Thanks, though that reactor had a couple of unnecessary symbols. Actually, most of them did. After a bit of tweaking, I managed to make the whole thing pretty damned fast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?hd=1&v=h0Hq4cBQGQg
Good luck with that. Accidents Happen is kicking my ass. Dealing with that extra hydrogen is such a pain. I'll get it eventually, but I'm taking a break and doing some ResearchNet puzzles.
Alright I give. I need help on the Falling mission. I don't even know where to begin. I'm pretty sure that I'm supposed to transform the Os into Zr and turn the Kr and H into Sr and Y, but I can't even imagine a conveyer line that can accomplish anything resembling that.
Alright I give. I need help on the Falling mission. I don't even know where to begin. I'm pretty sure that I'm supposed to transform the Os into Zr and turn the Kr and H into Sr and Y, but I can't even imagine a conveyer line that can accomplish anything resembling that.
By Sr, you mean Nb, right?
It's basically the same idea as Unknown Sender, only you need to grab and output each atom, after it's been fused enough. Don't want to say too much, but you can control how many times a sequence is executed with syncs.
Edit: Super spoiler, for a look at my Nb/Y reactor.
On another note, I finally got past Accidents Happen, but I had peek a bit and see what I was doing wrong. I had the right idea, but implemented it the wrong way. On the plus side, I sketched out the reactor design at work and it worked when I got home, without needing any tweaking.
I can already tell this boss stage is going to be annoying. Up until now I haven't had to use any controls, but the random factor seems to make using them mandatory.
using the manual controls always feels like cheating to me, even on levels that need them.
I had almost beat the first boss level without them before I realized what the game was telling me to do,
OK full disclosure I just peeked at the solution you posted to see what your inputs were, thank you so fucking much. Just seeing the inputs made me realize that I was just failing to realize something absolutely completely obvious in retrospect.
EDIT: And here's what I came up with! Not nearly as efficient as Context's solution but considering the trouble I was running into I'm not complaining.
That's how it goes, sometimes. I love how you gradually learn the ins and outs of the game's mechanics. Those eureka moments are priceless. Looking at that reactor, I just realized I should be able to start the second half of the sequence, before dropping off the Y, allowing for a tighter track. Time to do some optimizing.
Edit: That saved exactly 0 cycles. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.
Double Edit: The problem was with the other reactor. Sped that one up and now my 2 reactor solution is at 1812 cycles. Saved ~200 cycles.
I loved this when it came out, then I got stuck on one of the challenges (the creating H2SO4 one, going green i think it's called) and hadn't picked this up in a while. Then my son fell asleep on me and only left me with a mouse so I booted it up and had another look, and bam the solution came to me.
Don't Fear the Reaper wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Doing some the ResearchNet puzzles certainly helped. I know these last puzzles will be tough, but getting this close to the end feels good.
Oh my god. If you use the scroll wheel while hovering the cursor over a button, it acts like a mouse click. Useful if you want to quickly flip through ResearchNet pages.
Incredibly useful when using undo and redo. I like that the game saves a humungous history of reactor designs.
EDIT: And apparently using it too much crashes the game. Perfect.
Gotta stay on the ball. I fire it up and see you've taken some of my top spots, so I have to go in and reclaim the lead. Though ending up one cycle ahead is strangely satisfying.
I got stuck on the fusion reactor where you had to make the 3 different elements from KR + water. I just can't work out how to make the different elements without a selector block in the fusion reactor.
"Falling" was probably the hardest the game has been for me in a while, though Flidais is getting back to that same level of difficulty.
Context, I'm surprised you haven't beat the Au-608 mission, considering how consistently you've just been dethroning my top scores on Atropos Station within 24 hours of my posting them.
Look further up this page, for some hints on that one.
I've been going slower, but I believe there's only one stage on the last planet, so I ony have 4 stages left. 7 to get all the cheevos.
Yea, that's what I thought you had to do, I just couldn't work out how to get it together. I probably just needed a long break from it like I did with the H2SO4 one, maybe I'll have a look tonight.
I think the other problem is I look at these at about 1am in the morning when my son wakes up and I've got nothing else to do
"Falling" was probably the hardest the game has been for me in a while, though Flidais is getting back to that same level of difficulty.
Context, I'm surprised you haven't beat the Au-608 mission, considering how consistently you've just been dethroning my top scores on Atropos Station within 24 hours of my posting them.
I just skipped it, when I first encountered it, then forgot about it. I'll tackle it eventually.
Finally got Σ-Ethylene to work. Fixed pipelines are work of evil but actually make sense in story context, which is pretty sensible way to increase challenge. Dunno how to get started on Δ-Pseudopolyethylene, which is difficult enough to spell let alone make in-game.
Also,
Ω-Pseudoethyne (ΩH3CH)
A simple organic compound containing elements unknown to science. Highly poisonous and often described as "tasting like blue" by those unfortunate enough to inhale it.
I've been getting back into Spacechem, because of recent events. Mainly its inclusion in the latest Humble Bundle and the announcement of a mini-tournament, for PAX(can't go, sadly). Haven't made any progress in the main campaign, but managed to do a few more Research.net levels.
