Comment on battlecheat
iusemybrain@sh.itjust.works 3 days agowhat are you going on about, that probability depends on the number of turns you get? last I checked it, no it does not depend on that.
the argument I’m trying to make is it’s statistically less likely to hit that 5 point battleship (probability is 5%) compared to the 17 points in ships spread abitrarily (probability is 17℅). IT DOES NOT DEPEND ON THE NUMBER OF TURNS IT TAKES TO SINK ALL 5 BATTLESHIP’S. The probability does depend after the first event has occurred (where you’ve hit one of those pieces). Whether you get a hit on your first turn or the first hit in 30 turns, it does not matter. probability does not depend on the number of turns it takes.
technically speaking the probability calculated at the beginning is when the number of trials (theoretically) approach to infinity. The 1/6 probability to role a six sided die on a number (for example, lets say 6) is after doing trial and error of rolling a 6. Now whether you get the 6 on the first try or the 100th try these are approximations of the 1/6 th probability. As you do more and more trials it does eventually converge to the 1/6 th probability.
So yes, technically speaking someone could hit the standalone stacked battleship in one try, probability and statistics doesn’t concern that. So if that concerns you, psychologically manipulate your openent by putting your battleship in the first row.
binarytobis@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I didn’t say this or anything like it. I suspect you didn’t read my comment at all.
The point you are making is that you are less likely to hit one 5 point ship than one of any among 17 points of ships. This, while true, has nothing to do with anything.
What the rest of us are talking about is whether stacking ships would help you win. The only factor in winning is if you sink all of your opponents ships before they sink all of yours. The % chance to hit the first shot is, frankly, irrelevant. Objectively, the more ships you have the longer you will last, and the higher your chance to win.
iusemybrain@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I guess you didn’t read my last part, humans are deterministic by nature; they draw trends based on patterns. if you wanted to win with one ship just place that ship in a place that is completely counterintuitive to what they expect. Having one ship does have strategic implications, that it narrows the possibility of being hit. Combine that with counterintuitive placement of said ship and your opponent is as good a player as a fish.
so does probability play a role in battleship? yes, it removes the statistical likeliness of being hit (ignoring the premise of humans drawing generalizations by pattern recognition). It is drastically less likely to hit one ship than 5, all you need to do is place that one ship in a position that is counterintuitive to the trend to remove any biases of your opponent who has played several games already.