Talk:Carry

I'm willing to bet that the "random" return destination for equally numbered / white and purple pikmin is actually a modulus function that cycles the onions in order, but currently have no way to prove this. If I were a Pikmin developer though, that's how I'd do it. While I find another copy of Pikmin 2 for myself (the first one got scratched up when I moved and I haven't had a reason to get another for awhile), take a look at this -> http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Modulus.html - VivixCore (talk • contribs)

Fairly sure it was tested quite well and something like that would have been obvious. I don't remember trying it myself, though. GP 07:17, 1 September 2012 (EDT)

Yeah, it was written on the old page that it was cycled via modulus, but nope. It's really random. It's simple to test it, and I did it when I wrote the article, both in (PAL GC) Pikmin and (PAL GC) Pikmin 2. Just have 1 Purple grab onto something and then calling it back and issuing it over and over. The color the Purple chooses seems to be completely random.

If it were a modulus based on the number of times it was grabbed, it should be like: "grab, red, release, grab, yellow, release, grab, blue, release" over and over. If it were a modulus based on the number of "neutral" Pikmin carrying it, it should be like: "a Pikmin grabs, red, another grabs, yellow, another, blue" over and over. And yeah, neither proved out to be true. (Same things apply when there's a tie in Pikmin, not just for "neutral" Pikmin in Pikmin 2.) And now that we're discussing it, I personally feel like the Pikmin-number based one would be a horrible idea. If you only had 1 Purple with you and no other Pikmin, you'd be forced to pick the Red onion. But the "number-of-grabs" one would really be the best solution. Why they chose random is a bit of a mystery.— {Espyo^T} 08:19, 1 September 2012 (EDT)

I have acquired a copy of Pikmin 2. If I find an easy-to-reproduce pattern, I'll make sure to make note of it. - VivixCore (talk • contribs)

Speed research

I tried researching how the carrying speeds work in Pikmin 2. Long story short: I can't reach any equation that defines all scenarios. But I did reach some other conclusions. Because getting the Pikmin to cooperate is so hard sometimes, and because I was quickly finding out that it'll be impossible to find a pattern this way, I just skipped some cases entirely.

Notes

• I used Dolphin and its builtin frame counter to measure times. So, I didn't really measure speeds as much as I did trip times.
• Timing starts when the carrying numbers change to the destination color with the correct number of carriers.
• Timing ends when the carrying numbers turn gray at the Onion.
• I used the 10-pellet at the landing site of the Valley of Repose, and the Blue Onion as the target, since it's the one farthest away from the pellet (longer times = less margin for errors)
• I'm assuming Blues are just as fast as Reds and Yellows, naturally.

Blue Pikmin

• 10 leaves
  • 786 frames
• 20 leaves
  • 568 frames
• 10 flowers
  • 569 frames
• 11 flowers
  • 539 frames
• 12 flowers
  • 512 frames
• 13 flowers
  • 488 frames
• 14 flowers
  • 466 frames
• 15 flowers
  • 446 frames
• 16 flowers
  • 428 frames
• 17 flowers
  • 410 frames
• 18 flowers
  • 395 frames
• 19 flowers
  • 380 frames
• 20 flowers
  • 367 frames
• 10 spicy leaves
  • 569 frames
• 20 spicy leaves
  • 367 frames
• 10 spicy flowers
  • 569 frames
• 20 spicy flowers
  • 367 frames

Purples

• 1 flower
  • 1164 frames
• 2 flowers
  • 1066 frames
• 10 flowers
  • 641 frames
• 20 flowers
  • 426 frames
• 1 leaf
  • 1232 frames
• 10 leaves
  • 927 frames
• 1 spicy leaf
  • 1158 frames
• 10 spicy leaves
  • 638 frames

Whites

• 10 leaves
  • 444 frames
• 20 leaves
  • 271 frames
• 10 flowers
  • 366 frames
• 11 flowers
  • 343 frames
• 12 flowers
  • 322 frames
• 13 flowers
  • 303 frames
• 14 flowers
  • 287 frames
• 15 flowers
  • 272 frames
• 16 flowers
  • 259 frames
• 17 flowers
  • 247 frames
• 18 flowers
  • 236 frames
• 19 flowers
  • 226 frames
• 20 flowers
  • 216 frames
• 10 spicy leaves
  • 366 frames
• 20 spicy leaves
  • 216 frames
• 10 spicy flowers
  • 366 frames
• 20 spicy flowers
  • 216 frames

Mixed

• 1 flower Purple + 1 flower Blue
  • 1078 frames
• 5 flower Blues + 5 flower Whites
  • 446 frames
• 9 flower Whites + 1 flower Blue
  • 380 frames
• 9 flower Blues + 1 flower White
  • 539 frames

Special case

• 1 Purple leaf with the "capacity" setting set to 0 in the in-game files (theoretically, the "base" speed)
  • 1282 frames

Conclusions

• Ultra-spicy spray basically makes the Pikmin act as if it is a flower. Meaning that if you spray a group of flower Pikmin, it will not affect their carrying speed.
• Flower Pikmin are not twice as fast as leaf Pikmin. Exactly how fast they are depends on the Pikmin type.
  • Blue flowers are 1.3838 times faster than leaves.
  • Purple flowers are 1.09193 times faster than leaves.
  • White flowers are 1.21311 times faster than leaves.
• Twice the number of Pikmin does not mean twice as fast a trip. Exactly how fast they are depends on the Pikmin type.
  • Twice the number of Blues are 1.3838 times faster
  • Twice the number of Purples are 1.09193 times faster
  • Twice the number of Whites are 1.63838 times faster
• In addition...
  • 10 times the number of Purples are 1.81591 times faster
  • 20 times the number of Purples are 2.73239 times faster

— {Espyo^T} 12:15, 14 February 2016 (EST)

Is it really random?

The page says "The Onion will match the type of the Pikmin type that makes up the majority of the carriers. If the number is a tie, the type will be decided randomly between the tying types.". Now, is that True? Does it really pick at random? With purple/white in 2, yes. With 1 red 1 yellow in 1 and 2, i think so. With purple/white in 3, i haven't played Mission mode a lot, so i don't know. With 1 red 1 yellow in 3 and 4, no. Try it yourself. Throw the red first, then the yellow, it's Going to red. Throw yellow first, then red, it's Going to yellow. Throw red first, yellow next and Blue last, it's Going to red. Mama09001 (talk) 05:58, May 30, 2024 (EDT)

"Arbitrary" Speed units in Pikmin 2

Having directly re-derived the formula with the current constants 21.6 and 26.4 from my personal fork of the decomp Ghidra project for Pikmin 2, the output of the carry speed function is represented in in-game distance units per second.

The best baseline to build an intuition for what the units mean is to observe that in the GCN version of Pikmin 2, the cursor will always be at most 100 units away from the player. Speed is always represented internally as units per second. When running at full speed, the player runs at 160 units per second without Rush Boots and 205 units per second with Rush Boots.

The formula the game uses to derive speed simplifies into the form presented here given the constants found in a parameter file. I do not remember which file specifically contains the influencing numbers, but I believe the original numbers are 0.4 and 0.22 and various manipulations thereof.

Before these constants were 21.6 and 26.4, the old constants were 180 and 220 as found experimentally by the JP Challenge Mode community in 2017. Those were based on Olimar's napsack carry speed being defined as 1000, which was indeed a little more arbitrary.

However, since the current numbers will produce an identical output to what would be observed when stepping through execution with memory watches, I would argue they are not arbitrary. APerTAS (talk) 02:59, August 4, 2024 (EDT)