Let's be serious about metal returns

[Potjeh]

Of course the odds per lump are same. But those were not the odds discussed here. And I know basic statistics, thank you very much.

[humanalien]

a simple solution would be a better smelter (advanced smelter) that doubles the change of getting metal out of ore.
the advanced smelter would of course needs complex materials to build, and require some new skills to build it.
in other words, you have the possibility to research for better methods of production.

the same could be aplied for farming (irrigation through cannals and suplied from rives with an archimedes screw)

[Peter]

Yes, I am aware of that. My calculation was:

(1/400) = Pbar (The probability of getting one bar from one piece of ore)
1-Pbar = Pnobar (The probability of getting no metal from a piece of ore)
(Pnobar)^25 = Pnothing (The probability of getting no ore at all from having smelted 25 bars simultaneously.)
1-Pnothing = Psomething (The probability, per 25 lumps of ore, of getting 1 bar or more)

Now, chemically and geologically, gold is not actually that tough to refine. It's only rarely found alloyed, usually found as pure native gold in quartz. If it's small enough flakes, it might take some quicksilver processing just to remove it from the dross, but that's it.

[Raben]

Actually, Sabinati, teh 1337 p4w4h of Bernoullian Problems and such confirms Peter's diagnosis.

With 25 lumps of ore, an ore with a prob. of 1/400 will, in the 93% of the cases, give nothing; or, in the case of 1/300, will give nothing in the 91% of the cases.

So, Peter's numbers are not that crazy, at all.

EDIT: My bad, I've just seen that q1real had exactly my same results, only with successes instead of failures. :3

[sabinati]

yeah it was early and i did not quite understand the wording. apologies.

[Potjeh]

Eh, English isn't my first language so part of the blame is on me. I just didn't know how to explain it better.

[Axehilt]

The amount of inconsequential math-arguing in this thread is amusing.

Inconsequential because none of it changed the fact that it's not fun to have an extremely high chance of getting nothing, when instead it would clearly be better to always get something (ie you always end up with a random number of Gold Scraps from success, but you need 100 Gold Scraps to make a Gold Bar.)

[Peter]

Ok, I got a spreadsheet out for this...

Code: Select all

0.003333333   Psuccess      Load size:      25
0.996666667   Pfail            Ore per bar:    300
0.919916355   Ploadf         
0.080083645   Ploads         
0.083333333   Average BPL         

PSuccess is the chance that any one ore becomes a bar. Pfail is the chance that any one ore fails to become a bar. Ploadf is the chance that an entire load of 25 ore would fail to produce anything at all. Ploads is the chance that a full load would produce any amount of ore other than zero, including 1, 2, 3 bars or more.
Average BPL is how many bars will eventually be produced per load on average. Using 1/400:

Code: Select all

0.002500000   Psuccess      Load size:      25
0.997500000   Pfail         Ore per bar:   400
0.939339551   Ploadf         
0.060660449   Ploads         
0.062500000   Average BPL         

This is why we need partial bars or something. Maybe some ores appear as different kinds of stone in mines... for instance, gold ore produces 30% of a bar, but only appears in small clusters.

Hmm... I'm just guessing, but mines are only like 256x256 tiles, right? Let's say 512x512. That's 4096 bars, theoretically.

[jorb]

I agree with the gist of this thread, however, returning "Gold dust" or "Gold nuggets", or whatever, would make my coins pointless!

I want coins, damn it!

I'll think about it.

[Hamel]

I agree with the gist of this thread, however, returning "Gold dust" or "Gold nuggets", or whatever, would make my coins pointless!

I want coins, damn it!

I'll think about it.

Even if you could smelt nuggets and dust into bars for coins?