Lottery

[Jon Tetrino]

someone could always create and sign a script that actually is a winable lottery.

I always thought that would be a cool idea, if the lottery was like anywhere from 1 million to 3 million credits, your chances of winning would be a lot better, and it would make another interesting add-on for X2.

well its a lottery do less like 3 more like 30 million. well if ur not likely to win then why not have a high prize?

[Tartarus]

someone could always create and sign a script that actually is a winable lottery.

I always thought that would be a cool idea, if the lottery was like anywhere from 1 million to 3 million credits, your chances of winning would be a lot better, and it would make another interesting add-on for X2.

well its a lottery do less like 3 more like 30 million. well if ur not likely to win then why not have a high prize?

Yeah, you've a good point there. With my idea, you could buy like, 20 tickets, leave the game on SETA for a few minutes, and come back a rich man! But, thtat's not realistic, so the 30 million idea is alot better.

[JMCorp]

I was inspired by a post a while back to actually calculate the likelyhood of winning the lottery in X2. Having nothing better to do, I went and did it and post here for your viewing pleasure the premise that the lottery IS winnable, its just that unless egosoft sell 15 trillion copies of X2 and every owner plays it for 10 years, still nobody would win it. Doesn't mean it isn't possible though.

How to do it:
Measuring draw odds is quite easy...

Now, applying this to X2's lottery, we have to pick 10 numbers from 01-99
99x98x97x96x95x94x93x92x91x90 (56,534,085,859,976,524,800)
10 picks: 10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (3628800)
Divide numbers by picks gives us 15,579,278,510,796 (trust me)

Your chance of winning X2 lottery is 15.6 trillion to 1 against.
Or 0.00000000000006418%

Never tell me the odds!

[Tarcon.]

I was inspired by a post a while back to actually calculate the likelyhood of winning the lottery in X2. Having nothing better to do, I went and did it and post here for your viewing pleasure the premise that the lottery IS winnable, its just that unless egosoft sell 15 trillion copies of X2 and every owner plays it for 10 years, still nobody would win it. Doesn't mean it isn't possible though.

How to do it:
Measuring draw odds is quite easy...

Now, applying this to X2's lottery, we have to pick 10 numbers from 01-99
99x98x97x96x95x94x93x92x91x90 (56,534,085,859,976,524,800)
10 picks: 10x9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 (3628800)
Divide numbers by picks gives us 15,579,278,510,796 (trust me)

Your chance of winning X2 lottery is 15.6 trillion to 1 against.
Or 0.00000000000006418%

This assumes the winning numbers are actually chosen at random - it may be the case that the numbers are not drawn at random and the sets of numbers are drawn rather than individual numbers.

It would be easy to accomodate so many billions, it would have to be distributed over the many owned stations.

[Lord_Darkstar]

"Coding errors" encompass human communications. Those metric and imperial values were coded in, as a result of the bad communications. Ultimately, an error was made in the coding, caused by bad communications.

Which is exactly what I'm doing. The key word in your paragraph there is SHOULDN'T. Nothing's ever simple, and when it does appear simple, it's usually broken. At least, that's what I've learned

"Coding errors" to me means actual code errors. That's the problem with me being a code monkey. I tend to take things very literally. A coding error is an error in the code. What they did (the ESA and NASA team) was an error in input. One team presumed that the other team would use their metrics (as it is only logical and obvious to all that it should be the one used). Both teams never brought up what metrics they meant and what they expected all metrics to be in. Typical problem with humans... presume you are right and everyone else knows it and agrees with it, rather then validate what goes in and what goes out and what people are actually going to stick into your input. One simple UI guy in the room willing to embarass his own boss should have straightened that problem out at the beginning.

Everything should be as simple as it appears. That's how you keep basic problems out of code. (Can't tell I'm a C coder from way back, can you? ) Of course, what is simple and abundantly clear to the person coding it is never as simple and clear to the next person that reads it.

[esd]

is never as simple and clear to the next person that reads it.

Or to the poor buggers testing it

[EvilLord]

I have won the lottery before. Here is a genuine, unedited screenshot to prove it.

http://img54.echo.cx/img54/3378/lottery2er.jpg

[esd]

I have won the lottery before. Here is a genuine, unedited screenshot to prove it.

http://img54.echo.cx/img54/3378/lottery2er.jpg

Congratulations that man!

[Brianetta]

I have won the lottery before. Here is a genuine, unedited screenshot to prove it.

http://img54.echo.cx/img54/3378/lottery2er.jpg

The fivers are a fab touch (: