line, the more likely the whole system is to lock up. By in a line, do you mean straight across, or do you mean that they are turning one another? I have no intention of putting them in a straight line, but there will be like 4, maybe 5, involved, staggered in various directions. The sad part is they're almost decorative, as they won't be the mechanism to actually turn the clock hands, but I really feel that they will sell the idea of being in a clock tower, but only if they're moving one another. Not to mention I really want to use the escapement gear as an implement to start the puzzle.

2010-06-14 17:45:00 Author: MobiusDT Posts: 89

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Decorative gears are much easier to use properly than gears that are used to power something. By in a line, I meant connected to each other, so the longer the connection line (without extra motor bolt support) the more glitchy it is going to be. I'd use an alternating small-gear-big-gear system, with invisible motor bolts on every small gear. As long as they're positioned in different directions like you said, it will no doubt look very cool. With the escapement gear, just have an extra gear in the layer in front of your other gears. Have a perm switch permanently escape the escapement gear, and turn on the background gears - that way, you don't have to get fancy with escapement blockers and such like, and the system is far less likely to lock up.

2010-06-15 19:35:00 Author: Holguin86 Posts: 875

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The only reason I'm not actually having them "do" anything is it seems it would be a lot more work for something that the average player isn't going to actually be able to notice. Not to mention they're going to be behind the clock face, so then I'd be building a working clock, then basically rebuild it backwards. Faking it will hopefully not be apparent and be much easier. I just don't want the gears breaking in the middle of playing, and that's been a serious pain to achieve for some reason. I've managed to get 4 gears driven by one without issue for 10 minutes, (I'm gonna let it go an hour tonight and come back and check on it) I'll probably have another motor in-line before I get any further, just to make sure.

2010-06-16 02:12:00 Author: MobiusDT Posts: 89

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Sorry to dredge up old threads, but I went back to the '$LittleBig Mechanical Clock' level and I'm noticing that it looks like the middles of the gears have been punched out and dark matter placed there. I could see how this would be handy in several ways. How hard is it to size that sort of thing so that the gears are in place but not immobile? Is it easier to just use bolts, or does that introduce more complicated physics?

2010-06-22 05:00:00 Author: MobiusDT Posts: 89

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