Yes, I think everyone considers that an MSL. It's possible that the Feds only go one way, but dunno if it has ever been tested. You'll note in the targets list from Sing's example that after sector 10, it returns to sector 1 and then to Stardock, for this very reason, if 1 -> SD is different than SD -> 1.

Also, a better targets list would be:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 SD RYLOS AC SD AC RYLOS SD

These sectors and routes are included in msl's and it doesn't matter if any of these routes include one way sectors or not.

Sectors 1 thru 10
The Stardock
1 to Stardock
Stardock to 1
Alpha to Stardock
Stardock to Alpha
Rylos to Stardock
Stardock to Rylos
Alpha to Rylos
Rylos to Alpha

Any citadel in the above sectors would go lvl 2 at tern..except 1 and sd which prevent inception.
Fig and mines would be removed except for 1 thru 10 and dock which prevent them being laid.

So all the above would be msl's (major space lanes).

Surrounding all the above would prevent a towed Trader from escaping. Which is the purpose of an Amtrak if any newer player where viewing...we didnt explain..our bad.

You guys are slacking off. It can be done in less than 19 lines, so let's see some innovative ideas. I think I can do it in 11 lines. Heh, you should prolly call BS on that.

Sometime tomorrow I'll post a conventional ~30 line approach, and my flawed 19 line approach that prompted Sing's 19 liner.

I've also come up with several approaches that yield less than 19 lines, which I'll post as time allows. Maybe they'll spark a few ideas. One used the readToArray idea, which Prom also thought of. Very innovative.

well I usually twarp to amtrak list so good luck to you. I am getting to old for express warping. Pgrid is my more usual style.

Hope noone minds.. I'm on vacation and had a little time to sit down and spit something out. Using Sing's macro (can't remember how to write a macro to save my corpies life ). Naturally the TXT file has the list of all target sectors --EP tipped me off to that idea.


11 Lines. would be 10; except the script needs the waiton to help keep it in pace with the twgs. Also of note; I added the "** /" to the end of sings macro because CURRENTSECTOR does'nt always update properly.

ROTFLOL. Well if we can use external files, then why not just use includes?

LS, 2 things. 1, it has to be the complete code, no precreated text files (or includes). 2, that routine doesn't fig surrounding sectors, assuming MSLs.txt just lists the MSL sectors themselves.

The readToArray trick is where you create an array (and count $variable) in just 3 lines of code:
delete file.txt
write file.txt "1*2*3*4*5*6*7*8*9*10*1" // list separated by returns
readToArray file.txt $array

Here is the basic outline for my old amtrak, but realize there are issues with it... mostly that it uses "<" to return to the MSL sector, which breaks if it passes through a one-way.
Then, if you take that and put the gosub routines inline, and remove the 2 lines for legibility, you get a similarly limited 19 line variant.

I offer those examples as concise code, but the one-way flaw prevents it from being a viable amtrak. Still, use that as a starting point and see what you can do with it.

Actually... the GoSub OR Halt isn't needed... twx wil automatically run the code in the file mentioned in the include file. So all you need is:




Sorry. Seemed to me an awful lot of assumptions were being made.. not sure why the so called 'Target' list can't also include the MSL Adjacents. Case and Point: Everyone is using GetCourse, which assumes that a complete map already exists. If this isn't an accurate assumption, then I'd have to ask why nobody's code accounts for a possible "-1" returned by GetCourse? Seems logical to have a already generated list of 'Target' Sectors.

Fewest-line challenges are good; in this case I think the challenge should cover a few 'basic' and realistic eventuallities.

Looking forward to the solution.

well do a dscan from each sector along the msl and you will get the adj map.

Yes, but that assumes your include is structured a particular way. If you use gosubs, it's
likely things will be called out-of-order



Agreed, in reality there's a lot more to consider.



Dscan or sector display. But, that only works if the prior getCourse didn't return a -1.

So for the record...



Doesn't count as the winning entry for one line?

Actually I can do it in 0 lines.
Right click on twx icon, left click on load script, position arrow on amtrak script, and left click again.
Beat that...

I asked this question before and got an answer but I do not think you think what I think I think.

setVar $targets "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 " & STARDOCK & " " & RYLOS & " " & ALPHACENTAURI & " " & STARDOCK & " " & ALPHACENTAURI & " " & RYLOS & " " & STARDOCK

Where is the route from stardock to terrra in this?
from what I see we have
Terra to Fedspace
Terra to SD
SD to Rylos
Rylos to AC
AC to SD and back again
AC to Rylos and Rylos to SD

Yes I agree that it is only one more character but in our haste to be concise we forgot about the SD to Terra route
and while we were at that we used a constant for the length of the target array.

That is 2 errors that I have spotted after looking for about 5 minutes.
Also while not errors the variable names targets and target WILL cause confusion at some point

Also just looking at the code what happens when there is a planet with cannons set to sector fire and
you go and attempt to grid it?

Yes if you are only interested in figging MSL's then cannons shouldn't be a problem because you will only use
this after tern when planets in MSL's will get downgraded to level 2.

It's not there, but it's easily added. Just go from 10 to stardock, stardock back to 1, then 1 to stardock.



Well, if we're going to try to make it safe you're going to have a completely different script. None of
this is torp safe. Or turn efficient. In the real world, it'd be completely different.



Actually, you'd run an amtrack right before extern, to lock in towees.