I read Matt Baumgartner’s (mpb21) reply to my question about “criteria”.
It has a few “revelations” that I had not seen mentioned before:
- In the Paragrqph: Something to remember…
Some (important) words are omitted. Apparently you mean that a configuration
may NOT fold into the target configuration, EVEN THOUGH the program says
it will! So in the lab the fold/not fold algorithym is not 100% reliable. Is that correct?
In the challenges, free energy is mentioned in passing, but it is not a criteria for the
solution of puzzles. But in the LAB, it is VERY important for finding a “best”
solution. However its relationship to a best solution is not made very clear.
As the Devs always say, the folding algorithm is very good, but it it not perfect.
As for your second question, in my understanding at least, Energy seems to be more of a general indicator or an aid in validating a design, rather than a “very important” criteria in making one; The longer I play, the more I see the concepts of “placement,” “location,” “orientation,” and “relative positioning” as being the paramount concerns.
One thing that has helped me immensely, is going into the synthesized puzzle results, and watching how the synthesized designs break when switching to natural mode, as this is the only place where it is not JUST the algorithm you are seeing, but the actual lab result as well. It enables you to see what things really do when they get out of the game and into the test tube.
I highly recommend this activity