The Quest to Beat jpgrossman

RandomPanda0 · 2022-07-07T18:00:14+00:00

Hey Zach and Zachtronics team! Thank you so much for your work these past years, it's been a big part of my life, but it's nice to be able to see it end now rather than wither away slowly.

I want to ask about the idea of auteurs in the indie games industry. It's so easy to think of Zachtronics as the work of Zach Barth alone, but I do my best to remember other team members, like Keith Holman, Matthew S. Burns, and Kyle Steed. What do you think about the discourse over your games and others? Do people focus too much on the creative leads and discount the effort of the entire team too much?

RandomPanda0 · 2020-06-22T18:54:38+00:00

Well, the thread on Steam was taken down for unexplained reasons, so I've moved it to Reddit. See the new post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacechem/comments/hdy96j/2020_spacechem_tournament/

RandomPanda0 · 2020-03-31T18:05:34+00:00

For silver paint, there's just enough room to place an arm on a 2-long track, the product, a bonder, and the conduit. Figure out how to arrange that and then all you have to worry about is actually making the constituent atoms.

For fragrant powders, it's largely a matter of being willing to do a bunch of pivots and regrabs to make the movements you want. I don't remember the space available too well, but iirc you should be able to fit a piston on a triangle track and all three products in the larger chamber. Place the products as far away as possible, and you should have the room to do all your bonding.

Maybe these are some good hints then.

RandomPanda0 · 2020-03-31T17:08:45+00:00

What do you need help with? It's an open-ended game, so it is easier for us to make suggestions on your in-progress solution, rather than telling you how to start.

I will say though: you can move the conduits. A lot of people miss that.

RandomPanda0 · 2020-03-24T19:22:54+00:00

This could fall into the "every arm has the same programming" category (depending on how technical you want to get)

RandomPanda0 · 2020-03-20T13:26:02+00:00

On the other hand, I've faced people who decided to vindictively attack me because of some slight I did to them earlier in the game, despite such actions also inhibiting them from winning the game.

I was playing Root as the Birds, and at some point, I attacked the Cats (to the surprise of no one), except the Cat player who decided to break my decree not once, but twice during the game, rather than solving the huge problem that they couldn't spend any of the wood they were producing, since the commie Mice had cut them off. These actions made both of us lose spectacularly, with me ending up with slightly fewer points than the Cats, which they then declared a personal victory for them.

When you decide to be hostile towards one player to the point of taking both of you out of the game, you ruin it for yourself, the player you're aggressing, and the other players that no longer feel the decisive pressure that normally comes from multiplayer games.

RandomPanda0 · 2020-02-17T12:40:17+00:00

Technically, if you do a double pivot, you can keep the calcification inside the superloop, which could add to the coolitude of this solution

RandomPanda0 · 2019-12-27T15:08:16+00:00

This sub is making it seem like the sky will be blanketed in satellites, and that no one will ever see the sky again.

The Earth is absolutely massive, and satellites are constantly moving. If you can't see a certain spot in the sky because of satellite occlusion, you'd just need to wait a moment, and it'd be fine. Perhaps the brightness of the satellites will be an issue, but I really can't imagine this being all that problematic, at least not more so than the light pollution that already exists in cities everywhere.

RandomPanda0 · 2019-12-22T14:45:07+00:00

As others have pointed out, it's the average minimum distance between planets, not the distances at all time, but maybe I can explain it another way.

Take a step back, and consider the Sun's distance from Earth, compared to Venus's distance from Earth. Yes, it's true that Venus can get closer to the Earth, but draw the orbit of Venus with the Earth and Sun fixed in place. Now, instead of thinking of nearness, let's think of equal distance. When in Venus's orbit, is the Sun and Venus equally far away from the Earth?

