Ok, I should go ahead and post my thoughts on this situation. I haven't really had a chance to experiment with this situation as much as I should so I may have to go back and edit this post later if some of the details need tweaking. Thanks for everyone who participated by posting their ideas.
Part of the excercise here is that some of the details of the situation were not spelled out, but could be determined from the information given -- so in some ways it tests your knowledge about how Pie Factory screens "work" in general.
The position of Jumpman, the retractable ladder and the Timer are all very realistic. This results from a relatively quick grab of the bottom hammer, followed by smashing pies and fireballs with the hammer towards the left side of the screen. Then, when the hammer expires, Jumpman climbed up the inner left side ladder to collect the second prize before moving to the right side of the screen, collecting the third prize, and hoping for a fast escape up the right side before the adjustable ladder retracts, which typically happens at about 5600 on the Timer. If this is all done very quickly, Jumpman can often "beat" the ladder and end the screen with around 5700 Bonus for a very high scoring Pie Factory. But, when arriving just a bit too late, you often must wait for the ladder to extend again for a final Bonus of around 5100 - 5200.
The next bit of information tells us that a fireball has just frozen directly above our right side adjustable ladder. We are also told that we are on level 5, so this fireball moves very quickly. In my experience, the combination of these two facts leads to a conclusion that the screen is no longer passable up the right side -- this exit has "closed". The reason is that the distance between decision points for a Level 5 fireball is such that the fireball will continuously refreeze directly over the ladder over and over again. It unfreezes and bounces off of the right side invisible wall and back again repeatedly and very quickly. Because of the speed and position of the fireball, I don't believe that it is possible to sneak by it. If someone can demonstrate that this is possible and argue that it could be done consistently and with limited risk, I reserve the right to change my mind on this topic. But for now, this situation eliminates OPTION B, and in general, the faster a player recognizes this and moves on to another option, the more points will be saved.
Next, we find out that at this snapshot in time the other adjustable ladder on the left side is currently guarded by not one but TWO fireballs! However, later on we learn that there is a second freezer located lower down on the structure. From this, you need to be able to determine that neither of the two fireballs on the top left side are freezers since there are always exactly two freezers out of the five fireballs on the screen (specifically, it's the 2nd and 4th fireballs released onto the screen -- or whenever these slots are reused). We also know that roaming fireballs have a long term bias towards moving to the right side of the screen because they move faster to the right than they do to the left. So, by the time we get over to the left side of the screen it is likely that the adjustable ladder on that side will no longer be guarded.
Next, you need to know that there can be a maximum of 6 pies on the screen at any one time. There are currently already 6 pies on the screen. Therefore, if you take immediate action, you can decend back down your adjustable ladder and back onto the upper conveyor with no chance at all of being hit in the foot by a pie entering the screen.
There are two fireballs remaining on the structure -- their locations are important. The freezer is just to the right on the inner left side ladder which leads to the upper conveyor. By knowing the pattern of a freezer, you should know that this fireball will NOT end up on the left side upper conveyor, making OPTION A a strong option -- we'll come back to option A in a bit. This freezer will stay frozen just a bit longer before unfreezing and travelling TO THE RIGHT until it reaches a ladder -- if it's an upward ladder it will always climb up (if it's a downward ladder, a vertical check of Jumpman's position is performed first). After climbing up the inner right side ladder to the upper conveyor, it will freeze again at the top of this ladder if a vertical check of Jumpman's position allows it. However, since it is currently some distance away from the right side ladder that it will eventually climb, there may be some chance that this freezer could refreeze again before climbing up! This would be based on its precise location and the distance between Level 5 fireball decision points (this is one detail that I meant to research and didn't so I'm not actually sure if a refreeze here is possible, but it should be considered). Meanwhile, the last fireball roaming on the bottom conveyor could quickly climb up to the central section using the ladder immediately to its right -- remember, roaming fireballs always climb ladders by approaching them from the left, NOT from the right!
Lastly, the Timer value of 5400 holds more information. Think about the sequence that led to the current position. We grabbed the bottom hammer, then the bottom conveyor reversed so that it began moving to the right as we move left against the grain to smash objects. When the hammer expires, we quickly move WITH the grain to climb up a ladder just before it reverses again to move towards the left. We know that the screen begins with 8000 Bonus at the beginning of a conveyor cycle, each of which lasts for 9 Bonus seconds. So, at around 6200 it reversed back to the left and is currently moving left at the point where you are making this decision. BUT, you need to realize that it is about to reverse again moving back to the right! So, at the moment that you have the opportunity to climb down to the lower conveyor, it should be moving to the right, which means that it takes MORE time for Jumpman to get to the left side, although jumping over pies becomes possible. This will be important if choosing between OPTIONS C, D, E and OPTIONS F, G.
