v0.31 Talk:Animal logic

Hi, I've got a number of questions about this article.

"Animal logic is slower than mechanical logic and less reliable than either fluid or mechanical logic." It seems strange to me to describe logic as less reliable-- it's either reliable, or it's not, and if its not, then it's worthless. Does a calculator that gives you the right answer 75% of the time even count as a calculator? Also, there are elements of animal logic that are perfectly reliable-- maybe if LordOOTFD could clarify exactly what he's run into that's unreliable?

"The principal reason for this is pathfinding always prefers the shortest path to ground, and by controlling this path you can control the animal within the gate." I don't think this is true-- maybe just not true anymore. The simplest example is a domestic animal that bumps up against a tightly closed door-- rather than holding on to that path, which still exists, it chooses a new path, despite that path not being the shortest available. My experience is primarily with running invaders through crazy loops, and I can tell you they certainly don't pick the shortest path reliably, although it might instead be the case that they path to proxy points rather than to an end point. It's likewise clear that offering a shorter path to a creature already pathing toward a point won't make that creature reevaluate their pathing: they'll reliably maintain their course, despite a shorter path becoming available.

"The advantage of animal pathing is that the gate can have multiple states allowing more than a single ON or OFF signal." Not sure what's being referred to here-- I don't see examples of this phenomenon later on. If the history of the circuit is what's being referred to, then this is true of fluid logic as well-- it's what permits things like pump/pressure plate repeater systems.

"While kittens are the most reliable cores for logic gates because of their three pathing goals...." I don't understand this. Are three pathing goals preferable to a single pathing goal? I would expect the opposite to be true, since multiple pathing goals can lead to conflict and unpredictability: if you only have to path to a single thing, then you only have to maintain path distances to a single thing. I understand that in the context of the circuits shown that it's no harder to maintain distance to owner and meeting hall than to either individually, but surely at least vermin hunting is a complicating factor that can lead to unpredictable pathing?

"Goblin powered logic is highly ironic, especially if it involves controlling your goblin killing magma trap." I get the feeling that the author(s) of this piece probably didn't use invaders for logic, because they don't behave the same as is described in this piece, and some of the details given for other animals are ignored. I think goblins are great critters for logic, because they have one pathing goal, to a static feature (superior in my mind to more goals, definitely superior to pathing to something mobile like an owner), don't have babies, don't starve, don't die of old age. But they also don't bunch up near a tightly closed door, don't remain immobile when they lack a path, etc. Will the circuits pictured work with invaders? Or are they only tested with domestics? What about wild animals, that have still different pathing behavior?

Hopefully some of this can be answered-- I appreciate the incredible work that it appears has been put into this article, but I feel like it's also pretty out of date, and maybe is dealing with a subject where the complexity of the subject matter combined with a paucity of confident editors has led to the continued inclusion of some vague and inaccurate information.Vasiln 09:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

So I've made a comprehensive but minor edit: one that retains the entire flavor of the page (didn't recreate any designs with hatches, for instance). I guess the right way to look at this page is as "animal logic" (like it's labelled as) rather than "creature logic." Guess I'll have to create that page. I'm not sure about pathing cost to goal with domestics, so I'm going to take your word for it; it seems likely that invaders and domestics path differently. (Wish I had a handless goblin: it would be really interesting to see if your designs would work with him.)