Experimental change: finite cycle width

[route]

Weclome, route, I have to say your post is the most thoughtful analysis of the "Hate it" side yet. If nothing else good comes out of this, getting the forum some new members (I guess you won't be the only one) is

As to the why:

thank you i hope i won't dissapoint you, i am a lazy forum poster... when im happy i rarely post... but i sometimes read

well, thinking the change was meant specifically to disable center attack was stupid - never mind. thanks also for pointing out the purpose of the change:

first of all, i love the picture with the cycle crashing at the entrance of the corridor. well, this is a different game, and i think i would play on servers like that. but please remark: this is about having a SOLID cycle instead of a particular one, and it has nothing to do with what you have done to the fortress CVS. A question: how would you grind on a server like that? you would have to grind with the cycle body instead of the wall. you can't turn around unless the corridor is twice as big as the cycle, otherwise you have to go all way thru. and if someone gets in from the other side, both are doomed.

well this is a whole new (good) game and i will play it for sure when it shows up. but the 0.1 grid unit cycle width you set up on CVS just makes it unplayable (IMHO)


And I saw the movie, more than once, and i am sure, playing a "Movie Accurate" tron game can't be very much fun to anything but a ... program. That's why Armagetron is the only sucessful tron emulation out there: because it is not accurate, it adds features.

about deep grinding: it is a fact walls are 2D, and between 2 walls there's always enough space for a infinit number of other walls (ok, actually it's limited by the real number resolution of the program? - well im guessing, don't know the program). AND you have always a chance to pass thru - there is no such thing as a perfect seal. that's a fact and a game feature since the beginning, and if you change this you destroy the *feeling* of freedom to take your chance at *any* gap. this is what i hate most.

It is one of the two logical and codable ways we could come up with that can kill you if you do a 180 against a wall, but let you adjust to a wall just fine.

there's nothing wrong with a 180 against a wall, you know, between two walls there's always enough space for another wall (i already said that?)

ok there are servers where you can do twenty 180 against the same wall but that's poor rubber settings - will also allow for adjusting 20 times against the wall. in CVS fortress you have (had) exactly ONE shot to get into a tight tube, if you fail you die.


about counterintuitive: it is not, once you have learned the cycle is pointlike, it is quite intuitive: between two walls, ... i already said that

by the way: getting speed by grinding is way more counterintuitive for a noob. friction should slow you down in real world. but Tron is not about a true world arena - it's a virtual arena for programs to fight gainst each other.


PS:
forum says "You cannot vote in polls in this forum" so here comes my vote:

--- Dump! I hate it! ---

[route]

i can vote now, so my vote is in the poll. thank you

[Z-Man]

Yeah, I like the pointlike cycles as well and the theoretical ability to squeeze through anything. But just like high rubber, this is one possilbe world, others need testing as well. And I need to make the experiments on the main Bugfarm server to get any results. If I open a new server for an experiment, two bad things can happen: either nobody truly tests it, or the new server gets popular and I have another mouth to feed.

Personally, I don't like neither adjusts nor wall assisted 180s. In my view, turning towards a wall that you're already touching is stupid and demands punishment. On Bugfarm, it kills people one time out of three, you only survive with pretty unused rubber. That's a reasonable compromise for me

Strange that you couldn't vote. Maybe Tank did something when he changed the forum name.

I decided I'd torture you all a little more The fatness is now increased to .25 grid units. That's a special value: it's the grinding distance sparks start to fly at, so you now get visual clues when a grind is a seal. And it's approximately the width of the default cycle model. Bits still shine through the walls if you're in a tunnel that is just wide enough, but the important thing are the sparks.

My current plan, of course subject to sudden and irrational mind changes, is to revert to older settings after tomorrow. Not because of anything said here, but for another reason: the high value of RUBBER_MINDISTANCE required so the center doesn't get squeezed right away shadows phasing bugs. Those are the top priority actually, because some changes were made that hopefully made them almost disappear, but possibly made things worse. I'll probably even turn MINDISTANCE down to zero for some days.

