The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[urhegyi]

[urhegyi]

The last available version of SukakuExplainer seems to have some problems generating in the fiendish range when diagonals are involved.
Interested to know if the private version 2021.6.17 of 1to9only can produce more of them.

[1to9only]

2021.6.17

A new version is to be released in the coming days. Not sure if this will improve generation of fiendish/diabolical variant X sudokus.

[1to9only]

problems generating in the fiendish range when diagonals are involved

The original SudokuExplainer (1.2.1.3) and this SukakuExplainer (2021.4.7 and later) do NOT check for Nested Forcing Chains (even when generating vanilla sudokus), so the max generated ED is in the 9.0-10.0 range. I think old SE did this to speed up sudoku generation (in the days of slower computing some 12 years ago!).

[urhegyi]

After the first example which was human solvable now another one confirming the maximum rating possible for computer solving.

[1to9only]

After the first example which was human solvable now another one confirming the maximum rating possible for computer solving.

No Nested Forcing Chains.

After the next release, I can build a special version with Nested Forcing Chains enabled and max ED=12.x ratings - it will be slower generating sudokus. More details later.

[urhegyi]

No clues in extra regions nor in the diagonals:

[1to9only]

It is possible to generate very hard puzzles. Here's are a few examples (same layout as above Custom-X sudokus):

Code: Select all

.......8....................6......3.5....1.2...............................5.49. ED=10.6

5 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) (10.4-10.6)


Code: Select all

.................3.5.........9.......................81.....6....5.4..2.......... ED=11.6

18 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) (10.1-10.9)
3 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) (10.2-10.4)
13 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Multiple Forcing Chains) (11.1-11.6)


Code: Select all

...5...............3..4...........83.........1..7....6........................2.. ED=12.0

18 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) (10.3-10.9)
23 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Multiple Forcing Chains) (11.0-11.5)
9 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) (11.8-12.0)
1 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) (11.8)


Code: Select all

...5...2......................8..7..................3............9.6....2.4...... ED=12.2

15 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) (10.3-10.9)
2 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) (10.4-10.6)
1 x Dynamic Cell Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) (10.6)
1 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Multiple Forcing Chains) (11.4)
5 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Multiple Forcing Chains) (11.5-11.6)
4 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) (11.7-11.8)
32 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) (11.8-12.2)
1 x Dynamic Cell Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) (12.0)


There will be 1 new release only, in a few days!
Generating these hard puzzles will tie up your computer (100% CPU usage) for minutes/hours!!
It's really about implementing a new feature that you can use at your own risk (your comp becoming sluggish!).

[1to9only]

Download SukakuExplainer (2021.9.23) from here.
Use new option 'Generate (NFC enabled, can use 100% CPU)...', select 'Diabolical' and 'Exact difficulty' for very hard sudokus.
'Generate...' is unchanged.

Edit1: 'Exact difficulty' has no effect, as Min and Max EDs are not used with this Generate option.

Edit2: The command-lines: serate, hints, pencilmarks, solve don't work with custom (extra regions) sudokus. I hope to fix this soon.

[1to9only]

Code: Select all

..8...3.1.........................4......7.............9.................2.....5. ED=11.4/11.4/2.8


[urhegyi]

Code: Select all

..8...3.1.........................4......7.............9.................2.....5. ED=11.4/11.4/2.8


Already found an example with 9 clues. Nice to know that a minimal 8 clue example is also possible.
No command line option for custom extra regions sudoku. Nice it will be fixed in a future release.
Edit:
Sometimes when generating fiendish custom X-sudokus, the generator stops working. It's hard to generate ratings around SE 2.8/2.9.Suggestion: add a possibilty to capture the errorstream from the command line(debug modus) so that can be found out what's happening.

[1to9only]

Sometimes when generating fiendish custom X-sudokus, the generator stops working.

There are a few problems (amongst, a NullPointerException sometimes!) which I encounter every now and then.
I tend to ignore these, kill the Java VM from the Task Manager if needed, and restart the GUI.

It's hard to generate ratings around SE 2.8/2.9.

Fiendish puzzles are in 2.6-6.0 range, I would expect some puzzles at the lower end to be generated every now and then.

[urhegyi]

Sometimes when generating fiendish custom X-sudokus, the generator stops working.

There are a few problems (amongst, a NullPointerException sometimes!) which I encounter every now and then.
I tend to ignore these, kill the Java VM from the Task Manager if needed, and restart the GUI.

It's hard to generate ratings around SE 2.8/2.9.

Fiendish puzzles are in 2.6-6.0 range, I would expect some puzzles at the lower end to be generated every now and then.

The nullpointers i'm experiencing often with diagonals. In case of extra regions without them it works fine.
Yesterday I tried to generate a hard one instead of a fiendish one. It stopped after a long time and a memory use over 4.2 GB.

[urhegyi]

It took some time to test the new funcionality built in the newest version of sukakuexplainer to generate the highest rated puzzles:

[1to9only]

New version (2021.9.28) of SukakuExplainer, see post here: http://forum.enjoysudoku.com/help-with-sudoku-explainer-t6677-270.html#p310348