Challenge: Build the fastest glider (and win something!)

[canidae]

Also, damnit Yoyo.

There's still plenty of time though. I'm not sure I even want to try improve mine further. Bots are such a pain to control. >_>

If someone manage to micromanage the bots to barely beat your score I doubt you'll manage to ignore it for more than a minute, two at most

[justarandomgeek]

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

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.

ConMan is still very much beta (and still fairly actively worked on, except that I've been traveling for a week), so I'm not at all surprised you broke it. Recursive Blueprints also has several unfinished parts on it, but it hasn't gotten much attention from me lately, in favor on ConMan. In any case, posting issues to the github for each is probably the best way to report bugs. Forums suck, especially for keeping track of bugs. (I'm also on IRC (espernet/#factorio) pretty much all the time, and can be PMed here or on reddit.)

Also, just a small hint for those using ConMan: It's pretty much built with the assumption that Location Combinators also exist, to provide reference coordinates. I would strongly encourage adding that to the allowed modlist too, as it *greatly* simplifies getting things positioned correctly.

And I'll probably have a go at this this weekend and see if I can make a simple ConMan walker.... (Though, ConMan also assumes that there will be one or a small few ConMan entities making orders all over the factory, and it's wires aren't blueprintable currently, so that'll probably take a little extra trickery...)

[justarandomgeek]

I feel ConMan is more in the spirit of the game as well, so I hope to see that mod evolve. 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.

ConMan has a friend coming, "Scanning Controlled Automated Material Mapping Enhanced Radar"

[NiftyManiac]

Also, just a small hint for those using ConMan: It's pretty much built with the assumption that Location Combinators also exist, to provide reference coordinates. I would strongly encourage adding that to the allowed modlist too, as it *greatly* simplifies getting things positioned correctly.

Oh, that makes sense. Adding Location Combinators to the allowed mod list.

Definitely join the contest! There's some stiff competition in the race, but no entries so far in the fighting and forestry departments! Hmm maybe I should add some prizes there.

Also, can't wait to see whatever project you've got in store combining your computer and all your great little specialized mods into one massive automated factory... maybe before I get around to GreyGoo Mk II

[nielskool]

Just submitted an entry, I am curious to what the others achieved.
I hope more people will join.

[DaveMcW]

I think the scoring code unfairly penalizes ghost blueprints placed on the start tick.

To exploit/workaround this, engineer a 1 tick delay between the scoring start and the blueprint deployment.

[thraxxaldor]

There appears to be a bug in the scoring code, no idea whats causing it, but it's outputting my final score as -0.019 regardless of what the prior average score was.
http://imgur.com/a/5WyQz

[justarandomgeek]

Is it acceptable to leave chests full of wood and bubblegum behind if I clear trees/aliens ahead of me? Otherwise I'll need a progressively larger buffer to store it in... ( On the plus side, wood chests are basically free if I *am* taking it all with me!)

[NiftyManiac]

I think the scoring code unfairly penalizes ghost blueprints placed on the start tick.

Fair enough. Scoring scoring script updated to ignore ghosts entirely.

There appears to be a bug in the scoring code, no idea whats causing it, but it's outputting my final score as -0.019 regardless of what the prior average score was.

You're leaving something behind at the start. You're not allowed to leave anything behind in the race.

Is it acceptable to leave chests full of wood and bubblegum behind if I clear trees/aliens ahead of me? Otherwise I'll need a progressively larger buffer to store it in... ( On the plus side, wood chests are basically free if I *am* taking it all with me!)

Absolutely, gliders that handle trees/biters can leave stuff behind. According the the rules this isn't allowed for the race... but if you somehow manage to go faster than the gliders that don't handle obstacles, I'll change the rules .

[justarandomgeek]

Absolutely, gliders that handle trees/biters can leave stuff behind. According the the rules this isn't allowed for the race... but if you somehow manage to go faster than the gliders that don't handle obstacles, I'll change the rules .

Of course, it's a bit of a different category, but it's only slightly more work than the no-obstacles version of my current plan, so I'll probably do it anyway!

Edit: perhaps, in obstacle-handling gliders, leave only wooden chests of waste behind?

[DaveMcW]

Bots are such a pain to control. >_>

The trick is to take away all the options except the one you want them to do.

[canidae]

Regarding scoring:
I've noticed that my glider can end up with a significant variation in score depending on where I place the glider in the grid (shown when you pause the game). The grid is divided into 32x32 chunks (thicker lines), and when I place the glider so its leftmost and bottommost entities align to the bottom left of a 32x32 chunk, I repeatedly end up with a score quite different to what I (repeatedly) end up with if I place the bottommost entity in the middle of a 32x32 chunk. Likely this is caused by how construct/deconstruct orders are carried out by robots.

I have some suggestions to the scoring code:

• Set a fixed "start" coordinate. For example: The leftmost entity in the glider match the Y-axis of the start coordinate, the bottommost entity in the glider match the X-axis. It could be an idea to create a "race" map the contestants can download where the start coordinate is marked.
• The glider should run for a certain time before scoring starts, this to eliminate any bonus the glider may gain by the initial setup.
• Increase duration of race to at least one more day/night cycle. Preferably even more, this helps even out score variation.
• When the time for submitting gliders is over, run each glider for more than 3 runs (5, for example) in a "grand finale". This also will help even out score variation.

