Hi,

(This has github issue #391: Handicaps in Multiplayer.)



If you're a brand-new player at golf, go, or chess, it's already an achievement when you beat a strong opponent at queen odds, or at nine stones, or at three more strokes per hole. Next time, can you do it at rook odds? You can easily see your personal progress in how the handicap shrinks over time. I'd like to have this in Lix.

Per game: In Lix's networking lobby, I'd like to offer handicap options next to the color picker. Between games, you can adjust the handicap. The default is no handicap for either side.

Choosing a handicap puts you at a disadvantage. The stronger side should handicap itself and thus start with a weaker position. I'd like the new player to start with the level's normal, unhandicapped-but-also-unimproved position; this makes it easier for him to learn how the map usually plays. Also, as I wrote in 2017: A strong player with 50 lix can beat a novice with 500, but a strong player with 5 lix must play enourmously well to beat a novice with 50 on a map with batters.

---

In IRC, geoo and I have considered some types of handicap.

Divisor handicap: You pick a number ≥ 1. Your initial number of lix is divided by it, and every skill count in your panel is divided by it. Options for divisor handicap could be 1 (= no handicap), 1.2, 1.5, 2, 3.3, 5, 7, and 10.

We'll always round up non-integer results. If the map gives 2 builders, you'll start with 2 builders at handicap 1.2 or 1.5, and you'll start with 1 builder at any bigger handicap.

Previously, I've expressed this as a multiplier handicap, and values were 100% (= no handicap), 70%, 50%, ..., but this design has a downside: Lower numbers mean stronger handicaps. It's nice when higher numbers mean stronger handicaps, to avoid confusion when people say "high handicap" or "you can lower it".

If you're in a team, the team's total divisor handicap can be the average of the team's players. Should "average" be the arithmetic mean or the harmonic mean? I'll have to ponder, and Proxima will be happy. Harmonic makes sense because it's a divisor handicap.



Delay handicap. You pick a number of seconds ≥ 0. Your first lix spawns later than other players' first lix, at this delay. Afterwards, your remaining lix continue to spawn at the normal spawn interval after each previous lix. Options for delay handicap could be 0, 5, 10, 20, 30 seconds. Anything more than 30 seconds is probably too boring for the experienced player.

Again, if you're in a team, the team's total delay is the average of the individual player's delay.

Asymmetric levels. If you choose a divisor and/or delay handicap, you always start in the first seat, and other players are randomly distributed amongst the remaining seats. This doesn't matter in a symmetric level, but if the author wants to build an asymmetric map, the author can put the seat-to-be-disadvantaged always in the first position. As long as we have any kind of handicap option, or even just a checkbox, we can add this seating rule at little exta UI cost in the lobby dialog -- it needs an explanation, but no extra pickers.

Level-specific handicap. Instead of offering concrete values to pick, you merely have a checkbox: Do you want to be handicapped or not? Or you have a choice of handicap strengths; which handicap strength do you want? It's the task of the level author to define the handicap in terms of delays or divisors or seats.

The downside of such level-specific handicap is that most authors won't bother to define handicaps for their levels. The few levels that have author-defined handicaps won't be consistent, e.g., you can play at strength 1 on this map, but it's hard to win against strength 3 on that other map. If it's not consistent anyway, I feel it's better to just offer concrete values, and let the players pick.

Ideas?

-- Simon

Hi,

things that I told Dullstar in voicechat about the March 27 sporadic client-side crash.

		Debug build		Release build
in/out contract		compiled		not compiled
array bounds check		Throws Error if outside		memory-unsafe access (I could enable bounds check)
enforce(x)		Throws Exception if not x		Throws Exception if not x
assert(x)		Throws Error if not x		not compiled
assert(false)		Throws Error if not x		halts the application, e.g., segfault

You're supposed to catch Exception but not Error. I still catch both in the main loop, log them, then re-throw them to terminate the application.

assert(x) with a value x only known at runtime: In D, this is deliberately different than assert(false) or assert(0) with a statically known false value. assert(false) marks code that you shouldn't reach. (I'm not sure if the compiler is also allowed to optimize on this assumption in release builds.)

-- Simon

Hi,

who's up for Lix multiplayer this Sunday, March 27th, starting 17:00 UTC?

(Mind daylight savings. In Germany, 17:00 UTC will be 19:00 local time.)



I've been a busy mole, I've pushed lots of earth deep inside the server. The goal is to support both 0.9.x and the future 0.10.x on the same server, in different rooms. Let's test if I broke anything. For this Sunday's session, I'll run the reworked server as the central server. Ideally, you won't notice anything at all.

For you, everything is as usual:

• No need to update Lix. 0.9.42 is the most recent, but any 0.9.x works.
  
• In Lix: "Network game" -> "Play on the central server" -> "Okay".
  

-- Simon

Hi,

Lix Levels topic title:
Maps & insights from February 2022 session

Renders correctly in topic view.
Renders correctly in the list of 30 recent topics.
Renders incorrectly in board list that shows recent topic per board.
Renders incorrectly in last-post display in forum stats.

