Shards/pane track - lots of boosts coded, what comes next?

[charmsRace]

So, I've coded most of what's in my head for the shards/panes track, and most of it is pushed. I'll be backing off of coding new content now as we evaluate what to do next and which boosts need work or need scrapped.

What's left relevant to those boosts is A) unlock conditions, specifically the numbers involved (e.g. how many CatPix does the player need to drain before boost X unlocks, &c.), and B) prices, specifically related to non-shard pacing (e.g. how does this mesh with the bonemeal/vacuum/logicat/qq track). I need a lot of help calibrating both of these things as they're very important for QA. What is SOP for deciding things like this?

Next question: should this update wait to be released with TaTPix, or not? Personally, I am torn. On one hand, only three boosts (Aperture Science, Dimension Keyhole, and Green Sun, none of which is fully coded since neither is TaTPix) directly relate to TaTPix so far, since I have been focused on handling CatPix. There is plenty of CatPix content to be released, imo. But I also don't want that content to run out of steam before TaTPix is coded, or the whole point of shards is ruined. I would lean to releasing at least some of it earlier, but I'm not sure it would feel like it had a point. What do you guys think?

In short, I'm just not sure what needs to happen next. I would really appreciate thoughts on the current content of the track, as I've been working mostly in isolation and I don't want to code a bunch of stuff that's considered bad. If I have made any questionable design decisions, please let me know; that's my big question here. I'm still extremely new to both JS and game development so I'm constantly worried about doing something dumb.

[eternaldensity]

Putting some CatPix stuff out before TaTPix is done does seem logical to me.

[pickten]

For the CatPix time question, we might consider doing something to match the post-Time Time content (not TaTpix, the GLR 5-panel sequence that either is or used to be rotated in varying pattens). It's one of the weirder parts of Time, and nothing relates to it ingame, but wouldn't make sense as a Signpost thing since there's nothing happening besides watching the waves. Since the CatPix show up instead of those, it might make sense to have patterns that match up with Post-Time somehow.

The other thing is that I'm guessing requesting images for TaTPix is pretty easy (at least, I hope it is), and I think I know how to handle the rest of TaTPix implementation, so I can get on that when I get the chance. EDIT: Isn't this already done? Or at least with the exception of the boosts? I see a lot of things already in that serve such purposes.

[charmsRace]

Sorry, I'm not sure what question you're answering in your first paragraph? What are you proposing we do with that sequence?

By requesting images do you mean requesting permission to use them, or having the game request them from the server? As far as implementation, as far as I'm aware none of it is done. What are you looking at that suggests otherwise?

Regarding the plan that I have in mind, at some (early) point along the shard track, you unlock Aperture Science, which allows you to get Dimensional Keyholes. Buying a Keyhole boosts AS's power, starting at 1, and you can go as far into TaTPix as that number (e.g. buy AS, you can get to TaT1, buy 3 keyholes, you can get to TaT 4). A keyhole always costs 1 pane, which has an increasingly high shard cost. This adds some longevity to the earlier parts of TaT, but pane production will also be steadily boosted, so it isn't just a O(sqrt(n)) grind, and eventually progression becomes smooth. If we go with this plan, there needs to be something in the ONG code that makes TaT N ONG back to itself if AS' power isn't sufficiently high (similar to how NP0 behaves now).

I still think your idea about storing, say, TaT 18 as NP 18.1 is a great one, although there will be lots of places in the code to change to make sure their behavior doesn't change. That'll be something I can definitely help with, but as far as actually implementing TaT itself, I think that's pretty far beyond my abilities.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that TaT should have at least a couple new Stuffs to go along with it, so the more releasing shards sooner rather than later sounds like a good idea. I'll think about where a good place to draw the content line would be.

[pickten]

Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant originally, and thought TaTpix couldn't be loaded (the code for which seems to be added already), rather than that the interactions weren't fully done. I'm not fully sure what spots will need to be changed for that, and will go through those soon.

EDIT: Was confused still, because mscha also hosts our xkcd frames.

To go with TaT, I agree new Stuffs would be nice. However, I don't feel like there's much in TaTPix that we could use for Stuffs in the same way that Sand/Castles were obvious choices in Time. Any thoughts?

[eternaldensity]

There's some boats, and radioactive waste (blueness).

