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My third "alternate ending" idea in 3 days (This one's for Roux)

blah

brah
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Hmmm...you have many ideas Mr. Blah :)

I noticed the lack of "new" or "quality" just before the word "ideas" ;)

Just kidding :p I don't really intend to personally develop every single one of my thoughts to the fullest potential. Most of the time, this happens :D

Definition of this: I post something I find potentially interesting, and someone comes up and talks a bit about it, and another guy comes, and another, and another, and another, and they start developing the idea to the point where I have no idea what they're talking about :p (Or maybe they're not even talking about my original idea at all! :eek: :p)
 

Athefre

Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
Messages
1,248
I believe there are some shortcuts to be found. If you keep practicing you could probably shorten the average by 1-2 moves.



That's neat because I found a few that were shorter:

M U' M U M' U2 M U' M U' M (11,12) - UF/UB
Alternative:

M U M' U2 M U M' (7,8) - UF/UR
Alternative:

M' U2 M' U2 M' U' M U2 M U2 M (11,15) - UL/UF/UR/UB
Alternative:

M' U M' U2 M' U M' U M U' M' (11,12) - UF/DF
Alternative: MU2M'UMUMU2M (9)

M' U M U' M' U2 M (7,8) - UL/UF/UR/DF
Alternative:

M U' M U2 M U' M U' M' U M (11,12) - UB/DB
Alternative: M'U2MU'M'U'M'U2M' (9)

M U' M' U M U2 M' (7,8) - UL/UB/UR/DB
Alternative: M'UMUM' (5)

M' U' M' U M U' M (7,7) - DF/DB
Alternative:

M' U2 M' U2 M U' M' U' M2 (9,12) - UL/UR/DF/DB
Alternative: M'U2M'U2M' (5) - If you were using Gilles system, it's only one (!) move to orient edges here - M'

M U M U M U M (7,7) - UF/UR/DF/DB
Alternative:

M' U M' U M' U M2 U' M U2 M' U' M (13,15) - UL/UF/UR/UB/DF/DB
Alternative:

I didn't bother much with the 7 move solutions, I focused on the ones with 9 moves or more. I wish I could have found something better for the 13 move case :(

I'll keep thinking about it.

I am speechless. When I did your 5 move alternative, my eyes nearly popped out! This is because it shaves 2 moves off an already short algorithm, but also because that is one of the 11 cases which has a mirror (my case 5).

The drop from 9 moves to 5 moves in case 9 is also astounding.

So far, this drops the average algorithm length from 9.18 moves to 8.09 moves!

So I have to ask: How did you find these? I used Ron's sticker mode solver to generate the original algorithms. I wonder if I have been using it to its fullest (Use the check centers function, or not? Wrong starting position for the 3 U layer edges flipped, 1 D layer edge flipped). Are you figuring these out manually?

I don't know how to use those different cube solving programs, ACube especially annoys me (I wish someone would teach me how to use it to get sequences I want).

So I found them myself. I've been using "Roux" for 3 years and have spent most of my time studying Step 4 trying to completely understand it. I'm still trying to figure out a shorter solution for your 13 move case.

EDIT: I found one. M'UM'UMUM'U2M'UM (11)
 
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cubacca1972

Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
147
I don't know how to use those different cube solving programs, ACube especially annoys me (I wish someone would teach me how to use it to get sequences I want).

So I found them myself. I've been using "Roux" for 3 years and have spent most of my time studying Step 4 trying to completely understand it. I'm still trying to figure out a shorter solution for your 13 move case.

EDIT: I found one. M'UM'UMUM'U2M'UM (11)

Once again, wow.

I am very impressed with your ability to see/sense room for improvement in an algorithm. I am still a brute force thinker. The organic nature of the Roux method is still a bit hard for me to get my brain around.

Average number of moves has now dropped from 9.18 to 7.9.

Absolutely fascinating to me that Ron's solver missed your finds. Either I did something wrong, or the program has a blind spot for U/M group solves.

I tried fiddling with A Cube a while ago without much success. I may need to revisit the program and see if I can get it to work on this project. The only alternative is to manually try all the algorithms, which would be too time consuming:

5 moves: 243
7 moves: 2 187
9 moves: 19 683

I started trying to do this with the 7 move set, but revisited the numbers and decided my time would be better spent figuring out A Cube.

I will report back with any A Cube findings.

BTW, very amusing that the one pattern can be oriented Roux style with one move.
 

Athefre

Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
Messages
1,248
cubacca1972 said:
I will report back with any A Cube findings.


Hopefully it will get rid of those other two 11 move cases.

cubacca1972 said:
BTW, very amusing that the one pattern can be oriented Roux style with one move.


I mentioned shortcuts, here is an example you could be using:

In the M'U2M'U2M' case, if the two misoriented edges on U aren't in the slots where UL/UR are supposed to go, you can still orient the edges with one move (adjust U so the free UL/UR slots are facing the F and B layer and do M') if you can stand having your edges being split up. The of course to finish UL/UR do a U2MU2M or U2M'U2M.
 

cubacca1972

Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
147
cubacca1972 said:
I will report back with any A Cube findings.


