Coordinated spading effort

[Muhandes]

Tomorrow, Jesus will hit level 20.
Back to the Delta, where I'll spend 100 turns with the Smuggler trying to get some idea what ballpark the thing is in.

If someone could hit Solitude up with some Snout, we'll see about finally getting that crossed off the "needs spading" list.

I like the data you added for chip drop modifiers. How do you tally the ranges over a long period, is it by hand or do you use some bot/script?

[Jesus]

I like "gut" percentages and accurate ones, but I don't know if having both is overkill. I'd be curious to hear from some of the wiki-as-bible folks since they're the target audience, so to speak.

I tally chip drops by hand.
All I keep track of are the extremes of the range, so I don't have any idea if any drops within a range are more likely than others or anything like that. Since the XP thing occurred to me, I projected chip drops in the Cube based on that and I'm using the tally to confirm. Right now, I'm only lacking a drop of 132 from the King, and I'm not sure what R&G's limits are (current range I have is 83-137... placing it's "functional XP" at 109 gives a lower limit of 82, while 110 gives an upper limit of 138; the range I got using extortionist doesn't help narrow it down any further, so I know there's one last value in the range, just not in which direction).

As an aside, I'm also a little curious as to when the Winsday chips are figured in... That is, do +chips stuff consider them, or are they added after everything else? Anyone know offhand?

[Cristiona]

It's such a small amount, and drops are kinda vague as is... I'd guess Ryme would have to answer. My guess is that they're applied like any other bonus, so if the base was 100, and you had +50% and it was Winsday, you'd get 155 chips as opposed to 152.5

I imagine that XP bonuses get figured the same way (ie: Euphoric + Zion's Helm).

[Satan]

Cris, you mean 157.5? And yes, we confirmed via some of the cut-off scaling enemies that a constant +xp is applied /after/ percentages, as opposed to before them. I'd assume constant +chips is the same way, and there's certainly opportunities we could use to test it, once we nailed down boundaries for the middle chip drops.

[Jesus]

Okay, Snout done (Thanks Cris!) I even got the floor and ceiling for R&G on it, so I can say that their top unmodified range must be 138. Yay!

Feeling Lucky tomorrow (Thanks Arthur Dent).

edit:
Lucky was totally worth doing; it was twice as good as it was previously listed on the wiki.

It also occurs to me that if I fail to get a nondrop with the smuggler and +50%, then not only is the smuggler +50%, but enerbun must definitely have a 50% drop rate (as you'll recall, I failed to get a nondrop earlier with +99% from various sources, leaving the slim possibility that it might be less).

[Jesus]

As an aside, I'm also a little curious as to when the Winsday chips are figured in... That is, do +chips stuff consider them, or are they added after everything else? Anyone know offhand?

Tested this by adventuring on Winsday with the Extortionist.
Took three Winsdays to get the chip ranges decently filled out.
Result: It's exactly what you'd expect from the Extortionist, +5.

So yeah, they're applied last.


About the earlier statistics discussion... What I'm thinking now is that it allows a simple way to distinguish between things that have confirmed drop rates (pearl of wisdom, enerbun) and everything else.

[Muhandes]

A question.

Some time ago Jesus discovered what is presumably the default behavior for foe chip drops, which goes as follows.
For every foe there is a number X which is the average chip drop. In most cases this is equal to the XP.
The actual chip drop is from round(X*0.75) to round(X*1.25). that round might actually be a ceiling, but is definitely not a floor.

Now my question is (beyond asking how the number is rounded) would you see any benefit in programing this data into the wiki? That way you could get the expected chip drop from any foe, and just note when the chip drop is not the default.

[Kurg]

(thread is 'only' a few months old, so might as well resurrect it)
I think Improved Computer Interaction hasn't been spaded, has it? Specifically, if it increases the chance of software being triggered.
Wiki says stuff like Prepunctiality has a 10% trigger chance, using that has a base(and assuming it's correct...) and adventuring with a robo cap/VR helmet it should not be particularly hard to discover if ICI matters or not.

edit: of course best thing would be to run 2 softwares with a base 10% chance at the same time.

[Muhandes]

(thread is 'only' a few months old, so might as well resurrect it)
I think Improved Computer Interaction hasn't been spaded, has it? Specifically, if it increases the chance of software being triggered.
Wiki says stuff like Prepunctiality has a 10% trigger chance, using that has a base(and assuming it's correct...) and adventuring with a robo cap/VR helmet it should not be particularly hard to discover if ICI matters or not.

edit: of course best thing would be to run 2 softwares with a base 10% chance at the same time.

Yes, the thread kinda died as we finished the first project. I'm happy for any interest.

I'm all for spading any missing data, but keep in mind the problem with brute force spading - it can take several thousands turns, depending on what is spaded.
Also, I don't know if the 10% number is correct and I have no knowledge how it was spaded. I'd be happy if it is first fully spaded.
We can ask Ryme if the trigger rate for all software is the same, if he is willing to disclose that information. If it is, spading can be done at double speed.

[Kurg]

Spent around 1000 turns spading the base firing rate for Prepunctiality.
Used 3 different characters, some had electric computers some positronic, but without Supercomputer skills or Improved Computer Interaction.
I'll need to do some more work, but for now I *THINK* the firing rate is around 8%.

[Muhandes]

Spent around 1000 turns spading the base firing rate for Prepunctiality.
Used 3 different characters, some had electric computers some positronic, but without Supercomputer skills or Improved Computer Interaction.
I'll need to do some more work, but for now I *THINK* the firing rate is around 8%.

You can use the statrate template in the wiki to report this. For examples, if it fired 80 times out of 1000 turns then you can add something like:

The rate is about {{statrare|1000|80}}.

The result is:

The rate is about (8% ± 1.7%).

[Muhandes]

I thought it's about time to spade the Crouch item, having a stock of over 500 of each.
However, I am already out of letters of pre-recognition and I am not nearly done yet. The XP range on them is really odd.
If anyone is willing to donate or sell any letters, I can promise they'd be well used for spading.

[Jesus]

I'm going to drive myself nuts spading the dreampants in the Delta... with Colonel Mustard.

I think the best course is to get up to 100 turns with +90% drop (currently at 73, and getting ~17 per day), and then try 100 turns at 89%. If I get a nondrop within 100 there, go back to +90% until either 500 or nondrop. But I'd be really surprised if it was less than +10%.

[Cristiona]

I thought Pearls of Wisdom were Optimal(TM) for spading drops.

Of course, there's still two effects on the puzzle that haven't even been figured out, to say nothing of the rest of its tricks.

Also, forwarded 100 letters to Muh for more spading. I'd send more, but A) I'm running low, and B) they sell nicely. My generosity isn't utterly boundless, after all

[Muhandes]

Thanks to all who donated, I hope what I have now will be enough.

[Jesus]

I thought Pearls of Wisdom were Optimal(TM) for spading drops.

Maybe. But I'm farming Cybertronium anyway, so it's a two birds situation.