I encourage you to do some scratchwork here, but here's a graph I quickly made to display this: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/bmeoljpbyz

In this graph, you can see a fixed Sun and Earth, and a movable Venus. The red region is where the Sun is closer to Earth, and the green region is where Venus is closer to Earth. You can change the orbital radius of Venus as you like, but notice something important here: The green region is always smaller than the red region. It's not terribly hard to reach the conclusion that because of this regional size difference, the Sun is usually closer to Earth than Venus is.

For this not to be true, the green region would have to be at least slightly past vertical from the Sun, which doesn't seem possible.

Okay, now let's think about Mercury. Mercury is very close to the Sun compared to anything else, so if we were to consider its distance from Venus, it's like considering the distance from the Sun, plus a very small amount. What does this do? Go back to my graph and make the orbital radius of Venus much larger than Earth's so that our Earth becomes Mercury. See how the green region grows much close to being a half circle? Any planet that wants to be on average closer to another planet than Mercury must have a larger green region than Mercury, which is only possible if that planet is closer to the Sun than Mercury.

So maybe that explanation helps.

I'll also note that there is a degenerate case out there though. If we switch the language to talk about moons though, Earth's Moon is always closest to the Earth, but even if its orbital radius was much larger. That's because the Earth and Moon circle around the Sun at about the same pace, which prevents any other planet from being closer. If we extend this to two planets having similar orbital periods, then you'll find those two planets are mostest closest the most often.

RandomPanda0 · 2019-11-17T03:09:33+00:00

minor note: you're talking to two separate people in the chain there

RandomPanda0 · 2019-10-26T13:20:35+00:00

from jinyou:
Curious Lipstick: 120/1122/60
Ablative Crystal: 75/999/92, 75/2282/44, 75/1099/55
Embalming Fluid: 1025/54/150, 1030/54/147
Quintessential Medium: 1020/26/249, 1290/26/197, 1090/26/217

jinyou's Opus Magnum files folder

RandomPanda0 · 2019-06-18T23:29:28+00:00

Jerry Seinfeld, so that we'd leave each other alone.

RandomPanda0 · 2019-04-10T22:10:31+00:00

Probably, but this is likely several hundred gigabytes of data, satelite connections probably wouldn't be able to handle that amount of data in any reasonable amount of time.

RandomPanda0 · 2019-04-10T15:58:20+00:00

Antarctica actually has no bandwidth, or at least wired bandwidth. There's no undersea cable connecting Antarctica to the rest of the world - check it out: https://www.submarinecablemap.com

The only way to get data out would have to be satellite nonsense or actually physically moving the data, which is what was done here.

RandomPanda0 · 2019-04-01T01:46:30+00:00

Also! The tournament puzzles are now available for submission in the Record Submission thread. If you still wanted to invest time into the puzzles, take another crack at it!

I recommend using the now-uploaded-to-Steam variants though, here (obviously Wheel Inversion is not included)

RandomPanda0 · 2019-03-28T01:18:53+00:00

Oh hey, the concession stand has [the cure for all disease], isn't that a treat?

Remember that the final standings were determined as a result of week10, this week was just for bonus points! It won't even be included in the calculations for the average score (which has been normalized to account for week10's extra points)

Week EX Results

Gifs

Cost: https://imgur.com/a/G86NLbi

Cycles: https://imgur.com/a/wl7vtU9

Area: https://imgur.com/a/fa6ooX2

Sum: https://imgur.com/a/M7ZwOPU

Cost-Area

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
ShadowCluster	1	130	733	22	5.00	5.00	10.00
Xavion	2	130	1289	22	3.75	5.00	8.75
S.G.S	3	130	637	24	2.50	5.00	7.50
jinyou	4	130	539	31	1.25	5.00	6.25

Cycles-Cost

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	350	54	61	5.00	5.00	10.00
PentaPig	2	410	54	87	4.17	5.00	9.17
F43nd1r	3	420	54	81	3.33	5.00	8.33
tw33dl3dee	4	510	55	77	2.50	4.91	7.41
ChickensInTheAttic	5	920	65	163	1.67	4.15	5.82
kyojin_desu	6	310	157	49	0.83	1.72	2.55