[pickten]

It would be a little weird to have boats for TaT but not Time, so I think blueness is probably going to be the more interesting one to start with. Here are some random ideas on one way Blueness could work. Most of it is probably useless due to the amount of Stuffs and relative lack of content for several, but there might be some usable parts:

Blueness can be collected from TaTpix by clicking (not on Time). Every mNP, about .1% of your Blueness is destroyed (so half-life is 1NP). When Blueness is destroyed, you get 1/3 of that amount of Redness, and 1/3 of the Blueness loss as Greenness. Redness and Greenness are not otherwise obtainable. Redness and Greenness decay similarly. However, you can combine Blueness and Redness to create Purpleness, Redness and Greenness to create Yellowness, and Greenness and Blueness to create Cyanness. Purpleness, Yellowness, and Greenness do not decay. Furthermore, you can combine all three into Blackness (i.e. ink).

With enough Blackness, you unlock "Polarizer". Polarizer lets you spend lots of Blackness and Cyan/Purp/Yell to create Red/Green/Blue. It also lets you spend even more Blackness to turn Blackness into Whiteness (i.e. erasers), but we'll get there in a minute. Accumulating lots of Redness unlocks "Crimson", which is a prereq for some boosts to Dragons. Accumulating lots of Greenness unlocks "Jungle Green", which is a prereq for some other boosts to Dragons. Accumulating lots of Blueness unlocks "Ocean Blue", which is a prereq for a third set of boosts for Dragons. However, Crimson also enables a significant production of Redness, and Jungle a decent production of Greenness. Ocean also produces a small flow of Blueness. These three allow players to reasonably obtain some Whiteness and make some progress on Dragons.

In the presence of a Blackness, Whiteness and Blackness quickly react and form nothing (i.e. they cancel each other out). Nevertheless, players can easily obtain enough Whiteness to unlock the "Robotic Inker", which allows for automatic crafting of any colors. With some careful balancing, they can also obtain enough for "Not a Priest", which collects a small amount of Grayness when Whiteness and Blackness cancel out. Sufficient amounts of Grayness lets you unlock the "Equilibrium Constant", which can be toggled. When on, Grayness also slowly reacts to form lots of Whiteness and Blackness, so that Whiteness can be accumulated. Sufficient amounts of Whiteness unlocks "Hallowed Ground", which is required for a fourth and final set of color-related Dragon boosts (including one that could allow players to set a Biome before fledging that would affect the locals and cause the Dragons to produce different Stuff/different amounts of Stuff). It also releases a flow (equal to that of Crimson) of Whiteness.

This new flow enables players to get enough Whiteness for "Photoelectricity," which lets "Not a Priest" be disabled and does some useful stuff when "Not a Priest" is disabled (not sure what, but probably a big boost to Redness/Greenness/Blueness/Whiteness production).

[pickten]

OK, @Calamitizer, how should people get to TaTpix (code-wise)? Signpost lets you go to 0 and grants 3d lens and stuff, but doesn't seem to enable TaTpix reaching. I'm working on the TaTpix enabling, and I'd like to also test and make sure whatever boost that is works at the same time.

For my own notekeeping and for the curious. Please let me know if anything is missing from both lists. I'll edit as I go. Also, note that I'm trying to make this as easy as possible for anyone else who wants to add a storyline, so please tell me if I missed something for that as well:

Stuff I've done:

Successfully loads TaTpix images

Lots of Math.floor for things that need to be integers. I think I got all of them.

Some helper funcs to make traversing nps easier.

NPdata is now an object (for noninteger keys) and saves without TaT dragon info still work.

HighestNP only worked for Time. I added LargestNP for cross-timeline versions, redefine Highest with get/set to look at LargestNP[Molpy.currentStory], and adjust accordingly. currentStory is -1 for Time, or n for the one associated with a fracPart of [n].

Checked most HighestNPs, nothing left that I could find.

LargestNP is saved instead of highest, and loading should react to version properly for this.

Molpy.ONG() is now very simple, because all the stuff in there was moved to ONGBase. NPmanagement and other weird story-dependent things are in ONGs[storyline's frac]. Note that this defaults to 0, so keyhole-like things are by default NOT going to happen. But it does default to 0, so "normal" np-managment things will work fine.

