75cbf5 No.13945720
It's officially out now, I picked it up and am having Fun with it.
WHAT IT IS
A Zachtronics game about getting a thing to a place in a certain order yet again. This time it's a spiritual successor to an older game of theirs, The Codex of Alchemical Engineering. It's on a hexagonal grid instead of a square one this time, a lot of the hassle of automation has been streamlined, and it is god damn gorgeous when things are working. Buy it if you can, pirate it if you must, it's another good Zachtronics game.
Oh, and post your gifs here.
93044d No.13945765
>>13945720
That gif puts my solution for that level to shame
Have an unrelated gif from an earlier level
75cbf5 No.13945798
>>13945765
I'd like to apologize in advance.
37534d No.13945834
Can this be a general Zachtronics game thread then? Space Chem makes me feel retarded, how is SHENZEN in comparison to the others in comparative skill level needed?
b424b9 No.13945841
b91706 No.13945874
Did they add anything to the Journal or anything beyond the Appendix? Last update I saw was that they changed how the outputs for repeating solutions are processed. Looking at achievement stats it seems like most people don't bother doing the Journal. I know I was preaching it last thread but you guys should really try it. It's not like you have to unlock it or anything, it's available from the start.
>>13945834
Shenzhen is considered relatively difficult towards the end. The endgame isn't as difficult as it gets in SpaceChem, but it's still pretty tough. Infinifactory and Opus Magnum are the easiest ones of the major releases. If you wanted a soft intro to Shenzhen you could just play TIS-100's main campaign, since it's not that hard, but the TIS-NET will make you a man.
>>13945841
They said there would be a GOG release shortly after they get out of EA so I'd keep an eye out for that. Not necessarily to buy, but it seems like torrent sites favor GOG releases if they're available
62c12f No.13945881
>>13945798
You're hired.
>>13945765
You're fired.
a8e98c No.13946027
There's probably no graceful way at all to do Unstable Compound or Curious Lipstick.
4c5395 No.13946042
>>13946027
>That star shape on the alchemical jew
Holy shit its The Star of Solomon, Israel's greatest King
b91706 No.13946098
>>13946027
I don't know, this was my first pass at Curious Lipstick and I'm sure it could be made faster. For Unstable Compound there's the obvious bottleneck but maybe it could be sped up if you just say fuck the area and use multiple special bond pads instead of spinning on a single one.
b91706 No.13946109
>>13946098
Yeah, even watching this now it's true that you're confined to a single disposal glyph, but there's nothing to stop you from doubling up on the mors/vitae glyphs and having two solutions running in parallel to speed things up
358457 No.13946197
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
Love it when a puzzle game is turing complete
75cbf5 No.13946233
>>13946112
>It has to be a webm
75cbf5 No.13946259
>>13946197
I'm surprisied the Infinifactory/Shenzhen guy hasn't jumped on this game.
abe8eb No.13946351
>>13946236
>two tin and one iron
>two tin makes one iron
You can optimise that so much better because the iron and tin components should take the sameish amount of time to pump out.
Also you open and close the 6 armed grabbers every time they rotate one step for no reason.
c6a87e No.13946627
>>13945834
>Space Chem makes me feel retarded
Seeing other people's solutions makes me feel retarded since a lot of the time mine aren't as efficient.
751ff3 No.13946752
>>13946112
Got a higher quality version?
06fba4 No.13947138
>can usually get highest (smallest) tier in Size category
>can almost never get highest in all three categories at once
>spend over an hour staring at each one and trying to refine it before I give up and reluctantly move on to the next
I can't stand it. I can't stand the feeling of partial victory. Only absolutely crushing something feels remotely satisfying. I need more autism to make progress in this game, or maybe less I don't know.
I enjoy it, but I'm just not smart enough to all-kill the puzzles and too stubborn to just move on to the next one.
FUCK
b91706 No.13947163
>>13947138
>can almost never get highest in all three categories at once
That's really not possible as the puzzles get more involved. Low-cycle solutions are necessarily high-cost and high-area while low-area solutions are necessarily high-cycle, etc.
