The great thing about Titanic, was that there were so many different ways to solve it.
The worst thing about Titanic, was that there were so many different ways to solve it, it was hard to explore all of the alternative options. Everyone did something different.
Most used rockets, including a very intrepid explorer who climbed every inch of the iceberg, and even fell in the water on the far side, before making his way back to the lifeboat. I know adventure movies contrive the danger, but that was ridiculous!
Nice one, Dec10. Then there was the submariner, who held his breath in the bowels of the collapsing ship, before finally rushing to the surface and safety.
Most rocketeers made their way up the stairs, usually not quite getting onto the deck before the iceberg hit, but they all coped admirably with the panic. Using a timer to kill the rocket tow was common, but I managed to find a few ways to avoid needing a timer - it depended how lucky you were with how close the rocket went to the lifeboat.
Then there were the lateral thinkers. Those that literally went sideways.
One exited the side of the ship above the water, swimming over to the lifeboat before being helped on board.
And one who torpedoed the ship from the inside, making a submerged escape, before snagging on a fishing line from the lifeboat and heading for the surface and safety.
It was very hard to pick a winning script. There was even a last minute entry that made the final result nail-bitingly close, and could so very easily have been tweaked into a win.
But, the Academic Award for most Economical Survival goes to….. (cue drum roll)
2692 Andrew!
For outstanding bravery and upstaging James Bond, with a dramatic torpedo escape that sank the Titanic long before the iceberg struck.
Many congratulations on your first outright win since returning to competition. Sorry, no time for an acceptance speech.
But the story does not quite end there......
KuzyaHG managed to break open the side of the ship, and use a single elastic to exit the Titanic. But it turned out that using a compressed rubber launcher was much, much cheaper. And the weakening of the hull meant that it collapsed in a way that it could be used to help Orlandillo into the lifeboat, too. I tweaked away, raising his early 2506 entry to 2700-2702, and his latest 2556 effort all the way to 2746, well ahead of the winning rocket entry.
While the final result looks quite different, it was a 100% evolution from his results, first changing the launcher, then removing his lifeboat helper and working with the ship collapse to get the final result.
At the last minute, Alex submitted a through-the-side solution that looked very much like my 2700 tweaks, and using a rubber launcher (congratulations for finding it!). At 2682, he was only just pipped by Andrew. It then took me 3 seconds to make one simple change to his solution to raise it to 2712........
Oh, the drama!
A nail biting finish indeed, and in spite of a rocket (well, torpedo) win, it was a rubber launcher that could have won comfortably.
So many files, they’re in two .zips.
Results contains all submitted results.
TweaksandPOCs contains, well, tweaks and POCs. Some of the early POCs were made in an early version of the level, with different starting funds and (in one case) more water and the iceberg further away. Doesn't change the physics.
I also found 3 ways to achieve Dec10’s IfOnlyNoTimer – by breaking the rocket, by breaking the cloth, and by capturing the cloth with rocket still blasting away (a lucky accident, failing to break the cloth, but still a neat result).
Thanks very much, everyone, for having a go and submitting your highly varied and entertaining solutions.
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