Periods, Eras, Eons are generalized in a vaguely-similar fasion.

Periods/eras/eon data added for t1i.

Added lots of discoveries for t1i. Some more might be needed, but that'll be for later.

I think everything that should traverse nps and storylines does. Likewise, I think all floors are there that need to be.

Dimensional Keyhole stuff seems to be done.

CatPix shows whenever OTC or TaTpix are out of panels or the fracPart is bad, not just when OTC is over. There's probably a much better way with try except syntax though.

In TaTpix, the further you are from OTC (as measured by Molpy.fracParts), the harder the opponents are. It's just one type up, but it should be changed if someone has a better idea.

There were rounding errors, so I had to add a few .toFixed(3)s. It seems to work.

Dragon Overview has new buttons which let you change what it thinks it's looking at (seems to work)

Rifts don't let you go to TaTpix, or stay at TaTpix. They are very, very dangerous in TaTpix, as a result.

Targeted Time travel actually shouldn't floor the np, so that Where Was I can actually work for TaTpix.

Known Bugs

The storyline indicator is shifted vertically from the buttons and therefore looks a little ugly.

I cannot for the life of me get the height to change with the storyline looked at by the Overview

Stuff I know needs to be done (besides bugfixing):

Warning for anyone who wants to test: if you tested v3.7 before this, and try to test this, you'll need to enter the following code into the console the first time: for(var i=0;i<Molpy.fracParts.length;i++){Molpy.largestNPvisited[Molpy.fracParts[i]]=0}. Saves should work cross-version, though and within TaT-enabled 3.7.

Other warning for ED: There's a LOT of changes all over, and github has already told me it can't merge to master.

Make NPdata only store TaTpix data within the TaTpix dragon range instead of dragon range - not needed, but would be nice. Still, would be tricky.

Google Analytics only sends current storyline info. This may need to be changed, I'm not sure.

Some things to make log 3.1 not the same as log 3 (I wound up using floor for this part. I don't want to have to make this an object as well). I might not do this in the end, though, because I see no reason to and it's potentially tricky. Besides, I already have quite a bit to do.

[charmsRace]

Mmk. First things first, I just now saw your post about Blueness, and I think there's some awesome potential there. I'll table thinking about it for now though, since I think 3.7 is close-ish to release (since we apparently aren't waiting on TaTPix, I guess) and I want to wrap up pricing & playtesting. I can't see anything missing from your list at a glance, but it's a big undertaking that I haven't given much direct thought yet.

As far as TaTPix goes, that's a great list of stuff to do! My thought is that Aperture Science is a prereq for Controlled Hysteresis, which will let you choose where ONGing on NP0 takes you (nowhere, OTC 1, or t1i 1). At first this will be the only way to switch between OTC and t1i, making it a little bit of a commitment where you go (although only an hour-long one). Then, once you arrive at t1i 1, ONGs will take you back to t1i 1 until you buy the first Dimension Keyhole, at which point you can ONG to t1i 2. That ONGs back to 2, until you buy the next Keyhole, &c. Does that sound reasonable?

[pickten]

OK, but it'll be some work. I'll add that in for things to do. Blueness was definitely not for 3.7 - just for future expansion. Also, TaTpix can go whenever. I just want to have it done ASAP so I don't need to worry about it, and since I want to do it. With some luck, I might have it working by 3.7, though.

[EPSIL0N]

I've been away so long and suddenly everything is over my head but good to see we are still active. Is there content that needs testing by end game players?

[pickten]

Oh hey, welcome back! I don't know when you last were active (February? If so, I don't think you missed a whole lot), but there's the following unreleased content:

Some stuff from Luminous that I'm unsure about (isn't on github yet, so ask Luminous if you want to test that),

Some dimensional shard/pane stuff from Calamitizer (two stuffs which will be added on release). It probably could use testing, but it's also inaccessible even with the master branch, so IDK.

There are some minor tweaks, but they were easy enough to test and appear to work.

