When an assignment is completed in SpaceChem there is a summary with statistics about your solution.
What I do not understand is if it is better have high elapsed cycles or low. Because if I have 172 and 214, it tells me 214 is the best, but it seems a contradiction to me. Is it correct? Do you have an explanation?
Best Answer
Like this contrived example (but the other way around)?
Best is your "Previous best" (and doesn't include this run, so you can compare).
This is the result of this run.
So if you're seeing This:172 and Best:214 this implies you have just managed a faster solution that your previous best, next time you will see Best:172 because lower elapsed cycles are better.