pickten/blueness_thoughts.md

## blueness_thoughts.md

      
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    Progress reports

Current state (a TLDR):

Stage -1 is in, was released with 4.0. Stage 0-1 (which go together) is drafted.
Their goal is to separate the colors. The first part,
the Shark is entirely drafted up to a bit of balancing and consistent-making, but
"post-Shark" content is not drafted fully. No code has been done on it.
Simulation

[Photo] [Nonfunctional]
https://jsfiddle.net/jbqcL65n/8/
[Shark] [Functional]
http://jsfiddle.net/pickten/2uvju59a/16/embedded/result/
Serious discussions:

This seemed to be a decently liked idea, so I've made a more fleshed out and modified version of it.
For obvious reasons, there's some overlap.
I've started to work on this over at https://gist.github.com/pickten/5e6888515be8e8bd5510, because I didn't realize gists could have
multiple files initially.
For related reasons, I'd appreciate it if no one else worked on Blueness coding for the moment (EDIT: go ahead).
Note that this is a track made up of self-contained stages --
there are costs to start each stage, and rewards from finishing each stage,
but there's not much interaction within each stage, since this is really about t1i more than OTC.
As I just alluded to, the Blueness track will act as a new sort of sand/castles for t1i, in that levels get raised in stages
(though those stages will be much cleaner than the messy and grindy sand/castle track, as you'll see).
I've also not finished many stages, so you'll see that no main Stuff goes infinite. Most stages multiply Blueness levels by around
1k-1G or so. Stages are measured not by what is achievable, or by production, but by Whale power.
Stage -1, Physics, is begun when you get Controlled Hysteresis, from ONG (possibly at NP0, I don't remember)
with Aperture Science. It's already in the TaT branch because it's how you arrive to TaT in the first place.
Blueness can be collected from TaTpix by clicking (not on Time).
Every 10 mNP, about 1% of your Blueness is destroyed (so half-life is 1NP).
When Blueness is destroyed, you get 2/3 of that amount of Otherness.
Otherness is not otherwise obtainable. Otherness also decays similarly. The decay aspects are done multiplicatively, so as to
avoid Mustard.
At 15 Otherness, you unlock "Argy," (cost: 45 Blueness) which lets you mix 50 Blueness and 50 Otherness into into 1 Blackness
(i.e. ink).
At 25 Otherness, you unlock "Blue's Hints," (cost: 75 Blueness), which doubles Blueness gains (clicking and otherwise).
At 50 Otherness, you unlock "Improved Scaling" (cost: 150 Blueness), which raises the Blue->other and other->blue ratios to 90%.
With 5 Blackness, you unlock "Polarizer" (cost: 3 Blackness).
Polarizer lets you spend 5 Blackness and 10^n Blueness/Otherness to turn them into 10^n Otherness/Blueness (for later, to allow
players to favor one base color when they really need it).
It also lets you spend 15 Blackness produce 1 Whiteness (i.e. erasers), but we'll get there in a minute. Basically, it does nothing
at this point. Finally, 10 Blackness can be spent to convert 10^n whiteness into 10^n blackness (not efficient...for a while).
Accumulating 300 Otherness gets you "Meteor", which costs 500 Otherness.
Accumulating 300 Blueness unlocks "Ocean Blue", which costs 500 Blueness.
Meteor produces 10 base Otherness per second, and Ocean Blue 1 base Blueness per sec (there's... a small gap),
but the latter is doubled by Blue's Hints.
Now, onto Blackness/Whiteness. By this point, players probably idly produce 1 Blackness/15sec if they craft decently often, so they
are probably looking at crafting whiteness, so they save up to 10 Blackness... unlocking "Robotic Inker" (cost: 7 Blackness),
which allows for auto-crafting colors. Now, players will save up for whiteness. Since Polarizer doesn't allow whiteness multibuy
at this point (it will later on), they can only make 1 at a time.
In the presence of a Blackness, Whiteness and Blackness quickly react and form nothing (i.e. they cancel each other out).
This happens at a rate of Whiteness^2*Blackness^2, though 1 white/black react immediately whenever white/black is crafted and rate>0.
If players avoid extra blackness, they can also obtain enough for "Not a Priest" (unlock: 1 whiteness, cost: same),
which collects a small amount of Grayness when Whiteness and Blackness cancel out
(grayness earned=0.5*amount of whiteness destroyed=0.5*blackness destroyed).
When you get 1 Grayness, you unlock "Equilibrium Constant" (cost: 1 Grayness), which can be toggled.
When on, Grayness also slowly reacts to form lots of Whiteness and Blackness, so that Whiteness can be accumulated (rate: Grayness),
and the auto-react doesn't happen (they still react on mNP, though). This soft-caps whiteness/blackness at (grayness)^1/4, allowing
a slow, but steady, progression.
At 3 Whiteness, players unlock "Hallowed Ground", which could later be required for a group of color-related Dragon boosts
(including one that could allow players to set a Biome before fledging that would affect the locals
and cause the Dragons to produce different Stuff/different amounts of Stuff).
It also releases a flow of 15 Whiteness/sec.
This new flow enables players to get 10 Whiteness for "Photoelectricity," which lets "Not a Priest" be disabled. When
NaP is disabled, every 5 W/B reactions produce a random boost from the following list. Obviously, it's streamlined like Mario:


"Atomic Pump": autobought/consumed. Raises the generation of Ocean Blue by 1.


"Blue Fragment": autobought/consumed. Adds 1 to the power of "Blue's Hints".


"A Splosion": tempboost. Decreases Ocean Blue's generation by 2 when cd ends (min 1),
but, when it is obtained, it randomly distributes
10-25 power, as explained below.


1 power: give 25 of a base color
1 power: give 1 whiteness/blackness
1 power: give 0.5 grayness.


"Retroactivity": Costs 10 Grayness. Lets 10 Grayness be traded for any of the recurring boosts. More expensive, but allows choice.
Has .photo=2, because it's weird and crazy.
"Diluted Boom": Costs 40 Grayness. Boosts cd of splosion by 1. .photo is 3
"Concentrated Boom": Costs 40 Grayness. Doubles splosion reward.

Players can ride the wave of fragment/pump/splosion for quite some time,
especially with Retroactivity for those wishing to avoid (or get!) splosion and the Booms to slow splosions once things are really
moving.  I'll run a quick simulation and/or actually test soonand edit to match.
I think this goes up to 30k/mNP or so, actually.
Stage 0, Chem is triggered by Photoelectricity.
A few minor things:

photo 36: "Inking a Hole": When active, the robotic inker will ink until it can't, instead of only once.
photo 64: "splosive splats": pInsan run count multiplied by sqrt[3](photo)
(this stuff should be silent)

If players get up to 68k Blue's Hints, they unlock "Song of the Squid" (name/number is a ref to Zong of the Zee/Sea, which requires
a total investment of 68 secrets). This costs 68k levels of Blue's Hints, plus 89.411M Blackness (the cost in echoes of buying
everything needed at Irem, not counting port reports -- CHECK THIS). This has the following
effects:

First, locks Argy.
"You come to your squid-making facilities, only to find them destroyed and a small note reading 'So Long' accompanied by a fish"
Second, unlocks "Look, Whale". (cost: 360k gray, 7200k whi, 1.44M bla, 2.88M oth, 5.76M blu?)
Third, Aperture Science's power is boosted by your photo level. (?)
Works sort of like WIWTMP for t1i, but not -- you feed various stuff, whale unlocks new boosts for photo and sometimes elsewhere.
Power -1 (default) gives access to Physics. Buying moves to Power 0 -- Chem