I'm working to add the TaTpix for the shard/pane stuff (as in the Signpost proposal a while back) to be able to be finished (eventually), so besides the Dimensional Keyhole, which should work fine, I don't think there'll be any requirements for testing that, which is convenient. If you want to test, go ahead though. I edit purely on github, so the TaTplement branch of pickten/Sandcastle-Builder is always up to date on whatever stuff I'm changing to allow for TaTpix, though it's rarely stable. When it approaches stability (also visible with the list I've been updating above), I'll also push regularly to my gh-pages, so pickten.github.io/Sandcastle-Builder will have that version as well.

The whole blueness thing is a possible thing for the future of TaTpix, so not nearly testable. Besides that, I don't know of any seriously open ideas/currently being coded content. If you check back after 3.7 (the next update, which I think will be soon), we'll definitely have stuff needing testing though, like whatever TaTpix content we add.

[charmsRace]

Hey there! There is absolutely endgame content that needs tested, if you would be so kind. Currently there is a ~20-boost track (Shards/Panes) planned for 3.7. A brief overview is that ONGing past The End with all discoveries will unlock Signpost, which will take you to NP zero. ONGing there unlocks 3D Lens, which allows you to snap the camera on CatPix for Dimension Shards. Then there are lots of boosts involving those. I would love to know if something is too easy/hard or takes too long/short or is overly obtuse, since those get harder to assess when you're designing the content. The primary thing holding back release is pricing/playtesting, so help with those (especially pricing) would be wonderful. Specifically, I have no idea what non-shard/pane prices things should have (in terms of QQs, Vacuums, and Bonemeal, probably), so as much input as you have on that would be awesome.

Glad to see you back here again =]

[eternaldensity]

Google Analytics has a few leftover highests, because I don't know what should be there. ED, thoughts? You're the only one I know of who sees that, so I figured you might know what's most useful for you.

Hmmm. looking at the code, it says

_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Molpy Down', 'Complete', '' + Molpy.highestNPvisited]);

We really need to send it the currentStory and the largestNPvisited for the current story. Which means either doing it as two separate parameters (i.e. replacing 'complete' with the currentstory value (as a string)) OR by concatenating the currentstory and largestNP strings together as the last parameter.

But I think the former suggestion would work better for reporting since then I can filter by story.

Blueness can be collected from TaTpix by clicking (not on Time). Every mNP, about .1% of your Blueness is destroyed (so half-life is 1NP). When Blueness is destroyed, you get 1/3 of that amount of Redness, and 1/3 of the Blueness loss as Greenness. Redness and Greenness are not otherwise obtainable. Redness and Greenness decay similarly. However, you can combine Blueness and Redness to create Purpleness, Redness and Greenness to create Yellowness, and Greenness and Blueness to create Cyanness. Purpleness, Yellowness, and Greenness do not decay. Furthermore, you can combine all three into Blackness (i.e. ink).

I'm not sure how I feel about so many colours. Especially since the Blueness is the one that actually appears in any of the TaTpix (particularly the SilentPix, i.e. those by SilentTimer). That lead to things such as Bluenhancement in the OTT.

On the other hand, the decay and crafting idea does sound really cool.

I've been away so long and suddenly everything is over my head but good to see we are still active. Is there content that needs testing by end game players?

Woo, welcome forward EPSIL0N! yeah, it is as the others have said.

[pickten]

Shards/panes are accessible? If so, oops. Also, Ex-dimensional should have a different unlock, because it does unlock and is annoying to see when I'm nowhere near reaching CatPix and thus nowhere near being able to buy it. Maybe require one of the Stuffs to be owned or CatPix to have been reached (you can use Molpy.largestNPvisited[0] to test that)

Anyways, that was the big problem with the color thoughts. If there were more separate content for each or less of them, it would be better (though still not great), but as is, it's more to have some mechanics that might work. It would be possible to cut Red/Green/Yellow/Cyan/Purple and just have Blueness/Blackness/Whiteness/Grayness (blackness appears, since it's more or less ink, and whiteness is more or less eraser, while grayness sort of gets identified as oxygen by "Not a Priest", and therefore is a big question in t1i with all the discussion of "could one breathe on a mountain?"), but that could get a little weird.

Decay is definitely something that belongs with the Blueness track in one form or another, for the simple reason that it's radioactive material, and the crafting was sort of fusion-inspired. It would be nice to have some sort of craftable stuff later, though. White/black/gray weirdness was, as noted, an equilibrium reaction, so the original idea felt nice and chemistry-based. "Photoelectricity" was based on the photoelectric effect, for which Einstein won the Nobel Prize, so that would have something to do with mass-energy equivalence, which would make sense.

