That's probably because he didn't drag WormNAT2's files into his WA folder.

But why would he have a different WA folder? The installer defaults to installing into the folder WA is already installed into, and WormNAT2 would already be there, if he was using it before.

However, if he uses WormNAT2, he should make sure WormKit module loading is enabled in the Advanced Options menu.

Here is my 180.70 second tool-assisted run of this challenge, done in 18 turns.
2013-03-13 05.48.39 {TA} 2013-03-12 02.42.59 [TCB Challenge 52 - 180.70 sec] 0xDEADC0DE.WAgame
There are some annotations in this replay, at the beginning (basically a copy of the following paragraph) and during one of the turns.

This run is the culmination of 28 hours of work across 5 days, with 6570 total rerecords (backtracks to an earlier point in the replay). Two of these backtracks were to the very beginning of a finished run, resulting in 3 complete runs that started from scratch (or nearly so - the second fresh run kept the first 3 seconds of the first run). The 180.70 second run took 2514 rerecords in 11.2 hours to do from scratch (the last three turns, the product of 399 of these rerecords in 1.7 hours, were copied from the end of the 186.06 second run).

Here is the complete archive of all of my TA runs of this challenge, the first of which was 221.94 seconds (in 21 turns) and took 1003 rerecords and 4.4 hours to do.
TCB Challenge 52 - The potholer - TA runs by Deadcode, 2013-03-07 to 2013-03-13.7z

The Worms Armageddon 3.7.2 update is here!

Download Page

MD5sums:
bcae1f1424c7b4c20c7b46d998448146 *WA_update-3.7.2.1_Installer.exe

Fixes

• [CS] Disabled the unfinished crash log uploader, which was accidentally enabled in v3.7.0.0.
  
• [CS] W:A will now display a warning when attempting to select a Direct3D 9 renderer on systems where it could lead to excessive or continuous screen flicker (see section 4.0).
  
• [CS] W:A will now gracefully handle an integer division by zero crash in VMware's accellerated graphics implementation, and treat it as a graphics initialisation failure.
  
• [CS] W:A will now offer to switch to alternative graphics settings if the default ones result in a graphics initialisation failure.
  
• [CS] W:A will now suggest trying the Direct3D 9 (shader) graphics API to Windows 8 users when launched for the first time.
  
• [CS] W:A will now suggest enabling a Direct3D-based graphics API when Shift+Tab is pressed while using a DirectDraw-based API in the Steam edition. (The Steam overlay does not support DirectDraw.)
  
• [CS] The W:A update installer will now detect and offer to remove WormKitDS (dsound.dll), as its functionality was added in W:A in 3.7.0.0 in the form of the "Load WormKit modules" option on the Advanced Options screen. The built-in option is preferred above WormKitDS for improved stability and interoperability.
  
• [DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.30.0: After returning from a Deathmatch, the default scheme would be incorrectly set in Offline Multiplayer; it would claim to be Intermediate, but was set to 1 round to win instead of 2 rounds.
  
• [DC] In the v3.7.0.0 French translation, extra strings were added to six game comments, with the conditional wrapper "\{>=EE," "\}". This triggered the error message "Unknown character in conditional" due a bug in v3.7.0.0.
  
• [DC] In the v3.7.0.0 French translation, two strings were added to GAME_CRATEDROP_COMMENTS and two to GAME_SUDDEN_DEATH_COMMENTS, but each pair of comments was incorrectly entered, and would have been concatenated into a single comment if displayed.
  
• [DC] Minor spelling corrections have been applied to the English text.
  
• [CS] Minor grammar corrections have been applied to the Russian translation.
  
• The French translation has been extended by LeTotalKiller, including all new strings added since v3.7.0.0, and a couple of minor corrections.
• [DC] The instant replay countdown timer, displayed in the upper-left corner of the screen during an instant replay in a mock-digital-watch font, incorrectly displayed the hundredths of a second as repeatedly counting down from 60 instead of from 100.
  
