Factorio Forums

Glider Race Competition Rules

• A glider must be self-contained: it cannot use external power, or leave anything behind as it travels. The glider cannot contain the player as a component (no personal roboports). The glider must be capable of indefinite travel (only exception: train fuel may be consumed). It must contain at least one entity.
• The competition will close at 12:00 AM EST, March 6th (9 PM PST, March 5th). You've got two weeks.
• You do not have to deal with trees or biters: tests will be on a blank area with no obstacles or enemies. (But if you want to put lasers on it and have it go on a rampage, be my guest). An easy way to set this up is on a sandbox map with Creative Mode and "instant deconstruction" enabled to clear the area.
• Allowed mods: Recursive Blueprints, ConMan/Location Combinators, Logistic Train Network, Smarter Trains, Stringy Train Stops/Signal Strings. You may make changes to values in LTN's config.lua (Within reason. Don't add code.) If you want to use a different mod, make a case for it and I'll consider; I'll allow it if it's in the spirit of the competition.
• All technologies are researched.
• You must use Factorio 0.14.22.
• Submission: PM me either here or on reddit. Include your score, any mods, a blueprint, and simple instructions on how to use it. I'll keep a leaderboard in this post. I'll publish the winners at the end if they were submitted privately. Scores will be kept private: contestants will be told the score of the person above them on the leaderboard.
• You may submit updates to your entry no more frequently than once every 24 hours except for the last day of competition.
• At the end I'd like to put together a race of competitors, so if you could avoid deconstructing everything around you that'd be appreciated
• Scoring: Your score is based on average easterly speed. To calculate your score, get your glider ready, and copy the full code below into the console. Make sure there are no player entities besides the glider on the map. Scoring will start as soon as your cursor contents change (i.e. you place a building, or drop an item). The script will speed up time so it'll only take a couple minutes. You can also type "/c stop()" in console to cancel it. Don't interact with the glider while scoring.
  • While the scoring code will work wherever you place your glider, for official scoring I will place it like this: the topmost and leftmost non-ghost entities of your glider, at the moment of start, will touch the X=0 and Y=0 axes. To find this, use the console command "/c game.player.teleport{0,0}", and turn on the grid with shift-space (or F4->show_tile_grid->F5). Example.
  • Scoring code

    Code: Select all

    /c 
    start_tick = nil;
    time = 50000;
    day_flag=true
    get_min_max_x_pos = function()
    	local ents=game.surfaces[1].find_entities_filtered{force="player"};
    	local nonghosts = {}
    	for i,ent in pairs(ents) do
    		if ent.name~="entity-ghost" then
    			nonghosts[#nonghosts+1]=ent
    		end
    	end
    	table.sort(nonghosts, function(a,b) return a.position.x<b.position.x end);
    	return nonghosts[1].position.x, nonghosts[#nonghosts].position.x;
    end
    
    start = function(event) 
    	_,start_right=get_min_max_x_pos();
    	start_tick=event.tick;
    	script.on_event(defines.events.on_player_cursor_stack_changed,nil);
    	script.on_event(defines.events.on_tick, update);
    	game.speed=10;
    	local surf=game.surfaces[1];
    	surf.always_day=false;
    	surf.freeze_daytime(false);
    	surf.daytime=0;
    	game.print("Starting run for "..time.." ticks");
    end
    
    update=function(event)
    	if start_tick and day_flag and game.surfaces[1].darkness>0 then
    		local _,day_right=get_min_max_x_pos()
    		day_flag=false;
    		local speed = string.format("%.3f", (day_right-start_right)/(event.tick-start_tick)*60)
    		game.print("Average day speed: ".. speed .." m/s. Continuing...");
    	elseif start_tick and event.tick > start_tick+time then
    		stop()
    		local end_left, end_right = get_min_max_x_pos();
    		local speed = string.format("%.3f", (end_right-start_right)/(event.tick-start_tick)*60)
    		game.print("Run complete. Average speed: ".. speed .." m/s");
    		local score = string.format("%.3f", (end_left-start_right)/(event.tick-start_tick)*60)
    		game.print("Final score: ".. score .." m/s");
    	end
    end
    
    stop=function()
    	script.on_event(defines.events.on_player_cursor_stack_changed,nil);
    	script.on_event(defines.events.on_tick, nil);
    	game.speed=1;
    end
    
    script.on_event(defines.events.on_player_cursor_stack_changed, start);
    

  • At the beginning of dusk, it'll report your average day speed.
  • Two full game days after you start, it'll report average speed and final score.
  • Average speed is based on the distance between the right-most entity at the start and at the end.
  • Final score is similar, but based on your right-most entity at the start, and left-most entity at the end: the full distance you crossed. This will penalize really wide gliders.
  • Score is in meters/second, where 1 meter=1 tile and 1 second=60 ticks.
• I reserve the right to change the rules, disqualify people, etc. If you find a loophole in the rules I'll close it.
• For final scoring, I'll take average of 3 runs. If the worst-of-3 run for the first place contestant is worse than the best-of-3 run for the second-place, I'll use average of 5 runs instead.
• If the results are within 0.1 m/s of each other, lowest number of buildings+items in the initial configuration will win.

