What are the differences between zombies and normal sims?
seelindarun:
Quote from: cwykes on 2008 April 19, 08:39:03
So does stop/starting stargazing increase the abduction chances? I thought that was another myth, but I guess it's a "yes" if you can actually break into the stargazing cycle and "no" if not.
Thank you for explaining what a stargazing cycle is. I've been quoting Pescado's Myth post for years without understanding the key parameter. So how would you describe the odds of getting abducted after stargazing for a whole night?
Notovny describes the odds of stargazing as 4.8% per night (7pm - 4am), in contrast to TreyNutz's 5% figure. He notes that he empirically (by experimenting within the game) found his odds to vary between 4.5% and 5.1%. With all due respect cwykes, throwing out TreyNutz's findings because he doesn't know how to do error analysis seems like a pretty high bar for the sims. ;D
Pescado's colorful characterization of the odds is descriptive but if you knew someone who didn't bother looking every single time they cross you'd have to suspect they have a death wish. Even very low odds can add up if you perpetually expose yourself to those risks. As a comparison, the odds of a sim being abducted in one single night of stargazing is about 5x greater than the odds of having your car stolen this year. Ask yourself how long you'd be willing to go without theft insurance on your car.
cwykes:
I don't deserve any respect for being stupid Seelindarum :-[ I spend a lot of time posting for newbies and forgot where I was. When I see or have quoted at me empirical research from the exchange, I'm sceptical especially if the research is old. I've tried examining how things work in game and it sucks as a method (food prep. btw). OK empirical evidence is important for IDing problems, but reading at the code tells you how it really works and it's sometimes not at all what you were expecting.
I had it firmly in my head that Pescado had debunked the 5% everyone non-awesome quotes and the true odds of getting abducted were 0.5%. I never engaged my brain to think about it, never mind research it. So discovering that there is a very short stargazing cycle and that the cumulative odds take you back up to something like the debunked 5% is a serious "head desk***" for me. Now you've all explained that the Prima guide 5% turns out to be right for the wrong reasons, I'll go back and read the rest of TreyNutz research. Then I can go post for the people I've been misleading for a long time.......
So what colourful phrase can we apply to the overall odds of getting abducted for a sim who spends night after night glued to that scope? This isn't colourful, but is it true?
"Your sim would have to spend every night of his adult life stargazing for the entire night to have a high chance of getting abducted and if you want him to get alien pregnant you'll probably have to resort to elixir of life as near-elders can't get pregnant."
notovny:
Yep. Cumulative chance of achieving at least one abduction with 28 nights of 7PM to 4AM stargazing under the same assumptions is 74.1%.
seelindarun:
"High chance" is qualitative, obviously. ;) Sometimes it's useful to think about odds in the reverse: if you have one particular sim you want to be abducted for a storyline, there's a 95% chance your story won't go as planned the first night. By the time he approaches elder, there's still a 25% chance that your story won't get made. That seems like a pretty significant chance of failure to me, so I'd be making other plans.
However, I mostly don't care which sims get probed. I'm just after some local colour in my 'hood. In that case, my tolerance for failure is pretty high, so a 25% chance that I won't have any aliens born in the first generation is fine. I'll just make sure my sim has a son, and he'll quite likely be the lucky one. :D
In truth, I play 4 or more houses in rotation all the time. If I send some random sim to the telescope most nights in each household I play, I get at least one alien born every generation, and some useless abductions. But then, I'm amused by that. :D Big developed 'hoods will have more aliens, and a bigger normal population, so the proportion stays roughly the same.
As for respect, it's sort of a holistic thing. People accumulate it slowly for others based on the totality of their words and work, not just a single declaration or post. :)
Garnet Avi:
Quote from: notovny on 2008 April 21, 10:38:34
Yep. Cumulative chance of achieving at least one abduction with 28 nights of 7PM to 4AM stargazing under the same assumptions is 74.1%.
Isn't this "gambler's fallacy"? The way I understand it, the odds do not increase the more you stargaze:
Quote
Alien abduction occurs with a straight 0.05% (NOT 5%) chance per cycle of stargazing.
According to this, each cycle independently has a .05% chance, not a cumulative effect that increases the odds over time. No matter how many times you flip a coin, the odds are still 50% either way and do not change depending on the past results. Even if you randomly flip 10 heads in a row, the next flip has the same chances of being heads as the last 10 trials.
I'm not very good with probability math, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the chances of abduction over 28 days are quite a bit lower than 74.1%. In fact, I'd say they're .05%.
Looking at it this way, you probably do need a hack or cheat if you ever want aliens in the neighborhood.
(Note: I'll reiterate that this statement is based on non-cumulative odds. If it increases over time, it's obviously going to be greater the more you try.)
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