BoyBlue
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Platforms sometimes won't move if a water skipper or nest on the platform would remain on the platform.

This quirk has probably been around as long as skippers have, but I couldn't find any mention of it here.

Example configuration:

S
PPPPPB

P=platform, S=skipper on platform, B=player on platform.
The platform is surrounded on all sides by water (or pit).

Action: Player tries to move NW.

Expected result: Player and platform move NW.

Actual result: Platform and player are stuck.

If both tiles adjacent to the skipper/nest are part of the platform, then there's no problem:

SP
PPPPPB

mrimer
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BoyBlue wrote:
Platforms sometimes won't move if a water skipper or nest on the platform would remain on the platform.

This quirk has probably been around as long as skippers have, but I couldn't find any mention of it here.

Yes, this looks like a bug. Let's consider fixing it for a patch.

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Jacob
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Not sure I fully understand why this is a bug.
Why is the expected result that the player and platform move NW - where would the waterskipper go? Onto the platform tile SE of its current position?
That almost seems more counterintuitive to me than the platform not moving. (because then we'd be saying that waterskippers can move along a platform, or a platform can slide under them, but only when they're already on the platform, not when they're in the water)

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[Last edited by Jacob at 07-20-2012 10:56 PM]

TFMurphy
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Jacob wrote:
That almost seems more counterintuitive to me than the platform not moving. (because then we'd be saying that waterskippers can move along a platform, or a platform can slide under them, but only when they're already on the platform, not when they're in the water)

DROD is *already* saying that a platform can slide under a waterskipper when they're on top of it, because you can slide the platform fine so long as it's in a direction that lands the Waterskipper back in water (or even pit). Unless an entity actively holds the platform down, *anything* slides under platforms. So I do agree that the *current* ruleset is unintuitive.

There are, however, two ways this can be resolved:
1) When a waterskipper is already on a platform, then it is not considered an obstacle to platform movement.
2) A waterskipper (or waterskipper nest) on top of a platform "holds it down" just like Rock Giants and serpents.

Jatopian
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#1 is certainly more intuitive, as waterskippers and their nests are 1-tile monsters. I certainly can't imagine they would weigh more than rock golems.

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Jacob
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TFMurphy wrote: DROD is *already* saying that a platform can slide under a waterskipper when they're on top of it, because you can slide the platform fine so long as it's in a direction that lands the Waterskipper back in water (or even pit). Unless an entity actively holds the platform down, *anything* slides under platforms. So I do agree that the *current* ruleset is unintuitive.

I mostly agree with this. But I don't think it's the whole story.
Disregarding platform movement - a waterskipper will move onto a non-water tile only if it is killing something, or if something else unusal happens (e.g. building a non-water tile), while as there is no limitation/problem in moving from a non-water tile to a water tile (e.g. if it wants to move towards the player/stalwart/decoy).

This asymmetry seems to be preserved in the current platform behaviour, but would be disregarded by change (1) you suggest. (I agree with Jatopian that change (2) is v. unintuitive.)

I don't have strong feelings about this, I'm just trying to clarify things in my mind at least.

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[Last edited by Jacob at 07-21-2012 12:01 AM]

Jatopian
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The water skipper isn't moving in #1, though. The platform is being moved out from under it.

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Moo
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Jacob wrote:
Not sure I fully understand why this is a bug.
Why is the expected result that the player and platform move NW - where would the waterskipper go? Onto the platform tile SE of its current position?

Why not have it move to the NW too, and keep its current position relative to the platform. Instead of being very heavy, they are very light, which makes more sense for something that walks on water

The spitemaster
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I think the reason that it is blocked is because of how platforms move. The whole platform does not move diagonally it checks both directions to see if it is a possible move. So N then E and E then N. In one of the cases the waterskipper is in the water or has not died from falling in the pit, and as a result of that blocks the platform from moving. So I do think that this is intuitive, however, the pit case should be disallowed. (Because the death should be instant)

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BoyBlue
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I just noticed that the same thing happens with obstacle (and lights, though the editor doesn't like lights on platforms).

So I guess it happens with {things that can survive on pits and/or water, and which platforms can't be slid under}.

By design, a platform that's not under such an object, when moved diagonally, isn't allowed to pass partially under the object. The question is whether the same rule should apply to a platform that is under the object. Even if the answer is yes, I would think it shouldn't apply to skippers and nests on platforms-over-pits, since they don't survive on pits.

