Yes - strictly speaking there's a third possibility - brainedness doesn't matter and it's just the sheer number of creatures that causes the slowdown, but I would expect calculating the pathmap(s) to be significant.
Depends how often the pathmap is calculated though.
warning: thinking out loud
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Currently, pathmap is changed by
* Beethro moving
* Orbs affecting yellow doors
* Destruction of crumbly/secret walls
* Golems dying by sword
* Golem corpses being blown up
* Serpents moving
* Brains dying
* Bombs exploding
* Trapdoors and red doors dropping
* Potions picked up
* Tar/Mud destruction, expansion
Order of movement is
Beethro, Mimics, Slayer/Poppies, Unsworded Monsters, Other stuff, including Tarstuff expansion, bombs, characters.
There are three pathmaps that brains calculate - one for floored monsters, one for flying (WWs), and one for walled (Seeps)
If we just consider the Unsworded Monsters, then the only thing that can affect pathmap in that block is serpent movements. So the pathmaps could theoretically be calculated once at the start, then only recalculated after every serpent movement.
I think Poppies use the same pathmap as floored brains, but in any event they can change it themselves (by orbs, golems, crumbly), so it should be recalculated after they move.
Two big provisos:
* Things could change in the future (eg if something like pressure pad are introduced)
* When someone with only a little knowledge says "things could be done this way" then they are usually wrong. In other words, programming is easy when you don't have to code :)
[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 01-28-2006 11:21 PM]
BG)