OR Gate

The OR Gate is a logic component that takes two input signals and outputs an ON signal when at least one input is ON. The output is OFF only when both inputs are OFF. Costing 300 Science Points, the OR Gate provides essential flexibility in automation circuits by allowing multiple trigger conditions to independently activate the same response. It complements the AND Gate by handling scenarios where any one of several conditions should trigger an action.

The OR Gate accepts two input signals from any automation sources and outputs to buildings, valves, or other logic components. A typical use case is creating redundant alert systems: connect both a Contamination Sensor and a low-water Depth Sensor to an OR Gate, then route the output to a Speaker. The alarm sounds whenever either water quality or water quantity becomes a concern. Another common application uses an OR Gate to combine signals from a Lever (manual override) and an automated sensor, allowing either manual or automatic control to activate a building.

OR Gates are particularly valuable in emergency response circuits where you want multiple different warning conditions to trigger the same protective action. For example, feeding drought detection (Weather Station), low water (Depth Sensor), and high contamination (Contamination Sensor) through chained OR Gates creates a comprehensive alert system that responds to any threat. Since each OR Gate handles only two inputs, creating multi-input OR logic requires chaining gates in series: the output of one OR Gate becomes an input to the next. The 300 Science Point cost is identical to the AND Gate, and most automation networks need a mix of both gate types to handle their full range of conditional logic.