Sorry if this has been asked before, but what happens when two sprites prototype each other?

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wanderguy
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Sorry if this has been asked before, but what happens when two sprites prototype each other?

Post by wanderguy » Tue Jan 30, 2024 6:35 pm

The way I see it, there are two options:

They prototype each other's singly-prototyped forms, leaving the secondary prototype in place, meaning no increase of prototypeability and two single sprites apparently unchanged, with all the imps and enemies getting the same ability

Or

Each prototypes the other's unprototyped form, leaving four sprites each with three prototypings remaining, and leaving all imps and other enemies with two prototypes remaining each.

Dear god. A salmon roe farm would be less of a headache.

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Shaddytheguy
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Re: Sorry if this has been asked before, but what happens when two sprites prototype each other?

Post by Shaddytheguy » Wed Jan 31, 2024 6:04 am

I think the implication in Caliborn's dead session is that his cruxtruder releases both sprites in the same space, which is why they flash between red/green and collapse into a black hole.

wanderguy
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Re: Sorry if this has been asked before, but what happens when two sprites prototype each other?

Post by wanderguy » Wed Jan 31, 2024 3:13 pm

Weird. Scans from John's story indicated that the sprites were massless even on an Einsteinian level...

That does imply some fashion of infinite recursion and I think inverse polish notation or lazy evaluation. :< So programmatically it's unsafe for kids, huh.

Seems like an easy fix; just add a Generation variable (constant struct duple, really) to sprites and set a hard limit on reprototypings just on the verge of something like a neutron star, leaving a little safe buffer zone so a player who tried to farm sprites still has time to prototype them as needed.

Of course it'd make the game monstrously hard but I'm sure some clever fellow will turn up soon with just the answers.

If it was "corrected" with a diminishing rate of typings or typing an untyped with a singly-typed, would the resulting pair share secondary "tangible" prototyping, if it occurred?

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