You'll notice the trailer said "Make it smaller OR make it faster", they're aware that the histogram metrics are inversely related
d9ed45 No.13947229
>>13947138
Welcome to (al)chemical engineering
06fba4 No.13947475
>>13947163
I suppose I can live with that.
Efficiency is the most fun followed by smallness, so I'll go with those as best as I can and fuck expense to hell.
>>13947229
It smells a lot like hell.
d2ace8 No.13947491
>>13947138
Just ignore one of them. In fact, you should learn to take a perverse pleasure in seeing one of the measures skyrocket so you can have a tiny gain in another.
b91706 No.13947560
>>13947491
Shit, I never could figure out how to save that extra tile on Rocket Propellant
ae6e9a No.13947570
>>13947138
>face powder
I had a zsimilar solution
97e273 No.13947591
>You will never get an Atelier games with this type of Crafting gameplay
d2ace8 No.13948019
>>13947560
Why is yours 100G? The extra piston arm should only bring it up to 80.
Did the costs get rebalanced in a patch?
b91706 No.13948166
>>13948019
Yeah, the piston arms used to cost more. Should have been 40G apiece for the pistons, and then the glyph of bonding and calcification covered the other 20
75cbf5 No.13948566
I'm just hunting for the pretty. Symmetries, rotationals, etc. Graphs can't measure that.
06fba4 No.13948813
Okay, now that I know I should only focus on min/maxing one or two of the stats, I'm having fun again.
Minimum cycles confirmed for most fun, but I also respect you aesthetic and infernal contraption types.
9f9006 No.13948867
>>13948813
The main reason you should only focus on one at a time is because the game saves your high score for each category individually, so you don't have to worry about your min-area score going away when you go for the min-cycles solution (although lowest cost and lowest area are often the same solution).
06fba4 No.13949177
>arms can't grab and move other arms
Is my dream of spinning wheel arms spinning spinning wheel arms really too much to ask?
>>13948867
I suppose that's acceptable. I just like the idea of creating the "perfect" machine for each puzzle.
06fba4 No.13949434
>you will never get those 4 area back without getting those 48 cycles with them
It's never not going to bother me, but I can live with this.
ee6a60 No.13949455
I played a bit of this Opus Magnum while it was in early access, then I got interested in the other games by the same developer, mainly Infinifactory.
These are possibly some of the best puzzle games I've played, and I'm not even a fan of the genre to begin with, I just love how creativity and ingenuity are encouraged to solve problems your own way. That's one of the most important aspects to me in vidya.
ea0b11 No.13949465
>>13947138
I know that feel. Trying to play SpaceChem while going for as few crutch Syncs as possible results in some messy solutions, especially when probability input get mixed in.
06fba4 No.13949552
>>13949465
I couldn't handle SpaceChem. It was fun for a while, and then I just suddenly imploded or something. No idea what happened.
>>13949455
>infinifactory
>I just love how creativity and ingenuity are encouraged to solve problems your own way. That's one of the most important aspects to me in vidya
Have you played Factorio? It will devour your life.
06fba4 No.13949616
psa: playing this while extremely tired is a terrible idea
75cbf5 No.13952482
Not the best, but I at least somewhat beat the area average.
75cbf5 No.13952519
>>13952482
I can already see some ways to optimize the commands a little, but I enjoy watching it nonetheless.
b287ba No.13952623
So is it a Spacechem sequel? The combining and rotating just screams Spacechem no matter how you cook it. How's the music? That's what kept me going in Spacechem.
I still haven't finished Spacechem because it's too hard
88681c No.13952669
How do I git gud at optimizing stuff in games? I feel that I don't even know what kind of thinking is required and what contributes into a better solution.
b91706 No.13952670
>>13952623
Says it in the OP, it's a successor to The Codex of Alchemical Engineering. There was an expansion to the Codex called Magnum Opus, that's where the title comes from.
>How's the music?
