Hikari wrote:
OK, so I'm operating on the assumption that this is the correct sequence for the first four plates... if so, I'm still stuck; the roach gets as far as 3, then gets caught on the corner, as I can't seem to get it to curve around and back to hit 4. Is there some trick I just haven't worked out yet?
Hmmm... how about I talk a bit about brained Roach Queen movement here.
From 1N1E, we know that brained Roach Queens always with to move diagonally, in the opposite direction to where the shortest path to you is, and any orthogonal direction is turned towards the center lines.
For a Roach Queen to head in a westerly direction, the path to you must be either NE/E/SE, or if it's N/S then the Roach Queen must be east of the center of the room.
For a Roach Queen to head in a southerly direction, the path to you must be either NW/N/NE, or if it's W/E then the Roach Queen must be north of the center of the room.
You obviously can't have *sharp* diagonal corners: for example, there's no way to have a path that goes SW followed by SE, because at that corner, if the closest tile towards you is NE, the Queen will want to continue SW. So you usually have to turn it so it starts sliding S, then use the fact that it's west of the center lines to have it turn SE next turn. Of course, if the Queen is east of the center lines, then this isn't possible:
you can't get it to turn from SW to SE.
What if we want a sharper corner though? We can go (SW,S,SE), but what if we *really* don't have enough space for that? What if we really need that impossible (SW,SE)?
Well, we can't do (SW,SE). We *can* do (SW,S,E) though:
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#..
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Here, the Queen enters the corner via the SW movement, and then seeing that the closest tile to you is to the NE, continues to try to go SW. It slides S though due to the wall. On the next turn, the closest tile to you is N, so assuming we're left of the center lines, it tries to head SE. This turns into a slide E due to another wall. On the turn after that, the closest tile to you is to the NW, so it will definitely try to go SE, which you can either convert to a slide E, or simply keep it continuing SE.
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The center lines are always going to be important here, and space is going to be at a premium. You may find it a bit easier to plan parts of your route out in advance so you know how much space you have to work with when dealing with the trickier bits.
Don't know how I managed to go so long playing DROD without actually understanding how brained roach queen movement works...
