Editing 2916: Machine

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| Cat || Swats away balls in front of itself (was added later) || [[File:2916_cat_new.png|frameless|upright=0.25]]
 
| Cat || Swats away balls in front of itself (was added later) || [[File:2916_cat_new.png|frameless|upright=0.25]]
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! colspan="3" style="text-align:center" | Non-physical items
 
 
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| Right-facing Ponytail, with raised arms || Intangible decoration || [[File:2916_ponytail_arms.png|frameless|upright=0.125]]
 
| Right-facing Ponytail, with raised arms || Intangible decoration || [[File:2916_ponytail_arms.png|frameless|upright=0.125]]
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:† — The hinged scoops are strictly horizontal, on building. They will rotate away from and (spring back to) horizontal according to interactions with balls or other non-decorative items that may be placed to disturb their balance, sometimes with further interesting interactions (that may or may not be intentional or useful). There are two selectable versions of this item. (The only ''other'' object class with a clear (and practical) asymmetry, for which a mirrored chirality can be chosen from the sidebar, are the two versions of triangular "Bonk"-bumpers.)
 
:† — The hinged scoops are strictly horizontal, on building. They will rotate away from and (spring back to) horizontal according to interactions with balls or other non-decorative items that may be placed to disturb their balance, sometimes with further interesting interactions (that may or may not be intentional or useful). There are two selectable versions of this item. (The only ''other'' object class with a clear (and practical) asymmetry, for which a mirrored chirality can be chosen from the sidebar, are the two versions of triangular "Bonk"-bumpers.)
  
:‡ — The wheel is an actively rotating element that starts off, by default, spinning anticlockwise. Pressing or tapping left/right arrow keys, when a placed wheel is selected, will adjust that wheel's rotation rate to be more/less anticlockwise. Adjusting it beyond zero rotation allows you to make it spin in the opposite direction.
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:‡ — The wheel is an actively rotating element that starts off, by default, spinning anticlockwise. Pressing or tapping left/right arrow keys, selected, will adjust the rotation rate to be more/less anticlockwise. Adjusting it beyond zero rotation allows you to make it spin in the opposite direction.
:Rotation can be increased well beyond the point at which the {{w|wagon-wheel effect}} occurs<!-- does it depend upon browser rendering frequency, or is there a convenient refresh-cap-rate built into the rendering engine? -->, which may make it difficult to work out the spin direction of an overspeed wheel element (and thus which arrow keys will slow or speed up its rotation, if you have forgotten), though observing its impact upon any balls that strike it ''should'' make its current spin-direction obvious.
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: Rotation can be increased well beyond the point at which the {{w|wagon-wheel effect}} occurs<!-- does it depend upon browser rendering frequency, or is there a convenient refresh-cap-rate built into the rendering engine? -->, which may make it difficult to work out the spin direction of an overspeed wheel element (and thus which arrow keys will slow or speed up its rotation, if you have forgotten), though its effects upon an balls that strike it should be obvious.
:The 'bounding editing box' will usually appear rotated, possibly according to the spinning graphic's current orientation upon selection, but remains at that (often non-orthagonal) angle even as the wheel spins (if it can) during this period of selection for editing.
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:The 'bounding editing box' will usually appear rotated, possibly according to the spinning graphic's orientation upon selecting, but remains at that often-oblique angle even as the wheel spins (if it can) during its time selected for dragging around.  
 
 
All other items can be manually re-angled by a 'loop node' arm extending from the bounding box. If you cannot see the 'angle node' for such a selected item, which is normally at the top of any freshly placed item but follows any re-angling that may have already applied, it could be that you have placed the item too close to the edge in which direction the node extends. To rotate it, move the object away from the edge to access the construction node (after which, you can drag the object back if required – but see below).
 