It's Matthew S. Burns, the same guy who did the Shenzhen and Infinifactory soundtracks, so it's good. I can put it up on the vola
>it's too hard
I think that one of the reasons Opus Magnum is getting such a positive reception in the press, it's easier. I think this is the most attention a Zachtronics game has received since SpaceChem
b91706 No.13952679
>>13952669
>I feel that I don't even know what kind of thinking is required
"How can this be made faster"
Not trying to be flippant or anything but seriously just watch out for any awkward gaps or pauses in the gifs posted in the thread and imagine how they could be removed
75cbf5 No.13952745
>>13952670
That roulette wheel sets me off every time. Hella ballzy.
b91706 No.13952781
>>13952745
The perpetual spinning is a nice aesthetic, which is why I did it, but I think I prefer this one >>13946027. It's so fast it doesn't even have time to spin all the way back around.
629cfa No.13952808
I bought Infinifactory some time back, but surprisingly didn't really like it at all. It probably had a lot to do with the way you had to move around in the world, activating you jetpack with double tap jump, having inertia, being able to fall to your death etc.
I loved SpaceChem (and I consider having beaten the story a significant achievement) and this looks more up my alley in that sense.
88681c No.13952962
>>13952679
I'm trying to play Spacechem actually.
b91706 No.13953106
>>13952808
I think Infinifactory is really solid outside of that one missile defense puzzle. From different interviews Zach's given I think it's his favorite of the major releases. Couldn't relate since TIS-100 is my personal favorite.
>>13952669
Oh, well that's different to OM. I wouldn't recommend sitting there and continually optimizing a solution to a single puzzle if you want to stay motivated to finish the main campaign. Optimization is something you'll naturally learn as the puzzles go on, since you'll have to get good at it to get the solutions to fit at all. I'd say the optimization casual filter is the 7th planet's defense mission, "Don't Fear the Reaper".
It's been a couple years since I played SpaceChem but two optimization tricks you should be aware of are doubling up on your instructions by overlapping the lines, and alternating instructions between the blue and red waldos instead of delegating all of the work to a single one. The webm is soundless intentionally because I don't know if anyone would have wanted to hear a snippet of commentary over it anyway
52ce20 No.13953344
Great! Now he can get back to work on TIS-100 3!
9cbf06 No.13953740
>>13947138
If you think that's bad, try making top tier in power efficiency in Shenzhen.
9f9006 No.13955246
>>13953344
I kinda agree with your sentiment, dubdubs. As much as I like Zachtronics games, his open-ended programming-based puzzle game style gets samey. I'd really like to see his take on a different genre sometime. He doesn't even need to go that far outside his comfort zone; I think he could do a physics-based puzzle game like Poly Bridge or Besiege really well.
06fba4 No.13956070
>>13955246
>a game where you have to design a structurally sound [something] that will be put to use and tested under stress
>tweest: you have to also design an efficient assembly line for the [something] that produces them quickly enough, cheaply enough, and doesn't compromise their quality
>double tweest: it's a 3D sequel to infinifactory that plays like a 3D Factorio
b91706 No.13956939
>>13955246
>I'd really like to see his take on a different genre sometime
Are you sure?
9f9006 No.13956999
>>13956939
Fuck, I totally forgot that existed. Is it that bad? I never tried it.
b91706 No.13957046
>>13956999
It's not like it's offensively awful but it's not even close to the quality of his other games. I remember Zach said that he was surprised that TIS-100 sold better than Ironclad Tactics, so it seems like they were pretty confident in the product, for some reason. If it's going to result in some subpar product just for the sake of branching out I'd prefer they just stick to what they know.
