Re: GC40BVN Variety is the Spice of Life

Requesting a new challenge checker please for GC40BVN Variety is the Spice of Life.

Rules:

1. You must find a different cache type, each day, for 50 consecutive days.
2. Each day of the 50 consecutive days, you are able to find as many caches as you want. There is no limitation to this. However, you must designate one of these caches that you find, as your cache type for that day (Day 1). The next day you can find as many caches and types that you wish, however, you must designate a different a cache type for Day 2. At the end of the 50 days, you will have 50 designated caches over 50 consecutive days, without having the same designated cache type twice in a row.
3. You cannot designate the same cache type for two days in a row.
4. Out of the 50 designated caches, you must have at least 7 different cache types represented.

Please include in the output the list of qualifying caches, ordered by date, with the cache type. For example:
2020-04-01 - Traditional: GC12345 Geocaching is Great
2020-04-02 - Mystery: GC54321 Is Geocaching Great?
2020-04-03 - CITO: GC55555 Geocaching Cleanups are Great
...

I am not the cache owner.

I found a script that can do this (Same streak, different type).... but it wasnt perfect.... the script doesnt always finish executing for people with more than about 8000 finds.

I am now trying to optimise it.

If anyone else wants to have a go, please go ahead!!

That's one of my first scripts. Will attempt to optimize it.

Thanks pieterix, I will leave it in your hands.

Here's a checker for you:

https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC40BVN/46238

Please test and let us know if it's suitable.

@GreyHams: It took some time and various attempts at short-circuiting (and avoiding) long recursive runs where people simply would not have qualified even if given infinite execution time. The script now even works for Alamogul (and they don't qualify for this one). Also extended the script to give the longest streak for which someone would have qualified if the limits were lower (but no, not enough running time to do this for Alamogul).

If the user fails the checker (i.e. does not qualify), can the script output what their CURRENT streak is so that they might look to continue it?

The script shows the longest possible streak with different types, not the current one. Will have to see if I can modify the script to show any current streak.

Checker is accepted by the CO and request moved to ARCHIVE Checker requests (completed).

How do you define current streak? A streak ending on today's date? Not so easy as it sounds. What if data hasn't reached Project-GC yet? The script already shows the longest possible non-qualifying streak that a user has, so surely it will also show the current streak if the current almost-qualifying streak is the longest one for the user?

pieterix Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How do you define current streak? A streak ending
> on today's date? Not so easy as it sounds. What if
> data hasn't reached Project-GC yet? The script
> already shows the longest possible non-qualifying
> streak that a user has, so surely it will also
> show the current streak if the current
> almost-qualifying streak is the longest one for
> the user?

Let's simplify this and assume that the challenge is just for a normal streak (i.e. find a cache every day for 50 days). If a user has completed a 48-day streak six months ago and that was their longest streak to-date, so what? Knowing that doesn't help anyone. What would help is to know what the user's current streak is. If they're at 30 days presently, that could encourage them to continue the streak enough to qualify.

So I would define the "current streak" to be the longest number of consecutive days going backwards from the day that the user most recently logged a cache (i.e. the most recent day for which data exists in PGC) whereby the caches used to determine the streak adhere to the challenge rules.

Script modified to show both the longest and the current qualifying streak.

Accepted. Thanks!

This should not be archived

There is an outstanding request regarding the script output.

Also, the CO has not posted acceptance in this thread.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/2019 06:40PM by BWJM. (view changes)

I will move this back but Carni is not going to post on this thread.

If there is no additional feedback I will move this to the archives