Wanted: Expert copy-jacker

[Jonathon Duerig]

One emergent property of Tile Factory is that very motivated players
could hijack copiers and turn them from innocent paint or tile
generators into nefarious replicators of evil, thus violating all laws
of decency and propriety.

While I don't want to eliminate the possibility of copier-jacking in
TF2 entirely, I do want to provide mechanisms by which a designer can
make sure that it won't happen on a particular level.

I am therefore looking for somebody skilled in this black art who can
check to see whether my safeguards are adequate. Please send me an
email or respond to this message if you are interested in trying to
copier-jack levels that should prevent you from doing so.

-D

[hailstone]

It isn't really that complicated - the basic idea is to open up a
space by pushing a "sticky" tile to attach to the existing tile, pull
it out, and put another tile in its place. Because other items don't
glue together, only tiles can participate in this, and it can't be
done on a level that does not supply glue.

Generally the replacement tile will be pushed in from the side, as
going over the copier typically causes the mosaic to break when the
copy tile appears in the same space. However, since the game allows
for disconnected mosaics, they can be used to push a "single" tile
behind a copier.

There is one other way to get a tile behind a copier from the front -
by disconnecting it from the mosaic by using solvent on the tile that
is over the copier. This does generally require placing a sprayer
right in front of the copier, so the only way to get tiles out of this
is to glue them together so the copier can push them. It is also
complicated by the fact that dissolving the tile *on* the copier
doesn't remove the tile *behind* the copier from the mosaic, used to
push it in, just makes a disconnected mosaic, so it's pretty tricky to
get that right. But it is possible; here's a map showing the general
idea, although it doesn't remove the rest of the mosaic:

eNpN0G1yhCAQRdH+wAYaxJlxTJaQtWT/C0qu+RVenXoK2lapIh
+7fFcpWXXLKreKho7EwOT8xrWyp5wpzyjPqoP3hRaDQti7ca2W
u0ROjUyLI63OaWMexjxnntOFLvR2G7lMcpr26sxwZhS60Bu9aX
pIepXlje5IDEzsWDjwwBMvnHjjujHjMjhKhuUMj/4ZLaO2EV7Z
sxURK0rl3nb5CuHfSCOd8EkZZJKdLHKQB3mSFznJm1x3lBjho1
fposHfGo1O8Rj0RGcvsUupS7wef2pb2DHx4OyJKaYn71yuoa/t
YtYZwvphyb9V5Pj5BQrGEco=