• [DC] Combo box bugs introduced in v3.7.0.0
  
  • [DC] Clicking the mouse button on the single-pixel-thick border of a combo box's list box closed the list box.
    
  • [DC] Releasing the mouse button on the single-pixel-thick border of a combo box's list box caused a stack overflow crash.
    
  • [DC] In the Host/Join screen, the down-arrow button on the scheme and intrinsic level combo boxes was accidentally and improperly widened by 4 pixels.
    
• [DC] Latent combo box bug introduced in v3.6.19.7: If clicking on an item that was already highlighted caused a dialog box to pop up, it was possible for a crash to happen upon dismissing the dialog box.
  
  • [DC] Bug made possible in v3.6.20.2: It was possible, but rare, for the "Nonstandard Weapon Power levels" warning dialog box to cause a crash upon being dismissed, if it had been triggered by selecting a scheme from the combo box in the Host screen.
    
  • [DC] Bug made possible in v3.6.30.0: It was possible for the "Large map warning" dialog box to cause a crash upon being dismissed, if dismissing it caused a map to be successfully loaded.
    
• [DC] If W:A was installed from the Czech CD-ROM before being Updated, the Team Editor would not work properly due to failing to load the gravestone bitmaps with Czech filenames. It would either crash upon entering the Team Editor, or show blank fields for everything except the team and worm names.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.29.0: The /dir command line parameter will no longer be overridden by the executable's directory, even if this results in W:A not being able to start properly.
  
• [DC] Bug introduced in v3.7.0.0: In the crash report file "errorlog.txt" there was a line ", version 3.7.0.0" which started with a comma.
  
• [DC] Bug introduced in v3.7.0.0: Most of the non-chat lines in User\Logs\*.log started with "???" instead of "".
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.7.0.0: A potential crash / security vulnerability in custom language files has been fixed.
  
• [DC] Additional sanity checking is now done on data received while connecting to a host.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.28.0 and v3.6.29.0: In the Join screens, the /version command would show the incorrect version for a host using a version in the range 3.5 Beta 3pre10 - v3.6.27.3q. (Note: Since hosts using these versions do not report their version to the client, a client can only deduce a version range depending on what protocols and formats the host uses.)
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.30.0: Using the characters "&'<>\ in game names on WormNET now works properly, and no longer decreases the maximum length of a game name. This is accomplished by translating the characters "&'<>\ to the non-printing characters 0x10, 0x11, 0x12, 0x13, 0x14, and 0x15 respectively.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.7.0.0: When starting WA.exe with /langdir parameter(s), combined with either "Auto-register associations" enabled or the /register parameter, the command line registered for wa:// URLs did not include the /langdir parameter(s).
  
• [DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.31.2b: Tall maps satisfying a certain inequality regarding their width and height could cause a crash upon starting a game. The formula in C-like pseudocode is: tilewidth=((height / 30) rounded down to nearest multiple of 8); if ((tilewidth - (width % tilewidth)) is sufficiently large) then crash upon starting a game.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.30.0: If the user pressed the Escape key in the host/join round-finished lobby but clicked "Cancel" in response to the Quit confirmation dialog box, then subsequent clicks of the "Exit" button would display the confirmation dialog box, even though the default behavior of the "Exit" button in that screen is to instantly quit.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.24.2: With "Offline rope knocking" enabled, it was possible for a Deathmatch to be started with rope knocking enabled (which isn't supposed to happen). This would happen if the user started a Quick CPU game, then after finishing it, started a Deathmatch without first exiting the Single Player menu or closing W:A.
  
• [DC] When the "Create new team" button was used from the Training screen, the background particles behind the Team Editor moved twice as fast as they should.
  