[omega]

i think a law like this would be good in a high rubber speed server. But where theres 5 rubber it elimnates any skill. Lol i play cvs percisely for the fact ppl cant do that (go back and forth and seal) its more about timing and skill and getting the grind right first time, and if u do get stuck it takes skill to get out. Whereas on other servers u can go back and forth till u can escape. About the rotation.... whats the point of this vote then? lol i guess it help me go outside and enjoy the wonders the world have to offer. Me gazes from my balcony and looks at all the ppl playing football in the park. Me can hear the birds. Me stares at the huge oak tree (>100ft) in my garden. Wudnt that b fun to climb!

[Z-Man]

Well, it takes skill and tactics not to get stuck in the first place.

The point of the vote is to determine the frequency at which the settings come up. Currently, one in five days would be a fat cycle day.

[route]

And it's approximately the width of the default cycle model.

i just tried it and with those settings it's almost the SOLID cycle thing... when grinding, it won't let you approach beyond the cycle width, giving the impression you are grinding with the cycle and not with the wall anymore.


but i survived a situation that i should have died about with a solid cycle. i made a picture.

i think i should have crashed where i wrote "crash", but i didn't. so it's not like a solid cycle.

also, what happens when i hit a corridor exactly 0.26 wide, but i don't hit it in the center? teoretically i should crash if i am more than 0.01 away from the corridor's center.

anyway, for CVS fortress i preffer the infinitely thin cycle. but servers with real solid cycles will be very nice i think... anything between those two concepts would be unplayable and counterintuitive (IMHO)

[Z-Man]

In this situation, your cycle can swing to the side to avoid the collision. Imagine its 3d shape, as seen from the front, to be like a thin triangle with a point at the bottom; the bottom point (line in 3d) is fixed to the ground, but the upper part swings away. This works for the picture you drew and for the case of the 0.26 units wide corridor you enter off-center.

Anyway, that's how it currently works. Of course, another setting can change that and make you crash in both situations, because the factual cycle model just isn't an upside down triangle. Good input!

Another counterintuitive thing would be turning in tight corridors. If I'm in a 0.26 units wide corridor that makes a 90 degree turn without getting wider or thinner, A real .25 units wide cycle of any reasonable length wouldn't be able to make it around the corner. With the turns happening so fast as they do on a normal AA server, I don't see how we could simulate this consistently with reasonable effort, so you'd probably always be able to survive such a situation. I'd say not many people would be able to spot the difference if rubber settings are sane, though, most would die anyway

[newbie]

mayby people are just afraid of a change, especially new players

last year everyone was complainging about slingshots, 180s, db, zigzags on the outer rim and overall about the small cycle_delay

later on the fortress came in hope to solve those 'bugs' and most players were annoyed about the rubber (btw, the skill of dynamic misdirection is gone now, there were so many good driving patterns (decoy moves?), but also fortress gave some new interesing insights and eliminated some things that i don't want to mentoin )

and now we have cycle width, isn't it the the perfect solution since the 2.7.0-1 version "bugs", for example going between two walls in situation where you should definitively crash? that is what developers wanted since... 2.5? ]-)

imho mayby this is the next step in the more organized teamplay and i would like to give it a try for at least the next several hours

[Phytotron]

also, what happens when i hit a corridor exactly 0.26 wide, but i don't hit it in the center? teoretically i should crash if i am more than 0.01 away from the corridor's center.

I would think that if...

a) there were an actual solid cycle, where its sides, not the tail, do the grinding, and
b) you still wanted to have the ability to go into tunnels (no thinner than the cycle) and,
c) you wanted to be able to hit your front wheel/nose on a wall, then turn directly onto it without the front corner crashing into that wall

...then maybe you'd want to have some sort of auto-placement behaviour. In the case of the tunnel, imagine you're coming head-long toward that tunnel, but you're not exactly and precisely lined up dead center. The game would allow for a sort of buffer or fudge zone. You may be slightly off, but as you hit the opening to that tunnel, your cycle is automatically scooted into place, directly down the middle. The fudge zone wouldn't be all that wide—you'd still have to be reasonably on target.