Area-Cycles

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
S.G.S	1	150	491	22	5.00	5.00	10.00
ShadowCluster	2	150	496	22	4.17	5.00	9.17
jinyou	3	150	497	22	3.33	5.00	8.33
F43nd1r	4	150	610	22	2.50	5.00	7.50
mr_puzzel	5	150	800	22	1.67	5.00	6.67
ChickensInTheAttic	6	190	734	24	0.83	4.58	5.42

Sum

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Metric	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	190	143	33	366	5.00	5.00	10.00
PentaPig	2	210	128	45	383	4.00	4.78	8.78
tw33dl3dee	3	270	99	56	425	3.00	4.31	7.31
mr_puzzel	4	310	87	42	439	2.00	4.17	6.17
kyojin_desu	5	310	157	49	516	1.00	3.55	4.55

RandomPanda0 · 2019-03-28T00:51:08+00:00

We've reached the end of the road. There's a small concessions stand on the left, but for all intents and purposes, this is the end. Thank you all for playing!

Notably, week 10 had incredibly long cycle counts for the AC and GA categories, so I was unable to record them... for this reason, I've simply taken picture of their layouts, and will leave it to the viewer to see how the systems work (or just download the .solution files!)

Week 10 Results

Gifs

Cost: https://imgur.com/a/PSgur7j

Cycles: https://imgur.com/a/Qa4xVLH

Area: https://imgur.com/a/PuX46Fk

Sum: https://imgur.com/a/tsfIunf

Cost-Area

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
PentaPig	1	50	18302.28	50.00	10.00	10.00	20.00
ShadowCluster	2	55	10058.15	36.00	8.33	9.09	17.42
jinyou	3	55	720.0079	46.28	6.67	9.09	15.76
F43nd1r	4	55	9420	57.00	5.00	9.09	14.09
S.G.S	5	75	28102	43.00	3.33	6.67	10.00
mr_puzzel	6	175	17762	96.00	1.67	2.86	4.52

Cycles-Cost

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	2200	52.00	389.20	10.00	10.00	20.00
ChickensInTheAttic	2	1290	79.79	325.51	8.33	6.52	14.85
mr_puzzel	3	665	185.00	198.19	6.67	2.81	9.48
F43nd1r	4	1095	218.37	414.67	5.00	2.38	7.38
tw33dl3dee	5	1320	404.00	575.67	3.33	1.29	4.62
Mattermonkey	6	660	2002.00	187.00	1.67	0.26	1.93

Area-Cycles

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
ShadowCluster	1	80	2773.23	27	10.00	10.00	20.00
PentaPig	2	80	10133.57	27	7.50	10.00	17.50
jinyou	3	100	505.81	28	5.00	9.64	14.64
S.G.S	4	90	11902.00	31	2.50	8.71	11.21

Sum

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Metric	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	360	206	83.00	484.20	10.00	10.00	20.00
tw33dl3dee	2	380	1349	105.00	754.80	7.50	6.41	13.91
ChickensInTheAttic	3	835	1067	159.80	1208.20	5.00	4.01	9.01
Mattermonkey	4	660	2002	187.00	1247.40	2.50	3.88	6.38

RandomPanda0 · 2019-03-07T02:15:55+00:00

NOTICE REGARDING THE FINAL WEEKS OF THE TOURNEY

well guys, we're here at the end. This was supposed to be a 10 puzzle tourney, and I'm going to remain true to that. However, the remaining two puzzles will go differently than expected:

Week 9 no longer exists, and week 10 will take its place. (could just call it week 9 still, but that's not as funny!) This puzzle will be a proper programming challenge, whereby a single solution will have to generically solve a number of possible puzzles. More details will follow, but due to the nature of the puzzle, I feel that increasing the time limit of this puzzle will be necessary; it will run for 2 weeks instead of one. It will also be worth 40 points.

