Constructional service

[mrvaya]

Hi there

Each day I employ 4 men in the construction industry (3 men from early morning and yet another meeting a tad later using his flex-time) - and we specialize in every kind of work regarding barrels, rivets, elevators and even conveyors.

We have been working our asses off lately specialising in meeting the demands for all kind of constructional services and in providing it with efficiency and the highest level of professionalism (mostly by focusing on safety).

We are doing just fine and are avaging around 120k a day. A few days ago, we even exceeded our PB and sat a new record of 198,100 for a day work. Pretty neat! ☺

The problem:
I am troubled with the many casual deaths of my workers on the construction sites and thereby the delay in reaching further goals (not to mention the feeling of guilt).

I have read Mitch’s manual of constructional work and the many many expert advises on this site which have helped me a whole lot in educating my emplyees about the importance of safety. However, I still feel responsible for each death which primarily comes from me not keeping my head cool and giving lethal orders to my men.

The question to my fellow entrepreneurs:
How much practice is needed for keeping calm - and without hesitation provide the correct orders that you know so well from theory?

 

[WCopeland]

3 months

[f_symbols]

Love it, such prose  welcome sir.

It varies from person to person, but actively trying to "look at all the possible outs" and delaying the decision making generally prevents you from "jumping to the conclusions mat" (office space) which may or may not lead to increased survival.  Sometimes it's good to think about 2 or 3 ways to deal with a situation, then prioritize them in your mind, ie. If not A, than B, etc. and think about what  situations will cause you to go from b- to c-strategy.  Also, you are likely still at a point where you haven't seen a large percentage of the "statistically uncommon deaths"; once you've died a 1000+ different ways on the barrel board you are better prepared to decide on what is the most likely way out, you will begin to recognize these rare death scenarios (say, once ever 10-15 games), you will have the most common risks on your mind at all times and then you will be more likely to survive longer. 

That's just my 2 cents.  Major kudos on your first post, got em.

[mrvaya]

3 months

Thank you Wes (know your name from the forum). That was exactly as exact as I would love it to be. 
I'll take you on your word - and will conduct further practice assured I'll hit the KS when i have put in 3 months of playing time.

Actually - I remember a thread of yours a few month old where you speak about wild barrels. Whats caught my eye was your sentence: "Once I hit L5 I can run boards to the kill screen if I play a safe and conservative game". Would you care to elaborate a bit on this topic especially regarding a "conservative" way to transition from 3th to 5th girder and grabbing the hammer? (when I hit 5th girder, paying attention to kongs animation and grabbing hammer - I have no problems).

ATM I often cope to get to L5 with all men, and then my typical deaths are caused by poor judgement on barrel-transition and stupid deaths on conveyor (se below)

Love it, such prose  welcome sir.

It varies from person to person, but actively trying to "look at all the possible outs" and delaying the decision making generally prevents you from "jumping to the conclusions mat" (office space) which may or may not lead to increased survival.  Sometimes it's good to think about 2 or 3 ways to deal with a situation, then prioritize them in your mind, ie. If not A, than B, etc. and think about what  situations will cause you to go from b- to c-strategy.  Also, you are likely still at a point where you haven't seen a large percentage of the "statistically uncommon deaths"; once you've died a 1000+ different ways on the barrel board you are better prepared to decide on what is the most likely way out, you will begin to recognize these rare death scenarios (say, once ever 10-15 games), you will have the most common risks on your mind at all times and then you will be more likely to survive longer. 

That's just my 2 cents.  Major kudos on your first post, got em.

Thanks you so much for the warm welcome. You draw an excellent point about putting in some more practice (and experience more deaths) - and I for sure will. Actually I know for sure, that I still die from situations, which I have experienced before and still not learned (enough) from yet (silly pie-deaths on conveyor is one example). Then are to come the deaths I still haven't seen. So agonizing and yet drawing it is to "get to work" and learn the more advanced stuff that hopefully will take me to the KS. Also very good point about prioritizing plan a,b etc. Simple - still I haven't thought about it that much on the barrel screen (I feel more forced to make plan a and b's on conveyer/rivet and 3th elevator of course).

Thank you both for replying.

[marinomitch13]

I definitely second both Wes and Ethan. Ethan has it spot on in terms of what type of mentality one ought to have in a given situation, and Wes's "3 months" is a very reliable estimate for how long it takes for the average gamer to start having things click (given a few serious attempts every day or so).

