Archive: 6 posts

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When setting up the Randomizer logic, it says to activate it by sackboy, to make it truely 'random', but my question is... is it always random? Here's what I tried to do: Of the 6 outputs that can trigger, only 1 has an output attached -- the others are left unconnected so they don't do anything. Now, I hid some sack switches, so that any time you go to certain areas, it begins the random logic (for the random start factor), but I do this by starting up a wheel that turns and triggers the Randomizer ever X seconds. However, when I triger the 1 in six output, I'm pausing the wheel (because I can't have it rehitting that 1 output until my other logic cycle finishes (at least the way I have it setup now). What that 'seems' to do however, is break the randomization... I either get lots of close calls to the 1 output, or I get a really long time without a single hit... (varying the timing of the wheel and duration of the 1 output logic system seems to have more impact on the results than when I 'start' it up). Sooooo, I was wondering if a better, more random, solution would be to eliminate the wheel and pause logic, and instead change the 1 output to a toggle point, so that the Randomizer continues to make a selection every 10 seconds or so (something consistent) and hitting the 1 output will toggle the logic on/off, instead of turning it on for a set amount of time... So bottom line, can calling Randomizer in a non-cyclical style (pausing my wheel) mess up the randomization... or is it just perceptual on my part... (right now the thing I want to occur about a 6th of the time is either occuring most of the time, or hardly at all...) It's as if my pausing before the next call is pausing just long enough to almost let the randomness cycle a full revolution so that it almost repeats the next time i unpause the wheel that triggers the Randomizer to make a selection... Thanks!

2010-07-08 18:10:00 Author: SledKnight Posts: 93

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There are a few parts to the randomizer: the wheel, speed controller (made up of two pistons), input and the output You can, in fact, tweak and independently some of these systems to further alter the behavior of the machine, but for now lets just tackle each piece and see what they do. The Wheel The Wheel has six mag switches attached to it and is constantly spinning at varying speeds. You'll notice immediately that the mag switches are being continually being triggered. While this is true, each of them is attached to an emitter and can only spawn in a new piece once the current one is destroyed. Whatever you do do not disconnect the wiring on the wheel it is there for a reason, and without it the results would be decidedly less random. The Speed Controller Beneath the wheel are two pistons. Attached to this is a mag key pair that governs how fast the wheel rotates. The pistons are set to slightly different speeds and this ensures that the wheel is never spinning at the same speed for too long. If you really wanted to you could mess with the speed setting for the pistons, or if you're feeling really adventurous you could wire them up to another switch but I wouldn't. The input With the whole thing spinning it can be hard to tell where you are supposed to hook up the input device to. The piece you're looking for is on the bottom right and consists of a piston with a green mag key pair attached to it. When activated they tell the piston to the right to move up towards the dissolve which in turn dissolves the current block and allows a new one to spawn in it's place. The block that spawns in is the next mag switch that passes the key on the wheel. This in turn spawns in a different selection triggering a different output. Output When a new block of dissolve spawns in it will have a magnetic key attached to it in one of six locations. These keys will trigger different one of the six mag switches which should be hooked up to whatever it is you need randomized. Whether it is which boss pattern to trigger next, or a light sequence for your disco. If you only have one of the outputs hooked up and are running the randomizer you may see strange results, or may almost never see your switch trigger. This is because the switch is triggered randomly. Sometimes it may only take a moment, sometimes it may take a lot longer. If you are feeling adventurous why not tweak the randomizer so that certain outputs can't be reached, just add an AND switch for each output on the randomizer. Then remove the wires that are currently running into the emitters, change the switches on the wheel from one shot to directional and attach into one side of the AND switch and attach the output (set to one shot) back onto the emitters. Now just set the other half of the and switch up to anything you might want, a permanent switch, a toggle that prevents the same output twice in a row, anything really. Voila you can now remotely disable certain outputs from your machine, and the best part is the machine will simply select the next valid output.

2010-07-08 19:31:00 Author: Trader Sam Posts: 92

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Excellent explanation of how the Randomizer works, and interesting idea on the 'random don't repeat outputs' solution, but from your breakdown of the logic (which matches what I had deduced), it does not seem random the way I am calling it, although I thought it should be (I have not touched any settings on the Randomizer itself - my wheel is an external one that triggers the Randomizer's lower-right emmiter at a specified interval). I'm not totally sure I agree with the assumption of "If you only have one of the outputs hooked up and are running the randomizer you may see strange results, or may almost never see your switch trigger." With only one output wired out, the other five should not push the Randomizer logic toward strange results (they are still there, the keys still spawn, but the 5 keys that normally would trigger a light, etc, are just not hooked to anything, and therefore have no impact). And if it is random, shouldn't there be a one in six chance of the 1 output being triggered (like rolling a dice). You may not hit that one for a while, but overall, if you trigger the emiiter at a set interval, I would expect that "on average" you would hit every output once every six times. Instead, what I think I'm seeing, based on my testing, is extended periods of hitting the one output very close together, or not hitting it at all for a while (as if the hits are coming in groups). That's why I was wondering if it is just perceptual on my part, or if the way I'm triggering it (in a non-cyclical way) is hampering its ability to be 'random'. I think I will copy the level tonight, and change my logic such that when the Randomizer 'starts' (when I start turning my external wheel with a key/switch that calls the emitter) that I never stop that wheel (just let it turn) and then change the output such that it toggles my external logic (so that instead of stopping my wheel, running the logic for a preset time, and then starting my wheel back up, that it would instead just start/stop the logic (on average a 6th of the times it would trigger a start or stop, depending on what state it is currently in). That would in theory, on average, make the logic run half the time and not run half the time, for varying amounts of time each. So if I wanted to shorten the run time, I could add in logic to one of the other outputs that would be an 'off only' type output (making 2 of six times turn it off, and 1 in six times turn it on, on average). I think my logic is sound... LOL. But my head hurts thinking about it. :oP If nothing else, it should make the run time (as well as the activation) of my logic random, instead of just the activation...

2010-07-08 20:29:00 Author: SledKnight Posts: 93

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Even with this beast of a randomiser, you will find that one output's trigger will come in groups because of the way the system is set up. To keep this effect down to a bare minimum, make sure all the speed settings for the speedscale switch for the wheel, and the wheel's bolt, are set to prime numbers. That really helps jumble everything around, and spreads out the frequency of each output trigger. Hope this helps!

2010-07-09 06:23:00 Author: Holguin86 Posts: 875

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Thanks Holguin! I was speculating the frequency issue as well, after chinging the setup as I specified earlier and running an hour long timed test. :oP I will double check the settings and make sure they are prime. In the world of LBP, would 0.3 and 0.7 be 'prime' or do I need to stick with actual integers for it to jumble it up?

2010-07-09 13:50:00 Author: SledKnight Posts: 93

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Decimal-point values are fine too - your values will work because they don't divide into one very easily, but they will cycle every three and seven seconds respectively. That means together they cycle every 21 seconds, and combined with other prime-number speeds, the period increases even more, thereby increasing the randomness

2010-07-10 04:14:00 Author: Holguin86 Posts: 875

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