Fallout 4, the latest tale of post-apocalyptic tale of wasteland wanderers, got its latest DLC yesterday. This add-on, Contraptions Workshop, adds new objects and parts to Fallout 4‘s settlement-building workshop mechanic. This add-on brings more building pieces, elevators, and most importantly logic gates to Commonwealth settlements.
The Fallout logic gates are used in conjunction with electric generators, lights, and automated sentries used to build settlements. Although a simple NAND would do, there are several types of logic gates including AND, OR, XOR, NOT, NAND, NOR, and XNOR.
The in-game explanation for these gates is very, very weird. AND, OR, and XOR “transmit power or not depending on the combination of power to their inputs”. NOT, NAND, NOR, and XNOR are apparently different, “only transmitting power if their inputs are connected directly to the output of other logic gates”. The reason for this arbitrary distinction between different sets of gates is currently unknown except to a few programmers and project leaders at Bethesda. It should be noted {AND, OR, XOR} is not functionally complete.
With implementations of logic gates in video games comes some very interesting if useless applications. Already Fallout 4 has light boxes, allowing for huge animated billboards. Fallout speakers, the wasteland’s equivalent of Minecraft’s note block, can be used to play simple melodies. You can do anything with a NAND, so we would expect automated, sequenced versions of animated billboards and monophonic synthesizers to appear in short order.
Functional completeness can add a lot to a game. Since Minecraft added redstone logic to the game, we’ve seen some very, very impressive block-based builds. The Minecraft CPU generally regarded as being the first, most complete CPU took about three months to design and build. This build didn’t use later additions to the redstone toolbox like repeaters, pistons, and the now-cheaty command blocks.
I think {AND, OR, XOR} is actually functionally complete, if you have access to a constant 1. Tie an XOR input high, and it’s an inverter, completing the set.
If you’re interested, there is good article about the subject on Wikipedia :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_completeness
this is a nice addon, but i think it is a bit unneccessary.
i played fallout a lot, still do with the new addons.
but i have never realy used the settlement building options.
it is just not neccessary for the game and provides me with nothing.
even worse, to build just the simple things, you first have to spent hours collecting ressources.
next update will bring the ability to build and run a bunker, this will make settlements even more unattractive for a player.
i also have never used the armor and weapons crafting system. all my weapons i found in the game itself.
only thing i used is the power armor station for repairs. and even for that i am constantly gathering ressources.
just very recently i have started to play a bit with the weapons crafting. but just because i am already LvL70
and i have to spent my points on some new abilities. the game is absolutely fine without the whole crafting system.
i prefer the story addons like far harbour and the upcoming nuka world.
I just finished Far Harbour yesterday. It’s awesome. Better than i expected after Machinist, with which i was done way too quick.
Anyways, i didn’t fiddle with my settlements too much, aswell. Just the basic food, water, beds and defense stuff. But I do use the weapon and power armor stations frequently. Whenever i get a new gun that i think about keeping (legendary ones, of course) i just check if the legendary modifier is better than the one i already have and drop by the crafting stations to make it just like i want it. For instance, i have only one single automatic weapon, a legendary machine pistol (looks like a Tommy gun) which shoots exploding bullets (OP AF). Any other automatic weapon i found got “downgraded” to semi-auto, because automatic lowers the damage.
But, just yesterday i went through the list of things one can build in a settlement and it’s a lot. Some useless stuff, but also a fair bit of useful things, like an ammo producing machine. If it actually does what it promises, then it’s a quite useful device.
unless you notice that the factory needs also ressources to run.
so instead of searching for bullets, you will now search for scrap to turn into bullets.
From what i can find on the net, for .50 caliber you need copper, lead and fertilizer.
would be easier to just build an eye-bot robot and let it search for amunition ;-)
From my experience (rather quick first playthrough, finished at level 42 and now i’m taking the long slow route), the hardest to acquire materials are aluminium and adhesive. Then again, some stuff can be bought off dealers, even in bulk (shipments of stuff). I’ll just check it out and see if it’s worth it.
What i’m really waiting for though are people building ballruns. With logic.
Adheisive is easy – grow Corn, Mutfruit &tatos and have some purifiers running to produce excess purified water. YOu can then make Vegetable starch at the cooking station, which is an adheisive.
Fertilizer is easy – Any brahmins that you attract (or capture in cages) generate fertilizer.
The others – scavenging stations have their place so you don’t have to go looking for anything.
Settlements are fun, you get bunch of caps, resources and place to sell stuff you don’t need. But I they were just fine in base game, with DLCs it looks to me they’re cheating people who bought season pass. Three DLCs that deal with building towns and only one combat oriented with new map. People who want to build towns play SimCity, people who want combat and exploration play Fallout, let’s keep it that way Bethesda, please.
“I they”, looks like “think” is missing. Edit button stuff …
AND/OR/XOR cannot generate a 1 (power) with zero inputs (no power).
NAND/NOR/INV do. So the difference just looks like it’s preventing power from nothing.
That makes a lot of sense, seeing as there is no POWER and GND connections to string up : )
But if you connect AND to an INV the output will be 1 with no inputs, unless the system somehow detects that there’s no inputs.
But that begs the question why they couldn’t just check if the N-gates have inputs or not.
I have not played the game, so I don’t know how it works, but I would venture a guess: The N-gates must have other logic gates as input, or else they would function as power sources when nothing is connected to their inputs. That might be unbalancing to the game?
Makes sense. The result of mixing up power and logic signals! Not using separate inputs for the gates doesn’t help either, since that’s how literally every diagram ever, as well as reality, does it.
I would imagine that the logic gates go through the whole game engine with all the physics and the like, so they’re not gonna be fast enough to simulate a whole lot of. Perhaps the game can group elements, so everything in the same circuit is emulated just at a logic level as one large game object, with the logic circuit simulation kept internal to that one object. Rather than having each gate be an object and go through all the layers of indirection and scripting and all that. The quick way would be orders of magnitude better, might allow some complex stuff.
I fail seeing what can be built using single input AND/OR gates…
You haven’t seen the Minecraft CPUs then…
You can implement all logic gates in Minecraft. With AND/OR gates alone, a CPU cannot be made.
I think you missed Johan’s point.
The picture shows something with a nand symbol with only two visible connections.
A nand logic gate requires a minimum of three connections two inputs that must be high for the output to be low.
With only one input and one output in a binary system only two functions are possible input equal to output and input not equal to output, buffer and not gate.
All Minecraft CPUs use gates that have more than one input.
I am guessing the same pole is used for all input connections to the NAND.
this confirms your guess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tddQhchrNnU
From dmcleod’s video you appear to be correct.
I think this was a horrible decision by the people who designed the feature.
someone made an effort to recreate the front of the bar from Robert Rodriguez and QT’s From Dusk Till Dawn
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4pb215/fallout_4_recreation_of_the_bar_from_dusk_till/
Been looking at the minecraft ascii word processor as a starting point. I hope I can find the time to draw up a schematic that matches the truth tables this weekend. Starlight Drive-in will probably be the best location to make a video.