Trickster
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Jacob wrote:
I mostly agree with this. But I don't think it's the whole story.
Disregarding platform movement - a waterskipper will move onto a non-water tile only if it is killing something, or if something else unusal happens (e.g. building a non-water tile), while as there is no limitation/problem in moving from a non-water tile to a water tile (e.g. if it wants to move towards the player/stalwart/decoy).

I wouldn't call that "unusual". (Remember the last room in Flood Warning...)

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Trickster
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BoyBlue wrote:
I just noticed that the same thing happens with obstacle (and lights, though the editor doesn't like lights on platforms).

Crap.

This is now the third bug in a row to derail my bridge-water-pit room. I'm never going to finish this nightmarish thing...

I do have a note, however. Briar does not seem to affect it like lights (just tested this), even though it shares many of the same properties of lights (e.g., nothing can pass through it, but you can "see" through it with eyes and beams).

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Jatopian
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I would, however, expect lights and obstacles to weigh down platforms. They're fixtures or too heavy for Beethro to move.

I think the bigger question for those is how they get on a platform in the first place.

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[Last edited by Jatopian at 07-21-2012 04:22 AM]

Trickster
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Jatopian wrote:
I would, however, expect briar, lights, and obstacles to weigh down platforms. The first is a heavy mass, the latter two fixtures or too heavy for Beethro to move.

What isn't a heavy mass?

I agree you have a point, but that would break rooms in several published holds. There are many rooms where you have to navigate platforms through briar as it grows around you, and the status of briar as an obstacle does not change when it dies.

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Jatopian
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Trickster wrote: I agree you have a point, but that would break rooms in several published holds. There are many rooms where you have to navigate platforms through briar as it grows around you, and the status of briar as an obstacle does not change when it dies.

Oh, right, derp. Ignore that one then.

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mrimer
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Regarding weight: I'd say water skippers are not substantially heavier than roaches. Possibly lighter. If a platform can be moved with a roach on it, then it should able be moveable with a water skipper on it.

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Neather2
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This...has just given me an idea for a puzzle.

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Jatopian
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Neather2 wrote:
This...has just given me an idea for a puzzle.

Oh? It's just a combination of elements. Perhaps this will interest you then.

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Neather2
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I can't understand what you're trying to say here.

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Trickster
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mrimer wrote:
Regarding weight: I'd say water skippers are not substantially heavier than roaches. Possibly lighter. If a platform can be moved with a roach on it, then it should able be moveable with a water skipper on it.

A stalwart is on a pressure plate bordering water, and is eaten by a skipper.

Is the skipper heavy enough to hold down the plate?

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Jatopian
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Trickster wrote:
A stalwart is on a pressure plate bordering water, and is eaten by a skipper.

Is the skipper heavy enough to hold down the plate?

Not sure what the point of this hypothetical was, but I doubt the skipper actually eats much of the stalwart. Dead bodies just sort of disappear due to game abstraction.

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Neather2
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Trickster wrote:

mrimer wrote:
Regarding weight: I'd say water skippers are not substantially heavier than roaches. Possibly lighter. If a platform can be moved with a roach on it, then it should able be moveable with a water skipper on it.

A stalwart is on a pressure plate bordering water, and is eaten by a skipper.

Is the skipper heavy enough to hold down the plate?

This..has just given me another idea for a puzzle.

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TFMurphy
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Just posting to announce that this will definitely be fixed, especially now that I've reread Boyblue's original post and understood exactly what he was originally saying.

That is, platforms could *already* slide under a Waterskipper, Obstacle or Light that was on top of the platform, just not in situations where a diagonal move is involved and the tile of the platform the Waterskipper would move to lacks an adjacent platform tile on one or both of its edges in that direction. So in Boyblue's original example, you could easily slide the platform N and then W to get the Waterskipper onto that SE tile, but you couldn't go NW.

I won't be modifying any of the other rules regarding this.

Trickster
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Jatopian wrote: Not sure what the point of this hypothetical was, but I doubt the skipper actually eats much of the stalwart. Dead bodies just sort of disappear due to game abstraction.

It wasn't a hypothetical, it was an actual question on game mechanics. I ask them when I'm too lazy to open up the editor and I assume other people know the answer already, so I apologize if that was rude.

I just tried it, and the skipper holds down the pressure plate just like any non-flying tangible (i.e. "visible") character would. It won't work with seep, though, because they immediately die when they kill any non-wall character. I have to wonder why skippers don't die out of the water if they cannot leave it for any other purpose.

