🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <148@polyof.UUCP> john@polyof.UUCP ( John Buck ) writes:
>	If you nuke an 'impossible' sector.  ((x^y) & 01) != 0,
>	You get 4 wastelands out of it, instead of one.  We call
>	this phenomenon "Diamond nuking"

This is one of those rare cases where the phrase "That's not a bug, it's a
feature" can be applied correctly. Since damage from a nuclear bomb is
determined by distance from ground zero and megatonnage, it is perfectly
valid to drop 'between' sectors. It's just like dropping a bomb on the
Four Corners in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, it would still
damage all four states.

If you've never tried this, the blast pattern looks like this:

      1 4 5 4 1       Where 0=100% damage, 8=80% damage, etc. Note that this
     2 6 8 8 6 2      placement results in 2280 percentage points of sector
    2 7 0 / 0 7 2     damage as opposed to 2000 for a drop on a valid x,y.
     5 9 / / 9 5      (this is counting a wasteland as 100 points). A 2 megaton
    2 7 0 / 0 7 2     nuke only does 2500 points when fired at a valid x,y, so
     2 6 8 8 6 2      if your main goal is to optimize the kill/materials ratio,
      1 4 5 4 1       the 1 megaton nuke is by far the best buy. If, however,
                      your goal is to completely eliminate someone, this 1
megaton bombs complete destruction subpattern (the inner 8 sectors) will
map nicely onto an area like so:  In this illustration the numbers refer to
                            seperate bombs, a total of eight were used to wipe
   1 1 1                    out 64 sectors. 32 will be wastelands and 32 will
    1 1 2 2 2               be hit with 100% damage and revert to the diety.
   1 1 1 2 2 3 3 3          obviously this pattern can be repeated forever to
  4 4 4 2 2 2 3 3 5 5 5     cover any sized area. Just think, with only 512
   4 4 6 6 6 3 3 3 5 5      one megaton bombs you could destroy every sector in
  4 4 4 6 6 7 7 7 5 5 5     a 128x128 world (assuming 50% water). If you prefer
       6 6 6 7 7 8 8 8      bigger bombs, keep in mind that a five megaton nuke
            7 7 7 8 8       only does 3780 percentage points of damage, less
                 8 8 8      than the 4560 obtainable with two one megaton bombs.

Happy nuking!

Eric ("nuke 'em 'till they glow") Anderson
UC San Diego
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