With the analytics, HighestNP is always LargestNP[current story], due to a get/set I added, so that's what's currently being sent. It'll have the frac in it for newpix tracking reasons (I don't use currentStory often in order to lessen the amount of stuff I need to change), so you'll also get the current story if you look at the decimal part. It's not great though, since that might require looking up the frac->strory chart (which is simple ATM, but won't be as simple if/when more stories are added). The main question was whether you'd want to see all of largestNP instead (i.e. see players' progress in all stories).

[charmsRace]

Oh - yeah, shards are accessible! Sorry, I hadn't realized what you meant earlier. And yeah, oops, I left Keyholes on testing logic levels, pushed a fix. Keyholes are part of TaTPix anyway, and shouldn't be unlocking at all.

Letting my mind wander towards blueness for a bit... Yeah, I had the thought of cutting Yellow/Cyan/Purple too, since they seem sort of extraneous. I wondered about cutting Red/Green too, since they aren't in the comic... but they're interesting, I think. 6 colors is still a lot though, 4 sounds more reasonable (as long as colors take the spotlight of early t1i). Decay sounds like an awesome concept to write content for, very novel.

[pickten]

Red/green can be simulated easily. Since they add a lot to stuff to manage, I think it would better to cut them and simulate. Plus, it'll be interesting for the players. Also, Controlled Hysteresis is a free boost unlocked on ONG with Aperture Science.

EDIT: GitHub lag is atrocious on boosts.js because it's so long. It would be nice to split it up at some point.

[eternaldensity]

I like the idea of five colours: white, blue, black, red, green. (Yellow's already taken by Mustard anyway.)

But if we did those five colours we might get in trouble with Wizards of the Coast :P

[pickten]

If we did that, how would white/black interact/be obtained? Would grayness exist? How would players overcome rgb decay? Originally, that's what yellow/cyan/purple mainly did: they gave players a way to (expensively) prevent some rgb from decaying. If there's no white/black interaction, what's the difference between white and a lot of black? If there is, how do players overcome/mitigate it? (sorry for the amount of questions, I'm just not sure how that would fit together)

Anyways, five colors (really only 3 to begin with, since black/white come in later) does seem like a bit much to handle, especially given that there's already OTContent unlocked at the same time (roughly) as the TaT content.

[eternaldensity]

Good points.

Actually, maybe blueness and colour decay is our chance to finally include complex numbers!

[pickten]

How so?

EDIT: also, what's the link for the images for t1i? I think I got it mostly working otherwise (though missing some things as noted above), but the image links I tried throws a 404 ("http://xkcd.mscha.org/otcstories/t1i-N" for NP N.1 or that.png).

[eternaldensity]

Hmm... perhaps... umm...

No, I can't think of anything that works.

[pickten]

Nevermind on the stories, found it on the site. Got it added.

[charmsRace]

Well, square roots show up in linear superpositions... and radioactivity could be handwaved to be vaguely quantum, thematically. I will think about it soon, I think there is potential there.

Meanwhile, I think every boost for 3.7 is coded, priced, and unlockable as of #1355. Input on the numbers would be really appreciated, but I'm not sure there is much more I can do. Since this content is designed to last a good while, playtesting is very slow. Basically, excepting more input on pricing and an actual picture for NP0, the update is ready, as far as I can tell.

EDIT: Oh, and we need to make sure we have Mario sorted out reasonably well.

[eternaldensity]

there was a suggestion a long time ago about making something involving complex number arithmetic. Like some process which rotates a value in the complex plane, and some things which have imaginary costs, or negative costs. Or both. And there's ways to change the rotation speed, which is important to get the timing to line up with various processes. But I don't think it maps well to the multiple colours idea.

[pickten]

I believe Mario is sorted except for a bug I just noticed where vault finding doesn't properly check for Robotic Shopper's being enabled. But since that's at high IP only, and doesn't prevent other things from being found (I think), I'm not 100% sure it's a problem. Regardless, I'll fix it as soon as I finish up the dragon overview changes (very close, I think, just need to make sure it's grabbing the right nps) for TaTpix, but the testing I've done shows Vaults can hit the G range and the tempboosts can be obtained, and I got some of the new boosts from Mario while testing, which would suggest it's otherwise properly done.