One potential issue with any of these OPTIONS (C, D, E, F, G) is that there are a couple of possible ways that we might be delayed. First, the freezer could stay frozen for a while and/or it might refreeze before climbing up the inner right side ladder. However, you should recognize that you do NOT need to wait over by where the umbrella was -- you CAN jump the gap while you wait! From this edge, you CAN actually safely leech the freezer as it races over towards you because it WILL climb up the ladder just before reaching you! If it freezes just in front of you, you can perform multiple leeches while you wait (in the best case, you could gain back 100 - 200 points beyond what is lost from your Bonus timer while waiting).
IF, the conveyor were travelling to the left during this time, AND it were wide open, it becomes pretty close between climbing down and using the lower conveyor and running straight across the central section. But, climbing down a ladder costs just over 100 Bonus points so moving down and moving up together may cost about 300 points. You save time with the fast motion of the conveyor, but not that much time. You would probably lose a net of about 200 points by going down the the conveyor. Now, with the presence of many pies located on the conveyor, your speed along the conveyor is greatly hampered. But, you could be leeching behind pies while you travel! Let's assume that it costs 1 Bonus second to run the distance between the ladders with the grain of the conveyor. Well, if you were jumping and leeching behind a pie for the entire distance, you'd probably be gaining 100 points for every Timer tick, essentially costing a net of ZERO to traverse the distance! Compare this against the 2 Bonus seconds or so that it takes to RUN across the top of the central section and it becomes even closer than before, but because of climbing down and up ladders, you'd still probably lose a net of around 100 points by going down. In our situation, it's a bit worse, because we'd be going AGAINST the grain of the conveyor while jumping over pies -- you would not be instantly jumping, you be running and jumping, so you'd be losing to the clock in this case. With a full array of pies, you'd again likely be losing a net of about 200 points compared to running across the top. Besides, there's a roaming fireball on the bottom conveyor, so WHY would we be going down there!?
Well, it depends -- IF that roaming fireball climbs up to the middle section during the time that we are jumping the gap -- now we have a second delay (waiting for the freezer to get out of our way was the first delay) -- a roamer in the central section. It might now become significantly more efficient to climb down to the bottom conveyor to try to work around this fireball. The problem though, again, is that we'd be going against the grain of the conveyor. Depending on what that roamer is doing up in the central section, it might be dangerous to work against the grain and you may have to bail out to the right and climb DOWN again to the lowest platform for survival reasons -- at which point you are no longer effectively point pressing. This will likely happen some estimatable percentage of the time with this scenario, whereas the other option is to stick with OPTION C (or variant) and try to wait for this roamer to get out of the way -- this could cause large delays.
Now, assuming the coast is clear, let's look at OPTIONS C, D and E. In my opinion, this is NOT a proper situation for grabbing the top hammer since there are only two fireballs on the structure, one of which (the freezer) is unlikely to come back into play. It costs 900 Bonus points while standing with the hammer in hand and each smash is worth about 429 points. Plus, after smashing a fireball, it pops out of the oil can on the same side which often causes additional delays. So, you need a lot of potential smashes in just the right situation to make the top hammer profitable -- this is not one of those situations. Eliminate OPTION D. Next, should we turn up the inner ladder and work back against the upper conveyor (OPTION E) or jump the gap and climb the outer ladder (OPTION C)? It's interesting to me that nearly all players automatically choose OPTION C in real games even when the coast is clear. Option C involves one jump and running along a small section of conveyor. Option E involves two jumps (fractionally slower than one jump) and running along a slightly longer section of conveyor. I believe the actual cost in choosing OPTION E to be only about 100 Bonus (200 Bonus at the most). However, a large percentage of the time you will jump over a pie for 100 points and occasionally you'll jump over 2 pies for 200 points. Next, a LOT of times you will get hung up on the adjustable ladder in BOTH scenarios regardless of your path! Meaning, jumping over those pies becomes pure bonus in those cases! Only rarely there will be situations where you can beat the adjustable ladder with OPTION C and would be hung up on it with OPTION E, costing 400 - 500 Bonus for a net loss of 200 - 500 points. I believe that with practice a player could get a feel for the timing of the adjustable ladder and choose OPTION C during this rare case, and for all other cases he or she could make the correct decision to choose OPTION E for MORE points!
