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

[UpperKEES]

Question 4 has been posted. :)

[Kamron3]

4.69 squares per second

[UpperKEES]

4.69 squares per second

Incorrect.

And please review the definition of an integer. ;)

[Nate Dog]

11 squares per second

[Echo51]

13, cause its mah lucky number sleven

[UpperKEES]

11 squares per second

Incorrect.

13, cause its mah lucky number sleven

Incorrect.

[Aurzel]

are you sure it's not 11? because that's what I found
it'd have to be 10 then

[SPIFFEN]

Then i guess 10 then =P

[mthw2vc]

Question 4:
How many squares does a packet travel per second horizontally or vertically when 4 speed nodes are connected to your network? You can round your answer to the nearest integer (as I don't have the exact data either).

Is that map squares? In theory, it would be ~14, but in practice, 2 packets dispatch ~11 map squares apart if you have 4 speed nodes (Actually a little more). Given that packets dispatch 32 frames apart for building without the 20% faster building upgrade and no deficit, the answer appears to round to ~13. You've already rejected that one, but you said yourself that you don't have exact data yet.

The actual packet movement speed appears to be 1.5+0.5 for every speed node in pixels/frame (This needs more testing), although I think you're using what virgil said, 2+0.5 per speed node, which would yield 144 pixels, or 14.4 map squares. Rounded, that would be 14.

[UpperKEES]

it'd have to be 10 then

Then i guess 10 then =P

Both incorrect. And please note that giving the same answer as a previous person is rather useless. :P

Rounded, that would be 14.

Correct! :) And again a point for you.

Nice to read about the theoretical speed, because I've been wondering why it would be 7 without the speed nodes (4 speed nodes double the speed) and how this would be related to the initial speed of '2'. Pixels per frame could very well be the answer here; this indeed needs more testing. Please let me know if you find more info about this!

The spacing between 2 packets can't be used to determine its speed however, as we don't have exact data about the packet request rate. I used totem packets for testing, so the build speed upgrade doesn't apply here, but the packet speed is the same for every type of packet.

Not only in (your) theory, but also in practise the packet speed comes to 7 squares per second, or 14 squares per seconds with 4 speed nodes. See the image below:



Have a look at the 6th packet (the first packets can't be used because they were not up to full speed yet, due to Odin City being slow to scan its network for speed nodes, as you can see by their spacing). Currently the 6th packet is at the first relay at the 0:02 second mark. The distance between the first and the last relay is exactly 700 squares (11 x 60 + 10 x 4). Now have a look at the finish line:



The 6th packet finishes the track at the 0:52 second mark, so in about 50 seconds. This means its speed is 700 / 50 = 14 squares per second. Without the speed nodes it would finish in about 100 seconds, resulting in a default speed of 7 squares per second. My initial question was how many seconds it would take for a packet to travel 700 squares with 12 speed nodes (quad speed), but my results were too far off from the expected answer of 25 seconds to be precise enough, so I had to change it to avoid lengthy discussions.

Edit: see here for a more detailed explanation why the speed will relatively decrease with more speed nodes.

[SPIFFEN]

Oh i guess i thought it was an #2 post so the answer was'nt valid =P

[UpperKEES]

I think Aurzel referred to Nate Dog's answer. You can only get (rather) precise results however when testing for a longer interval of time, so over a longer distance.

[UpperKEES]

The actual packet movement speed appears to be 1.5+0.5 for every speed node in pixels/frame (This needs more testing), although I think you're using what virgil said, 2+0.5 per speed node

Nice to read about the theoretical speed, because I've been wondering why it would be 7 without the speed nodes (4 speed nodes double the speed) and how this would be related to the initial speed of '2'. Pixels per frame could very well be the answer here; this indeed needs more testing.

After some more testing it indeed seems packets travel approximately 2 pixels per frame. I don't think the 32 frame subrhythm applies here. If there's a subrhythm used here, it's seems to be close to 35 frames (which would explain the very slight deviation when using more speed nodes).

[mthw2vc]

Also remember the effect that the packets must stop on every network node, this explains some of the deviation, especially when using several speed nodes.

[UpperKEES]

Yeah, I considered that, but this recalculation of the packet path is all done within a frame, so that frame just takes a little longer to process I guess, but shouldn't influence the travel time. The application just runs a little slower. Unless a packet really stops at a node for 1 frame of course; I could test this by replacing the relays by collectors, thus doubling the amount of intermediate nodes. I'll attach my testmap so you can experiment as well if you like.