NP0 doesn't have a pic in the TaTpix coding (It spits out a blank panel and an error 404 in the console). TaTpix works as far as I can tell on non-draconic stuff (I've yet to double check that all keyholes can be obtained, but I believe I've tested enough that the rest must work) except the options menu (Since my version has lots of changes, could someone test and see if that bug exists in a non-TaT branch? To test, just load the game, load Beachball, and tell me if the options menu gets totally screwed up).

[charmsRace]

Oh, the keyholes are all one boost! Just with a randomized prefix. It should always unlock the same way.

I have been experimenting with Beachball in the current trunk and it seems okay. Is it a visual bug? If so, mine is fine.

Yay Mario. I have calibrated some shard boosts to require about 1e21 locked vaults at once, is that a feasible amount under the current system?

[charmsRace]

ED, do you have any advice about the NP0 picture? Either what it should or shouldn't be, or who to contact to actually get it done if we want to make it something more complex than the sea or a blank screen? For a blank screen (black or white), I am afraid players will think they just couldn't read the resource.

Is there anything else you can think of that should happen before release?

[pickten]

For the keyholes, I realized that, I was just unsure whether you could theoretically continue forever, since I got the first and second pretty quickly, but the third took quite a while (even with the hacks I use to test that put me at infinite of a lot of things).

Mario works at a level about 1/1000 your vacuums or sqrt(QQ), whichever is smaller. Since vacuums go inf, that's a bit of a non-issue. For QQs, I don't know how high they go, but I think they'll go inf after this patch anyway, nor do I know what they are when that is meant to be got. The bug is visual. I was just wondering, because it happens on the TaT version, but I've not changed any options or drawing methods (except dragon overview, and even then, only slightly so far). The bug makes the options pane have no max height, so that the options pane goes down to the loot shop on classic without beachball, or through the loot shop with it.

Frankly, I'd like to have TaT in, so that all your boosts work and so that I don't have to change the version number in the new parts of the load/import functions of persist.js (I really hate changing persist.js because of the problems that can ensue if something goes wrong). It's really close right now. As I mentioned, I've tested quite a lot and am finding no serious bugs in the completed parts of the changes (i.e. all but dragon overview changes) except for one that seems to happen only if you hack stuff in too quickly (sometimes, on ONG, newpix can go from TaT to (OTC) -1 if you changed the np number less than 1mNP before ONG and didn't change currentStory). Since the bug goes away if you rehack it in slowly, and doesn't seem to occur if you do things normally, I'm not really concerned about it. Also, players who get there won't feel the lack of content for TaTpix if we put it in this update, since there's so much other new content in this update.

Unfortunately, the amount of changes I've made and am making means merging this may be hard, so I also would like this in by 3.7 so as to avoid letting the difficulty involved in merging get any bigger.

Since there's still that (small) bug in Mario, that should be done before 3.7, but I'm not doing that until dragonoverview changes are done, but that's the last needed feature for TaT (there are some niceties, but they're not needed), so that's another good reason to get TaT in.

EDIT: Also LuminousLeopards has brought it to my attention that Bananananas' being toggleable screws up the Ninja Ritual's progression later on, so we should make it only toggleable early on in the ritual or something like that.

[charmsRace]

Mmk, I see. I haven't really given any thought to the Keyhole cost... I suppose I will once it's necessary.

I don't think Vacuums should go to infinite yet? If you have infinite, it may be because of the nest lining reordering bug a few versions ago. WIWTMP should have a power of 8 (or 9 with infinite bonemeal, which a few people have). And I don't think QQs will go infinite either, unless you have something planned? The only related thing I've touched is Tesseract, which still blocks QQ generation. I suppose a loop like Upgrade Mario -> Higher SPP -> More logicats -> Higher logicat levels -> More Keyholes -> Higher TaTPix -> ??? -> More QQs -> Higher Mario could be cool though. I guess increasing the logic cost of successive Keyholes is an alright thing to do, because of SPP.

Ohhh, wait. Is QQ infinite because of GDLP, too? Then WIWTMP could reach 10, sending Vacuums infinite. Is that what you mean?