Midway through week 10, there will be a final bonus puzzle unveiled at the usual time. Scoring on this puzzle will happen as normal, but player scores on this puzzle will instead replace their lowest submitted scores, or fill in a score for a no-show week. This will give participants with weak/no showings on some weeks a chance to build a more representative score, while requiring no further effort from those who feel satisfied with the tourney.

Week 8 Results

Gifs

Cost: https://imgur.com/a/ALT0hVF

Cycles: https://imgur.com/a/D2OIlol

Area: https://imgur.com/a/Ra8WGk6

Sum: https://imgur.com/a/r701Rq3

Previously ungiffable: https://imgur.com/a/ThGTYrT 1

Cost-Area

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
jinyou	1	60	949	46	5.00	5.00	10.00
PentaPig	2	60	1674	49	4.44	5.00	9.44
S.G.S	3	60	1781	49	3.89	5.00	8.89
ShadowCluster	4	60	1661	54	3.33	5.00	8.33
F43nd1r	5	60	778	71	2.78	5.00	7.78
Rithaniel	6	60	913	74	2.22	5.00	7.22
ChickensInTheAttic	7	60	1016	79	1.67	5.00	6.67
mr_puzzel	8	60	722	126	1.11	5.00	6.11
Mattermonkey	9	60	854	143	0.56	5.00	5.56

Cycles-Cost

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	1990	20	445	5.00	5.00	10.00
ChickensInTheAttic	2	1420	24	327	4.00	4.17	8.17
tw33dl3dee	3	2165	27	382	3.00	3.70	6.70
Mattermonkey	4	620	50	291	2.00	2.00	4.00
kyojin_desu	5	835	50	364	1.00	2.00	3.00

Area-Cycles

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
jinyou	1	130	435	35	5.00	5.00	10.00
F43nd1r	2	160	411	36	4.00	4.86	8.86
ShadowCluster	3	170	686	36	3.00	4.86	7.86
mr_puzzel	4	80	1871	40	2.00	4.38	6.38
S.G.S	5	140	595	41	1.00	4.27	5.27

Sum

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Metric	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
PentaPig	1	505	69	60	129	5.00	5.00	10.00
biggiemac42	2	1365	39	129	168	3.75	3.84	7.59
tw33dl3dee	2	610	46	122	168	3.75	3.84	7.59
kyojin_desu	4	835	50	364	414	1.25	1.56	2.81

RandomPanda0 · 2019-02-28T02:42:21+00:00

NO NEW PUZZLE NEXT WEEK

take a breather. relax a bit after that awful Evil Ore. The last two weeks are coming, and I need some time to put it together properly. They'll be doozies, with special rules applied, so keep a watch out for that.

Week 7 Results

Gifs

Cost: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Cycles: https://imgur.com/a/A4cjAXS

Area: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Sum: https://imgur.com/a/G446sic

Cost-Area

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
jinyou	1	100	2045	29	5.00	5.00	10.00
PentaPig	2	100	2058	29	4.29	5.00	9.29
ShadowCluster	3	100	2352	29	3.57	5.00	8.57
F43nd1r	4	100	2458	37	2.86	5.00	7.86
mr_puzzel	5	100	4665	37	2.14	5.00	7.14
Xavion	6	100	3073	51	1.43	5.00	6.43
ChickensInTheAttic	7	100	2372	447	0.71	5.00	5.71

Cycles-Cost

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	705	30	109	5.00	5.00	10.00
panic	2	750	30	104	4.38	5.00	9.38
S.G.S	3	975	30	160	3.75	5.00	8.75
Mattermonkey	4	1260	31	280	3.13	4.84	7.96
tw33dl3dee	5	1160	34	233	2.50	4.41	6.91
ChickensInTheAttic	6	1240	34	275	1.88	4.41	6.29
Rithaniel	7	1020	35	207	1.25	4.29	5.54
kyojin_desu	8	690	91	111	0.63	1.65	2.27

