@dzaima Are you aware of the fact that the new SlM is able to create fake main rails on an empty board? This doesn't abduct many workers, but causes some (infinite) arguments between them occasionally.

Relevant game: GBUDοζfDUTBlNoBWSBnwh, your controller, SlM only.

@Alion huh, I haven't looked at it much

oh right that..

food near the rail does and probably always will cause problems

By the way, this thing is absurdly efficient. Well done.

@Alion I mainly went with the "whatever's easiest to do with these tools" approach, so I'm surprised it works that well :p

Probably obvious idea: use type 3 and type 4 to search the cell-wide space between the shafts.

@Alion anti-vampire takes probably 2 types though

@dzaima Oh, so you're still gonna try some anti-vampire, huh? Thought you said you wouldn't. Meh, whatever.

@Alion I'm not saying I will, I'm just saying I'd rather leave that as a possibility.

Ah, alright.

actually, workers could probably just go to their opposite side and go mine in the 1 wide place, as it'd match up perfectly

that'd require changing my system of workers moving around, but it's in the state that it is currently as a worker not in it's side would cause a deadlock :p

@dzaima Oh, silly me. Thought the shaft pattern was rotated on the other side, not reflected. That could work, then.

@Alion rotated would work too though :p

I wanted to ask if it's worth it, but a 33% is pretty good

though if the bot is far enough in the game to benefit from smaller journeys in shafts, it'd probably be in 1st place already

IMO the fake rail problem is more important right now

@dzaima Highway v1.1...

Though, wait, the map would be clean then anyway :P

Yeah, you're probably right.

right, I think I've fixed that specific problem, though similar things can very much happen (but those should be rarer)

also hoping that fix doesn't cause other problems

basically I made laden ants not try to clear the shaft while on the rail

yeah, unladen workers still cause problems (and what they're doing is what they really should be doing)

at least it doesn't seem like that'll make fake rails appear

and that fake rail was harmless anyway IIRC

ooh, random idea with what to do with fake rails: if I'm surrounded by peers (when it's backed up), shaft out, hoping that I was on a fake rail and will return to the real one (not for long however)

also, parallel main rail collision with Highway didn't turn out well. Highway at 163 food (completely dead I think however) and SlM with 295+135 workers & 5 food @ 16k moves

still going though, my food to worker scorer works very well here as it creates enough workers for them to start backing up, here more because clearing trough highway takes a while

yep, the fake rail is killing all productivity :/ Finished with score 0, Highway 1st

SlM+Highway collisions can turn out badly for either one. AFAIK Highway dies more often for now, though. Mostly due to rampant bugs that I am aware of/have fixed already :)

I'll post all fixes as a giant update, though.

heh one highway worker is just going back & forth diagonally on one place :D

from this to up left and back

@dzaima Lots of places where they can do that... Worst offender is laden worker near main rail.

Oh. Exactly.

oh, thought you wanted to move to only orthogonally moving workers

@dzaima Dropped that idea... there's no point. Pattern too stronk ;)

4 cells is usually more than enough, and if it's not then they just won't paint it over and search for more certain places instead. That's the plan, simpler stuff happens right now though...

ooh, moving around searching for more certain places seems like an extremely good plan

Well, it already kinda works, but it's really broken right now...

I don't even actually remember what I settled on. Whatever, overhaul is coming soon anyway /shrug

you know what, that's such a good idea that I might just want to start working on a whole new patterning system

@dzaima Worst that can happen with that plan is back-and-forth until someone comes around and saves the poor soul.

@dzaima I'm pleased to be a source of inspiration.

@Alion oh, you should definitely have some randomness for moving around

I'd personally just go with just moving in a completely random direction

@dzaima I was considering it, though my current plan is going to be automagically partially random if the situation is dire... Probably not perfect, but good enough. I've got hundreds of workers anyway :P

I also find it strange that Highway usually has multiple workers holding back one SlM

@dzaima Oh? That's new to me...

I'll check it out when I get some time. I can see how I could've missed that.

they're all just rotating behind one miner

Ahhh.... So they can't see the miner all the time? Or at least be in range for screwing with him directly?

gif

Are they perhaps a laden/unladen mix?