Anyway, I'm fine with waiting on TaTPix! I didn't know it was so close to ready, honestly, but that's awesome. Right now, I guess I will make sure Aperture Science and Keyholes are ready, since I hadn't given much time to them. I think I will go ahead and code Blueness and whatever it decays into, just for the sake of having something, but we can definitely wait on going further since I plan on making the player spend a good chunk of time in CatPix before TaTPix.

Which (small) Mario bug are you talking about, now? Sorry, I'm getting sort of muddled since it's been in the works for a while.

Also, yes, absolutely, fuck persist.js. =P I recently created a new Chrome profile for testing since I added discoveries to test Molpy.Marco() and my game didn't want to forget them once they didn't exist. I didn't want to screw around with localstorage.

[pickten]

I don't have infinite Vacuums, and just realized the Inf I'd seen was a bugged save as you mentioned (but still, being able to hit about 2^512 vacuums means a pretty huge IP). I have no idea if QQ goes infinite. I just suspected they'd go inf after Luminous adds his update (iirc Luminous said a while back it would include more logicat/QQ stuff).

Anyways, regarding TaT/Mario:

The small bug was the one I mentioned yesterday or the day before, that causes Vaults to be auto-bought at high IP if the RS has them in the "tobuy" list, even if the robotic shopper has those turned off or it's not ashf but RS is set to ASHF only. Honestly, I don't see much harm in it, since deactivating (or not owning) Aleph One will stop the autobuy, as will removing the name from RS. There's also the task of removing the approx option to avoid letting people break their saves, though 3.7 tested saves will break as a result.

Also, TaTpix came together much more quickly than I expected. If you look above, the things I have listed that I haven't done, but ought to do (besides a bit more testing) has shrunk to "shorten saves if possible" "fix the options bug" (edit: fixed this!) "make the new overview storyline indicator look nicer, because it's not aligned right", and "finish the Overview changes". The first and third are things that can wait if needbe without causing problems, the second is of a mysterious origin (honestly, since it's not fully gamebreaking, I'd rather push the rest first, then update my branch, then go to work on it, so that I'm working with more up-to-date files), and the last is what I'm doing now.

Then, there's two things that can go either way that we might want to decide on. Rifting currently doesn't go to TaTpix, under any circumstances (including being at TaTpix to begin with). I like this, personally, because it adds a bit more challenge, but I can probably change it without too much work. Also, Google Analytics gets sent highestNP (which is a mix of the storyline and maxNP), but not largestNP (highestNP for all storylines). This can easily be changed.

Actually, my issue with persist.js isn't as much the fact that I want the localstorage save (the one used for testing) to not totally break because I changed persist (somehow this hasn't happened, except for my warning about importing a 3.7 save into 3.7 with TaT, namely that you need to manually fix largestNP if you do), but more that I really hope no one's save breaks because I didn't change persist exactly right.

Also, speaking of Marco, more discoveries are coming! I've added 76 t1i discoveries (the 55 I listed before, plus 21 more), though more may be needed. I forget the period/era/eon counts, but they were around 25/10/3. Oh yeah, and they work properly. I totally didn't add them just to avoid doing actual work like bugfixing/adding largestNPvisited, I swear.

[LuminousLeopards]

Take a save, delete the first character, and import it. You'll end up at NP0 :) It's actually kind of fun to play through that way.

For QQs going inf, that's planned to occur at Dragons, the stage after Wyverns. There will be a boost called the ExistentiSphinx which will give you what is basically a Logicat puzzle on steroids.

Before release, we should play test what we have. I have merged ED's master fork with https://github.com/LuminousLeopards/Sandcastle-Builder-tree-gh-pages and at some point soon will get castle.hobbitcakes.com pointed at it for a live web version. I'll let you guys know when that's ready, and hopefully we can come up with a list of things to test.

I could foresee difficulties merging boosts and badges. I've been keeping all my code local which is probably not best practice; in the future I'll push commits and synch more regularly.

[eternaldensity]

ED, do you have any advice about the NP0 picture? Either what it should or shouldn't be, or who to contact to actually get it done if we want to make it something more complex than the sea or a blank screen? For a blank screen (black or white), I am afraid players will think they just couldn't read the resource.

