Sequence Theory (Basics)

Sequence Theory (Basics)

Written by Scaffold. If you have questions, reach out to me through my discord scaffoldhax



1) Basic vocab

Acceleration Plants- Plants that speed up waves. This includes jalapenos, cherries, dooms, stuff like that. Also known as "additive plants"

Deceleration Plants- Plants that slow down waves. This includes only ice. Aka subtractive plants

Acceleration Waves- Waves that aren't iced immediately. Aka additive waves

Deceleration Waves- Waves that are iced immediately. Aka subtractive waves or ice waves.
The term 'ice wave' is kinda misleading because not all waves that use ices are ice waves but it's the most common term for this so I'm going to keep using it.



2) Slightly less basic vocab

Operations- What you do in a setup to kill the zombies. This includes cobbing, icing, using instants, etc.

Sequence- The way you organize your operations in a setup. If you're playing classic 8 cob (https://youtu.be/g9jsM7KJacs), the sequence would be; Cob | Cob | Cob | Cob. We have ways of simplifying our sequences so it's more info-dense but we aren't there yet.

Rhythm- The way in which the sequence is arranged. This is complicated but imagine rhythms like reading a sheet of music with different notes and rhythms. The "rhythm" of a sequence is just a way of classifying the different notes (the different operations)

Symbol- A symbol is how we simplify how we write our sequences. We have a standardized list of every operation and what symbol it translates to. For example, cobbing=P, icing=I, cherry bombing=A, etc.



3) Getting more into the meats of sequence theory

Let's go over how to write basic sequences.
First, we separate each wave using the vertical bar symbol |. This should be self explanatory.
Second, if certain operations in the same wave are played with time separating them, we use a dash - to indicate the time difference (Example: Ice - Cob).
Lastly, we use a slash / symbol to indicate if there are different operations on the top half and the bottom half. For example, if I shot a cob on the top half and placed a cherry bomb in the bottom half, I would write; Cob / Cherry. This isn't necessary for simple setups as we can easily guess what it means but it's absolutely necessary in more complicated setups when you're writing stuff like NDcc/JTNAD (extreme example)

We also usually write the lengths of each wave after the sequence. If I was playing classic 16 cob (https://youtu.be/jhGiCLetGpE), I would write; Cob | Cob | 2 Cobs | Cob | Cob | 2 Cobs ( 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 ). This exact format isn't required but it looks the cleanest. As you can see, I matched every wave with a wavelength to indicate how long the wave is and how long you should wait before cobbing.



4) Ooh the fun part

Time to go over the different symbols. This finna be pvz homework ahahahahah
As recap, symbols are the different letters used to indicate what to play in sequences.

The basic ones are-

P - Cob
I - Ice
N - Doom
A - Cherry
J- Jalapeno
a - Squash
c - Cannon Fodder

There are about a trillion different ways to specify how you shoot a cob but these are the very basic ones that are mandatory to know to understand most sequences.
To understand some of the letters, P stands for "Pao" which is the chinese word for cob.
N stands for Nuclear which makes perfect sense
A stands for "Ash". This one doesn't make sense but an ash plant is a plant that deals an instant worth of damage. Cobs and dooms are not included because they are their own category. This term "ash" is completely unused nowadays though so it's best not to think about it.

If you want the full list, go to this pastebin link: https://pastebin.com/FCnRqCuv



5) You might get lost here

Time to talk about rhythms :) Rhythms are the way you arrange the operations. For example; ch6, S5, P4, C8u, etc. Let's go over some of them.


The most basic rhythm is the Px rhythm. The P stands for pao which means cob so this can be called the "cob rhythm" if you really want to call it that. Px just means that you repeat PP over and over again. x equals the amount of times you repeat PP. This isn't always the case but this is pretty much how it works. This rhythm doesn't have any ice waves and it usually uses only cobs.

Examples: P5, PP | PP | PP | PP | PP ( 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 ). Remember, PP = 2 cobs.

As you can see, I repeated PP 5 times which makes this rhythm P5.