Now, it's time for the p-series to start being interesting -- they were weak before, tbh. What kind of stuff, you may ask?
Well, for starters the p-series is now the only reasonable way to trigger Photo when Photo levels don't matter.
This is formally recognized by the boost "Galvanic Cell" that is unlocked. This lets pH accumulate charges
(up to a limit of 75), so that players
can reasonably obtain higher photo levels. Note that this does not apply to pInsan.
With 75 pH charges (the max), they get to photo 75, which is a puzzle. It revolves around four series
of boosts (s, p, d, and f):
This is a puzzle like Lights Out. There are 16 boosts, arranged in a 4x4, with the sole s at the top left,
the 3 ps around it, the 5 ds around them, and the 7 fs forming the bottom and right edges.
These are numbered so that the left column is s1, p1, d1, f1, and so that adjacent squares of the same letter have the same
number.
The entire process is moderated by the Angry Shark, which is photo 75 and does the following:

add "Feed the Beast" to each s/p/d/f boost
have a "Phoenix-like Rebirth" button, along with a % indicator (fraction of the s/p/d/f boosts owned)

In stats mode, the Beast provides a few "pages" of hints.
"Feed the Beast" toggles the owned-ness of every boost in the same row or column as the boost fed at a cost of pi^(moves taken)
Grayness.
"Phoenix-like Rise" resets the puzzle (and cost) at the same cost.
This puzzle is not that hard once you have the grid in front of you
because of the p-series' remaining photo-able. An easy (horrible) soln is:
pInsanity
pH
sTorques
pOH
pInsanity
pH
pOH
dEnsity
dIstric acid
pOH
dUde terrarium
pOH
dEnsity
dUde terrarium
pOH
pH
fErmi question
fErmodynamics
fRench hens
fErns
pH
fAulting
pH
fAulting
fRench hens
pH
pOH
pInsanity
When the Angry Shark is fully fed (i.e. s/p/d/f are all owned), more stuff will happen. But for now, the boosts!

s1 is "sTorques" (Lets you sacrifice GC charges for Gray), a stoichiometry pun (though a stretch) and on storks.
p1 is pH
p2 is pInsan (The numbers are alphabetical, btw)
p3 is pOH
d1 is "dEnsity", which causes the Galvanic Cell cap to go up 1 for each max mNP in splosion's timer.
d2 is "dI am magnetic", which significantly increases Adamantine Armour's effectiveness. (pun on diamagnetism)
d3 is "dIstric acid" (pun on distro and nitric acid), which produces sqrt[4?](current blueness) Grayness.
d4 is "dRi & dOlulene", which gives splosion a 1/20 chance to raise its timer by 1mNP permanently. (D&D and TNT pun)
d5 is "dUde terrarium", which doubles the charge production of pH (pun on deuterium)
f1 is "fAulting", takes your production n to 2n-2 (applied last) (joke on falting/r-h) "her wit's quite sharp" (TOO OBSCURE?)
f2 is "fErmenting", which lowers photo reqs by log_1337(n)%, where n is the amount of Grayness you have.
f3 is "fErmi teaser", which doubles the splosion cap whenever it's sufficienly close to 5*10^k.
f4 is "fErmodynamics", which lets photo level go up with all reactions (even when photo power wouldn't) (entropy/thermo joke)
f5 is "fErns", which ahem signals you the location of temp stuff in the overall ahem architecture. (Elm joke)
f6 is "fOrmula of the Alt. Theory", drops Gray prod. at the benefit of others (togglable -- amt. = ln(gray)) (c.f. Dresden Codak)
f7 is "fRench Hens", which quintuples gold rewards "Pardon my French, but 'bwok bok bok bok'" (5 gold rings,...)

This may take some work. Anyways, whenever the shark is fully fed, the "Feed the Beast" option disappears (Rebirth
stays, and using it consequently restores the FtB and Vomit options) and the name is changed to "Shark".
Now, we unlock "Aquamarine",
which allows Equilibrium Constant to be sacrificed to the Whale. Suck it up, ya wimps. Gray still slows reaction rate.
Thus, we move to the next stage.
Stage 1, Engineering is triggered by Aquamarine, as noted earlier. This is a bit... different from before. Whereas
that was all about Grayness, this is about, well, everything else.
The Whale now offers four different boosts. Buying 1 hides the rest for 10k mNP:
The Trail (of clues)
The Hollistic approach
The Animals
The Monstrosity
These collectively unlock four groups of boosts, which are based on the colors.
Trail (Blue):
Blue is a straightforward color. It doesn't play around, and drives the flow of content.