As discussed, I believe these options are generally superior to OPTIONS F and G UNLESS the roaming fireball climbs up to the central section, and even then it's questionable (you'd be comparing relatively devastating delays with BOTH paths and trying to lessen your losses). When considering Option G, which is essentially attempting to spend the remainder of the Timer trying to beat the clock by jumping and leeching pies, we need to recognize that the Timer on Level 5 is fast and the pies are not perfectly spaced and you could end up in situations where all of the pies disappear off of the bottom conveyor even though there are now currently four of them on the screen. In my opinion, it's simply not possible to beat the clock by chasing pies on Level 5. Again, if someone can demonstrate that it's possible to beat the clock by doing so then we could revisit this option -- but as it stands, OPTION G is inferior to OPTION F.
All of this brings us back to OPTION A. It should be pretty clear by now that OPTION A is BY FAR the best choice for point pressing this scenario! It represents a significantly shorter distance between points A and B, a portion of which we would be travelling with the grain of the upper conveyor for faster travel speeds. Comparing straight up against OPTION E (the next best choice), to travel from the top of the inner right side ladder to the top of the inner left side ladder, OPTION A requires one fast step, a jump (over the oil can), and another jump (to reach the top of the ladder). OPTION E requires climbing down the ladder, running all the way across to the other ladder (at best this is equivalent to a fast step and two jumps), and then climbing back up the second ladder to reach the same point on the board. As estimated before, this added distance of climbing two whole ladder is approximately equal to 300 lost BONUS points. It's actually worse, because the actual OPTION E has us moving down the outer ladder (to avoid the path of the freezer) so we miss out on that whole length of fast running along the conveyor . . . with that much difference, only extremely rarely will we end up climbing the adjustable ladder at the same time. We will occasionally be slightly behind and will often be a whole cycle behind on the adjustable ladder, leading to an average loss of AT LEAST 300 points (it could be closer to 400). In addition, we'll be leeching the pie on the right side upper conveyor before it reaches the oil can for an extra 100 points, we'll be jumping over the oil can for another 100 points, and then the next jump from the edge of the oil can to the top of the ladder almost always yields another 100 points! So, we're talking about OPTION A being a superior path to the tune of 700 points ASSUMING NO DELAYS with the next best path! In point pressing terms, this is pretty massive.
One caveat -- because of the position of the roaming fireball on the bottom conveyor, there IS a very rare possibility that this fireball could quickly climb up two ladders in a row and be right on our heels on the left side upper conveyor where we would be unable to outrun it safely. I estimate that this possibility would occur FAR LESS than 10% of the time. BUT, you still need to be watching out for this possibility while travelling along path A and be prepared to abort OPTION A if necessary. Depending also on the location of the freezer, you might have just enough time to jump over the oil can and THEN JUMP BACK over the oil can AGAIN before the freezer reaches the top of the ladder -- remember, you only need to be just barely clear of the top of that right side ladder (on the right side of it) while aborting and ON the ground (NOT in the air!) and the freezer will refreeze at the top of this ladder, allowing you enough time to escape down the outer ladder and try to proceed with a delayed OPTION E. If the freezer is faster though, you may have to abort before jumping over the oil can the first time, otherwise it might be too late and you'll be trapped next to the oil can and between the two fireballs (one on each side of the oil can) for almost certain death. Again, aborting OPTION A will be very rare -- almost always you'll have a relatively clear run and you'll pick up quite a bit of extra points for having the guts to jump over the oil can.
In conclusion, OPTION A is BY FAR the best option in this scenario, followed by OPTION E and then OPTION C. If you decide not to try OPTION A and run into delays while trying for OPTION E, it can sometimes be best to deviate onto OPTION F. The main factor which could change things is if the middle prize (the HAT) was never collected -- now, you'll almost always pick up an extra 800 points by going with OPTION E or C, which now looks like a nice option as compared to OPTION A, again, ASSUMING we won't run into delays, which WILL happen a significant percentage of the time. Because of this, it might STILL be best to choose OPTION A in this specific scenario, although not by much. If we change the location of the fireballs even slightly, the best path could very well be different -- if the freezer above us wasn't in exactly the wrong spot, we'd be looking to finish with OPTION B, and if the roamer on the conveyor was higher up on the structure that might eliminate OPTION A as a safe option. Clearly, evaluating efficient play on Pie Factory stages can be very complex and can change second by second based on multiple factors.
No, Zookeeper does not have moods where several games in a row are programmed to be harder than the previous several games. These things occur randomly -- after the fact it's easy to notice relatively "lucky" or "unlucky" games with respect to the RNG and these can easily occur in streaks, but it's nothing more than chance.