Perhaps they should die if they do not re-enter the water on the following turn? But that would break published holds. At the very least, you'd think a skipper would try to re-enter the water if possible. (You can actually lure a skipper into a landlocked area by feeding it nummy stalwarts, which is rather amusing.)

Tunnels are similar in game effect, but it's very difficult to get a non-player character on top of a tunnel without dying on the same turn. The only way I've discovered that this can be done is by using a Turn into monster script on a Character. In this case, the tunnel fails to function and the character simply steps off of it as though it were a normal floor tile.

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[Last edited by Trickster at 07-22-2012 09:25 PM]

The spitemaster
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TFMurphy I would request that this not be fixed, as I believe that this is a result of how platforms move.

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Jatopian
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The spitemaster wrote:
TFMurphy I would request that this not be fixed, as I believe that this is a result of how platforms move.

This is a very vague argument, and thus not very compelling. Can you be more specific?

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Neather2
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Trickster wrote:

Jatopian wrote: Not sure what the point of this hypothetical was, but I doubt the skipper actually eats much of the stalwart. Dead bodies just sort of disappear due to game abstraction.

(You can actually lure a skipper into a landlocked area by feeding it nummy stalwarts, which is rather amusing.)

Yup, this is what I was thinking (I should be able to come up with more then 5 puzzles out of this idea). Will this be fixed? I hope not.

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[Last edited by Neather2 at 07-23-2012 07:32 AM]

The spitemaster
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The spitemaster wrote:
I think the reason that it is blocked is because of how platforms move. The whole platform does not move diagonally it checks both directions to see if it is a possible move. So N then E and E then N. In one of the cases the waterskipper is in the water or has not died from falling in the pit, and as a result of that blocks the platform from moving. So I do think that this is intuitive, however, the pit case should be disallowed. (Because the death should be instant)

So, just because the end result is good does not mean that it is a valid move.


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Trickster
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The spitemaster wrote:
So, just because the end result is good does not mean that it is a valid move.

I think you might be confusing client with implementer. The client (user of DROD) should not need to understand complex things like "the order in which tiles are checked when moving platforms" in order to understand the behavior of elements in the game.

To the client, it IS a single action, and behavior should match intuition from the client's perspective.

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TFMurphy
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Your argument is that when a platform moves diagonally, normal platform logic checks that it can make that move in both axial combinations (NW being W+N and N+W) before it's valid, and you're saying that the waterskipper moving off the platform blocks one of those in Boyblue's example case. That's a fair enough statement. But let's see where that logic takes us.

===

For the purposes of this, I'm going to use "Waterskipper" as our example of a swimming monster, and "Brain" as our example of a land-based monster. I'm choosing the latter because Brains obviously do not move, so it makes for a more useful comparison here. (Yes, I could use Waterskipper Nest as our swimming monster example, but it's longer to type and I think unnecessary for this.)

#1. A Platform tile cannot move onto a Waterskipper that is sitting on water. The assumption here is that because the monster is sitting on the surface on the water, there's no space for the platform to fit underneath. Brains don't block such movement, but a Brain that's sitting on water would have sunk long before the platform gets there, so it's a moot point.

#2. A Platform tile *can* move under a Waterskipper if a Waterskipper is already on top of a platform. The assumption now is that the Waterskipper is high enough that platforms can continue to slide underneath. This occurs with Brains too, naturally.

#3. Assume that our Waterskipper is sitting on a Pit Platform tile which has Pit to immediate east and south, but another tile of the same Platform to immediate SE. Let's try to move the platform NW.

No matter if the Platform movess W followed by N, or N followed by W, the Waterskipper will briefly be over pit. Does that mean the Waterskipper should die? Looking at the Brain for comparison, the answer appears to be "no": there simply isn't time for the monster to fall. Since this move is legal when a Brain is in the same spot and the Brain doesn't die, it should follow that the Waterskipper doesn't die either.

#4. Now let's have the same situation as in #3, but with Water and Water Platforms instead. The Waterskipper will briefly be over water now. Does this mean the Waterskipper should block movement? According to #3, the Waterskipper has not had time to fall. According to #2, if the Waterskipper is at the same vertical level, then a Platform should be able to slide underneath. If we replaced the Waterskipper with a Brain, then the Brain doesn't drown if we perform this move. So logically, this should be a legal move.

===

The main summarising point to all of this is that a Platform moving NW already takes less 'time' than a Platform moving W+N or N+W: we can see this already when we move a Platform containing a land-based monster that might die if we tried either of those longer moves. So the logic for dealing with Waterskippers that are already sitting on top of a platform should take that into account, should it not?