In the case of behaviour (c), then what might work would be to think of the cycle as turning—pivoting, in fact—on its front wheel, with the back end swinging into place. This would also give explanation to how it's able to do 90° turns in general. It pivots.

Know what I'm saying? I don't know whether these things would actually work in practice, or how possible they are in terms of programming. And obviously, even if they were, I'm sure they would be a long way aways. But they're perhaps worth pondering.


[By the way, all. Nemo is right. "Double grinding," or 180 grinding, or whatever you want to call it, isn't a skill. Hell, I'd say grinding in general, even pure grinding, isn't much of a skill. Most of the time it's luck, apparently arbitrary on a proximate or macro level—even if there's some underlying mathematical logic for it.]

[Phytotron]

last year everyone was complainging about slingshots, 180s, db, zigzags on the outer rim and overall about the small cycle_delay

later on the fortress came in hope to solve those 'bugs' and most players were annoyed about the rubber (btw, the skill of dynamic misdirection is gone now, there were so many good driving patterns (decoy moves?)....

That's what we're trying to do in Shrunkland as well. The emphasis is intended to be on maneuvers, aim, setting up and outplaying opponents, seeing mazes and tunnels and using them, use of dynamic acceleration and deceleration rather than outright speeding, etc. Grinding is practically trivial.

[oO.k3nNy]

By the way, all. Nemo is right. "Double grinding," or 180 grinding, or whatever you want to call it, isn't a skill. Hell, I'd say grinding in general, even pure grinding, isn't much of a skill. Most of the time it's luck, apparently arbitrary on a proximate or macro level—even if there's some underlying mathematical logic for it.

i think db and that stuff indeed is a skill. half of the time ppl are crying about other ppl who cant db, making the team weak. there arent too much ppl who really can db. there are lots who only try to get like 70 speed or more, but mostly crush and/or crush a teammate at breaking. few can do that right at that high speed. Others who cant do that at that high speed are smart enough to reduce their db-speed at 65, so with a smaller db-grind. the best db-ers at the fortress server lost their long practised skill with these settings, not completely, but as long there is no lightgrinder outside of them for sure. i think thats a pitty.

i also want to make a statement about those who think new skills could be learned. i beg you, plz tell me at least 1 possible new skill, because i want to get the pleasure back at playing on the fortress server. i am sick of cruising around.

[oO.k3nNy]

ok ive posted several negative replys to this stuff now, lets get a positive one, there are no changes which are only negative.
i think its funny like hell when somebody gets squeezed
today i was on the fotress, grinding back after the startgrind, then saw some not too small gap and turned back again to go through it. haha too funny 4040 at the enemy team thought the same thing and at the middle of that tunnel , when we would have slide near each other we both got squeezed lol, that indeed was funny.
its also true that more teamplay is required.

so an interesting thought could be, whether the fortress server got become more a team server, or a server where individuals can turn a game around. ( im not saying they cant with these settings, but not that much ofc).

[oO.k3nNy]

now just some idea came to my head. it sounds weird but i think it would be great.
why not be able to make your cycle thinner an amount of time a round?
time amount could be set by the server, you could c it as a meter like the rubber stuff too, which you can activate with a key on your keyboard and deactivate again.
on fortress you eg. could give everyone 3 sec "thin-time" per round.
wheter it should reload itsself like rubber does too would be another questionable point.

[Z-Man]

Or we could transform the squeeze death into rubber usage. You're screetching inside the tunnel, sparks flying on both sides of course, your rubber meter fills at a rate proportional to the squeezing, and when it's full, boom. That would also be way easier to implement than stopping the cycle before the gap like you hit a solid wall and work somewhat with current clients.

[oO.k3nNy]

true, although i like the thought of a key to turn it on or off, but to let the rubber do the work is alot better idea than it is now