Thanks for tracking this, Swisspie81. Yay, another 'mathlete'!
Part of the fascination of this, or any, game for me is figuring out how it works, what the algorithms are, how the heck certain bugs are introduced. Like, after the last update, all my weird random new 'friends' were thankfully gone… now, some are back? But not all?
Why. Why. Why DOES SC NOT USE REGRESSION TESTING?
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/regression_testing.html
Anyway, I digress. This boat thing has been kicking around in my head.
I've noticed that my friends and I don't have identical boats, but everyone DOES seem to need the same thing. For example, if I see popcorn coming up on my next boat, I start buying all of it in the paper because I know if I need it, my friends with boats at the same time are going to need it too.
I just figured SC wrote some lazy randomization code based on time… it SEEMS random, but actually anyone who sends a boat in the next 30 minutes will have popcorn coming up, for example.
I finally tricked/coaxed/begged my Significant Other to start playing, so now I have an equally addicted SO, and another farm to experiment with.
We've tried sending our boats at the exact same time, but that was bad because it almost always resulted in having one or two of the same things needed. I figured it wasn't a perfect match because of the 30 level difference between us.
Your 'twin' list has made me see things in a much more insidious light… someone pre-determined a list of boats? It can't be all time based if you are getting the EXACT same boats.
If so, are there multiple versions of the list (like there are multiple versions of the newspaper?) Or, is it one big list for anyone who has unlocked everything, and we all drop in somewhere? So, I might be on boat 4 of the list, while you're on boat 34.
If there is a list, why is it that about 40% of my friends all share at least one ingredient at the same time? If we all have popcorn, then we can't all be just cycling through this list… but, if there isn't a list, then why are you and two others exactly synched?
I'm curious if it is possible that there is one list, and I could drop in it somewhere. I take sreencaps of every boat I get, so I'll start comparing it to your list. I'll post if I find a pattern. Because it sure would be cool to know what my next boat is based on your list. And then maybe SC would change it if we had a list that told us our upcoming boats.
Anyway, we're on to you SC. We know the boat code has problems. Please fix it, and while you're at it, please remove the possibility of having two of the same items, two items made on the same machine, or cook times over 20 hours.
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