The Mechanical Clock can do a lot, but it is limited by its reliance on the time. It's also the only bearing that can "tick". To fix this problem, I propose a new block/attachment: the Mechanical Escapement.

The Mechanical Escapement takes any oscillating input, to determine the speed of the tick. It requires a Shaft input, and has a Shaft output. It will keep stress levels equal, but it will decrease speed to zero when not ticking. When ticking, the speed is preserved.

The Mechanical Escpement has a stress limit, and when that limit is broken it itself will break, becoming a Shaft.

This new block could allow belt speed to no longer be forced to stop every time an item is being acted upon. In turn, belt-interaction blocks could be able to miss, or act only on every nth item based on belt speed. In turn, these blocks could have a minimum item-contact time to apply their effect (for instance, the Mechanical Press would need a quarter-second or similar), to be more realistic.

Another benefit of this is that the Escapement could be used to regulate the timing of any mechanism, allowing belt movement to be synchronized.

This issue has been marked as stale because it has been inactive for 3 weeks. It will be closed if it remains inactive for another 3 weeks.

This issue has been closed since it has been inactive for 3 weeks since it was marked as stale.