New Release!
Hey everyone!
We've just released a small update with a change to idealize SS. Your fellow players noticed that the helices produced by the tool weren't optimal, and we're putting in a change to fix that!
Tools:
* Idealize SS now uses more realistic values for idealizing helices
I was eventually able to find the proper alignment of sheets to bond completely. On puzzle 1294 I tried three sheets. In the end the sheets had lost most of the twisting and the solution was similar to previous solutions. Other top scoring players have also said the sheet twisting was lost.
This could be a result various tools, recipes, or techniques. It could also be a characteristic of foldit. In its current state the significant twisting of sheets merely adds to the difficulty of creating a solution.
The two arrows usually seen with the insert or delete segment tools have appeared for me after using the move tool. In one case, the client crashed when I tried to clear this condition. I think I may have clicked on one of the arrows in this case. In a second case, the arrows disappeared when I clicked on the background.
It seems likely there were some unintended consequences of the change idealizing a helix.
Personally, I prefer the older tool. It created perfectly shaped helices and sheets regardless of the residue type. However, with the new tool the "idealized" structures are still formed as if individually in a vacuum. It doesn't take the surrounding structures into consideration. It creates a major drawback, however, because it makes it much more difficult to get a perfectly shaped SS.
Another point is that if the twisted sheets gradually untwist themselves then the new tool has simply introduced additional processing that has to be undone. In the meantime, how fun is it going to be aligning helices over twisty sheets?
I don't mind having the extra abilities provided by the new tool, but we need to keep the old tool functions as well. Perhaps some sort of checkbox to switch between the two modes.
Either that, or put the tool back the way it was. The new tool doesn't seem useful at all to me.
Thanks for the feedback!
We actually have some plans in the pipeline to give you more control over these tools to adjust things like twist. We decided to move the default to twisted, since the previous defaults were pretty unrealistic and may have been harming solution quality.
That's good to hear. To clarify my earlier post, I have no problem with the new helix SS, just the twisty sheets. The old forms may seem unrealistic for sheets, but it makes the initial design process much easier. I would like the ability to choose old/new based on the type puzzle.
Sheets now have a significant twist using Ideal SS. A 10 residue sheet has about a 90 degree twist from the first to last residue. Haven't been able to get two sheets to completely bond.