3. PTR Changelog 2018-11-01: Creep.pull()

PTR Changelog 2018-11-01: Creep.pull()

  • Dev Team

    PTR updated with new version of pull(): now excess thrust of MOVE parts participate in the movement. So creep being pulled will use his MOVE parts to decrease his own fatigue, if he has it; otherwise, his MOVEs will be used together with MOVEs of the puller.

    👍

  • Every time I read the documentation page that mentions "creeps resembling towers or fortresses", or look at my harvesters with their wasted MOVE parts I've felt that something is missing. I always thought there should be some way to build a creep at a location, but this idea opens up even more possibilities.

    Good job! Looking forward to making use of this 🙂


  • How does pull work across room boundaries and portals?

    ☝
    2 Replies

  • @systemparadox Let's call them "train" and "wagon" for sake of convenience. "Puller" and "pulled" looks too similar.

    1. Train moves on exit tile, wagon is adjacent to exit.
    2. Train changes rooms, wagon stays adjacent to exit in original room
    3. Train changes rooms back to the original room, swaps positions with wagon (position swap is possible with .pull).
      Wagon is now on exit tile in original room, train is adjacent to exit in original room.
    4. Wagon changes to new room, train moves to exit tile in original room.
    5. Wagon changes to original room, train changes to new room.
    6. Train moves off exit tile in new room, wagon changes back to new room
    7. Train pulls wagon off exit tile.
  • Dev Team

    @systemparadox this is a bit tricky. I had a couple of solutions when testing this feature so it's definitely possible, but I won't disclose the solution, just to let you guys have the same fun.

    @keenathar point 3 is not quite correct. When something walks to an exit tile, it's being teleported to the new room instantly, on the tick it calls .move(). So if 'train' is at the exit tile of an original swaps position with wagon next to it, next tick the wagon will be at the edge of the new room, the train is near the edge of the original room.

    UPD: you know that they're at PTR waiting for someone to write code for, right? 🙂

    😨

  • I did try this on PTR and I did manage to move the wagon to the next room, but it was pretty fiddly. Is this how it is intended? Maybe there is no better solution? It's a shame because it makes trains with more than one wagon impractical.

    Maybe it's an issue with my code but so far I haven't been able to move the wagon off the exit tile in the new room. Despite pull and move both returning 0, the wagon teleports back to the first room instead of moving with the train.

    1 Reply
  • Dev Team

    @systemparadox Weird, could you please provide some details? Room, positions, calls, arguments, return values, all that?

  • Dev Team

    Just checked it myself at ptr, everything is working as expected.


  • It was a bug in my code! I've got it working now. Thanks.


  • I think I've found both solutions, and for both of them it's 6 ticks to move both creeps from fully inside room1 to fully inside room2 (e.g. with neither creep on an edge tile). With a lone creep the same movement would take 3 ticks.

    For a creep pulling two wagons, I can do it in 9 ticks (a lone creep would take 4 ticks).

    If anyone can do it faster I'd love to know!