Talk:FAQ

no sense

Q. I was under the impression that Super Brie had a 99% chance 
of attracting a mouse, regardless of what type of cheese the 
mouse prefers. If this is the case, the chance of 11 mice not 
being attracted in a row would be like 1.0 e-22, so I’m starting 
to think that something is just broken...

A. If your trap has a 99% chance to attract a mouse that means 
that each time you go on a hunt you have a 99% chance to attract 
on that particular hunt, not that you'll attract mice 99 out of 
100 times."

This makes no sense.

It means that the 99% chance to attract is not the probability of attracting mice over all hunts. Each encounter has a 99% chance, and the engine does not take into account previous hunts. There is no guarantee that if you encounter 1000 mice, 990 of them will be attracted to your trap. This is just basic probability, and that's how it works.

cheesePower = 0.99

if (random roll from 1 to 100 < cheesePower) return "attraction success"

else return "attraction fail"

--Giorgio Sintichakis 14:54, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

It might also be wise to mention that although mice are attracted, it does not guarantee that your trap will catch them.

There is mention of what to do if you catch a prize mouse: could someone perhaps explain what a prize mouse *is*? Being new, I have no idea.

(written by 129.96.233.210)

Concerning the Prize Mice, the easiest would be to make a link to an article that explains more about them... et voilà. It is also good to always add one's signature at the end of a comment on a discussion page. You can do this by adding ~~~~ at the end of your comment or by using the 2nd button from the left above the edit window. If you need any help with editing or writing in a wiki, (or concerning MouseHunt in general) please feel free to ask. --Mulleflupp 08:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

It does make sense, though chances are low you'll notice the difference. It's easier to visualise if you consider the 50% chance of a coin ending up flipped onto heads. You can still end up with something like tails-tails, contrary to the "You'll get heads 1 one of 2 times" intuition. It boils down to that nature isn't self-correcting. That's the statement being made here. (Mind, that's without factoring in the deterministic nature of computers dictating pseudo-randomness rather than true randomness.) -pinkgothic 13:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The question is correct, in that the odds of not attracting a mouse 11 times in a row are soooooo unlikely that it will never happen. (1/100)^11. The answer doesn't address this even though it does explain that you could still get bad luck. But not thattt bad!

I removed the "not that you'll attract mice 99 out of 100 times" part. It was poorly worded and the "system does not self correct" factor really doesn't explain how you could miss 11 times in a row. Sure it is possible, but it is absurdly unlikely.

Much better now.