for your consideration…

OPUS MAGNUM AREA AT INFINITY PROPOSALS

	PROPOSAL 0 "STATUS QUO"	PROPOSAL 2 "POLYMER BED"	PROPOSAL 3 "IGNORE CHAINS"	PROPOSAL 4 "IGNORE CHAINS NO AREA RESET"	PROPOSAL 5 "EVISCERATE LAST MONOMER"
description	Don't ignore any area. Solves that tie on A' or A'' are truly tied.	As part of area computation for polymers, ignore area from atoms on hexes extending infinitely to the right of the polymer output. Area from mechanisms and arms is still counted.	As a tiebreaker, after reaching the steady state, reset area back to just the solution's glyphs and arms, then simulate one more steady-state loop, ignoring area from atoms that are part of a chain. Atoms become part of a chain when they are bonded for the last time to a molecule containing atoms that have escaped the solution and are moving off to infinity in the steady state.	As a tiebreaker, ignore area from atoms that are part of a chain. There are two ways for an atom to be part of a chain. The first is to have escaped the solution and be moving off to infinity when the steady state is reached. Atoms of this type are considered part of a chain once they move like they will in the steady state. To be precise, they become part of a chain after they move differently than they will in the steady state for the last time. The second way to be part of a chain is to become part of a molecule with atoms of the first type during the steady state. Atoms of this type become part of a chain when they are bonded for the last time to such a molecule.	As part of area computation for polymers, every time a polymer matches, flag the atoms in the last monomer (and any further unflagged monomers). Flagged atoms can't be output, and area from them is ignored.
pros and cons	pros: we don't have to do anything it's relatively simple to understand cons: same precision on all levels	pros: better precision on almost all polymer levels (except assassin's filament) doesn't require any new numbers on the leaderboard cons: same precision on forced-waste levels	pros: better precision on all polymer levels better precision on forced-waste levels cons: introduces a tiebreaker, which brings a lot of implementation and UI difficulties area used during initialization only doesn’t count towards score	pros: better precision on all polymer levels better precision on forced-waste levels cons: introduces a tiebreaker, which brings a lot of implementation and UI difficulties complicated to understand and may give unexpected results lots of work to implement in omsim as well	pros: better precision on all polymer levels doesn't require any new numbers on the leaderboard cons: same precision on forced-waste levels building output-aligned monomers is required for finite A sliding the polymer vertically does not prevent finite A unclear: not having waste on the end of the monomer is required for finite A there may be a way to use the "eviscerated" atoms to build weird area-less mechanisms after validation (hasn't been demonstrated practically)
ARMOR FILAMENT RA@∞	2A'	23A	2A'/23α	2A'/23α	23A
ARMOR FILAMENT A@∞R	2A'	20A	2A'/20α	2A'/20α	20A
SWORD ALLOY RA@∞	6A'	64A	6A'/64α	6A'/64α	80A
SWORD ALLOY A@∞R	6A'	48A	6A'/48α	6A'/48α	62A
ASSASSIN'S FILAMENT RA@∞	16A'	4A'	16A'/111α	16A'/111α	134A
LITHARGE SEPARATION RA@∞	0.333A'	0.333A'	0.333A'/71α	0.333A'/71α	0.333A'
RP0'S FUNNY DEMO SOLVE	1A'	23A	1A'/22α	1A'/23α	23A