"Testudinal Teachings": 50% more Blueness. "Yeah, there's this weird other color, but meh. Turtles rock."
"Torquoise Heater": You may spend 10^(n) Blueness to boost GC charge growth by a factor of n for the next n mNP.
"Transitive Manifolds": When buying a boost or every 100mNP, randomly pick a color.
Blueness becomes max(blueness, that color) -- I think the name is meaningless. I apologize if it actually does have meaning.
"Teuthidanado": Boosts Blue Hint by 1% per photo level-- Sorry Sharknado. Squids are cooler.
"Temporal Antiplumber": Spending 100^(n) Blue here boosts IP efficiency by a factor of 10^(n) (because no Blue Mario char)

Hollistic (Oth):
Otherness is somewhat easy to come by, but tough to manage properly. It gives great bonuses when things are properly
balanced, but can hurt somewhat if things get too out of whack.

"Heart Mass":
Boosts Blueness production by a factor of (WIP)

10^(3^( (3r^(-ln(r)) -2) ) + ln( min(r+0.1,1) )  ),
where r=min(Blue/Oth,Oth/Blue). Basically very good when r>0.6 OK if r>0.5, and bad if r<0.4, but hopefully self-correcting.


"Heat": Boosts decay creation by a factor of 101%^(integral (2r-1)dt) with r as before.


"Hexagonal Horror": Boosts Oth production by 10% per 6 in your Blueness total (compounding).


"Holy Textiles": Boosts r by 10% always (apologies to Holly Textiles; that was an accident).


"Hard Asp": Hexag Horror's count is boosted by a factor of r+0.5. (see also: Platypus; another accident)


Animals (Black):
Black is the color of stuff. It's everywhere, but mostly when you want to scale up and in splosions.


"Ash Art": Splosion reward is multiplied by the number of consec. mNP with splosion gets (reset on booms).


"Artificing": Splosion max is increased by log(max(combo)) (see Ash Art for combo)


"Apathetic Hedgehog": Produces 1 black per second.


"Animated Twig": Blue fragment scales off of log(black)


"Anion Masher": Atomic pump counts go up with log(black)


Monstrosity (White):
White, by contrast to Black, is essentially nonexistent. Its effects are typically to take away, but usually
by taking away negative effects.


"Manatee": Splosions are a little less destructive.


"Muskrat Mania": Decreases contradiction chance by 1% (compounding) per max t1i NP. (Don't ask why muskrats)


"Metal Armory": Decreases decay by da log of your white. (If only I could get more alliteration there. Sigh)


"Maille Thrower": Decreases damage taken by dragons by 0.1% per log10(defense).


"Mark Halving": Reactions use half as much stuff.


The way forward (variegation):

I've not really thought much about what'll happen from here on out with Blueness, but there are some things I want to do.
I think the plan is that, in the long run, it'll go roughly
(dim tech) -> physics (cough cough photo) -(pH)> chem (cough cough ??) -(sub?squid?)> bio (cough cough ??) -> engineering?
-(gates?)> compsci -> ??? -> dim tech (probably)
Either compsci or engi will have logic gates.
They'll probably just be gates in name only, IDK. But something needs to have logic gates, just for "Varie-gate".
All but the first have heavy emphasis on 1-2 colors.
More crafting. Polarizer was nice and interesting, but there's totally got to be more we can do. Maybe with the gates? But then we'd
basically have more Stuff, so I doubt it.
More crazy. Photoelectricity is a surprise, I'm guessing. It's pretty different from the OTC content, and that's good. Decay is
also pretty good for that reason. The more different TaT is from OTC (so long as TaT feels like SB at its core and still
fells decently unified), the better,
because new content will eventually start to feel like t1i content, or like OTC content, rather than generically SB content,
and that's cool. This is part of why I like variegation. There's a lot of stuff in it, but it's very tightly linked due to
a mix of decay, Argy, Polarizer, the inker itself, and even photoelectricity. If we can achieve that in TaT, while maintaining the
sort of ambulatory feel in OTC, and core SB-ness in both, consider this point handled.