Rule Updates

Sample Submission

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II5bsVqeMpq276m3cU+p93Q+u0uWvq1hZGvYxY57ls22Fkgdjwz9x1iZbh5j2/g2hl380BayZ8jZllWMi8k0/X6WhO1xLXDu5QeohVcLxtEeRn6BbR4648Ay
YRu7ZGgnOKK1KszbAhlX9yRto7NbYA65/jK080tW+n1f6bdZ6RfP+2FaAxfARx7h2COxixTNR9qSBiqOqfAKqAg73cQMOt+cUdo5S5G/OYHzO205FFLwWvun
DBdp+OzmmOcNFuqTGvOeA9CBTeT3bSQHz1c27DCRNXvTxfs3taucBGck28IBHTHjafsBXbICMrbLWAVc61tmY1VCFK5M73Y0/yS9ZD69WgCQTvbD1O6Y4BA/
GOCbGLZSAgZemtxWCtygN8SxOJSg9yYrt5giuTfH4tPLdjMAmJjxFSqThwW+NHyHeS2yGu8pImkrTpVSuYDScUc6dPSk5LVEheT8lSHON8dljaiaMcoRc9Eg
8gHUHXpaeY4an5Vy1ajdNyecJEU04EEBOS6kDuYa5dv16QKz2CRjef1WyXwqxFU+qfPjrl7BEfhJHDDda8TqJJNqqMh2nJUZphImFbwBy17qds32cnoryv67
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Leaderboard

• Yoyobuae
• Nemek
• DaveMcW
• canidae
• hansinator
• nielskool
• thraxxaldor
• ertex
• NiftyManiac (Score: 0.379)

DaveMcW wrote:Does FARL with 2 days of supplies count as a loophole?

NiftyManiac wrote:You may use a single mod that has been released at the time of this post.
You'll probably want Recursive Blueprints or ConMan.

NiftyManiac wrote:For final scoring, I'll take average of 3 runs.
If the results are within 0.1 m/s of each other, ...

Sample Submission: The first glider
Final score: 0.379 (Day speed: 0.72 m/s, Avg speed: 0.432 m/s)

Anson wrote:while i tried for the first time to use those mods myself, i succeeded ... in crashing both of them
errors like "error in pair (nil value)" or something similar.
where do i report such bugs ? for one, the forum thread is rather old, and the other has none.

Anson wrote:i ran your glider and the score was 0.054 higher

greep wrote:As others said, there's not much room for improvement on the existing one

A glider must be self-contained: it cannot use external power, or leave anything behind as it travels.

darkfrei wrote:And hot water tanks like energy accumulator? They are full and hot by the start and empty in two days.

DaveMcW wrote:I think requesting a forest map and coastline (or map border) should be an option, cutting forest to run boilers is an awesome strategy.

bdean20 wrote:Any restriction on using the edge of a ribbon map to collect water for steam engines?

NiftyManiac wrote:Now that's a fun idea. Is there any way to generate nice forest or am I going to need to write a script for this? An important thing here would be consistent forest density.

DaveMcW wrote:A note about ConMan: it uses absolute coordinates instead of relative. Using it in a glider requires you to track and update the coordinates, which probably outweighs any benefits it could give.

canidae wrote:
Idea: If there's enough entrants for a prize to be given out, could the prize optionally be be a small donation to a good cause (animal shelters, Prevent Cancer Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, etc.)?

canidae wrote:I was on the brink of making a mod that reads (discovered) terrain, I think such a mod could be quite useful in combination with ConMan. Simply input X & Y into an entity, entity outputs signals telling you what's on the given tile. If such a mod exists, let me know what it's called, if it doesn't then feel free to make one.

NiftyManiac wrote:

canidae wrote:I was on the brink of making a mod that reads (discovered) terrain, I think such a mod could be quite useful in combination with ConMan. Simply input X & Y into an entity, entity outputs signals telling you what's on the given tile. If such a mod exists, let me know what it's called, if it doesn't then feel free to make one.

In response to my GreyGoo project a few people have told me that AAI can do something like this: viewtopic.php?t=38473

canidae wrote:Also, damnit Yoyo.