I haven't played it myself but if you're looking for a slightly different kind of game you might try The Bureau of Steam Engineering. I don't know why Zach doesn't just pull an Edmund McMillen and release an anthology of his old flash games for $3. I mean they're still free to this day, but it's not like that stopped Ed
f55dfe No.13957091
>Trying to figure out how to best solve this
>Accidentally figure out a solution that has <100 footprint, getting the achievement I didn't know existed
This is a Zachtronics general, right?
e25058 No.13957143
>>13956939
Am I the only one to have enjoyed it? It had lovely steampunk combat boilers and the whole half real-time half-turn-based gameplay premise was interesting. I feel like it would have fared extremely well if it was to come out after Heartstone kicked off the interest in trading card games but before the market got overfilled with them. Anyways give it a go if you want a deck building game demanding quick thinking.
c7637b No.13957270
>>13946027
>third gif
so i guess it doesnt have any collision with the arms?
06fba4 No.13957334
>>13957270
Arms don't collide, but anything they're holding collide and their nodes collide.
06fba4 No.13959365
There's just something really satisfying about this kind of thing. Are there any games of this type that are more about mechanical engineering than chemistry or alchemy? I dig the rhythmic pistons and whatnot.
9f9006 No.13959425
>>13959365
You'd probably like Infinifactory, maybe SpaceChem too.
b91706 No.13959441
>>13959365
>>13959425
Infinifactory more, since it has that clean assembly line appeal. Doesn't have the satisfying sound effects OM does, though.
06fba4 No.13959847
>basically worst in all categories
I want to blame this on lack of sleep, but I just couldn't see a faster way to do this beyond marginal improvements.
Is there any way to blast the center out of the wheel more quickly so I can run some stuff in parallel instead of one after the other like this?
>>13959441
Infinifactory looks okay, but it kind of just seems like the 3D nature of it would make it needlessly cumbersome to play. It's basically just SpaceChem/OpusMagnum with a z-layer and a different setting, isn't it?
What I wouldn't give for those sorts of mechanisms to be built into Space Engineers, though.
9f9006 No.13959927
>>13959847
>I want to blame this on lack of sleep, but I just couldn't see a faster way to do this beyond marginal improvements.
Sleep on it, and if you can't figure it out, I'll tell you tomorrow.
>It's basically just SpaceChem/OpusMagnum with a z-layer and a different setting, isn't it?
Yes, and some more physics-y things (e.g. if there's nothing supporting a block it'll fall down, but it will fall straight down without accelerating or rotating).
b91706 No.13959963
>>13959847
You'd be surprised, I found that flying around and then zooming in to fine-tune the blocks in close quarters was very satisfying, especially since the endgame puzzles are very large and involved productions. To me the distinguishing characteristic of Infinifactory was that inputs are automatically pumped out at a set rate instead of needing to be prompted, it makes it so that your ratios are really important. It does have a significantly higher price point than his other games, though, so it's understandable to pirate it or something before buying it.
>Is there any way to blast the center out of the wheel more quickly
Obviously, you are making it way too hard on yourself you goofball
d2ace8 No.13960045
File: 5b85e76031c6b38⋯.gif (Spoiler Image, 2.33 MB, 826x647, 826:647, Opus Magnum - Surrender Fl….gif)
>>13959847
You're dramatically overthinking it.
My solution isn't great (and is going for cost while you want speed) but what you've done wrong is the same either way.
06fba4 No.13960302
>>13959963
>>13959927
I think I'm on the right track here now. I had no idea you could transmute things that were bonded, and that changes everything.
>>13960045
>spoiler
I'll look at that once I've done a few more optimization passes to get this working as well as I can. Fingers crossed that I'm not still missing some major concept here.
Thanks for the push, anons.
d2ace8 No.13960352
>>13960302
You've already got what my spoiler was meant to show.
06fba4 No.13960382
After staring at it moving for a while, I'm pretty sure that's as good as I can get it - aiming for size anyway.
>>13960352
I'm glad that's the only place I went wrong. I don't even know why I was thinking I couldn't transmute bonded metals, considering I've transmuted bonded atoms to salt plenty of times already.