I also just found out that, over the past few weeks, there have been regular tournaments, via the Something Awful forums. I was wondering if anyone here would want to do something similar. They've been doing custom levels. I'd be fine with either that or picking random stuff from Research.net. Anyone up for it?
Results for week 4 came out. I was pretty proud of getting my solution for challenge 9 down to 900 cycles, but the competition over there is pretty fierce. Got 23rd place, for both challenges. Nifty results video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrUNFS3FiGQ
Gonna keep going with these. For anyone interested in trying out this weeks challenges, here they are.
I'd be keen to participate in some form of weekly challenge. Although I have no idea, nor really the inclination to learn, how to create custom levels. I'm stuck on don't fear the reaper at the moment. So far the hardest part was just finding space to put everything!
Can anyone tell me what side gets the larger portion of the split command? I'm at work and want to take a crack at designing this week's first puzzle, but can't remember which side I need to grab.
Also, I'd post the new puzzles, but I'm on a phone. Googling "spacechem tournament" should provide a link to the SA thread. Managed to get 14th out of 20, for the single puzzle I did last week. Hoping to do better this week, since I already have the first puzzle mentally worked out.
Edit: while searching for the answer to my question, which I still haven't found, I found my way back to the tournament thread. People seem to be scratching their heads at puzzle 12. I was confused, at first, but soon realized what needed to be done. It's basically a sensing loop within a sensing loop. The way the numbers work out means I have to do the larger loop twice. Wish I could find how the splitting works, to see if I could make use of the fact that the smaller loops all split the same number of times.
Side note: I was really hoping there would be more interest here, but it doesn't like that's the case. I want to discuss the puzzles, but can't justify paying for SA forum access, considering I'm only interested in one thread.
ContentContext on
0
FandaHang a shining starupon the highest boughRegistered Userregular
So, folks were talking about Don't Fear the Reaper a couple of pages ago. Which is also over a year ago. But I'll post my solution anyway, because it doesn't use a storage tank and I was rather proud of it.
Here's the reactor layout:
The top two reactors are the meat and potatoes. The bottom one is just for aiming the laser, so I won't bother with its internals.
Middle reactor, which takes in the methane atoms:
The manual controls are for shunting methane down to the aiming reactor when necessary. Otherwise, the methane is converted to NH2 and H. The NH2 goes to the next processing reactor. The spare H from each methane is fused repeatedly, using the flip flops in the lower left to count, until it becomes N. Then it's bonded with the next two spare hydrogren, resulting in another NH2 to send along.
Top reactor, which takes in NH2 from the middle reactor:
This one fuses NH2 into F, stashing the fluorides in various places around the reactor. Once it has three fluorides, it takes the nitrogen from the next NH2 and combines it with the fluorides to make NF3, which fuels the laser. This leaves one H2 to fire the laser.
No waste products, and the laser fires pretty much constantly at full power. Onward to Flidais!
Came back to this recently and made some progress. I finished KOHCTPYKTOP and Ethylene. I thought I had done alright with the former, but then I looked online and saw the 3 reactor, 3k cycle solutions. I know the one of my reactors in the latter is a mess, so there are definitely savings to be had there. Still, progress is progress.
Also, a lot of the puzzles from the SA tournament I participated in are now on Researchnet.
I'm looking forward to trying to make the Top 16 again this year, especially since the field has been opened up to a wider participation range. I can already guess that there's going to be some stranger puzzles than last time, so hopefully my mind will be up to it - I'm rather rusty on my SpaceChem.
I think this is the only game I've ever played where upon completing a level I feel awesome, then I see how everyone else did and I'm right back to feeling stupid again.
Posts
Current Personal Bests, for the interested.
Though "Carbomega," as far as corny video game portmanteaus go, pretty good.
Hmmmm, I'll have to look at this. I'm guessing that this save was on my now dead notebook and that I won't be able to reproduce it.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
2? How about 1?
Edit: Super spoiler, for a look at my Nb/Y reactor.
On another note, I finally got past Accidents Happen, but I had peek a bit and see what I was doing wrong. I had the right idea, but implemented it the wrong way. On the plus side, I sketched out the reactor design at work and it worked when I got home, without needing any tweaking.
EDIT: Also, how are you moving stuff on and off the fusion thingy? I'm running into humungous instruction density problems.
I think I was trying to do too much with the first reactor. And that was actually incredibly useful advice, thanks!
I can already tell this boss stage is going to be annoying. Up until now I haven't had to use any controls, but the random factor seems to make using them mandatory.
I had almost beat the first boss level without them before I realized what the game was telling me to do,
EDIT: And here's what I came up with! Not nearly as efficient as Context's solution but considering the trouble I was running into I'm not complaining.
Edit: That saved exactly 0 cycles. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.
Double Edit: The problem was with the other reactor. Sped that one up and now my 2 reactor solution is at 1812 cycles. Saved ~200 cycles.
So I'm back into my spacecheming now.
This is such a great game.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Don't Fear the Reaper wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Doing some the ResearchNet puzzles certainly helped. I know these last puzzles will be tough, but getting this close to the end feels good.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Incredibly useful when using undo and redo. I like that the game saves a humungous history of reactor designs.