If you're really having trouble with the barrel transitions up to the top, I'd suggest a mix of two extreme forms of training.

1) Practice playing the barrel boards in a super-cautious manner, where you over-do trying to steer barrels above you out of the way until there is a very clear gap for you to proceed and climb up to the next girder.

2) Practice playing on 1-1 with a super rushed mentality, trying to climb barrels and not waste any time steering more than is absolutely needed.

The combination of practicing these two extremes might help you a lot in learning to judge both 1) the safety hazards of the barrels above you if you don't steer certain barrels, (not to mention both methods will work together to fine-tune and calibrate your sense of how much wiggle room you really have for climbing a ladder before you have to back out/can't make it) and 2) it will teach you to be more patient when reason tells you not to rush and just wait it out by steering instead (as lots of people get aggravated by any sort of "hiccup" kong sends their way that slows them from completing a screen).

Hope you have a break-through so no more of your employees perish!

[mrvaya]

I definitely second both Wes and Ethan. Ethan has it spot on in terms of what type of mentality one ought to have in a given situation, and Wes's "3 months" is a very reliable estimate for how long it takes for the average gamer to start having things click (given a few serious attempts every day or so).

If you're really having trouble with the barrel transitions up to the top, I'd suggest a mix of two extreme forms of training.

1) Practice playing the barrel boards in a super-cautious manner, where you over-do trying to steer barrels above you out of the way until there is a very clear gap for you to proceed and climb up to the next girder.

2) Practice playing on 1-1 with a super rushed mentality, trying to climb barrels and not waste any time steering more than is absolutely needed.

The combination of practicing these two extremes might help you a lot in learning to judge both 1) the safety hazards of the barrels above you if you don't steer certain barrels, (not to mention both methods will work together to fine-tune and calibrate your sense of how much wiggle room you really have for climbing a ladder before you have to back out/can't make it) and 2) it will teach you to be more patient when reason tells you not to rush and just wait it out by steering instead (as lots of people get aggravated by any sort of "hiccup" kong sends their way that slows them from completing a screen).

Hope you have a break-through so no more of your employees perish!

Hi mitch - Thank you for replying. Love your manual!
Also thank you for the training advises, which sounds great. Yeah I feel like i have gathered enough information but need some sort of breaktrough. There are probably more than one future breakthrough ahead
The last few days I actually improved by the advise in your manual about NOT to steer the barrel over kongs ladder and Deans take on "early jumps".

Thanks.

[WCopeland]

When I think "conservative" play, in my head I imagine:

- Throwing away as many barrels as possible
- Taking only "safe" ladders. The further away a ladder is from the center of the screen, the more dangerous it is to take due to the lack of escape room. Fk far left on 2nd girder and far right on 3rd girder in particular until you're comfortable grabbing bottom hammer.
- Being willing to run out the clock on pie factories and rivet boards to 0 just to avoid dying. As a beginner, it's always better to let the timer kill you than die due to poor judgment.

I always reference this video when I talk about safe play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTThrfLiml4

Also remember, the longer you are on a barrel board the more difficult the transition will be.

[mrvaya]

Thank you for explaining Wes. It means a lot to such a newcomer as me to get a grasp of the nuances i the game from a pro I've seen your record and am utterly impressed!!

I am aware of the hazards of being on the extreme ends of the girders and always use the middle ladders from the 2th to the 4th girder unless the situation calls for something else (rare).

However, do you also believe using the long ladder from 4th to 5th girder is more conservative than taking the small ladder/grabbing hammer? (And then skip top hammer completely?)

Yeah I saw Vince's video a few days ago. Impressive!! He makes the game look very easy. I noticed that he is skipping top hammer as well but was unsure of the reason (speed vs. safety).

Oh - yes I am beginning to realize the great benefits of patience on the conveyor/rivets. Especially do I feel this hold true on conveyor on L5+ when the free pass seems less typical.

[f_symbols]

I think you will likely hear both 'sides of the fence' with regards to which ladder is safer.  I achieved my high score without the long ladder (maybe a few times, for specific safety reasons)  .  If you want to take the short ladder, you must be mindful of kongs cycle, so you can avoid taking a wild barrel to the dome when you're climbing.  As long as you are not climbimg at the wrong time (avoiding the dreaded 1/16th ) , that ladder is not only shorter and faster, but it removes the need to cross under the bomb-drop zone  on the 5th girder and having to wait for another cycle of kong and barrel release before grabbing the hammer.  The middle ladder is also good, once you pass level 4 internal difficulty, you can climb that middle ladder from the right-side, without any regard for wild barrels or kong cycles.  Obviously, being aware of what will be at the top of the ladder is helpful and necessary for survival, but the wild barrel 1/16 death is no longer a concern.

tl;dr    either work well if you pay attention to the monkey 

[WCopeland]

Vince was skipping top hammer because he was trying to KS as fast as possible. Pretend he's grabbing top hammer and you're set. Grabbing it is much safer than avoiding it entirely, but Vince knows how to deal with the occasional tricky group that will happen.

