[Resolved] Checker for GCACQ0Y - A "60" Challenge

Hello!

I would like help creating a checker for a new challenge cache.

The basic requirement of the challenge is that a player must find 60 different caches with at least 60 favorite points.

In addition, the 60 caches must:

Be in 60 different counties (any county will work)
Include 6 different geocache types
Include 6 different geocache sizes

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Matt (GeoMonkeyTiger!)

Off the top of my head I cannot come up with any script that is suitable here. But I will give it a look.

Thank you for looking...

Is there are particular part that is problematic? What could be done to make it more workable?

What is potentially difficult is that you've specified three separate fields (county, type, size) that have to exhibit at least (60, 6, 6) different values in the output. If there were only two (say county and type, no 6 different sizes), it would be a whole lot easier to set up a script.

But don't rewrite your challenge quite yet, I'm still looking around our script database. And if I can't find a script, someone might step up to write a new script (could be me -- although I'm working on a dozen or so other scripts right now, so it would not be for a while.)

Thanks so much!

And, just to be clear, the 60 caches, 60 favorite points, 60 counties is most important. That would require 60 individual checks.

For size and type, as long as there is just one in the list, the requirement is met. So, it could be 1 large, 1 regular, 1 other, 1 small, 1 virtual, and 55 micros...

I hope that was clear before...

Thanks for checking on it! I appreciate it greatly!

Matt (GMT!)

Yep, that makes sense.

The difficult part is "strategy" in picking caches. For example, if the player has two finds in "county X", both of which have 60 FPs, which do we pick? Perhaps one is a Virtual and that is useful for reaching the types requirement, but the other is a Large and is also useful for reaching the sizes requirement. If the checker isn't picking "smartly", a player could receive a false negative verdict. So we need to make sure that it is being "smart" and back-tracking if it discovers that it has made a poor choice.

If there were only two conditions (for example: "find 10 caches, among them have 7 different types and 10 different U.S. states") then we have scripts for that. But nothing comes to mind for situations with three conditions...

OK. Let me know if you think of something and if not, I can modify the requirements...

Thanks again for the help!

Hi there!

It sounds like this is turning out to be more complicated than I thought. The last thing I want to do is overburden the dedicated volunteers who create the challenge checkers!

If I read your note correctly, it would be easier if there were one "extra" criteria. So, let's modify the challenge checker to look for the following:

60 caches with 60 or more favorite points
in 60 different counties
At least one cache of every size (micro, small, regular, large, virtual, other)

Let me know if that's not indeed easier...

Thanks!

Matt (GMT!)

Oh, no worries -- although I do appreciate that you amended your challenge. It has made my job easier... in a way:

https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GCACQ0Y/80207

The issue is that it seems to time out when run against you. My guess would be because you don't qualify (for comparison, if you run my name through, it finishes in less than a second -- and I have about only half as many >60FP caches found) but it is possible for there to just be too many combinations. I'm going to do some manual tests to see which case it is.

Also, because not all countries have "counties" I went ahead and limited it to US and Canada only. But I can add other countries in if you'd like.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2023 01:09AM by Hügh. (view changes)

Update: you definitely qualify, the script is timing out because there are too many combinations to search through. I'm not sure why, since it should be fairly straightforward but perhaps the script isn't as efficient as I thought.

So at this point there are two possible choices for you:

(1)

Change your challenge to something like:

- Find caches with at least 60 FPs in 60 different counties.
- AND find six different cache types with at least 60 FPs each in six different counties.
- AND find six different cache sizes with at least 60 FPs each in six different counties.

The difference between this and your original challenge is that the six type caches and six size caches aren't limited to the 60 counties. So the script is able to select two different caches for the same county, one for the type requirement and one for the size requirement.

(2)

Go with the original challenge, since trying to fix the checker I created in the above post would require a whole new script anyways. (So we may as well write one that can handle the types too.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2023 01:18AM by Hügh. (view changes)

Hi there!

Thanks for the quick look.

At first glance, I like this option:

Change your challenge to something like:

- Find caches with at least 60 FPs in 60 different counties.
- AND find six different cache types with at least 60 FPs each in six different counties.
- AND find six different cache sizes with at least 60 FPs each in six different counties.

The difference between this and your original challenge is that the six type caches and six size caches aren't limited to the 60 counties. So the script is able to select two different caches for the same county, one for the type requirement and one for the size requirement.

Question on this though. Does that mean to qualify you would find 72 caches (60 in counties, 6 based on type?)

Thanks!

And so sorry, but I think I want to make one more change...

I just noticed on the Geocaching website that "virtual" seems to be an archived size (I guess like the "Not chosen"). I hate to have a challenge where people can't easily search for what they are missing.

So, let's take size out of it all together. The requirements should be

60 caches with 60 favorites in 60 counties
6 different cache types

Whether that means you have to run it twice and possibly get 66 results back, I'm fine with that...

Sorry for the change. I just want to make sure it's something people can search on (I know it could be done on PGC, but not everyone is as familiar with that tool...)

You can still hide a "Virtual" cache (as an Earthcache or a Virtual Reward) but you are correct: it is not easy to search for. I believe it gets grouped under "Other".

I'll get started on this.

Whoops, I forgot to follow-up here. I'll give you two, and you can choose the one that you want:

(1) https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GCACQ0Y/80207
(2) https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GCACQ0Y/80209

In theory, these both check for the same thing but (1) uses the same script as the one from above so may time out if there are too many combinations. (2) displays the output a little weirdly, but should be faster.

Thanks so much!

I looked them both over and decided I liked this one better:

(2) https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GCACQ0Y/80209

I tested it on several people and always got the expected results and no errors.

I think we can mark this one done!

Thanks!

Matt (GMT!)

Sounds good! I’ve removed (1) from the system to avoid confusion and will mark this thread as resolved.