• [DC] Bug introduced in v3.7.0.0: Using the /ignore command in the WormNET lobby (IRC) would cause an immediate crash.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.5 Beta 1: When minimising in-game, if any keys were held down at the moment of minimisation, then upon restoring, the game would continue to think the keys were held down, even if on the physical keyboard they weren't. Conversely, if any keys that weren't held down at the moment of minimisation were held down upon restoring, the game wouldn't necessarily detect that they were held down.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.7.0.0: When using a Direct3D 9 renderer, restoring after minimising in-game in single-step mode (during playback) would result in a black screen unresponsive to keyboard input (subsequently resuming normal operation required clicking a mouse button to restore the display, then again clicking a mouse button to restore keyboard focus).
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.7.0.0: When using a Direct3D 9 renderer, restoring after minimising in the front end would not give focus to keyboard input until the mouse was clicked.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.19.17: Pressing Space to skip an instant replay did not work while in single-step mode.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.28.0: If the current map was a cavern with a width narrower than the current resolution, when the chat panel was visible, an area of matching height on the bottom of the screen would have graphical artefacts in its left and right sides, because the black letterbox area mistakenly excluded those regions.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.5 Beta 1: After minimising an offline game using Shift+Escape, animated effects that don't affect game logic (such as smoke and flames from explosions, smoke rising from Petrol, Homing Missile and Super Sheep trails, etc.) continued to be animated; as a result, by the time the game was restored, usually all of the effects would have already been finished and fizzled out, and in many situations would then be recreated all at once, putting the animations into an artificial-looking simultaneous phase until the passage of time allowed them to stabilise again into comfortable chaos. (The same thing has always happened when pressing Escape to pause, but as changing this would significantly affect the look and feel of the game unless done right, it has been left as-is for now.)
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.5 Beta 1: When playing on a cavern map with a height smaller than the current resolution (i.e., a resolution high enough to result in letterboxing on the top and bottom), rising water caused a fluctuating inconsistency in the on-screen positioning of sprites and land. This effect was particularly obvious when using fast-forward, and when using "Playback at" with "Start Paused" checked.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.29.0: Export Log did not log the ending of the last turn (along with its turn time, retreat time, and damage dealt), if it was ended by locally quitting the game.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.30.0: When playing back a replay file that was recorded with a W:A version that records the passage of time between turns, if the file ended abruptly without an "exit" message at a point between turns, the end-of-game fade-out would be unnecessarily delayed until the beginning of the next turn.
  
• [DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.30.0: In-game bitmaps (including the health bars, text boxes, wind bar, and weapon panel) having a width and/or height of an odd number of pixels were drawn one pixel left and/or above where they should be, respectively. In most cases this is an arbitrary distinction, but not in the case of the turn, retreat, and round timers, which were being drawn one pixel up and to the left of where they should be within the timer box.
  
• [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.20.1: In an offline replay created by the first version of W:A to save replays (v3.5 Beta 3pre7a), the message "Detected pre-2003.12.07 GMT game file (no checksums)" would be printed every time a checksum was found to be missing (this message was supposed to be printed only once).
  
• [DC] A fix in v3.6.26.4 prevented Mission Attempts counters from going over 127 and wrapping into the negative numbers, however, if playing missions with a version earlier than v3.6.26.4 already caused the counter to exceed 127, the latest version of W:A would still treat the number of Attempts as negative.
  
• [DC] When the Map Editor was in Preview mode, changing the water level did not immediately update the previewed positions of Placement Holes. Toggling the top (cavern) border did not update the preview either, even though it can change the positions of objects.
  
• [DC] In versions prior to v3.6.28.0, the water level of a map was limited to 50%, and setting it anywhere from 51% to 100% in the Map Editor would be equivalent to setting it to 50%. This limit was unwittingly removed in v3.6.28.0. One bug resulted from the presence of this limit in earlier versions, and another bug resulted from the removal of this limit:
  
  • [DC] The water level was never correctly previewed in the Map Editor. The 50% limit was not taken into account, and the on-screen water level preview had been calibrated as if maximum water level (which happened to be 50% of the map height) was only reached at 100%, i.e. as if the water level increased linearly from 0% to 100%; as a result the water level was displayed as if it were half of what it really was.
    