The wrong rendering is:
Maps &amp insights from Fe... on 2022-02-15, 20:01 UTC

Ampersand is wrongly escaped. Here is the raw HTML of that link in the recent-post line in the board list:

<p><strong>Last post</strong> by
<a href="https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?action=profile;u=4">Simon</a>
<br> in
<a href="https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5940.msg95604#new"
title="Maps &amp; insights from February 2022 session">
Maps &amp;amp insights from Fe...</a>
<br> on 2022-02-15, 20:01 UTC</p>
Within this HTML, we see:
Maps &amp insights from Fe...

Expected instead in the HTML:
Maps & insights from Fe...

Probably bug in the forum software. Is custom fix worth it? Is upstream report worth it? >_>

-- Simon

2017 -- 2018 -- 2020 -- 2022

---

Hi,

before the happy new year 2022, here is the Lix development roadmap for 2022. Thank you for all of your input at Slow additions or experimental fork!

• Make the game server accept different minor versions. In a room, everybody should still have the same minor version. Users of the current minor version, 0.9, should still be able to connect to this server and see other 0.9 users. I need a flexible server anyway to support physics experimentation with our community, thus it's not that far a stretch to also make it 0.9-compatible.
  
• Stabilize the physics changes that have been on the backburner since 2017, and release a stable 0.10.x with singleplayer fully proof-covered. 0.10 will not have neutral lix yet.
  
• Offer an experimental version with neutral lix in multiplayer. It's okay if it takes until 2023 or later to merge anything like this into stable. It's probably okay to have a strange level format for neutral lix before neutral lix stabilize, but that's a separate concern, I'll think about it when the time comes.
  
• Add HTTPS to lixgame.com. Some reasons, also I want to learn it and lixgame.com is the obvious learning project, and the knowledge is remotely related to my day job.
  

-- Simon

Hi,

There are days/weeks between creating the replay (during a longer play session) and submitting the replay. By then, I've forgotten my feelings for the replay.

On saving a manual replay, I want buttons for quick annotations:

I suspect that this is the intended solution.
I suspect that this is an acceptable alternative.
I suspect that this is a slight backroute.
I suspect that this is an egregious backroute.
Add/remove/reorder quick annotation.

How do the powerful solvers in NL handle the problem of remembering feedback for later submission? You submit many replays in one post/PM. When you were playing, did you put feelings in your filenames to remind yourself? Do you re-watch replays before submitting them for accurate feedback?

For a Lix feature: Should we put the feeling in the filename or should we put it into the replay format?

Even autoreplay can get these annotations, but they're optional, you don't have to provide one.

The same feature would be for level authors instead of level players. The authors will put a final judgement in the format/filename, whereas players will put suspicions of what the author's judgement would be.

-- Simon

In the university years, I would prowl the internet for culture late at night. With a job, I prefer to sleep at night, so I've moved my internet antics to early morning instead. Today, I've dug up:

Forum thread on saltworld.net: iconic game archaeology: miscellaneous artifact pile

Old Lemmings fan art, and unused stuff from other video games. Example:



...and more animations like this. I had known some before, but these signed CMU'95 were new to me. Enjoy the thread!

-- Simon

Let's build cool multiplayer maps for Lix!

How to participate

Build some maps in the Lix editor and post them here! All multiplayer maps built from January 2021 through April 2021 are eligible.

Schedule spontaneous playtesting sessions (e.g., in irc.quakenet.org #lix, chat in your browser) or post on the multiplayer-planning board here on the forums. The more Lix sessions you schedule/join, the better you can test and improve your maps from the feedback.

Flopsy's Editor tutorial
Flopsy's Guide to Multiplayer

Inspiration

There are no hard rules, any multiplayer map is eligible. Here are some inspirational prompts:

• An asymmetric map: Instead of copying/mirroring one player's terrain, everybody gets completely different terrain. It's good to playtest such a map several times in our sessions, so you can fix the balance.
  
• A map with few skills, maybe at most 3 or 5 of each. Players must carefully decide whether to spend a builder, or whether to bat an attacker.
  
• A map where you usually save either close to 100 % of your crowd, or nearly nothing. The player can't merely make a route for his continuous stream of lix, then defend the route.
  
• A map that mixes racing (only 1 lix or only a few lixes, lots of jumping/running/turning) and route-building.
  
• A map with a 5-player and a 7-player variant. We tend to have the fewest maps for these player counts.
  
• Something really novel. 1-lix racing maps were groundbreaking when Rubix made his first one. Arty made a diplomatic map. What else is sleeping in design space?
  

Prizes

Everybody will get a nice postcard in Summer 2021. If you're not happy giving me your reallife address, we can think of something else that is nice.

The point is to promote map-making and find unexplored places in design space. This contest is a lot more open-ended than the NeoLemmix level contests. We are not keeping the levels under wraps, there is no separate playing phase. Instead we are encouraging people to participate in our arranged Lix sessions (or arrange your own) and you bring the levels to be tested.

You are allowed to change the level as much as you like based on other players' feedback or your own findings. The deadline is 30th April 2021 at 23:59 UTC.

-- Simon