Mill Operator

Spoiler: Release note

This level also shows an unexpected discovery that B and the draggables' locations can have an effect on the mill's motor. I'm still having trouble finding a pattern as it seems deterministic in this design, yet when I change the mill's mechanism slightly, the pattern also changed......

When I raise the draggable nothing happens. But if B is near the mechanism it starts to rotate,and when B comes back the mechanism keeps rotating...Weird

Yes, exactly what I was referring to in the above comment......It's driving me crazy since it seems to follow some kind of pattern, yet when I redesign the draggables' shapes and locations, the pattern also changed. The weirdest part is that they don't even touch each other at all

Spoiler

There's actually a way to stop the mill without using the ball, by raising the small slider on the left side while B is near the mill. But to reach the goal you'll still have to use the ball

@trids Looks like no one reads (replying to your second comment). That's what the others were talking about. It's just part of the "forcefield" we were talking about in the mechanisms thread.

Puzzling and interesting. It still had the familiar feel of Ground Level, although it was really different. The architecture at the bottom was good, although I think there were too much stairs at the top.

@trids Yep, I'm aware of those issues, and like you, I'm also puzzled that the draggables aren't even touching each other.

@Mike_CN Also yep -- It is another example of how this effect can be unstable sometimes, yet most of the times it seems to follow some kind of pattern.

@Frenzies Yeah, I realized there are too many stairs on the roof now that you mentioned it......Glad you still liked it In fact I almost gave up on this level due to the unexpected behavior, the size of the internal mechanism and the noise of the overclocked mill. So in the end I didn't spend much time on polishing the architecture, but still decided to upload it as a study of the "force field" effect, as well as

Spoiler

a demonstration of the "motor pausing" mechanism that uses a secondary motor (so that once the back motor is released, the front motor no longer spins in any circumstances). But apparently the mechanism
(1) works more stably if the motors are aligned with a vertical axis, and
(2) the relative sizes of the two motor blocks seem to affect the speed of the mill (in this case the mill is bigger, hence faster than the back motor tip). This one still needs more study to confirm.

@trids Nice theory, though I'd also like to add that in my process of debugging this level, even the back (furthest) elevator had an effect on the mill......And in some of the variations I've tested, the effect comes into play even when only B was walking around. Sometimes the mill starts to rotate once he moves past a certain spot, other times it rotates once he reaches a certain height. Luckily in this build I managed to avoid that pattern

@trids Two motors -- one inside the building, the other outside. There's a metal pillar connecting the two together