EDIT: And apparently using it too much crashes the game. Perfect.
I'm also finally seeing the drop-off point where people apparently stopped playing the game, if these leaderboards are accurate...
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
I've been going slower, but I believe there's only one stage on the last planet, so I ony have 4 stages left. 7 to get all the cheevos.
Context, I'm surprised you haven't beat the Au-608 mission, considering how consistently you've just been dethroning my top scores on Atropos Station within 24 hours of my posting them.
Yea, that's what I thought you had to do, I just couldn't work out how to get it together. I probably just needed a long break from it like I did with the H2SO4 one, maybe I'll have a look tonight.
I think the other problem is I look at these at about 1am in the morning when my son wakes up and I've got nothing else to do
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
I just skipped it, when I first encountered it, then forgot about it. I'll tackle it eventually.
Now to get the other one going.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Also,
The fire diamond is all question marks.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2131152481/spacechem-limited-edition
I also just found out that, over the past few weeks, there have been regular tournaments, via the Something Awful forums. I was wondering if anyone here would want to do something similar. They've been doing custom levels. I'd be fine with either that or picking random stuff from Research.net. Anyone up for it?
Gonna keep going with these. For anyone interested in trying out this weeks challenges, here they are.
Least Cycles
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QXvRoJw/5nklTPD/w28SX9+e2s0C6xiIC1QvCxStxAoxBjJzZsEsmRWzTq3zOjZt85JZMQtmzp
RMZEKihHQXIQ2MuE7k4TFnXbAuWVes66ShThpKZs7EyJtlIa06dC5TnT1QdllaNN4GWolPo/dk
s2ttcSl0pJ2xvyXJ6YOjP4ab1Oh98vpOuavpSdFk7K3tT1N6SUuOOrsb4li6O17f9u5ePxYP0e
qCH1I/se3s16ijsx/7foy/4E+igfkHl2yWiwYCAAA=
Pbcm5g3JhT8+kdRehugBWclefbDc7e0j5bgg622Q45zF6Mv5gD9dvNF8peyhaxl0KsykOIViLM
Ye+zS9AJOb1P0xx8Tv9nPDXeXK5HcrOt0x/Ul66qNkZsBfaCKZkKWxS9EveBXGVioehRcsKUTC
XZV+wrrjJRsb/ghCmZasH+kv0lV5m4ZH/FCVMy1Yr9NftrrjKx8ukKWG9w0rGxOhypuV8DuhQy
zWHn3YFC83AXdzGSiz78KDUZcqQSDNrGRxJHa1KiX1YiS6MP6UlN17GeOFAkHfanspbT579HL6
nO6VRHwquuC+2ysanEBzMMpnxTukKH0zf9Izu/LgIAAA==
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
I'm fine with following SA's weekly thing, for now, plus I have a couple of ideas for puzzles.
Also, I'd post the new puzzles, but I'm on a phone. Googling "spacechem tournament" should provide a link to the SA thread. Managed to get 14th out of 20, for the single puzzle I did last week. Hoping to do better this week, since I already have the first puzzle mentally worked out.
Edit: while searching for the answer to my question, which I still haven't found, I found my way back to the tournament thread. People seem to be scratching their heads at puzzle 12. I was confused, at first, but soon realized what needed to be done. It's basically a sensing loop within a sensing loop. The way the numbers work out means I have to do the larger loop twice. Wish I could find how the splitting works, to see if I could make use of the fact that the smaller loops all split the same number of times.
Side note: I was really hoping there would be more interest here, but it doesn't like that's the case. I want to discuss the puzzles, but can't justify paying for SA forum access, considering I'm only interested in one thread.
Here's the reactor layout:
The top two reactors are the meat and potatoes. The bottom one is just for aiming the laser, so I won't bother with its internals.
Middle reactor, which takes in the methane atoms:
The manual controls are for shunting methane down to the aiming reactor when necessary. Otherwise, the methane is converted to NH2 and H. The NH2 goes to the next processing reactor. The spare H from each methane is fused repeatedly, using the flip flops in the lower left to count, until it becomes N. Then it's bonded with the next two spare hydrogren, resulting in another NH2 to send along.
Top reactor, which takes in NH2 from the middle reactor:
This one fuses NH2 into F, stashing the fluorides in various places around the reactor. Once it has three fluorides, it takes the nitrogen from the next NH2 and combines it with the fluorides to make NF3, which fuels the laser. This leaves one H2 to fire the laser.
No waste products, and the laser fires pretty much constantly at full power. Onward to Flidais!
Came back to this recently and made some progress. I finished KOHCTPYKTOP and Ethylene. I thought I had done alright with the former, but then I looked online and saw the 3 reactor, 3k cycle solutions. I know the one of my reactors in the latter is a mess, so there are definitely savings to be had there. Still, progress is progress.
Also, a lot of the puzzles from the SA tournament I participated in are now on Researchnet.
So, that tournament I was in a while back? There's another one, starting tomorrow. Thought some folks here might want in on the action.