Oh for...

Mhm. They're doing some traffic unjamming... though it certainly doesn't look like it's working properly.

on my todo list of things to waste hours on Daves controller is also make individual stepping happen only in the viewed area

@dzaima That's in my TODO list. Well, not directly, but the bug responsible is already identified.

a lot of wrong, too lazy to properly loop that gif

Checks out.

oh right, that's near the main rail :p

yeah, Highways main rail is a bloodbath

It won't care after I push the huge update. As long as there will be a semblence of untouched main rail, it'll fix itself quite quickly.

@Alion by bloodbath I mean that there are a lot of frozen ant pairs on it

@dzaima Oh, that. Thought you meant the rail was ruined...

@Alion well, that too, it's pretty overriden by SlMs shafts

\o/ SlM with that fake rail escaping fix is 1st with 157 food! (and 269 + 151 workers)

once it gets to the 100 food, it's usually a smooth sailing victory until vampire comes around.

I wonder how the blob known as Edgehugger will do after I actually start working on it... Should be fun :)

How many unique view arrays could there be if we only assumed 2 colors, no food and no ants? Naive is 2^9, but I want to account for rotations as well.

@Alion well, it is 2^9, unless by unique you mean unrotated

So 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 is the same as 0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0.

@dzaima Yes, exactly.

@Alion looks like 140

@dzaima Looks like some sorcery. Quick checking in head resulted in a similar figure. Thanks!

@Alion APL is fun :p

If I made an intuitive interface, I think I could manually input all actions taken by Edgehugger...

Though I think there might better ways to solve this.

ಠ_ಠ SlM just on its own just failed starting out. The queen is fighting with its first worker on the rails color :p

ಠ____ಠ and scored 5 with the 1 food it could never convert into a worker

right, the queen ignored the golden rule: always have the center piece repaired first

Using my type 3 for three different tasks is starting to bite me in the ass...

@Alion shouldn't it be very easy to distinguish between them though?

...especially since the type 3 is usually unaware that it's in stage 3, as only the queen sees her partner in stage 3. The partner is blissfully unaware, and that's a problem.

@Alion ah okay that's bad

wait so isn't it 2 states then? seeing the queen (being LS) and not - move on main rail?

@dzaima Well, it works now because the partner didn't have to know it's in stage 3.

In stage 3, it generally does the same stuff it did in stage 2...

mhm

But now I need the partner to do some additional stuff when it's in stage 3. I wanted to force some maneuvers onto the queen, so she doesn't get stuck in weird spots like the doubly-starred situation from yesterday.

But the partner can't follow the queen, because he can't do the same maneuvers required in stage 3 when he's in stage 2...

I could probably fix this temporarily by adding a longer tail to the queen, in the form of a type 4... But then my taxing idea flies out the window :c

as is tradition, I'm gonna try to make another SlM in this new patterning system I'm making :p

SlM4. Good stuff.

I'm starting to consider remaking Highway from scratch... It's gotten so disorganized that it's borderline impossible to work with.

Man, if I could somehow synchronize my workers with my queen on the highway... SlM's main advantage is that of efficiency, and that is caused by the low travel times... Highway starts out quickly, but then there's a 500 or 1250-turn stop in food delivery...

@Alion Highway could probably do what I'm doing - just make the queen move only when workers are seen

Pelle's Colony Bot might be able to resolve this issue, as it is based on Wildfire instead of Monorail...

@dzaima Erm, no, that wouldn't work. The workers mostly move forward, not to the sides :P

They don't build shafts, in the general sense. So they would just move in front of the queen, leaving her behind.

@Alion oh right

yeah, I see the problem..

It's a miracle the starting phase works out essentially like turbo-charged Wildfire...

oh god, another game of SlM just not starting out correctly.. 3rd place on a tournament

I'm considering putting off Highway for a while and working on Edgehugger instead... Though I have nearly no faith in Edgehugger being more efficient than Highway, so I'm torn...

finally decided to make a new starting out phase for SlM, now it shouldn't way too often go back on itself