Color Coding

In the digital Machinations tool the color of resources is meaningful. If a Resource Connection has a different color than the color of the pool then only those resources which color matches the color of the resource connection can be pulled through that resource connections. This allows different types of resources to be stored on the same pool. Likewise sources and converters producing resources, produce resources in the respective colors of their outputs, when these outputs have a different color than the source or converter. I use the term color-coding to refer to this use of colored resources and resource connections in a Machinations diagram. Label modifiers, node modifiers, and activators which color is different from the color of the node they originate from, act according to the number of resources of that color on the pool. The figure below illustrates how this can be used in a diagram. Color-coded resources are used in the case-study of SimWar.



In this figure source A produces a random number of orange and blue resources every time it is activated. Both are collected at pool B, the number of orange resources on B increases the number of blue resources produced and vice versa. The user can only activate drain C when there are at least 20 red and 20 blue resources on pool C.