  • [DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.28.0: When a version earlier than v3.6.28.0 was emulated, and the map was set to a water level greater than 50%, the game would desynchronise immediately. Now, when hosting a game, if the water level is greater than 50% and there are client(s) present using a version earlier than v3.6.28.0, the game will not be allowed to start.
    
• [DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.28.0: When emulating a version earlier than v3.6.28.0, it was possible for a desynchronisation to happen under the following circumstances:
  
  • [DC] A Strike weapon is used, and by the time the plane disappears, all of the objects released by the strike are gone, and nothing else is in motion. There are at least two known ways this can happen:
    
    • The scheme is set to zero retreat time, and a Strike weapon, set to "zero power" in the scheme, is used. Since it releases zero missiles, no trickery is needed to get them to disappear quickly. The next weapon use will desync.
    • The scheme is set to less than 3 seconds retreat time; an Air Strike with 1 star of power is aimed at three towers of Frozen Worms piled at the top of the map near the left edge, and all four missiles hit the towers near their tops. By the time the plane disappears, the bouncing motion of the frozen worms has damped down to zero. The next weapon use will desync.
  • [DC] A missile with "zero power" is created in a position where it already intersects with something that would make the missile explode upon impact, after the worm responsible for firing the weapon is already idle. There is no known way this could happen.
    
• [DC] Fixes affecting game logic
  
  • [DC] It was possible to place a Girder partially underwater if the water level was higher than the bottom of the map. Subsequent water rising would only erase the part of the girder that was initially above water, leaving an invisible obstacle in the water.
    
  • [DC] The game would crash if a CPU Worm, while enumerating possible places to which to walk, reached its maximum search depth at a point in its path where it would fall and retain control. (See Footnote 2.)
    
  • [DC] Bug introduced in v3.5 Beta 2: CPU Worms would always shoot Strike weapons to the right, and never to the left.
    
    • [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.26.4: The absence of this bug in v3.0 was not emulated.
      
  • [DC] The glitch in which targetable weapons (such as Homing Missile, Air Strike, and Teleport) could be fired without being targeted has been modified. It now only works in the form of pre-targeting, which must be done on the same turn as which it's used.
    
  • [DC] The v3.6.31.0 Fix, "The game would sometimes crash during the worm death explosion animation, if the Russian language was selected", changed what comments in GAME_LAND_DEATH_COMMENTS would be randomly displayed for players who had the Russian language selected, but did not implement emulation for what comments were displayed in earlier versions. Emulation for this is now implemented.
    
  • [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.28.0: On a map of width greater than about 32304, shooting a rope off the right edge could result in the endpoint of the rope wrapping around to the left side, resulting in its line segment being incorrectly drawn. (The same thing could happen on a map of height greater than about 32304, shooting a rope down into the ocean.) (Strictly speaking this fix doesn't affect the game logic, but it is tied to the logic version so that all players will see the same thing.)
    
  • [DC] Bug in a feature introduced in v3.6.28.0: When playing on a map of height 32568 or greater, objects falling into the water would sink forever without drowning, preventing the turn from ending. Now, the visible height of the ocean will be decreased in such situations to allow objects to drown normally.
    
    • [DC] When this bug occurred, it was always accompanied by another one: The current worm was not tracked by the camera. This bug is now fixed without being tied to the logic version (i.e., it won't be emulated when the other bug is emulated).
      

That scheme is messed up. Round time is set to zero, and Sudden Death is set to end the round. I've fixed it now, by making round time 60 minutes and changing Sudden Death to have no effect... so, try redownloading that scheme.

However I would call it a bug in W:A that the sudden game end is treated was a win for the first team... it should be a draw in a case like that.

Congratulations, Deadcode!

