General

Re: A mathematical math puzzle

Fox McCloud — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:52:39 GMT

I might add that there's two wrenches (I'm not sure which ones) that were manually interfered with.

Re: A mathematical math puzzle

baxter — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:42:05 GMT

The number of items occuring for each wrench event varies from about 11 to 60 per second, with the highest ratio occuring around July 5th 4:30 PM. Lots of people of work playing then?

I see no pattern in the times demarcating the wrenches.The 20th order forward differences show nothing.

>well, it's compounded by the fact a number were accurately predicting the times down to the second for a little while, but all that's disappeared.

No clue why, maybe there is a pseudorandom generator whose output was reproduced, but the generator was since reseeded.

Re: A mathematical math puzzle

Fox McCloud — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:30:35 GMT

well, it's compounded by the fact a number were accurately predicting the times down to the second for a little while, but all that's disappeared.

Re: A mathematical math puzzle

baxter — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:24:39 GMT

Um, what is this? Some kind of periodic video game server event?

Is there any hint there's a comprehensible mathematical pattern and not simply a pseudorandom number generator or human intervention controlling it? I don't see a pattern.

One factor might be something like variations in bandwidth consumption or number of players at particular times of the day.

A mathematical math puzzle

Fox McCloud — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:00:54 GMT

Ok, first off, I don't know the equation for solving the problem in advance; this is more of a discussion to determine it.

In any event, what is the most likely equation to determine the time when the next drop will occur?

http://tf2stats.net/wrenches

Ignore the numbers 21 and below; only 22 and above matter.

Therefore, when will the next drop occur?

I've been attempting to find a meaningful pattern, but I'm coming up blank.