Game Mechanics Quiz 1 - How much do you really know?

[J]

57-58 seconds

[UpperKEES]

57-58 seconds

Incorrect.

[Nate Dog]

Emitter with intensity 4 cannot fill it. You need emitters with intensity 5!

An emitter with intensity 4 will fill it, it just won't overflow it.

[mthw2vc]

SPOILER ALERT!
It will never fill. An emitter only sets the depth of creeper to its intensity, so each pulse produces less and less creeper, with the limit being 4. Emitters with 0 intensity are a good demonstration of this effect.

[Mare]

It will fill, but not completely, and it can never overflow unless the intensity is higher than 5.


Its a trick question, the trench can NEVER be completely full, only mostly full.

[Fisherck]

Well, I think it is still completely full, sinse if you put an emitter that emits anymore, it will overflow.  It is completely full, anymore and it will overflow.
Okay, I got 53 seconds. Its white because I think it is right. ;)

[UpperKEES]

It will never fill. An emitter only sets the depth of creeper to its intensity, so each pulse produces less and less creeper, with the limit being 4. Emitters with 0 intensity are a good demonstration of this effect.

It will fill, but not completely, [...] the trench can NEVER be completely full, only mostly full.

These are the correct answers, see more explanation below. I assume mthw2vc didn't completely change his answer when editing, so he earns the first point. If he did change it (and I'm sure both mthw2vc and Mare will be fair about this), the point goes to Mare. In the future I will disallow editing of posts in that sense that I will look at the time of editing to determine who was first, because I can't be online for 24 hours.... See the top post for the final version of the rules and the ranking.

it can never overflow unless the intensity is higher than 5.

This part is not correct. It will completely fill and overflow with any intensity higher than 4, so 4.000001 is enough (although the map editor will only allow 4.1).

Explanation:
When we assume that the trench is completely filled when all 10 squares contain 4 layers of creeper, it will take an infinite amount of seconds, because it will never fill up completely. This is also the reason it won't overflow.

After about 14 seconds you won't see lines in the creeper, but these only indicate relatively big differences in creeper height between cells; the cells in the middle (#5 and #6) only contain about 2 layers of creeper at that moment.
After about 1 minute it seems the creeper in the center cells has reached level 5 (so 4 layers) when you look at the creeper level gauge by hovering your mouse pointer over these squares, but that's a limitation of your display. In fact it never reaches level 5, but approaches it asymptotically.

To understand this you have to imagine how the flow of creeper works:

Note: a frame in CW1 is 1/36^th of a second.

Square (from left to right):	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
At start of map:	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
After 1 second:	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4
After 1 second + 1 frame:	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2
After 1 second + 2 frames:	1.5	1.5	1	0	0	0	0	1	1.5	1.5
After 1 second + 3 frames:	1.25	1.25	1	0.5	0	0	0.5	1	1.25	1.25
After 1 second + 4 frames:	1.09375	1.09375	0.9375	0.625	0.25	0.25	0.625	0.9375	1.09375	1.09375
After 1 second + 5 frames:	etc.
After 2 seconds:	4	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	...	4

Every second the first and last cell become 4 again. The following frames the other cells will keep equalizing and may finally become 3.999999999, but will never reach exactly 4.0.

For this example I have processed the cells from the inside to the outside. CW probably processes all cells from left to right (and top to bottom, but that's not applicable here). In fact the creeper only get updated every 7 frames and each neighbor just receives 1/8th of the contents of the original cell, but this doesn't change anything about the rationale behind for this question.

This was the theoretical answer. The practical answer is a little different, because CW won't be able to store an infinite amount of digits behind the decimal point. Let's assume 16 digits are stored for this variable, then 3.99999999999999995 will be rounded to 4.0, but this will still take a very long time.

Now, could you have tested this with a testmap? Yes! Mortars target the deepest location within range, see below:



Even after several minutes the mortars still target the outer cells (regardless of their position relative to the trench). This proves that these cells still contain more creeper than the inner cells, although the elevation gauge seems to indicate that all squares contain 4 layers of creeper.

I will post the next question tomorrow (and this won't be a 'tricky' one).

[ontheworld]

that was mean...  :-[

[UpperKEES]

that was mean...  :-[

It may seem a bit tricky, but it's useful to understand how the creeper flows and what the implications are, especially when creating maps.

The next question won't be tricky at all. I'll try to post it tonight. :)

[UpperKEES]

Question 2 has been posted.

[Blaze]

Either E or F and if I can only choose one then E as it always happens to me.

[UpperKEES]

Events A to G all occur within this one minute. You're supposed to give a number (amount of energy per second needed). Please reread the question.

[UpperKEES]

I have a received a few questions by PM and chat about Q2, so let me clarify:

- It's a minute in mid-game (because there's already a lot of creeper on the map).
- You can assume the weapons were already charged at the start of this minute (probably not completely, because they were already firing).
- You can assume there were already packets on their way to the weapons (for the same reason).
- You can assume the weapons will be charged just as much at the end of this minute and that just as many packets will be on their way at this moment.
- You can assume the mortar is halfway during its reload cycle at the start of this minute.
- You can assume no energy is wasted due to redundant SAM missiles and such.
- This is not a trick question, although you will need some exact data about the energy consumption of your weapons.

[Sqaz]

So just to be sure: The weapons have to have the same amount of energy at the end of the minute as in the beginning.

[UpperKEES]

So just to be sure: The weapons have to have the same amount of energy at the end of the minute as in the beginning.

You can assume the weapons will be charged just as much at the end of this minute and that just as many packets will be on their way at this moment.

So, yes. ;) The weapons are already firing, so you can assume a steady and continuous flow of packets that won't influence your answer.