Hopefully it will get rid of those other two 11 move cases.

cubacca1972 said:
BTW, very amusing that the one pattern can be oriented Roux style with one move.


I mentioned shortcuts, here is an example you could be using:

In the M'U2M'U2M' case, if the two misoriented edges on U aren't in the slots where UL/UR are supposed to go, you can still orient the edges with one move (adjust U so the free UL/UR slots are facing the F and B layer and do M') if you can stand having your edges being split up. The of course to finish UL/UR do a U2MU2M or U2M'U2M.

Very cool. Depending on your capacity to remember shortcuts, and being fluent in both solving styles. I have been fiddling a bit with Roux style, and am slowly getting the hang of it. I have even started to play with the initial block building steps. I am stalled out on the U layer corners, as the Corners First U layer orientation algorithms I use mess up edges in the F2L, and are therefore useless for this method. I will likely stick with Petrus to solve the U layer corners (permute, then orient) if I continue.

On a sad note, A Cube won't work. I also understand why Ron's solver missed the shorter algorithms. The problem is that each program cares about the orientation of the entire M slice (well, ron's can ignore the M slice orientation, but will then include a ton of algs where the edges are oriented relative to each other, but not the center they surround, leading to inclusions of LOTS of useless algs).

In some of the shortcuts you have found, (Maybe all of them?) if you start with blue/green center in the U face, you end up with red/orange in the U face at the end of the algorithm, but with all of the edges oriented.

The problem is that there is no command or set up with either program which says that "we don't mind which center winds up at U, just as long as all the edges are oriented relative to it".

If I had any programming acumen, I would write a new program. I wouldn't even need to account for the rest of the edges and corners, as they don't get messed up anyway with U/M group moves.

Looks like we are stuck with manual mode for now. I have slogged through a few hundred of the 7 move group. The 5 move group should be trivial. The 9 move group is far too big to do manually.

All in all, I am liking your intuitive approach much better than my brute force search.
 
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Athefre

Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
Messages
1,248
cubacca1972 said:
Very cool. Depending on your capacity to remember shortcuts, and being fluent in both solving styles. I have been fiddling a bit with Roux style, and am slowly getting the hang of it. I have even started to play with the initial block building steps. I am stalled out on the U layer corners, as the Corners First U layer orientation algorithms I use mess up edges in the F2L, and are therefore useless for this method. I will likely stick with Petrus to solve the U layer corners (permute, then orient) if I continue.


That was the part I hated most, I didn't even bother memorizing the corner sequences until 2 years after I started using the method.

cubacca1972 said:
On a sad note, A Cube won't work. I also understand why Ron's solver missed the shorter algorithms. The problem is that each program cares about the orientation of the entire M slice (well, ron's can ignore the M slice orientation, but will then include a ton of algs where the edges are oriented relative to each other, but not the center they surround, leading to inclusions of LOTS of useless algs).

In some of the shortcuts you have found, (Maybe all of them?) if you start with blue/green center in the U face, you end up with red/orange in the U face at the end of the algorithm, but with all of the edges oriented.


Probably at least most of them are like that. Not all shortcuts are useful when solving for speed though. Some are hard to recognize fast.

cubacca1972 said:
The problem is that there is no command or set up with either program which says that "we don't mind which center winds up at U, just as long as all the edges are oriented relative to it".

If I had any programming acumen, I would write a new program. I wouldn't even need to account for the rest of the edges and corners, as they don't get messed up anyway with U/M group moves.

Looks like we are stuck with manual mode for now. I have slogged through a few hundred of the 7 move group. The 5 move group should be trivial. The 9 move group is far too big to do manually.


Can you explain what exactly you are doing? Are you getting ACube to give all possible sequences, then you check each one to see what it does?

cubacca1972 said:
All in all, I am liking your intuitive approach much better than my brute force search.


It's disappointing that ACube can't find those things because I don't see any better solution for UL/UF/UR/UB.

Just to update:

M U' M U M' U2 M U' M U' M (11,12) - UF/UB
Alternative: M'U2M'UMUM'U'M' (9) - I also found F2M'UMUM'UMUF2 but it isn't comfortable.

M U M' U2 M U M' (7,8) - UF/UR
Alternative:

M' U2 M' U2 M' U' M U2 M U2 M (11,15) - UL/UF/UR/UB
Alternative:

M' U M' U2 M' U M' U M U' M' (11,12) - UF/DF
Alternative: MU2M'UMUMU2M (9)

M' U M U' M' U2 M (7,8) - UL/UF/UR/DF
Alternative: MUM'UM

M U' M U2 M U' M U' M' U M (11,12) - UB/DB
Alternative: M'U2MU'M'U'M'U2M' (9)

M U' M' U M U2 M' (7,8) - UL/UB/UR/DB
Alternative: M'UMUM' (5)

M' U' M' U M U' M (7,7) - DF/DB
Alternative:

M' U2 M' U2 M U' M' U' M2 (9,12) - UL/UR/DF/DB
Alternative: M'U2M'U2M' (5)

M U M U M U M (7,7) - UF/UR/DF/DB
Alternative:

M' U M' U M' U M2 U' M U2 M' U' M (13,15) - UL/UF/UR/UB/DF/DB
Alternative: M'UM'UMUM'U2M'UM (11)
 
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cubacca1972

Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
147
That was the part I hated most, I didn't even bother memorizing the corner sequences until 2 years after I started using the method.

