Re: [spoon-discuss] Junk

["Glotmorf" <dwhytock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 24 Dec 2003 at 11:39, Daniel Lepage wrote:

> 
> On Wednesday, December 24, 2003, at 03:03 AM, Glotmorf wrote:
> >>
> >> Each square of the Grid has a Height. Each square can also either be
> >> Open or Filled.
> >>
> >> If a square of Height one becomes Empty, its height becomes zero.
> >> If a square's Height is ever zero, it immediately becomes Open.
> >>
> >> A Mound is a set of squares such that every square in the set is
> >> Rectilinearly connected to every other square in the set, every square
> >> in the set has Height greater than zero, and every square that's
> >> rectilinearly connected to a square in the set but not in the set has
> >> Height zero. [[i.e., a pile of junk squares surrounded by non-junk]]
> >>
> >> If every square in a Mound is Open, that Mound Collapses - every 
> >> square
> >> in it becomes Filled and has its height decreased by one, and all
> >> JunkBots in these squares are destroyed.
> >
> > I have a problem with this part.
> >
> > "Open" is not defined well.  You have "Open" as the state a
> > square takes on when its height becomes zero.  With this as
> > the sole possible definition, I gather that when a Filled
> > square becomes Open it means its height becomes zero.
> >
> > "Filled" doesn't seem to be defined at all, except to be the
> > state of a square that's not Open.  Which means a square is
> > Filled regardless of its height, as further demonstrated by
> > the fact that all the starting non-zero-height squares,
> > ranging in height from 1 to 7, are declared Filled.
> >
> > However, "If every square in a Mound is Open, that Mound Collapses - 
> > every square
> > in it becomes Filled and has its height decreased by one, and all
> > JunkBots in these squares are destroyed."  But if the squares
> > in the mound were all Open, that means their height was zero
> > at the time, so either (a) there is no mound, since there is
> > no set of contiguous non-zero-height squares, or (b) the
> > height of all the squares becomes -1.
> >
> > Further, no provision seems to be made in the act of changing
> > an adjacent square from Filled to Open for varying height --
> > it costs the same energy to make a 7-height square Open as it
> > does a 1-height square.  Is this logical?  If so, why have
> > height at all?
> 
> 
> I never define 'Open' as meaning 'has height zero'. If a square has no 
> Junk in it, it must be open, but a square that is Open need not have 
> height zero. Open simply means that it can be moved into - there might 
> be seven units of Junk piled above it, but there's a tunnel at your 
> level, so you can go in.
> 
> 'Filled' then means 'Not Open' - there's Junk filling the ground level.
> 
> The Junk is very tightly packed - if you tunnel under a square, but the 
> junk is still attached to other squares that aren't tunneled, it won't 
> collapse. Even a single pillar of Junk can support an arbitrarily large 
> Mound. But if every support is mined away, then the Mound's just 
> floating there, one unit above everyone's height. Obviously Junk cannot 
> do this, so the Mound collapses immediately, landing one unit below it.
> 
> Changing an adjacent square to Open just means you dug the junk out on 
> the bottom level, so there's no penalty for doing it to a higher pile 
> (except that somebody else might knock down one of the remaining 
> supports and bury you).

Okay, so "Open" is (or should be) defined as horizontally 
navigable?  So there is no "up" movement possible?

I think I'd still prefer cubes.  At a given level you could 
define an island of cubes as being isolated all around on up, 
so that a mound can collapse in the middle as well as at the 
bottom.  You can also create "light wells" that way, such that 
if a given XY square is open all the way up, one can recharge 
anywhere in it along the Z.  Les'n, of course, there's a bot 
somewhere above you hogging all the light.

						Glotmorf

-----
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