Note that each wave is 7 seconds because the cob reload is 34.75 seconds. Usually for rhythms, the cycle is 36 seconds to make the wrap less tight and so the numbers are nicer but 36/5 isn't a whole number so we just rounded down to 7.
Pretty simple rhythm. This rhythm can get slightly more complicated but we'll just ignore that for now


The second easiest rhythm is the chx rhythm. The ch stands for change because the waves change speeds. This rhythm is much more complicated so I'll have to go more in depth.
The characteristics are:
This rhythm has two ice waves per cycle.
The two ice waves are the same length.

There are more technically but these are the only two that matter. Let's start with what x equals. Unlike Px, x is equal to the amount of ices used in the sequence + the amount of waves in the sequence. Let's say we have a chx rhythm with a 4 wave sequence. The rhythm by default already uses 2 ices and there are 4 waves in it's sequence so this mystery rhythm would be ch6 because 4+2=6. This should be pretty simple. Let's look at some examples of chx rhythms-

Ch4; I-PP | I-PP ( 18 | 18 )
Ch5; I-PP | I-PP | PP ( 15 | 15 | 6 )
Ch6; I-PP | PP | I-PP | PP ( 12 | 6 | 12 | 6 )
Adjacent Ch6; I-PP | I-PP | PP | PP ( 12 | 12 | 6 | 6 )

Ch4 has 2 waves per cycle and 2 ices per cycle yikes. This means that both waves have to be ice waves. Since cycles are 36s, both waves are 18 seconds since they have to be the same length. When I was still learning rhythms, I often mistook ch4 for P2 because I didn't realize that Px couldn't use ice waves. This assumption was incorrect.

Ch5 has 3 waves per cycle and 2 ices per cycle. This is the classic daytime double ice rhythm used in setups like fast 6 cob (https://youtu.be/IGAIFOZc28s). The ice waves are both 15 seconds because 6 + 15 + 15 equals 36.

NOW ch6 is something different. This rhythm is used in every single setup istg. This rhythm has 4 waves with 2 decelerated waves. Because there are 4 waves, you can actually choose to make the ice waves adjacent as shown above which can make or break setups.
The ice waves are 12 seconds because 12 + 6 + 12 + 6 = 36. Actually, with script, ch6 would be played with 11.5 second ice waves because it has perfect jack suppression but this isn't really a thing with manual play.




Another rhythm is Sx. Sx is pretty much the little brother of chx. Instead of using two ice waves per cycle, it only uses one.
Note: Remember that x still equals the amount of waves per cycle plus the amount of ice waves. Since there's only one ice wave, there's gonna be more waves per cycle than in chx.

Examples-

S3; I-PP | PP ( 21 | 15 )
S4; I-PP | PP | PP ( 18 | 9 | 9 )
S5; I-PP | PP | PP | PP ( 18 | 6 | 6 | 6 )
S6; I-PP | PP | PP | PP | PP ( 12 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 )

Since there's one less ice wave, there are more Sx rhythms than chx right now. (chx can actually go higher than 6 but that's too advanced for now). This uses the exact same concepts as chx except with one ice wave.
x still follows the same formula as chx where x equals the number of ice waves + the number of waves total.
Note: The wavelengths for S3-S5 don't need to be exactly as what's listed. They're more like guidelines because the waves need to be so long.




The last rhythm we're going over is Cxi. Cxi is chx's big brother. It uses 3 ice waves per cycle instead of 2. This one's fun
Examples-

C6i; I-PP | I-PP | I-PP ( 12 | 12 | 12 )

Hmmm, there's only one rhythm. This is because you can't have 2 waves in a cycle because you need at least 3 ice waves. 3 waves + 3 waves equals 6 so we're done.
Technically, Cxi can actually go higher but the rhythms start being 54 second cycles instead of 36 second so we're not gonna bother.



That's about it when it comes to the basics of rhythms. Hope y'all learned something. Check out my original pastebin for more details (get ready); https://pastebin.com/FCnRqCuv