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10 zone "rule"


djhobby

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Hello,

 

Has anyone ever experimented with how many zones can be active before the cartridge crashes? I read somewhere that 10 was the max, and I've also read 7. I wonder if those suggestions were written a few years ago when most people were playing on a Pocket PC or Garmin. I figure most people now play Wherigos on their phones that have way more RAM and computing power than those other devices.

 

I'm creating a cartridge that is not like most other Wherigos I've created and played where the game leads you from one zone to the next and you only need two or three zones active. For my new cartridge I need to have lots of zones active. Does the player automatically crash at 10 zones. Or maybe only the Garmin crashes at 7 but then the Pocket PC crashes at 10?

 

Thanks

DJ

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The Garmin Oregon crashes at 10 ACTIVE zones. So in the practice of trying to build something to the weakest link, the custom is to stay less than 10 active zones. People still buy Garmin Oregons. If you want to let people know that your cartridge is not designed to work on an Oregon, go for the limit.

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Thanks for the input everyone.

 

If you want to have a lot of zones active, try using a hidden active zone to detect when a player approaches another section. Have that toggle zones further out.

 

This is what I've come to realize, but even using this method, (I call it zones within zones within zones) my crackpot idea will require at one point 10 zones active at once. But it sounds like 10 zones will probably work.

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I didn't think, that there is a static 10 zone problem. It depends on how much points each zone have. More points means more calculation. Devices with smaller calculation power seam to freze while doing the calculation. I have a cartridge with 10 active zones (always with 4 points), which works without problems on Colorado and Oregon.

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But it sounds like 10 zones will probably work.

 

You forget the player himself. For example he waits for a message, when he is entering a zone. The device (oregon) is extremly slow, because 10 zones are active. He clicks on a task or item or whatever to see what he has to do now. In meantime the "buffered" message comes up and disappears immediately. Or some other action is skipped or the Wherigo crashes. Funny in that case, that a lot of Wherigo programmers simply say "Wherigo is in alpha and very labile". In most cases they could prevent most of crashes by canny programming and some worarounds too. I never have more than 5 active zones. It also depends how many points the zones have as charlenni said. Maybe totally 2 or 3 are the maximum, if the zone has 10,20 or more points. Best way is to try it out. Switch 10 zones active, make an outdoor test (with the slowest device >oregon) and click often and quickly on items, tasks, commands in items, go back to main menu and so on. I'm doing this again and again on my cartridges, till they are fast enough.

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