Perpetual Fire and Falling Sand
2009-09-07
Some of you may be familiar with the Falling Sand Game (that version is just one of many; I like it because the applet is big). If not, go and have a play, although not if you had anything you wanted to achieve for the rest of the day.
I think I've managed perpetual fire: I was running it for quite a while at x5 speed and it seemed stable enough. First, turn off the all taps and make the weird bouncy thing vanish. Basically, you need lots of Spout: draw a big enclosure of the stuff with lots of narrow routes through everywhere. Now almost fill all the routes with more dots of Spout, bearing in mind that the more surface area you can get, the quicker the water will fill up.
Now put a bit of Plant somewhere. Doesn't matter where: the place is full of water so the plant will go everywhere. Finally, introduce a single tiny bit of fire. If the flames don't last forever, try to convolute the passages with more Spout. You need the flames to go at different paths at different speeds, so build some chicanes and stuff. Make T-junctions: when two flame-fronts meet they'll burn all the fuel and go out, so you want lots of opportunities to make odd numbers of them.
That's about it. Tune it until it lasts forever. Or until you get bored, in which case it's worth bearing in mind that Sand disolves Spout.
Don't waste as much time as I did. I was quite pleased with having set up a dynamic system with stable cyclic evolution, but you'll probably just look up at 3am and wonder where the time went. (Not that I didn't do that also)
I think I've managed perpetual fire: I was running it for quite a while at x5 speed and it seemed stable enough. First, turn off the all taps and make the weird bouncy thing vanish. Basically, you need lots of Spout: draw a big enclosure of the stuff with lots of narrow routes through everywhere. Now almost fill all the routes with more dots of Spout, bearing in mind that the more surface area you can get, the quicker the water will fill up.
Now put a bit of Plant somewhere. Doesn't matter where: the place is full of water so the plant will go everywhere. Finally, introduce a single tiny bit of fire. If the flames don't last forever, try to convolute the passages with more Spout. You need the flames to go at different paths at different speeds, so build some chicanes and stuff. Make T-junctions: when two flame-fronts meet they'll burn all the fuel and go out, so you want lots of opportunities to make odd numbers of them.
That's about it. Tune it until it lasts forever. Or until you get bored, in which case it's worth bearing in mind that Sand disolves Spout.
Don't waste as much time as I did. I was quite pleased with having set up a dynamic system with stable cyclic evolution, but you'll probably just look up at 3am and wonder where the time went. (Not that I didn't do that also)
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