Obviously it would be bad form for me as a contestant to dictate the rules of the race, so these are merely suggestions. I do insist on a fixed start location (but it does not need to be placed where I exemplified it). I can't tell you the score variation I've experienced as that may reveal speed information about both my glider as well as contestants above/below me on the scoring chart, but I suspect the variation may be significant enough to affect the outcome of the race.

One more thing:
NiftyManiac mentioned running the gliders side-by-side. While I absolutely love this idea, I regretfully don't think it's a good idea, or at least not for a race. You've probably noticed that when you place those huge solar farms and don't have the material to build it all, you'll see on the map that warning signs keep appearing/disappearing. The orders for construction/deconstruction are spread out over ticks, meaning that the gliders will affect each other. This won't be good for a race, but it could still be nifty to watch.

[Nemek]

Very coolidea, really inspiring. I will enter this challenge, even if I never used the logystic system seriously so far, I never used the mods listed and I just discovered the challenge...

My main goal will be to improve my factorio skills in time to be able to enter and maybe challenge the leaderboard

N00b question: How to enable the "instant deconstruction" cheat? It's not in the console command list. TY

[justarandomgeek]

Regarding scoring:

• Set a fixed "start" coordinate. For example: The leftmost entity in the glider match the Y-axis of the start coordinate, the bottommost entity in the glider match the X-axis. It could be an idea to create a "race" map the contestants can download where the start coordinate is marked.

This could be done fairly easily if you're holding the print in your hand when running the script by simply having the script deploy the print-in-hand (player.cursor_stack.build_blueprint{}) at a particular position.

[Yoyobuae]

N00b question: How to enable the "instant deconstruction" cheat? It's not in the console command list. TY

That's part of Creative Mode mod.

[canidae]

N00b question: How to enable the "instant deconstruction" cheat? It's not in the console command list. TY

That's part of Creative Mode mod.

An alternative to get rid of (discovered) trees and rocks is to issue the following command:

Code: Select all

/c for _, entity in pairs(game.surfaces[1].find_entities_filtered{force="neutral"}) do entity.destroy() end

You might still want Creative Mode to get rid of your own stuff quickly too, though.

[NiftyManiac]

Regarding scoring:
I've noticed that my glider can end up with a significant variation in score depending on where I place the glider in the grid (shown when you pause the game).

Thanks for the suggestions. I've updated the rules to specify that for official scoring, the top-most and left-most entities of the glider will touch the X=0 and Y=0 axes. See OP for more explicit detail.

For final scoring: 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 for the final determination. I'm not a fan of adding more day-night cycles, it's already a pretty long track. As for startup time, I'll think about it. The point of being flexible with startup instructions was that you could start it optimally.

NiftyManiac mentioned running the gliders side-by-side. While I absolutely love this idea, I regretfully don't think it's a good idea, or at least not for a race.

Don't worry, I never planned to use this for scoring. Scoring will be done as described with independent runs. A simultaneous run, if I get around to putting one together, would be just for fun.

[mattj256]

Hi. I'm preparing to enter the contest!

The official rules say "Smart Trains" but the name of the mod is "Smarter Trains." I just want to make sure I'm not missing something or doing something wrong...

Edit: This is hard! (But fun.)

[NiftyManiac]

Smarter Trains is the one I was referring to. Updated the OP. Good luck!

[DaveMcW]

The glider should run for a certain time before scoring starts, this to eliminate any bonus the glider may gain by the initial setup.

I think I understand canidae's evil setup plan.

Let's say we have a glider that is 200 tiles wide using max spaced roboports.

It takes 5 seconds to construct another roboport 50 tiles ahead of the front, and 20 seconds to deconstruct the roboport at the back and bring it to the front. Average speed is 50 tiles in 25 seconds, or 2 m/s.

During the setup phase, we put everything in a storage chest, place the blueprint, and add roboport #1.
Roboport #2 takes 5 seconds to place.
Roboport #3 takes 5 seconds to fly to #2's position, and 5 seconds more to place.
Roboport #4 takes 10 seconds to fly to #3's position, and 5 seconds more to place.
Roboport #5 takes 15 seconds to fly to #4's position, and 5 seconds more to place.

The build has advanced 200 tiles in 50 seconds, or 4/ms!

Now let's get even more creative. Instead of letting stuff sit in storage, we place it on the map along with a self-destruct circuit.

Roboport #2 takes 5 seconds to place. Meanwhile #3 #4 #5 fly to the same x coordinate.
Roboport #3 takes 1 second to deconstruct, 5 seconds more to place. Meanwhile #4 #5 fly to the same x coordinate.
Roboport #4 takes 1 second to deconstruct, 5 seconds more to place. Meanwhile #5 flies to the same x coordinate.
Roboport #5 takes 1 second to deconstruct, 5 seconds more to place.

The build has advanced 200 tiles in 23 seconds, or 8.7 m/s!

Basically, everything built before the glider is forced to deconstruct the items at the back cannot be trusted.