Comparing tag distances?

[Mnniska]

Hello, helpful awesome people.

I have run into a somewhat tricky logic problem and need a bit of help. I am creating a race level where each racer have a unique tag, and I want to award the players in the front of the race by awarding said player with 50 points per second or something during the race. If another player manages to get in the lead then he will get a constant flow of 50 points instead. Ideally the logic will recongise the second, third and fourth place, too.

My original plan was to have a piece of logic that keeps itself slightly before the leading pony. This piece of logic feels all six tags and then sends out tags depending on who is in the lead, second, and third. My plan was to use combiners to compare the signals to see who is the closest, but I can't seem to make it work even in short distances. I have two tags, wire them up to a combiner and then my plan is to use a splitter to see if the signal is a positive or negative one. However no matter how far away I put the tags they always outrule eachother

My question is; Does this method even work when dealing with big distances? Is there a better way to do this? What am I doing wrong?

Sorry about the somewhat foggy descriptions, thanks for any help!

[L1N3R1D3R]

Here, let me see if I can help you. I don't have my PS3 with me at the moment, but as I said, I'll see if I can help.
One thing to help is to put different tags on each pony.
But if that doesn't work:
1) Is the race top-down or normal?

[evret]

I have two tags, wire them up to a combiner and then my plan is to use a splitter to see if the signal is a positive or negative one. However no matter how far away I put the tags they always outrule eachother

My question is; Does this method even work when dealing with big distances? Is there a better way to do this? What am I doing wrong?

when working with large radius sensors there is a dead zone as you get close to the sensor, what i mean by that is the signal strength reaches 100% way too soon so it is easy for both sensors to be outputing the same signal (100%) when they are both too close to the sensor.
the way to fix this is to set the minimum range to 0.1, this will fix the dead zone however if the tag is right on top of the sensor it can send 0% instead. so as long as your tags are never directly on top of the sensor this should fix the issue. (assuming you know how to get digital from the highest)
you can also wire all sensors into an OR gate and compare the output with each of the sensors, the one that matches is the highest.

last but not least i have a chip that can give you the full order but only supports 4 inputs in it's current form, i believe u mentioned 6 sensors?!?
next time i'm on my ps3 i'll try to upload some pics.

[L1N3R1D3R]

Here. I just came home from school, and I thought of a way to make it work top-down. (This will only sense who's in first place, though, and it might not work because I haven't actually made it.)

--First of all, this only works for straight line or circle race tracks. Sorry.

1.) On the ponies, put a microchip and have a tag sensor set to sense the tag "Holo" (I'll use it later) and set to very close. Hook it up to the respective 1st place lights and score giver. Also put a tag set to "AJ" for Apple Jack, "R" for Rarity, etc.

2.) On a piece of hologram, put a microchip and place a tag sensor set to sense the entire race track for the "AJ" tag. Hook it up to a follower set to follow the AJ tag at 100.0 speed at ~90% acceleration (IDK, I haven't made it yet), with maximum range set to sense the entire race track and a minimum range to 0.2ish (to prevent glitches) and set to "Speed Scale." Copy this logic for sensing and following all ponies.

And this should work, but, yet again, I haven't actually made it, so it might glitch up.

[evret]

ok here is a pic of the compare chip i mentioned.
it actually needs 2 separate chips, one to compare all the signals, and the other to count how many signals each is higher than