Good job DC

Thanks! It was really hard to beat Mablak's time. Took me 413 attempts. Since I began attempting TCB33 (including the times at first when I used a much less efficient method), it's my 1662th attempt.

Here is my 80.70 second tool-assisted replay of this challenge. It's annotated; you can pull down the chat to read the annotations.

Ok, whats the "cool" in just firepunching and using the retreat time to move? DC could do that even faster if he used more fp's.

I mean is the retreat time counted? I suppose not.

The thing is, retreat time is counted! There is a 3 second penalty for every turn taken, and the retreat in this scheme is 3 seconds. The trick, and the reason the firepunches help, is that I use the time after the retreat is done to do jumps and fall off cliffs! This is most efficient when the jump / walk-off-cliff is done at the very last frame of the retreat, and planned it so as to try to get as close to that as I could, and make the jump go far, when possible.

It was Mablak's idea to jump at the end of every retreat, and I took that idea and developed it, planning out when and where to end each retreat.

Oh dear, look what you've gone and done, coste. Now I'm going to have to completely re-choreograph my run so I can beat Mablak's new record! This is not going to be pretty.

I got the better part of the deal, in this collaboration (my 153 second non-TA run was from before, when I was still ignorant!) but it's gone both ways. So I wanted to be open about it.

Of course D1 or MI should step in if I'm wrong about this, but, Statik and ssm, if you want to team up, then why not? But if you do (or have already), it would be nice if you let us know here on this thread. (van has already retired from the challenge, so you can't team up with him.)

As for the point in making the replays unavailable... well, for one thing, it forces you to figure out how to solve the challenge to completion yourself, even if the way you find isn't the fastest. In TCB it worked differently; once you got your replay for a particular challenge accepted, you could download all the others for that challenge. But this TUS way does have its own merits; it puts the focus on a small number of challenges at any given time, which can make each one more exciting.

I thought my description was quite unambiguous in my post, since turn time is used the same way everywhere.

Well, problem is, you said "amount of time you spent playing", not turn time. But you've edited it now, thank you!

Also I see something in that scoring method I wouldn't have known otherwise, until you edited it just now: That you don't add a 3 second penalty for the last turn if the retreat was not used. That means some of my submitted runs will score better than I thought. Corrections:
My 177.22s run is actually 174.22s
My 182.96s run is actually 179.96s

After all, when I ask you to describe for example hysteria, don't you say you get 1 second turn time and 5 seconds retreat time? It's also the term used in logs, so I figured you'd appreciate it if I used that terminology 

Perfect, thank you. As long as I know that you're using "turn time" in that sense, I'm fine with it The reason I wasn't sure is that in TCB you used to use the term differently. Now we can finally put that behind us.

What makes you think I remember the exact wording on TCB when I don't even remember the rules for a lot of challenges?

I didn't know you didn't still have the archive of TCB descriptions, maps, and schemes. I assumed you had it, because where else would you be getting the maps? And you got the scoring method for TCB challenge #22 exactly how it was on TCB, so naturally I just assumed you had all the old descriptions. If you didn't... well, great memory!

I don't like having to explain every minute detail about a challenge because there will always be something left to comment on and it would require an extraordinary amount of text to een attemp to remove all doubt - which leads to people not reading the wall of text.

Being precise doesn't necessarily mean being very wordy!

I volunteer to be a challenge description editor. The way I envision it is this: MonkeyIsland sets up something where I get auto-emailed whenever a new challenge is posted. If I see ambiguity in the wording, I ask the author to clear it up, then I edit the description, keeping it concise and as brief as possible while eliminating the ambiguity.

Having linkified text would help a lot. A term that might potentially be seen as ambiguous could be underlined, and clicking it would bring up a little text box clarifying it. For example: "No skipwalking allowed." Clicking it would bring up a definition, which includes both skipwalking and flipwalking (in case somebody thinks they skirt around this rule by doing flipwalking instead of skipwalking).