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Dimachaer ChessA game information page . Introducing the Dimachaer, a bifurcation piece that always lands on the diagonal second leg (zrf available).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Oct 9, 2009 09:12 AM UTC:
One thing is not completely clear to me: Does the Dimachaer actually have to move along the orthogonal leg, or is it enough that it is orthogonally blocked? I.e. if I have a Dimachaer on c1, and a Pawn on c2, is the Dimachaer allowed to move to b2,a3 and d2,e3,f4,...? My interpretation of your description would say this is allowed: IMO hitting something on the first orthogonal step is a case of 'colliding orthogonally', even though the second leg would originate from a point where the piece is currently standing.

Bifurcators such as the Dimachaer are actually very easy to implement in Fairy-Max, with a small change in the code. They are a slightly modified case of Hoppers. The way Fairy-Max implements Hoppers is that on hitting an obstacle, it replaces the primary move rights and vector by the secondary move rights and vector to continue the move. This would allow 'bent hoppers' which change direction at the platform. The 'true' Bifurcators, which split their move path, would do this one step earlier or later.

So what I did in Fairy-Max is just alter the Hopper code to take one step back along the primary ray before proceeding with the normal Hopper code. This then implements a Collider-type Bifurcator. The SMIRF symbol for Archbishop (two crossed swords), which is also used by WinBoard, seems to fit the Dimachaer perfectly!

I will report a value estimate soon!