Message #1186

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: Tetrahedral prism {3,3}x{}, 3 layers solved
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 01:36:03 -0700

Matt,

I’m not suggesting the removal of any records. I’m just asking that
solutions to unsupported puzzles be flagged as such because they’re at
increased risk of being later invalidated. This case may be perfectly
safe as you suggest but there are more reasons why we might not have
felt confident enough to support particular puzzles. For example,
creating a truly and properly scrambled state is not a trivial thing.
It’s very easy to not scramble it enough or to not use enough operators
such as to reach all types of states or to make certain types of
scrambled states wildly more or less likely.

Thanks for weighing in,
-Melinda

On 9/29/2010 1:22 AM, Galla, Matthew wrote:
>
>
> There is only one parituclar type of move that you cannot make in 1
> click on the {3,3}x{}, 3 puzzle: the rotation of one of the triangular
> prism faces by 120 degrees. This move can, however, be accomplished in
> 2 moves (click a 2C piece that faces another triangular prism and then
> click an edge piece[3C] between 3 triangular prism faces on the same
> face as the first click)
> Therefore, the bug doesn’t lose any states but does potentially change
> the move count, depending on the solve of course. I think any record
> made on the current implementation should stay becuase if anything,
> the bug makes the record worse than it could have been.
> Just my two cents :)
> -Matt Galla
>
> On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 12:29 AM, Melinda Green
> <melinda@superliminal.com <mailto:melinda@superliminal.com>> wrote:
>
> I don’t know if there is or is not such a difference. Roice was
> the one directly supporting the Don’s puzzle creation code so I
> mostly deferred to his opinions in such matters while I’d veto
> puzzles with other problems such as infinite loops while
> scrambling, etc. In general we didn’t include any puzzles that
> didn’t get the thumbs up from both of us, therefore any puzzles
> not in that set are considered unsupported. We’re both happy that
> people explore outside these bounds of the supported set but
> you’re basically on your own with them in that you risk losing
> your records if we end up defining a particular puzzle differently
> from what you solved. It’s also not up to us to prove whether such
> a change makes for a fundamentally different puzzle. By adding
> your solution to the wiki’s firsts and shortests, it becomes your
> responsibility to make sure that it’s accurate according to the
> puzzle definitions that end up being supported. I suggest that
> until that time you add an asterisk on the records page with a
> footnote flagging it as a tentative record. I think that should
> hold for any more such solutions by anyone. Alternatively, if you
> can convince Roice that the puzzle is well defined and
> implemented, then we should add it to the supported list. Of
> course if you’d like to work on extending the range of supported
> puzzles, we’d love your help. Just note that Don has a more
> up-to-date engine that we didn’t know about at the time and the
> task of incorporating that new engine is our highest priority
> issue #94
> <http://code.google.com/p/magiccube4d/issues/detail?id=94>. We’re
> just not doing any development currently.
>
> -Melinda
>
>
>
> On 9/28/2010 10:02 PM, Andrey wrote:
>> Melinda,
>> Of course, when you show me the twist in new puzzle that can’t be performed in the old one, I’ll agree that this puzzle is different. But now I can’t imagine such twist )))
>>
>> Andrey
>>
>>
>>
>> — In4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com <mailto:4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com>, Melinda Green<melinda@…> <mailto:melinda@…> wrote:
>>> I’m glad that you guys are having fun with the tetrahedral prisms but
>>> I have to remind everyone that solutions to puzzles not included in the
>>> menu must be considered as unofficial results, at least for ones that
>>> are not trivial extensions to ones already there. Not all twists that
>>> should be allowed on this puzzle are currently allowed, making it on one
>>> hand harder to solve, but on the other hand, the scrambling may not
>>> reach all possible positions, making it potentially easier to solve. I
>>> think that we’ll have to consider any firsts or shortests as tentative
>>> at best. Please do continue to explore experimental puzzles because this
>>> is a great way to help us figure out how they should work. Just remember
>>> that any such solutions are unofficial until they are added to the menu
>>> of supported puzzles.
>>>
>>> -Melinda
>>>
>> ————————————
>>
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>
>
>
>