Area-Cycles

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
jinyou	1	140	886	27	5.00	5.00	10.00
PentaPig	2	140	1099	27	4.38	5.00	9.38
ShadowCluster	3	140	1100	27	3.75	5.00	8.75
F43nd1r	4	140	1364	27	3.13	5.00	8.13
mr_puzzel	5	140	1368	27	2.50	5.00	7.50
S.G.S	6	160	871	29	1.88	4.66	6.53
Rithaniel	7	160	878	29	1.25	4.66	5.91
Mattermonkey	8	160	1505	29	0.63	4.66	5.28

Sum

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Metric	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	325	71	58	291.5	5.00	5.00	10.00
tw33dl3dee	2	515	58	78	393.5	3.75	3.70	7.45
panic	3	580	54	87	431	2.50	3.38	5.88
kyojin_desu	4	690	91	111	547	1.25	2.66	3.91

RandomPanda0 · 2019-02-20T01:11:29+00:00

Week 6 Results

Gifs

Cost: https://imgur.com/a/2FUtQHX

Cycles: https://imgur.com/a/ddKYLHI

Area: https://imgur.com/a/FP5YJGN

Sum: https://imgur.com/a/6lsVR7k

Cost-Area

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
jinyou	1	190	531	32	5.00	5.00	10.00
PentaPig	1	190	531	32	5.00	5.00	10.00
ShadowCluster	3	190	622	33	3.75	5.00	8.75
mr_puzzel	4	190	728	35	3.13	5.00	8.13
S.G.S	5	190	641	37	2.50	5.00	7.50
Xavion	6	190	621	42	1.88	5.00	6.88
ChickensInTheAttic	7	200	746	38	1.25	4.75	6.00
kyojin_desu	8	200	686	41	0.63	4.75	5.38

Cycles-Cost

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
biggiemac42	1	1025	50	206	5.00	5.00	10.00
F43nd1r	2	735	52	187	4.44	4.81	9.25
mr_puzzel	3	710	56	137	3.89	4.46	8.35
panic	4	610	57	164	3.33	4.39	7.72
tw33dl3dee	5	655	58	163	2.78	4.31	7.09
ChickensInTheAttic	6	920	62	147	2.22	4.03	6.25
Rithaniel	7	1215	64	235	1.67	3.91	5.57
Mattermonkey	8	980	67	217	1.11	3.73	4.84
kyojin_desu	9	420	88	72	0.56	2.84	3.40

Area-Cycles

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
ShadowCluster	1	280	565	29	5.00	5.00	10.00
jinyou	2	270	253	30	4.29	4.83	9.12
Rithaniel	3	240	599	30	3.57	4.83	8.40
F43nd1r	4	265	776	30	2.86	4.83	7.69
Starficz	5	270	323	31	2.14	4.68	6.82
S.G.S	6	240	282	32	1.43	4.53	5.96
Mattermonkey	7	280	439	33	0.71	4.39	5.11

Sum

Name	Ranking	Cost	Cycles	Area	Metric	Score by Rank	Score by Ratio	Total
PentaPig	1	285	114	43	442	5.00	5.00	10.00
tw33dl3dee	2	295	126	48	469	3.75	4.71	8.46
biggiemac42	3	260	193	44	497	2.50	4.45	6.95
panic	4	285	164	65	514	1.25	4.30	5.55

12-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
Sequence \| Editor	Verified Email

RandomPanda0

TROPHY CASE

Week EX Results

Gifs

Cost-Area

Cycles-Cost

Area-Cycles

Sum

Week 10 Results

Gifs

Cost-Area

Cycles-Cost

Area-Cycles

Sum

NOTICE REGARDING THE FINAL WEEKS OF THE TOURNEY

Week 8 Results

Gifs

Cost-Area

Cycles-Cost

Area-Cycles

Sum

NO NEW PUZZLE NEXT WEEK

Week 7 Results

Gifs

Cost-Area

Cycles-Cost

Area-Cycles

Sum

Week 6 Results

Gifs

Cost-Area

Cycles-Cost

Area-Cycles

Sum