I'll ask on the OTT.

[charmsRace]

Hey Luminous, good to see you here!

So, boosts and badges... The game may lose track of which you do or don't have, but if the total number isn't fewer, will it corrupt the save? (Like the dreaded "cannot set property .earned of undefined" error that kept me up for a few hours the other night.)

Ah, that Mario bug... I do think it's probably something to take care of. It would be fairly obtuse to the player why Rob just doesn't work as stated. I can take a look at it if you want, since you have a lot to do.

[pickten]

Sure.

Also, I'm pretty sure your save will work fine if the number of boosts is less, though it will lose track as you mentioned.

[charmsRace]

Maybe it works differently for boosts, but when I made those bogus discoveries and deleted them, my file wouldn't properly load. The error I mentioned happens and the startup code is aborted halfway through, result in... Brokenness.

[pickten]

Sorry, meant if the number of saved boosts is less than are coded.

EDIT: Also, the overview doesn't change heights to match the story for reasons I don't fully understand, but I think the rest is good. Testing now.

[LuminousLeopards]

So, boosts and badges... The game may lose track of which you do or don't have, but if the total number isn't fewer, will it corrupt the save?

The game internally references boosts by ID. If the number is the same or greater but the order is off from that in the save, it will probably load and then bug out later when it finds a reference to something that doesn't exist.

Biggest problem I see is to our own playtesting saves; as long as the order is consistent once it's pushed to the live branch, nobody else should have any trouble.

[charmsRace]

Right, right. I suppose I will just start over from my chirpingmustard save and console my way to where I am now in my playtest, once hobbitcakes is online. Seems simplest. It should work, right?

[charmsRace]

Also, I have fixed that Mario bug.

[charmsRace]

However, the number of vaults opened is still wonky at low power. For example, at Mario power 2, the locks still go down 1 at a time.

[eternaldensity]

NP 0 sugestion: (from ergman)

http://xkcd.mscha.org/tmp/wonder.png

[pickten]

This is really good, but unusable, for the obvious reason that it's 2 images put together. Is this an OTC frame? If so, do you know which? Edit: It isn't. Just checked.

[eternaldensity]

2 images

It's 1 png with transparancy.

It's not based on a real frame, because that castle never existed on the raft.

It's a reference to https://xkcd.com/1/

[pickten]

By 2 images, I meant it has 2 frames in the same png.

Also, geeze it's been a whlie since I read early xkcds.

Edit: Interestingly enough, it's got almost the exact same dimensions as OTC frames.

[eternaldensity]

No, it's the second frame, after which they'd floated further away. Like comic 1.

[charmsRace]

If we use that, I think we should maybe add a boost with a link to that comic, because I'm not sure how many people would get it? I didn't ^^ I do like it now that I know, though.

[pickten]

I like it as well. I'll probably add it in post-merge. It just does seem weird having two panels for one frame. Would it work to split the frame into the two panels (stored on the github), then rework the flipping thing so it switches frames at NP0 instead?

[eternaldensity]

I don't know what will visually work best, you'll have to try out a few things and see how it looks.

[pickten]

I've created a gist with some updated, more balanced, and more fleshed out thoughts on Blueness to match the discussion here. So far, I balanced (roughly) the stuff we had, cut all but Blue/Gray/White/Black, merged and re-added Red/Green as Otherness, added Photoelectricity (an IP-like boost that really boosts production as a result of what's on it), added Retroactivity (which allows players to purchase specific recurring Photoelectricity boosts, though at a steeper cost) and added a couple supplementary boosts to let production be reasonable.

Link: https://gist.github.com/pickten/b80d29772174f9f5e2a6

I'm drafting these ideas over there now instead of here, because it's mostly lost in this thread.

I've also started working on the Variegated (the name for the tag for Blueness, etc.) parts in another gist (editing boosts.js directly causes ridiculous amounts of lag for me because its so long and I edit on github only).

[charmsRace]

That all sounds pretty awesome so far! I'm looking forward to it. Also, I humbly suggest Variegated change to Variegation, to match the noun-hood of the rest of the groups.

Soon I will actually decide on an unlock condition for Aperture Science, and then would you like me to work on some of these boosts? Once you get the colors themselves/their decay/other basic stuff, I can start on some of the later ones.