06fba4 No.13960412
Strike that, it can still shrink.
d2ace8 No.13960467
The minimum cost solution to this thing evaded me for so long. It just felt too strange to have the entire chain waving around like that.
b91706 No.13960488
>>13960467
Is this the latest patch? I had thought they made it so that you couldn't rotate chain solutions weeks ago, but then they made some other adjustment to chain solutions I haven't tried yet.
d2ace8 No.13960508
>>13960488
The torrent says it's v.28.10.2017 so if they made that patch "weeks ago" then I probably don't have those changes.
d081f5 No.13960733
>>13945834
>Space Chem makes me feel retarded
Yeah, I just got to the first hard level (Last level of Sernimar VII where you need to make Formaldehyde with 2 reactors and 3 sources) and I've been stuck for over an hour
b91706 No.13960791
>>13960733
>I've been stuck for over an hour
Get used to it. Those are the best parts of the campaign.
d2ace8 No.13960819
>>13960488
Bought the game since I'd been meaning to do so anyway, and I can confirm that that solution still works.
f1d91d No.13960841
>>13946197
One of my goals in my Chips Challenge clone is to make it turing complete (agdg). I know its needed to build a machine, but I cant fathom a game where such states are impossible.
Also how you could test a given state based on a particular arrangement
b91706 No.13961025
>>13960991
He's got you on area, though, which is what he seems to be going for. You could save a few cycles yourself by manually resetting instead of using the reset command, anyway, the wheel doesn't have to rotate back around like that.
5a923f No.13961076
>>13961025
True. I wanted to save on area by excluding the track for the long arm, but a collision occurs.
5a923f No.13961121
>>13961025
10 less cycles and 4 less area for only 5 more gold, a straight upgrade in every respect.
deleted old because im retarded and didnt include gif… at least it was saged.
d2ace8 No.13961161
b91706 No.13961200
>>13961121
Well done.
>>13961161
They do get pretty repetitive, but I think Refined Bronze might be the best puzzle in the game.
629cfa No.13964793
This game has reawakened my inner dorf
878f24 No.13964992
boy what i tell you bout that alchemy
75cbf5 No.13967147
>>13961121
>>13960991
All I can see is you tipping your metallurgical hat.
a28f16 No.13968197
someone help i think im an retard
5a923f No.13968243
>>13968197
Here you go anon.
b91706 No.13968303
>>13968243
That's cool but I think you can do a little better
5a923f No.13968341
>>13968303
Very nice. My warming tonic is probably garbage but here.
b91706 No.13968435
>>13968341
Just tried it out and it seems like it's marginally faster to not have to contend with that additional fire atom. The top percentile is 28 though, so you'd probably need all three reagents to get that
5a923f No.13968476
>>13968435
Indeed. I just finished Proof of Completeness btw.
74625f No.13968548
>>13968435
>320g
jesus christ you're gonna go bankrupt
ff4177 No.13968555
>games that are like work
This isn't fun and makes me feel stupid.
9f9006 No.13968596
>>13968555
>id dubs
>post trips
Shitposting aside, you should try it, you might like it and it's probably the easiest of the Zachtronics puzzle games.
b91706 No.13968601
>>13968476
I really, really liked that puzzle.
>>13968548
I should probably be a little more frugal since he's lost his financial backing at that point
1b1cbe No.13968643
>>13968634
Sure looks like it
629cfa No.13970177
High area, but pretty good cost and cycles
629cfa No.13970182
>>13970177
fug, I just realized there was an extra bit of idle time near the end, and I got it down to 60 cycles
000000 No.13970377
I finished SpaceChem (+DLC) and Infinifactory. I gave up on TIS-100 because it got ridiculously hard for me in the second campaign and I just wasn't enjoying it that much. Now the question is: Opus Magnum or Shenzen I/O?
b91706 No.13971105
>>13970377
Depends on what it is that you didn't like about TIS-100, besides the difficulty. Shenzhen I/O may be a direct sequel but the minimalist presentation is gone, and so are most of the constraints on the mechanics, there's a lot more freedom when it comes to operands and registers and node placements. It's also a good choice if you enjoyed the physical manual for TIS-100, since that's even more relevant to Shenzhen. It still gets pretty tough towards the end of the main campaign (not quite to the level of the TIS-NET) and I'm told Avalon City is even harder.
