Week 5 Tutorial: Step one number

Pick one constant in the specimen's rules, step it evenly across six values, and find out whether difficulty followed.

25 March 2027

Before the tutorial#

Fork the specimen. Choose your constant before you arrive and write down what you expect the curve to look like. Enemy speed, spawn interval and boss health are all reasonable. Do not choose the boss’s time limit; the lecture already spoiled it.

In the tutorial#

Six values, 51 runs each, same seeds throughout. Plot wins against the value of the constant, by hand if you like.

Compare the plot with what you wrote down before you arrived. The gap between the two is what this course is for.

Where it goes wrong#

• One metric. Starting hearts stepped from 1 to 6: wins go 1, 2, 12, 23, 31, 37 out of 51. Median survival goes 48.8 s, 85.0 s, 101.6 s, 117.2 s, 120.0 s, 120.0 s. At five hearts the median hits the end of the run and stops answering, while wins are still climbing. Report both, and notice when one of them has gone quiet.
• Reading a curve into noise. Bolt damage stepped from 13 to 23: wins go 12, 9, 12, 14, 13, 11. That is not a curve with a dip at 15. Last week a second set of seeds moved a median by 7 s; a wiggle of three wins is the dice.
• A range that sits on one side of the cliff. If all six values win, or all six lose, you have learned where the cliff is not. Widen the range and say that you did.

What a finished answer looks like#

Starting hearts, 1 to 6, the 100 ms player, 51 runs on seeds 1 to 51. Wins: 1, 2, 12, 23, 31, 37. The cliff is between 2 and 3 hearts: one step there is worth 10 wins, and the step before it is worth 1.

Afterwards#

Today’s quiz answer is the six-row table. Assignment 1 asks for exactly this, done properly, on a constant you have not used yet.