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The Transistor is a wire building that takes the bottom input and only outputs it if the left input is truthy, otherwise it outputs nothing. A flipped variant also exists, outputting if the right input is truthy.
Comparison to Logic Gates[]
The transistor is not considered a Logic Gate despite unlocking at the same level, and differs from the gates in both the nature of their output and the arrangement of their input and output ports.
Preserving the details of a signal rather than simple truthiness means that transistor-driven gates can be preferable for controlling Filters, or simply having a more readable wire network over large distances. Three wires containing 1 or 0 signals may be difficult to discern the meaning of - but three wires respectively carrying zero or red, zero or blue, and zero or green should probably be attached to a colour mixer rather than shape assembler.
Transistors have a different arrangement of inputs and outputs, which can make them more space-efficient for some kinds of signals processing. Consider the following two four-input AND calculators, one which uses transistors and one which uses AND gates:
| 4-input AND implementation | |
|---|---|
 Using transistors |
 Using Logic Gates |
The shape of the transistors allows them to be chained much more easily than logic gates, which require space on either side for their inputs - this makes the transistor gate significantly smaller for the same result. (A similar design can also be used for an OR gate - simply add NOT gates to each input and the output.)
Signal Conversion[]
Transistors are the only way to convert a boolean signal back into a shape or color signal (or a null signal, if it is false). This can be useful for readability - for instance, attaching a transistor to the boolean output of a Belt Reader and feeding its other input into the south input will result in it sending the item output if the belt is active, and a null signal otherwise. This has the same truthiness as simply forwarding the boolean output, but indicates what specific item is being tracked by that wire when inspected by the user.