 
 
Rotation may be limited by the {{w|minimum bounding box}} that is the 'selection box', this is not necessarily the more flush {{w|convex hull}} of the collision-map built into the graphic. Should a corner of the bounding box need to move across the edge of the build-area, it will do nothing more than touch the edge until there is sufficient angle-drag to snap it to the angle from which that corner now comes back away from the edge; or, when it has a long straight edge currently flush with the edge boundary, it may snap to exactly 180°, in rotation, whereupon the opposite long straight edge is flush to the construction area edge. All objects that are drag-moved, similarly, cannot be moved any further than their current bounding box touching the construction-area edging. The bounding box for the rotating wheel is a notable exception to this, being not under any direct angle-control by the player. Instead, it seems to use the bounding inscribed circle that defines the wheel edge iteslf.
 
 
 
Apart from some interactions between the hinged scoops and any element (including other hinged scoops), there is no preventative 'collision detection' between objects during user-placement, which may overlap/cover each other (the most recently spawned item graphically overlays any earlier one). The wheel object will only spin if not constrained by other physical elements (including the spokes of an adjacent wheel, not in counter-rotation) but can still be dragged and placed anywhere within the boundary of the construction area.
 
  
The continuous stream(s) of balls respect all ''tangible'' objects, which includes any currently being dragged/rotated, though may prematurely vanish if forced between two items moved to touch/overlap each other. It is possible to to indirectly nudge balls by carefully moving a tangible object's surface into them (or holding them within it, e.g. the "cup"). This may be useful for rescuing temporarily stray balls (before they time-out anyway), unjamming an area with a construction-induced glut ''or'' for testing a ball-path that is not currently being fed 'naturally'. Doing so ''can'' then conceivably fulfil all the exit-gate requirements (temporarily), as it might also transiently spoil some required routing, but the manual intervention will not be possible once a 'machine' has been submit.
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:All other items can be manually re-angled by a 'loop node' arm extending from the bounding box. If you cannot see the 'angle node' for such a selected item, which is normally at the top of any freshly placed item but follows any further re-angling, you may have placed the item too close to the edge and need to move it away enough to access the construction node. Rotation may be limited by the {{w|minimum bounding box}} which is the 'selection box', which is not necessarily the more flush {{w|convex hull}} of the respective graphic. Should a corner of this need to move across the edge of the build-area, it will do nothing more than touch the edge until there is sufficient angle-drag to snap it to the angle where it is coming back away from the edge; or, when it has a long straight edge currently flush with the edge boundary, it may snap to exactly 180° round whereupon the opposite long straight edge is flush to the construction area edge. All objects, that are drag-moved, similarly will not move any further than the point its bounding box touches the edging. (The bounding box for the rotating wheel is a notable exception to this, being not under any direct angle-control by the player. Instead, it seems to uses the bounding inscribed circle that defines the wheel edge iteslf.)
  
===Non-player items===
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===Other items===
  
 
Ball containers at the bottom of the machine
 
Ball containers at the bottom of the machine
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** Follow balls: Ctrl + Alt/Option + B (now also accessible by using the button provided)
 
** Follow balls: Ctrl + Alt/Option + B (now also accessible by using the button provided)
 
** Show debug overlay: Ctrl + Shift + Win/Cmd + D
 
** Show debug overlay: Ctrl + Shift + Win/Cmd + D
***  This may particularly clash with browser functionality, e.g. Firefox's "New Bookmarks" dialogue which will need closing, though still activating the overlay graphics.
 
 
** Delete selected item: Delete (Fn + Delete on Mac)
 
** Delete selected item: Delete (Fn + Delete on Mac)
 
*When Randall posted a [https://www.facebook.com/TheXKCD/posts/pfbid0Cs97awQZi1ZiaEXouAex9tXrwAS3qJV3RmAiuCq5uvZQwqZVMgDmcqJ7JU9LYodYl link to this comic] on his [https://www.facebook.com/TheXKCD Facebook feed], he directly wrote that it was a late April Fools' Day!
 
*When Randall posted a [https://www.facebook.com/TheXKCD/posts/pfbid0Cs97awQZi1ZiaEXouAex9tXrwAS3qJV3RmAiuCq5uvZQwqZVMgDmcqJ7JU9LYodYl link to this comic] on his [https://www.facebook.com/TheXKCD Facebook feed], he directly wrote that it was a late April Fools' Day!

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