Are there really billions of missions?

[Batatudo123]

I was reading about CW3 in the Knuckle Cracker website and it says there that there are "Billions of total missions".
Is this true? I mean, is it even possible?

Thank you in advance.

[Lost in Nowhere]

In the DMD (otherwise known as a random map generator), yes.

[Michionlion]

There are more than billions of missions.

232^65 codes, but I'm guessing that of those there may be some that are immaterially different.  232^65 is...  a lot.  It's bigger than a Googol (10^100).  In scientific notation, it is 5.71109*10^153.  That is over 150 0's after 5.7.  Um... it is definitely bigger than billions.  It's bigger than trillions, Quadrillions, Quintillions, Sextillions, Septillions, Octillions, the list goes on.  If you were to name it, it would be in the Vigintillions, which is quite apt, as the game was created by Virgil.  (all those number names came from here)   Soo... yeah, its big.

PS: 232^65 is based on the (assumed) fact that there are 232 slots for chars in the code box, with the options in each slot of: upper or lowercase letter (52), number (10), or +, =, /.



EDIT: um... it seems like that isn't enough.  I just went through the terrain options, finding how many values there are (and approximating so that there were big differences between each one, so each map would be at least somewhat different), and it turns out that... according to my (somewhat dubious) calculations, there are 999999999^250000000000000000000 somewhat different maps.  That is a lot more that 232^65, which means that there is some byte-working done to fit all that information in one 232 char long code.  Well, V, could you enlighten us exactly?  I'm sorta curious now...

CORRECTION: it should be 65^232, not the other way round.  That number comes out to 3.94365 x 10^420, an even bigger number.  And as NFITC1 said, not all slots can have all chars, so this number is really high.  I would estimate no more than 10^50 or so playable and different maps.

[pawel345]

Basically in the DMD you can set overall parameters of the map you want to play, like the number and average strength of emitters, spore towers and so on, and how the terrain looks, and then browse different random seeds that generate the map you like. So yes there is no real limit to how many different maps there are. And then add the custom and tormented/prospector mission and you get a different map for every second of your life :P

[Batatudo123]

Wow!
Much maps
Such insane
Need play.

[CobraKill]

Well just doing some quick and rather inaccurate calculations I arrived at 1.124e322 (1.124*10^322) or I believe about 10 Quinticentillion. It's an unimaginably large number that I just came up with by multiplying all the options together when you go to Edit DMD Map. It doesn't include units, and there is duplications, no doubt. But I'm too lazy to go do it again. :P

[Lost in Nowhere]

Although a large amount of those maps will be either impossible or have no enemies to kill (making it still impossible), even if only 0.00000000000001% of those maps were possible, it would take longer than the estimated life time of the universe to complete all of them if you can finish 1 per second.

[Clean0nion]

I was reading about CW3 in the Knuckle Cracker website and it says there that there are "Billions of total missions".
Is this true? I mean, is it even possible?

Thank you in advance.

Yes.

[Michionlion]

Wow!
Much maps
Such insane
Need play.

Much indeed
Such memes
Should play!

:D

[NFITC1]

There are more than billions of missions.

232^65 codes, but I'm guessing that of those there may be some that are immaterially different.  232^65 is...  a lot.  It's bigger than a Googol (10^100).  In scientific notation, it is 5.71109*10^153.  That is over 150 0's after 5.7.  Um... it is definitely bigger than billions.  It's bigger than trillions, Quadrillions, Quintillions, Sextillions, Septillions, Octillions, the list goes on.  If you were to name it, it would be in the Vigintillions, which is quite apt, as the game was created by Virgil.  (all those number names came from here)   Soo... yeah, its big.

PS: 232^65 is based on the (assumed) fact that there are 232 slots for chars in the code box, with the options in each slot of: upper or lowercase letter (52), number (10), or +, =, /.



EDIT: um... it seems like that isn't enough.  I just went through the terrain options, finding how many values there are (and approximating so that there were big differences between each one, so each map would be at least somewhat different), and it turns out that... according to my (somewhat dubious) calculations, there are 999999999^250000000000000000000 somewhat different maps.  That is a lot more that 232^65, which means that there is some byte-working done to fit all that information in one 232 char long code.  Well, V, could you enlighten us exactly?  I'm sorta curious now...

I'm not going to do the math myself right now, but that number is WAY high. Some values are not valid (more than one inhibitor for example). So just because there are so many characters in the mission hash doesn't mean anything can be anywhere. Also, if there are 232 characters in the hash code, then it's 65^232, not 232^65.

[Grauniad]

There are indeed a large number of missions. The math is complex, since many of the values are range- and bound-checked for validity. So you can't just generate all the codes, you have to create the parameters through the DMD and then just accept the code string as-is for sharing purposes where it can be pasted into other DMDs and reinterpreted.

There are possibly billions and billions, but there will probably never be an accurate count of exactly how many billion maps could be generated. besides, many of them would be so trivially different from one another that if they were encountered sequentially, one could not be able to discern a difference.

So if there are a billion fun, playable maps out there, is that a reason to complain? :)

[Michionlion]

@NFITC1  You're right!  I did that math wrong, it should be 65^232.  And indeed, many of those chars are not used.  However, it was a very rough number.  As G said, we'll never know exactly how many there are.  I'm sure that there are enough to last way more than the lifetime of CW3, however.