SpaceChem

It's time for more Leylite Space Chem puzzles. There's 10 new puzzles, ranging in difficulty from "Eh, I did something similar to this in the main campaign, I'll be OK" to "Hmm, kind of tricky." I'm pretty sure each one of them has some good optimization potential both in symbols and in cycles.

Many thanks go to blueeyedrat for helping me work on some of these.

http://pastebin.com/UwudJsez

I'd like to emphasize that if you, the reader, have any kind of mildly strong opinion on these at all, feel free to let me know. I really enjoy reading comments and constructive criticism about my own work.

edited 20th Apr '13 1:46:30 PM by Leylite

The Something Awful Space Chem Tournament 2013 has been announced in this thread. (I think the SA paywall is up right now, though.) It's hosted by WildM, a previous finalist who made a strong showing with some creative solutions.

Basically it's going to be incredible.

edited 1st Jun '13 6:48:12 AM by Leylite

For non-SA users (such as myself), the tournament will also be hosted on the Steam forums.

Man I hope I can get some decent solutions in...I'm never that good at optimizing them (and didn't played the game for a while)

1st set of tourney puzzle is here

Well, I've submitted my solutions for Week 1. Might play around with them later, but for now, We Wait.

The open tournament is over, and the round of 16 is on! Just missed out on a spot, unfortunately (19th overall). Wishing you luck, Leylite. As for me, I might drop a Code Obfuscation challenge submission or two. Just made a one-reactor, particle-smashing solution for "3 Ω Acids".

Thanks for the well-wishes. I'll see what I can do.

Well, in-between the Space Chem tournament rounds, I've made great progress on solving a great many ResearchNet puzzles, including the notorious Life series, Squaric Acid and most of the cake>pie levels. Getting Pumped is still looming in the background, however.

Anyway, I also took the time to make a few more puzzles. Here's the link to my puzzles again:

http://pastebin.com/UwudJsez

One of the tournament participants, AlphaRaptor, is also apparently putting together a puzzle compilation from several architects, myself and Lanky included. I made a contribution of some additional puzzles to that. So there's that to look forward to as well.

Frankly, the tournament looks like it's ramping up the difficulty of its puzzles pretty heavily. I'm looking forward to the triumphant (and maddening) return of the Templates, which I'm positive we haven't seen the last of.

edited 3rd Sep '13 5:35:17 PM by Leylite

Of the three levels you just added, my solutions were Shared Space in 147/26 and Shared Space II in 280/36. Lots of rotating in the second one. I kept trying to figure out a way to particle smash through Supernitrous (504/42), but it never bore fruit. Looking forward to finding some new stuff in AlphaRaptor's collection.

http://www.reddit.com/r/spacechem/comments/1qh5ad/spacechem_researchnet_submissions_open/

Zachtronics is taking submissions from regular old puzzle authors (like you and me), in order to create the last ResearchNet issue of the game (for now). It's essentially one last great push to get a ton of puzzles online.

Each author can submit up to 15 puzzles (5 volumes), which should be more than enough.

edited 19th Nov '13 5:58:44 PM by Leylite

The final ResearchNET update (for the forseeable future) is live! Some puzzles from both tournaments, plus some brand new challenges (with a few familiar faces in the mix).

PC Gamer is giving away one millions copies of SpaceChem for free! Get 'em while they're hot!

I'm getting back to this game years later. Getting stymied way too often...