Opus Magnum as you can clearly see from the thread carries a lot of the benefits of SpaceChem and Infinifactory, but I can say personally I was pretty disappointed on my first playthrough that it never even approached the challenge of SpaceChem. It wasn't until I started going back to optimize puzzles and share solutions that I really started enjoying myself.
015c56 No.13971225
i did it
i am the most frugal
my autism hurts
5a923f No.13971273
>>13968548
>he had to spend 100G
I am an frugal.
629cfa No.13971411
>>13971225
wew lad
>there are solutions with over two times as many cycles
270e24 No.13971431
Just started, this is some fun shit. Can anyone see a way to make this cheaper without adding to the area? I love these size/cost solutions but I can't get this one quite right.
015c56 No.13971477
>>13971431
I can't see any way to make it cheaper without adding to the area. The only way you could cut costs would be to swap the piston arm for a fixed-length arm, but then you'd need to make the arm 2 tiles long and add a track to push the arm up and down, or do the entire thing with just a single 1-length arm and rotate the finished product to fit. Either of those would increase the area significantly.
d2ace8 No.13971498
>>13971431
I don't see a way either. You can bring the cycles down quite a bit, but I don't think it's possible to decrease the cost while keeping it minimum-area.
b91706 No.13971605
File: 4565a9e34308cb6⋯.gif (Spoiler Image, 1.41 MB, 826x647, 826:647, Opus Magnum - Hangover Cur….gif)
>>13971498
>>13971431
Yeah, you could reduce your cycle count and keep the same configuration by doing it like this instead.
It used to be that a fixed-length arm plus two track tiles were 10G cheaper than using a piston arm, but they changed it so that the costs were equivalent, which is a shame.
d2ace8 No.13971673
>>13971605
My minimum area solution only beats your cycle count by a little, but I think it feels a little more elegant as well.
629cfa No.13971710
I feel there's a whole lot of twists and turns I could avoid or do more optimally. I think I'll optimize this later.
b91706 No.13971737
>>13971673
It does look very nice, I like the last salt move.
>>13971710
1) Your configuration looks nice but spinning those three-atom chains around still counts against your area
2) Why don't you just rotate the product tile instead of rotating your final molecule?
b91706 No.13971746
Oh ignore me, I didn't notice that you were one bond short
0e4304 No.13971763
>>13968197
>rotating the entire line of production 45 degrees every step
dude what
000000 No.13971771
>>13971105
I guess I'll go with Opus Magnum first then. Anyone got a magnet link for the linux version?
d2ace8 No.13971791
>>13971710
It looks kind of neat swinging everything around like that, but it definitely has room for improvement.
f3aa7e No.13972217
Anyone know where I can find or are willing to share Shenzhen for Linux? I just noticed it's on sale on GOG and intend to buy it but I also noticed it requires OpenGL3 which my laptop doesn't support. I've had some other games with OGL3 listed as a requirement work without a hitch but I'd rather make sure it works first. As I assume if I buy it while being aware my computer doesn't meet the requirements I won't be able to get a refund with the assurance program thing if it doesn't work.
629cfa No.13976478
>>13971737
In hindsight it was an all around bad solution. I rotated the (not yet) finished molecule because it needed one more bond.
>>13971791
It was clear that some kind of weaving solution was the best one (in terms of cost at least) when some thought was put into it.
5a923f No.13979435
Not as good as other solutions here but it's not bad.
5a923f No.13979517
Also a lead separation I just did. Apparently they changed the name and products of the puzzle.
b91706 No.13979644
>>13979517
Yeah, I don't really like the new version, bottlenecking all of the Lead outputs to that single panel is a pain.
>>13976478
See, that twirl at the end looks great
b91706 No.13979653
I only just remembered it but in Shenzhen there was a way to access legacy versions of puzzles through the menu, by entering a code. I know they patched OM to include that option but I haven't been keeping up with what the codes are supposed to be, I guess I should check the patch notes.