Yeah, its a bit daunting to digest all those cases. It kinda goes against my inherent laziness. That's also why I love the waterman method, but will never learn the full system.

Probably at least most of them are like that. Not all shortcuts are useful when solving for speed though. Some are hard to recognize fast.

Generally, if you have more special cases than you have orthodox cases, you are drifting into fewest move challenge territory, and farther away from speedsolving, specifically because of the time burned up trying to recall which particular special case you are looking at.


Can you explain what exactly you are doing? Are you getting ACube to give all possible sequences, then you check each one to see what it does?

Man, I only wish it was that easy. I am manually checking all 2 187 possible algorithms in the 7 move set. I did not run A Cube. I reviewed what my data entry options were, and what the program checks for. Assume that a solved cube starts with yellow on top, orange on the left, red right, green back, white down, blue front.

What A Cube will check is how to get all six edges oriented with the yellow center on top. The problem is that we need to check for all possible cases which meet our requirements, which are:

LU and RU oriented in DF and DB position (or swapped)

With the white center on top, with white or yellow edge facelets on the U face

OR

With the yellow center on top, with white or yellow edge facelets on the U face

OR

With the green center on top, with green or blue edge facelets on the U face

OR

With the blue center on top, with green or blue edge facelets on the U face

So if I were to just check those cases generated by one of the conventional programs, I would potentially miss out on 75% of the potential algorithms. This is why you were able to find shorter algs than the originals I found using Ron's sticker mode solver. It can't recognize end states that we like as solved.

Here's what my theoretical orientation program would do, and how it would work, keeping the following assumptions and visuals in mind:

Our cube only has 4 colors:

L face yellow
R face white
F face red
B face red
U face green
D face green

Our cube only allows for 6 moves: U, U2, U', M, M2, M'

Our program only checks the location of the 6 edges, which facelet of each edge cubie (except for UL and UR) is on the U or D face (red/green), and what color center is in the U face (red/green). UL and UR edges are either oriented (Y, W), or flipped (y,w)

Data for the start position is entered to make a 7 character string which follows this form: UL UR UB UF DF DB Center

So and all flipped start position would be entered as:

GGGGywR

or

RRRRywG

or as above, with yw transposed. The program could just have yy or ww if we didn't care to track UL or UR as unique,

Solved would be entered like this, assuming that we were looking to find one of the 11 cases:

GGGGYWG

or

RRRRYWR

or as above, with UL and UR represented by the same color.

Then, the program would apply algorithms and check the resulting string with the set of acceptable end states, and print out those algorithms which match one of the defined strings in our set.

No program out there right now can do this.

I can totally write this out in pseudocode, but am programming language illiterate. I might try to write it out in Liberty Basic, but am short on time to do so right now.



Just to update:

M U' M U M' U2 M U' M U' M (11,12) - UF/UB
Alternative: M'U2M'UMUM'U'M' (9) - I also found F2M'UMUM'UMUF2 but it isn't comfortable.

There is a problem with your first alternative. If you do the inverse of my algorithm to set up the pattern and do your first alternative, it leaves all U layer edges flipped! I do not understand why that is though.
 
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Hmmm...you have many ideas Mr. Blah :)

I noticed the lack of "new" or "quality" just before the word "ideas" ;)

Just kidding :p I don't really intend to personally develop every single one of my thoughts to the fullest potential. Most of the time, this happens :D

Definition of this: I post something I find potentially interesting, and someone comes up and talks a bit about it, and another guy comes, and another, and another, and another, and they start developing the idea to the point where I have no idea what they're talking about :p (Or maybe they're not even talking about my original idea at all! :eek: :p)

Yeah, they lost me o_O (especially the post before this one. No offense but WTF is GGGGYWR!!???)
 

cubacca1972

Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
147
Hmmm...you have many ideas Mr. Blah :)

I noticed the lack of "new" or "quality" just before the word "ideas" ;)

Just kidding :p I don't really intend to personally develop every single one of my thoughts to the fullest potential. Most of the time, this happens :D

Definition of this: I post something I find potentially interesting, and someone comes up and talks a bit about it, and another guy comes, and another, and another, and another, and they start developing the idea to the point where I have no idea what they're talking about :p (Or maybe they're not even talking about my original idea at all! :eek: :p)

Yeah, they lost me o_O (especially the post before this one. No offense but WTF is GGGGYWR!!???)

My apologies. Got excited about an idea and hijacked this thread. I shall start a new thread.

GGGGWYR- welcome to my madness.

The new thread can be found here: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showthread.php?p=129264#post129264
 
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