166-2: The inconsistent behaviour of drones at exits

[999_Springs]

I bring up this subject in the midst of all this madness caused by stonedeagle (and one other person) stalking my 0ths right now as I type this.

If you look at the non-legit scoreboard for 166-2, you'll see that just below xaelar and toti, there are a number of demos all with similar scores: 122.100, 122.075, and 122.050. If you watch all these then you'll see that what happens is that the ninja reaches the exit room at the same time as the drone, and it seems to go SPLAT against the drone at the exit room, regardless of whichever one of the three possible scores it is. If you look at the top left of the screen, the framecounts for the three demos are 636, 637 and 638 frames respectively.

Now stonedeagle retook my 0th on this level (at the same time as I was trying to chase another 0th that had just been taken from me by another person, which is very annoying). I tried to have a go at retaking it, but what I saw was that there is no guararantee of level completion if I reach one of the three framecounts. In other words, I have died at 636 frames, and also at 638 frames... AND ALSO AT 637 FRAMES. The ratio of completions to non-completions at these three framecounts is 1:6, which is too low for my liking.

Now surely, this makes no sense at all. The way the game is designed should mean that no matter whatever the demo, a non-seeking zap drone should be at the same place after a given number of frames, no matter how large. The same goes for the exit room, obviously. So if, according to the demos of Ben_Schultz_11, or lookatthis, or joe1284, or zapkt, or stonedeagle (growl!), or Gutland, or Analu, it is possible to reach the exit in 636 or 637 or 638 frames, it should do so every time when I'm playing the level. This is very clearly not the case; I have died at the drone on all three framecounts, even though it should be behind the exit room when I get to it.

How exactly do these drones behave behind exits? This inconsistency is unexpected and very annoying.

[MattKestrel]

The quasi-random pathing? I'm not sure if this applies to demos as well, but surely if the drone picks a direction pathing at random, this can affect demos in both instances?

[999_Springs]

I'm quite sure that the drone doesn't take a different path every time you play it. You can tell this from the demos or from actually playing the level: the drone always makes it to the bottom at the same time after about 630-640 frames.

What I'm actually thinking is that, since the drone is slightly smaller than the exit, it might be necessary for there to be one frame where the ninja makes contact with the exit but doesn't reach the drone. This might not happen as the ninja is falling at high speeds so the gap in the ninja's path between two frames is larger than the tiny gap between drone and exit. However, proving/disproving this needs careful underclocked analysis of the demos.

Or it could just be my slow computer.

[PsychoSnail]

I'm quite sure that the drone doesn't take a different path every time you play it. You can tell this from the demos or from actually playing the level: the drone always makes it to the bottom at the same time after about 630-640 frames.

Correct: Quasi-random pathing is actually always the same, from what I remember.

What I'm actually thinking is that, since the drone is slightly smaller than the exit, it might be necessary for there to be one frame where the ninja makes contact with the exit but doesn't reach the drone. This might not happen as the ninja is falling at high speeds so the gap in the ninja's path between two frames is larger than the tiny gap between drone and exit. However, proving/disproving this needs careful underclocked analysis of the demos.

I think that's what it is. You don't actually complete the level the on frame you touch the exit, but on the frame after. You can see this sometimes in tower-loop DDAs, when the ninja passes over the exit door but doesn't actually finish.

Or it could just be my slow computer.

It probably isn't. N and NReality always behave the same no matter how slow or fast your computer is (there may be more lag, but that doesn't affect what actually happens).

[999_Springs]

Ok, here's another problem I experienced while playing 166-2 recently. I think it's unique to 166-2 as I haven't seen it happen on other levels, but I can't tell why.

In this demo, NReality says that I died on the ceiling through chimneying too fast - even though I only pressed shift twice and I wasn't going fast at all. However, if you watch the demo, I actually survive hitting the ceiling. So the gameplay is different from the replay.

That is so unfair.

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[ToeFaceKiller]

That's happened to me quite a few times. Especially on 2-4 chimneying the short distanced up to the middle right switch.

Edit: Oh, I just watched your demo. That was pretty odd, it's never happened to me going that slow... the dying from chimneying and it not showing in the replay has happened to me numerous times though.