Which ladder on the 4th girder is safer will always be debatable, but I recommend beginners take the left-most ladder for a few reasons:

- 1/16 is much easier to dodge than a bomb. Though bombs will brush you on the left ladder, they will never actually kill you. If you take the right ladder, while you approach the hammer you risk being hit. This is the cause of a lot of deaths in 1.1m pace games.

- You need to have the mechanic of avoiding the 1/16 on the far left ladder for when you want to eventually up your pace. You can't avoid that ladder forever, and it's better to build good habits/mechanics sooner rather than later.

- You have less potential of getting screwed by the one-in-a-thousand super aggressive fireball that takes far left. They will immediately be in your target path as you grab the hammer, rather than you being forced to sometimes forget about it entirely.

- You don't have to worry about shit barrel groups that you don't have the experience to jump/avoid at this stage of learning the game.

For high pace games, the righter ladder is the better choice. For low pace games I am convinced the left ladder is the better option.

[Xermon54]

Mrvaya: Usually, I only acknowledge the existence of DK kill screeners. But because of this amazing first post, you deserve my recognition! 

Joke aside, welcome to the community mate. You seem like a funny guy!

I'm Vincent, and yeah, top hammer definitely adds a lot of time during a game (and my first man kill screen was a speed run attempt, so I had to gain as much time as possible).

I hope you the best to improve your game ;-). Reading the manual is definitely a good start, and if you combine that with watching other people stream Donkey Kong, + some practice, you're all set to become the 69th kill screener! 

[mrvaya]

Ethan:
Good to hear that others also thinks the leftmost ladder is a conservative choice. I was beginning to feel crazy for having the urge to take that route
When you refer to "1/16th", does it just mean wild barrels because each barrel released has a probability of 1/16 to become wild?
Oh yeah on internal difficulty of 5 you are protected from wild barrels on the long ladder. But not if you enter it from the left? Think I can recall reading about this earlier but have completely forgotten. Thanks for reminding me.

Wes:
Thanks for the wellfounded clarification of "dk conservatism". It is very valuable for me.
And about the shit barrel groups: yeah - if i take the long ladder and skip hammer I regularly get to steer down a barrel from the unbroken ladder between the 5th and 6th ladder which with another barrel is forming a X_X formation which I still die from a bit too often. Dont know why I feel so "rushy" without the hammer

Vince:
Oh dear lord - I feel star-strucked!! Actually I had two donkey kong goals:
1. Reach the killscreen.
2. Get recognition from Mr. Lemay himself
Never had I though to reach the second and foremost goal before the the first one.

Joke aside as well: thanks for welcoming me which actually is quite encouraging after I have been studying your amazing archievements (even saw your weightlifting vid

I really want spot 69. Might even get a tattoo with the numbers if I get it. Guess all kill screeners have their number immortalized on their body??

[Xermon54]

Everybody in this forum enjoys to have new DK comers 

Becoming the 69th kill screener would be extremely hard, since few people that haven't yet gotten a kill screen will most likely get it within a week or two. Becoming the 69th kill screener is the holy grail of Donkey Kong  . But hey, maybe you have Jeff Willm's genetics and you'll reach a kill screen within a month of playing! 

Watch as much streams as possible to help your gameplay! Good luck!

[mrvaya]

Thanks for the advice. I'll make sure to have a lot of stream-watching included on my training schedule. I also have been trying to setup some streaming myself hoping to get a bit of crititism from better players - until now without much luck because of a lot of stuttering. Will try again with a more downscaled resolution when I get back from my vacation. Luckily I have brought a laptop with MAME on the trip.

[Shnypz]

Welcome and best of luck on the KS quest.

I've started casually playing DK around October then decided to "get serious" and really gun for the KS in April when I joined the forum. I probably play 2-3 games a night and the furthest I've gotten is 9-6. It's an uphill battle for sure.

If i'm lucky, maybe I'll be the 100th KSer