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Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Mystery Trader part trading (It doesn't work quite the way we thought.)
Mystery Trader part trading Sun, 20 December 2015 03:11 Go to next message
schneck is currently offline schneck

 
Crewman 3rd Class

Messages: 8
Registered: April 2015
Location: United States
I've been doing some experiments, and I think there's misleading information about MT part trading at http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Mystery_Trader and http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Mystery_Trader_FAQ_3.1_by _Rogier_van_Vugt_-_1998-03-23_v2.6/7h .

It says "The chance of getting a part is based on the number of MT items in the whole fleet (up to 25 items per event)" and "it's best to have fleets with 25 items to scrap" but my experiments indicate that each ship design in a fleet only counts once.

So one scout with one MT part gives you a 1% chance (after the per-event 50% chance); but a single fleet with 25 identical scouts with the one MT part also gives you only a 1% chance! A frigate with 3 MT parts would give a 3% chance. Two scouts of two different designs, each with one MT part, combined in one fleet, would give a 2% chance.

If you are trading in battle, multiple fleets in one battle works well. That is, 25 separate fleets each with the same design scout with one MT part does appear to give a 25% chance (after the per-event 50% chance). Effectively, each token present in the battle contributes to the count, but only as if one ship from each token.

To be more precise, it looks like each part (either on one ship, or on multiple ships in different fleets) gives a separate 1% chance. So the actual probability with 25 parts, even in one battle (even on one Nubian scrapper, ha) is 1 - (1 - .01)^25 = 22.2% (after the per-event 50% chance).


The practical upshot is, if you are deliberately trading MT parts with your allies, always "split all" your lamb/scrapper fleets. If using lambs, send 25 lambs in 25 fleets to each battle.


If someone can add this information to the Wiki I would appreciate it. And while you're at it, please make a note that the chart at http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/MT#Trading_MT_Technologie s is misleading because it doesn't take into account the 50% per-event chance of getting nothing from that event (and, less importantly, assumes that the 1% per part is additive, which seems to be false).

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Re: Mystery Trader part trading Wed, 23 December 2015 05:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
iztok is currently offline iztok

 
Commander

Messages: 1202
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe
Intersting. It's a pittly this can't be checked quickly, but it also needs to be verified. Eh... Confused

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Re: Mystery Trader part trading Mon, 28 December 2015 20:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
schneck is currently offline schneck

 
Crewman 3rd Class

Messages: 8
Registered: April 2015
Location: United States
I checked this by having a command-line file viewer that could verify whether the part was transferred.

I created a testbed with one player with the part and one player without; set up a scenario to test; and then repeatedly generated, verified transfer or not, and restored the scenario (by copying backup files). If anyone is really keen to duplicate the results, I can send a testbed and/or a simple Java program to check a HST file for which players have which MT parts. Let me know.

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Re: Mystery Trader part trading Wed, 06 January 2016 06:45 Go to previous message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
Commander

Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left
schneck wrote on Sun, 20 December 2015 09:11
The practical upshot is, if you are deliberately trading MT parts with your allies, always "split all" your lamb/scrapper fleets. If using lambs, send 25 lambs in 25 fleets to each battle.

For some reason I've always done wolf/lamb like that, as odds improved with each destroyed token, regardless of the amount of ships per token. 2 Guns Rolling Eyes



So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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