Chronic Logic

I'll also add my voice to the "don't add that feature" crowd... I like Pontifex in the sense it's a game I can think through as much as I want without worrying about time limits.

I just tried Light Steel tension ability - similar story:
http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress05.gif" border="0"> http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress06.gif" border="0">
There's no problems with the 4-unit beams, the 3-unit beams do a bit worse, 2-units a lot worse, and once again the 1-unit beam can only just about support its own weight! No news here, just showing it's the same for tension & compression.

Something unusual I did stumble across. Remember that objects-fall-at-equal-rates theory? Well, doesn't seem to work in Pontifex:
http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress07.gif" border="0"> http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress08.gif" border="0">
You can see in the first shot that the longer beams broke first and yet just before they hit the ground, you can see that the 1-unit beams are falling much faster than the 2-unit ones... (ignore the 3-unit beams, they've already partially crashed into the ground in the 2nd shot). Why is this? Shouldn't be air resistance (if that's even factored into the engine) since they all have the same horizontal surface area, and other than air resistance, all objects should fall at the same rate, right?

Switching over to cables:
http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress03.gif" border="0"> http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress04.gif" border="0">
I just put a bunch of cable lengths and as many heavy steel beams as it could support. Any cable 6-units or longer could support 6 beams (the longer cables were stretchier, but supported the load no better and no worse). But once you get below 6 units, things get much worse:
6-units = 6 Heavy Steel beams
5-units = 5 Heavy Steel beams
4-units = 4 Heavy Steel beams
3-units = 2 Heavy Steel beams
2-units = 1 Heavy Steel beam

The discussion of internal structural-elment angles and such shouldn't apply here, should it? A cable is, well, just that, there's no joints, angles, etc (or at least there shouldn't be). So what's the deal here?

In the case of cables, they don't snap in half, they break at the joint with the steel - the steel isn't any different no matter how long the cable, so it can't be the steel breaking, but why should the strength of the cable be dependent on its length?

This has been mentioned before, but not resolved (to my knowledge) - why is it that the strength of a beam/cable is proportional to its length? Such that a 1-unit beam/cable will support virtually no additional stress, but longer structural elements will be much much stronger...

For example, here are three Heavy Steel pillars (just to give a common footing) supporting the highest tower that won't collapse with 1-unit, 2-unit and 4-unit light steel beams:
http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress01.gif" border="0"> http://sili.hn.org:8080/temp/pontifexstress02.gif" border="0">
As you can see, the 4-unit beams can have 9 beams without collapse (10 collapses after several seconds), 2-unit beams can only go up 5 beams, and 1-unit beams, wow... it can't even support anything beyond the weight of itself! This has got to be a physics bug of some sort (mat-c may have mentioned the problem http://www.chroniclogic.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=5&topic=8" target="_blank">here?) The same issue is apparent with cables - short ones can't support much at all

This is high on my priority list of things that should be fixed, I think...

Quote: from Calastigro on 1:55 pm on Oct. 23, 2001
One thing i dont think you're factoring in... Cable is heavy!  we're talking huge steel cable here!  after a certain point, cable should snap under its own weight.Exactly! But the longer cables (which should be weaker because they're supporting more of their own weight) are stronger than shorter ones!

I wouldn't mind seeing a price-distribution chart of how many people submitted bridges for $####

Quote: from beaujob on 5:07 pm on Oct. 22, 2001
once in a while a bridge design doesn't require the metal on the sides of roadway.  Is it fair to require that these links don't break either?For the purposes of the competition, it's a good idea to only allow "clean" bridges, but it is frustrating - I've made some nice "almost-clean" bridges that work fine, but aren't 100% clean for ฝ,000 cheaper than my best clean bridge... http://www.pontifex2.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('>

You can see my (non-winning) bridge designs here: http://www.sili.net/pontifex/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.sili.net/pontifex/index.html